Solar X-Flare Blasts Directly Toward Earth

Freshly Exhumed writes with this excerpt from Space Weather: "Big sunspot AR1520 unleashed an X1.4-class solar flare on July 12th at 1653 UT. Because this sunspot is directly facing Earth, everything about the blast was geoeffective. For one thing, it hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward our planet. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the CME will hit Earth on July 14th around 10:20 UT (+/- 7 hours) and could spark strong geomagnetic storms. Sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend."

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Run to the store, buy some chocolate, eat it quickly, SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING and then wrap it in the chocolate foil. Than wait 72 hours for the flare to fully pass. Use the time free from the internets to visit the library and read a book about the Earth magnetic field.

Re:did they say it ALL was going to hit us?

[Deadstick]

We should only catch about 15 pieces of flair.

Re:nice.

[Lumpy]

"Who cares about a fucking hotdog."

The porn industry... You know how much money they could make if they had one of those!

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

I got my foil oven ready to cook hotdogs.

Who cares about a fucking hotdog. Children are starving in Africa and you give a shit about a fucking hotdog? Fuck you.

Whoa there, big sticky!
The only reason I was going to cook hotdogs is to feed the starving children of Africa!
I've been waiting for a big CME to cook the 143,239,293.67 hotdogs I've collected over the past 20 years for this project.
Finally, world hunger will be ended, and there will be a dog in every little african pot-belly.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[ldobehardcore]

I dunno man. The evil genius part of me wants to build an electronium hat powered by sunspots in order to emit cognitive radiation.

Re:nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not good enough, frankly it surprises me you haven't heard the old adage "If you feed a man a hotdog, you've fed him for a day, if you teach a man to mine hotdogs you've fed him for life."

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

The hardest step for you will be finding your way out of the basement first.

Re:Power off and unplug computers tonight?

[istartedi]

I'm looting the vending machines at work as soon as my shift ends

Sigh... we just finished cleaning up from yesterday. The European central bank says something. Loot the vending machines. The Fed says something. Loot the vending machines. Your team loses. Loot the vending machines. Your team wins. Loot the vending machines. Some whack job on the radio says the world is ending. You guessed it. Loot the vending machines. I'm beginning to think that you guys will use any excue just to... what? They're looting the vending machines again? What is it this time? Somebody installed Linux on the desktop? Holy crap. Fuck posting on Slashdot. I'm going to LOOT THE VENDING MACHINE.

That's racist!

[Anonymous Coward]

Africa has lots of technology like and such as.

Re:Is it so wrong?

[Hognoxious]

I can't tell you how many articles about some new "revolutionary" automotive engine I've seen over the past 20 years, and nothing ever comes of it, probably because it's all BS.

It's a conspiracy, man! The oil companies got a grip on the government.

There was this guy who invented an engine that, power for power, was roughly 50% more efficient than the ones commonly in use. Exxon offered to buy it, but the inventor said no; he figured they'd just lock it in a safe. Then weird things happened. He lost his job, then his house burned down only to find his insurance had been cancelled by persons unknown. He couldn't have sent the letter because he was out of the country.

He was telling me all this at the pub. I don't know how it ended up, he went to take a leak and never came back.