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Ship Logs Suggest Upcoming Polar Reversal
Nyerp writes "Researchers are using naval logs dating back as far as 1590 to arrive at better estimates of the decline of Earth's magnetic field. The results suggest that there may be a reversal of earth's magnetic field in about 2000 years." Also worth noting, our ancestors have lived through a number of polar reversals, and we're still here, so no need to fret!
Retroactive due to Global Warming, I bet!
This one's a no-brainer guys.
Just turn your compass around 180 degrees, then it'll be pointing South instead of North.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The results suggest that there may be a reversal of earth's magnetic field in about 2000 years.
Let the War on Polar Reversal begin!
...faces when they return to the shop to complain about their compasses showing the wrong direction.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I hear the penguins call it the War of Northern Aggression.
Touched By His Noodley Appendage.
That will be interesting to see. They probably have a mechanism for handling it since it happens periodically.
I'm sure the biggest result of magnetic field reversal will be the number of PhDs granted.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
It's just the Earth's way of trying to degauss itself ... just not doing a very good job of it so far!
SPF my ass.
No sir, you can put your own suncream on your ass.
It won't affect my stereo because I'm using Monster
brand cables with a special anti polar reversal coating.
The extended warranty I was sold should keep it
functional for the 2000 years it takes to complete the process.
Man, Best Buy rocks!
According to those maps, the world was a different shape, and had huge monsters in the oceans.
I find it hard to believe that we shouldn't be concerned.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
as long as the toilets in the northern hemisphere still flush clockwise.
If only that was all that would happen... It's really much more of a crisis than that. Trillions of USD will be spent trying to save these species after they are put on the endangered species list in the U.S.
I can see it now, electromagnets will distributed throughout the U.S. to keep the field unchanged within our borders - every building built will be required to have a giant solar array and giant batteries powering giant magnets to "do their part" to maintain the magnetic field as close as possible to what it is today...
Oh, and don't forget the endless productivity sapping debates on "is man causing the magnetic shift or is it just a natural phenomena".
Folks, this will be a disaster.
There's clearly a need to take action now. I'd better go clear my calendar, then I'll be prepared.
Memo to Self: Get stick on "N" and "S" labels for compass.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Speak for yourself, mortal.
:p
They're there affecting their effect.
Offsite backup poles?
Pull my finger for my public key.
According to Wikipedia, magnetic reversals happen from 1 to 5 times per million years. That is not long enough time for a new species to evolve. Which in turn means that every currently existing bird species survived the last reversal. So why would they perish this time either ?
Of course we might get lucky and the migrating flocks of bird-flu carrying birds who were about to wipe out the human species will all get lost and drown in the middle of the Atlantic. Once again, the day is saved, thanks to Geomagnetic Reversal !-)
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You wanted to know how computer hard drives and magnetic storage media will cope with the field reversing?
Well, there is a very easy test you can do. Simply take you computer hard drive or floppy disk, and rotate it by 180 degrees in the horizontal plane. (That's pi radians for you maths people out there!)
Now, notice any difference in the operation? i suggest we all to this at once to ensure that everything we own is compatible with the switch over.
All together now, 1,2,3....
Clearly it will have a hideous effect on all hard drives, just like the way all your bits fall out when you accidentally rotate your laptop 90 degrees against the polar magnetic flux.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Does this mean Santa Claus will have to move?
If it can't be done wrong... it can't be done.
I remember reading some anonymously posted comment posted on slashdot by some guy who claimed that he read about some crackpot who claimed that the pole reversal would make electricity flow backwards. The comment didn't get modded up, but curiously, for some mysterious reason, a self-referential comment about this comment, which added nothing informative to the original, did (but then later was modded down again).
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Shweeet. Southern Africa will then have the largest mall in the Northest hemisphere.
As far as I'm concerned, I've just about had it with the fact that the geographic north pole is where the magnetic south pole is. It's damned confusing! I say we change things right away: the sooner the poles are in the right place, the better!
I saw a show about the very topic of magnetic field reversal on TV about one year ago.
Oh, yeah? Well *I* saw a show a few years back where they travelled to the sun and took pictures of themselves. And they didn't suffer at all, except Arnold wished he hadn't come to school that day, and they had to change the tires on the Magic School Bus the next week.
Gimme a break; cite your sources. Otherwise you're just spreading weak rumours.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
And you wouldn't survive the sabertooth tiger after I pushed you out of the cave, Anonymous troglodyte Coward.
--
make install -not war
No, because we don't use jupiter's pole in the interim. This is more of a RAIP - Redundant Array of Independent Poles.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
One of which caused Winny the Pooh and his chum Christopher Robin to set out on an expotition to The North Pole......