Pulling the plug on a broken world

Archive for February, 2007

Boston continues its war on objects

02/28/07 11:10 AM

Still on a roll after detonating a suspicious-looking Lite-Brite, today the Boston Bomb squad detonated what was apparently a suspicious-looking
traffic counter. That will teach the terrorists over in the traffic control division.

Life Imitates The Onion, again

02/26/07 1:01 PM

Well, if right-wing ideologues have anything to do with “life,” that is. The funny thing is, while this:
Fears of Canada-Mexico superhighway driving U.S. critics loco
Are North American governments secretly conspiring to build a “NAFTA superhighway,” four football fields wide, from Mexico to Canada, to bypass regulatory controls and whisk goods swiftly to market?
looks superficially […]

Open the Future: An Eschatological Taxonomy

02/22/07 11:16 AM

Back in December Jamais Cascio came up withan eschatological taxonomy to categorize the various kinds and severities of apocalypse scenarios. Below is the quick summary, but the full version includes examples, chances of survival (of civilization, humanity, or biological life itself), etc.

Regional Catastrophe
Human Die-Back
Civilization Extinction

a. Human Extinction-Engineered
b. Human Extinction-Natural
Biosphere Extinction
Planetary Extinction

Nice to have […]

Coffee and communities

02/21/07 2:21 PM

John Robb has very interesting analysis of the state of the world, but I especially enjoyed his short post on the importance of a resilient community during the coming times of tubulence:
John Robb’s Weblog: Coffee and communities
&ellipsis;the center of gravity for resilience against the panoply of systemic threats we will face in the future. […]