Spiked Battle Hammer

Saw this at the Maryland Renaissance Festival and thought this was a notable weapon/art piece. 

It’s a War (Battle) Hammer with a spike on one side and an animal head for the hammer on the other. 

TV shows like Vikings and Z(i.e. zombie) Nation have made these sort of famous again.

It’s sort of crazy the things people used in the past to fight and kill with. 

Imagine getting clobbered with one of these…ugly!

But before guns, when the battle was up close and personal, what choice did people really have to defend themselves with.

It was life or death…and many in the most gruesome ways ended up the latter. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Preppers Preparing

A very interesting article in the Washington Post on the prepper movement.

People are concerned about the inaction, misdirection, and chaos of where things are going, and they are preparing for a potential post-apocalyptic America and world.

Grave worries seem to be coming from a multitude of concerns whether about an eventual bursting of the bubble of our national debt and the downfall of our economy and associated good jobs, an outbreak of ebola or a deadly influenza, a dirty bomb by Iran or North Korea, a cyber attack or EMP that takes out our critical infrastructure including electricity and anything with computer circuits, or a devastating natural disaster, many of which are considered “overdue.”

The preppers are moving to the American Redoubt (pacific northwest–Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington and Oregon.

They are buying and building defensible homes (bunkers and “fortresses”), stockpiling food, weapons, and ammunition, and preparing for life off the grid with water sources, solar farms, and secure storage.

While survivalists have always existed, the numbers of concerned, disaffected, and generally disgruntled citizens seems be growing exponentially along with prepper network shows, books, blogs, websites, and sales of survival gear.

Many people seem to either feel insecure, fearful, uncertain, or that we are simply going in the wrong direction, and that it is only a matter of time until there is some sort of major earth shattering, society destabilizing disaster, and not everyone will survive.

So from home shelters to luxury underground bunkers, preppers are putting their money and efforts where their mouths are, and are preparing for potentially the worst.

If as all agree that an important part of the government’s job is to ensure the national security of the country, and protect life, liberty, and property, then something seems to be going very wrong that many people are feeling so insecure and unprotected physically and in terms of their human rights.

From corruption to divisiveness, dependency, and dirty dealing, communication and trust between government and the governed is being needlessly undermined.

Why can’t we get some decent leaders with a solid moral compass, and a real plan to bring us back from forever walking the brink to a nation of strength and unity, prosperity and health, and a superpower not only today, but for the future, once again. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Autocomplete: Do Zombies (What)?

The autocomplete feature in search engines can tell us a lot about what people are thinking and asking about.

According to the New York Times (21 November 2012) “sites like Google and Bing are showing the precise questions that are most frequently asked.”

Autocomplete suggests the rest of your search term based on the most popular things that others have asked for, so it speeds up your search selection by anticipating what you are looking for and by reducing spelling errors in your search terms.

Another advantage to seeing popular searches is to understand what the larger population is thinking about and looking for–this gives us insight into culture, norms, values, and issues of the time.

I did a simple google search of “do zombies” and as you can see the most popular searches are about whether zombies: poop, exist, sleep, “really exist,” and have brains. 

Even more disappointing than people asking whether zombies really exist is that the #1 search on zombies is about whether they poop–what does that say about our lagging educational system?

I would at least have imagined that the preppers–those infatuated with the end of the world and with preparation for survival–would at least be searching for terms like:

Do zombies…

pose a real threat to human survival?

have (certain) vulnerabilities?

ever die?

have feelings?

have children?

beat vampires (or vice versa)?

I suppose autocomplete is good at crowdsourcing search terms of what others are thinking about, but it is only as good as those doing the ultimate searching–our collection intelligence at work. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Will You Survive?

If you are interested in your chances of survival in the event of a nuclear blast, check out the website forWould I Survive a Nuke? 

I ran the simulation as if was still living in my old neighborhood of Riverdale, New York and 50 megaton bombs were hitting 5 cities with populations over 1 million people.

 

On the map, you can see the horrible destruction–gone is Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.

 

The concentric circles around each blast shows 5 levels of devastation as follows (associated with the colors zones of red, pink, orange, yellow, and clear/outside the blast):

 

 

This is not a pretty picture and warrants our consideration of how critically important is missile defense and homeland security is.

 

This position was advocated by the late Dr. Fred Ikle the former Pentagon official who passed away this week on 10 November 2011–Ikle challenged the status quo policy of MAD asking “Why should mutually assured destruction be our policy?” -WSJ

 

I, for one, don’t like any of the 5 scenarios above and would like to keep our society and way of life going with a strong national security posture that includes the gamut of diplomatic, defensive, and offensive capabilities for safeguarding our national security.

 

With this in mind, this coming week with the deadline for Super Committee to come up with recommendations for reducing our budget deficit or else the automatic $1.2 trillion cut goes into effect–half of which is to come from the Department of Defense is extremely concerning.

 

Moreover, with well-known hostile nations having achieved (North Korea) or very near to achieving (Iran) nuclear weapons capabilities, we must take the threats of nuclear attack to us and our allies very seriously or else we can end up with not just scary looking colored concentric circles on a map, but the very real deadly effects they represent.

End Of The World, Almost

Recently, I have become addicted to a number of shows on the Discovery channel. 

I know it sounds sort of boring, right?–but they actually have some fairly macho and educational shows.

From survivalist shows like Dual Survival, Man Vs. Wild, Man Woman Wild, to shows about special forces training like Surviving the Cut and even One Man Army.

I also enjoy this new show called Curiosity that “asks and answers the most fundamental questions facing the world today” such as Is There a Parallel Universe? or How Will the World End?

In “How Will The World End”, Discovery explores 5-almost end of the world scenarios, as follows:

1) Arc Storm — Similar to the flood from the bible, where it rains incessantly for a month or so, but unlike the flood that destroys the world, this one hits a specific area like California.  Anticipated dead is 380,000 and injured 1,140,000. (10% chance in the next 50 years)

2) Asteroid Strike – Like a number of movies such as Deep Impact that forewarn of the dire consequences of a direct hit to our planet, a moderate collision would kill 60,000 and injure 200,000.  (5% chance of occurrence over the lives of our children)

3) Mega-Earthquake – Hitting approximately 5 states in the midwest and killing 600,000 and injuring 2,000,000.  (10% chance in 50 years)

4) Mile-High Tsunami – Traveling at 500 mph, wiping out the eastern seaboard and killing 4,000,000.  (Probability is one in a 1000)

5) Super Volcano – Major series of volcanic eruptions in Yellowstone National Park that spews ash virtually covering the entire planet and would kill 100,000,000 people.  (Scientists estimate this happens every 600,000 years)

While the last 2 end of life scenarios are quite remote, the first three taken together yield an almost 25% chance of a doomsday-like scenario over the next 50 years and this is just those scenarios–it doesn’t account for a maniac detonating a nuclear packed suitcase bomb or spreading an infectious biological disease across the globe.  

These foreboding predictions about what could happen can easily depress and make us feel that even trying is hopeless.

But this morning, I listened on TV to Joel Osteen, who gives a pretty darn good sermon, and he said regarding faith, “Do every day what you can and then let it go!”

While we have to do everything we can to protect our world and make it safe and sustainable, some things truly are beyond human control.  

And once we’ve done our part and our best, we’ve got to step back and just have some faith, as Joel Osteen says: “Don’t put a question mark where G-d puts a period”–that really resonates.

We can ask why this or that happens, but at the end of the day, what G-d decides for us is often beyond our mere human comprehension.  

Easier said than done for sure, especially, when facing down situations scarier than any shown or imagined in the survival shows mentioned.

So Dave and Cody–And Seal Team Six–even you guys are outgunned when the hand of G-d says it’s time for history to take a major turn of events.

But as Joel Osteen would say, I’ll just put that in the “I don’t understand it” file.

(Source Photo: here)

>Doomsday In Style

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Surely, there have always been those with survivalist tendencies among us. But if you are paying attention, there is a new rage now for luxury doomsday shelters!

Despite all the technology advancement we have made in the last century–more automation, more information, more communication, more connectivity than ever–people are still afraid of the unpredictability and the uncontrollability out there.

Maybe it’s the technology itself that even contributes to those fears–someone pushing “the button”, someone unleashing a dangerous new something (nuclear this, bio that, chemical something else), or someone even causing mayhem through the very technology that underpins our society through some sort of cyber-attacks.

Some examples of doomsday shelters for the “rich and famous”:

– Wired Magazine reported on 29, March 2011 in an article entitled Missile Silo Condos about a software engineer who purchased an Atlas F decommissioned missile silo and converted it into an “untra-safe energy-efficient fortress” with GE Monogram stainless steel appliances and Kohler fixtures. The owner is offering $900,000 “condo suite packages” including a five-year food supply and “simulated window views with light levels calibrated to time of day” as well as electricity powered geothermal energy and wind turbines, a theatre, pool, and waterfall, and of course, as a military grade security system. Everything needed to survive and at the same time enjoy the luxury accommodations.

– Similarly, Forbes Magazine (9 May 2011) reports in Selling The Apocalypse, that Robert Vicino, a property developer is building a network of luxury underground bunkers for 6,000 people. “For $25,000 to $50,000 a head [half-price is for children] each applicant will own at least 100 square feet of space…equipped with a medical center, classroom, theater, gym, and detention area to jail unruly residents.”

According to PopSci (7 October 2010) on the same, there will be 20 such Vicino facilities each within 150-200 miles of major U.S. cities; and the one in Barstow, California is “built to withstand 50-magaton nuclear blast 10 miles away, 450 mph winds, a magnitude-10 earthquate, 10 days of 1,250 degree F surface fires and three weeks beneath any flood…and soon-to-be-installed air filtration system will also neutralize any biological, chemical, or nuclear attack.” In addition to the safety provided, it is supposed to be as luxurious an accommodation as a modern-day cruise ship! Note: the video is from their company website Vivos and on Youtube.

So what is going on here?

Are people’s fear being capitalized on? Are some simply catering to some eccentrics or the wealthy and their ability to perhaps splurge a little? Or is this a new type of life insurance or as Vicino put it “life assurance”? Perhaps, a little of all of the above.

I suppose there is enough out there to be afraid of, but the challenge it seems is not to create shelters for the few to survive, but rather to create enough genuine safeguards for the many to reasonably thrive over the long term. Is this doable or are we facing a ticking clock? And if a ticking clock are we all just going to do the best we can for ourselves – will we “fiddle while Rome burns?”

For me the prospect of hunkering down enjoying the stainless steel appliances, waterfalls, movies, and gym membership while the rest of mankind is getting eaten by Zombies doesn’t quite sit right, although I can see the appeal when faced with the alternative.

I vote for continuing to build better technology and if you can afford the life assurance, all the power to you!