And the year rolls ’round again.

(In a weirdly light-hearted counterpoint, I have “Don’t Push That Button” by Duane Elms running through my head.)

I’d have said something about this earlier, but Saturday was for unwinding and Sunday involved poking my computer with sticks until it stopped giving me kernel errors.

September 26th was Stanislav Petrov Day, which is an entirely unofficial holiday. Short version: 28 years ago, Stanislav Petrov did not push The Button. The systems he was dealing with told him he should, because the Americans had very definitely fired missiles, and he didn’t.

(Twenty-eight years ago, it was 1983. If you were talking about The Button being pushed, you were talking about nuclear war.)

It’s a day I notice for several reasons, which are in no particular order

  • not being dead is awesome;
  • oh look, more post-apocalyptic references;
  • I wonder how often it nearly happened; and
  • I cannot imagine what it was like to live in that context, and I am curious.

I’ve rambled about the last a bit; as I’ve said before, I don’t think I can get it, although I think I can understand it.

Anyway. The weekend involved a slightly higher consumption of post-apocalyptic fiction than usual, and a general state of not being radioactive smithereens. It’s occasionally nice to pause and appreciate the little things.