March 7, 2018
Spiked Battle Hammer
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)
August 28, 2016
Preppers Preparing
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)
Preppers Preparing
November 26, 2012
Autocomplete: Do Zombies (What)?
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)
Autocomplete: Do Zombies (What)?
October 9, 2011
End Of The World, Almost
End Of The World, Almost
April 26, 2011
Doomsday In Style
Doomsday In Style
June 8, 2008
TEOTWAWKI and Enterprise Architecture
TEOTWAWKI stands for the end of the world as we know it. It is a term used in the survivalist movement and is sometimes used as a reference to the apocalypse. (The apocalypse though has religious connotations in that the end of the world has greater meaning in terms of revealing G-d’s ultimate purpose for mankind.)
The end of the world—is there such a thing?
As mortal human beings, we know that all living things have a beginning and an end of life. Even inanimate objects are recognized as having a lifecycle, and this is often talked about from a management perspective in terms of administering “things” from their initiation through their ultimate disposition. Some common lifecycles frequently referred to are: organizations, products, projects, assets, investments, and so on.
So how about the world itself?
Well, the answer is of course, yes—even the world will one day come to end. Astronomers have long witnessed even the implosion of stars at their end of life—these are called supernovas. And our world is a lot smaller than a star; in fact, you could fit about a million Earths inside our sun (which is a star).
When times get tough, TEOTWAWKI is something that perhaps we ponder about more and wonder whether this is it!
For example, during the Cold War and the buildup of the nuclear arsenals of the Soviet Union and the United States, there were enough nukes to destroy the world ten times over. And people wondered when the button would actually be pushed.
Nowadays, we wonder less about nuclear holocaust and more about overpopulation (currently at 6.3 billion and expected to reach 9 billion by 2042) and depletion of world energy resources like oil (currently at $140 a barrel and up 44% in cost YTD), demand outstripping supply for silver, copper, aluminum, and many other commodities, and shortages of food (as the UK Times reported in February that “the world is only ten weeks away from running out of wheat supplies after stocks fell to their lowest levels for 50 years.”)
Further, while the population continues to explode and resources continue to be depleted, we continue to overflow the world’s dumps with garbage so much so that there has even been talk of sending garbage into space, just to get it the heck out of here!
And let’s not forget global warming and pollutants that stink up our cities, cause acid rain, asthma, and so many other unfortunate effects on the ecosystem and human health.
The good news is TEOWAWKI talk is often just fear and occasional panic and it is not imminent. The bad news is there are some very real problems in the world today.
The problems are so big that leaders and governments are having a difficult time trying to tackle them. All too often, the problems get passed to the next generation, with the mantra, “Let it be someone else’s problem.”
As an enterprise architect, my frame of reference is to look at the way things are (the baseline) and try to come up with a better state for future (the target) and work up a transition plan, and basically get moving.
We all know that it is extremely difficult to see our way through these extremely complex problems of global magnitude. But if enterprise architecture has taught me anything, it is that we must create a roadmap for transformation; we must forever work to change things for the better. We must do whatever we can to prevent TEOTWAWKI.
Perhaps the field of enterprise architecture can be expanded from one that is IT-focused and now becoming business and IT-focused to ultimately becoming a discipline that can drive holistic change for major world problems and not just enterprise problems. Does this mean that enterprise architecture at some point becomes world architecture?
TEOTWAWKI and Enterprise Architecture