Subject: Re: Quicksand
From: Fred Tully
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 08:30:14 -0700
Richard D. Lewis wrote:
>
> Just watch any Tarzan or Jungle Jim movie late
> at night on the television. They almost always
> have at least one quick sand sequence. Soon you
> will become an absolute expert on quick sand.
> >
_____________
In Reality, quick sand is a condition, not a material and is quite rare.
It exists only where fine sand is under an upward flow of ground water,
and as a result, usually has water on top, or is considered to be a
spring.
--
Fred Tully
Canadian Virtual Tours, Leduc, Alberta, Canada
Reduces Spam email address -is- fredtull at compusmart.ab.ca,
site at http://www.compusmart/fredtull
(403) 986 9896 fax (403) 986 9442
Was Civil Engineer, turned computer tutor in Win95, Word 7.0, PowerPoint
7.0, Excel 7.0, Simply Accounting 4.0, Internet, HTML, NetScape and
general computer Consultant
Net site Development and Net Site Development training.
Currently Beta testing a virtual classroom CD for PowerPoint, and
starting HTML virtual classroom CD
Subject: Re: Earthquake advisory cancelled 11/24/96
From: jewett@netcom.com (Bob Jewett)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 16:45:23 GMT
EDG Research Projects (edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: In deciding whether or not to issue an earthquake warning one of the
: things that I check for are reports being circulated by other
: earthquake sensitives which suggest to me that a possible approaching
: earthquake will be highly destructive.
Why bother? No "earthquake sensitive" has ever demonstrated the
ability to reliably predict earthquakes. You're as well off flipping
coins or using the magic eight ball.
Ed, if you want to be taken seriously, you will have to make sharper
predictions. "There might be a quake that kills some people in some
populated area somewhere in the world in the next month or so ...
well, never mind, I called it off," just isn't going to work.
Specify a time (window).
Specify a location.
Specify a magnitude.
Do this publicly prior to the start of the window.
Stand by your prediction.
If you can't get more specific, so that people can determine for
themselves whether you're onto something, you'll appear to be another
fraud like Turi. You don't want to be known as "Turi jr" do you?
And another thing: You go on repeatedly at length and say little.
Learn conciseness. Your verbosity is bothersome.
Bob
Subject: The Valley Girls Protest
From: Harold Asmis
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 14:43:08 -0500
I picked this off the wire again (from LA). Apparently, the new
California Earthquake Authority has the audacity to charge rates based
on seismic hazard! Obviously, Sacramentarians should pay the same
rates. :)
**********
"With earthquake faults crisscrossing the entire state, the San Fernando
Valley should not be singled out as 'most vulnerable, therefore most
liable financially' (our quote). This is totally inequitable and totally
indefensible--an arbitrary quirk of irrational thinking. No one is
omniscient when it comes to predicting the location and severity of the
'next Big One.' "
The new rate structure not only must be reviewed, it must be revised so
everyone shares the financial load equally.
**********
--
Harold W. Asmis harold.w.asmis@hydro.on.ca
tel 416.592.7379 fax 416.592.5322
Standard Disclaimers Apply
Subject: Re: Earthquake advisory cancelled 11/24/96
From: gentryd@pipeline.com (Dennis Gentry)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 19:32:44 -0300
In article , jewett@netcom.com (Bob Jewett) wrote:
>Dennis Gentry (gentryd@pipeline.com) wrote:
>: >... No "earthquake sensitive" has ever demonstrated the
>: >ability to reliably predict earthquakes.
>...
>: How is "reliably" defined?
>
>Significantly (in the statistical sense) different from chance events.
Oh!!! I thought you were talking about the ratio between hits and
misses. I guess if a prediction method hit on 3 out of 10 events and
those 3 events were statistically significant, then that would be a
reliable prediction methodology?
>Another measure would be the "usefulness" of a prediction. Your own
>predictions used to cover very large areas and included very minor
>magnitudes. A "useful" prediction might be characterized by:
>
> Magnitude larger than 6
> Location radius smaller than 100km
> Time window smaller than a week
>
>And of course the event would have to occur. No one presently makes
>useful predictions, in this sense. Other, very long term predictions
>are of course useful for disaster planning and such, but that's another
>matter.
I agree with most of your points here except for the location radius. I
would be more inclined to go along with, at a minimum, a 250km radius for
several reasons.
One is that a large 7.0+ earthquake will cause damage outside of a 100km radius.
Secondly, if the exact location isn't known it would reduce the chance for
a panic situation.
Thirdly, it would be better for emergency services to be ready even if the
event isn't in their area. Emergency services in the area that was hit
would most probably be out of commission themselves. Other emergency
units outside of the area that was hit would already be ready to respond
to the area that was hit.
And then lastly, the odds for a 5.0+ event with roughly a 250km radius and
a 7 day window has a probability of 2.7% chance of occuring (from Bolts
earthquakes). Which would be a pretty significant prediction.
As far as my own predictions, I've come up with a way to determine if they
are local events or not. Hence my lack of predictions lately. Its not
that I haven't been getting signals. Far from it. Its just that nothing
significant has been going on locally.
Of course an 8.0+ within a couple of thousand miles could cause me to
think that its local also. Hopefully their won't be too many of those.
Regards,
Dennis
Subject: Re: Earthquake advisory cancelled 11/24/96
From: ajones@binghamton.edu ()
Date: 26 Nov 1996 23:26:43 GMT
Dennis Gentry (gentryd@pipeline.com) wrote:
: In article , jewett@netcom.com (Bob Jewett) wrote:
: >Why bother? No "earthquake sensitive" has ever demonstrated the
: >ability to reliably predict earthquakes.
: Bob,
: How is "reliably" defined?
: Thanks,
: Denni
Dennis, I think we've been around this one before. To be able
to reliably predict earthquakes (as Bob says in his posting) one
must specify the location window, the date/time window, and the
magnitude window. In addition the person making the prediction
should state the probability of this event happening by chance.
Only when one has predicted enough events to place the predictions
well outside the range of chance, can one say that this person
has "reliably" made predictions. On this newsgroup, only a few
of the predictions satisfy the first three criteria (yours do
satisfy them) and I have, in the past and will continue in the
future, compute the probability of success by chance.
The worse way to evaluate predictions is to take the word of
the person making the predictions.
Alan Jones
s
