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Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists

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♠ Final ♠
01/13/09

In reply to Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists
Fertile Land and shotgun shells my friends.

More importantly what are we going to do with the bodies of all the nerds that die of interweb withdrawl?
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
01/13/09

@Final: Plow 'em under, they will make your land more fertile.

(Pls wait till I'm actually dead kthx)
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newgalactic
01/13/09

In reply to Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists
After the power grid blows:

1. What will we use our newly acquired big screen for?

2. Will we all suddenly find softball leagues very popular?

3. Country Living vs. City Living ...finally answered.

4. Grandma's clout suddenly sky-rockets?

5. Will ho-downs come back into style?
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@newgalactic:

1. Dining room tables.

2. HAHAHAHAHAHAH

3. Cities contain more concentrated populations of delicious terrified people.

4. Grandma will be kept chained to the radiator in the basement.

5. About fucking time ho-downs came back.
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SilvanaCassiopeia
01/13/09

In reply to Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists
Oh my god, people may actually get out more, maybe umm...MEET other humans and interact face to face. CHILDREN may actually go out and play! With REAL toys and touch REAL ground and snowboard on the actual snow! It's mind blowing!
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Annalee Newitz
01/13/09

@SilvanaCassiopeia: So scary! ::shiver::
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@SilvanaCassiopeia: Snowboard? Here in NorCal it's 75 degrees outside! Holy crap! GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL!
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Klebert L. Hall
01/13/09

In reply to Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists
Well, it would have to be really bad solar weather, for a global blackout...

-Kle.
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@Klebert L. Hall: Optimism, that's what we're all about here!
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Pope John Peeps II
01/13/09

@Klebert L. Hall: How come you sign everything you write, when your name is DIRECTLY ABOVE IT.

It kind of looks like you're one of those guys who writes in a diary as if you're already famous, and your diary is going to be published, so you try really hard to write really really pithy things, but everything ends up sounding like rewrites of Oscar Wilde quotes.
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Garrison Dean: R.O.A.C.H.
01/13/09

In reply to Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists
God Damn! I'm so friggin excited for the apocalypse.
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@Grrsn Dn: Shocking!
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Themindtaker
01/13/09

In reply to Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists
Space is in trouble! Now's your chance!

Also, this would just shut everything down and maybe delete all RAM-type stuff, right? I mean, couldn't a lot of stuff would be able to just be turned back on, as though a fuse had just been blown?
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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
01/13/09

@Themindtaker: In theory, sure, but the question is: how many fuses are getting blown, and how big are they?

A transformer blowing, while in many ways like a fuse blowing, is a lot bigger and a lot harder to replace. And if they all blow at once? And if the store that you're going to go to buy more ALSO has no power? And the traffic lights are out, etc. etc.

I don't know if it'd really do that, but "power grid collapse" would be a pretty catastrophic event.
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@braak: Believe you me, even when the fuse for the power supply for your laptop blows, replacing that's a bitch. It was a nightmare for me back in my power supply engineering days... *curls into fetal position*
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Nefilim
01/13/09

@Themindtaker:

I think it really fucks with wiring and circuit boards entirely. A whole lot of overhauling would be required to get things back up and running. It would be essentially a new dark age for at least 3-4 years.

I think it would be interesting to see our generation dealing with the lack of electronic entertainment. There will definitely be rioting...Start stocking up on bear arms!
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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
01/13/09

@crashedpc: I was thinking of fuses in the house, which aren't so hard to replace (and can be worked around with pennies and gum wrappers). But yes, the fuses in other things are a pain in the ass.
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@Nefilim: Are bear arms like bear claws? Mm...
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Annalee Newitz
01/13/09

@Themindtaker: Nothing I've read suggests it would erase hard drives. But without electrical devices to access those drives, they might as well be dead. Imagine the volume of weeping that would emerge from all those Seekrit Google Server Farms. Though I bet those places are protected from solar storms.
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@Annalee Newitz: Imagine the volume of weeping coming from those with terabytes of internet porn. Not that I would know.
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Gann
01/13/09

@Themindtaker: A good overview of EMP damage:

[www.aussurvivalist.com]

Keep in mind though, that if the sun really starts ramping up its radiation production it will be much more prolonged and widespread than a singular event.
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Moff
01/13/09

In reply to Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists
At the risk of sounding like a fucking idiot, I have to say I didn't realize until fairly recently just how small Earth is compared with the sun, and just how much lethal solar radiation is washing through the solar system all the time.

I guess I'm glad I have a better understanding now. But I'm also, like, a lot more worried.
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goldfarb
01/13/09

@Moff: prepare for brain explosion:
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Moff
01/13/09

@goldfarb: Amazing. But how did they get the camera to zoom out so far?
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Moff
01/13/09

@goldfarb: More seriously, I'm mildly skeptical of that last statement, because the distances between galaxies (while obviously vast) aren't relatively as great as the distances between stars, in general. Which is why you have galaxies passing through each other.
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@Moff: We're lucky we still have some ozone left to protect us against the metric fucktons of EM radiation and whatnot that not just the sun, but I think other "cosmic entities" are emitting and are just arriving now.
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goldfarb
01/13/09

@Moff: true...like the relative space between atoms - HUGE distances...

@crashedpc: ozone, schmozone...it's the magnetic field that is keeping out asses in the clover.
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@goldfarb: Melp, my bad, ozone protects us from the UV rays. Delicious, bronze goddess creating UV rays.
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Nefilim
01/13/09

@goldfarb:

That goes to show how insignificant the human race really is.

I need a bottle of gin and a blunt now...ill be in the corner dwelling
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@Nefilim: Got room in that corner for two? I'm reminded of the Total Perspective Vortex. Only it's not geared towards me.
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Moff
01/13/09

@Nefilim: Or, when you consider that we're at all, we haven't been exploded yet, and we've figured all this shit out in a relatively short amount of time, I think it's entirely fair to say it goes to show how genuinely amazing we are.
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@Moff: Stop, I can't take the swinging between insignificance and gradioseness! It's like I'm on an emotional rollercoaster!
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Moff
01/13/09

@crashedpc: This intern came into the cube I share with some other people yesterday, and she was like, "Are there envelopes in here?" And we were like, "We're not sure. We don't think so." (We're in a temporary office.)

And then she was like, "OK...wait, what are those?" And she grabbed a box of envelopes! And we were like, "Awesome!" And then she was like, "Oh, they're not the kind I need." And we were like, "Oh, that sucks," all deflated and shit. And then she was like, "No! Wait! They are the kind I need!"

And I said, "Man, this has been a roller-coaster ride of emotion!" Which I thought was hilarious. But she kind of glared. Interns.
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corpore-metal
01/13/09

@Moff: That is until we find or make critters that are faster at this science thing than we are. The universe might be full of them and we'd never know it.

Corpore Metal: Putting the monkey boys in their place since 1963.
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/13/09

@Moff: Did you do the arm wave thing? I love it when I do that and people get all pissed cuz I'm like, "I love getting taken for a ride!"
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Moff
01/13/09

@corpore-metal: WE CAN ALL BE SPECIAL. STOP HARSHING MY MELLOW.

@crashedpc: I didn't even think of that! Anyway, it all happened so fast.
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corpore-metal
01/13/09

@Moff: You definitely are special Moff! No doubt.

Just don't know about the rest of us. Me, I'm the guy who yells, "I'm not," when Brian says, "You are individuals!"
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Moff
01/13/09

@corpore-metal: You definitely are special Moff!

Mom?
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Dr Emilio Lizardo
01/13/09

@Moff: I think he meant in the special ed, mittens clipped to coat, note pinned to chest sort of way.
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Moff
01/13/09

@DrEmilioLizardo: No, that's how my mom means it, too.
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Gann
01/13/09

In reply to Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists
Books will not be the only form of entertainment. There will also be looting, pillaging, and trying to survive all the looting and pillaging.
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Mount_Prion
01/13/09

In reply to Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists
This version of The Day the Earth Stood Still would be far less disastrous than the Keanu Reaves one.
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