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Quake-Catcher Aims to be Largest Distributed Seismometer Network
Nature is reporting that a new distributed computing application is looking to monitor earthquake data using the accelerometer in many computing devices. In the long run, "Quake-Catcher" will hopefully be fast enough to give warning before major earthquakes. "If it works, it will be the cheapest seismic network on the planet and could operate in any country. It wouldn't be as sensitive as traditional networks of seismometers, but Lawrence says that's not the point. 'If you have only two sensors in an area, you have to have a perfect system. If you have 15 sensors in a system it [can] be less perfect. One hundred, one thousand, ten thousand -- your need for the system to be perfect becomes much smaller,' he says. 'That's really our approach -- just to have massive numbers.'"
How many more server mods do we need for Quake?
I definitely don't mind anyone spying on my accelerometer.. besides, this definitely has some mass appeal. You're contributing to something that could really help people, not just crunch numbers for (what's the word you used oh yeah) VAPORWARE research. Plus it doesn't tear up your CPU at night. I'd be concerned about coordinated pranks, like thousands of 4channers all shaking their computers making the system think theres an apocalypse coming :)
I'm more skeptical as to how accurate he can geolocate each laptop. I've had IP-geolocation tools tell me I'm in a city 500km away...
The article is thin on details, but I think this might kill your network instead of killing your CPU.
The idea here is to detect subtle movements of the laptop (which are small enough to not need shutting the laptop down). Apparently whenever the accelerometer senses a motion it will communicate to a central server within a second. Imagine using one of these in the train or a bus...the laptop would be constantly pinging the server. A quake of magnitude 4 is not going to feel any stronger than the movement of a train
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
So, you're saying that you specifically know that graviton's are produced hours or days ahead of an earthquake, even though they have never been observed, and a purely theoretical? So what conditions would produce gravitons? things under pressure? The pressures isn't that much compared to what pressure we put a lot of our materials under, there is just ALOT of mass being moved.
I signed up for the Tsunami Harddisk Detector project, but don't know if they are related.
"Thanks for your interest in the Tsunami Harddisk Detector project. We are currently installing the system on a world wide basis. To keep the system in a stable state, further installation is an incremental process. We have put you on our mailing list and will inform you as soon as we can make the software available to you. Best regards, Michael Stadler ____________________ www.ninsight.at "
So I sent off an email asking about spyware, etc., and got this back.
"Thanks for your request. The software doest not contain any kind of malware. It will be sponsored by travel agencies, but they only show little images of advertisements. That's all. At the moment we are still testing the software and will be making it available to you as soon as possible. Regards, Michael Stadler On 9/26/07, Talkischeap wrote: "Greetings, I'm very interested in obtaining your "new" Tsunami Harddisk Detector software. I live on the Northern California coast (near Mendocino) and this is definitely earthquake country. However... I AM a bit concerned that your software is sponsored by advertisements, and ask you if it contains ANY: * Spyware * Adware * Viruses * Trojans * Rootkits * Malware * Anything else invasive And if it doesn't, then I'm definitely interested, and please place me on your "waiting list" for a copy."
So this appears to be a different project, but both of them are pretty nifty.
Of course... the "tin foil hat" types will quickly realize that this has the capabilities to track your comings and goings (i.e. Your daily routine).
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
Way to ignore the summary and fail to RTFA. The USGS system uses the existing seismograph network to track earthquakes. This one would serve double duty, both analyzing earthquake data in a distributed fashion, and acting as an ad-hoc seismograph network. In theory, it should catch additional information the existing system would miss, and aid in tracking the effects of the various rock strata in different regions on the seismic waves.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
and the scientific basis for prediction is what, exactly?
a meaningful prediction has to be precise in location and in time.
time is the enemy:
the thirty second warning is little better than "duck and cover" if it cannot be communicated effectively.
Well obviously real equipment is much better for detecting subtle data like.. "yes my dissertation was on mapping a square-meter arc of the solid surface of the inner core and matching it to a known fractal patten..." but for aggregating cool statistics and things it's nifty.
I can definitely see seismologists not paying attention to their warning equipment while they're busy pwning some n00bs.
And no matter if it runs Linux or not, that spyhardware will never prevent or predict an earthquake
... what, exactly?
And your basis for this sweeping statement is
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Seriously, Gamespy already did this like 13 years ago.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
My laptop gets really hot when used heavily for awhile.. yes thermal stress destroys components
if they're inexpensive enough, I wouldn't mind dropping 15$ on a USB accelerometer. Heck, I'd drop $25 if it was at all accurate, as I'm highly interested as to see how sensitive and see what kinds of vibrations it does pick up.
So, Sparky the poodle starts chewing on a Macbook, and meanwhile, in a remote location, seismologists freak out that Indiana is falling into the sea
How cute is that, for the benefit of the humanity you will let the terr..quake-catchers to spy your accelerometer.
Wait, I have another great application for you and all the other law obeying citizens. How about transmitting all your bluetooth handshake contacts to e.g. department of homeland security? With that information the government could build a navigation system for ambulances and fire trucks, informing them of unexpected traffic jams etc. That would certainly save lives and you haven't done anything wrong, so you have nothing to fear - right?
Hey one more great idea. Why not make carrying such a contact registering device obligatory? That would help discovering terrorist cell contacts, identify lot of rapists, paedophiles, robbers, drug dealers, shoplifters, graffiti painters, demonstrators, Jews, union workers... Why not? You have nothing to fear - or have you?
Sorry, but I just think all humans should avoid carrying unnecessary spyhardware to the max. Besides even the article says "It wouldn't be as sensitive as traditional networks of seismometers..." Thus, why not let the good geologists to build their freakin seismometers as good as they need to be.
And about this technology being vaporware or not.
- people are lazy, they don't even install firefox
- system requires knowledge about the exact location of accelerometers; again those privacy concerns
- Traditional seismometer technology can likely produce just as useful predictions
Yes, vaporware it is. - I can recognize it easily because I (may) have produced some great examples of it myself... e.g. Here is the wonderful...Charity Open Source license - much like GPL - but better (companies would need to by annual licenses from Red Cross / Greenpeace / Amnesty International etc.), what happened - nothing - no one ever heard about it - vaporvare - maybe.
t3d -The world's easiest to learn and most powerful programming language. It's documentation is whole 2-pages. What happened - nothing - no one ever heard about it - vaporvare - maybe.
Rosetta and Newton trivias - which are teaching for free a dozen languages. And
See, I know vaporvare quite well, because of my expertise in producing such
This post looks like someone dropped a physics textbook and all the words spilled out.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
Why should that be a show stopper?
If you volunteered your machine for this, why would you have a problem telling them (in general terms) where you live?
It seems to me that precision down to the city would be close enough, but I suspect most people would have no problem giving somewhat more precise measurements, such as from google maps or some such.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
People may not install firefox, but hundreds of thousands installed seti at home, and various other cooperative project software.
There is no requirement for precise location. You over state your case.
Simply giving your zip code (or your county's equivalent) would be quite sufficient. When all the laptops in 98210 start signaling thats a pretty good hint. Most people would have no problem giving that level of precision or vagueness as the case may be.
Traditional seismometer technology can produce better results. But who can afford it? And who would install it and who would support it? Free is a good price. And if laptop users offer the service for free why not take them up on in?
Oh, yeah, spyware. Ooooo, scary. What part of open source don't you understand?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Seriously, did no one think of the Tremors series while reading this?
A few months ago I wrote up a post wondering why no one had done this yet. Put those accelerometers to work!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wow! Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!!
Personally, I think this is a dud idea.
1,000 laptop accelerometers cannot do what a single seismic sensor can, because they are orders of magnitude less sensitive. You can't take 1,000 sensors, add the data together, and say it is 1,000 times more effective than a single device. If the sensor granularity is not sufficient to detect what you are trying to detect, then one or one million will not be able to detect your subject. It'd be like using one cheap VGA webam to try to photograph surface topography on Pluto, and when that didn't work, trying the same thing by using 1,000 cheap VGA webcams together.
Stupid.
I hate printers.
Just how few MIBF (Mean Instructions Before Failure) is your CPU rated for? Afraid you're going to use it all up? Wear out the gears and levers and such?
.10 cents. So $21 bucks a month on average just to 'tear up your CPU'. (or $250 a year on average... up to $500 a year in California or New York where electricity is higher...)
Pointlessly wear out his wallet maybe?
Hint: Electricity costs money.
A CPU in hibernate takes next to nothing. A modern CPU 'tearing' along at max utilisation 24x7 will make a noticeable bump in your utility bill.
Figure 24h *30 days = 720 hours / month, so a 300Watt PC going full tilt for a month burns 216kWh. Average kWh in the US is
A few years of 'tearing up your CPU' and you could have bought a whole new computer.
The first half of your post is random bullcrap. Why exact location via gps? Why at all? Did you just trip and fall on your keyboard and accidentally type those letters? Better say yes because that's the least retarded way you could have come up with that nonsense. People install folding@home, how does that make them too lazy to install firefox? What? And all of your vaporware is vaporware because it's completely retarded. A free software license that requires you to purchase a license? What! Hur dur why not just buy paid software then. Your language specification is a joke. Your language learning is terrible, what are you supposed to do just guess?
Not relevant.
Lucky Imaging uses multiple high accuracy devices that are accurate enough to capture the granularity required, but are otherwise limited by extraneous transient factors. By using multiple devices the chance of achieving an optimum reading vis a vis those extraneous factors is maximised. This situational opportunism is why it is called "Lucky Imaging", and it cannot be applied to the scenario where the device itself is not capable of making the reading necessary, even under optimum conditions.
Also, I'm not entirely sure how you thought that my example of a "cheap VGA webcam" was applicable to observatory quality low light CCDs mounted in an assembly the size of a shipping container.
I hate printers.
Will this be a separate channel on my WII?
Tagged: 'noclip'
To extend this to a domain where you don't have the effective control, you have to automatically detect where different pictures fit. I remember having seen somebody that did this; I can't remember where, though.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Am I the only one picturing a group of 4chan wackos simultaneously shaking the shit out of their MacBooks ?
Don't put anything in the hands of people unless you're ready to deal with the collective stupidity of said people.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Indeed. Plus there is higher mechanical stress if you have a fan that kicks in when it's running hotter, as with my laptop ... so real moving parts are involved too.
I have interest in earthquakes and I have setup my own seismometers to record earthquakes. Now given what I know about earthquakes doubt that this plan is going to work. Not only because of the false signals he is going to get, but because with just only two sensors (even with more sensors like this I still doubt that this is going to work) that aren't sensitive enough to detect the pre-earthquakes when they happen, he isn't going to be able to predict a larger earthquake in one area. But small pre-earthquakes are sometimes from 1.0ML up to 3.0ML in size (there about). He is also going to have an issue with noise, that is cars, movement of the laptops and so on. But that is going to give out many false signals that won't be at any use, but earthquake signals can also drown in a city noise.
The idea might work if he where using normal seismometers, but not laptops or home PCs.
I would be surprised if this application couldn't be made to fit on something like a Technologic Systems http://www.embeddedarm.com/ TS-7400 (which comes with a 12Mb/s USB port, cost $100 in quantity). The AC power draw for the TS-7400 plus accelerometer would be 6 watts max ($5 to $10/yr) and would pay for itself in less than a year. In addition, the TS-7600 is fanless and diskless, so there would be much less extraneous vibration.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
...for going to the effort to implement this idea. IMHO this network's real goal should be to provide rapid warning of an earthquake that is already happening:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=440258&cid=22283136
I do not see how anyone's privacy is violated if the government monitored the Internet and looked for patterns of computers going off line. An disk shaped pattern expanding at about 5000 m/s would be one pattern to look for.
There are techniques for extracting higher quality data from overlapping low-resolution data sets.
Yes and no. If your low-resolution images are properly acquired, that with with no aliasing, you're fucked. Aliasing means frequency components higher than half the sampling rate/camera resolution are not being filtered out prior to quantization by, in our example, the camera's CCD. When your image is anti-aliased, it looks good, but also these higher frequency components have been filtered out. Whatever they were, they're gone, they have no impact on what you see, no matter what they possibly could be.
Now if the images are aliased. The thing with these higher frequency components is that they're like a sheet of paper you fold into a Z to fit into an envelope, that is, they fold back under the Nyquist frequency (the upper frequency limit you can have in a discrete signal), so they are still there, blended with the rest of the data. With only one aliased image however, you cannot tell which layers of the folded letter some feature belongs to, so you can't unfold it. But if you get many aliased images of the same thing, then every time the letter is folded a bit different, and from that you can deduce what feature belongs where, thus using my analogy unfold then letter and get a higher resolution image.
If you have ENOUGH difference sets, you can cancel out the noise.
It seems you're talking about something else, which is reducing the Signal/Noise Ratio by averaging many (noisy) images of the same thing. The images mustn't be different, just have a different noise. I don't think it has anything to do with the other thing you were talking about.
You just got troll'd!
You can't take 1,000 sensors, add the data together, and say it is 1,000 times more effective than a single device. If the sensor granularity is not sufficient to detect what you are trying to detect, then one or one million will not be able to detect your subject.
Well, actually that's quite wrong, to a certain extent. If we assume that these sensors always detect something (be it noise or parasite vibrations which you can consider noise), then by averaging their signals all together you can actually reduce the noise and get a much better signal, and detect what couldn't be detected with a single of these same sensors. Now I don't know how noise averaging scales up, that is whether it's linear or not and thus whether or not 1,000 sensors will be 1,000 times more sensitive than 1, but one thing is for sure, it takes a certain amount of laptop accelerometers to do what a single seismic sensor can do, it would only be hard to tell whether or not it would be more or less than 1,000.
It'd be like using one cheap VGA webam to try to photograph surface topography on Pluto, and when that didn't work, trying the same thing by using 1,000 cheap VGA webcams together.
Horrible analogy! You're comparing noise reduction by averaging with capturing high frequency image components by using a bunch of low-resolution cameras. Entirely different and unrelated problem. The first one can simply done by averaging data, the second one is impossible unless you rely on aliasing.
Stupid.
You find it stupid because you don't understand the basic underlying principles. Ironic.
You just got troll'd!
My whole point was that they won't. Accelerometers in laptops will register 0 (as in the discrete digital zero value) when a seismic event occurs, making interpolative data extrapolation techniques impossible.
If what you are trying to detect is a reading on something that is beneath the Nyquist threshold for your sensors, then it matters not how many readings, or how many sub-sample deviations you can collect, you'll still end up with nothing but noise. Noise averaging does *not* work the way you describe, because white-noise signals averaged do not produce lower noise, they produce more white noise. If there is a signal with a very low SNR in those multiple streams, you cannot reduce the SNR just by averaging the streams, you have to use other methods of signature analysis, which do not apply unless you actually *do* have a signal in the noise, which, as I stated at the very beginning, you will not with laptop accelerometers detecting seismic vibrations.
Given that you completely missed my point, I'm going to assume that your strength is not reading comprehension, and guess that it is math. Thus, I leave it to you to work out what the average is of one thousand 0 values. Your math skill will need to be marginally better than your reading comprehension skills to work that out.
I hate printers.
Accelerometers in laptops will register 0 when a seismic event occurs
If you *do* know that then fine (do you actually know that?) but if you don't I'd think twice before assuming it.
Noise averaging does *not* work the way you describe, because white-noise signals averaged do not produce lower noise, they produce more white noise.
Hahahahahahahahaha. That's funny because you seem to be serious. lol, seriosuly man, pick up a book on signal processing basics or something.
Given that you completely missed my point, I'm going to assume that your strength is not reading comprehension, and guess that it is math. Thus, I leave it to you to work out what the average is of one thousand 0 values. Your math skill will need to be marginally better than your reading comprehension skills to work that out.
Oh fear not, I got your assumption that accelerometers give 0 readings when idle. I just question it, because I doubt it does (and I wouldn't know how to verify this, and if you really do know that I'd like to know how).
You just got troll'd!
Noise is cancelled using lowpass or highpass filters around the signal. Take 10 series of 10 random numbers each. Average the first one in each series, the second one in each series, the third one in each series to get the "average series". What do you get? A set of 10 more random numbers. Unless there is already a common bias in the series (otherwise known as an analogue signal), averaging does nothing to white noise. This whole discussion is based on my assertion that there is no such signal, as laptop accelerometers will not pick up seismic vibrations.
Install a data logger for your laptop if you have an accelerometer. Put your laptop in the next room. Jump up and down. See if your laptop picks up a signal. Now recognise that a seismic sensor would be able to pick up your jumping up and down if you were 2 houses away. However, you're right, I don't know this for sure. If you think that they are sensitive enough, then before you reply, go do some research on the sensitivity of seismic monitoring equipment and the accelerometers in laptops. If I'm wrong, prove it. Otherwise, STFU.
I hate printers.
Noise is cancelled using lowpass or highpass filters around the signal.
Hahahaha. Come back when you get a clue, sucker. Signal processing 101 : Averaging is the most basic way to get rid of noise when you have many copies of the same signal with everytime a different noise. lol, low-pass and high-pass filters? And how the hell do you do if your signal covers the entire spectrum? There's a shitload of ways to reduce noise, but in that case you could trying profiling the noise in the frequency domain, then FFT or better yet STFT the signal and substract that noise profile in the frequency domain.
What do you get? A set of 10 more random numbers.
Duh, look at their distribution you triple imbecile. The more random numbers you use in your 10 series the narrower it will get, which proves my point.
averaging does nothing to white noise
Just fucking take it to comp.dsp and get your arse laughed at.
Install a data logger for your laptop if you have an accelerometer.
Have you actually done it? Because I would except it to give non-zero readings even when you're not jumping up and down (which would be noise).
However, you're right, I don't know this for sure.
Yeah, so that whole thing was based on a baseless assertion. Way to go!
If you think that they are sensitive enough
It's not about sensitivity, and that's the whole point, it's about noise. If you get some noise, that is non-zero readings, then there's no limit to how good a result you can get by averaging an infinity of similar sensors (which obviously is impractical). Noise here serves as dithering, that allows you to catch the signal even if it's buried deep down the noise.
You obviously know very little about signal processing (unlike me, but just check out the link in my signature), and just like a lot of other suckers on Slashdot who try to sound more knowledgeable than they are you make your assumptions, guesses and vague memories from things you remember hearing about sound like knowledge.
You just got troll'd!
Narrower at a median band with no data.
Look here, I'm going to say this very slowly and clearly: LAPTOP. SENSORS. WILL. GET. NO SIGNAL. Not a little, not below the noise threshold, not an eensy weensy bit. NONE. NADA. ZIP. They are not sensitive enough. Get me the specs sheet on them as well as on seismic monitors, otherwise STFU. That has been my only point in this whole debate: That no matter how good your amplification and filtration is, you cannot create a signal where there IS NONE.
I hate printers.
There are techniques for extracting higher quality data from overlapping low-resolution data sets.
Yes and no. If your low-resolution images are properly acquired, that with with no aliasing, you're fucked. Aliasing means frequency components higher than half the sampling rate/camera resolution are not being filtered out prior to quantization by, in our example, the camera's CCD.
You're usually still good - the average energy is still distributed the correct place. Aliasing is only an issue for "single point" sampling; if the sample covers an average over a time period or an area, you're still getting an energy increase in the average for that area.Here's a paper covering the area: High-resolution image reconstruction from multiple low-resolutionimages; it's the 6th hit on Google for a search for "high res from many low res images". Note that you can even do this from JPEG-compressed images: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1006080.
Noise elimination is a relevant part of the problem, because there is always noise in the low-res images.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
LAPTOP. SENSORS. WILL. GET. NO SIGNAL. Not a little, not below the noise threshold, not an eensy weensy bit. NONE. NADA. ZIP.
Read my lips : You're an idiot. Sensors return noise for many reasons, either because of their noise level or because they're close to a source of noise, like a hard drive spinning close to them. Besides they're more sensitive than you claim, here's some of what I've found to illustrate my claim :
"Place your laptop on a table and see the seismic waves from tapping your toe on the floor. Lay your laptop on your chest and see your heartbeat. And of course, if there is a real earthquake, SeisMac will be displaying full seismic information while you drop, cover and hold-on." from here.
"It was interesting to see how even the vibration of the internal hard drive shows up as a spike in the spectrum." "the sensors do seem to be pretty darn sensitive. My typing makes the Z sensor go wild..." from here.
Also look at the graphs here. Not only do you see noise before the earthquake (and not 0 readings) but the event is clearly recorded.
But back to our theoretical argument. You claim that you'll get no signal. This is so wrong. As I've shown you'll get a signal, even noisy, and as you would understand if you had as much knowledge as you try to make it sound like, averaging noise signals that contain the same (desirable) signal and a different noise will reduce the noise.
The difference between you and I being that I actually studied DSP and have read literature about it, here's a relevant extract about coherent averaging from Rick Lyons' "Understanding Digital Signal Processing" : "In the coherent averaging process, [...] we collect multiple sets of signal plus noise samples [...]. The noise, however, is different in each sample set and will average toward zero. The point is that coherent averaging reduces the variance of the noise, while preserving the amplitude of signals that are synchronous, or coherent, with the beginning of the sampling interval. With coherent averaging, we can actually improve the signal-to-noise ratio of a noisy signal."
And here is a post that shows that by using that technique, the SNR improves by sqrt(N), N being the number of of sensors. That means that 100 macbooks will be 10 times more sensitive than 1. Which proves my point that it takes a certain amount of them to rival with the sensitivity of a seismometer.
And if you're gonna tell me that they can catch noise but no signal, even buried deep in the noise, how the fuck would that get filtered out in the first place? How could the vibrations of the ground could be left out?
That has been my only point in this whole debate: That no matter how good your amplification and filtration is, you cannot create a signal where there IS NONE.
Retard.
You just got troll'd!
That's a point too : how do you make sure that your signals are synchronous ?
You can use incoherent averaging, which is the same thing as coherent averaging except in the frequency domain, it seems (I just read about it in a book, not too familiar with it). However, it seems that incoherent averaging is less efficient at improving the SNR, so if you have an easily detectable event you care about you could use cross-correlation between the different signals to synchronize them with respect to the event studied. But yeah, you wouldn't average signals coming from all over the world anyways, only local groups I guess.
You just got troll'd!