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Re:IKEA to discontinue its annual catalog, ending a 70-year run by dsego on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @05:47AM (#26164978)
Well, we're likely one strong magnetic pulse away from having only paper books as a source of information, so there is that.
Re:IKEA to discontinue its annual catalog, ending a 70-year run by onion2k on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @05:54AM (#26165011)
Electromagnetic pulses can't wipe CDs or DVDs, so we'd definitely still have anything stored on those, and most data centres are designed with EM shielding so we could still have data stored in the cloud unless it was a massive pulse. I think we'd be OK.
Re:IKEA to discontinue its annual catalog, ending a 70-year run by Retric on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @06:12AM (#26165121)
CD’s and DVD’s require players which are susceptible to EM pulses. It seems extremely unlikely for that kind of global EM pulse to happen, but I can’t exactly say it’s impossible.
Re:IKEA to discontinue its annual catalog, ending a 70-year run by dividedbyzero on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @07:31AM (#26165636)
I'm no EM-pulsicist, but I believe an EM pulse capable of inducing destructive currents in conductors as relatively short as those you'd find in an (unplugged) CD/DVD player, and doing that all over the globe, such a pulse would have to be ridiculously, absurdly massive. Are there any events or things we know about that could do this without also, say, sterilizing the planet?
Re:IKEA to discontinue its annual catalog, ending a 70-year run by depressedpanda on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @08:22AM (#26165985)
Coronal mass ejections can cause geomagnetic storms that will mess with electronics globally.

It happened back in 1859, but it's effects were limited as the only susceptible tech was telegraph systems.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event

Re:IKEA to discontinue its annual catalog, ending a 70-year run by iso1631 on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @07:47AM (#26165725)
On the other hand of all the books I'd like to save, the Ikea catalogue isn't top of the list.