Notes on Jacob's Trouble

Page 4. Been to Area 25 on a Yucca Mountain tour with a group of geologists, but I’ve never made the trip 60 miles east of there to Las Vegas. Don’t think I missed much.

Page 6. For about ten years, Cape Canaveral was named Cape Kennedy, after JFK.

Page 12. According to one who met him, Adolf Hitler had “hypnotic violet-colored eyes”.

Page 22. EMP has been severely over-exaggerated as to effects upon modern electronics. This required tremendous research to find out what would actually happen as the original studies were done in the 1960s, when circuitry was quite different and transistors fragile. Consider, too, that Las Vegas was apparently unaffected by EMP, despite more than 50 above-ground tests less than 70 miles away. There’s no record that I could find of difficulties with transistor radios and such.

Page 24. Fallout, even from a groundburst, is not long-lived, thank God, despite the propaganda over the years.

Page 32. There are plenty of older cities than Damascus, just none that we know of that have been continuously occupied for so long a period. AvPar: would be easier to load than a liquid, too.

Page 41. 5th paragraph: it is indeed commanded by the Q’uran. In several surrahs.

Page 51. My dad is a grad from UM, but not that particular school.

Page 52. That was Oregon from the late 1980s through the 1990s. Even today, most churches have almost no women of that age group and most of those are recent arrivals from out of state. Why? Have to ask God about that one. I have no clue.

Page 59. As one who loves cats and is allergic, I would imagine that one day, that this could be done.

Page 60. CMEs are not unusual. Most don’t happen to be aimed in Earth’s direction.

Page 66. I thought of this technique some years ago for finding a building when lost in a sandstorm without a compass or other navigational aid.

Page 77. This was based on what happened many times to many men while I was at college.

Page 82. I went to a church in Sisters for years. I’m sure its changed. This scene is based on my recollection of what it looked like years ago.

Page 99. Fens are interesting places. Surface flow, sundews, darlingtonias…

Page 123. Science that directly contradicts other science is not science and falls in the category of junk science, such as geologic dating. Carbon 14 dating, conversely, is reasonable in its assumptions and can be verified to about 9,000 years or so via bristlecone pines and other organisms.

Page 128. Note on Oregon: that was actually how it was.

Page 129. Last paragraph: that is based upon real events, although the actual number of apps was almost double. It is shameful and hypocritical, to say the very least, to claim “equal opportunity” and then to hire only on such criteria.

Page 133. Apologies, given the seriousness of the book, but my sense of ridiculousness brings to mind the image of “the Great Tribble-ation” in which some very unhappy Klingons are surrounded by large piles of shrieking Tribbles.