Solar X-Flare Blasts Directly Toward Earth

Freshly Exhumed writes with this excerpt from Space Weather: "Big sunspot AR1520 unleashed an X1.4-class solar flare on July 12th at 1653 UT. Because this sunspot is directly facing Earth, everything about the blast was geoeffective. For one thing, it hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward our planet. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the CME will hit Earth on July 14th around 10:20 UT (+/- 7 hours) and could spark strong geomagnetic storms. Sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend."

Comments

Oh, man

[elrous0]

Now I'm NEVER going to get to see The Dark Knight Rises.

Re:Oh, man

[sqlrob]

Six days to clean up the mess, so there's still hope.

Re:Oh, man

[Anonymous Coward]

X-ray beam blastin IN MY PANTS MOD UP FR1ST P0ST

Re:Oh, man

[Anonymous Coward]

CAN'T we steer this flare towards Africa so it hits where there's no significant technology and infrastructure to get damaged?

Re:Oh, man

[Joce640k]

Is there any way to know these things the day it leaves the sun, not the day it hits Earth?

That way I could have more than ten minutes to travel North.

Re:Oh, man

[Rei]

Or south, for that matter. I live in Iceland. I doubt it'll be dark enough at night to see northern lights unless they're *really* bright.

Re:Oh, man

[Anonymous Coward]

X1.4 Solar flare was on thursday 16:53 utc, and the plasma cloud has not yet arrived when I write, so usually you have around 2 days to travel.

Re:Oh, man

[Anonymous Coward]

You can monitor the x-ray flux on swpc site. X-rays travel much faster that the plasma cloud, so you have some time to travel,
But there are other things we have to consider to know if there will be a good aurora show, orientation to the earth and the orientation of solar wind
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/today.html#xray

nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

I got my foil oven ready to cook hotdogs.

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hot dog mining, eh? Where can I find a video online of a demonstration?

Re:nice.

[Lumpy]

"Who cares about a fucking hotdog."

The porn industry... You know how much money they could make if they had one of those!

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

I got my foil oven ready to cook hotdogs.

Who cares about a fucking hotdog. Children are starving in Africa and you give a shit about a fucking hotdog? Fuck you.

Whoa there, big sticky!
The only reason I was going to cook hotdogs is to feed the starving children of Africa!
I've been waiting for a big CME to cook the 143,239,293.67 hotdogs I've collected over the past 20 years for this project.
Finally, world hunger will be ended, and there will be a dog in every little african pot-belly.

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not good enough, frankly it surprises me you haven't heard the old adage "If you feed a man a hotdog, you've fed him for a day, if you teach a man to mine hotdogs you've fed him for life."

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see what you did there.

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about a fucking hotdog. Children are starving in Africa and you give a shit about a fucking hotdog? Fuck you. Instead of shooting electron beams at a hotdog to see what happens these scientists should be in the wheat fields growing food for starving children in 3rd world countries. First world fuckers like yourself are decadent faggots who care more about a hotdog than humans. Those same starving children probably mined the hotdog for you so you could play with it in your lab. Fuckers.

if you want to give africans something that will help their poverty and famine situation... some kind of aerosolized birth control that's effective for a long time after a single dose makes the most sense. just "dust" their population centers. or did you think people who're starving are in a good position to make babies?

Re:nice.

[MightyMartian]

The sad part is that you probably don't even realize you're despicable.

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to justify your position? You might find it harder than you think.

Re:nice.

[drinkypoo]

The porn industry... You know how much money they could make if they had one of those!

about this much

Re:nice.

[geekoid]

Why? If they can't support themselves, why isn't population control part of a solution? He isn't saying go shoot people, just create a dramatic drop in birth rate for a limited time.

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the best way to control population is to take away the reasons that people have so many children, not the ability to do so. That improves live expectancy, quality of life, and has the knock on effect of reducing the birth rate.

Re:nice.

[busyqth]

The sad part is that you probably don't even realize you're despicable.

No, no! you said that wrong!
You're supposed to say it like this: "You'rrrrrreeee DITH-PICABLE!"

Re:nice.

[oztiks]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRvPINrnwRs

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those same starving children probably mined the hotdog for you so you could play with it in your lab. Fuckers.

I don't think hotdog mean what you think it means.

Re:nice.

[oztiks]

prolly a better reference vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaBs2UH9WUc

Re:nice.

[Johann Lau]

Nazis scum is despicable -- no argument needed, only a Nazi'd ask for one.

Does the above strike you as circular and maybe even unfair? GOOD.

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nazis scum is despicable -- no argument needed, only a Nazi'd ask for one.

Does the above strike you as circular and maybe even unfair? GOOD.

So the standards of basic logic and actually backing up your claim don't apply to you ... if you emotionally react strongly enough to something?

Nah, not buying it. Please enlighten us as to why people not having children who would only face malnourishment and death is a bad thing.

Note I don't think ANY poor people who can't feed themselves should be having babies. White, black, asian, it doesn't matter, a bad idea is a bad idea and irresponsible parenting is irresponsible parenting.

I am white. I am not starving. I still am not in a position to afford children and give them the kind of good life I would want them to have. I have chosen to be celibate to make sure I don't doom some young person to a shitty life. Before that, I used these magic things called condoms. If my situation changes then that will change too.

It's the right thing to do and I'm hardly starving. It's called being a responsible adult and not abusing the power to create life. Creating life is not an entitlement, it's something to be done by those who are prepared to support and nurture that life unless you're a completely selfish bastard. Some parents are like that. They wanted babies because they wanted to be "fulfilled" or because they're so cute or what the hell ever and didn't put a moment's thought into how hard it really is to raise a child. Watch that show 16 And Pregnant sometime, see how stupid all of them are? Yeah. Maybe you can work up a bunch of sympathy for those people but I can only feel that way about their poor children. They didn't ask to be born to such irresponsible tards.

Other adults aren't so responsible and we're always hearing about how terribly unfortunate they are. Having babies you are not prepared to raise is one of the the leading causes of poverty. Explain to me why this is a sacred cow that we should never address?

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if looking at the world it would probably be a better idea to "dust" the whole thing, for 50 years or so, with something that's 90% effective.. Would be nice if the world population would go back down to a few 100 million or so...

But regarding Africa... There is more than one problem down there...

The Pope has spoken out about condoms in Africa and said that it would *worsen* the HIV/AIDS epidemic... Yea, religion fanatics seems to be missing a few parts of the brain...

And on top of this you have rape... Think it was somewhere around 400000 girls that where raped per year just in Congo... A country with a population of around 70M people.. Just imagine, 0.5% of population in the country gets raped every year.. speculate that,on average ,each girl attracts men during 20 years of their lifetime. with 70M people 35M would be women.. 400k of 35M ~ 1.1%... 22% chance that a girl will be raped during her lifetime.. And with a population that has a very high percentage with HIV it will just get worse.....
(did i get my statistics correct... never been good at those things)

So it boils down to non-existent welfare that will require them to get kids that can help them when they get old... Problem is that there are many things that can happen..
- Sickness and accidents that could be avoided in richer countries..
- Starvation
- Rape and spread of HIV
- Birth-control not available to many - Lots of unwanted pregnancies during rough periods where food and water might be hard to get..

So to actually have enough children that can take care of them when they get old they need to get quite a few since there is a quite high mortality rate between birth and then.

Posting as AC due to the criticism directed at the Pope and religions, and general human idiocracy..

Re:nice.

[Johann Lau]

That's all nice and smug coming from your armchair, but other than that, I'm not spending time debating this with some anonymous fuck. Whatever you say about yourself might as well be made up you heartless fuck.

So the standards of basic logic and actually backing up your claim don't apply to you ... if you emotionally react strongly enough to something?

That is exactly right. Now git.

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well.... that is wrong in so many ways... Birth-control would be good in many ways... 1 kids per person... If one child dies they can get another... If they want more than 2 then they will have to request a permit, to get the permit they will have to be able to show that they will be able to provide for the child.
I do think there is a big correlation between being able to provide a good home-environment and a good education with how successful the kids will be in their future.. If not having access to both of those two there is big chance that the kid will not succeed in life....

So i would say... One of the largest reason why people are getting 'too many' kids boils down to that they are poor (indirect ways)... They are poor due to lack of education... Many kids in a family results in less resources per kid (education, money etc) and if not having enough then the kids will be affected... When the kids grow up it will repeat all over again....

Education is the only thing that can save the world... Problem is that there are too many people that rejects education all over the world..... If you live in a trailerpark/slum/getto/whatever then go to school and study as much as you can, it is the only thing that you can do to get you out of it... If you don't study and fight for it it's your own fault that you will never go anywhere...

Some of the reasons why people have too many children.. (from all over the world)

- They want to have a boy but only getting girls

- They want to have a girl but only getting boys

- They want a big family just because..

- The poorer the people the less educated the people will be. The less educated use birthcontrol to a much smaller extent..

- No Sex-Ed in school increases the amount teen-pregnancies and also the amount of pregnancies later in life but the latter is also dependent on the general-knowledge level.. The more educated the less kids they will have and that is just a fact.. Maybe the more people know about the world the less they want to expose a child to that.. (Yes, it is a messed up place!)

- They need people to take care of them during old age (countries without welfare)

- There is a high mortality rate.

- The population gets indoctrinated by some religion that "teaches" them that birthcontrol is bad. (is it not obvious that you should only have sex 2-3 times in your lifetime?? Once per child you want to make...)

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Note I don't think ANY poor people who can't feed themselves should be having babies.

Well, now we know what you don't think, while what you do think faces malnourishment and death.

Re:nice.

[Yvan256]

When you take into account what goes into making a hot dog, it should be "If you feed a man a hot dog, you've fed him for life."

Re:nice.

[cavreader]

Your fighting an uphill battle. Limiting population growth or at least acknowledging the problem would be a start in addressing many of the ills the world currently faces. The rate things are going we will just have to rely on the next no holds bar global war to re-adjust the population and hope there are at least a couple of survivors to carry on.

Re:nice.

[Eli Gottlieb]

They can't support themselves because we keep manipulating their markets, overthrowing their governments, and burdening them with "debts" from "loans" they didn't want to take.

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not spending time debating this with some anonymous fuck

Hey man, if you can't do it then you can't do it. Amazing how anonynimity didn't bother you until you started losing the debate. Funny, that.

Whatever you say about yourself might as well be made up you heartless fuck.

Yes, having or not having children based on whether I can give them a better life than what I had. How heartless! Listen to yourself, man. You're coming apart here.

That is exactly right. Now git.

It's like you celebrate your own weakness, your irrational emotionalism when faced with a simple enough question, and your inability to articulate your beliefs. This is like a flat-earther who's proud of his own refusal to look at a globe, or at a photo of the Earth from space. Them's the tools of the heretic you know.

You realize that to anyone else reading this discussion, you are discrediting your own position and poorly representing those who agree with you? People who are "on the fence" but might be convinced to see it your way are not going to be convinced by how irrational you can be. You want to hate my guts for the "crime" of having an opinion you don't like, fine, the world is fully of petty spiteful people who do things like that. They ruled the world during the Inquisition, in fact. But for fuck's sake, at least consider those who might be willing to see it your way. If your way is so much better than mine, then you are doing them a gigantic disservice.

Unlike you I am willing to consider different points of view. Tell me why birth control for people who are starving would be so terrible. I need something more convincing than "I don't like it! I REALLY REALLY DON'T LIKE IT!!!" If you can do better than that I will listen and seriously think about you have to say. I'm not insecure like you are and I'm not afraid to change my mind if there was a good reason to do it. But if you're not up to the task, just say so.

Re:nice.

[CayceeDee]

Who? Me?

Re:nice.

[Johann Lau]

No, I just honestly am not wasting my time on you. Think whatever the fuck you want. It's not like there's this huge group of people I respect who have your opinion.

You want to hate my guts for the "crime" of having an opinion you don't like, fine, the world is fully of petty spiteful people who do things like that. They ruled the world during the Inquisition, in fact. But for fuck's sake, at least consider those who might be willing to see it your way.

You're humping strawmen while patting yourself on the back, and you honestly think your posts warrant response?

Tell me why birth control for people who are starving would be so terrible.

Because education has the same effect. Because the speculations of our banks drive food prices high. Because generally, you don't exploit people and then sterilize them. Which anyone but a Nazi would know.

And that makes me the Inquisition? That makes me petty? You're just projecting, you pathetic fuck. You're as needy as you're lame and depraved, and someone else is going to have to humour you.

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because education has the same effect. Because the speculations of our banks drive food prices high. Because generally, you don't exploit people and then sterilize them. Which anyone but a Nazi would know.

The problem with the worst parts of Africa is not foreign exploitation. Hasn't been for a long while. The problem is local warlords who would rather hoard everything of value (like food) for themselves while providing no leadeship whatsoever to better the people who live under their violent domain.

I live in conditions much better than that and I would regret bringing a child into the world at this time. I am glad there are birth control options available to me. Why would you want to deprive Africans of this?

And that makes me the Inquisition? That makes me petty? You're just projecting, you pathetic fuck. You're as needy as you're lame and depraved, and someone else is going to have to humour you.

If I'm a National Socialist (Nazi) for holding an opinion you don't like then yes, you're petty. We're ignoring Godwin of course. Anyway I have told you what I believe and why I believe it. You have merely told me how horrible I am and how offended you are. You actually went so far as to positively confirm that your feelings about something make it true, I suppose by magic of some kind. How is that different from the Inquisitors who refused to look through Galileo's telescope when they could have seen for themselves, and then show him instruments of torture? The Inquisitors were more physical about it than you are and that's the only difference. And then several posts into this discussion, my AC status is suddenly a problem for you. Clutching at straws in your desperation, you are.

Ok. If your own opinions are so much better, it should be EASY for you to explain why. It would never occur to me to tell somebody that my position is better in any way, if I couldn't back that statement up. You know, for a guy who is so concerned about wasting time on me, you don't mind replying. You just won't reply and actually tell me why your beliefs are better than mine. That's the one thing you can't seem to handle. What explanation for that is there, except that you can't do it and now that you've made such a big stink about it, you're too proud to admit you can't do it because at this point reversing yourself would be most embarassing? Only a coward is afraid of that, but hey, there ya go.

Summer Light

[orangebox]

The Aurora Forecast predicts a good show. Too bad I doubt it will get dark enough in AK for my friends to see. Hopefully I can see it down here in Washington!

Re:Summer Light

[mapkinase]

Is there any chance for Marylandia?

Re:Summer Light

[orangebox]

I haven't a clue. Being out away from light pollution would be the best bet though!

Re:Summer Light

[AliasMarlowe]

Not much chance for aurorae in Finland during "summer". There's not much darkness at night, unless it's really very cloudy - bright skies don't help with seeing aurorae. Anyway we've been mostly under clouds recently with a procession of low pressure systems and associated rainy fronts - clouds and rain don't help with seeing aurorae.

Re:Summer Light

[hvm2hvm]

Are these things only visible in the north? Maybe something this powerful can be seen from lower latitudes like 45deg north? I'm in Eastern Europe, in Romania, do you think it'll be visible?

Re:Summer Light

[scum-e-bag]

Often visible in the southern hemisphere. The small southern city of Hobart, Australia, has very good views. Southern New Zealand would also be a good viewing platform.

Re:Summer Light

[M. Baranczak]

A few years ago, we saw northern lights in central New York state. Which is about the same latitude as Romania. So I guess it's possible.

Re:Summer Light

[fatphil]

The northern lights have never been seen in the southern hemisphere, you're thinking of the southern lights.
The southern lights will never be visible in south-eastern europe.

Due the inclination of the magnetic north pole, the northern lights are rarely seen further south than finland, and even sightings in the southernmost parts of finland are rare. As it's summer time, the skies are lighter than normal, even more so the further north you go, so I would be surprised if anyone in europe saw them at all.

Much of the USA should have an OK display though. I would be surprised if Mike at Extreme Instability doesn't have some new photos up in the next few days.

Re:Summer Light

[fatphil]

Nope, the north pole, and your distance from it, is mostly irrelevant. What's more important is your distance from the *magnetic* north pole. Given that it's still up in Canada - you're way closer in NY state than Romania is. At the rate the pole seems to be moving, maybe towards the end of the century there will be some hope for it to be seen further south in Europe.

Re:Summer Light

[scum-e-bag]

North/South. Same thing, different pole.

Re:Summer Light

[fatphil]

In 10 years, going out every night when the aurora forecast was listed as exceptionally high, we never saw an aurora once in Finland. From the look of some photos (from Hanko, for example) we missed them by less than 100km. The biggest enemy was clouds. Scuppered our meteor sightings too. And probably a lunar eclipse or 2.

Re:Summer Light

[fatphil]

Yes, and as the question was one of location on the planet's surface, the distinction between the two poles was important.

Re:Summer Light

[Hognoxious]

I'm in Eastern Europe, in Romania, do you think it'll be visible?

Depends how much you're willing to pay.

Re:Summer Light

[orangebox]

They are more common near the magnetic poles (both north and south). The closer you are to them, the greater your chance of seeing the Aurora. If the storm is strong enough, I know they've been seen as far south as 47 deg. Whenever I see news of solar activity, such as the CME, I usually look to spaceweather.com for updates.

Should I back up my porn to optical disc?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious. Okay, and my financial stuff, too.

Re:Should I back up my porn to optical disc?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every day. As Peter North used to say, backup early, backup often. Or was that Peter Norton?

Re:Should I back up my porn to optical disc?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the saying was "up the back early and often"

Re:Should I back up my porn to optical disc?

[jamesh]

Should I back up my porn to optical disc? Just curious. Okay, and my financial stuff, too.

Given that porn is being made faster than you can watch it, and is rarely re-watched, there doesn't seem to be much point.

Re:Should I back up my porn to optical disc?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if your porn is priceless, i.e. you're into kiddie porn. Or into something more innocent, like videos of women in high heels stomping on scrotums.

Revised Forcast

[rminsk]

The CME launched toward Earth by yesterday's X-flare is moving faster than originally thought. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab have revised their forecast accordingly, advancing the cloud's expected arrival time to 09:17 UT (5:17 am EDT) on Saturday, July 14th. Weekend auroras are likely.

Re:Revised Forcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, wondered why the power flickered out for a moment this morning.

Full power to forward battle screens

[Beeftopia]

"We can't outrun it. Turn to radial one-eight-zero, stop; one-five, stop. Full power to forward battle screens. Brace for impact."

Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone think it's a good idea to shut things down for the next 24 hours or so? Or would it even make any difference?

I care about my data more than the computers. Have terabytes of data, no way to back up to optical or similar.

Considering how little alarm there is, it makes me believe this could be bad (ie. the mass opinion is usually wrong).

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Run to the store, buy some chocolate, eat it quickly, SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING and then wrap it in the chocolate foil. Than wait 72 hours for the flare to fully pass. Use the time free from the internets to visit the library and read a book about the Earth magnetic field.

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well my Internet isn't working so explain that motherfucker.

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[wierd_w]

While the compounds in the chocolate might help calm raw nerves, might I suggest getting reynolds nonstick pan liner instead?

It is essentially a huge roll of paper backed aluminum foil.

http://bakingbites.com/2012/02/reynolds-wrap-nonstick-pan-lining-paper-reviewed/

Shit's awesome!

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[Anonymous Coward]

The paper tarnishes the purity of the tinfoil, so, close but no cigar.

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[Lumpy]

Wrap it all in tinfoil, go buy more ammo and fill your bathtub with water.... I'm looting the vending machines at work as soon as my shift ends....

THE END IS NEAR!!!!!! SHTF TIME!!!!! WOOOOOO!

That 1976 Suburban that get's 2.3mpg is gonna pay off!

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[siddesu]

Maybe you're still using AOL?

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[istartedi]

I'm looting the vending machines at work as soon as my shift ends

Sigh... we just finished cleaning up from yesterday. The European central bank says something. Loot the vending machines. The Fed says something. Loot the vending machines. Your team loses. Loot the vending machines. Your team wins. Loot the vending machines. Some whack job on the radio says the world is ending. You guessed it. Loot the vending machines. I'm beginning to think that you guys will use any excue just to... what? They're looting the vending machines again? What is it this time? Somebody installed Linux on the desktop? Holy crap. Fuck posting on Slashdot. I'm going to LOOT THE VENDING MACHINE.

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[Hognoxious]

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If the EMP causes arcin', sparkin' and malarkin' the paper could catch fire.

Damp it with a wet sponge, just to be sure.

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[mutube]

(ie. the mass opinion is usually wrong).

No. The mass opinion is usually right. You hear more about it being wrong because its a noteworthy event.

Don't make me hit you with the selection bias cluestick.

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[nu1x]

I used to loot the vending machines, but then ...

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[Daetrin]

but then you took a Twix bar to the knee?

And now I get how the submission system works...

[seibai]

I submitted this same story about a half hour ago, but in a form not nearly as well written. The author of this post seems to have taken that and run with it.

This is cool, and also explains why people occasionally complain about their stories having been "stolen".

Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

Is it wrong of me to be disheartened that this CME isn't stronger?

I won't lie, a fairly large part of me (the part where the evil genius lives) wants a very very powerful geomagnetic storm to devistate our powergrids, knock out communications, fry satelites, and cause general chaos and havok.

I understand that engineers often have antisocial tendencies, and I fully comprehend the ramifications of this unusual desire, but I still retain it.

Is it so wrong?

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

As cool as it would be for that to happen, I'd be pretty pretty pissed at the internet going down and my laptop and phone frying internally. I mean, I would be amazed for about 5mins until I try to check my email.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

, he says, via the Internet.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because a lot of people would die.

Our global society would be set back to 300 years ago, except no one has any experience living as a fucking pioneer; we're all air-conditioned and supermarket-fed. So everyone that doesn't have TEOTWAWKI preparations would die. And then most of the survivors would die of looters and starvation, and the looters would die of cholera and previously preventable illnesses.

So I find your opinion ignorant at best, sociopathic and homicidal at worst.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reset button is tantalizing. But that same button is also the everyone dies button...

Re:Is it so wrong?

[drinkypoo]

Is it wrong of me to be disheartened that this CME isn't stronger?

If it is, NASCAR is also a great evil. Which, you know, it is, but not for that reason.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[ldobehardcore]

I dunno man. The evil genius part of me wants to build an electronium hat powered by sunspots in order to emit cognitive radiation.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Lumpy]

I posted this via Morse code over 180meters.... over.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering your loser ass wouldn't be able to waste time on Slashdot if that happened, I'm guessing you'd like that a lot less than you think. In fact once it became clear that society would have to rebuild I'm pretty sure people would throw you on the barbecue. People who have "antisocial tendencies" tend not to do very well when they have to deal with...you know...other people? The kind you don't talk through a computer over?

"Ooh, I'm an engineer, is it so wrong that I want the world to end?" Not necessarily...being as huge of an arrogant shithead on the other hand, that's entirely wrong. You want something to work on, work on that.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Grishnakh]

I actually agree with him to a certain extent, but instead of a CME, I'd rather see an asteroid hit the earth. I don't actually want anyone to die; I'd like it to hit an uninhabited area such as Antarctica or Siberia (like the Tunguska Event). The reason is simple: I think we humans need a good kick in the pants to work on our space program, so we can deal with problems like this (and also so we can achieve other things, like extracting resources offworld), but it doesn't look like it's going to happen until people get a good wake-up call. We've had a bunch of near-misses, including one a few weeks ago IIRC, but we haven't had a good asteroid strike since Tunguska in the early 1900s. Maybe if another Tunguska-sized event happened, people would finally get a clue, realize that there's much bigger ones out there (such as Apophis, which really is on a collision course with us) and get serious about dedicating resources to space programs. The old saying is "necessity is the mother of invention", but the corollary to that is that humans don't usually bother preparing for anything unless they've learned the hard way that they need to.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had similar desires for some kind of disaster, back when I was young and stupid.

I had no money and was looking at a lifetime of working for a living in a society with materialistic values I did not share. As far as I could tell, "the system" wasn't working for me, so I wanted to see it ended.

Fortunately for me, it did not end. If it did, I would have died right along with all the other millions of city-dwellers who would suddenly be without their influx of food. No farms+efficient food shipping = no food = starve to death or be eaten by starving cannibals (who will subsequently starve to death anyway). Sure, there are plenty of supermarkets in the city...all of which would be picked dry within a day. There is no viable source of food within a city that can supply the hordes of humans that dwell therein...it would be a grizzly end for all of us.

  The system was working for me then just as it is working for me now...people across the globe are growing food for me, making clothes for me, generating electricity for me, building computers for me, and so on. Everything I DO like about life is built for me by the hands of other humans...working a job is what I do in return. Sure, a few rich assholes with a disgusting sense of entitlement get to indulge in extreme luxury at our expense, and it is frustrating, but even so, the deal we get is still awesome (when reflected-upon by a clear mind).

Grow up, weird_w, your disaster would be your end and the end of everything you love.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[ColdWetDog]

Just think of it as the big CTL-ALT-DELETE from the sky. It's not quite so anti social that way.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

No.. we should have gotten rid of you, when you failed the first sampling.. :-) don't know where you got it from, you were retaining human tendencies after our first dry run.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Yes, because a lot of people would die.

Our global society would be set back to 300 years ago, except no one has any experience living as a fucking pioneer; we're all air-conditioned and supermarket-fed. So everyone that doesn't have TEOTWAWKI preparations would die. And then most of the survivors would die of looters and starvation, and the looters would die of cholera and previously preventable illnesses.

So I find your opinion ignorant at best, sociopathic and homicidal at worst.

Heh. I have ammo, know how to hunt and skin, know how to preserve food, actually love the taste of squirrel, do my own garden and keep seeds up, understand how to make and maintain a well. Can rebuild old cars - ones without fancy electronical thingies.

And I'm a geek that earns a living as a programmer.

Granted, only a first generation American - but my parents and grandparents taught me how to not rely on supermarkets and stuff.

If the world fell apart, I'm mean enough to stick around for a long time.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

Hmm..

You know, I actually *am* a trained survivalist.

I don't, explicitly, 'require' modern technology. I *do* know how to live without it. It would be significantly harder, and I wouldn't have access to exotic resources and educational sources like I do now, but I can live without those.

Just saying.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Beeftopia]

Is it wrong of me to be disheartened that this CME isn't stronger?

I won't lie, a fairly large part of me (the part where the evil genius lives) wants a very very powerful geomagnetic storm to devistate our powergrids, knock out communications, fry satelites, and cause general chaos and havok.

Is it so wrong?

"Some men just want to watch the world burn." - Alfred Pennyworth

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

Quite right!

Most of the reason for my desire for such an event is to spur investment in better infrastructure than the horribly inefficient and unreliable networks we have in place right now.

The power grids we have are well documented as being vulnerable, and are horribly inefficient compared to more modern technologies, but have the benefit of already being in place, and therefor "cheap".

A good sized CME impacting the magnetosphere would disrupt the powergrids in a cascade failure, causing global power outages, and the necessity to rebuild the power distribution networks.

Contrary to the opinions on the matter of many ACs here, the intent behind the desire is not simply to cause chaos for the sake of chaos, but to cause that chaos to spur positive innovation and better decison making on the part of mankind.

It is important to note that I cannot and would not *cause* a large CME for this purpose. I am merely disheartened that this NATURAL one is not sufficiently strong enough to case such a disturbance.

Thanks for being honest.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[lymond01]

1) XKCD: Disaster Voyeurism

2) For the greater portion of humanity to survive we are dependent upon the machines and electronics that control our energy systems. Can you imagine 7 billion people forced to hunt for their food after the refrigerator warm up? Like the comic above, it wouldn't take long before we'd be hunting ourselves.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

The hardest step for you will be finding your way out of the basement first.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

Same here actually.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that, as if it was a bad thing...

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Grishnakh]

Contrary to the opinions on the matter of many ACs here, the intent behind the desire is not simply to cause chaos for the sake of chaos, but to cause that chaos to spur positive innovation and better decison making on the part of mankind.

Yep, unfortunately, most of the time people don't bother to improve things until they're forced to, otherwise they become lazy and complacent. We made a ridiculous amount of progress in a small time in the fields of aviation and space travel back in the 40s-60s, going from very slow piston-driven airplanes to planes that could fly at Mach 3 at 100,000 feet, launching rockets out of the atmosphere and sending men to the Moon, all because they felt compelled to by international tensions, but after that eased up, all progress came to a screeching halt and since then it's just been slow incremental improvements (like slightly more fuel-efficient jet engines, and lately winglets, whoopee).

The only field that seems like it's really improving at a good rate these days is mobile computing devices; everything else is pretty stagnant.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

The hardest step for you will be finding your way out of the basement first.

The house I own does not have a basement.

So yes, If I was in a basement, it would be an issue.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I actually *am* a trained survivalist.

So just curious, did any of your classmates fail^H^H^H^Hdie?

For me, back woods living (which is what I imagine granola eaters mean when they say "survivalist") means only 3 things: the ability to make shelter/fire by hand, the ability to hunt/trap animals, the ability to produce/collect potable water.

I wasn't trained in surviving off the land, I was taught it by my elders. Specifically my father, uncle, and grandfathers. I honestly don't think it is something you can train anyone to do (particularly because if you fail your "training" you are at serious risk of doing permanent damage to your body, or failing hard enough you just die).

Since death is synonymous with failing to survive, every extant human being is necessarily a "survivalist". /pedant

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

Trained, in that I received instruction from elders, yes.

I am not a granolabar packer. Far too much sugar, too dehydrating. :D

Rather, I know what wild plants are edible, how to tie, use, and check snares. How to track game, and their habitats and behaviors.

More notably, I know how to sustainably harvest wild foodstuffs, and proactively encourage later regrowth.

The order of necessity is shelter, water, then food.

I used to actively enjoy "disappearing" for weeks and months on end as a child. Increased property rights restrictions and officiousness from the BLM has severely dampened my ability to do that in my later life.

This does not discount my being able to do so outside of artificial constraints, however.

But thanks for asking.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[petsounds]

More aptly, the Big Red Button on the TRS-80 Model III computer. When I was in 4th grade, they had those in the school computer lab. The teachers had taped paper with "do not press!" on top of the button. Of course, a 4th grader wants nothing more than to press it. Our tendency towards chaos, or at least the curiosity to see what arises from a change in the system, starts young.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Sabriel]

Something that bakes many a noodle is that a desire can be both wrong to indulge and normal* to have.

It's also far better than having those antisocial/destructive tendencies without the cognitive ability to properly identify and contain them.

*normal: as in, welcome to homo sapiens.

You know how various professions have trouble watching shows about said profession because of how badly the writers get it wrong? I wonder if engineers (and those of an engineering bent) have those "antisocial tendencies" precisely because they find the (human) world so badly written. ;)

Re:Is it so wrong?

[geekoid]

Sociopath desire, not engineer desires.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[geekoid]

Maybe you should study up on the grid a bit before saying stupid things?
Quick, whats the power loss of 4000 miles?

Re:Is it so wrong?

[geekoid]

" all progress came to a screeching halt "
that's not even close to correct.

Pretty much every field is improving, and pretty quick. In some fields innovation is only being stifled by manufacturing,

Re:Is it so wrong?

[geekoid]

Ah, yes that will be really handy when 100,000 people show up at your door.

People who think they will hide in the woods and fend for themselves are deluded.

"And I'm a geek that earns a living as a programmer."
yes, all the skills that are completely useless in that event.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[geekoid]

Military trained, I have study survival events. Wrote a couple iof manuals, and trained pilot how to survive in enemy territory
Clue: You wouldn't last, you are completely under prepared.
A) Thousands of people will show up. DO you know how to navigate that and not get burned out of your home? Do you think waving a gun around will stopped a scared panicking crowd?
B) Fires will emerge. Are you prepared to deal with the suddenly increase in hazardous particulate matter they will be in the air?
C) Sickness? What will happen when the flu moves through a much lower vaccinated population?
D) How is your water supply? is anything up stream?

I could go on, and on if you chose a location and time of the year.
"I used to actively enjoy "disappearing" for weeks and months on end as a child."
irrelevant. Also, you're parents are idiots.

You will not be alone in the woods.

Pretty much every 'survivalist' over looks the key to long term survival.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[meglon]

That happens when you're still young, but.... when you're 2 clicks underground in an ancient alien stronghold, screwing around with what you believe to be a computer system while some large lumbering thing is pounding it's way through a 5 inch thick durasteel composite door to get to you, and there's a single red button out of all of them, encased under some form of very strong glass like substance, with big bold alien letters on it.... do NOT push it.

It's just a bad thing.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Grishnakh]

Examples? I sure don't see any progress. I'll name a few fields:

1) Automotive. Cars don't look any different now than they did 10 years ago, and technologically they're pretty much the same. The fuel economy is slightly improved with some brands, mostly thanks to gasoline direct injection, though there's some concerns about how these engines do over long terms.
2) Aviation. The only advances I see are a couple of space startups (SpaceX etc.) launching rockets and creating some prototype spacecraft. That's nice, but it's not really an advance since we've been doing that for decades, they're just figuring out now how to privatize it and do it a little cheaper. We have yet to see if any of the more radical ideas actually pan out or not; so far all they've succeeded in doing is launching satellites using newer, private designs rather than reused ICBMs.
3) Computers (meaning desktops, servers, etc.). Nothing new here at all, in fact a lot of giant steps backwards (GNOME3, Windows 8 Metro coming soon). For most computer users, they finally got an overdue upgrade to XP in the form of Win7, but there's no real advances there, just some updates. The CPUs have gotten better now that Intel's abandoned Netburst (P4), but clock speeds are stuck, they're just adding cores to try to make new ones look better, and the power efficiency has gotten slightly better.
4) Mobile computing. This is where all the real advancement is these days, as mentioned before.

So please, tell me where all these alleged advances in other fields are. I sure don't see any. Also, things which haven't made it out of the lab, and quite possibly are nothing more than a scam to get investor money before disappearing, don't count. I can't tell you how many articles about some new "revolutionary" automotive engine I've seen over the past 20 years, and nothing ever comes of it, probably because it's all BS.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[sumdumass]

I own guns too. And about everyone I know does as well. We all know how to garden, hunt, skin, and preserve food. You would be surprised at how many people know this stuff.

But here is probably what you are not thinking of, this late in the season, you are probably going to have a 3 month wait for anything seeded unless you already have a garden. If you already have one, you will have to worry about it being raided by your neighbors and desperate people who have families too. You might say, well, I'll guard it, but you can't realistically do that without some punk just shooting you from 100 yards away when you are pissing in the bushes. So you are in reality probably going to have to abandon that garden and create a secrete one somewhere and hope no one finds it.

As for hunting, in most states, the deer population was almost extinguished from all the hunting done during the great depression int he 1930's. This is important to consider because there was a lot more habitat and a lot less people then. Granted, most people now will not have a gun, but it is not hard to make primitive weapons and hunt in groups.

The bottom line is you will not be as well off as you think for long. If you are not living on the side of a mountain where the wilderness runs for miles, you might be lucky to last 6 months without needing the help of someone else. So reach out to find others in like abilities or complimentary abilities and after a few months, look at pooling resources and efforts.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

A) Dugouts dont burn, They are not directly visible from the surface either. My area does not flood. I know my area very well, and I live far from a population center. There is nothing here that people in a population center that are displaced would want. There is no reason for them to come here.

B) Particulate fallout in the air from fires can be combated reasonably effectively with a wetted cloth tied around the nose and mouth. I know how to create cloth. There are wild plants from which cloth was routinely made by native peoples. I know how to make this cloth, from these plants.

C) Influenza is only treated with NSAIDS, since no other form of medicine is really effective. (Specifically, over the counter flu remedies contain a cough suppressant and acetamenophen, an NSAID.) A very common NSAID that I am able to use, since I dont have ulcers or Reye's disease, is salicylic acid. It is commonly found in the bark of the common willow tree. Pandemic influenza migrating through wild vectors, such as birds, passing through devistated population centers and spreading the pathogen my way can be combated by oral administration of this compound. Its deleterious effects on stomach lining can be mitigated by combination of the compound with anhydrous acetic acid (vinegar, itself a biproduct of alcohol production which is also required as a carrier for refinement of the salicylic acid), and calcium carbonate, which is in ready abundance. A pensylvania limestone deposit runs approximately 6 feet below the topsoil.

D) water that is free of giardia parasites and amoebas can be freely obtained by simple cutting of a thick sucker on a common vulpis species grape vine. Several liters can be collected this way per vine, per day. They grow wild. I know where they grow.

Which leads me to:

E) dont presume you know anything about me, or my abilities. You dont.

 

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

also note:

Not a wooded area. The area I am referring to is at best wild grassland with interspersed marginal areas with small surface depressions that seasonally collect water that is not potable.

It is far from hospitable, and most people would die in days from exposure as there is no shade.

I can live here for months at a time, including the winter.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

they will arrive at my door, to find i am not home.

the first thing i would do, is abandon my wood frame home. it poses to great a prospect for bands of looters and gangs of thugs. they are welcome to what is inside. i wont be home, and would not return.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah I`m kind of curious about exactly how it would go down, you know? It`s too bad we can`t do a savestate of the earth, and then say... create an EMP, and after having witnessed the carnage first hand just press F7 and undo it all.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

I can survive here.

I can survive there indefinitely.

hint: nobody lives there. nobody lives there for hundreds and hundreds of miles, and there are no roads.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[RebelWithoutAClue]

1. Self-driving cars are coming. That's pretty major.

2. Space-flight has been stifled for decades by NASA, no wonder we're finally seeing advances.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[cyber-vandal]

You will when someone murders you for your stuff.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

incorrect.

a sociopath, by definition, cares only about themselves and does not feel any moral obligation to other people.

a sociopath would not ask the question to begin with. the very idea of wondering about the conflict would not occur to them, as there would be no conflict. to them, the destruction of the planet, as long as they stood to benefit from it in some way, could only be seen as beneficial.

this is not the case with my motivation for the desire, and my desire for input about the dichotomy of that desire.

In several posts in reply to this thread you have spoken authoritatively on subjects about people, and in particular about myself, which you could not possibly be privy to, and assert that it is a definitive assessment of fact, despite the clear and obvious untruth and faulted logic of such statements.

for your benefit, I will fully explain below why I hold such a curious outlook, which will clearly demonstrate that it is not a sociopathic outlook, but may well be a pathological one, hence my desire for feedback.

For starters, I do not believe that humans in large population centers is ideal for human psychological health, nor for long term viability of the species as a whole. I base this assessment on the following bits of information:

Humans cannot remember more than 200 to 300 people in a social complex.

In 2008, total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474Ã--1018 J=132,000 TWh)
Solar irradiation of the earth is 1600 EJ (444,000 TWh). to be sustainable, a little more than 1/4 of the planet's total surface would have to be devoted exclusively to solar energy. Energy consumption has increased 10% since this measurement according to world experts. This is not a viable strategy, as it would cause irreversible climate changes, and the vast majority of the earth's surface is ocean.

(Citation)

If the entire world population of ~7bn humans was elevated to 1st world status in terms of energy consumption, the combined demand would exceed total solar irradiation by more than double. This means that current human populations, if they remain constant, and neither grow nor decline, requires an alarming proportion of that figure to live in abject poverty.

These figures, other than rate of solar irradiation, are not holding steady, however. Both are growing. Energy consumption has greatly exceeded population growth, and continues to grow alarmingly. Population shows a trend suggesting it will peak at around 9bn.

The point is that current human populations cannot be sustained at *current* levels of energy consumption and *current* levels of living quality, and that both consumption and population are still rising.

The situation is not tenable, even when you use magical fairydust power distribution systems that are 100% efficient, which is not possible in this universe.

When you factor that energy transport infrastructure is typically 50 years old or older, and in poor or mismanaged condition in many areas due to poor planning and maintenance, as well as "ideal" distribution inefficiency rates for ideal room temperature conductors, the situation only gets worse.

At the current projections, human demand for energy will exceed sensible sunlight and fossil fuel's total capacity, go bankrupt, and strand 9bn people in a hot, post-tipping point, artificially heated biosphere, with little to no hope of escaping that fate.

A miracle technology, like fusion energy, might enable the game to be played longer, but the math still shows that its a losing game, and current funding into the research for sustainable, useful fusion for power generation has been abysmally poor. Fusion energy is the ultimate "Hail Mary" saving pass. I wouldnt count on it.

A devastating CME, "right now", would curb world population considerably while fossil fuel deposits still exist. It would do so in an uncari

Re:Is it so wrong?

[cyber-vandal]

NASA don't rule the world. Next stupid comment.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[cyber-vandal]

Wow an insightful and intelligent AC. Well said.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[sjames]

Really it's a shame it can't just take out DC and the gated communities that commute to it.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[sjames]

We'll be OK in the South, Kudzu is edible.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

The second thing you would do is go to your mama's house for some pancakes ...

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is actually quite common desire. Millions of people harbor it quite openly and are publicly admired for it: they are called "religious" or "people of faith" and they are waiting for rapture or their virgins or whatever else. The difference is that unfortunately they actually truly want this desire fulfilled and pull the rest of us along the way into the race for whoever destroys the earth faster (to fulfill their wet-dream prophecy). Worst part: they are pandered to by most of the politicians in every "god-chosen" country they happen to be.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[RebelWithoutAClue]

Government money to NASA ruled the the Aerospace world though.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

unlikely, she's a hoarder, and has roaches.

I am quite capable of cooking my own pancakes, in my clean kitchen. :D

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

unfortunately, I have no such ambition.

I am not willing to *Cause* a doomsday CME, but I do feel let down when a powerful one heads our way and it isnt life changing.

I have no such delusions that the skyfairy will abduct me in his 3-ring emerald green and fire belching UFO, A-la Ezekiel, nor that I will get to bang a bunch of inexperienced virgins who are there just because they are virgins, a la the koran. (really, why not just get a blowup doll if you dont care about the most important part of the woman, which is inside her skull? it's always faithful, it never spends your money, and it never has a headache. further, if for some reason you dont want it anymore, it doesnt demand alimony.)

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Hognoxious]

I can't tell you how many articles about some new "revolutionary" automotive engine I've seen over the past 20 years, and nothing ever comes of it, probably because it's all BS.

It's a conspiracy, man! The oil companies got a grip on the government.

There was this guy who invented an engine that, power for power, was roughly 50% more efficient than the ones commonly in use. Exxon offered to buy it, but the inventor said no; he figured they'd just lock it in a safe. Then weird things happened. He lost his job, then his house burned down only to find his insurance had been cancelled by persons unknown. He couldn't have sent the letter because he was out of the country.

He was telling me all this at the pub. I don't know how it ended up, he went to take a leak and never came back.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Hognoxious]

You probably watched too many "cosy catastrophes" on TV - Survivors, Day of the Triffids and the like.

I know I did.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

.... (such as Apophis, which really is on a collision course with us) ...

Source please? My source.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[amorsen]

Solar irradiation of the earth is 1600 EJ

This is wrong. Solar irradiation at 1 AU is somewhere in the region of 1350W/m^2. The Earth has a diameter of approximately 6371000m, which is a disc of 1.27*10^14 m^2. This gives 1.72*10^17W or 0.172EW. Over a year, 365.25*86400s, this comes to 5.400.000EJ.

Wikipedia is wrong.

In fact, from a different page on Solar energy, "Photosynthesis captures approximately 3,000 EJ per year in biomass." Pretty impressive if solar irradiation is only 1,600EJ. And unlike the 1,600 EJ figure, this one actually comes with a useful citation.

The cited page, FAO on Energy conversion by photosynthetic organisms, chapter 2 has this to say:

"Approximately 5.7 x 1024 J of solar energy are irradiated to the earth's surface on an annual basis. Plants and photosynthetic organisms utilize this solar energy in fixing large amounts of CO2 (2x1011 t = 3x1021 J/year), while amounts consumed by human beings are relatively small, (3 x 1020 J/year) (1), representing only 10% of the energy converted during photosynthesis."

So, it is time for you to revise your ideas about how humanity should live.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[MaWeiTao]

If you don't think there have been advancements in automotive technology you obviously haven't been paying attention. A lot of the advancement is in manufacturing processes which go unnoticed by the average person because they're so subtle. Some of it is technology what was originally only found in luxury cars but is now available in the cheapest economy cars.

Let's see what I can think of...
1) Engine control systems
2) Hybrid technology
3) Somewhat practical all-electric technology
4) Tighter tolerances in bodywork including more complex shapes
5) LED headlights
6) Sophisticated in-car entertainment systems
7) Suspension and handling control systems, in same cases actually enabling the car to perform better than it could with a driver alone
8) Extensive use of carbon fiber and other composites
9) Airless tires

I could go on, but those are the more significant ones I've seen. If you're going to argue that a car is a car and in principle hasn't changed, then the same rationale would apply to a computer. The most powerful desktop today is essentially the same thing as a Commodore 64.

A person has to be quite ignorant to not see how technology is advancing at a quicker rate than any time in the past. The thing is that it isn't all going to be bold, obvious advancements, the majority comprises refinements of existing technology, maximizing it's full potential. At which point it becomes economically feasible to jump to find a replacement. It's economic forces which have stifled the process of supersonic transport. But that doesn't mean technology is advancing. It means they're focus on things like efficiency. And all that work will eventually improve and enable future progress in a new direction.

Unfortunately, the impatient amongst us want the flying car tomorrow and are convinced we don't yet have one because of some idiotic conspiracy theory.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it wrong of me to be disheartened that this CME isn't stronger?

I won't lie, a fairly large part of me (the part where the evil genius lives) wants a very very powerful geomagnetic storm to devistate our powergrids, knock out communications, fry satelites, and cause general chaos and havok.

I understand that engineers often have antisocial tendencies, and I fully comprehend the ramifications of this unusual desire, but I still retain it.

Is it so wrong?

Yep

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

My grandmother was a fine, hardworking, moral, upstanding person all her life. She once confessed to me that standing next to a person on the curb of a busy road she would often feel the urge to push them (complete strangers) into the road / oncoming traffic. She never did (as far as I know).

Re:Is it so wrong?

[rossdee]

"I'd like it to hit an uninhabited area such as Antarctica or Siberia (like the Tunguska Event)."

You know that people probably did die from the Tunguska blast (not that the Russian govt at the time cared about some remote peasants) and if one hit the same area today, there would be a lot more deaths since Siberia is more populated these days.

As for antarctica, well it may not kill many people but it would sure melt a lot of ice, and we would have ocean rise a lot faster than global warming predicted.

Where it would be nice to see an ateroid impact would be on the moon, preferably in one of the maria so we can see how big a crater it makes., and nobody gets hurt.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[zippthorne]

Total annual insolation of the earth is closer to 5 million exajoules, of which at least half makes it to the surface.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[newslash.formatblows]

Can you drill for and refine your own petroleum? Car won't do much without it. What happens when you cut yourself while skinning something? Go to Wal-Mart's pharmacy for antibiotics? The survivalist nuts will have about a week longer than the rest of us. Or the asteroid will take them and their bunker out instantly.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

The most powerful desktop today is essentially the same thing as a Commodore 64.

I just bought a new i7 system to replace my c64. Am I doing it wrong again? Should I retire my AOL email account?

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Solandri]

I'd rather see an asteroid hit the earth. I don't actually want anyone to die; I'd like it to hit an uninhabited area such as Antarctica or Siberia (like the Tunguska Event). The reason is simple: I think we humans need a good kick in the pants to work on our space program, so we can deal with problems like this

You vastly overestimate the thinking process of the average person. If a significant asteroid hit Earth, their thinking would be: "We've just had a big asteroid strike. The chances of a second one happening any time soon are infinitesimal!" And they'd push for even more defunding of asteroid tracking programs in favor of daytime soaps.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[pakar]

1) Automotive. Cars don't look any different now than they did 10 years ago, and technologically they're pretty much the same. The fuel economy is slightly improved with some brands, mostly thanks to gasoline direct injection, though there's some concerns about how these engines do over long terms.

Hybrid cars have evolved quite a bit since they became more mainstream.
Pure electric cars are much more common... quite a big step..
Bio and Natural Gas powered cars... have become very common.. at least here in Sweden.

Design changes over many more years than 10... Compare cars from the 70'ies with the ones from the 80'ies etc..

2) Aviation. The only advances I see are a couple of space startups (SpaceX etc.) launching rockets and creating some prototype spacecraft. That's nice, but it's not really an advance since we've been doing that for decades, they're just figuring out now how to privatize it and do it a little cheaper. We have yet to see if any of the more radical ideas actually pan out or not; so far all they've succeeded in doing is launching satellites using newer, private designs rather than reused ICBMs.

SpaceX - it's not only a little cheaper... It's about half the cost..
NASA's Space Shuttle Program - $450 million per mission.
SpaceX Dragon mission - $133 million per mission.

The cost per pound of cargo is $10000 for SpaceX and $20000 for NASA.

3) Computers (meaning desktops, servers, etc.). Nothing new here at all, in fact a lot of giant steps backwards (GNOME3, Windows 8 Metro coming soon). For most computer users, they finally got an overdue upgrade to XP in the form of Win7, but there's no real advances there, just some updates. The CPUs have gotten better now that Intel's abandoned Netburst (P4), but clock speeds are stuck, they're just adding cores to try to make new ones look better, and the power efficiency has gotten slightly better.

Giant steps back?? Gnome3 is actually quite nice for allot of people... It all depends on what type of user you are, but with a few tweaks it's actually quite nice for the stuff i do at work.. At home i prefer XFCE.

There have been major advances of desktop's and servers..
Major shift seems to be : Desktop computer -> Laptops -> Tablets
More and more companies are using "the cloud" for infrastructure and storing data. For good and bad..
Virtualization has taken a extreme leap since 2000.. it's enough to just look 4-5 years back..

2001 - Linus Torvalds releases version 2.4 of the Linux Kernel source code on January 4th.
2001 - Wikipedia is founded on January 15, 2001.
2001 - Bram Cohen introduces BitTorrent on a public message board July 2, 2001.
2001 - Apple introduces the iPod and it goes on sell October 23, 2001.
2002 - The first of code that would later become Mozilla Firefox is made available September 23, 2002.
2003 - Apple opens the iTunes store April 28, 2003.
2003 - The H.264 standard is completed in May 2003.
2003 - Apple introduces Mac OS X 10.3 code named Panther October 25, 2003.
2004 - Mark Zuckerberg launches Thefacebook February 4, 2004, which later becomes Facebook
2004 - Google announces Gmail on April 1, 2004. Many people take it as an April Fools joke.
and around here it just sparks more and more stuff, more than i want to read... http://www.computerhope.com/history/2000.htm if you want to read it yourself.

Then on the hardware end..
Disk capacity:
2000 around 20Gb
2005 around 100Gb
2012 - 3Tb...

Number of transistors per CPU:
2000 - Pentium 4 - 42 Million using 180nm process.
2003 - AMD K8 - 105.9 Million using 130nm process.
2006 - Core 2 Duo - 291 Million using 65nm process.
2009 - Six-Core Opteron 2400 - 904 Million using 45nm process
2011 - Six-Core Core i7 - 2.270 BILLION using 32nm process.

And the GPU's have also evolved quite a bit... a Nvid

Re:Is it so wrong?

[PNutts]

Yes, but unfortunately the world is full of people without empathy.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is crawlspace full of bodies?

Re:Is it so wrong?

[PNutts]

I just drove through "there" last week visiting family. It's a very pretty picture but there's a reason you don't see anything more than knee high that wasn't planted. Its former name was the Great Plains Desert. This year has been a nightmare of 110 F days and winter will bring weeks of -32 F. Sure, we settled it recently but the pioneers were prepared and had additional supplies come in on a regular basis. The thought of being there with nothing except what I can carry doesn't end well.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

That is actually somewhat comforting to know. Thank you.

However, that still doesnt address the dunbar's number issue. I would still contest that dense urban living is not psychologically healthy for humans, since humans are unable to integrate into a societal matrix of that scale, and will tend toward creating local structures within that larger one that they are better able to cope with. (Gangs, neighborhood affiliations, political affiliations, affluence clubs, etc.) This is deleterious as it causes sub-optimal planning, and promotes the use of stereotypes to help cope with the excess stimulation.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, I've never seen a self-driving car. See my prior comment about things that haven't made it out of the lab yet. There's been lots of things over the last 50+ years that people were sure were right around the corner, yet they never happened, sometimes just because of economics rather than technology (i.e., they were too expensive to achieve any popularity). True, self-driving cars do look like they have a bit more promise than some other things I've seen articles about (e.g., various "breakthrough" new automotive engine designs that never end up seeing the light of day), but until they're actually driving around in real numbers, rather than a prototype here and there, it doesn't really count. Your assertion about it here is a lot like saying "robots like those depicted in 'Runaway' are coming" just because of Honda's Asimo robot which has been around for at least a decade now, yet all this time later we still don't see any humanoid robots walking around and cleaning our houses.

And the other poster is right: NASA never stifled spaceflight; they don't control aerospace worldwide, and there was nothing stopping anyone in other countries from getting into spaceflight. They sure didn't stop the Chinese and Russians from building spacecraft.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Grishnakh]

(Stupid Slashdot won't let me edit a comment like Reddit does; no wonder everyone's going there now.)

I forgot to add; my whole point is, take a look around you right now, and compare to what your life was like 10 years ago. What's changed? What's improved? The only thing I see that's substantially better than what I had 10 years ago is my mobile phone; back then I think I had just gotten a cellphone (lots of people had been holding out until the costs came down, but by that time, it got to be so it started making sense to dump the landline and just have a cellphone), and it was a simple one with number buttons. Now I have an Android phone with 4G, turn-by-turn navigation (a giant help when traveling to unfamiliar cities), video calling, web browing, etc. But everything else is the same, except for some very very minor improvements (24" LCD panels on my computer instead of a 19" CRT for instance, a laser mouse instead of a ball mouse, CPUs aren't such power hogs like in the P4 days though that was largely because of stupidity on Intel's part, etc.).

Re:Is it so wrong?

[SuiteSisterMary]

Faugh. If the players push it, the GM says that the sign read 'Unleash Cosmic Horrors.' If they don't push it, it turns out to have read 'Release angelic saviours of alien archaeologists.' If they try to translate the sign, it reads 'Reminder: all buttons must be labelled in accordance with the Alien Space Navy Handbook. Please label this button appropriately as soon as possible.'

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Grishnakh]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

It's going to make a close pass in 2029, and there's a possibility that encounter will alter its trajectory so that it collides with Earth in 2036. The possibility is said to be low, but still I don't think we can really claim to be quite that accurate with our predictions, because I think it's hard to say exactly how Earth's gravity will affect it on that 2029 fly-by. If it does set up the asteroid for an impact in 2036, that's only 7 years to prepare and find a way to deflect it; with asteroids, and with our propulsion technology, it's probably not enough. To actually deflect something, we'd need years to design and build some kind of engine, launch it up there, then have it push the asteroid a small amount so that over the course of years, its trajectory is altered enough to be considered safe.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Grishnakh]

Let's see what I can think of...
1) Engine control systems
2) Hybrid technology
3) Somewhat practical all-electric technology
4) Tighter tolerances in bodywork including more complex shapes
5) LED headlights
6) Sophisticated in-car entertainment systems
7) Suspension and handling control systems, in same cases actually enabling the car to perform better than it could with a driver alone
8) Extensive use of carbon fiber and other composites
9) Airless tires

1) These have been around since the 80s, they're nothing new.
2) These have been around since the early 2000s, they're nothing new. In fact, the older ones are better; the original Honda Insight gets the best fuel economy of any hybrid car.
3) I'll grant you this one. But there aren't a lot of Leafs driving around yet.
4) Sorry, I don't see it. Cars look the same to me now as they did 10 years ago. You have to go back to the early 90s to see real cosmetic differences in cars.
5) Haven't seen many of those. I'll grant you HID headlights though; those were around 10 years ago, but were much more rare then.
6) They've had DVD players in cars for over 10 years now.
7) Sorry, haven't seen this one. Every car I've driven in has worse handling than my 18-year-old Acura. They all have way too much body roll. I will admit that American cars handle a lot better than they did 15-20 years ago, but they're only starting to catch up to what Japanese and German cars achieved 15-20 years ago.
8) The McLaren F1 had all this 10+ years ago, and regular cars still don't have it.
9) Haven't seen this one either. They've had run-flat tires for 15+ years however.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF man,
you used "ME" nine times in your n00bish post.

Unfortunately some things cannot be fixed in an easy way and would need a good kick. Think of it as a slap on the face for a drowsy human race.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[gottabeme]

Watch this: http://youtu.be/lkswXVmG4xM If their claims are true, we might already have advanced space travel tech and clean, even free energy tech. I'm not saying their claims are true, but it looks like something that needs to be investigated. There is a lot of evidence, not just from these people, of large scale coverups.

Again, only time will tell. But what if...?

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

The closest to city-living I've ever done was Honolulu, and even there, I would, on weekends, literally hunt and gather until I was stuffed in the watershed reserve above the city, so I don't understand your fear.

Now I live in a suburb and do perma-culture in my yard and am pretty familiar with edible plants in general. The best thing about a catastrophe is that people would stop spending money on lawn chemicals, so I could eat the wild onions and violets (and many many other things) out of everyone's yard instead of just my own.

Cannibals won't starve to death. They'll turn to hunting the ridiculously copious quantities of deer, rabbit and squirrel eventually (not to mention dogs and cats).

I can't say that I root for a disaster though, except out of curiosity.

I don't fear a catastrophe at all. Look around your house-- you probably have more high-quality cutlery as entire villages did in the iron age. I don't think humanity can be knocked back much further than about 18th or 19th century at this point. A significant asteroid event might kill most of us, but the remainder will be left in a world with huge amounts of very high quality tools and material and vast quantities of printed knowledge.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[wierd_w]

Yes, but I actually live there. Thats a normal year for me. :D

Secret is to stay out of the sun, and indoors. in a wild situation, such as "end of the world", you dig out the home under the sod layer, line it with the pensylvania limestone and scrubwood to hold it up, and live indoors during the summer. Basement temp is closer to 70 to 80F, which is livable.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[amorsen]

Fair enough, I won't argue whether dense urban living is psychologically healthy or not. Either way, it is not an issue which warrants hoping for lots of people dying.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

working a job--not by choice but by necessity--maybe if your lucky you can choose your own hours. and you have to do this till you die... i rather grow a garden and play the bongos. alas i must stay on the grid a bit longer until i find a replacement for pron.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

so sayeth the idiot...

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

You laugh. It's funny.

But there's some truth to the myth too. The inventors of more efficient engines and parts often have strange things happen to them, their lives, and their products.

Usually an oil company gets involved.
Concidence? Maybe...

But i sure wouldnt wanna invent a new super efficient anything for a gasoline engine. My life has enough bad luck already.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[dbIII]

That one actually comes up every few years and I came across one of those wackos and his secret invention when I was a postgrad in a mechanical engineering department some years back. With changes to fuel injection or the carburetor you can get an amazing difference in fuel efficiency while idling. That's fairly pointless though because when you do that the performance of the engine under load sucks, and the entire point of an engine is to make it do stuff instead of just idle away on as little juice as possible. Thus every now and again somebody works out how to optimise an engine for a paticular load or lack of load without understanding that's what they are doing, and they think that they've hit some huge secret that wasn't old before Henry Ford got into cars.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[cffrost]

Examples?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Category:Emerging_technologies

Re:Is it so wrong?

[dbIII]

The first hybrid car I saw outside a lab was in 1987 and it was used in a mine. It was set to run purely on electricity underground and hybrid in the open cut areas. Of course batteries sucked then and made up a large portion of it's weight, and I think it was built from the body of a Nissan van. I'm not sure how old it was at that point or it was the first one out of the lab, and one of the experimental cars I saw was built with the body of a six-cylinder 1970s sedan but I don't know when (apart from it being proir to 1986 when I saw it).
Of course the Hondas and Toyotas are different enough from that mine vehicle that it's probably as irrelevant as comparing them to a locamotive.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Grishnakh]

Almost all of those are bullshit. Vactrains? Backpack helicopters? Do you see any of those things in use anywhere? Much of that list is just science fiction. I'm talking about real progress that you can see in society around you, on the streets, not some sci-fi ideas that may or may not appear, just like all those "revolutionary" car engines that never made it into production.

Go back 10 years, and compare to today. There just isn't much that's different, except for mobile electronic devices (smartphones, e-readers, tablets). Sure, there's a few small incremental improvements here and there (like GPGPU on your link; but I was watching DivX ;-) movies on computers 10 years ago so this isn't exactly a revolutionary change except for people doing large-scale rendering).

The way I see it, the last 10-12 years has basically been a "lost decade".

Re:Is it so wrong?

[cffrost]

I've seen you make this observation in the past, and I somewhat agree... My uncertainty about it is mostly due to lack of rigor in my analysis.

Though some of the technologies listed in the link I posted range from COTS to unproven hypotheses and science-fiction, the latter are more fun to read about than the latest advances in furtherance of eroding privacy, liberty, and other human rights. Coincidentally, I had a tab open there when I read your post; I thought you might find it helpful, given your ongoing interest. =)

Re:Is it so wrong?

[cyber-vandal]

I'll try again. The USA is not the only country in the world. The USA is not the only country in the world with capitalists. And yet the privatisation of space travel has only just started, even though people started going into space in the 50s. Perhaps because capitalists are not good with huge risks with little to no return.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[RebelWithoutAClue]

The environment outside the US was even worse. For example look at OTRAG. Aerospace used to be a highly politicized field.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[RebelWithoutAClue]

And the other poster is right: NASA never stifled spaceflight; they don't control aerospace worldwide, and there was nothing stopping anyone in other countries from getting into spaceflight. They sure didn't stop the Chinese and Russians from building spacecraft.

The environment outside the US was even worse. For example look at OTRAG. Aerospace is a highly politicized field, not to mention risky.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Grishnakh]

Ok, the part about carburetors makes sense; they're only so adjustable. But with a fuel-injected engine (with engine management computer), why wouldn't you be able to optimize both idling and under-load operation? The computer can change the injector pulsewidths instantly in response to throttle input. The main limiting factor is that engines are stuck with mechanical camshafts which have to be designed for average conditions (since you can't exactly have the lobes reshape themselves at different rpms), but even here variable valve timing has improved things a lot, and this has become pretty commonplace in engines.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[cyber-vandal]

But Ariane was created anyway despite evil NASA holding back space travel in an area they had no jurisdiction over.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[RebelWithoutAClue]

Just because one private aerospace company survived doesn't mean that the environment was even remotely conducive.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[cyber-vandal]

Tell me in a few words how NASA, the agency of one government, stopped entrepreneurs from exploring space? Did NASA ban every single aerospace company from selling to private companies. Did they stop new companies from being formed to send people into space? Put the Ayn Rand down and realise that if it wasn't for NASA and the Russian space agency no human would have ever gone into space. Where's the profit in putting a man into orbit? Landing on the moon? Orbital passenger flights are happening now, but that tech had to be proven at vast expense, an expense that no corporation or private individual would have been able to afford even if they'd been prepared to.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Umm, there will be millions of cars with gas in the tank that aren't running.

cause their electrical thingamabobs are fried by the emp.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

a sociopath, by definition, cares only about themselves and does not feel any moral obligation to other people.

Whoa there. It's almost certain that I'm a sociopath, as are you. It's not an absolute condition, but part of a range of emotions and perceptions. You may be indifferent to meth addicts who are in heart failure and tear out their IV's and run back out to buy more meth. I've met them and I am indifferent. You can't save everyone (which you understand quite plainly).

For starters, I do not believe that humans in large population centers is ideal for human psychological health, nor for long term viability of the species as a whole. I base this assessment on the following bits of information:

Humans cannot remember more than 200 to 300 people in a social complex. [wikipedia.org]

I don't see how this is a compelling argument against large population centers. Social sub-groups form (localized and/or environmental) to combat unbounded tribal structures. Humanity has been living in large population centers for thousands of years without any identifiable psychological effects (directly resulting from large urban populations).

The concept of resource distribution and maintenance will most certainly result in a series of strictly regulated city-states in the foreseeable (far from my lifetime) future. While the work of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun (NIMH) speaks to the possible social effects, the movie Equilibrium (which also presents a monolithic, bounded living center) provides a solution of chemical mood alteration for population safety or perhaps there will be a digital alternative (Matrix-style). This is more likely than a repeated breakdown in localities in a couple hundred years.

The resulting sense of urgency

That's another conclusion that makes no sense to me. Humans are opportunistic as a populace. After a major natural disaster, there is a recovery, then a capitalization on resources...not an attempt to redouble defenses. Yes some people will develop some improved defenses, but only as far as the fear can be sold as imminent (not eventual) to prospective buyers.

the math still shows that its a losing game,

Life is a losing game and that's ok.

Sorry to pick random points, but I just have strong feelings about parts of this conversation.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[newslash.formatblows]

In the cities. If you're going to be where the hunting & skinning is happening, it may not look like a Wal-Mart parking lot on Black Friday.

did they say it ALL was going to hit us?

[v1]

The effects of a solar flair like that happen across a wide degree of speeds. We get hit by light and I assume other things like xrays etc first, but other things will travel slower. The mass ejection is the slowest part isn't it? So seeing as the earth moves, I don't see how we can possibly get hit by all of the components of the flair.

They make it sound like we got "bullseyed" for this incoming storm, when really the sun had to have "lead the target" by quite a distance right? Or are these events so wide that they will cover earth's position for several days or weeks?

Re:did they say it ALL was going to hit us?

[Deadstick]

We should only catch about 15 pieces of flair.

Re:did they say it ALL was going to hit us?

[ldobehardcore]

The X-Rays hit us the same time the light did. BECAUSE X-RAYS ARE LIGHT MORON!

Re:did they say it ALL was going to hit us?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they are not, moron, they are THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC RADIATION and they can KILL YOU. LIKE THE A-BOMB!

Re:did they say it ALL was going to hit us?

[Anonymous Coward]

The start of the event was about 3 days before its end. During that time, Earth moves through about 3 degrees of sky as seen from the sun (3*360/365). The radiation and mass ejections from the sun are not a tight beam (think flashlight instead of laser pointer), so even though the Earth does change position during the flight time of the slower particles, it's far from crossing the whole affected solid angle.

Re:did they say it ALL was going to hit us?

[Samantha Wright]

Doesn't it bother you that you have to get up in the morning and put on pieces of flair?

Re:did they say it ALL was going to hit us?

[Anonymous Coward]

As to the GP's concern about being hit by the flair[sic]. The flair covers a lot of sky, so no we won't be hit by all of it, for the same reason that you don't get hit by all the shot from a long range shot-gun blast. It's spread out so much that we only soak a portion of it. (Not to make it seem like this protects us). IIRC, the sun spots that generate the CME's are bigger than the earth to start, so by the time the CME reaches 1au, it's going to be quite spread out.

Now, Adobehardcore, you should go sit in the corner:

We get hit by light and I assume other things like xrays etc first, but other things will travel slower. The mass ejection is the slowest part isn't it?

The X-Rays hit us the same time the light did. BECAUSE X-RAYS ARE LIGHT MORON!

Uh.. yeah, that's what GP (v1) said. "light and [...] xrays first". To be generous we could assume that GP was making a hand-waving statement implying light and other EM radiation would get here at the same time, which is correct since it all travels at c (speed of light).

As to your statement, in general parlance 'light' refers to the visible radiation portion of the EM spectrum, so in fact no, x-rays are not light.

moron.

HOPE YOU FUCKERS WATCHED NIGHT OF THE COMET

[Anonymous Coward]

If not, you may want to...before it's too late.

Taking the bait from a probably sarcastic troll...

[Anonymous Coward]

And if throughout history all of our scientists had stayed in wheat fields so that hungry people would eat, we wouldn't have invented a way of sending wheat over to 3rd world countries anyways so having them grow extra wheat wouldn't help feed anyone anyways.

Re:And now I get how the submission system works..

[Freshly Exhumed]

Dude I submitted it yesterday. Go play in the solar radiation.

Tin Foil Hat ON

[Anonymous Coward]

Now down in the bunker, 30 m down, in central Alaska. Checking server racks and power conditioners. Lines appear good; usual spikes from GVEA, not to worry, the mindless bastards are better off without a mind.

In the early hours of 07/14 GMT could see big spikes/drops, nasty bastards, fries parts of the electronics, I have spare parts to keep the 'rigs' going, for DoD. Work, work and more work. It never stops, until I do ... I think. Never mind that. I'm happy that I will never have to worry about Obamacare taxation, nasty business that. :)

Strong geomagnetic storms?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the news before the fact is great for those of us living some place with a chance of catching the aurora, I don't think there is any indication there will be strong geomagnetic storms. NOAA Space Weather Center is predicting only storm level of G1 with a chance of G2, which happens quite frequently. Usually if something big is coming, their alert timeline lights up with a lot more than a G1 or warning of A > 20. I've made a habit of taking the 10 seconds to check their alert page every time a relative links or talks about a story of some massive geomagnetic storm coming, and pretty much every time it shows (both before and after) that it was something minor that happens with a frequency of more than once a month.

Re:Strong geomagnetic storms?

[guttentag]

I assume it's just a cosmic coincidence that NOAA's Space Weather Alerts and Warnings Timeline chart looks like a cross between Space Invaders and Missile Command? Big yellow bars of light barely missing pixelated aliens as they descend from the sky?

Re:Strong geomagnetic storms?

[chebucto]

How stupefyingly rational. Thanks for taking the fun out of it, man.

This is 2012, FFS. We deserve an epic worldwide disaster, be it an attack by the sun, volcanoes unleashing eons worth of pent-up primordial energy, or accidental release of hyper-engineered bio-weapons.

Re:Strong geomagnetic storms?

[Anonymous Coward]

G1 vs. G2? Oh... so you mean it's only Galvatron and not Megatron.... okie, not worried!

MT-NJG

Re:Strong geomagnetic storms?

[Rich0]

Am I reading something wrong. The linked page has an A>20 watch right now.

Re:Strong geomagnetic storms?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are reading it correctly. The original point was that a severe storm would be lighting a lot more than just the "A > 20" warning.

The K index is an attempt to categorise the size of geomagnetic disturbances, and goes from 0 to 9. The problem is the scale is non-linear, so you can't average the K index from several points in a day and get a useful daily value. So the A-index converts the K index to a linear scale. It gets messier when trying to convert from local measurements to an estimate of planetary effects, turning the local K index into the planetary Kp index on the same scale. The Kp index can roughly correspond to how far south the northern lights go. The G1, G2 ... G5 rating is an attempt to categorise storms based on potential for actual damage, and is pretty much just the Kp index minus four, so Kp less than 5 isn't really at the level of a "storm".

Anyway, I thought a Kp index of 5 or a G1 storm would correspond roughly to an A index going over 50. Although the A index warnings on NOAA's timeline thing tend to be milder than the K index warnings, so they might be using a different scale (e.g. a different weighting of how they combine different sized observations at different magnetic latitudes).

Mexico signs ACTA...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and a huge flare will smitten the Earth! It's a sign from the Gods! Repent sinners, and denounce ACTA/CETA/TPP/IPRED/IP Attache Act before it's too late!

This is just practice

[Anonymous Coward]

for a Carrington event (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859), which would shatter most first-world societies. Burnout of really large electrical components like major transformers on power grids could leave developed continents without electrical power for up to a year. Good luck pumping water, natural gas, etc to us consumers of same.

The Takeaway

[matunos]

Sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend.

Sat 14, Jul, 14:42:

[bejiitas_wrath]

And we are still here. Looks like the Earth`s magnetic field has protected us again. Thank god for a spinning Iron core. it would suck to be living on Mars right now.

Re:Sat 14, Jul, 14:42:

[Jeremi]

And we are still here. Looks like the Earth`s magnetic field has protected us again. Thank god for a spinning Iron core. it would suck to be living on Mars right now.

Anthropic Principle saves humanity yet again! Someone really should write a comic book about that guy, he's the best superhero ever.

Re:Sat 14, Jul, 14:42:

[93 Escort Wagon]

And we are still here. Looks like the Earth`s magnetic field has protected us again. Thank god for a spinning Iron core. it would suck to be living on Mars right now.

On the bright side, you'd probably already be long dead due to the cold or the atmosphere.

Re:Taking the bait from a probably sarcastic troll

[Anonymous Coward]

People who can't recognize sarcasm should be sent to the hotdog mines.

That's racist!

[Anonymous Coward]

Africa has lots of technology like and such as.

Re:That's racist!

[philip.paradis]

Africa has lots of technology like and such as.

That sentence makes no sense, unless you were attempting to humorously bolster the claim that the entire continent of Africa is devoid of any modern technology. If the latter is true, that would be an erroneous claim.

Re:That's racist!

[kevingolding2001]

Maybe the AC is from South Carolina.

Not considered a threat to the US power grid

[Animats]

Just checked the PJM dashboard, which shows what's going on for the power grid in the northeastern US. They haven't put up a Solar Magnetic Disturbance Warning for this event.

NOAA predicts a maximum A index of 25 and a maximum K index of 3 at low latitudes, 6 at high latitudes (Canada, roughly). PJM says they issue an alert when there's an A index of 40 or above or a K index of 5 or above. K=6 and 7 level events aren't serious problems; trouble occurs around 8 and 9.

The last event that caused a blackout was in 1989. Since then, more monitoring gear has been added and plans made for when this problem occurs. The basic effect is that the solar wind induces DC currents in the earth, causing a huge ground loop between distant grounding points. This causes DC current to flow through AC high tension lines, which heats up transformers and causes some confusion in measurements. Those DC currents are constantly monitored. When DC flows are observed, the AC currents on the line have to be reduced to prevent transformer overheating. It's an operational problem, but not a disaster.

(If you're really interested in this topic, here's the PJM training presentation that covers solar and magnetic disturbances. This is the perspective from the people who operate the power grid. "When solar magnetic disturbance is confirmed, Salem 1 and 2 units will reduce to 80% power and Hope Creek to 85% power...")

Re:Not considered a threat to the US power grid

[fluffythedestroyer]

a low weak wind will cause major breakage in my province...and that same power company increases their power consumption per hour every year.. :(

Re:Not considered a threat to the US power grid

[Anonymous Coward]

If I remember correctly, the blackout in 1989 was an issue with circuit breakers tripping. While that created a mess trying to keep the system running, it at least meant long term damage was being averted by the safety systems. Hence, I would expect improvements as being about trying to keep things running smoothly during a storm, not about trying to preventing the power grid from being destroyed, as the latter is already mostly covered. It is refreshing to see a reference to the 1989 blackout that isn't using it as a example of how we are going to end up back in the stone age.

Re:Not considered a threat to the US power grid

[Animats]

There's been progress. I just looked at all the solar magnetic disturbance messages on the PJM dashboard for the last 10 years. The sun has been quiet for the last few years, during the low part of the sunspot cycle. The last big event was in 2005, when a K-9 event was observed. PJM went to "conservative operation" for about 12 hours. (Normally, generation is controlled through a market process, but when there's a problem, the control center in Valley Forge PA orders "conservative operation", which means generating stations bring extra reserves on line, ready in case there's trouble.) Appropriate preparations were made, but not much happened.

is there still time

[Errtu76]

to call Bruce WIllis?

Re:is there still time

[Pyrus.mg]

Armageddon II: Astrodriller Harry Stamper has retired to a Texas ranch to raise horses when NASA recruits him and his gang of misfit cowboys to lasso an asteroid into position to sheild Earth from the wrath of the Sun itself.

Re:Taking the bait from a probably sarcastic troll

[ZankerH]

There's no such thing as a hotdog mine.

Re:Taking the bait from a probably sarcastic troll

[whythefucknot]

LOL. I'm tempted to say "whoosh" just so I can find out what a hotdog mine looks like.

Re:Taking the bait from a probably sarcastic troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Think goatse.

Re:Taking the bait from a probably sarcastic troll

[whythefucknot]

Oh God, I can't not think about it now!

Re:And now I get how the submission system works..

[sjames]

Well, screw it then, I'm going to LOOT THE VENDING MACHINE!

Jetstream

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if it will give the jetstream a nudge so us in the UK might get something other than "monsoons" every other day. (and the US a break from the heatwave)

Magnetic poles

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really glad we have them.

Geoeffective

[stevegee58]

Now that's a good word. I'm going to be sure to try to use my new-found word at least 5 times in conversation today.

Aurora forecast site

[Anonymous Coward]

http://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/

Some extra info

[fluffythedestroyer]

The coronal mass ejection on Thursday, caused by the release of excess solar energy, is classified as an X1.4 event. That means the storm is probably too weak to affect satellites used for cell phone communication, but communication using shorter wavelengths, such as radio, may be affected, said John Raymond, a physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

From ABC news

Re:Taking the bait from a probably sarcastic troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? You really didn't pick up on the fact that it was a joke?

No worries

[danwesnor]

No worries, and the flare fired directly at the Earth on the 12th and the Earth will have undoubtedly found someplace else to be in the meantime.

Re:No worries

[Narrowband]

Unfortunately it does carry a certain amount of angular momentum from the rotation of the sun, so the CME doesn't quite travel in a straight line. It's mass that's moving, not just EM/light, otherwise it would be here 8 minutes after the flare (since we're 8 light minutes away) and the mass carries that momentum. The sun doesn't rotate uniformly, it's gaseous and the poles tend to rotate differently than the equator (I think less fast than the equator but can't recall for certain) but the flare originated from closer to the equator as many of them do.

Re:No worries

[Anonymous Coward]

If you spin a mass around on the end of a string, and then cut the string, the mass would both go in a straight line (ignoring air & gravity) and carry away angular momentum since it is not travelling radially away from the center of rotation. The only way for it to not travel in a straight line is to continue to exert a force on it. Which the sun does to the CME, through gravity and the magnetic field, but the point is that the angular momentum alone is not what would make it deviate from a straight line. And in the case of a CME, it erupts with a velocity of hundreds of km/s and grows to a size in the millions of km, so the 1 or 2 km/s velocity of the surface of the sun is not really that significant. You can see from simulation animation linked in the summary, a large chunk of the mass continues to go mostly in a straight path except for a bit of the mass getting trapped in the Parker spiral.

The main reason it still hits us though, is it blasts about a third of Earth's orbit. So two days of Earth's movement doesn't make much of a difference.

Re:Taking the bait from a probably sarcastic troll

[rossdee]

Thanks, I'll remember that the next time hydrogen fueled vehicles are mentioned and somebody complains that 'Hydrogen is not an energy source - there are no hydrogen mines"

SALT storage

[Anonymous Coward]

yea we'd lose about 50% of capacity but with salt we could keep food a fair length a time
thus the doomsday wont happen as grids power back up in time.....
at worst this affects totally urban cities that are very far from farms of any kind....

and how about that solar array system and wind power that suddenly keeps things going....nearly right after....

all you need is some copper to make a crank to power that fridge to keep things a bit cool and with a windmill never mind

Ham radio operators...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ham radio operators, rejoice! Jump for joy! Solar activity is here! Much DX!

Enjoying the show at the beach!

[lil.cav]

Who's got the marshmallows?

Re:Taking the bait from a probably sarcastic troll

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a valid complaint, though. Hydrogen's main job is to transfer money from gullible people or government agencies into the pockets of liars. Sure, you can build a few hydrogen cars, put on a show, but guess what? Won't scale.