Discussion on:

Five extinction events more likely than the Mayan Apocalypse

Seriously, don't let geekend die.

Here's another vote to preserve the Geekend.

I do not see how it gets in the way of TR doing its main stuff, a little sidebar of humor and knowledge is a good thing.

Mr. Garmon,

I appreciate your 'just before Christmas' mood enhancer; nothing like the end of the world to remind us of the true joy of giving - or flaming out in massive style.

But I must question your list, because you obviously forgot one other possible option: Zombie Apocolypse!!!

original voodoo zombies or the idiotic Hollywood style zombies created in the 1950s or 1960s for fiction horror films. First is no issue as the zombies can only follow simple orders. The second is only likely if some lab has been working on some sort of bio-weapon to create such things and it gets out or is used.

Geekend makes me laugh at times and that is how the authors write it. The rest of Techrepublic are people writing trying to be serious and come off sounding buffonish and people STILL laugh at them. At least Geekend is suppose to be funny.

The other TR newsletters have been gradually declining in value, and the lamest articles get repeated a lot.
Oh well, I'll be able to reduce my spam a bunch.

TR needs to keep Geekend. Life needs humor.

the situation is, but the data available from the Soviet Union is that, in their own words, "significant numbers of smaller nuclear devices are unaccounted for." In short, someone stole a large number of tactical nuclear weapons and either has them for sale or has sold them as they'd have likely used them by now if they were for personal power use. Even the US has a number of TNW on their 'can't find' weapons lists.

Some of them are likely to turn up with various terrorist organisations when they can come up with the money to buy them, and then it's anyone's guess on where they'll be used.

http://www.kgun9.com/news/local/184176911.html#.UNN6yKQ_RWE.facebook

you must get to Willcox Arizona pronto, the rest of us, well, kinda out of luck.

Too bad other places have not taken a proactive approch to this, a lot of lives could have been saved.

Thanks, Jay.

Your post here is just unacceptable in any form.

Don't you know that the End of the World no matter how unlikely is the PERFECT EXCUSE for a party?

So the World Ends Today sometime depending on what the Mayans used as an Equivalent to our current International Date Line and I'm going to that Party.

The possibility of Killing Off Geekend sucks so badly that it looks as if TR is attempting to shut it's doors and destroy what was what attracted people here in the first place. If all you can manage are Serious Looks at things it's time to retire from the Gene Pool as you are doing nothing but Polluting it.

Col

The Vogan Constructor Fleet arriving today and destroying the planet to make way for a Space Bypass Lane. Under their Bureaucratic ways they are not required to inform the planet because it causes way too much paper work as they have to record every complaint and pass it on for examination and have those complaints vetted for any possible complaints against the Vogan Constructor Fleet.

So the first thing we'll all know about it is when the planet comes under attack and starts to disintegrate.

The Enterprise will not come back through a Time Warp and save the day as they never existed so there will be nothing to stop the Vogans.

Even the Invid knew enough to stay away as they didn't want to be involved, the Vogans are way to bureaucratic for them too.

Jay I should also mention that the Daughter in Law wants your Guts for Garters as it's her Burfday today and she's having a End of the World Birthday Party which can not be canceled under any circumstances.

Col

nt

how can you guys be here? you should have perished already!!!

it starts at the Mayan time zone, we get an extra day.

or they? Mayan time should be relatively close to my time? Mayan time (or Central American time) runs two hours behind my time. So, what time do they predict it will end? Is it noon, midnight, etc?

just thinking that it could run thru the time zones, like New Years, the earth will be sucked up hour by hour as the time changes.

This is silly, not going to happen.

And I was so looking forward to some sort of excitement

nt

But you need to remember it's Mayan Time hence the reference to what the Mayan's used as our International Date Line. That's anything up to a day difference depending on where they started their day.

Col

nt

So we have heaps of time yet to get totally Plastered.

Col

orbiting around out there in the vicinity of Jupiter?

To think that you could return Home one day.

Col

@HAL - from memory, all complaints are "sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found and finally buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters."

We've been reading of the so-called "Post PC Era" that is supposedly upon us...
surely that ranks as an extinction level event!
We could also put the death of the IT department in there as well since it is
supposed to be extinct now that everything is in the "cloud"!

Paper Office.

It's been dead a long time now since the Paperless Office arose. Only problem is I haven't been able to find one yet.

Col

It's right beside the paperless bathroom.

Couldn't resist...

you can get a system that works a lot like a bidet to do the same without paper.

Used Fish.

Not sure how good it was for the fish but it sounds somewhat different.

Col

wiped with the scales facing the correct direction.

or maybe use those "algae suckers"? Hehe!
I know...I'm twisted, what can I say?

twisted you are at times - and that's a compliment.

I am amazed that climate change is not mentioned. Maybe some life will survive but this is a real threat of the possible extinction of our species. p>0.5?

Jay Gammon hopes "to write science fiction". Please may he give priority to physical and biological reality.

From across the pond, I predict oil and fundamentalist replies!

Also, Jay's surname is "Garmon", but that's beside the point.
Should Isaac Asimov have written science text books instead of science
fiction? Should no one have a dream to follow? You can't expect everyone
to be so pragmatic that no thoughts of "What if?" are allowed or we as a
society would still be living in caves, having never dreamed of putting a
few sticks and fronds together to form a shelter, no need for inventiveness
at all.

but Asimov did write text books and non-fiction, including some Biblical studies. He also edited a massive collection of filthy limericks.

probably should have chosen a different phrase though...

All the countries most likely to use a nuke as a first strike or terrorist weapon only have or can get 1 or 2 operational nukes.

Personally, my policy recommendation is for the U.S. to declare any first strike use of nukes against any country will result in the nuclear obliteration of the offending country. (I'd have suggested the U.N. Big 5 but that group (and the U.N. as a whole) couldn't organize a an office party amongst themselves, much less be trusted with the security of the world.) We don't have the be the policemen on the world, but on that issue we should grab the minotaur by the horns.

And you use nukes whith high thermal and blast in that case that are detonated as high air bursts to minimize radioactivity. Neutron bombs would be ideal. Point is, we'd probably only have to do it once, and all those petty, tinpot madmen running totalitarian state would get the message. And we'd have eliminated the worst of the bunch.

Geekend, that is.

There are to camps here ... 1) "They come in peace" and the more likely 2) They're here for something.
It may not be total annihilation of mankind but it would certainly take us down a notch.

Since the possibility of a robotic uprising is "unknown" which would be more likely? An alien invasion or a robotic uprising? Keep in mind that aliens could have technology that can hide thier presence OR they could just be flying around and " Hey look, A new fresh planet with lot of resources. Lets go git em, boss."

Commander Zog, the human has discovered our presence.

I have often said: Any alien race advanced enough to reach Earth is smart enough NOT to.

nt

isn't going to be much help either. Now they're limited to the same technologies available at the time of their landing / crash. If Stonehenge could be built or the South American countryside get painted up without high-tech help, then there's no need to introduce aliens into the equation in the first place.

They Sanitize Telephones and ask is it available in any other colors.

So if the Aliens where Telephone Sanitizers and Marketers they may very well not have know what it is that they where being sent away from as they where destroying that society.

In a case like that the Society sending them away under any circumstances would think that it was for the best if they never saw them again and wouldn't necessarily worry about what happened to where they where sent.

Col

each supply ship to Mawson Base. At the least they could be useful stacked around the building as extra insulation.

had emergency vessels with all sorts of special gear to help them. Once the aliens got close they'd take to the emergency ships and then use the gear in them to recover what they can from the wreck and use all they can, and their knowledge, to do what they felt they had to do to survive as individuals and as a race. That's all it'll take and there's a lot of good sci-fi stories along that basis.

.

this sub-thread official ended now.

And why exactly is that? Does being extremely intelligent make you less curious as an explorer? I thought that you only get smarter through investigation. Your statement seems contradictory.

"focus all our resources" !! using pictures of screen shots in a painful powerpoint procession, slow as molossas and twice as exciting? And regurgitating the same articles over and over again in the different newsletters ?
Come on, let the kids have a bit of creative downtime; a small laugh in a large busy work-a-day world and you can still sell the air space all around the articles
Guess there won't be any need to look at "the tech' on fridays.

It's legitimately terrifying, all right. But in saying that Iran and No. Korea "could build a crude nuclear weapon if they wanted to," you're opening a can of worms. Most people would say, and could prove to you, that that simply isn't true.
You're also reflecting the standard party line in the US - that Iran and North Korea are major threats to "our security." I won't address the issue of whether they are or not. But I'd just like to say that if they are threats, we should all think very hard about who created those threats. In both cases it was the US itself.
As a matter of fact, a lot of people, and more than likely a majority of people around the world, think that the US, not Iran or No. Korea, is THE major threat to everybody's security. After all, what country that possesses nukes (and that does not include No. Korea and Iran, but it does include Israel and of course the US) has ever actually dropped them on other human beings? And has seriously planned - not only since the end of the Cold War, but very recently - to actually use them again?

Is this verse 2 of the let's get rid of Jay song? I have been considering bailing out on all of CBS Interactive because of obvious biases, lousy blog flame wars etc but now may be the final straw. Geekend is the only remaining blog in the system that has any hope of relevancy. Malware de jour, who suing who for some stupid thing like "I own rounded edges." how tiring! Give us visions of advanced times and exotic lands to explore. It's time for massive invasion to Louisville to demand CONTINUANCE not the end!

Long Live Jay and GEEKEND..

Waiting for Geekend. Wow, how pitiful things must be at TR that you need to drop the thing that makes you unique, not just another PR handout spewing machine.

The super volcano in Yellowstone.
The shift of the continents all over the world. That baby elephant found in Siberia has fresh vegetation in it's stomach which means it was in at least a mild climate if not tropical.

I don't think anyone else in SF has tackled Yellowstone.

5+pb Jackpot 1 in 175,223,510
Gamma Ray 1 in 14,000,000
Super Nova 1 in 10,000,000
5 $1,000,000 1 in 5,153,632
Asteroid Impact 1 in 700,000
4+pb $10,000 1 in 648,975
4 $100 1 in 19,087
3+pb $100 1 in 12,244
3 $7 1 in 360
2+pb $7 1 in 706
1+pb $4 1 in 110
pb $4 1 in 55
Nuclear War 1 in 10

Don't forget the zombie-like ending.!

12 Monkeys?

Nanotechnology gets out of control and turns the surface of the Earth (and us) into grey gunk.

Prince Charles warned of that in 2004 and every one knows that the jug-eared Royal's 2.2 BA from Cambridge in anthropology, archaeology, and history qualifies him for authoritative pronouncements on science.

Odds: Royal Seal of Approval. Gonna happen!

Just as every newspaper needs a comic section, this site needs GeekEnd. Keep it.

I believe the ancient Mayans were predicting the end, not of the world, but of 'Geekend', which is only slightly less catastrophic.

And they were only a few days out!


Farewell Jay and thank you for the enjoyment your weekly column has given me for so long.

All the best.

Andrew Robertson
Wellington, New Zealand

Apparently, you do not consider either (1) eventually, unsustainable population, AKA overpopulation, or (2) global warming with consequent climate changes and sea-level rise, to be existential threats. Those seem far more likely to me than any of the others and we are about as hapless to prevent either one.

Of course, either condition could lead to nuclear warfare, although I believe that a rage for revenge and/or fantasies of glorious martyrdom are more likley to lead to some religious fanatic using a nuclear bomb. What then?

--- Ocie3

Imaging a world where you insert a couple slices of bread into the toaster, only to have the bread molecules somehow commanded to line up, enabling the toaster to communicate with other toasters letting them know that you are attempting to eat breakfast. Suddenly the Rebellion is in full swing, and OUR BREAKFAST IS CANCELLED!! NOOOO!!!!!!

Trust me, it could happen. Once, my blender attacked my right foot and it really hurt.

Which is constantly asking can it cook you some toast because that is what it was Created to do. When it's not making you toast it doesn't have a reason for it's existence.

Col

I think, therefore I toast...

The less menacing and less popular ancient Aztec prediction of a 3rd Fiscal Cliff proposal?

If you believe in Ancient Astronaut theory - then there is a possibility that human genetic modification did occur and that our alien buddies may return.

I find it difficult to believe an intelligent race would travel several light years just to conduct the cosmic equivalent of some high school pranks and to pee in our gene pool.

nt

So you're saying that transforming cro magnon's into humans is the equivalent of peeing in our gene pool? Well I don't want to argue with your notion, however I will assume that you do atleast believe in alien life.

I don't 'believe' in much, and not in anything that has neither scientifically verifiable evidence nor personal experience.

No, I'm not saying 'transforming' cro magnon's in to humans is peeing in our gene pool. I'm saying I find it difficult to accept the notion that anyone traveled light years to perform that 'transformation', especially without following up regularly; or that said 'transformation' occurred outside the processes of Darwinian evolution.

If indeed there is life out there, and it had no reason to visit us other than crop circles and pyramids every 2000 years, then we're better off without such practical jokers.

The White Mice are here and are easily seen.

They not only traveled Light Years but they had the planet made to their Specification especially for this experiment.

It did however take them a very long time to recover from those Telephone Sanitizers and Add people crashing into the planet and Peeing in our Gene Pool early on in the life of the planet and as yet all of the damage that they did has yet to be undone.

Just because so many people don't realize that they are part of the experiment and that they are being observed doesn't mean it's not happening. Like it's so hard to believe that the Experiment wasn't designed to make the Observers seem to be part of the experiment to those involved in it is it?

Col

nt

But let's look at that. We study various small life forms with lifespans much shorter than ours. We don't examine them based on our lifespan, we check them based on theirs.

While we may be involved in Short Term Observations it's also possible that others are involved in Long Term Observations.

There are many experiments here which involve requiring quite a few generations of a life form to be produced and then checked for changes which are not apparent with each individual generation. In a case like that Close Observation can and does cause problems of changes not being recognized as those involved in making the observations don't see any change because the changes are so gradual and those observing them are to closely involved to see what is actually happening.

Col

experiments with Petri dishes etc where you leave them along for a long time to see how they go? Also, who says they aren't watching us all the time and the reports we get about aliens is just additional stimuli they apply?

I'm not saying that's the case, just that it could be.

And our "alien buddies" do return, there's a strong possibility they take one look at the results of their experiment, conclude it was a failure, eradicate their work, and start over.

There's your earworm for the New Year's weekend.

... it was a success, they extract the alien version of antibiotic that the planet produced and toss the rest.

I hope this wasn't about producing oil. They should have kept a closer eye on us.

if the object was to produce CO2, the experiment is an admirable success...

The solution to global warming is for the BEMs to siphon off the CO2. Just keep spewing it and don't worry, folks; our overlords will be here soon.