Slashdot Mirror
Quake Changes Earth's Rotation, Moves Islands
kernel panic attack writes "This week's deadly Asian Quake and Tsunami may have been so powerful,
that it changed the rate of Earth's rotation. In a Reuters article,
a NASA geophysicist theorizes that the quake compacted the Earth enough
to speed up the planet's rotation by 3 microseconds. A second
article
says the quake moved undersea tectonic plates by up to 98 feet, shifting
islands near Sumatra out to sea an unknown distance. Also, a
USGS team wants images from commercial satellite operators to
help pinpoint coastline damage. Lastly, an interesting article from the Australian Spaceguard Survey about the need for a Tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. The author comments that tsunami warnings may not help much, as people often flock to the coastline to see the giant waves." The current estimated death toll is now nearly 70,000; Amazon and Google, among others, have added front-page links to simplify donating to the disaster relief effort.
I see the Apple fanbois are out in force again today. I dunno about the rotation fo the earth, but we know what they rotate around.
Earthquake, tsunami, pfunami... all that matters for the fanbois is that they have to mention Apple. Sheesh.
"Amazon and Google, among others, have added front-page links to simplify donating to the disaster relief effort."
I resent being made to feel that I owe something to the third world because they don't plan/build to withstand disasters the way we do here in the United States. How much foreign aid did we get in the wake of the four major hurricanes in Florida? Oh that's right -- we have building codes in Florida that take into account such natural events and weather monitoring systems that allow us to see storms in the Atlantic *before* they even form hurricanes.
How about the big earthquake in California earlier this year? It was greater in magnitude that the one that killed 40,000 people in Iran a year or two ago and I think the grand total of the damage was that a jar of mayonnaise fell from the shelf of a grocery store and broke -- because we know how to plan and build for such an event!
Cry me a freaking river that 50,000 people died because the surf was way up... we're either the Great Satan(TM) or we're the best country in the world. Make up your minds and get back to us on it.
And in the mean time, fend for yourselves.
Many people are saying the extent of the disaster is hard to comprehend.
One measure is that the death toll is approaching that of the Iraq war and may soon pass it, though any cost estimates are still less than a tenth of that.
Or put in more flammable (but defendable) terms, this is almost as big a disaster as George W Bush.
Folks, the tsunami was merely evidence of Darwinism and the Gaia Theory.
Donations to those areas are useless. no matter what efforts are made, the people will still live in poverty and in the same conditions as before.
We'll still see the same "feed the children" commercials on TV.
All the tsunami did was relieve the world of thousands of empty stomachs and few hundred rich people.
Ok, Supersizedmike "I'm ashamed to be an American. Call me a troll if you want, but these numbers are sickening."
You are a troll.
I suppose you are happy that there are Dictators in the world who murder there olympic teams if they don't win the gold medal. Dictators who will have deathsquads come in and kill you in front your children because you disagree with him. Or maybe you liked him because he would have women excuted because they lost there virginity when they wern't married.
If you are so ashamed of being an American, as I am that you are an American Why don't you go onto Expedia.com buy yourself a 1 way ticket to Iran because they still have those ideals that you so love. Hope you have a not so safe trip.
Wow, you belittle this horrific tragedy and justify owning a SUV in one post!
You are the definition of an Ugly American motherfucker.
What a joke!! Another one of your Democratic Hero's who also happened to be a slave owner!
He made those remarks about Hamilton - his and Jefferson's enemy who also happened to be an abolitionist - which greatly angered these slave holding "gentleman". All the while whooping it up over the great French Revolution, of course ignoring the slaughter the eventual coup from Napeoeon. I guess he was their 'hero' too!
Motherfucker? Are you claiming he has fucked someone? Come on this is slashdot.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
Why bother quoting an article from Salon.com? Of course it's going to have a strong anti-american slant.
Those numbers are for government funding only. Private US donations, by which a country should truly be judged as they are not coerced in the form of taxes, dwarf any country by any measurement.
Private US donations for this recent tragedy were ahead of the whole EU, and still may be.
Those numbers also do not count other forms of aid (food, shelter, water) that our military provides all over the world that gets absolutely no coverage at all. You know who provides needed goods to most of the poor in rural Central America? The US via the US military.
You are worthless beyond comprehension, and the most valuable contribution you could make to the world at this point is killing yoursef. You are a useless piece of shit, and a net minus to the world. Kill youself and do us all a favor.
You do not. You are out-generoused by FRANCE for christsake. See other comments to this article.
Stop telling yourself lies. You are starting to believe your own propaganda.
hey sicko... You really cant get to show yourself as a typical-dumb-american in any way better. Get your facts right... People like you make me sick. Everyone knows the reason why iraq was attacked, and the reason was definitely not to free people from some dictator. Time and time again this topic has been coming up, but f****** idots like you just dont get it. check out. http://www.feasta.org/documents/papers/oil1.htm why it all happened.
That's true. After all, think about the billions of dollars worth of warheads and bullets that were donated at the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Don't you love how Americans have to TELL everybody how much they donated. Felling a little bit of guilt there, eh?
I donate, but I don't feel the need to let everybody know how much. It stops being charity for OTHERS and starts being all about YOU.
2%. So you make $462,500 per year. You're living in the lap of luxury yet you donate such a piddling amount. Then you feel the need to crow about it and abuse others for not being as "charitable" as you.
Typical American. Does 2% of your half-million dollars per year buy some temporary relief from your guilt?
80,000 people are dead. Guess what? Most of them lived in poverty in shit-brick shacks in alleys. They contributed very little, if anything, to society. Of course, inevitably there were valuable people lost in the disaster, so it's not a total win. The way I figure it, one average American life is worth roughly 1500 average poverty-ridden lives. So, the loss is roughly 53 American lives. That's not nearly as bad as the headlines would have you believe. Then again, there are supposedly hundreds of Americans still missing so the important life deathtoll could go up to a few hundred. Luckily this didn't happen in the Atlantic or Pacific; a loss of even 20,000 American lives on either coast would be devestating to the world economy. Plus Osama bin Laden and his comrades would use it as a political ploy.
On second thought, this might not be so bad if it happened in Atlanta or Washington, D.C.. Get rid of about half the niggers in the country.
OK, I think the parent you were replying to was misunderstood, but you're a shallow, shameful person. You're just shrugging your shoulders. Even to the "universe" I believe this is "worth noting".
Oh and by the way, in 100 years the world will remember this very well indeed; just as they have remembered other massive disasters of this magnitude, you asshole. But we'll try hard to forget people like you.
Fuckoff.
Do you know what the US pays for a single one of its carriers? The USA is far and away the wealthiest nation on the planet. The USA is stingy -- any way you slice it.
$400 billion defense budget. to kill people.
dont run off at the mouth about the good you people do when you spend far more doing ill.
shortsighted, if the goal is American Empire.
Is this the worthy goal you support?