Slashdot Mirror
The Largest Recorded Tsunami Was 50 Years Ago
An anonymous reader writes "July marks the 50th anniversary of the world's largest tsunami — a 1,720-foot-tall wave in Lituya Bay, Alaska. It was triggered by a chain reaction of events that began with a magnitude 7.7 earthquake on the Fairweather Fault, which dislodged a rock fall of 40 million cubic yards, that fell 3,000 feet and splashed into the northwest end of Lituya Bay to generate the wave. This article includes survivor accounts, maps, a satellite image, and photos taken right after the event." To be fair, eyewitness accounts put the height of the wave as it came toward their boats at perhaps 100 feet. The tsunami scoured the land of vegetation and soil to a height of 1,720 feet above sea level, however.
There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the Dutch.
This is a science article, right? Use SI units, kdawson.
This is kdawson we're talking about. We should be thankful he gave us any sort of units at all.
This guy's the limit!
There may have been one earlier, but the Hall of Records was mysteriously washed away 100 years ago.
mod me funny
Why does dividing by 10 matter so much, anyway? Because you have 10 fingers?
Because we use a base 10 counting system for most calculations. Having a measurement system that is highly compatible with the numeral system most humans use makes sense.
Really, we should be trying to move to a system of measure that is base 2.
Really? Go ahead and tell your mother you came 1011 miles to see her - I'm sure she'll be impressed.
I'd prefer that we used a hexadecimal system. It is large enough for brevity but also can readily be converted to binary for simplicity. The only advantage a base-10 system has over hexadecimal is that most people have 10_(10) fingers so they know how to count to 10_(10). If they were smart, they'd know how to count to 0x3FF (1023_(10)).
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
In metric time?
I blame women. No woman wants to go from weighing 95 units to weighing 209 units. It's like the designer clothes stores that makes their size 4 dress the same size as the cheapo brand size 6. Women will want to buy the size 4 because it makes them feel skinnier. You might have a better chance of getting us to measure weight in stones.. then our same woman would weigh just under 7 units.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
OK smartass:
Without using a calculator, 21467 seconds are how many feet?
Well fuck. American units can't convert a measurement of time to a measurement of length. I guess you win.
You go ahead and pay $4 for a liter and I'll pay $4 for a gallon, that fact alone is reason enough to stick with US measurements.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Except that you wouldn't want to multiply a pound by 2.2. You'd want to *divide* a pound by 2.2...
That's an imperial kg, a US kg you multiply. Maybe that's why the US never switched to the metric system.
end sarcasm
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Where's the satellite picture of the scene before the earthquake?
Sorry ... I mistook your original post saying that the US should switch to the metric system with you saying that the US should switch to the metric system.
Sorry, can you tell me what a metric buttload is in imperial units? I don't know the conversion ratio.
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Of course.
You can work backwards from the splash damage which is 1d4+1 per cubic meter (concussion) (crit).
The damage area is 11.9km long by 219m wide x 2 (2 sides) = 5,212,000 square meters of vegetation and trees.
You have roughly 1 tree per 10sq meter so there were about 521200 trees. At 500 hit points each total damage dealt was 260,600,000 damage (Whoa).
At 1d4+1 the wave could easily have been 525m in height, 3.2km wide and 44m deep. Unless a 20 was rolled in which case it would be half the size... which might explain the contentions points.
You only get 1000xp per tree so he got 520mil experience from that and must have gone up at least 2 levels.
Somebody really should be making that movie.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
cwd
xor ax,dx
sub ax,dx
You insensitive clod!