So a couple of weeks ago I happened across an article on Cracked.com that was a sample chapter in a book called Everything is Going to Kill Everybody. I don't remember how I came across it, I don't follow Cracked.com.
After reading that, I determined it was worth getting. I have a morbid interest in doomsday, so the book fell in line with my sense of humor. For the entire 2 years and 105 days I've been doing my blog, I've only read 21 books. Yeah, I'm that bad... I do my reading online.
A few of the disasters covered in the book are a bit unrealistic, like the hypercane or verneshot. The part about robots pointed out a bunch of new technologies that are more-or-less harmless by themselves, but when combined you get an overemotional flesh-eating monstrosity. Why would such technologies be combined? Well why would accelerometers, cameras, and clocks be combined? They are such different technologies, yet they are useful when combined. Just look at the iPhone.
So it will be with other technologies like the EATR (Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot). It can eat bio-matter (like plants or meat) to power itself. How cool would it be to have a lawnmower that feeds itself on the very grass it cuts? Of course, meat is the most efficient fuel for the EATR, so it might rather eat you than your lawn...
The book also covered other more mundane doomsdays, like the asteroid Apophis that will buzz past Earth closer than our geosynchronous satellites in 2029. Depending upon the small gravitational effect those satellites have on it, it has a very good chance of colliding with Earth on its next pass in 2036. It'd be like the dinosaurs all over again. But perhaps by then the supervolcano we call Yellowstone National Park would have already killed us.
It really was a hilarious book, in a frightening non-fiction sort of way.
I finally delved into the Amazon Associates program, so the link to the book here is a referral link. Amazon.com handles all the transactions, so it's not like you have to trust me with your credit card number. I figured since I have to declare my blog as a business on my taxes, I may as well act like it is one!
1: The two books I read are Everything is Going to Kill Everybody (duh), and The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
«Everything is Going to Kill Everybody»
Labels:
Disasters,
Doomsday,
Flying Spaghetti Monster,
Science,
Technology
Share this post on:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Label Cloud
About Me
Alaska
Animals
Anonymous
Art
Atheism
Bicycle
Blog Reactions
Blog Upgrades
Blogger
Blunt Honesty
Buildings
Caturday
Clothing
Code
Comics
Computers
Copyright
Cruise Ship Watch
Death
Desktop Backgrounds
Disasters
Doomsday
Economy
eMail
Emergency
Energy
Flying Spaghetti Monster
Food
Free Speech
Friends
Games
Gay Rights
Google
Goth
Holidays
Idaho
Idle Mind
Illness
Injury
Internet
Japan
Jury Duty
Ketchikan
Large Hadron Collider
Lasers
Law
Lies
Magic: the Gathering
Master Marf
Meme
Milestones
Money
Motivational Monday
Mountain
Mountain Dew
Music
Musical Taste
Photos
Poems
Politics
Polls
Pony
Power Outage
Problems
PSAs
Random
Reader Opinion
Reader Submission
Relationships
Religion
Scam
Science
Science Fiction
Scientology
Screenshots
Sea-Monkeys
Ships
Sims 3 Legacy
Social Norms
Software
South Park
Space
Stupidity
Technology
The Game
Tourism
Trail
Unusual Ads
Vacation
Weapons
Weather
Web Feeds
Word Play
Work
YouTube
0 comments:
Post a Comment
No text box here, or can't enter text?
Click here to go to the old style comment form!
Thanks for taking the time to comment.