Should it be functional or fashionable? Should it say “survivor” or “apocalypse fashion victim”? Should it carry a message?

(more…)

Apparently we hit it.

[From Military sources: Dying spy satellite hit by missile - CNN.com]

(more…)

That spy satellite’s been in the news a lot in the last few days.

(more…)

In the event of apocalypse, remember the advice of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”: “Don’t Panic”.

(more…)

So you’re looking up at the sky one day and you see something and you’re not sure what it is…

What’s your first reaction? “Swamp gas”? “The planet… Venus”?

Apparently if you’re in California, Colorado or Texas, you’re more likely to think it’s a UFO. And by “UFO”, I don’t really mean “unidentified thing in the sky”, I mean little green men.

(more…)

Google hit a new milestone a couple of days ago - its stock didn’t hit a new high, that’s come and gone - but it did close at exactly $666 on November 26th.

(more…)

Most people probably hadn’t heard of sarin gas before the 1994 and 1995 attacks in Japan by the Aum Shinrikyo cult.

Sarin is an odorless, colorless gas which damages your nervous system if you inhale it or get it on your skin. It inhibits the mechanism by which your body allows its muscles to relax, leading to convulsions and a loss of bodily control, inability to breath and likely death.

The only good thing about sarin is that it doesn’t store well, which makes it difficult to stockpile for use as a weapon.

“Aum Shinrikyo” used sarin in two terrorist attacks in Japan, in 1994 and 1995, killing a total of 19 people.

WFMU describes Aum Shinrikyo’s beliefs as “a wild mixture of Buddhism, Hinduism, Nostradamus, and the Book of Revelations” - something which I normally would respond to as “you can’t get there from here” - but apparently you can.

Informed by everything from buddhism and anime to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, they started out studying yogic meditation (the Wikipedia article on them uses another unlikely combination of words, “elite meditation boutique”), they became more militant over time, driving around in an armored Mercedes, until finally they involved themselves in terrorist attacks, kidnapping and microwave incineration.

In a Buckaroo Banzai-like twist, their mostly blind leader, Shoko Asahara, not only masterminded their transformation from meditators to terrorists, but also recorded music.

(more…)

What I want to know this morning is, are there any prophecies about the two-headed red slider turtle bringing about the end of the world? Maybe tying into the whole thing about the nature of reality being “turtles all the way down”?

(more…)

Phil Plait posts the likely answer to the question of what’s going on with the Peruvian meteorite - it really was a meteorite, and the reason people got sick was that the area it struck was tainted with arsenic.

No sign of the Anti-Christ at this time.

(more…)

Hey did you hear the one about the meteorite and Peru?

Something hit the countryside in Peru leaving a giant muddy crater and a bunch of sick people. Almost everyone’s calling it a meteorite, and at least one person is connecting it to a prophecy of the third Anti-Christ by Nostradamus. I can’t keep track of how many Anti-Christs there are, or are supposed to be… maybe kids will dress up as the Anti-Christ for Halloween this year. But in a sprawling screed that connects… lots of dots… with some very shaky lines, The Temple of Love mentions Hitler, George Bush, Peru, Nostradamus, Tom Cruise and the Peruvian meteorite all in one very long breath. Time to inhale, please. Or maybe it’s too late for that.

Boing Boing likens it to the Andromeda Strain.

Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomy blog, says it doesn’t really sound like a meteorite… usually they’re small enough to burn up completely or large enough to behave differently from what’s been observed in Peru.

(more…)