Article Archive for January 2012
Trailer: The Carrington Event
The above trailer is for a TV series in development. Here’s the official synopsis for The Carrington Event:
Joseph Carrington runs an organic mini-farm on the outskirts of a large, southern town. His rustic lifestyle means he is a bit removed from his family: his wife has spent the last decade pursuing a career in pediatrics; his teenage daughter, Tracy, wants nothing more than to be moving on with her life in a big city; his 10-year-old son has been raised on television, video games and abundance.
It´s a typical day of drama and duties when a solar storm cuts power to the farm. Soon after they discover that all electricity and communications in town are at total blackout as well: Cell phones do not connect, battery powered radios get only static, nothing is transmitting from television networks. There is no way of knowing what is happening outside their encapsulated environment, except …
Emergency Light Bulb + Funny Video
I think this is a great product – it’s an LED bulb that has a battery inside, meaning you get 7 hours of light when your power is out – and it doubles as a flashlight! When the grid goes down at 2AM, and you figure it would be smart to flee to your safe spot – you don’t want to be stumbling around in the dark wasting precious time…
http://store.axiomled.com/AX_RUDOLPH_50_p/ax-rudolph-50.htm
In this video, leading presidential candidates Mitt and Newt discuss the merits of the Axiom LED Rudolph:
X2-Class Solar Flare – But Don’t Worry!
There are several doom’n’gloom news services out there that report every solar flare as if it will cause the end of the world.
SpaceWeather.com has informed us:
Departing sunspot 1402 unleashed an X2-class solar flare today, Jan. 27th, at 18:37 UT.
Now X-class flares are the worst, but they range from X1 to X9:
X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare. Compared to X- and M-class events, C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth.
To put today’s flare in perspective, this is from SolarHam.com:
The latest solar flare ranks # 7 in the list of strongest solar flares during Cycle 24. Below is the updated list showing flare size, date, year and sunspot number.
X6.9 – August 9 2011 (1263)
X2.2 – February …
Solar Storm Causes Pole Shift?
Planetary magnetic fields are generated by flows in the hot, liquid iron cores of the planets. Measurements made by Mariner 10 in 1974/75 showed that Mercury also has a magnetic field. According to the standard models, the dynamo effect in its metal core should generate similar field strengths to those on Earth. Mercury’s magnetic field is 150 times weaker than that of our planet, however. This has recently been confirmed by the Nasa space probe Messenger.
How can the large discrepancy in the field strength be explained? This question has now been answered by a group headed by Karl-Heinz Glassmeier at the Technische Universität Braunschweig. The solar wind – a constant stream of charged particles – plays a significant role. At an average distance from the Sun of only 58 million kilometres – around one third of the distance of the Earth – Mercury is much more exposed to these particles.
“We …
The Final Four Republican Candidates
The leader of the free world has enough power to cause TEOTWAWKI via bad policy or religious motivation. And Obama might be out-voted just before the Mayan calendar ends in December. Even for those who are not in the USA (or Americans who don’t care about politics), each of the remaining four candidates are interesting in their own right
First off is the obvious choice for 2012ers (if they leave religion out of politics) – Ron Paul. The gentleman is obviously intelligent, and he cares about the big picture as well as the rights of the marginalized. A law has just been passed that allows US citizens to be held indefinitely without any trial – in the name of stopping terrorism. This single video is evidence enough that he is needed by the American people:
Next up is Newt Gingrich who just won South Carolina despite the polls predicting otherwise (suggesting to …
Elaine Morgan on Aquatic Apes
Ever wondered why we are hairless compared to other apes? Or why our tears are salty? Or even why we have breasts?
Elaine Morgan has devoted decades to the topic of Aquatic Apes, and I’ve been keenly following her work – here’s a 2009 talk she gave at TED:
What does this have to do with 2012? Well, it dovetails nicely with punctuated equilibrium, global cataclysms and evolution via habitats being flooded. A similar cataclysm in 2012 could lead to further human evolution. Do you want to evolve (with no guarantees it will be for the better) or hide??
Wired & The Science of Doomsday
After all the poorly written 2012 news items of recent weeks, Wired has come out with an excellent article on the scientific possibilities of doomsday. I’ve summarized their list and added my comments:
SuperVolcano
Wired: Yellowstone’s giant volcanic crater has risen about 10 inches in the last decade, suggesting molten rock may be building up underneath. During its lifetime, the megavolcano has probably experienced more than a dozen giant eruptions, Lay says. Lately, it’s been blowing off steam through little vents, but it’s unclear whether it’s gearing up for another Earth-shattering blast.
Rob: The scenarios that scientists should be wary of dismissing are those that have not been witnessed in the modern era. Supervolcanoes might have unique symptoms of an impending eruption. And there’s always the chance that they give us no warning. While they are a major long-term risk, the odds of one erupting in 2012 is low.
Asteroid Accident
Wired: …
Some 2012 Survival Vehicles
This Top 10 list is actually from a car site, but everybody is talking about 2012 this month…
1. Knight XV – fully armored, hand built luxury SUV
2. Pirate 4×4 – not much luggage space!
3. TRAX STI – Subaru WRX turned into a snow mobile.
4. Hummer H1 – dying brand
5. Isuzu VehiCROSS – probably the best little 4WD out there
6. Marauder – quite blast-proof
7. SISU XA-185 – armored personnel carrier
8. Toyota Hilux AT38 Polar – the regular Hilux is my personal choice, and the better value than these dream vehicles for sure
9. MaxiMog – a Mercedes Unimog with lots of cool features
10. Dobbertin Surface Orbiter – hand built amphibious vehicle, read about it
The Knight XV is worthy of being the #1 choice for urban survival. Aside from being armor-plated, it can come equipped with extras like built-in oxygen survival kit, under vehicle magnetic attachment detection system, multiple armoring levels, …
Early Fishing in East Timor
The main thrust of this news item is evidence suggesting humans were fishing 43,000 years ago, whereas the previous earliest date was just 12,000 years ago. But of equal interest was the fish they were catching:
The new finds blow that record out of the water. Sue O’Connor at the Australian National University in Canberra and colleagues dug through deposits at the Jerimalai shelter in East Timor. They discovered 38,000 fish bones from 23 different taxa, including tuna and parrotfish that are found only in deep water. Radiocarbon dating revealed the earliest bones were 42,000 years old.
Amidst the fishy debris was a broken fish hook fashioned from shell, which the team dated to between 16,000 and 23,000 years. “This is the earliest known example of a fish hook,” says O’Connor. Another hook, made around 11,000 years ago, was also found…
I’d be interested to …
Mysterious Stone Wheels / Stored Temporal Patterns
Satellite and aerial photography has revealed mysterious stone ‘wheels’ that are more numerous and older than the Nazca Lines in countries such as Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
The structures are thought to date back 2,000 years, but why they were built is baffling archaeologists and historians.
They most likely have an argricultural purpose – but perhaps there is a mystery to be solved?
——-
I’ve been alerted to a research paper that suggests that the Akashic Records / Mind of God could be real:
Photomultiplier tube measurements during simultaneous productions of nonlocal+ local photon emissions showed conspicuous doubling of the durations of the photon spikes from hydrogen peroxide-hypochlorite reactions if both loci were exposed to the same configurations of changing angular velocities of circular magnetic fields. Different experimentally manipulated temporal patterns of the photon emissions were evident as “spontaneous” spikes within 3 to 5 days after the actual injections when the same magnetic field …
Catastrophe: Guaranteed
Usually I’m telling people that nobody knows for sure what will happen in 2012 – but it’s best to prepare for the worst, just in case. Today I am guaranteeing that certain disasters will occur – just not necessarily in 2012…
Flu Pandemic. It is 100% guaranteed that one day millions of people will die from a killer virus – mostly likely a strain of influenza. The world has never been more interconnected, and the recent movie Contagion highlighted the risks. Experts say we are well overdue for a killer pandemic. There’s tiny chance that scientists can develop a vaccine quick enough to save lives.
Coronal Mass Ejection – powerful enough to knock out satellites and power grids. It has happened before (in the 1800s) and it will certainly happen again. If it happens tomorrow, it has the potential to be a great catastrophe. We have the ability to upgrade power grids …
USDA Behind Bird Killings / Hoekstra on EMP
This time last year there was a lot of talk about mass animal die-offs. These things happen from time to time, but the cluster of events made it newsworthy. Turns out some mass deaths can be attributed to deliberate poisoning by US authorities:
A recent mass die-off event witnessed in Yankton, South Dakota was traced back to the USDA which admitted to carrying out a mass poisoning of the birds.
Read the whole story at Earth-Issues
—-
Congressman Pete Hoekstra was recently heavily involved in US Intelligence:
Mr. Hoekstra, as a former Chairman of the HPSCI one of the best informed men in the world, will share his views on the global threats Americans face, now and in the future. Here is a rare opportunity for our audience to question the man who, until recently, was taskmaster of our nation’s spy agencies.
On Wednesday, noon Eastern time he speaks with EMPact Radio, a weekly broadcast devoted to …
2012: Transit of Venus
The planet Venus was important to the Maya civilization, who developed a religious calendar based in part upon its motions, and held the motions of Venus to determine the propitious time for events such as war. They named it Noh Ek’, the Great Star, and Xux Ek’, the Wasp Star. The Maya were aware of the planet’s synodic period, and could compute it to within a hundredth part of a day. (source: Wikipedia)
The Transit of Venus is pretty much the same as a solar eclipse, except that it is Venus passing in front of the Sun, and not the Moon. The other key difference is that from our point of view Venus appears much smaller in the sky, and it will not blot out the Sun:
Transits of Venus only occur roughly every 100 years, in pairs that are 8 years apart. The first of the current pair was in 2004, and the second is …
Ancient Mayans Could Measure Solar Activity
Many ancient cultures knew of planets that could not be seen with the naked eye, and therefore it is possible they counted sunspots as well. Yet there is a far easier way to keep track of solar activity: the Aurora Borealis (or northern lights) is a crude indicator that anybody can use.
“…northern lights activity may be taken as an indicator of the solar activity level.”
Solar Activity and Earth’s Climate, by Rasmus E. Benestad – page 166
Crude it may be, but keeping a count of when the Aurora Borealis is visible could be enough to spot long term patterns of solar activity.
Modern science has only been monitoring solar storms for two centuries. Ancient cultures that existed for a much longer period of time could have noticed a pattern that we are unaware of. Such a pattern could point to major solar activity in late 2012.
The earliest known account of northern lights appears …
Disasters Can Destroy Economies
For many 2012ers economics is a boring topic. Unless you have achieved the dream of 100% self-sufficiency, any decline in the economy will affect you. And that could range from hardship to starvation.
In the current economic climate there are three factors that put businesses at risk:
high debt levels
just-in-time supply chains
globalization
High debts leave little room for unexpected events, such as natural disasters. Volcanic ash can drive airlines to bankruptcy, simply because they couldn’t fly some routes for a while.
Just-in-time supply chains are the equivalent of people living from hand to mouth. No stockpiles of supplies, totally dependent on others. Where that most affects you and I is supermarkets. Without their supply chain, supermarket shelves would be empty after just three days of regular purchasing, or less than one day if people learned of the problem and made panic purchases.
Globalization means that disasters far away can affect us. For example, the recent …
