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At the beginning, it felt like someone drove a semi into the side of the house. At first, I thought, "What the FSCK???", and then realized it was a quake. My pregnant wife and 2-year old daughter were on the couch with me, watching the end of Dinotopia. I grabbed the kid, stood up, and reached down to assist my wife, all the while things are falling and breaking around me. By the time I reached the archway in that room, the quake had ended, and we had LOTS of broken pictureframes and other things tossed out of cupboards.

My office took the brunt of the quake in our home, with all my DVDs, books, and software flying off the shelves and piling itself in the middle of the room. (A strange earthquake phenonmeon - it looks like a ghost ran through the room and piled all your belongings in a huge heap.) Luckily, my computer rack remained standing, and my Linux box and Sun Ultra 5 were still humming along, with no damage. I wound up sleeping with my amateur radio and a flashlight next to the bed, just in case... And we had several aftershocks throughout the night, the most notable being about a 3.4.

We were lucky, we didn't have any structual damage (that I can see, anyhow, I plan on having a home inspector out within the week). A neighbor down the street had his chimney collapse, the gas station across town had a column on their roof get damaged, and the Wal-Mart's sprinklers went off, dumping a quarter-inch of water on the floor there and damaging lots of merchandise.

Anyone who makes light of earthquakes hasn't been in one that's 5.x or higher. A large quake is a true natural disaster, and something to be feared and prepared for.

chrisd, I'd be interested to find out where your sister's father-in-law lives - there's no way you could have barely noticed this sucker if you were in my house.

Achtung!

Ist nicht der Loma Prieta, machen Sie nichts mit das paniken fleein. Die Erde quakken ist eine kleine bumpen in der nacht, nichts mehr. Nicht outen das fenster liepen und schkrimmen das sky ist gefallen, alzo nichts mit das auto gestuffen mit alles pozezens und zu Iowa gemoven. Just sitzen und watchen das USGS geslashdotten.

Yet the 5.0 we had in upstate NY last month went unposted on /. We shook for almost 30 seconds.

5.0 is a big deal around here, and anything much stronger will start doing serious damage to our non-quake-ready buildings.

An earthquake you can only prepare for. You can over-engineer tall office buildings but only retrofit older ones, which will never be as dependably safe. Most people are going to be on those older buildings when it hits. You can lay seismographs from here to eternity but you will still only begin to understand the shape of the fault and what it is going to do.

The big one is still coming.

There's an EDIS Bulletin on the quake, but it's a routine report, with a priority too low to generate an E-mail message from EDIS. No indications of any significant emergencies to be dealt with.

Press reports indicate that several plates fell down at a china outlet store in Gilroy, and a coffee pot was damaged at the Gilroy Rodeway Inn.

For some reason, phone service in San Jose was affected. Unclear why.

US Geological Survey Info here...

...here and here

...here and here

http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/STORE/X4013 33 64/ciim_form.html

Go there if you are in the area of the quake. Report what you felt. Don't make shit up, don't troll the USGS.

I felt some moderate shaking. Biggest quake I've ever been in, but I just moved to Palo Alto from New York. Neat, but scary.

If you felt the quake, or if you were in the area and didn't feel it, be sure to record your observations here so that the data can be displayed and analyzed.

It's amazing to see 700 responses be recorded in about 20 some minutes, and more data just helps the cause of the USGS. It was minor up here near the bay, but hey, it was my first :) You can access the current map as well.

If you felt the quake, or if you were in the area and didn't feel it, be sure to record your observations here so that the data can be displayed and analyzed.

It's amazing to see 700 responses be recorded in about 20 some minutes, and more data just helps the cause of the USGS. It was minor up here near the bay, but hey, it was my first :) You can access the current map as well.

http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/ magnitude 5.2 - not catastrophic, but not insignificant either. It is the largest magnitude quake this year in CA.

USGS site

oops, here's the map link: Recent Earthquakes in California and Nevada

My San Jose home rolled slightly, and BART has stopped for a bit, but life goes on.

Still no report at quake.usgs.gav

I did not see any "believed" Earthquakes with 26 and 19 second differences (respectively) listed on either day at the National Earthquake Information Center. I'm sure it's possible they weren't recorded by NEIC, although I suspect it would/should be. From reading the Professor's web page, it appears the data would have been taken from the source above, yet I didn't see it there. (Who know's, maybe I just missed it)

The story still seems suspect to me although Dr. Eugene Harris does appear to be focused on exactly this type of research.

I think more details are necessary to please the /. crowd.

Snowdog

The team, from the Southern Methodist University in Texas, analysed more than a million earthquake reports, looking for the tell-tale signal of strangelets hitting Earth.

So they went looking through a huge pile of earthquake data just to find two seismic events that happened soon after the other and blame it on a particle that has been posited but never observed.

Numbers of earthquakes in a year

If you are looking for data (the original askslashdot doesn't mention needing any, but jic) EROS Data Center and the GIS Data Depot are my favorite spots. Oh, yes, and the data are free.

If you are looking for data (the original askslashdot doesn't mention needing any, but jic) EROS Data Center and the GIS Data Depot are my favorite spots. Oh, yes, and the data are free.

FYI - a link on 'the uses and limitations of radiometric dating'. Hard to find amongst the chaff of creationist debunking attempts.

Looks like it was about 5.1 on the scale:

check it out here

I use GMT and USGS data to make topo maps for my GPS. I get the data from my Garmin eTrex Venture with GPSMan.

It's all free, but takes some work. See my page of details and examples.

Better than that, some training/testing grounds have had craters blown into them to create a surface as nearly identical as possible to potential lunar landing sites:

The volcanic fields around Flagstaff have proven particularly useful in testing equipment and training astronauts. Cameras planned for use in the Surveyor project were tested on the Bonito Flow in Sunset Crater National Park because the lava flow appeared to be similar to flows on the lunar surface. A field of artificial impact craters were created in the Cinder Lakes volcanic field near Flagstaff to create a surface similar to the proposed first manned American landing site on the Moon.
-- Astronaut training in Cinder Lakes, Flagstaff

Testing sites have been chosen for climate, surface cover, surface type, etc., depending on exactly what they're testing or training for.

Here's the data. (You do know how Google works, don't you?)

The largest nuclear weapon detonated was 50MT.

Mt. St. Helens released 24MT of energy.

I started to count, but, as the list is over 685K.... :P The stars would also do it (look around, someone posted a link to that). -Greg

The difference here, of course, is that there is a lot of scientific studies saying that global warming, though it cannot be proven outright, is a highly likely phenomenon.

Of course comparing religion to science is shaky at best so I will avoid that can of worms. More interesting to me is that I have seen a lot of people jump on various bandwagons of science (thanks Bill Nye) without really thinking too hard about it. You obviously have so don't take it personally. As for the scientific studies, here is a thought I have never had sufficiently answered. We have temperature data for about 100 years on the earth. The farther back you go, the fewer the recording stations and the less reliable the readings are. We also theorize that the global weather patterns run on several cycles (seasonal, annual, decadal, centurial and millennial...) So how do we know that any measured increase in temperature is not just a natural cycle? Who is to say with any authority that the earth would be just as warm without a single human on the planet?

While I am at it, I would like to know something else. Why is it that those who support global warming always tout CO2 emissions as the biggest problem? Mt. Pinatubo sent out more CO2 than all the human activity to date yet the earth has seemed to deal with it just fine. See the research done by Mr. Gerlach for evidence. Here is a quote from one of his articles, "Thus, the minimum volatile emissions for the climactic eruption--from preeruption vapor phase and degassing of melt--were 17 Mt SO2, 42 Mt CO2, 3 Mt Cl, and 491 Mt H2O." That's 42 megatons of CO2 from one eruption!

Here is another article that makes some interesting points. An excerpt, "The IPCC report indicates that GHG emissions due to human intervention have increased and that there are uncertainties involved in climate change impacts. An example of the effect on the global climate was experienced after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines which caused the lowering of global temperature. This shows that there are uncertainties in determining the exact causes of climate change because of non-anthropogenic causes such as this volcanic eruption. Hence, the need for caution. The IPCC findings are controversial, some scientists do not believe the rates of change and its impacts which add to the uncertainties. Any plan or statement should be grounded on scientific findings for credibility. The fact that data is only available for the last 200 years along with the use of computer models adds to the uncertainties of the findings. The IPCC works closely with the UNFCCC negotiating process while maintaining its scientific independence."

There are uncertanties with the effects of human caused GHG emissions and Mt. Pinatubo actually global temp despite having dumped 42 megatons of CO2 in the atmosphere. Essentially, my issue is that there may be studies that support global warming but there is an equal amount against it or at least that casts a different light on the situation. We simply don't have enough information to make huge changes that may or may not affect a perceived problem.

You bring up a good point, but everything I've read so far is missing, IMHO, a big point. We as humans are very proud, our technology allows us to live a very lavish life compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, some may argue the other way but I digress. The fact that our lavish lives produce waste is a natural byproduct of living in such a way. The only thing we can do is reduce the amount of waste we produce. So the question is, are we so proud as to think that our waste is hurting the environment? Is our puny race so big as to change the "health" of our planet?

Our planet can throw up a volcanic erruption that produces more pollution than humans have in known history, except for nuclear detonations, which again I digress. Below you will find some links supporting my claim. Now over the past 200 years how many volcanoes have errupted? I cannot find any links for cronology but just from memory, which mine is very bad for names and dates, we got Mt. St. Hellens, Mt. Penetubio, constant volcanic activity in Hawaii, and quite a few others. What impact have they been having on our environment. Each one of the "major" eruptions produces more than humans have ever produced. Yes humans produce differnt types, but in such small quantities comparitivly speaking, how can we measure their impact when the overwealming amount volcanic polution would most definatly interfere with our research.

So I agree that we should err on the side of caution. I agree we should produce less waiste. But are we bringing about the end of the world? I don't think so, not while volcanos have been doing much more "damage" than we every possibly could concieve of doing.

So my final point is, the ppl that are screaming that we are destroying the planet are just overly proud.

volcanoes.usgs.gov
geopubs.wr.usgs.gov
hvo.wr.usgs.gov
solcomhouse.com

You bring up a good point, but everything I've read so far is missing, IMHO, a big point. We as humans are very proud, our technology allows us to live a very lavish life compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, some may argue the other way but I digress. The fact that our lavish lives produce waste is a natural byproduct of living in such a way. The only thing we can do is reduce the amount of waste we produce. So the question is, are we so proud as to think that our waste is hurting the environment? Is our puny race so big as to change the "health" of our planet?

Our planet can throw up a volcanic erruption that produces more pollution than humans have in known history, except for nuclear detonations, which again I digress. Below you will find some links supporting my claim. Now over the past 200 years how many volcanoes have errupted? I cannot find any links for cronology but just from memory, which mine is very bad for names and dates, we got Mt. St. Hellens, Mt. Penetubio, constant volcanic activity in Hawaii, and quite a few others. What impact have they been having on our environment. Each one of the "major" eruptions produces more than humans have ever produced. Yes humans produce differnt types, but in such small quantities comparitivly speaking, how can we measure their impact when the overwealming amount volcanic polution would most definatly interfere with our research.

So I agree that we should err on the side of caution. I agree we should produce less waiste. But are we bringing about the end of the world? I don't think so, not while volcanos have been doing much more "damage" than we every possibly could concieve of doing.

So my final point is, the ppl that are screaming that we are destroying the planet are just overly proud.

volcanoes.usgs.gov
geopubs.wr.usgs.gov
hvo.wr.usgs.gov
solcomhouse.com

You bring up a good point, but everything I've read so far is missing, IMHO, a big point. We as humans are very proud, our technology allows us to live a very lavish life compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, some may argue the other way but I digress. The fact that our lavish lives produce waste is a natural byproduct of living in such a way. The only thing we can do is reduce the amount of waste we produce. So the question is, are we so proud as to think that our waste is hurting the environment? Is our puny race so big as to change the "health" of our planet?

Our planet can throw up a volcanic erruption that produces more pollution than humans have in known history, except for nuclear detonations, which again I digress. Below you will find some links supporting my claim. Now over the past 200 years how many volcanoes have errupted? I cannot find any links for cronology but just from memory, which mine is very bad for names and dates, we got Mt. St. Hellens, Mt. Penetubio, constant volcanic activity in Hawaii, and quite a few others. What impact have they been having on our environment. Each one of the "major" eruptions produces more than humans have ever produced. Yes humans produce differnt types, but in such small quantities comparitivly speaking, how can we measure their impact when the overwealming amount volcanic polution would most definatly interfere with our research.

So I agree that we should err on the side of caution. I agree we should produce less waiste. But are we bringing about the end of the world? I don't think so, not while volcanos have been doing much more "damage" than we every possibly could concieve of doing.

So my final point is, the ppl that are screaming that we are destroying the planet are just overly proud.

volcanoes.usgs.gov
geopubs.wr.usgs.gov
hvo.wr.usgs.gov
solcomhouse.com

deliberately misleading the people to maintain their revenue streams is a very serious, and largely unsupportable, allegation

Maintaining the revenue stream is very important. I worked at a federal lab in the late 80s/early 90s when the global warming/change issue first started to hit big with the public. The primary focus of the installation since the 70s was for archiving, processing and interpreting remotely sensed data, so there always were some people working on enviromental impact studies. However, at one point it seemed that the unwritten rule for the science branch was to try to tie in as much of their research as they could in some way with global change, since that's where the big bucks were. Especially after Clinton/Gore were elected. I respect these people very much and I don't think that any of them would stoop low enough to fudge data in order to get funding. Many projects were trying to improve quality of the data used in some climate models to reduce the wide variations that were observed depending on the land coverage data being used.

However, given how tight some researchers' budgets are, there is certainly the temptation of fudging things to go along with the flow in order to secure funding. It's harder to get funding if the research goes against the status quo, politically and scientifically (more the former than the latter). No one wants to be ostracized from a group of their peers, especially if it means a practical end of your career. If the author has flaws in his publication, they should be calmly and rationally pointed out. IMHO, given the level of vitriol leveled at this guy, it seems to me that he's struck a nerve and may actually be right about a few things. The name calling and pie in the face is something I'd expect from a bunch of immature kids.

As to why more isn't avialable for free, it costs money to create data like this. One way or another, someone needs to pay for it. If taxes aren't enough to provide hi-res images of the entire world, then that leaves private enterprise.

You're right, the Wayback machine is not the largest collection of data -- not even the largest collection online. I work with the USGS's catalog of satellite data. They have over 300 terabytes of satellite imagery, and the collection is growing at a rate of about 1 terabyte per day.

The USGS collection comprises multiple instruments, but Landsat 7 is a big one, contributing about 100 terabytes that's searchable online.

Perhaps 'Largest TEXT Database' would be a better description of the Wayback Machine?

The point is, it is called global warming, because the global temperature rises.

This, of course, doesn't have to mean that the temperature in the polar regions will increase.
Here is a study Effects of Atmospheric Climate Change on Ice Stability.
Another study of six Antarctic lakes has shown that the surface ice has thinned by up to 40 percent over the 80s.
(Wharton, R.A., Jr., C.P. McKay, G.D. Clow, D.T. Andersen, G.M. Simmons, Jr., and F.G. Love, 1992: J. Geophys. Res., 97, 3503)

Of course, you are free to interprete this as a sign of global warming, or not.

A different side on glaciers and sea levels from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Of course, you are free to neglect this source, as they get their fundings for those news.

Whilst it's good to see serious discussion of open-source benefits to UK govt, one wonders if a related discussion could take place to explore the benefits to the UK economy of reducing the lengthy 125-year term of govt copyright which currently prevents open-source projects from using and adding to 100-year old Victorian map data produced by the Ordnance Survey. The nearest open-source projects can get is ancient pre-125 year map data which are quite interesting as historical data but are seriously deficient for mapping because they are missing large areas of development from the late 19th century. By contrast, in the US, it seems the USGS has a more favorable policy of open-sourcing their data. The result is open-source mapping projects and software that use and extend the USGS datasets, in many cases also leading to commercially successful products.

>Not to mention the fact that one side of the
>moon faces the sun at all times! Any solar
>collectors on Earth are subject to day/night
>cycles. The moon would rarely be impacted, when
>the lunar eclipses happen.

Doh! One side of the moon always faces the EARTH! (synchronous rotation). We had never seen the far side of the moon until we sent something "back there" to take pictures.

So: that being the case, is it really possible that one side of the moon is always bathed in the light of the sun? If so, then how did we ever get visible pictures of the OTHER SIDE of the moon? Did we use a gigantic flashbulb, or something? ;)

Map of the entire surface including the far side

The Far Side of the Moon Consider how this picture would look if it had been taken during a "full moon:" since during a full moon the entire side of the moon that is facing the Earth is lit up, only the portion of the moon in this photograph that is said to be visible from Earth (see the pic's caption) would have any sunlight on it.

Far Side of the Moon, with animation showing the same side of the moon always toward the Earth. This doesn't show where the sun is in relation to the animation; but figure that the sun is way off the screen from the animation...the darkened part of the moon in the animation is representing the side of the moon we never see from Earth, NOT how the light hits the moon (the Earth does not illuminate the moon, although it does sometimes reflect a little of the sun's light onto the dark portion of the quarter moon...)

So, taking this into account, will it be useful to build these lasers on the moon, especially the power plant?

Apollo 11 Laser Ranging Retroreflector Experiment. "Laser beams are used because they remain tightly focused for large distances. Nevertheless, there is enough dispersion of the beam that it is about 7 kilometers in diameter when it reaches the Moon and 20 kilometers in diameter when it returns to Earth. Because of this very weak signal, observations are made for several hours at a time. By averaging the signal for this period, the distance to the Moon can be measured to an accuracy of about 3 centimeters (the average distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 385,000 kilometers)."

Add to this, the fact that the moon wobbles...

Ah yes, here's a thought... ;)

Folks, this is not rocket science. The easiest way to determine if the DOI is on the net or not is to try to connect to the DOI homepage itself. As of this moment (1:00 AM Central time), the entire DOI is off the net. It's not just the BIA or the agencies and sites directly related to it. It's the entire DOI. I am a DOI contractor and I can assure you that our facility (which has nothing to do with the Bureau of Indian Affairs) was most certainly yanked off the net this afternoon, and it remains off the net.

This is really causing pandemonium at our workplace. We cannot access our electronic timesheets because the server is external to our network, and as a result, I've just finished filling out my timesheet from home (because otherwise, it's not going to get done.) The silly part of it is that the facility that I work at has quite robust security, and yet we were still forced offline. This is not an "intelligent decision." This is a knee-jerk reaction that is going to end up inconveniencing a lot of people that have paid a lot of money for Earth science data. It's going to cost the government (and, as a result, you, the taxpayer) a lot of money.

By the time you read this comment, the whole issue may have been rendered moot; there was some hope that the court order might be rescinded overnight. If the order was rescinded and you are able to connect to the above links, then I'm glad (because I'll be able to do my job tomorrow.) But rest assured that the entire DOI lost network connectivity this afternoon. This is judicial idiocy, plain and simple; there is no more diplomatic way to put it.

If the article says one thing and reality reflects another, then the article is wrong. I am a USGS contractor (the USGS is part of the DOI) and we were forced to cut our Internet connection at approximately 2:30 this afternoon. We have nothing to do with the BIA. Furthermore, our operations rely very heavily on Internet connectivity (customers order products online and can retrieve them via FTP.) This is going to have a huge negative impact on our facility and our customers, and we are not even remotely related to the BIA (not to mention the fact that we have a very secure and robust firewall.)

Trust me on this one. But if you don't, try to connect to the DOI homepage if you don't believe me. By the time you read this, connectivity may be restored; we were hoping that the court order might be rescinded overnight. But rest assured that as of right now (12:56 AM Central Time) the entire Department of Interior is offline, regardless of what some article says.

Some of us have our priorities.

Hmm... very good question indeed. This page shows the major tectonic plates involved.

It seems to me that they've got a fairly wide berth in area (given the relatively small size of the selected region for usage) for the purposes of the project. Apparently, the vast majority of Antarctica is comprised on a single major plate.

To the best of my knowledge (albeit limited), the greater portion of this region is relatively seismically stable as a result. Of course, they'd want to stay away from "boundary regions".

That's about all I've got. Anyone got more firm data on this?

Moderation Totals: Offtopic=1, Insightful=2, Funny=1, Total=4.

Add to that Observant +1 (note to previous moderator, how can parent be offtopic?)

It's a weak lead into to a scattergun shot at successes/failures of DSL/CableModem/etc. from server and client side. Of all service providers, though, PacBell is stable and not likely to evaporate, like Covad and others. Love or hate PacBell, if the service works and is reliable (not really all that unusual, from anecdotes) there's no reason to drop it, other than for the cost. I'd love to have it, myself and I live in spitting distance of the main switch, in my hamlet.

I pay $19.95 a month for the benefit of dial up (yeah, it could be less, but not by much) and by habit avoid many large downloads because I'd rather not have my phone line tided of for hours, while 56K (which is *NOT* actual, but theoretical, in practice much less for binary (.zip or .gz) downloads) does it's thing, and disconnects occasionally. $30 more per month is an incredible deal.

OT Stuff:
All that said, here's something I tried to submit and it got rejected, hope someone enjoys it, it's pretty cool, particularly if you have a fast connection:

Nosing around the U.S. Geological Survey I found this nifty press release concerning a joint effort between USGS and Florida International University, TerraFly, which allows viewers to 'fly' over the Continental US, but still in its infancy. In two years nearly all (probably excluding some sites for security purposes) of the continental US will be viewable, followed by satellite maps and 3D views, all through a browser.

On Wed, Oct 17 the Diane Rehm show had a wonderful talk on this very subject. If you listen to the show, make sure to pledge as hosting real audio archives cost a good deal of cash. Details about the show...

Wednesday, October 17, 2001 10:00 - War on Terrorism and U.S. Energy Policy
A panel talks about how the war against terrorism could affect U.S. imports of oil from OPEC nations - which account for almost half of our imported oil - and how domestic energy policy and the economy might be affected.
Phil Verleger, California-based energy economist
Peter VanDoren, editor of Regulation magazine for the CATO Institute
Charli Coon, Heritage Foundation

For more information about ANWR, check out the U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet FS-0040-98: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 1002 Area, Petroleum Assessment, 1998

It looks like the USGS has some use for linux as a backend - the NWISWeb is using RedHat and MySQL, according to their "About" page.

As to size of the database, the realtime sites are collecting measurements every 15-60 minutes, one or more parameters, 24/7. It all adds up after a while.

It looks like the USGS has some use for linux as a backend - the NWISWeb is using RedHat and MySQL, according to their "About" page.

As to size of the database, the realtime sites are collecting measurements every 15-60 minutes, one or more parameters, 24/7. It all adds up after a while.

It's been around (what? 5 billion years?) a long time, I don't think humanity can destroy it in a little over two century.

It has actually been around about 4.6 billion years (age of the oldest rocks).

As other folks pointed out, we humans can't (yet? ever?) destroy the earth, but we can certainly make it unable to support our form of life.

One last thing: "theories" are generally accepted by the scientific community until they are disproven. The semantics of the word does not lessen the idea behind it. The "theory of plate techtonics" is just that: a theory -- but some plates keep subducting and causing active vulcanism nonetheless.

• sdts++, a C++ toolkit for reading SDTS spatial datasets.
• ec++ a evolutionary algorithm C++ library.

I'm also working on a temporal-spatial feature-oriented library and application suite to support USGS research. Once it's mature it'll also be released as OSS.

• sdts++, a C++ toolkit for reading SDTS spatial datasets.
• ec++ a evolutionary algorithm C++ library.

I'm also working on a temporal-spatial feature-oriented library and application suite to support USGS research. Once it's mature it'll also be released as OSS.

• sdts++, a C++ toolkit for reading SDTS spatial datasets.
• ec++ a evolutionary algorithm C++ library.

I'm also working on a temporal-spatial feature-oriented library and application suite to support USGS research. Once it's mature it'll also be released as OSS.

did a quick google search and it came up with this page. short version off of that page makes me believe that an azimuth is a cordinate most often used by astronomers in locating things in the night's sky. this report talks about accuracy when using the azimuth for taking down telemetry and it's accuracy, ect. kinda interesting.

... is of course the S l a s h d o t E f f e c t.

Sooo... congresscritters are thinking of passing a nasty ole law? Rob could just threaten to post a story like "An anonymous coward writes: Streaming video of Natalie Portmans hot grit's posted to the US Congress Web site. "([sic] - TacoLexicon in force. my real grammar is better.)

Congress would naturally cave in and meet all our demands. Well, maybe not RMS's...