hermes

Apart from playtesting and catching up with a few old friends the highlight of the weekend was going to see The Day After Tomorrow. I didn't expect too much and thusly I wasn't too disappointed either. The visuals were pretty stunning, although the 'story' ('plot' would be far too generous) is flimsy and is spun simply around the destruction of the world. Not sure about the science of those giant cold-sucking cyclones, and I doubt burning a few books would protect anyone from the cold of -50 degrees either. However, in real life numerous mammoths *have* been found flash-frozen in Siberia and Alaska and so it is possible that some kind of freezing could happen pretty damn fast.

Actually got me thinking about general apocalyptic scenarios. TBH in some respects a world-shattering cataclysm could do us no end of good - assuming sizeable population survives then at least there'd be the opportunity to start society again, maybe doing better next time around. And there's be plenty of space so we could avoid war & politics for a while. And some of us would get to feel useful by rebuilding the place.

Getting hit by an asteroid is the worst scenario I can think of. No only would at least a third of the planet be incinerated or concussed to bits, but the dust and debris would pollute the atmosphere for generations - it'd be hard to breathe and all plants would die - without the entire ecosystem it'd be a tough job for anyone to last for very long. And it's likely we wouldn't have any real warning either. IIRC we only have asteroid watchers covering about 1/12 of the sky, and even if they spotted it, but the time they did so we'd probably only have months/weeks/days to prepare for it. If *that* isn't a good argument for near-term space colonisation, then I don't know what is... *shrugs*

P.S. Yay as my insurance company are stars and my new Vaio (free except the 100 excess) arrives tomorrow!