Earthquake Invisibility Cloak

BuzzSkyline writes "The same folks who brought us the tsunami invisibility cloak last year have now come up with an earthquake invisibility cloak. They show that a platform made of just the right configuration of elastic rings could make a structure invisible to earthquakes by effectively steering a quake around the structure. It doesn't work well for compression waves, but the researchers claim it could hide buildings from the slower-moving, more destructive shear earthquake waves. The research is due to be published soon in the journal Physical Review Letters."

Comments

Eat my shorts slashdot !!

[Anonymous Coward]

eat my shorts slashdot !!

No, you eat my shorts

[Anonymous Coward]

Beat that

You boths can eat mine

[Anonymous Coward]

Toppers of the best or the rest

Eat on a slow day

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine shorts/././

Re:Eat on a slow day

[Anonymous Coward]

Why you little... **chokes troll**

Marketing vs Engineering

[florescent_beige]

If you're in marketing you call it an invisibility cloak. If you're an engineer you call it a tuned resonator and ask yourself why oh why you didn't go to medical school.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[cduffy]

An informal survey done my one of my coworkers at a party with his fiance's family and coworkers (a group largely composed of doctors and lawyers -- she's doing her residency) found that only 25% of the doctors would do it again (given the costs and stresses involved); many indicated they'd have stayed in medicine, but have gone for a cheaper job title (such as FNP). For the lawyers, the would-do-it-again ratio was closer to 50%.

I think we engineers have it good.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[vux984]

I think we engineers have it good.

Many doctors and lawyers go into the field for the money. That's not really true of the hard science/engineer types. So most engineers would do it again because they actually want to spend their time engineering, and enjoy it.

That's true of a lot of doctors too...but a lot of them just picked their career by the expected income. How many engineers or mathematicians or computing scientists or physicists etc chose the career for the paycheque*. Sure we can get paid well, but lets face it... its not the license to print money being a lawyer or doctor can be.

(*Other than the brief rash of worthless eng. and comp.sci. grads chasing the .com bubble)

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[Dunbal]

and ask yourself why oh why you didn't go to medical school.

      And AFTER the earthquake, you will ask yourself why oh why DID you go to medical school...

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

Many doctors and lawyers go into the field for the money.

And doctors going into it for the money is one of the big reasons why healthcare is so broken in America. Doctors aren't doing it in order to help people (though it is a secondary motive for some). Rather, they're mainly doing it to enrich themselves. Is it any surprise that healthcare is so expensive?

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[Abreu]

Instead of Invisibility Cloak, I would call it "Earthquake Deflector Shield"

Same coolness, more accuracy

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

While we're sharing anecdotal "evidence" I'll add that my family has physicians in it, and I know quite a few physicians. Most of them are unhappy but it almost never has anything to do with money. This isn't to say that the money is good as it usually isn't unless you are highly specialized. The primary issue is work hours and the "business" of medicine. Both of these factors combine to result in physicians being incapable of practicing what any reasonable person would call "medicine" anymore.

Here is one extremely common example that results in tremendous frustration:
Patient comes in to doctor, with a scheduled appointment of 15 minutes for a single "issue", hence the 15 minute appointment. ... 10 minutes in as the physician is summarizing the situation for the patient...
Patient: Oh, and this, and this, and that are also bothering me, where 2 out of 3 of those are going to be relatively significant issues, but embarrassing ones that they wouldn't want to relate over the phone to a receptionist.
Doctor: (now spends another 20 minutes with that patient covering what the real issues were, and is now 15 minutes "behind" which physicians *hate*, but they have no control over)

The next time you visit your doctor keep in mind that you're buying their *time*. There are a great many practices that allot *7 minutes*, yes, 7 minutes per visit for the doctor! They have to get/read the history, review the status and figure out what's wrong in 7 minutes! In my opinion there should be an enormous countdown clock on the wall in every exam room and it starts off with the length of time that you were allocated based on your complaint. The clock counts only while the doctor or nurse is in the room and when it reaches 0 the room lights are turned out.

Along similar lines is the growing trend of patients as "customers" and physicians as "providers". This results in surveying of patients for how happy they are, and in many areas of specialty such as psychiatry (drug seeking behaviors) and pediatrics (make sure my kid is well before we go on vacation/sports/day care) it's not possible to make the patient happy without also violating their oath as a doctor.

The doctors I know desperately want to be able to provide more and medical care, and that's why they are unhapping and leaving practices left and right.

On another note, let's look at one of the "highlights" from a 2006 study:
Attorneys have the highest rates of depression and suicide of any profession.
http://lifeatthebar.wordpress.com/2006/03/14/surveys-of-lawyers-satisfaction-levels/

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't exactly true, it's not that they go in to it for the money, and certainly not all of them.

I *highly* recommend reading the excellent New Yorker article about this by Atul Gwande. He has written several other short books and stories about medicine that are similarly excellent. As I understand it the article linked below is now considered required reading by those working on fixing the current healthcare system:

The Cost Conundrum:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande

Also:
Less paperwork, more time with patients keep doctors in medicine
A literature review finds that physicians value autonomy more than money in deciding whether to keep practicing.
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/06/08/bisc0610.htm

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[martas]

unless you're really awesome, and patent something that ends up earning you millions. it's happened before, but unfortunately for me it's pretty rare in CS.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[martas]

if there is such a difference of incentives between US doctors and, say, Canadian doctors, then i find it hard to believe that that is the root cause of the problem. rather, i think it's probably much more of a consequence.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[vux984]

(now spends another 20 minutes with that patient covering what the real issues were, and is now 15 minutes "behind" which physicians *hate*, but they have no control over)

I hate to break it to you, but that is par for the course in ANY profession where you need to meet with other people for any reason whatsoever.

Doctor. Plumber. Network Admin. Baby Sitter.

I don't book 16 15 minute appointments in a 4 hour afternoon, because there is no way in hell I'd ever get through them all. 8-10 would be pushing it.

If they want to address this, do what everyone else does: wake up to reality and stop over booking yourself. Yeah, you'll make less money if you can't book 32 patients in a day anymore. So what?

And on that note, why do I have to take half a day off work, so I can come in and meet with a doctor for 7 minutes (after waiting 40+) who has nothing important to tell me and barely looks at me. Fuck, unless they need to poke or prod or sample something I have better things to do than to lose half a day of work to see them. -- you want to tell me my test came back fine, or that I need to book another blood sample at some lab... pick up the phone tell me.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[Kingrames]

I never thought I'd SEE a tuned resonator, let alone create one...

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[VanessaE]

Pick up the phone!? Are you out of your mind?

The horror! The inhumanity! Why, they'd have to violate their ever-so-precious HIPAA guidelines, or so they seem to think anyway.

Seriously, every time I've tried to get basic medical info over the phone, usually simple blood test results, I've had to make an appointment, and always because HIPAA somehow prevents it (or so they claim), even though they know perfectly well who is calling. My guess is that, despite the time saved by both parties by making a quick 30 second call, somehow they must figure that they can make more money by forcing me to make an appointment (even though they could just as easily give that time slot to someone else).

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[florescent_beige]

If you have ever looked at the springs and shock absorbers on a car then you have seen a tuned resonator.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[GrumblyStuff]

I just wonder how they cope with the tachyon field and quantum neutrinos. Maybe they reversed the polarity?

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, every time I've tried to get basic medical info over the phone, usually simple blood test results, I've had to make an appointment, and always because HIPAA somehow prevents it (or so they claim), even though they know perfectly well who is calling.

Shop around if you have the opportunity in your area or with your employer.

I have Kaiser-Northern California. Sure, they have some very public problems on occasion, but I've had none in 30+ years with them. They're very highly computerized.

I can go in for blood tests, go home and likely within five hours, I have an email telling me I can log on to my account and browse the results. Often, there are seven to ten individual test results. First page is a chart listing test names, normal parameters and my value for the current set. If I want more, each test has a link to the description of the test and why it's usually requested. Want the full report card? I can get a graph of one or all related tests for the past year or two, so I can see all the ups and downs. No sweat, no HIPAA crap. Of course, the doctor has already reviewed the tests and approved the results he wants released to you.

Now the lab requests are all done on the computer, so you don't get a paper lab request. But back when I used to get the paper, I always wrote down the names of the tests. Never once was a set of results withheld from the set I had recorded.

Another thing -- you can change doctors easily if you don't like or feel comfortable with the one you have. Naturally you can't do this four times every year. But I could ask for a change at any time. It wouldn't be hard to walk around to other waiting rooms to ask a few people if they liked their doctor for whatever ailment you were interested in. You could even go to another of their facilities and do the same. At least here in the SF bay area, where they have a number of hospitals. Elsewhere it might be more difficult.

Another thing I really love -- no paperwork, ever. Well, the only ones I've ever had to sign were the consents for procedures. You know, the ones that say, "Likely nothing bad will happen. But it could. You might even could die or be permanently maimed/vegetated. But, like we said, not likely. Just so you know. K? Just sign on the dotted line before the anesthesia takes hold."

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[mea37]

I guess it's easy to blame the health-care provider.

Don't let it bother you that nobody knows exactly what would violate HIPAA, so everyone goes by their legal team's best guess. Or I suppose you think that for your convenience your doctor should ignore legal advice and risk exposing himself to litigation from someone who views the regs differently than you do?

I suppose the providers could just lawyer up even more, buy even more insurance... and guess what, they'll pass the "savings" on to you!

Yes, there should be accepted methods for passing quick information to the patient without an appointment. No, there aren't great ones, and offices seem to vary on when they're willing to use phone and mail. And no, this isn't because your doctor is trying to screw you. Doctors don't like the current system of overbooking and running constantly behind any more than you do.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[mea37]

My doctor had a practice of well over 2000 patients. This wasn't about being greedy - it was about staying afloat. He hated it enough that he followed one of the recent trends: he switched to a "small practice" model where he guarantees high availability to each of the couple hundred patients to which he now limits himself.

Of course, he now has to make the practice profit on something like 1/6 to 1/10 as many patients. So, he charges an annual fee (which is a bit steep, and which insurance won't cover - though an FSA can help). On top of that, insurance rules insist that he charge for office visits (when he learned of this, he lowered the annual fee to compensate).

In my experience, he really is able to provide much better service now. I've been able to see him within a few hours of feeling ill. I don't wait around for a backlog of patients when I go to his office. He even decided to offer a vaccination series at his expense because current insurance practices would leave adults to either buy it themselves or do without.

But better healthcare costs more. The system is broken and a broken system has baseline prices that are too high; no individual provider can change that.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[shwinical]

as a bioengineering graduate now in med school, i frequently ask myself "why didnt i stay in engineering?" ymmv

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[vux984]

Don't let it bother you that nobody knows exactly what would violate HIPAA

Nobody knows what the full ramifications of any piece of legislation are. Its a BS excuse. What's next?

What part of disclosing medical information to the PATIENT could violate the HIPAA? Its pure nonsense.

If they can be confident that they are disclosing the information to the patient, say, by requiring that they call the patient back on a pre-authorized number, there would be no issue with HIPAA. This is on par or better than the level of security they have when they send the data to pharmacists, or consultations with specialists, etc, which they do all the time.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[mea37]

"Nobody knows what the full ramifications of any piece of legislation are"

I didn't say "nobody knows what the full ramifications of HIPAA are". I said, nobody knows what violates HIPAA.

If I hop in a car and start driving down the highway, I know damned well what behavior will constitute speeding. If I go into the corner market, I know what would constitute shoplifting. So on the face of it, your attempt to paint HIPAA as no more difficult than any other law is baseless.

"What part of disclosing medical information to the PATIENT could violate the HIPAA?"

Can you prove who you're talking to on the phone? Can you prove who else is listening? You may know your doctor's office's secretary's voice, but I bet he/she doesn't know yours (among the probably-thousands he/she deals with). Maybe you go to a smaller office where that's less of an issue. Good for you. Unless they have their own legal staff that can re-evaluate the situation, they're still stuck going by industry practices for what's "safe". In fact they may well contract with industry groups that insist on it anyway.

And considering that giving medical information to a concerned relative would "violate the HIPAA" as you put it, there's nothing paranoid at all about that concern.

Again, these decisions aren't made by some doctor who's out to get you. They are made by lawyers. They are made defensively to cut down on the legal costs associated with providing healthcare.

"they call the patient back on a pre-authorized number, there would be no issue with HIPAA"

Because every patient has a phone that nobody else could possibly answer? Right.

"This is on par or better than the level of security they have when they send the data to pharmacists"

Citation needed.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[vux984]

I said, nobody knows what violates HIPAA.

Nobody really know what violates copyright either, for example.

And as for your driving example... yeah, speeding is well defined. How about 'careless driving'? do you know exactly what that is, and when you've crossed it?

For Ontario Canada, for example it is:
"Every person is guilty of the offence of driving carelessly who drives a vehicle or street car on a highway without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the highway..."

"due care and attention" and "reasonable consideration" for other people isn't exactly well defined, now is it? Does this mean you won't drive in Ontario? (Or anywhere else, as pretty much everywhere has an equivalent rule... and 10,000 more just as vague...)

And shoplifting... sure easy. What if you take to long to decide what to buy instead...how do you prove you weren't loitering?

Can you prove who you're talking to on the phone?

No. But how is that relevant?
Can they prove they are talking to the right pharmacist or specialist or lab technician? Can they prove anyone else isn't listening in? No of course not, so why suddenly are you throwing this in my face? Its not a concern when they talk to anyone else.

And considering that giving medical information to a concerned relative would "violate the HIPAA" as you put it, there's nothing paranoid at all about that concern.

Giving it to a concerned relative who calls in would. However, if the patient PRE-authorizes them, in person in writing, to call you at a specific PRE-authorized number, and if the person who answers identifies themself as YOU, and can recite your birth date and account number, and throw a secret pin number or code word in there too... then what exactly are you worried about?

Because every patient has a phone that nobody else could possibly answer? Right.

Its up to the PATIENT to decide.

If I were even slightly worried someone might pick up their phone, and falsely represent themselves as me to my doctor, then I wouldn't sign the sheet. So if I'm a teenage girl who doesn't want her parents to know she's being tested for STDs then I don't sign it.

But I, however, am not in that situation. If I gave a doctor my home phone, and authorized it, I could accept it. My wife isn't going identify herself as me. And I'm prepared to accept the risk that she would. And I'm even less worried that I'm going to have some crackpot tap my phone lines to intercept the call.

Citation needed.

Would you like me to send you the copies of faxes I've received about patients on my fax line, because some doctor somewhere has mis-dialed? Presumably they are supposed to have policies in place to ensure they double check the fax number is correct, but at the end of the day, these mistakes still happen.

I'm curious what exactly you think happens when your GP refers you to a specialist, gets the results back and has a question? Do you think your GP drives accross town to meet the specialist? The two individuals exchange passports and drivers license, which they inspect high tech forgery/counterfeit detection technology, and then finally exchange notes, while furtively looking over their shoulder to see if anyone is trying to listen in?

Again, these decisions aren't made by some doctor who's out to get you. They are made by lawyers. They are made defensively to cut down on the legal costs associated with providing healthcare.

While ballooning the costs of actually providing the health care, and costing the patients thousands indirectly too. Losing half a day of work to see a doctor costs me a LOT.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about my office fee to your insurance company or the co-pay we collect so I can tell you face to face...your ok.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctors aren't doing it in order to help people (though it is a secondary motive for some). Rather, they're mainly doing it to enrich themselves.

Exactly right. It also explains the near-glut of specialists and the dearth of GPs.

I went to my doctor (a GP) with water on the knee. He drained it and gave me a shot of cortisone. He mentioned in passing that many of the junior doctors in the hospital had never been taught to do the drain part -- it just wasn't taught that widely in med school these days. Not bad for him, though -- he said the real money is in procedures, so it was to his benefit that he was old enough to have learned it in school. He's about 65.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[mea37]

"Nobody really know what violates copyright either, for example."

Yes, there are laws other than HIPAA that are widely open to interpretation (which is a much weaker claim than your original "nobody knows what any law does" assertion). Copyright is not, however, as open to interpretation as HIPAA, as it has a much more robust case history.

Even with that broader case history there's enough uncertainty that companies play "better safe than sorry". When large companies are potentially liable for copyright infringement, their legal teams make them put defensive policies in place - just like doctors do with HIPAA. So, very apt comparison that shows how your doctor is doing exactly what every responsible business does when faced with legal uncertainty.

But what makes copyright an even more interesting example is, there are companies that don't follow that legal strategy. Ask TPB or Napster how that worked out for them.

"How about 'careless driving'? do you know exactly what that is, and when you've crossed it?"

Ok. Show me a business that (1) has the same level of exposure to "careless driving" laws as every hcp has to HIPAA, and (2) doesn't force its employees to behave according to overly-strict standards to ensure compliance with said law.

Good luck.

"Can they prove they are talking to the right pharmacist or specialist or lab technician? Can they prove anyone else isn't listening in? No of course not, so why suddenly are you throwing this in my face? Its not a concern when they talk to anyone else."

Oh, yes it is. The controls are different because the situation is different. (For example, both ends of those communications are trained in - and liable for - HIPAA. Also, there is no magical "right" pharmacist they have to talk to.) But if you think communications among healthcare providers are somehow "not an issue", you need to educate yourself.

"Giving it to a concerned relative who calls in would. However, if the patient PRE-authorizes them, in person in writing, to call you at a specific PRE-authorized number, and if the person who answers identifies themself as YOU, and can recite your birth date and account number, and throw a secret pin number or code word in there too... then what exactly are you worried about?"

Well, so far you've retreated twice to tighter controls than you'd previously talked about, and if we keep repeating this exercise you will keep retreating. If we make you responsible for potential breaches in the same way your doctor is, you'll eventually land on exactly what your doctor is doing.

If I wanted to get PHI about an elderly relative, I could easily get enough information to "trick" a doctor following your advice into giving it to me. The doctor's office would then be potentially liable for a HIPAA violation (while I, interestingly, would not). That is one of the things the legal advisors behind these practices are worried about.

"but at the end of the day, these mistakes still happen."

Oh, I see; you're one of those "any two imperfect systems have equivalent risks" people. Good luck with that.

"While ballooning the costs of actually providing the health care, and costing the patients thousands indirectly too. Losing half a day of work to see a doctor costs me a LOT."

Not as much as the alternative would cost you, but that's beside the point. I don't know what part of "the system is broken; quit blaming your doctor" you don't understand.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[vux984]

Look, you are missing the point. I work with companies in the industry. Look at all these small practices scattered around the country. Look at how many of them use hotmail and gmail and yahoo. Look at how many of them send patient data through those accounts. Its HUGE. You already have the user id, the password? birthdays, pets, anniversaries, etc, etc... better hope they aren't on facebook. If these doctors were REALLY so concerned about HIPAA, that they aren't even willing to contemplate coming up with some sort of option to allow informed patients to authorize them to tell them their test results over the phone --- well then they wouldn't be able to sleep at night while google data mines those same results for advertising, and 2000 records are sitting on the public internet with only their dogs name as security. Its ridiculous. Plus, if the medical complex really wanted to be able to tell patients who wanted them to tell them their test results over the phone, and save the system a ton of money, eliminate needless appointments, and reduce legal risk. They could lobby for a defined standard they could follow and congress would write one, pass it, and be done with it. Its not like healthcare doesn't have an effective lobby.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[mea37]

Nice deflection, but it is you who is missing the point.

Your doctor probably doesn't personally care about the ideals behind HIPAA. He or she also isn't just trying to screw you if he or she refuses to discuss medical issues over the phone. He or she has no choice in the matter.

Now I don't know what your definition of "work with companies in the industry" is, but you're barking up the wrong tree if you think you're positioned to talk down to me about HIPAA.

The landscape of information controls will become more coherant over time. Whether that means "consistantly more strict" or "consistently less strict" will depend on lobbying from various camps. Do you have any understanding of how young a system HIPAA privacy regulations really are?

Yeah, you better believe every major player in the medical industry is pushing lobbying influence one way or the other. But if you think The Industry speaks to government with one voice, you're being naive; if you think the current bills before congress don't give them more important things than privacy regs to talk about, you're not paying attention; and if you think the government moves so quickly to conform to lobbying demands (or to do anything, for that matter), then I wonder what country you're living in.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[vux984]

Now I don't know what your definition of "work with companies in the industry" is, but you're barking up the wrong tree if you think you're positioned to talk down to me about HIPAA.

Not at all. My intent wasn't to try and come off with more knowledge than I have. I almost went AC but rewrote as more vague instead to "protect the innocent".

The landscape of information controls will become more coherant over time...

I can agree with that. At this stage though I find HIPAA is tossed around like SOX -- its a scapegoat for not doing anything. Not because HIPAA or SOX actually says they can't do something, but because it says stuff like ... 'take a reasonable effort too' and everyone says 'we don't know what that means, so we have to take EXTREME EFFORT because we'd hate to be found on the short side of 'reasonable', but that EXTREME EFFORT comes with match extreme cost and means we won't do anything.... and it serves to effectively defeat the very purpose of the rules. A big part of HIPAA was supposed to ensure Patients had access to their own data, after all. So making them jump through needless hoops and expense (incl. time off work) to get it contravenes the rule.

For example...

Part 164 Section 522...

(b)(1) Standard: Confidential communications requirements. (i) A
covered health care provider must permit individuals to request and must
accommodate reasonable requests by individuals to receive communications
of protected health information from the covered health care provider by
alternative means or at alternative locations."

I interpret that as they are SUPPOSED to make a reasonable effort to accomodate reasonable requests to tell me my test results in an alternative means or at alternative locations?

Does "I hereby sign this document to authorize you to call my cell phone and tell me my test results over the phone (alternative means) while I'm at work (alternative location)." really completely fail the 'reasonable' test, to your reading?

Frankly, I could make an argument that NOT agreeing to accommodate my reasonable request "to tell me my lab results over the phone, saving me a needless time consuming and costly trip in, by calling the cell phone number I gave them, and signed in writing while they witnessed it, that I authorized them to call that cell number" contravenes more HIPAA rules and objectives than it supports.

Drives me nuts. And the fact that their position happens to be the one that ensures tons of extra needless appointments, makes me extremely skeptical of their genuine interest in following the rule vs just scapegoating it, while billing the insurance company the whole time.

Re:Marketing vs Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

Attorneys have the highest rates of depression and suicide of any profession.

Interesting. In the 50s, it was bartenders.

Fifth post

[Anonymous Coward]

I betcha I betcha I betcha

Don't forget the bad analogies!

[khasim]

Guenneau said that it's possible to shield an object, even a building, so that an incoming earthquake wave behaves as if the object weren't there. The building in the path of the wave is like a rock in a fast-flowing river, he said.

Having seen my share of rivers, I can pretty much say that the water pattern DOES change when it hits a rock.

And that the rock is more solid than the water.

With an earthquake, isn't the building less solid than than Earth?

"It's the same picture, the wave pattern, as for a water wave that is propagating in a river, and it's bent smoothly around the rock and will be reconstructed around the rock." The object, or building, is "invisible" to the mechanical waves.

And because it is done "smoothly", the top of the rock will never have water splashed upon it.

Maybe their technology does work, but their analogies do not.

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[Vellmont]

Maybe their technology does work, but their analogies do not.

It's an analogy, not a model. Analogies are always their to bridge the gap between complete ignorance and knowledge. Grasping onto the analogy and complaining it doesn't work is like floating while holding onto a life preserver while trying to cross a stream and complaining the life preserver isn't getting you to the other side.

In other words, if you want to understand what's going on you need to start understanding the model and throw away the dumb analogy.

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[jonadab]

> With an earthquake, isn't the building less solid than than Earth?

Solidity isn't necessarily good protection against an earthquake. A hunk of granite bedrock a mile thick is a fairly solid thing, but a medium-grade earthquake will crack it without breaking a sweat. The atmosphere, on the other hand, is not generally considered to be solid, but it's difficult to imagine an earthquake powerful enough to damage it.

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Grasping onto the analogy and complaining it doesn't work is like floating while holding onto a life preserver while trying to cross a stream and complaining the life preserver isn't getting you to the other side.

I dunno, I think you needed a worse analogy to really prove your point.

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[Anonymous Coward]

"With an earthquake, isn't the building less solid than than Earth?"

It depends on the speed of vibration, composition of the ground, depth of water table and a few other factors.

If you take a bed of sand and apply an oscillating motion to it, it can behave almost like a liquid.

When this happens, buildings literally sink into the ground.

See the 2000 earthquake in Tottori for an example.

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I hear the word activist, I reach for my revolver.

I'm a gun-rights activist. What do you do now?

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[An anonymous Frank]

Maybe their technology does work, but their analogies do not.

Yeah, where's the car?

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[blackraven14250]

Go to a range?

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[blackraven14250]

The analogy isn't complicated enough to have a machine like a car in it! Duh!

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[Bandman]

> With an earthquake, isn't the building less solid than than Earth?

IANASiesmologist (but I play one on TV (ok, I can't back that up))

Actually, sometimes it isn't. Depending on the properties of the quake (strength, depth, etc), the ground itself (particularly soil) acts a lot like a liquid. A "slab" house might float while a bedrock based building may have major structural issues due to compression of the major structural elements. This is one of the big reasons that building in earthquake zones have "floating" structural members. They need to be able to "move" independently, relative to the ground, because the ground doesn't move uniformly. One particularly inventive solution stored inertia in a giant multi-ton sphere suspended in the top of a skyscraper. This reduced lateral movement while maintaining flexibility of the structure.

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Solidity isn't necessarily good protection against an earthquake.

Substrate matters. So does type of motion and method of building construction.

Years ago, in a geology of earthquakes class, we were told that a high-rise and a wood-frame house react differently. Founded on bedrock, in a quake with a short, fast, jolting motion, a high-rise bight just vibrate a little, since it is resonant at a low frequency, whereas the house might become completely unglued.

However, with both buildings on fill, the motion would likely be of longer period. There, the high-rise might become resonant with the lower-frequency motion and get in trouble, while the house might just sway a bit, like a leaf rocking on long pond ripples.

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[L4t3r4lu5]

One particularly inventive solution stored inertia in a giant multi-ton sphere suspended in the top of a skyscraper.

Was that either of the main WTC buildings? That might explain the collapse!

<_< >_> <_< [/tinfoil]

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[somersault]

In other words, if you want to understand what's going on you need to start understanding the model and throw away the dumb analogy.

So what you're saying is, it would be easier to get to the other side of the river if you just threw the life preserver away? ;)

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[GameboyRMH]

No, but Taipei 101 has one and the Citicorp building has something similar. Oh wait, here's a list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuned_mass_damper#Examples_of_buildings_and_structures_with_tuned_mass_dampers

IIRC the Jeddah tower is going to have one. The Mubarak tower will have ailerons.

Re:Don't forget the bad analogies!

[Bandman]

I should also have mentioned, sometimes the house "floats". Other times it gets sucked under and disappears.

Well thats useless.

[wjh31]

we have enough trouble predicting when they will come as it is, if you make them invisible we wont stand a chance.

Brilliant

[Anonymous Coward]

If it deflects the waves around it, wouldn't all nearby buildings just receive more damage?

Anyone who uses this is probably a jerk.

Re:Brilliant

[hedwards]

You do realize that the point of this is to build it into all new buildings, right?

Additionally it's unlikely that the amount of extra energy from a few buildings would have a noticeable effect in the other buildings. Of course we can't violate the laws of physics, but when you're talking about that much energy and when most buildings are built to sustain much larger earthquakes than what's realistically going to happen it isn't worth worrying a whole lot about.

Re:Brilliant

[Artifakt]

It's not the sheer magnitude of an earthquake that actually determines damage. Damage should be much more correlated with how much of the energy gets dissipated into a building or other structure.

Try looking at it like this: If you are standing out in a field when an earthquake hits, you personally may be the only thing on top of the ground, that could absorb any energy from that part of a wave passing through the whole area. Just you. Now if you are on the bottom floor of a big concrete parking garage, that whole garage and all the cars in it could absorb various parts of the energy, so if energy really determines the damage, you are safer on the bottommost floor of that garage than out in the open. Doesn't seem at all likely, does it?

        Energy in physics is sometimes defined as the ability to do work. A lot of energy means a lot of work can happen, not that it invariably happens where you might expect, or even happens at all. (and yes, knocking down a tall building counts as work for most definitions in physics, even if gravity does most of the job once you get it good and started).

        So, we have a structure which doesn't couple strongly to the energy of a quake wave. You can say it deflects the wave, or channels it, or lots of other verbal descriptions, but the point is, not a lot of the energy of the wave passes into the building. That energy could go on to get absorbed by another building, but alternately it could keep on going until it dissipates in the relatively empty countryside many miles from the city. Not absorbing a lot of the locally available energy doesn't mean the energy has been deflected to target some other building, or somehow focused. It also doesn't necessarily mean the energy has changed overall direction, or that you have created more turbulence in the earthquake waves, or lots of other things that could possibly happen but maybe really won't. To see if any of them are really probable, you have to do math, not reason from a verbal model that is already just an approximation.

Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[girlintraining]

It's not an invisibility cloak. A nearby building could still fall on the cloaked one, with the usual result. Also, it's not a cloak, as in a piece of fabric. Last, anything can be made resistant to earthquakes, but to make it earthquake-proof is something only an arrogant designer or a project manager would say. Every design component can fail, and most catastrophic engineering failures are rooted in miscalculation or failing to test the model with a particular cascade of failures.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[Cassini2]

Actually, I'm pretty sure those arrogant designers at NASA are quite confident that the International Space Station resists earthquakes.

For the more terrestrially minded, the problem is to resist earthquakes in a cost effective manner, or alternatively stop people from doing stupid things. After all, why do people knowingly locate in known flood areas behind dikes, in arid deserts, underneath volcanoes, or in known high-intensity earthquake areas? and not expect disasters to happen?

Live in the big flat mid-west plains, it might be boring, but it is safe.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[Dunbal]

Live in the big flat mid-west plains, it might be boring, but it is safe.

      (Taps Cassini2 on the shoulder and points to the huge tornado) "Is anywhere safe?"

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[colinrichardday]

Live in the big flat mid-west plains, it might be boring, but it is safe.

As long as you're not near New Madrid, MO.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[egburr]

Live in the big flat mid-west plains, it might be boring, but it is safe.

... till the tornadoes come through.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[Anonymous Coward]

My solution to the whole earthquake problem is to suspend my house under a balloon. It has the tendency to get blown away during the Ninos though.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[Ragzouken]

The ISS doesn't resist earthquakes, it simply isn't subjected to them.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[girlintraining]

Actually, I'm pretty sure those arrogant designers at NASA are quite confident that the International Space Station resists earthquakes.

And it would be just like them to focus on earthquakes, which can't happen in space, instead of say, solar flares.

the problem is to resist earthquakes in a cost effective manner, or alternatively stop people from doing stupid things.

Well, the second half of that is clearly impossible, so I'd suggest focusing on cost efficiency.

why do people knowingly locate in known flood areas behind dikes, in arid deserts, underneath volcanoes, or in known high-intensity earthquake areas

Curiously, the most fertile land, plentiful sources of water, and temperate climates, are located in those places. Except underneath volcanoes -- evil overlords live there, not joe average.

and not expect disasters to happen?

Oh, I think they do expect disasters to happen. And everyone else to pay for it thanks to this con game we call "insurance".

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[GigsVT]

Central/Western VA, WV, TN, KY... those are all pretty immune to most natural disasters. Hurricanes are all petered out by the time they hit here, the biggest earthquakes are like magnitude 4, the mountains kill the tornados quickly in general, there are no big rivers that cause massive flooding, etc.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[girlintraining]

Taps Cassini2 on the shoulder and points to the huge tornado "Is anywhere safe?"

Cassini: Ah, I'm sorry, but I'm over 746 million miles away right now. Try asking a satellite a bit closer.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[Artifakt]

My part of TN, we have the occasional tornado. F2s. No big ones so far in over 200 years of settlement. One tornado fatality in the last 20 years within a 50 mile radius, and there's claims the wall which fell there was single thickness brick constructed by the amateur homeowner. Floods? My home is over 500 feet above the local river. Earthquakes? If the new Madrid fault lets loose and literally hits Memphis TN with a Richter 10.8 quake and not a building is left in pieces bigger than marble sized, I would see a 3.3. I have a fair chance of living through it even if there really is a supervolcano under Yellowstone running on a 60 million year cycle, and it all lets loose at once and buries the western states under 10 feet of ash.

So you can understand why I say - The most threatening natural disaster of all is an asteroid strike. they can happen anywhere, so it's only fair we devote the bulk of disaster management funds to stopping them.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[Hognoxious]

Also, it's not a cloak, as in a piece of fabric.

Fabric, I think you're on to something there. Maybe they're selling tents? I guess they'd be pretty good in an earthquake. In fact, they seem quite popular afterwards, so just save time and live in one to start with.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[Anonymous Coward]

How ignorant you are... http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/us_damage_eq.php. If you're living you're life around avoiding natural disasters, which have not caused many deaths in the US (say compared to the weekly drive to the grocery store), you seriously need to reevaluate the risks and probabilities.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, why do people knowingly locate in known flood areas behind dikes, in arid deserts, underneath volcanoes, or in known high-intensity earthquake areas?

Pardon me, underneath a volcano? Sounds like Hell.

Re:Reality decloaking off the starboard bow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Live in the big flat mid-west plains, it might be boring, but it is safe.

            (Taps Cassini2 on the shoulder and points to the huge tornado) "Is anywhere safe?"

Yep, no matter where you live. I once took a geology of earthquakes where _the_ Richter was a guest speaker. Though he clearly knew the topic, he was mostly dead boring. However, it got funny when he said that he was frequently asked where in the US you could live to be safe from earthquakes. His answer -- "South Dakota and Florida. What's your attitude toward tornadoes and hurricanes?"

Will it work for everyone?

[VincenzoRomano]

What will happen when all buildings in a certain area will be "cloaked" to earthquakes?
Will mechanical waves skip the entire area?
What if all buildings in a certain large area will be made that way?
I fear that the "solution" is good only when a few of them are made that way. The other ones will need to collapse.

Re:Will it work for everyone?

[OrigamiMarie]

It should be perfectly safe to cloak all buildings. Buildings only absorb a tiny fraction of the shock of an earthquake; you don't need to have something man-made fall over just to keep the waves from going further. Now if you somehow made huge chunks of land cloaked to earthquakes, I would agree that the shaking may have to come out somewhere. But anyway at that point you're talking about making an isolated chunk of land whose borders crunch and stretch a lot more than everything else -- people wouldn't go for that. And I don't see how you'd do it anyway, you can't just seismically isolate a chunk of land.

Re:Will it work for everyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

After seeing the demonstration of the Microwave Cloaking Device this is based on, I think it's actually a bit of a problem to cloak a lot of small buildings, one next to each other, if only because the rings might interfere with one another. It might be possible to design rings which would link together and channel waves between two buildings, but I'm not sure. In high-density cities, I'm afraid this system is rather impossible, as the rings would enter foundations of other buildings.
About the big chunks of land: well, it depends on how far away the source is, and how big the seismic plate, but I think that most areas which are big by our standards are pretty small as compared to the area transmission area is. This is more intuition than actual fact, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Re:Will it work for everyone?

[GigsVT]

Would there potentially be constructive interference though? That could make it worse for neighbors.

Re:Will it work for everyone?

[GryMor]

In other words, it's a great idea for your next Arcology project, not so good for the new apartment block?

I can live with that.

Re:Will it work for everyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you can. It's called a ship.

Re:Will it work for everyone?

[Manchot]

The way that all invisibility cloaks work (at least theoretically) is that you create a structure whose materials parameters vary in such a way that it effectively performs a coordinate transformation, mapping points in the cloaked region to points outside of it. In real space, the wave curves around the object, but in transformed space, it still travels in a straight line. For electromagnetic cloaks, it is the permittivity (refractive index squared) of the structure that is engineered. I don't know much about earthquake cloaks, but I imagine that it's probably something like the shear modulus being varied.

Anyway, my point is that you can't simply overlap two separate cloaks and get one big one. The transformed geometry is a highly nonlinear function of material variation, so if you try to do that, neither cloak will work. Basically, these cloaks would have to have gaps between them to work, and since the energy of a cloak travels around its edges, it's conceivable that two cloaks separated by a narrow gap could channel energy from a large area through said gap. Anything built there would have serious problems.

Re:Will it work for everyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I don't see how you'd do it anyway, you can't just seismically isolate a chunk of land.

Cities in Flight -- James Blish

Retrofitting

[sonicmerlin]

It would be much more useful if this technology could be retrofitted onto older buildings.

Re:Retrofitting

[jack2000]

Well you can install it around whole city blocks and below them...

EARTH QUAKE!

[jack2000]

But is it effective versus the Juggernaut?

Re:EARTH QUAKE!

[arndawg]

Short answer: yes Long answer: No, not really. Hope that helps!

Flying

[bertoelcon]

Does this render you invincible to ground pokemon, that is unless they use non-ground attacks?

Re:Flying

[Asclepius99]

I'd imagine only against dig.

Re:Flying

[Bigjeff5]

Yes

Re:Flying

[el3mentary]

Unless they use Gravity yes.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

how about building your structure to the building code, getting earthquake insurance and not worrying about earthquakes ?? hello ?

Re:hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Insurance does not bring you alive after you die in earthquake.

Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[Anonymous Coward]

And as we say in medicine, if you want to make money, DON'T go into medicine. Do law, get an MBA or do something business related. The illusion that medicine is well-compensated for the effort is just that -- an illusion.

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[vux984]

The illusion that medicine is well-compensated for the effort is just that -- an illusion.

Relative to what, exactly?

http://www.cejkasearch.com/compensation/amga_physician_compensation_survey.htm

There isn't an entry on that list below six figures. And I'd say the average is easily 250k plus.

An electrical engineer "1" in the 90th percentile (ie making more than 90% of his peers), according to salary.com makes 67k. Unless he gets promoted to management, (and does less engineering and more managing) he's going to have a very tough time cracking 6 figs.

A nuclear physicist, cracks six figures. But even his 90th percentile at 126k doesn't quite reach the expected STARTING wage of "Pediatrics - Adolescents" - 130k, probably the lowest number on that list.

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[Anonymous Coward]

Couple of things to point out here...

A "starting" physician is 6 years behind a starting electrical engineer. 4 years of med school + 2 years of residency (at a minimum!) and they have a tremendous amount more debt for those additional years of schooling. Even at that point they are considered to have very little experience.

In addition try looking at malpractice insurance for physicians, or something called "tail insurance", ie if you leave the practice and 10 years down the road someone you treated decides to sue you the tail insurance takes care of that, but it means you're paying insurance against the chance of a lawsuit forever basically, even if you leave medicine.

Not to mention the fact that if differences were that significant in salary and the work was actually the same amount of effort or easier I have absolutely no doubt that we would see more physicians but instead of that we're actually seeing *fewer* physicians. I've often heard from physicians that anyone could do it, there's nothing special about them, just a matter of lots and lots of hard work. Most physicians I know actually recommend to their children that they *not* go in to medicine. How's that for an indication of how the field is doing?

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[misexistentialist]

Most physicians I know actually recommend to their children that they *not* go in to medicine. How's that for an indication of how the field is doing?

It's like investment bankers dissuading their children. The past generation of doctors (along with the past generation of insurance agents and the past generation of politicians) has brought the health system to its knees, and there will be lean years ahead. I doubt they are listening though, since medical school acceptance rates are still in the single-digits.

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[Anonymous Coward]

A "starting" physician is 6 years behind a starting electrical engineer. 4 years of med school + 2 years of residency

Assuming we mean electrical engineer with capital E's, he'll have a 4 year degree, so that's only two years difference.

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[Anonymous Coward]

In the U.S. medical school follows 4 years of undergrad, so that's a total of 10 years after high school.

On the other hand, a Masters degree in EE is often done in 5 years, and that includes undergrad. I went to a liberal arts school, where a M.E. would have been another 2 years on top of the 4 years of undergrad. Still only 6 years.

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[JDevers]

Um, no. The physician also has a 4 year degree obtained before medical school.

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[indiechild]

The intake of doctors into med school is tightly controlled. They are not going to start raising their intake, oh, just because the market wants it. How else could they command the high salaries that they do?

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[oljanx]

Compensation? Is that what they call it when you make a lot of money? I earn a "wage". My student loan debt is greater than my annual "wage". Maybe I should have gone into medicine as well...

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[Anonymous Coward]

4 years of med school + 2 years of residency (at a minimum!)

A PhD in Engineering doesn't really pay that much either... and takes roughly the same time.

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[vux984]

A "starting" physician is 6 years behind a starting electrical engineer. 2 years of residency (at a minimum!) and they have a tremendous amount more debt for those additional years of schooling. Even at that point they are considered to have very little experience.

Not really. They start getting paid as residents. Granted not 6 figures, but already well above the national average.

Meanwhile a comp sci or phys grade with a BS is what? Not a whole lot, you need your MS or PhD. Which adds years (and dollars) to the education. And yeah PhD grad student might get a bit of grant money funding while he works on some professors project while working on his(or her) thesis but they are usually living at the poverty line... if they're lucky.

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[mathfeel]

The intake of doctors into med school is tightly controlled. They are not going to start raising their intake, oh, just because the market wants it. How else could they command the high salaries that they do?

I recently helped a friend prepare the physics part of her MCAT and in the processed learned a lot about medical school in the US. I came away with exact feeling you have that medical school is but an exclusive (not only by grades, but other standard) club that is rather convoluted to join and to be brainwashed in, with the understanding that some day down the road by reciting memorized stuff from thick books that one can command high salary and demands respect.

I also teaches run-of-the-mill freshmen physics. Judging from the amount of physics/chemistry the pre-meds manage to master in our classes---and they seems to be rather water down and targeted for future CMAT taker---I learned that in the future when I need a physician, extremely caution and comparative shopping is required. If medicine is a science, I just don't have a lot of faith in its practitioners.

Re:Myth of doctors as "high paid"

[BlackSnake112]

Unless you mean masters or PHd, medical students do have more years of school. Med students go to a 4 year college/university, then med school, then residency. Maybe more years of schooling if they specialize.

I do not agree with fact that more years of school == higher paycheck. But that is the way the world currently works. I have heard of and seen some really crappy doctors. With all those years of training, one would think that all doctors would be really really good.

Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you very much for your amazing story.

Regards,

mersin

Physics

[Roger W Moore]

If you're an engineer you call it a tuned resonator...

Not necessarily. One other way to make a building "invisible" to the shear waves of an Earthquake would be to float it. Shear waves cannot pass through liquids. Of course this is probably somewhat less practical...

Re:Physics

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course this is probably somewhat less practical...

Not really. That is, if you will include sitting on rollers at right angles to each other, with correct snubbing, to be the same as floating. Remember also that shear can be not only side to side, but also up and down or any combination of these. The Turnagain (sp?) Heights quake of the 50s (?) in Alaska had vertical displacements of 8 to 12 feet, IIRC. Not sure what kind of system would help in that situation.

Re:What if ......

[davester666]

We're working on this. We've got this perfected for cars, we just need to perfect the bigger hydraulic cylinders needed for buildings.

Forget earthquakes, tsunamis...

[Anonymous Coward]

The real exciting and very commercial prospect for this concept is in sound control.
Just image if you could block out external sound waves from your office, home, or just your bedroom.
No annoying, distracting noises, like urban traffic, construction noises, pile drivers, thumping low frequency noise of car or home stereo systems. You could just filter out select frequencies, like say between 1 and 500 hz so you could hear birds singing.
I'd gladly pay big bucks to block out the neighbor kid's garage band without having to move 20 miles out of the city.

Re:Forget earthquakes, tsunamis...

[Anonymous Coward]

My ideas interest you, and you want to subscribe to my newsletter - Marvin, Uber-ninja assassin of garage bands.

Re:Forget earthquakes, tsunamis...

[Jesus_666]

I'd gladly pay big bucks to block out the neighbor kid's garage band without having to move 20 miles out of the city.

Just tell them to use headphones when working on their Mac. Problem solved.

Now they can't see me!

[Kenshin]

Good thing we invented the earthquake invisibility cloak! Now the earthquakes won't be able to see me!

Wind Cloak?

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAP but the basic idea I got from the design of the "Tsunami Cloak" was that there was simply a path of less resistance along the concentric corridors than along the radial ones, so that the wave tended to flow around the center rather than through it. Correct me if I'm wrong about this. Sometime later I was wondering if the same principal could be used to redirect strong winds around a vulnerable structure. I was thing along the lines of metal posts rather than concrete pillars, but then I started considering the "green" factor and wondered if a precisely planted grove of trees would have the desired effect. My assumption of course is that since air and water are both fluid, then they would have similar waves that can be manipulated, but since I'm also not a meteorologist, I could be wrong.

What do you think, would it be possible?

Re:Wind Cloak?

[baegucb]

This is how a snow fence works. It doesn't stop the snow from piling up, it re-directs the wind blowing the snow.

Montoya: "You keep using that word ..."

[cpu_fusion]

you keep using that word. i don't think it means what you think it means.

I'd call it geodynamic lawsuit generator

[w0mprat]

Wouldn't the intensity of the waves be concentrated around the periphery of the rings? Would two or more earthquake shields in particular arrangements have a focusing effect, unwittingly completely leveling a nearby building from a otherwise mild shake?

Build a home with this in mind?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always thought about making a home earthquake proof. Possibly, there might be an application for this?

NZ's Te Papa museum uses another approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Base isolators - they're like suspension/shock absorbers for buildings. Also effective at protecting from shearing waves.

See a quick blurb with pics, longer piece without pics.

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

airpilot, we are approaching the airport...hmm wheres all the buildings it once had??

aliens just zipped past earth because it was invisible, they colonize mars instead.

Base Isolation

[Anonymous Coward]

Base Isolation has been around for some time, there has been a lot of work done on this here in New Zealand. We have a vested interest I guess. (Not saying it was invented here, I'm not sure where it was first thought of.) The building is built on top of what amounts to a suspension system, sometimes blocks of rubber, with lead for dampers. Think of the ground oscillating sideways with the building standing still. Sideways because it tends to be the shear waves that do the damage.

Of course any practical system there will be a limit, like bottoming out your car suspension. So you can build a building with a better chance of surviving, but there is no guarantee that it will work in practice.

So, in Magic: The Gathering terms...

[Dirtside]

Earthquake Invisibility Cloak
Enchantment
{1}{R}
All creatures have flying.

Re:So, in Magic: The Gathering terms...

[Jesus_666]

If only. All this thing does is give all creatures protection from Earthquake, which makes it somewhat pointless. They should've worked on a generic protection from red.

Move to jupiter

[Hognoxious]

My student loan debt is greater than my annual "wage".

How can you compare an amount with a flow (amount/time)? The statement is meaningless.

What happens, when...

[Hurricane78]

...the epicenter of the quake is *inside* the ring? Imagine a future skyscraper with a huge base and this installed.
Now imagine a quake in the middle of that protective ring. Would the waves reflect off the inside, ripping the building apart in seconds?

That would be one giant nelson munz "haah-haaah" moment. (Except for the people in the building!!)