Slashdot Mirror
Doomsday Clock To Advance
Dik Zak writes "Many news sites are reporting that the magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists intends to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock on Wednesday 17 January. The clock was started at seven minutes to midnight during the Cold War and has been moved forward or back at intervals, depending on the state of the world and the prospects for nuclear war. Midnight represents destruction by nuclear war. It is not revealed in which direction the hands of the clock will be moved, but it should be safe to assume that they will move closer to midnight: the magazine cites 'worsening nuclear [and] climate threats.' The clock stood at two minutes to midnight when both the United States and the Soviet Union tested nuclear weapons in 1953. The farthest away from midnight it ever got was 17 minutes, in 1991 when both superpowers signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It currently stands at seven minutes to midnight."
So, is that Eastern Standard Time?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Jack Bauer will disarm the russian ICBM 10^-23 second before it detonates, so we haven't got anything to worry about!
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I'm sick of waiting for the return of my deity.
1 voice in a sea of voices
You Slashdotters are all the same; the only way to win against you guys is by not playing!
Some superpower or another needs to preemptively attack and destroy this doomsday clock before it hurts someone.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Suddenly I realize where the song title comes from.
I doubt there is an equation involved. But I think one look at today's front page of slashdot justifies moving the hands a little closer to midnight:
If these aren't a sure sign of the apocalypse (especially the last item), I don't know what is.
GMD
watch this
Wouldn't this be a good reason to get rid of daylight savings time?
Sig cannot be found.
That means those of us on Eastern Standard Time have already experienced Doomsday. (Psst, Central folk, his name is..., nah, let them experience it, too.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Strangelove: I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. It would be quite easy...heh, heh...(He rolls his wheelchair forward into the light.) at the bottom of ah...some of our deeper mineshafts. Radioactivity would never penetrate a mine some thousands of feet deep, and in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in drilling space could easily be provided.
President: How long would you have to stay down there?
Strangelove:
President: Well, I, I would hate to have to decide...who stays up and...who goes down.
Strangelove: Well, that would not be necessary, Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition.
Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. Ha, ha. But ah, with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present Gross National Product within say, twenty years.
General Buck Turgidson: (judiciously) You mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Wouldn't that necessitate abandoning the so-called monogamous form of sexual relation ship?
Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to perform 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 order.
They are (or, at least, were at the time) a slightly more serious threat than a Star Trek movie.
Come on... Star Trek, the early years? I'd rather be nuked.
This is by far one of the dumbest ideas in the history of mankind. It'll just cause panic for no reason!
How to Destroy the Earth
Meanwhile, the Who-Still-Gives-A-Flying-Fig-About-The-Doomsday-Cl ock Clock remains stuck on flashing 12:00
start wanking for one last time
Damn, that means Doomsday will be tape-delayed on the west coast.
Course we can't. Roaches have 600 times the radiation resistance that humans do, right up there with Neocons. Course, who can tell the difference these days?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Sure, if you just drop bombs randomly, we probably couldn't blow up the planet. Give them to me and I'm sure I could split this sucker in half. Am I restricted just to using them on Earth or can I use them in space too?
On that topic, amateur geocide watchers and fans of the International Earth-Destruction Advisory Board will be reassured to learn that unlike the Nuclear Death Clock, the Current Earth-Destruction Status is expected to remain at its current status of "Not Destroyed" for the forseeable future.
qntm.org