An Axe to Grind

An axe is a very simple but very useful tool. Most folks probably don't even know how to swing one correctly. Cool Tools has a short review of the USDA's free guidebook on the use and maintenance of the axe.

The USDA Forest Service has a number of other interesting looking publications, including some on rock crushing and using saws.

Photo by TinyWhiteLights

New Scientist interview with James Lovelocke

James Lovelocke has a pretty bleak outlook for our future in this interview with New Scientist. Every day it sounds a little more like global warming is going to be an apocalyptic event.

DIY grow lights and gas masks

A couple of cool DIY projects from Popular Science.

A homemade gas mask, based on designs from a 1942 article in the Popular Science magazine.

These indoor grow lights will keep you and your plants safely inside, away from the rigors of the environmental disaster or zombie apocalypse going on outside. Assuming you have a power source, of course.

It's a good day for a doomsday

Discovery Space blogger Cosmic Ray has a neat article about some upcoming doomsday prophecies and a look at what an impacting comet can do to a planet.

Link

Solar Storm Season Could Plunge Earth Into Total Blackout, Warn Scientists

io9, a sci-fi blog (and sister site to my favorite blog ever, Lifehacker), writes about coming solar storms and their potential to knock out electronic systems. If it seems far fetched, it's really not. We've already seen storms like these - 20 years ago, they knocked out Canada's power grid. I can't imagine that there are a lot of shielded systems around today capable of dealing with something like this.

Link

Nuclear Lighthouses

Holy cow, how many of these are there? It makes me wonder how many other abandoned and damaged nuclear facilities there are all over the world.

Via Warren Ellis' Blog

Garage Biology and Comets

New Scientist has two articles today concerning what I see as potential causes for TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It).

Rise of the garage genome hackers is about people making new biological organisms in their garages. I think it's fairly obvious how that could go wrong, even if it is unlikely.

Comet smashes triggered ancient famine tells us about a series of comets that hit the earth in 536 AD and triggered 18 months of darkness that caused world wide famine. Even in 536 AD, when we weren't so detached from our environment and dependent on technology for continued survival, that must have been very much like the end of the world.

Falcon Rock Command

Faclon Rock Command is a zombie survival blog. It was part of a viral marketing campaign for Alive, a series that doesn't even exist yet, but probably won't ever get made. The interesting thing about Falcon Rock Command is that it takes place on a longer time scale than most zombie works, focusing on continuing long-term survival rather than the immediate horror of the zombies.

Via RPPR's Interview with Matt Vancil, one of the writers involved. (The piece is about 39 min in.)