USGS Develops Twitter-Based Earthquake Detection 95
sprinkletown writes "A team of seismologists at the US Geological Survey has found that Twitter is the fastest way to get information out of an earthquake area, especially in those less densely populated. Seeing the Twitter community as an untapped resource, the USGS has developed a new way to track earthquakes by clustering quake-centric tweets."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I was impressed, though, at how quickly the USGS did send us all an e-mail detailing the quake, epicenter, magnitude, etc. They are certainly on the ball when it comes to the San Andreas fault, at least.
Now if we could only find a way to get advan
Re: (Score:2)
Shock waves in rock travel slower than light. So if the quake can be detected at the source (under ground) a message can be sent ahead of the shock wave to give a few seconds notice.
Re:First post! (Score:4, Insightful)
it's a web site and you can put small messages on it that other people can read. That's all it is and ever was.
I share your sentiment, but realize, HTTP is a method of transferring files. That's all it is and ever was.
HTML is a method of marking up content. That's all it is and ever was.
Instant Messaging is just email, but faster. That's all it is and ever was. ...until you realize that it's not the technology behind it, but how people use it, that make it what it is. When Twitter is used as a blog site, it's exactly as useless as you suggest. [penny-arcade.com] When it's used as a conversation, that's somewhat different.
So no, I don't use it, but I think I'm starting to get what it's about.
Re: (Score:2)
The best use case for twitter to me really sounded like machine updates. Mostly because its the only application that seemed sustainable.
A person twittering sounds great and all, until that person suddenly is too busy to update and then its worthless to any followers.
Following a machine, or maybe an organization seemed much more on target.
Re: (Score:2)
The best use case for twitter to me really sounded like machine updates. Mostly because its the only application that seemed sustainable.
I'm not sure what you mean by that.
A person twittering sounds great and all, until that person suddenly is too busy to update and then its worthless to any followers.
I think you just missed my point, though -- take the imaginary cocktail party again. Some people will have to go to the bathroom, some will get sick or tired and go home. That doesn't mean the conversation ends, unless you have such a sad social life that you're only talking to that one person.
Again, think of it not as microblogging, but as a slightly slower but MUCH bigger IRC.
Technologically, I actually despise Twitter. There have got to be a dozen different ways it coul
Re: (Score:2)
Fuck the telephone. God damn, it's a damn piece of wire and you can say things on it that other people can hear. That's all it is and ever was. Get the fuck over it already.
Hey, I said hello by telephone! Oh yeah, well I said good morning by telephone! Oh shit, that's new and interesting because it happened on the telephone!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That reminds me of the oil light on a Lincoln Continental. It lights up, then a few seconds later, your engine seizes!
A few seconds warning sometimes just adds to the drama of the inevitable. In the relativity of time, that means if we got a few hours warning of an imminent asteroid impact, it would just be enough time maybe for a little mass-hysteria and to kiss your family good-bye. :)
Re: (Score:1)
I agree that a few seconds notice is definitely better than zero notice, but in all reality, a few seconds notice is not likely to measurably increase your chances of survival. It might help people avoid minor injuries such as is often caused by falling debris, etc. But it won't do much to reduce the overall number of fatalities.
If you're indoors, a few seconds is enough ti
Re: (Score:2)
Also, don't overlook the fact that not everybody is going to receive that few-second warning in time to do anything about it. Unless you (or someone in close proximity to you) happen to be glued to the USGS Twitter page, chances are the shaking will be your first warning that an earthquake is underway.
All good points, but now that mobile phones are pretty ubiquitous I would like to see a universal notification system as a mirror of the universal access to emergency calls they already provide.
Re: (Score:1)
Sounds like a good idea, but I wonder if it might, in certain circumstances, be more harmful than helpful. What if you're cruising down the freeway at 70mph and all of a sudden your cellphone and/or radio, along with *EVERYONE* else's, starts screaming "EARTHQUAKE! EARTHQUAKE!" ? Seems like every year or two, you hear about a 100-car pile up caused by something stupid like fog or hail. I shudder to imagine what the possible unintended consequences would be if everyone's cellphone started screaming out an al
Re: (Score:2)
I work in air traffic control, sometimes on the Human Machine Interface and I have done some UI design on that system. Even on our systems this is a finely balanced area. You need to tell the controller that he has an emergency on one of his aircraft, but not create problems for the other aircraft he is controlling at the same time. With full control of the HMI specific colours are used for Alert and Emergency states. They are used nowhere else on the UI.
Now out in the real world the people you are notifyi
Re: (Score:3)
Generally useless.
The shock waves do indeed travel slower than light, but messages would take at least several seconds to be relayed, transmitted, received, and read by a human. An email in my office takes about six seconds to be routed within the building, let alone over a variety of wireless networks. A realtime message might make it out in under a second, but we're talking about shock waves that travel at 15,000-30,000mph and faster, with an damage radius on big quakes of 40 to 60 miles.
A middle case,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
When you have lived in California long enough you'll learn that:
1) Tremors move through the Earth's crust just a little bit faster than the speed of sound. To put this in perspective, it's perhaps just about 50-70% faster than a modern jet airliner cruising at high altitude.
2) If you've ever watched a modern jet airliner cruising at high altitude you know that telephone communication, radio and television, and even the internet travel much faster.
3) Following
Re: (Score:1)
Sorry, but that estimate is WAY off. There are several different types of seismic waves [wikipedia.org], the SLOWEST of which travels at about 3km/s, or approximately 7000mph, which is about 1400% faster than an airliner's cruising speed (assuming a cruising speed of 500mph [wikipedia.org]).
Re: (Score:2)
Twitter as a news search engine (Score:5, Interesting)
I've used Twitter's search before (out of desperation) when my wife thought that we had an earth quake and I didn't.
To my surprise just 3 minutes later (time it took me to exhaust regular search engines), someone tweeted that they're having an earthquake a few miles away from where we live.
Since that day I've been using Twitter's search to find up to the minute updates for topics that interest me (Intel's SSD firmware bug, conferences, etc.).
I think Twitter is shaking up to be a very good source of news/information, if you can manage to find gems in the pile of "I just landed. WOOT!" tweets.
Re: (Score:2)
I think Twitter is shaking up...
Grr.. I need more coffee. That's "is shaping up".
Or maybe "shaking" with all the earthquake tweets!
Re: (Score:1)
I think Twitter is shaking up to be a very good source of news/information
The data, it seems, is quite frugal
When I type 'earthquake' into searchbar Google
The info, surprisingly, is much quicker and fitter
When I hear about it from that obnoxious source Twitter
Of course, only when anxious I'd do a desperate thing
And secretly type my query in Bing
Re: (Score:2)
I completely agree. I have only posted tweets for work purposes (an app we wrote has twitter support.... as everything does these days), but I search on twitter whenever I am trying to figure out up to the minute info on an event.
For example, a couple of days ago the police had a road near my house blocked off, and with a quick twitter search, I was able to learn that there were police and SWAT teams chasing a burglary suspect, and there were even posted pictures of the guy being taken into custody... all
Thats a great idea (Score:5, Funny)
Twitter users can be repurposed as sensors for vibration, voltage and even temperature!
Re: (Score:2)
Twitter users can be repurposed as sensors for vibration, voltage and even temperature!
And Walmart sales.
HELP ME!! I'M BURNING!! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Then your stuff around the world could tweet stuff, and other stuff could be following them or even be fans of them.
e.g.
twitter
NOC: @MSExchangeServer @AD1 hey are you guys up?
MSExchangeServer: @NOC uptime 23:33:05
or:
CorpQuiz- "20 ways to know you are a Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Server"
AD1's score 20/20
MSExchangeServer likes this
RedHatDBServer: lame...
CorpQuiz- "Group Policies checklist #1"
AD1'
survival law (Score:1)
you can die then, and do us all a favor (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Communication saves lives. Always has, always will. You are arguing against communication, saying that in an emergency, other people's communication is useless. Good luck supporting your argument in a conclusive fashion.
When the zombie attack comes, I'll definitely hear about it before you.
Re:you can die then, and do us all a favor (Score:4, Insightful)
The area concerned was heavily industrial, so it mattered to me what was on fire because of potiential fumes.
Twitter is fast and useful for that occasional use. Which is why the army of constant micro-bloggers needs to be encouraged. We can then tap into their otherwise pointless garbage about everything that happens every moment of their lives. Because when something does happen, they will tweet about that.
Re: (Score:2)
We had a fire near our work and with twitter I found out what was on fire and some basic details long before either the online news or the radio had anything other than "firefighters are fighting a blaze in X" with nothing else...
I had a fire in my pants and I twittered about it.
*couldn't help it*
-Taylor
Don't encourage this...Please. (Score:3, Insightful)
Twitter is fast and useful for that occasional use. Which is why the army of constant micro-bloggers needs to be encouraged. We can then tap into their otherwise pointless garbage about everything that happens every moment of their lives. Because when something does happen, they will tweet about that.
Please do me a favor and don't encourage micro-bloggers. The last thing I need is some dumb-ass walking into the IT field claiming to be a "professional" when the only thing on the resume is "Logged over 200,000 tweets" and "Level 233 Vampire"
Re: (Score:2)
Distributed input of unknown emergencies absolutely should be considered in any disaster scenario. I don't know if you remember 911, but I'm inside the DC beltway. You couldn't make cell calls OR land line calls [unless you were lucky] due to the system not holding it up. How was I g
Re: (Score:2)
The point stands: Internet wins. And I heard stuff on IRC before it was on CNN. Oh, and in case you didn't figure it out, Twitter is Internet too.
Re: (Score:2)
And yes, Twitter is a communication platform over the internet. Just like IRC, just like email, just like the web. Only it allows you to input MUCH easier than ANY other medium, and you don't have to remember people's email addresses or run a server for people to get to that information.
That's why it's a success, and that's why it's not going away any more than facebook status u
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Too much is always better than not enough.
Re: (Score:2)
Look at e-mail virus "Alerts", yeah, sometimes there is some truth to what they are saying but most of the time anyone who is the least computer savvy deletes them on sight. Do we want real alerts to be like this? Do we want SMS alerts to be so trivial that people won't even read them before deleting them? Do we want radio alerts to be so common tha
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Twitter is not communication in any meaningful sense of the word. It never will be.
I've had this argument before so I'll be brief: Yes, I've gone through the BS twitter logs of the Iranian crap and the Mumbai crap, the two incidents twitter-defenders love to bring up as examples of how twitter is a useful communications mechanism.
You illustrate this quite nicely:
No, you won't.
Re: (Score:2)
You lose.
The best part is where you tried to redefine the word communication to your own subjective standards. Unfortunately for you, you don't get to rewrite the definitions of words. Even animals communicate, and they transfer way less than 140 characters of information when they do. And it saves their lives as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, smartass. How Twitter is a "poor man's" version is unknown, though, considering they're both free. RSS lets you actually view a story or article. You know, information. Twitter is just a few words about "situation bad, everyone fighting" that tells you absolutely nothing. It is not at all analogous. At most, someone can put a "bit.ly" or other cutesy 2.0 BS shortened link up, but hey, if I was going to bother looking
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In conclusion, just because some idiots occasionally post tinyurls or bitlys does not grant legitimacy to Twitter, or mean tha
Re: (Score:2)
You just don't seem to get
Re: (Score:2)
Able to use a phone post earthquake (Score:1)
Tweeting about earthquakes is hardly new — at least in twitter years. People turned to twitter during an earthquake in Southern California in July, 2008, after they finding they were unable to make or receive any cell phone calls, they could still use twitter via SMS or another mobile twitter app.
I find this solution to be really silly. After the Northridge Earthquake in Southern California in 1994, no one in the area could even use the phones. There was too many people trying to make calls for anything to work. The earthquake they're referring to was tiny in comparison. People should be looking to a battery based radio or working with their neighbors to figure out what is going on.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The only probl
Re: (Score:2)
Tweeting about earthquakes is hardly new — at least in twitter years. People turned to twitter during an earthquake in Southern California in July, 2008, after they finding they were unable to make or receive any cell phone calls, they could still use twitter via SMS or another mobile twitter app.
I find this solution to be really silly. After the Northridge Earthquake in Southern California in 1994, no one in the area could even use the phones. There was too many people trying to make calls for anything to work. The earthquake they're referring to was tiny in comparison. People should be looking to a battery based radio or working with their neighbors to figure out what is going on.
Except.. they say that instead of phones we should use SMS because it's impact on the wireless network is far lighter (see every ./ article about price gouging at 20 cents per 140 characters). That said, if you are on AT&T and wish to use twitter during an emergency good luck trying to get your slice of bandwidth.
"Help, my internet is down!"
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
This season there have been people who received these messages - about a fire that occoured 12 days previously. The carrier technology is interesting, but as the emergency services people who manage the back end systems don't update them they are not what you consider reliable.
They are making these SMS's spacially aware - they use your billing address to work out where you are located. Unfortunately the billing systems have a habit of aggregating sta
Re: (Score:2)
Posting news at the speed of Slashdot (Score:1)
Even NPR scooped Slashdot this time:
From December 14, 2009 [npr.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Accelerometer Quake Detection (Score:2)
A automated, networked, accelerometer-based quake detection process may be more reliable. Sure, a lot of mobile phones would be moving around, but if enough phones in the same areas showed synchronised movements, maybe this could work.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
A automated, networked, accelerometer-based quake detection process may be more reliable. Sure, a lot of mobile phones would be moving around, but if enough phones in the same areas showed synchronised movements, maybe this could work.
Those are called "seismographs."
Re: (Score:2)
Additionally, the article specifically mentions that this is useful in cases where seismographs aren't present, and that the data collected through it isn't always stuff that seismographs can report.
Re: (Score:2)
A automated, networked, accelerometer-based quake detection process may be more reliable. Sure, a lot of mobile phones would be moving around, but if enough phones in the same areas showed synchronised movements, maybe this could work.
Are you donating the resources to do that sort of data processing? There are a lot of cell phones out there, so you'd need a way of transmitting and accessing all that data (if you DO have an earthquake in the area, the communications lines will be either down or saturated, so you have to take that into account). Then, you'd need a way of determining which synchronized movements match a pattern, and not just random noise; then, finally, to determine whether the patterns are quake-related or not. (See those
Re: (Score:2)
There's already such a project underway from Stanford: http://qcn.stanford.edu/ [stanford.edu]. Doesn't extend to phones yet (as far as I know, though they're probably working on it) but will use the accelerometer in MacBooks, Thinkpads, other laptops that may have them, or you can get a USB attachment that has one for desktop computers. Works essentially as you describe.
Phones might be tough because they move around a lot with the person who carries it, but would be especially useful because if they've got an acceleromet
False hits? (Score:2)
Twitter has also been know for false hits as well though, so how can one prevent such a situation?
Re: (Score:2)
I dunno. Seismographs maybe? ;)
Seriously though, it's not like earthquakes aren't independently verifiable, and Twitter's usefulness is more as another source of data to mine about an event.
Faking the next San Fransisco earthquake, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Faking the next San Fransisco earthquake, anyon (Score:2)
A real purpose to Twitter (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously. This is the sort of thing twitter is really good at.
It's not knowing what Britney is eating for breakfast. Or how much a SKANK Malinda next door is. Or how much a bastard Billy is, oh but he's such a hunk. Or what color Aston K's turds are.
Thank goodness twitter popularity is dying.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously. This is the sort of thing twitter is really good at.
It's not knowing what Britney is eating for breakfast. Or how much a SKANK Malinda next door is. Or how much a bastard Billy is, oh but he's such a hunk. Or what color Aston K's turds are.
Thank goodness twitter popularity is dying.
OMG, Malinda is SUCH a skank!
Quake Trolls (Score:1)
How long before a group of trolls picks up on this and starts creating false reports?
Build your own earthquake reflector (Score:2)
This project has two strands, a software and a hardware component. The aim is to build a device which responds to earthquakes being reported in near-real time via the USGS RSS feeds. The device responds by illustrating the magnitude of the reported earthquake via two fairly chunky vibration motors of the kind used in video game controllers. The device is connected to a PC via a virtual com port over
geologists (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure what kind of geologist you're referring to but that's a little insulting (IAAG)... there are people who don't learn to think in any field (including all the sciences) but geologists are not systematically not trained to think in university, that's bogus. In fact I'd say we are trained to think more than people in other fields of science, as true understanding of geological concepts is not easily obtained by reading or hearing about them and can't always be mathematically described.
To be fair, o
Good!! (Score:1)
Data API (Score:2)
I just wish the earthquake data provided by the USGS was available through a web API. XML, JSON, whatever. I poked around and there's some quake data available through various obscure programs or protocols, but nothing easy to get at. Nothing I could find, anyway. Maybe someone else knows of something more useful?
Ironic name (Score:3, Funny)
TWITTER
...
3. intr. To move tremulously, tremble, shake, quiver, shiver...
So, for an alternative article summary: the USGS will use twitterers on Twitter who are twittering about twittering.
[cue chorus of groans]
Re: (Score:2)
From the Oxford English Dictionary:
TWITTER ...
3. intr. To move tremulously, tremble, shake, quiver, shiver...
So, for an alternative article summary: the USGS will use twitterers on Twitter who are twittering about twittering.
[cue chorus of groans]
Yeaaaahhhh.... But less funny because you really didn't need the second "twitter", you had to force it. *Of course* the twittering twitterers are on Twitter, its the only place you *can* twitter. "Twitterers twittering about twittering" makes more sense. And actually, It's funnier. Hmm. And yes, I know I am ridiculous.
-Taylor
Re: (Score:2)
But less funny because you really didn't need the second "twitter", you had to force it. *Of course* the twittering twitterers are on Twitter, its the only place you *can* twitter.
From the OED again:
TWITTERER
A bird that twitters; also transf. of a person.
For example:
1834 R. MUDIE Feathered Tribes Brit. Isles (1841) I. 2 When the forest howls to its fury, driving the twitterers from the spray. 1890 O. CRAWFURD Round Calendar in Portugal 178 Several feeble-winged twitterers. 1895 J. G. WOOLLEY in Voice (N.Y.) 17 Oct. 2/1 A mere twitterer of lackadaisical platitudes.
etc.
Though it may be heresy to say such a thing on the internet, "twitterer" actually meant something before the online service existed. Hence, there are other places and ways for birds and even people to "twitter." And I don't even have to go into the many meanings of "twitter," even the ones applicable to people, which can vary from chattering to gigglin
Re: (Score:2)
Well played sir, well played... :)
-Taylor
The evil donut (Score:2)
I've been thinking that if there is a really big one, we'll see a "donut" pattern when you map the data.
This mornings 4.1 (which I felt) was exciting, and tweet-worthy. The BIG ONE will not be tweeted near the epicenter. The power will go out. Even if it doesn't go out, you'll have better things to do.
Eventually the power would come back on and the hole would fill in; but I would think that the existance of the hole in the data would be one indicator of how strong the quake really is.
Has this ever been
Obligatory... (Score:2)
Shakin' it over here Boss, Shakin' it over here!
Good use of twitter (Score:1)