Friday, February 27, 2009

Nuclear war 2.0

In the latest in my increasingly unhinged worries about nuclear war I started wondering what would happen if someone accidentally spilled coffee into the wrong machine and it did all kick off. Off course there are so many back ups no such accident could happen like the way a drunken depressive could never be the one with the final say on when Armageddon comes...

Anyway if they did launch what would be the effects on your house?

Turns out some people have already made a shinny web 2.0 app that lets you see this


Its great family fun to play around with. Center the flag on the nearest location you think will be nuked and have a look at the various effects. You can go for that retro 50's bomb, the humongous 60's version, all the glamour of a modern small tactical nuke.

Playing with these toys the maps and the nuke computer and such is a really odd feeling. Part of me is impressed with the sheer Promethean hubris of the enterprise. Its hard not to admire the technocrat logic of the slide rule nuke computer the shiney mashup of the nuke map or the eery idea of subs wandering round blind in the ocean. Mainly though I wonder how I got stuck on this planet that is clearly packed full of psychotic apes.
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2 comments:

  1. The Beer Nut4:12 AM

    a drunken depressive
    That's no way to speak of the Lord thy God, regardless of how true it patently is.

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  2. Iamreddave4:17 AM

    Ha

    Its hard not to go through the heads of various countries that have nukes and not notice how many of them are\were palpably crazy.

    And that's not looking at all the military leaders whose career is solely based on their answer to the question question "Do you like killing things?"

    ReplyDelete