Disturbing: Any Town Nuked.. What Would Happen???

This picture shows the thermal blast radius if a 1952 hydrogen bomb were dropped on the city of Chicago derived from an application called (Click Here >>> Ground Zero II ). I picked this because this is my home city. This picture doesn't include the pressure wave or the fallout; but what's amazing about this site (Ground Zero II) is it allows you to click on the pressure map or fallout map. It even lets you pick wind speed!

That's not all, you can pick a bomb for ANY city in the world. Further, you can pick amongst many bomb types; from the smallest of suitcase dirty bombs, little boy or fat boy (the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan)to the kind of bombs North Korea is testing all the way up to the largest bomb ever tested, the Russian Tsar Bomba. (a 50 megaton tested by the USSR in 1961)

You can even put in the wind speed to calculate fallout.

They also include a massive asteroid impact.

Hat's off to Carlos Labs for creating this fascinating yet disturbing application.

(note - to use, just type your towns name, or type any town in the world, you then can click on the pressure tab to see what area the explosion would ruin as opposed to just what was incinerated, and if you can select the Fallout Tab to calculate the wind speed and direction for the radiation. Also, since this application is built on Google Maps, you can move around, zoom in or zoom out to see more detailed information.)

I Am Alive

Ubisoft has officially announced I Am Alive, a new adventure that forces players to "think, react and take risks that will directly affect themselves and those around them" as they navigate a Chicago "left in ruins." The game is currently targeted for release on "current generation video game consoles" during Spring 2009. Not much else is known about the title, though earlier reports suggested that Assassin's Creed producer, Jade Raymond, would be taking the reins of this disaster game. [via Joystiq]

Chicago Not Getting WiFi Network: Shame On You

The thing about Chicago is that it has a ton of great things, like fantastic restaurants, theaters, deep dish pizza, and Da Bears. But one thing it will not have is citywide WiFi network come 2008 as hoped. Chicago officials killed the idea that would've given the city 228 sq. miles of wireless Internet because of "lack of funding".

I find this a little strange since the mayor is ready to pony up billions to bring crappy ass Olympics games here, but no money can be found for something that would be useful. Even Earthlink was showing interest in the project, but they most likely didn't grease the right pockets to make it happen. I can't believe that Philly has a city wide WiFi network but Chicago doesn't, and this city wants to be known as "World Class"? What a joke!

The old saying "What's in it for me?" is alive and well in Chicago, that's for sure!!!

Chicago scraps plans for Wi-Fi network [AP via Crunchgear]