Can you really call yourself a prepper if you don’t have a faraday cage with a spare laptop inside? (The intersection of doomerism and tech is amusingly cyberpunk sometimes.) Actually, what’s the most useful way you’d prepare for a worldwide grid outage? This isn’t that, but sometimes I wonder if a future CME might be as catastrophic as some say.
You're more likely to experience a weekslong power outage by living in Texas in midwinter than by a CME. Of course if you're in Texas in midwinter when a CME happens, you are well and truly screwed.
Coronal mass ejection impact imminent, two more earth-directed CMEs
291–300 of 418 posts
Re: Coronal mass ejection impact imminent, two more earth-directed CMEs
#292"The Threat of a Solar Superstorm Is Growing—And We’re Not Ready" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-threat-of-a-s... Discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40196820
Humanity is good in sweeping problems under the rug and not preparing to various threats.
Re: Coronal mass ejection impact imminent, two more earth-directed CMEs
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like the response, seems very astute of an observation. Interpreting this in the worse light possible… in other words, gate keeping. I think a lot more people could understand and be mature in a lot more things if artificial and archaic barriers weren’t erected. I think not trusting the public is a recipe for an obscure elite ruling class. Sure, not a whole lot of people will get it but at least be open about it. T…
That's a reason to not use Latin; but when it comes to numbers and scales… I was surprised to discover that other people are themselves often surprised when they learn that a billion is a thousand times larger than a million.
Re: Coronal mass ejection impact imminent, two more earth-directed CMEs
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be a logistics officer for an Infantry battalion. Most of the comments down thread underestimate water consumption. Depending on the climate, you'll want the following daily quantities [1]: - 2-3 gallons for drinking - 1.5 gallons for hygiene (can skip for a while) - 0.5 gallons for food prep The planning factor for military operations was 8 gallons per person per day. Water is heavy—8 pounds per gallon—and…
> 8 pounds per gallon It never occurred to me that people needed this spelled out, but I guess it's simpler in most of the world where 1L = 1kg.
> It never occurred to me that people needed this spelled out, but I guess it's simpler in most of the world where 1L = 1kg.
It's easy in gallons and pounds, too, if the correct gallon is used: 10 pounds per imperial gallon of water, by definition.
Re: Coronal mass ejection impact imminent, two more earth-directed CMEs
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
This paper estimates Kp = (8.4±0.8). Because the scale is logarithmic, the difference between 8 and 9.2 is obviously quite extreme. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/asna.2022007...
I'm sure there are articles discussing the point, but I wonder why citizen-facing scales don't use more linear representations for things.
Citizen-facing scales should optimally go from 0 (no concern) to 10 (either world-shattering event or highest value ever observed). Due to the nature of how many natural disasters scale in impact on humans, this will often result in an logarithmic scale.
Re: Coronal mass ejection impact imminent, two more earth-directed CMEs
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
Humanity is good in sweeping problems under the rug and not preparing to various threats.
Also good at response. Ozone situation was fixed and now we actually track the asteroids.
Re: Coronal mass ejection impact imminent, two more earth-directed CMEs
#297Implications! - Power systems: Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems will mistakenly trip out key assets from the grid. - Spacecraft operations: May experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems. - Other systems: Induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF radio propagation sporadic, satellite navigation degraded f…
Yeah, there's usually no ill effects reported even from pretty strong ones, but lights in Stockholm, Sweden (which is itself pretty far south for an aurora in the first place) were reported to flicker earlier this evening. That's pretty remarkable.
Re: Coronal mass ejection impact imminent, two more earth-directed CMEs
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Humanity is good in sweeping problems under the rug and not preparing to various threats.
Also good at response. Ozone situation was fixed and now we actually track the asteroids.
Re: Coronal mass ejection impact imminent, two more earth-directed CMEs
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also good at response. Ozone situation was fixed and now we actually track the asteroids.
Kind of tired of hearing this. Citing one initiative from 50 years ago is the definition of cherry picking, I'm sorry. The trend is that humans are incapable of long term global initiatives. I'm sure some game theory guy could prove it.
Re: Coronal mass ejection impact imminent, two more earth-directed CMEs
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also good at response. Ozone situation was fixed and now we actually track the asteroids.
Kind of tired of hearing this. Citing one initiative from 50 years ago is the definition of cherry picking, I'm sorry. The trend is that humans are incapable of long term global initiatives. I'm sure some game theory guy could prove it.
Doesn't this sort of assertion leave no room for the possibility of learning to do so?