Tie-dyed Brain Rays 3.0

Keith Hammond: The Ultimate Workshop & Tool Guide

 

Keith Hammond 12-01-10

 Make Magazine: Ultimate Workshop and Tool Guide

I've also had the pleasure of interviewing some of the authors who contributed to this issue:

William Gurstelle, Absinthe & Flamethrowers

Ky Michaelson: The Rocket Man

 

 

 

Doomsday Update

Doomsday clock to be moved by world's top scientists tomorrow

Last updated at 11:48 AM on 14th January 2010

The minute hand of the famous Doomsday Clock will be moved at 3pm this afternoon, for the first time in two years.

The timepiece in New York conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction, which is represented by midnight.

Doomsday Clock: Created in 1947 by concerned scientists - it will be changed once more today

British physicist Stephen Hawking is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He helps to decide when to move the hand on the Doomsday Clock

It was created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947, two years after the U.S dropped the first atomic bombs on Japan in World War II. It was originally set at seven minutes to midnight.

The clock has been altered 18 times since then by the Bulletin's scientific board.

This now includes Professor Stephen Hawking and 18 other Nobel laureates.

The latest recorded time was two minutes to midnight in 1953 as the Cold War heated up between the U.S and Soviet Union.

In 2007 it was wound on to five minutes to midnight, to reflect the failure to solve problems posed by nuclear weapons.

Today the public can watch the change for the first time via a live web feed.

A spokesman said: 'Factors influencing the latest Doomsday Clock change include international negotiations on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, expansion of civilian nuclear power, the possibilities of nuclear terrorism, and climate change.'

Just last month environmentalists criticised the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, after leaders failed to reach any real consensus.

To watch the clock be altered go to the 'Turn Back The Clock' website

via www.dailymail.co.uk

The following is a repost from Tie-dyed Brain rays from about this time last year.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists issued a major announcement today. Acknowledging that the world is a crazy place Yo, the Atomic Scientists have proclaimed Flavor Flav as the Perpetual Keeper of the Doomsday Clock and moved the clock's hands forward by two minutes. It is now five minutes to midnight.

(If your Doomsday Clock is flashing 12:00, don't panic, that just means the electricity went off momentarily.)

You can read the board's statement and check out their killa new website here.

This is the first time the hands of the Doomsday Clock have been moved since February 2002 when they were set to 12:00 so that the Atomic Scientists could go to lunch early. This most recent resetting of the hands was initiated partly in response to emerging threats from Iran and North Korea. Iran's president, Foulmood I'monajihad has made no bones about his grim determination to pop an atomic cap in Israel's ass, While North Korea's Great Leader Lil' Kim Jong Il continues to thumb his nose at the West while planning more nuclear weapons tests.

Iran has gotten on the atomic fast track with the announcement that it will have 3,000 nuclear centrifuges on-line by next March which the Iranians insist is for production of nuclear fuel "for peaceful civilian use only."  Other's point out that if these centrifuges are allowed to become operational, within a year the Iranians will have enough nuclear material for the Mother of All Kosher Weenie Roasts.

The United Nations has threatened to send Iran "a stern note with at least three frowny-faces," if Tehran continues to pursue its nuclear ambitions.

This weak response from the West has done nothing to discourage Kim Jong Il from his quest to gain a key to the Atomic Playboy's club. He no doubt believes that once he straps his Little Boy to one of his massive Taepo-dongs that the rest of the world will tremble in awe at the might of his Missile Envy Tour. (If he could only keep his missile up for more than forty-two seconds, that is.)

But rockets aren't the only trick Lil' Kim has up his sleeve. Long known as the "Elmer Fudd of Asia," the diminutive despot recently announced that North Korea was acquiring a quantity of freakishly large German engineered rabbits to provide his starving populace with the Glorious People's Wabbit Stew.

 

Is this an attempt to bolster the physical condition of vast numbers of industrial workers and conscripts in the event of nuclear confrontation with the West? Or perhaps there could be an even more sinister motive. As a precaution, the Atomic Scientists have dispatched a special courier to Pyongyang. He carries with him DVD copies of "Them" and the "Godzilla" collection as a warning of the dangers of combining animal husbandry with atomic science.

However, the nuclear ambitions of the Axis of Evil (not to mention the 26,000 warheads divvied up between the United States and Russia) aren't the only concerns that have the Atomic Scientists quaking in their lead-lined boots. It seems that they are worried about a certain inconvenient truth. According to the boys at the lab, man-made climate change is the second greatest threat to the survival of our planet. They insist that irreparable damage will be done to the environment within the next forty years, unless we act now to stop it. Oh, gee, that won't cause any controversy.

Neo-con pundits like Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy, who look on global warming the same way David Duke views the Holocaust will no doubt have a field day with this one. They'll point out that carbon dioxide is one of the main constituents of our atmosphere, that farting cows-- not automobiles are the main source of atmospheric CO2, and that we have a God-given right as Capitalists to pump any damn thing we want into the air or water, no matter how toxic it is.

Besides, these guys are Atomic Scientists, not Weather Scientists, so what do they know? And if old Sci-fi movies are to be believed, you can't trust scientists anyway. Remember "The Thing?" James Arness would still be running loose if the nerdy little guy with the goatee had gotten his way. Remember Dr. Cyclops? He was a scientist. Frankenstein? Scientist. Dr. Evil?

Do I need to go on?

Personally, I put a little more stock into what the scientists have to say because, well... They're scientists. When I need advice on how to sneak the jumbo bottle of Viagra past airport security or how not to go to prison for political espionage I'll call Limbaugh and Liddy. For now I'm sticking with the lab-coat crowd.

Anybody got the time? I must be fast, mine says twelve, straight up.

 

You can read the board's statement and check out their killa new website here.

This is the first time the hands of the Doomsday Clock have been moved since February 2002 when they were set to 12:00 so that the Atomic Scientists could go to lunch early. This most recent resetting of the hands was initiated partly in response to emerging threats from Iran and North Korea. Iran's president, Foulmood I'monajihad has made no bones about his grim determination to pop an atomic cap in Israel's ass, While North Korea's Great Leader Lil' Kim Jong Il continues to thumb his nose at the West while planning more nuclear weapons tests.

Iran has gotten on the atomic fast track with the announcement that it will have 3,000 nuclear centrifuges on-line by next March which the Iranians insist is for production of nuclear fuel "for peaceful civilian use only."  Other's point out that if these centrifuges are allowed to become operational, within a year the Iranians will have enough nuclear material for the Mother of All Kosher Weenie Roasts.

The United Nations has threatened to send Iran "a stern note with at least three frowny-faces," if Tehran continues to pursue its nuclear ambitions.

This weak response from the West has done nothing to discourage Kim Jong Il from his quest to gain a key to the Atomic Playboy's club. He no doubt believes that once he straps his Little Boy to one of his massive Taepo-dongs that the rest of the world will tremble in awe at the might of his Missile Envy Tour. (If he could only keep his missile up for more than forty-two seconds, that is.)

But rockets aren't the only trick Lil' Kim has up his sleeve. Long known as the "Elmer Fudd of Asia," the diminutive despot recently announced that North Korea was acquiring a quantity of freakishly large German engineered rabbits to provide his starving populace with the Glorious People's Wabbit Stew.

 

Is this an attempt to bolster the physical condition of vast numbers of industrial workers and conscripts in the event of nuclear confrontation with the West? Or perhaps there could be an even more sinister motive. As a precaution, the Atomic Scientists have dispatched a special courier to Pyongyang. He carries with him DVD copies of "Them" and the "Godzilla" collection as a warning of the dangers of combining animal husbandry with atomic science.

However, the nuclear ambitions of the Axis of Evil (not to mention the 26,000 warheads divvied up between the United States and Russia) aren't the only concerns that have the Atomic Scientists quaking in their lead-lined boots. It seems that they are worried about a certain inconvenient truth. According to the boys at the lab, man-made climate change is the second greatest threat to the survival of our planet. They insist that irreparable damage will be done to the environment within the next forty years, unless we act now to stop it. Oh, gee, that won't cause any controversy.

Neo-con pundits like Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy, who look on global warming the same way David Duke views the Holocaust will no doubt have a field day with this one. They'll point out that carbon dioxide is one of the main constituents of our atmosphere, that farting cows-- not automobiles are the main source of atmospheric CO2, and that we have a God-given right as Capitalists to pump any damn thing we want into the air or water, no matter how toxic it is.

Besides, these guys are Atomic Scientists, not Weather Scientists, so what do they know? And if old Sci-fi movies are to be believed, you can't trust scientists anyway. Remember "The Thing?" James Arness would still be running loose if the nerdy little guy with the goatee had gotten his way. Remember Dr. Cyclops? He was a scientist. Frankenstein? Scientist. Dr. Evil?

Do I need to go on?

Personally, I put a little more stock into what the scientists have to say because, well... They're scientists. When I need advice on how to sneak the jumbo bottle of Viagra past airport security or how not to go to prison for political espionage I'll call Limbaugh and Liddy. For now I'm sticking with the lab-coat crowd.

Anybody got the time? I must be fast, mine says twelve, straight up.