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Armageddon... in 2014. Almost.
anetic was among several to note a story making the rounds striking fear into the hearts of many.
Armageddon will just barely miss us, so make sure to get your panic in the streets over with early.
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I don't need to worry about the unix 2038 time problem??
Near Earth Objects
A mugshot of Bruce Willis as icon will draw the right associations.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
...Armourgeddon outta here quickly!!
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
...then we won't have to fix the 32bit time stamp. Someone tell Linus and the rest of the 2.6 devs.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Look at the bright side, Bruce Willis will drill it AND he won't be coming back.
Philip
Signatures are broken
They say that there is a one in 909,000 chance of asteroid 2003 QQ47 impacting our planet.
I like those odds!
The poster has an unusual definition of "just barely" - according to the article there's only a one in 909,000 chance of it hitting us, and the odds are likely to become even slimmer once more measurements have been made.
Bruce Willis can stay put.
Microsoft survives again!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
It's 909,000:1 that it will miss us, but there's only a 50:50 chance that's right.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
So where is the story now about the cult following 2003 QQ47. I mean there has to be somebody who thinks its driven by aliens and will take them off the planet to nirvanna.. to leave the rest of us to hell or something equivalent.
God i wish the Scientologists swung that way.. I'd say let the rock take them.
Who makes you Sig?
No, it's a lot of MASS
About the same mass as one fat American, or a European car.
That was classic intercourse!
A windup powersource and a storage device capable of mirroring the internet, oh and some beer
"They locked up a man who wanted to rule the world, the fools, they locked up the wrong man! L.Cohen
Natalie Portman.
Carrie-Anne Moss.
Liv Tyler.
Jennifer Garner.
Cowboy Neal.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The big question is how big is it in the standard scale of VW Bugs?
It's SCO's final solution.
Are they talking about the uncertainty principle? If we observe the asteroid just so, do we actually affect its speed and/or location? All we have to do is measure its speed, oh, 10,000 times from the left and we're saved! Horrah!
'At last! We, the long dormant Atlanteans have risen to claim our rightful place as rulers as the world and be the object of worship for hordes of crystal-wearing new agers. Oh, bugger.'*wham*
According to my wife, Miramani, you take out a communicator, you say "Kirk to Enterprise", and the magic repulsive laser pushes the rock away.
Never pet a burning dog.
At 1 in 909,000, you're still much more likely to be hit by an asteroid than you are to win PowerBall.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
I have to wonder how they (them, you-know-who ;) ;)
.....
came up with a name for this massive rock...given the chances that it will hit us, you'd have thought that they'd come up with something more imaginative...
(For good examples, please see relevant crap doomsday movies or scifi novels
In a situation like this, I'd recommend what any other geek would: We need a slashdot Poll!
"Most appropriate name for a massive rock that will most likely possibly maybe destroy all life on earth:
A) EarthCrusher
B) Foot of God
C) StarHammer
D) SCO's Laywers' Bill
E) DinosaurKiller
F)
G) CowboyNeal's Booger
This is not the time to become emotional over your 10 year old collection of Linux CDs and other such media. You have to concentrate on what matters.
1) A large box of porn magazines and tissues may help pass the time in your underground den of geekdom.
2) Generator + oil
3) Low energy lighting (optional if you live by TFT monitor glare), and low energy computers - that oil is precious
4) A collection of the essential programming books, and the top 30 games, plus the entire MAME collection
5) A futon, so you can both sleep, and sit back and relax (e.g., with previously mentioned porn) - space will be limited
6) Spares: hard drives, OS install disks, CD/DVD/CDRW drives, power supplies, processors, mice, keyboards
7) High energy food source and water. It might be worth dedicating around 50% of your shelter to alcoholic beverages in addition.
8) Pens, Pencils and Paper
9) Shortwave radio
10) Girl
909000 to one? So I'll get hit by this thing before I win the national lottery jackpot! Guess I'll just go and rip up those tickets...
Skiing? Check out The Independant Skiers Portal
Ah, but perhaps this NEO is the One? *grin*
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
They say that there is a one in 909,000 chance of asteroid 2003 QQ47 impacting our planet.
The chances of a catastrophe are likely to become even slimmer once more measurements of the asteroid's orbit have been made.
Yes, duh. With our current knowledge, there is a 1 in 909,000 chance of the chance going to 1, and a 908,999 in 909,000 chance of the chance going to 0.
Saying it is likely to become slimmer is a totally content-less comment.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
*ducks*
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
And remember, according to Pratchett (and Sod's Law in general) million-to-one chances (or in this case 1 in 909,000) come up nine times out of ten...
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
Wow. So this is how it all ends. I don't think that the roaches are gonna survive this one. Let's hope that in the next evolutionary cycle that the birds finally get a chance to rule the planet. Or maybe the insects. Anything but the reptiles again.
So who won? Gates? Figures.
Where does the looting begin? Can I do an Ask Slashdot about whether to loot a projection TV or an LCD?
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
And an AK-47 so no one will come and take it away from you.
-- esr
My journal has hot
And rightly so. Nuclear power is an unnecessary and eco-unfriendly option. Whale blubber, dolphin snouts and bear cub hides make a far more efficent fuel when burnt.
Sorry to take this seriously, but enough of the "And I for one welcome our new Asteroid Overlords" jokes. The idea of a scale that measures the likelyhood of impending destruction just seems too wonderful to leave unanalyzed.
The Torino scale seems a wonderful invention, since obviously the dinosaurs didn't have it, and see what happened to them! But it has an obvious bug, it works only with integer values. Zero means "all clear" and One means "enough danger to panic and start looting". What about "enough danger to reconsider whether life as a tea jockey is really worthwhile?" I mean, it would be really useful to know that the current Torino scale is 0.003 or whatever. People could change jobs and say "Torino went up, I'm reconsidering my life choices!" or whatever. A single decimal Torino jump could be enough to spark divorces, a full digit change enough to halt wars. But we need more accuracy.
I for one welcome our new Torino overlords!!
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Why isn't anyone doing anything!!
Perhaps if the asteroid stands on one leg and blindfolds itself it can get it up to a round million.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Well, they can object to it all they like, so long as they agree that we can eat them first after the thing hits.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
At the risk of sharing too much, if you took the right kind of German porn and the right sort of German girl, you might come up with some ideas that would obviate the need for a toilet.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This is Slashdot. We have no need for your "real physics" here.
I love how the article tries to make asteroids into good things, with this caption under the picture of an asteroid:
:)
"Asteroids may have brought life-forming chemicals to the early Earth"
I guess they felt the need to defend asteroids against the horrible stereotype Hollywood has built against them
OTOH, that's better than your chances of hitting the Lotto. ;)
My journal has hot
yeah, that's a funny one. Especially where they note :
Number of Potential Impacts = 2
So this sucker is gonna bounce back to hit us again !
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Vimes: Does this mean I'm going to die?
Death: POSSIBLY.
Vimes: You turn up when people are possibly going to die?
Death: OH YES. IT'S QUITE THE NEW THING. IT'S BECAUSE OF THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.
Vimes: What's that?
Death: I'M NOT SURE.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
I suggest we find this guy and shoot him into space before it's too late...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
... or your so-called data points! This is just an opinion forum. Informed opinions have no place here.
OK, so it's only a subcontinent. But can you think of a more effective way to get rid of offshore outsourcing?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Why isn't anyone doing anything!!
Nine weeks to unemployment. Please hire me in NYC/Long Island area
Shhh, you fool! That's 6,601 jobs opening up!
-T
(According to Terry Pratchett anyway, who also admits that there's a million to one chance of it being a million to one chance- ok here on in it gets complicated ;-) )
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Still, the chances of this wiping out most of a continent are better than the chances of you winning the lottery If it's only gonna take out one continent, what are we scared of? Much less to hit down here in the Southern Hemisphere. If we're lucky it strikes somewhere in the North Atlantic so the tidalwave can take out North America and the British Isles. Then we get more value out of the impact.
A picture of Keuno Reeves.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
All we have to do is measure its speed, oh, 10,000 times from the left and we're saved!
Sure, just bounce a 50 attowatt laser off one side of the meteor to continuously measure its almost-exact distance and speed. What is left of it will definitely be going in a different direction eventually.
Designing a 50 attowatt laser that can be focused at astronomical distances (potentially through the atmosphere, but there might not be much atmosphere left in its direct line of fire after a second or two) is left as an exercise to the reader...
Suppose I have rolled 10 six-sided dice
What for? Save vs. huge-ass rock?
(My apologies to all the AD&D players out there)
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Or, indeed, one of my favorite Simpson's quotes:
Lets burn down the Observatory so this never happens again!
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Ah well - never mind, we can use them to propel the kitten-tipped missiles we'll be firing at the asteroid.
Is it civilization as we know it, or civilization as they (the Mayans) knew it ?
In the latter case, I believe it has already happened...
McCartney fans pay bus tickets. [...] Lennon fans too, with discretion.
Are you saying that we can dodge asteroids?
No, NEO - I am saying that when we're ready - we wont have to.
You should apologize! You don't roll six-sided dice to make saving throws! Jeez!
...and I bet this is one of those stupid "one save for the entire party" situations.
Can you imagine the pressure of being the person who has to roll the saving throw for the whole world?
-Peter
Table 28.9 Global Catastrophies
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
is everyone using SAE or Metric?
.... and the pesky problems of an uncalculated jump to hyperspace.