Mr. Google - Enhance the Nest Cam!

I know you are reading this!  You read everything.  We just got a video of house being hit by an earthquake which was totally useless because they didn't glue down the camera with seismic wax.

You guys are big on California and whole Left Coast.  Add functionality to the camera for very little cost.  You could do what I am trying to do in a heartbeat.  Put in an accelerometer and some seismic wax.  Next time there is an earthquake, we'll get the video and a PGV.  Or have a separate slave unit they can put on the floor slab.

I'll continue to work on my Raspberry Pi accelerometer, since I know you won't do anything, but I think it would be a great seller.  :)

Latest Oklahoma earthquake paroxysm starts

Wow, it started early, fast and furious.  I was expecting another week or two, but maybe all that rain went down the open boreholes.

This parox will be on the lower section.  I'm calling it with this one, because the earthquake is following the mechanism, and although called an m4.3 here, it has been recorded as a M5.2, intensity 6.  This was a mixed mechanism, with shear-tension, but should act as the start of a zipper effect.  Within a week we should have a bunch of these along the shear zone, ending at Cushing.  As well, we should have some 'pure' thrusts aimed at the city.

**everything may be off a few days

***the accelerometers at Cushing should get to 20 cm/s with this parox.

ps.  If we had the hh deployed we could have seen EM pulses along the main faults. -- maybe.

ps2:  The neatest eastern earthquake video ever!  Note the kick and short duration.

ps3:  The worst damage yet, for the two zones.

ps4:  In an unexpected development, the usgs is saying the same thing, sort of, in a polite manner.

The Happy Happy Shake Meter with Magnetic Pulse Technology

This will be name of my new accelerometer with a compass chip.  Right now I'm like millions at Christmas, and got my Raspberry Pi 2 up and running.  I'm waiting for my breakout board with a dozen projects.  Soon, I'll be doing the Blinken Lights.  Reminds me of the PDP-8 I saw when I was in high school.  I won't use paper tape.  :)

In the thirty years I fooled around with accelerometers and seismometers, I've had some painful lessons.  Every time I think of some of them, I cringe.  Anyway, I learned how to make these work.  It would be amazing if I ever read that somebody else had learned this too, but nope.  The general idea is to surround OK with a bunch of hh's for the next big earthquake.  I'm going to muck around a lot, but eventually somebody is going to have to throw in some money, since it needs some server-side technology.  I'm looking at this as a kind of DropCam for seismic nerds.

The magnetic pulse thing is neat, but a very long shot.  It will use a 3-axis 12 bit magnetometer chip, but the problem is that every lightning strike will set it spinning.  I like the physics that produces a magnetic pulse 2 weeks ahead of a major earthquake.  If we actually record it, somebody may work on it.  Right now, the busgus is putting all its eggs in the stupid early warning thing.  EM technology is properly exotic, we put the sensors on the northern Polaris seismic stations, and it helps find new diamond mines.

Lisbon earthquake changed history

Reference

Did this for my g+ earthquakes collection, but decided to put it here as well, since it was so significant.  Opened the world for later colonial powers, like the British.  Shows what an earthquake can do.

Accelerometers can save lives

I got my Raspberry Pi stuff for Christmas.  I hope to make a really cheap and effective accelerometer, using the raspi zero and distribute the design.  Nobody would actually pay me anything.

This has been done before, but the projects always died.  In California they are throwing all their eggs at stupid early warning, since this is the most glamorous.  But their earthquake physics is completely wrong, and this can only be fixed with accelerometers.

You need accurate timing, and calibration.  It's quite easy now to keep a loop in the cloud with Google, so that when a big one hits, it will be recorded before everything goes down.  Much better than the twit-thing!

With a raspi and a 14 bit accelerometer chip, it should be only $20 to build.  I'll be experimenting if I need a chain of $10 accel. chips to reduce thermal noise.  Up to now all such things for seismic have had large custom seismic proof masses to reduce thermal noise.

The key improvement to life will be to read velocity on the base slab, and maybe higher up if people are rich.  Right now, engineers are obsessed with peak acceleration which is completely wrong.  A bunch of these things in OK could change that.  Right now, there isn't one in the whole place.

The other thing to change is the view on soil amplification.  It's totally wrong right now, and it will kill people.

BRING ON THE ACCELEROMETERS!

To avoid the USGS, I'm going to call my device the "Happy Happy Shake Meter" and put in EM.

Oklahoma earthquakes starting to ramp up again.

I'm taking a word from volcanology - paroxysm, meaning to throw a hissy fit.

This is Fuego in Guatemala.  I could see it throughout some of my trip.  It was always smoking for us, but we missed this paroxysm.  It's just a show, doesn't bother anyone, just like OK earthquakes.  Let's forget about other implications.

OK had a big parox (shortened it for lazy typing) in December.  It activated New Madrid.  After it was over, I knew that it had shook everything out for a month or two.  Now I can see it coming back to life, probably something in a month.  Unlike Fuego, the next one will always be bigger, as all the stresses start to align.  I've decided they can continue to wash out oil for next to nothing, so they will be always injecting.

I'm still on for a big blowout within a year.  As usual, the boring fine print says the uncertainties are longer than our lifetimes.

Addition:  We're getting the shallow thrusts near the city on the lower zone.  I'm expecting that the next parox will be on the lower zone.

Extrapolation without physics

Reference

I like this article because it goes into the danger of trying to extract signal from noise for a correlation.  People then want to use this correlation to predict future events.  This happens all the time in earthquake studies, but was a new thing for climate.

For earthquakes, people are so jaded by the numerous attempts that they demand physics.  The electromagnetic signals are so noisy that it is easy to extract 'some signal'.  Again, this is like trying to correlate the stock market with an infinite universe of possible things, such as football, Miss Universe mistakes, or global temperature.  You can always find a correlation.

I have great fun applying rock mechanics to earthquakes, and I'm in a very tiny minority.  This is only physics I know that applies to earthquakes, and it doesn't look good for prediction.  All earthquakes start out exactly the same, with that first quartz grain slipping in water.  Then it's a series of falling dominoes.  Will it go on or stop?  To be useful, you need a signal that maps out the future rupture plane.  Is it all at the critical displacement, ready to fall?  To predict earthquakes you need some new physics, such as advance 'micro ruptures' that can map out the zone, and prepare it for the final rupture.  This would be neat, and could be tested in the lab if they ever figure out that water is essential.  They always do those tests with dry rocks.

So, here is the testable hypothesis:  For large failures, there is an 'advance' process that aligns all the quartz grains at the critical displacement, ready for stick-slip.  At this moment, there is a detectable physical property change, such as electrical conduction, or a seismic wave guide.

Like I have said, the problem with 'politicized science' is that nobody wants to dive into a hypothesis that could be proven wrong.  Bad for the career.  You never see the busgus doing it.  

Arctic Ice Volume continues to climb

Nasa continues to whine that things are getting worse.  I don't know what they are puffing.  Once we get past this failure of an El Nino, then we'll know what cold is.  I think the climate-teests will try every statistical trick to keep the flat line from going down.  These guys are the masters of adhoc-ism, so I can't wait for them to say we are warming when we are cooling.  No observation will ever crunch that belief, it will go on and on forever.

Remember, I am not a 'denier', I merely point out the lack of physics.  Nobody can dispute the past observation, it is extrapolation into the future that requires physics.  You can correlate earthquakes with anything you want - clouds, weather, funny signals -- nothing works for the next earthquake.

It's now proven that, even during an ice age, the total heat balance of the Earth remains the same, it's just that all the heat goes South.  So, when a mile-high cliff of ice is knocking at your door, you'll still be reading that Nasa says the earth is getting warmer.  :)

El Nino defeated, normal pattern resuming

All hope is not lost, the dead can still rise.  While touring crypts in Guatemala, we found there were all sorts of tricks to make sure you weren't buried alive.  But when excavating old coffins, they found a lot of scratch marks inside.  This El Nino might sit up and say "I'm not dead yet!".



For us in Toronto, our strong westerlies have ended and we are getting the dreaded "Polar Vortex".  All the heat from the dead El Nino is now going south, and we are resuming the normal pattern of the last few years.

I am not mentioning a certain state that starts with 'C', because if this holds, then they are dead.  Who needs a giant earthquake?  So, let's not talk to them, and keep their hopes alive for Christmas.  In the East, the cold weather could revive the moribund natural gas price, and start up Oklahoma again.

ps. Australia confirms this.

Google auto movie of Guatemala

Wonderful trip, I think I might be recovering.  This is place is choked with rampant population growth, and huge inequality.  Nothing works, but the people are almost the happiest in the world.  That's the Latin fever.

If you take the monster tour bus you are sheltered from the fact that the place is choked.  The hotels and sites are wonderful.  Here's the movie.

Back home

It's great to be back.  Comments are open again.

Fun in Guatemala

Very inexpensive. Tourism seems down. But you really need a bus tour. We have a big luxury bus.

Artistic earthquake damage

Linux and Android - getting an OTG USB disk to work

I'm going travelling, and in case there wasn't super-duper wifi everywhere, I bought a 64gb Lexar OTG USB disk with a micro-usb2 connector on one side and a usb3 standard connector on the other.  OMG!  that was half a day to get it work on the Nexus 7-2.  I don't even know what worked - using tware format on windows to format it to fat32 or multiple power offs.  Finally it works, but you really have to eject it properly.  When it works, android picks it up, and you can use any file explorer.  You can put a lot of movies on it for the plane, and a lot of pictures.

It didn't do anything with the Nexus 5x no matter what I did.

Oklahoma starting to go big again

Darn, just as I'm getting ready to go to the Land of Big Tectonics.  I've closed comments on everything, since I can't police them for terrorist codes.

Oh yeah, OK M4.3 strike slip.  It shook out a whole bunch of little earthquakes.

ps.  They finally came up with a fault plane solution, so it is longitudinal splitting caused by compression at the ends.  The whole thing is becoming a single shear.

ps2.  I'm just about to leave.  OK looks steady right now, perhaps that was just another leftover.  Pictures of active volcanoes coming soon.

Untreated depression takes its toll

This latest shooting is probably just another case of untreated male depression.  Probably a good hunk of shooting deaths in the States is due to this.  He was about the age when it hits.  Perhaps the wife was abused, but Bonny and Clyde pairings have happened before.

In the terrorist belts, there is a whole infrastructure dedicated to finding these suicidal depressives, and equipping them.  In the States, none of that is necessary.  As soon as the person snaps, he can accumulate all the weapons he needs.  There are millions of people with enough stuff in their basements to wipe out a small town.

As a depressive myself, I think there are two things that make the situation worse.  First, Hollywood glories in untreated depression.  Look at all the latest movies!  It wouldn't be a story if the person just got a little pill and was all better.  Depression is good, and even better if you go out and kill people.  Of course, it's always 'bad' people they kill.

And of course, there's the other thing.  Each year lots of people step in front of subway trains, but that lacks satisfaction in the planning.  Far better to get a gun.  Perhaps a lot of them.  What are you going to do with all these guns?  Big boxes of ammo are glorious.  Out to kill bad people!  Everybody who wants to live is bad.

We'd be better off if we had a culture of recognizing the symptoms and then getting people the little pills.  There should be no stigma to realizing you need a little help.  But until that happens we'll see more and more killings, and it has nothing to do with radical terrorism.

Addition:  From an earthquake perspective, one has to determine if this has the potential to go exponential, that is, an ever-increasing rate of mass shootings, with larger impacts.  The rate of going suicidal should be steady, since it is a genetic factor.  The availability of the Internet is probably saturated, so the culture and material to identify 'bad guys' is steady.  Open information might lead to earlier treatment, but I doubt it.  That just leaves the ease and cost of accumulating powerful weapons.  Cost is going down, and availability is going up in a linear fashion.  So it's a tough call, but I think it's weak exponential.  So, expect an increasing rate of shootings, with higher impact.  That means the graph of 'shooter deaths' could be to the power of 2, just like earthquakes in Oklahoma and the potential of death.

Oklahoma earthquakes have settled down

I'm now thinking that Monday's 4.7 was just a leftover from the intense activity of last week.  That truly was the first signal of a large quake.  Looks like there isn't a second signal.  That activity really shook things up a lot so we can expect a period of quiet.

During that time, all the wells they closed will open up again, and inject like mad.  Natural gas prices have tanked due to El Nino winter warming, so there might be less gas frack waste.  I am therefore hoping for a quiet Christmas, but who knows?

During this time, they can extend the injection to the 'virgin' territory SW of the northern shear line.  An M7 only requires 30 km of fault, which they have.  They can go on to an M8 when they extend it to 300 km.

Betting on the earthquake

I won't make a penny, but I'm reasonably certain that we'll have a full M7 sequence in Oklahoma soon enough.  They open all their closed wells after a week.  All those involved in this will win the Darwin Awards Champions of the Decade.  Nobody will come close.

Who are the other big money winners?

The busgus - when the midwest is destroyed, they'll get huge amounts of money for their silly projects in California.  Could we see a reason why they won't come near to Oklahoma?

Canada - oil at $100 again.  The oil sands won't look so dirty.

Oil futures investors - put $5 down for expensive oil in a year.  It's like a certain lottery ticket.

Saudis - they'll be rolling in the dough, and can finance more of things we won't talk about.


*Darwin Awards

**this is satire.

Second Oklahoma earthquake wave starts

This is on the main line, a highly directional M4.5, which has been registered as a 5.4 in the direction of the hammer.  We should expect a bunch of these, and this will be the #2 attempt on the 10-chamber Russian Roulette gun.

Once we have the 4 or 5 major quakes, then there will a slow diffusion of the strain field, causing many quakes in the OK mechanism, and possibly tickling New Madrid again.  Last time I gave a Yellow Knick-Knack warning for all those people on soft soil in Eastern North America.  I don't what I'll do this time.

This was a shallow shear giving the highest intensity yet for a strike-slip.  Every time the strain shifts, all the injectors give a little cheer, since it opens up the rock a bit more.  They better hurry up and make their money now, you never know when it will end.  The Tragedy of the Commons.

To repeat, this will be the second strong signal for a New Madrid-type sequence.  However, the signals could go on a long time.  I give each signal a 1 in 10 odds of being right.

PS - The great experiment.  I sometimes use the expression 'Too stupid to live'.  But how stupid?  It would be great for those Repub candidates to have a debate OK at right time.  Then something good will come of this.  :)  And we look at the trump, who would answer our question.

UN - FRIGGIN - BELIEVABLE  This earthquake was actually 'upgraded' to a 4.7  I've never seen this.

Justin Trudeau, put your science money into seismic

We might finally realize that Harper never really saved any money.  He just let things fall apart while giving big tax breaks.  That was his way to try and get the economy going, but it didn't work.  All tax breaks go to buying big screen tv's, infrastructure money goes to Niagara Tunnels to Nowhere.  Now it's Justin's turn.  All the necessary money can be raised by taxing legal recreational drugs.  :)

I'm a big believer in the idea that all this extra money should go into getting more money, or saving long-term as in health care, or providing a safety net for people to get back on their feet.  You've read my views on turning Toronto into Palo Alto, and Port Hope in Nuclear City.  As if any of that will happen.  Now comes the idea of turning Canada into a huge seismic exporter.

I had my golden days of creating new seismic networks.  That was amazing stuff, and then Harper killed the opportunity.  Now I want us to fund other instrumentation, especially strong ground motion.  We can forget about California because they've got it all wrong.  Align ourselves with Taiwan, they got some brains.

Right now I want this.

If I'm right it's a 16 bit 2g accelerometer.  That's perfect, and what I got for Darlington many years ago.  It's way too expensive right now.  But it can be cheaper in bulk.  Mate it with a Raspberry Pi, or some such thing.  Have it buffer the readings like a dashcam, and send upon request.  So nifty.  We could export millions.  It would help Okies with their insurance claims, it could help insurance companies deny claims.  :)  Always sell to both sides in a war!

Go for it!

We can still be big in conventional seismic, but the volume is low.

Shades of the Great Cornwall-Messina Earthquake of 1944

Must have been a shallow thrust to give an Intensity 4 for such a small earthquake.  Note that it was only felt south of the border.  :).  The 1944 quake is my absolutely favourite and I've studied everything I could find on that.  I also had lots of in-laws who experienced it.  It started my whole 'rock and soil' investigation.  I suspect we could have another one, since everything along the river is probably active.  This is where the Ottawa Graben intersects the megathrusts.  A fun party!

*Note to Liberals -- Seismic has fallen onto hard times in Canada.  You can put some money into that, or gouge industry for it.

PS - This is what I want for Christmas, but at $30 not $300.  You could connect it to an old android phone.

Oklahoma strain field may have hit New Madrid

This is fun speculation, the good part about science that never gets outside the ivory walls.  We used to call this 'corridor talk' or 'beer gab'.  Such talk is the heart and soul of science, and it has been killed by the PR department, and the need to be 'never wrong'.  Canada is talking about pouring billions into science, money we don't have, but it will be wasted if it goes down conventional channels.

I've written a lot of advanced computer analysis, the type that is never used for conventional earthquake science.  One such method is 'discrete element' modelling.  It looks at the fundamental physics between particles or elements of a fault.

One observation from this analysis is the tremendous distance a strain pulse can 'diffuse' through fractured rock.  In an elastic medium, a strain disturbance cannot go more than about 2 diameters from a disturbance, such as an excavation.  With fractures, there is almost no limit.  Depending on fundamental properties, there can be a slow diffusion out to several diameters.

The Oklahoma mechanism acts as one big excavation in fractured rock.  The injection of gas frack waste causes strain relief, and the effect is exactly the same as if you were cutting a big hole.  My hypothesis is that New Madrid is now feeling this.

Unlike 'Consensus Science' or 'Adhoc Mucking', this hypothesis can easily be shot down by further observation.  If we have another major strain event we can see if NM is affected a few days later.  If not, then we're golden.  If it is, then we should watch for the main thrust fault extending beyond the old shear wings.  That would be fun!

Oklahoma set for a winter earthquake

Ok, the odds of the Big Sequence hitting in winter are 1 in 100.  That puts it out of the minds of politicians and the media, but somebody, somewhere, should be planning for this.

I continue to look for signals, but they have a poor chance of actually predicting anything.  But it's fun.  The latest signal is something I've waiting for, which is the sign of a large strain field.  You can't have so much activity on the northern shear fault without it popping up earthquakes everywhere.  In fractured rock that strain disturbance can go very far indeed, and I wouldn't be surprised that New Madrid is feeling it.  Needless to say, this has been happening recently.

No seismometers were around in 1811 to register early signs of the New Madrid Sequence.  It probably took thousands of years to get up to where OK got in a few.  But the NE trending shear zones are constrained at the ends, and that's where you need thrust wings.  NM is completely the opposite with the big thrust in the middle and two shear wings.  That adds another uncertainty to OK.

A winter quake like 1811 is my biggest nightmare, and I've done the scenario for Toronto, which still stays at 1 in 1000.  All the electricity is off as well as gas.  All the oil is running down the river.  The busgus should be into this planning, but they are chasing rainbows in California.  The probably can't even touch the after-quake biz, because that's fema's job.  And they make the busgus look smart.

So, the planning will never get done.  Cell phones will last an hour or two maybe.  Like 1811, it will be a sequence of 3 huge earthquakes, so everybody better be in tents.  Only the army could handle this, but how much stuff do they have hanging around?  All the bridges will be down.

I can't go too much into this, because it is generally hopeless to pursue this line of thought.  It's best if everybody just covers their ears, and go "La, la, la.  Can't hear you!"

PS:  Get a yurt (Pacific Yurts)

Warning:  Although excellent for earthquakes, they are no good for tornadoes.  :)

New Madrid responds to little sister

A whole bunch of 3's have just popped at the top of the New Madrid thrust section.  Somebody is jealous of Oklahoma getting all the attention.  NM is a natural seep but with the exact same mechanism as OK.  I don't expect anything from this, but it is always interesting.

Fear Finally Feasts on Oklahoma

Reference

I finally have an Okie who reads my stuff.  I can't feel so detached and call them dumb as dirt.  They are living, breathing dumb people.  :)  So far all the big 6-ish earthquakes have had their barrels pointed away from the people, but that won't last.

I think the media will now go 'the other way', casting horrible irrational fear for big bucks.  Poor Okies, they threw away science education, and now they are being hit with science.  I have no doubt that we'll get a full New Madrid-type sequence within a year.  This will flatten all buildings on soil and destroy the Cushing oil tanks.

But cheer up, not everybody will die!  The New Madrid studies showed that anybody on firm soil or rock never felt a thing.  Seriously, the uncertainties are huge, the directivity is a factor of 10 in PGV, and soil is a factor of 10 or 100.  PGV goes up a factor of 2 for every intensity unit.  A well-built frame won't have structural damage until the PGV gets over 50 cm/s.

I wish for Christmas that they will now install strong motion instruments, now that the fear thing is fully exposed.  Perhaps they didn't want to alarm people before.  If the area becomes fully instrumented we'll save countless lives elsewhere by showing how wrong engineers are right now.  It will finally show that PGV rules over PGA, and kill off those soft-story condos.  But I don't expect much.  :)

Lest anybody think I am callous and cruel, I give this PC statement:  Sorry.

For those thinking of building a new house soon, you don't have to move to California to reduce your risk.  Stay out of the valleys, and pick firm soil.  Put in a dang-tootin basement!  Pour your foundations on beams connected by screw piles that have gone down to refusal.  Fill around the basement with structural foam popcorn.  Pour the walls with those integrated forms, and use a steel roof system.  Better yet, put in a concrete dome house, but that's hard to furnish.

PS, Dear Okies, this is the final screamy, shoot-the-messenger stage where all rational people abandon you, lest they fall into the Italian Trap.  Note the complete absence of the busgus, this doesn't do their fund-raising any good.  I should shut down soon, as well.

PS2:  Whew, seems to have stopped.  I can go back to my holiday.

PS3:  Tuesday, M4, deep, probably strike-slip, right on the shear line.  I was hoping to go to bed without a major earthquake on that line for 24 hours.

Oklahoma earthquakes start up big again

I shouldn't be writing this, but here we go again.  This is a deep normal earthquake with the 'hammer' going into the Earth.  That's why it is being identified as 6-ish on the other side of the world.  A bunch of these on the fault, and I'm going to issue Alert #2.  :)  As I was saying on g+, I estimate we can go up to 10 'false' alarms.  A random 'Italian Cluster' has a 1 in 100 chance of going on.

I expect another 4 of these 6-ish earthquake before I issue another yellow alert.  This time I'll go beyond knick-knacks as my count goes up, probably into practising 'Duck and Cover'.  :)

PS:  Com'on Big Busgus, slip in some strong motion instruments.  You'll never get another chance to record a 7 up close and personal.

PS2:  The M3.5 right after it was a shallow thrust.  We should really expect the thrusts to get bigger.

Geofish Issues Yellow Alert for New Madrid Earthquake Sequence

I am interrupting my bonding time with my dog to issue this Yellow Alert.  All of the recent events in Oklahoma have been along the northern fault.  Although reported as 4-somethings, they are really 5-somethings in terms of mechanics.  The length of the active zone implies a starting quake of 7+ strike-slip, followed by the required thrust earthquakes, just as in 1811.

I issue no alerts or recommendations in the 'hot zone'.  Those who are a few hundred kilometres away should secure their breakable knick-knacks with sticky Velcro.  This is just common sense even if the earthquakes are a year away.

As usual, the uncertainties swamp any hope of an accurate prediction.  This is just a word to the wise.

PS - People on the g+ are freaking out.  This is the strongest indication I've ever seen (even in hindsight), but it is still only worth $5.  That's because the uncertainties are overwhelming.  Secure the knick-knacks for $5, that's all I'm saying.

PS2:  This alert closes 48 hours after the last earthquake along this line.  I will shut down again.

PS3:  Still more activity along the line, but it is going down.  Here is the cheapest stuff I could find (on the side).  I just bought some myself to see how it works, but in Canada, only those in High Park and the Beaches need to get it.

PS4:  Nothing is happening and the alert is off.  Perhaps we need a few more episodes like this this to get the motor started.  So, I sign off.

Christmas shutdown

As is usual for me, I'm doing another shut down.  There's not much sunlight this time of year, so I have to struggle to stay cheerful.  I hope everybody has a nice Christmas.

Go and Fund Me Some Wine for more Earthquakes

Every once in a while I need some justification for continuing my rants on earthquakes and other things.  After all, it is tough go against the Winds of Indifference by the Big Guys.  Oklahoma is going to destroy all US oil production and nobody cares.  The Bruce Deep Hole is sinking a shaft on top of a giant fault and everybody ignores it.

I used to get a nice wine income from Google before my readers started clicking all the horrible ads and they banned me for life.

So all you people send me some money via Paypal to 'hasmis@gmail.com'  I understand you may get $5.00 for sending 50 cents.  For each bottle of wine I get I'll write something new that is beyond my normal compulsion to write.

WINE SEISMOMETER

Target

After 10 minutes, the thermometer stands at zero.

Add2:  Being the greedy pig I am, I have set a target of no more writing on anything until I can put some red on the thermometer.  Simple profit is the best way to judge if you are doing good in the world.  :)

Not a speck of added power with the Niagara Tunnel

Reference

This person prices it as 1.5 billion, but I know it had to be more than that.  They have great capacity to hide costs, and this is why I was always hoping for a change in gov't.  He attributes the flat power output to bottled up transmission, but with the pumped storage capacity maxed out, there can be no increase.  That's why I call it the 'Tunnel to Nowhere".

What's a few billion amongst friends?  Wait until you see that Darlington refurb.  Now, that's money!

The tectonics of Guatemala

To celebrate that I will soon be visiting there, I am digging up various facts.

G. is sliced in half by the upper part of the Caribbean Plate.  For some reason the Pacific Plate plunges much more steeply than in Mexico, but produces more volcanoes.  This makes it less likely for big shallow quakes, which is good for me.  Volcanoes are more easily avoided, unless somebody says "Let's look at that big one that just started up."  I'll just stuff that person in a sack.  :)

A most directive Oklahoma earthquake - M4.3

This is at the far end of the zone, basically in a new area for the larger earthquakes.  It blasted in one direction only, typical NE.  Some stations recorded it as a 5.4.  I think it is closer to a 5 in terms of energy, so that really puts up the total seismic energy curve.

I never know why the zones are so limited.  I think it's because they don't have a clue about the Precambrian and just drill near where there was success before.  Anyway, they can continue to drill down in the SW direction, I guarantee success!  :)  In the other g+ discussion, I noted that US natural gas prices are up, so we'll have lots of gas frack waste, which is the only thing that counts.  Note that all the recent earthquakes have been on a perfect NE line, following the megathrust.  After all this activity, the fractures will open up some more, allowing full volume.  Oh, they might shut down a well or two right on top of this latest earthquake, but there are other places to go in this big Whack-a-mole game.  :)

Add:  I'm calling this a 5 in terms of strain effect on the system.  We have had 5.5's already, but each one was either very deep, or had the directivity pointed away.  We are well on the curve.

Last megathrust video - Map of Ignorance

I'm done for a while.  The cold may be coming back, and these things don't do me any good.  There is too much chance that nasties will view it.

Add:  Apparently, everybody on Facebook steals videos and claims them as their own.  Have fun!

Megathrust video 2 - Sediments

I cured my cold with my patented sleep cure.

New video for earthquakes

I'm trying something new, since I'm so ugly.  I'm sketching something on my Linux Inkscape, and then recording a voice-over with Audacity.  I merge it with Openshot.

I should have laid off for now, since I think I'm getting a cold, but what the heck.  I have an old Wacom drawing tablet which works well with Linux.  In fact, anything old works with Linux, including me!

When I emerge from Fluville, then I might do some more.  But that's the trouble with me, once I repeat things, it becomes tedious.

Global temperatures go high

This is the global background microwave level.  It reflects ground temperature, but also represents total heat being radiated out to space, since that is what the sensors are reading.  The two aren't quite the same thing if you include the great insulation of wet clouds.

We are zooming up because of El Nino.  That thing dumps a whole lot of heat outside of the cloud barrier.  That's why temperatures may appear to be rising, but the heat energy is leaving.  We know now that our history of ice ages and such is merely heat flip-flopping from north to south.  El Nino seems to dump heat evenly in both hemispheres, but when the Atlantic current flips, all the heat goes south.

The El Nino backwash is being a bit coy.  It really should have smashed into Central America by now, and drenched old Cali, but it keeps getting beaten back.  I hope it finally decides to go for it.

Oklahoma earthquakes back on track

There was a big flurry of earthquakes yesterday.  They are tracking the northern fault, with compression earthquakes at the end, just like Cushing.  For a while the system appeared to be resting.

Add:  Cushing just had one of its high intensity shallow thrusts.  m3.6

Add2:  Watch this little video.  Look at the crappy state of the oil tanks.  And those berms are a joke.  I had to fix one once.  They are designed by people who can't do math, and have a special valve that is supposed to let out the water, and is made of the rustingnest iron.  :)

Communications after an earthquake

Reference

Just putting in more micro-cells doesn't do much.  After a big earthquake, everybody is just trying to call everybody else, and the whole thing grinds down.  As well, the cell towers lose their power, and only a few have diesel for a couple of hours.

There should be a protocol to prevent panic.  They should design an earthquake app, made for these situations.  After an earthquake, the cell systems should shut down all calls except for the app.  This would also be used for emergency requests, since the 911 phone lines would be clogged anyway.  Broadcasts to the app would be easy.  Each person would have information pre-loaded and they would fill out forms.  The data would get through.

This is something Dr. Lucy should be working on, not that horrible early warning stuff.  But seismologists want their day in the sun, and lots of money.  Oh well......

Another pitch for the Fish Injection Treatment

Reference

Texas has closed the book on how a set of wells could turn earthquakes on and off in Azle.  I know they were injecting gas frack waste for a while (in my head).  But they can never admit it.

Let's pretend they were honest, and everybody promised not to sue (Ha!).  Then we would conclusive proof that it is stress corrosion that caused all these New Madrid-type earthquakes.  The cure is simple:  Import a ton of crushed Grenville granitic gneiss and run all the gas frack water through that.  Then mainline right into the Precambrian to your heart's content.

Universities can't even test out the Fish Hypothesis, because a positive result would mean that all their sponsors were lying like VW.  Do corporations do that?  I worked for the old company who would lie until their teeth fell out.  Good thing I forget all the particulars, maybe I was only dreaming about that.  :)

When you are all by yourself it is good to confuse reality and dreams.  That way reporters don't bug you, and nobody tries to give you the Polonium Sandwich.  Without these tests, the only outcome is to stop all injection when the big closer earthquakes hit.

Add:  If SMU weren't stuck in miserable Texas they could get back at the creeps by conducting the simple experiment that I mentioned at some time.  However, as it is, they'd get killed.  :(  since everybody carries an assault rifle.

What I want to be when I grow up

Suddenly, someone official was asking me for an opinion.  I feel that there is a 'New Hope' flowing through Ottawa.  I shall look just in front of my nose, and not think about 6 months from now.

I don't do well with stupidity.  My performance reviews always said "Does not work well in a corporate environment.".  I remember being on the committee that was looking at the Y2K issue.  As you remember, everybody thought the world would end when 1999 turned to 2000.  The whole committee was composed of climbers who wanted to advance their careers by hyping this up as much as they could, and then saving the world.  I stated right away that there was no issue.  They threw me out.  :)

I was on a CSA committee that was looking at the seismic issues for a new nuclear plant.  I said that all we needed was a recipe book to assure ourselves that a US plan would be suitable for our site.  They wanted something horrendous that would encompass Canadian-designed plants.  They threw me out.

All the things I did worked, and I worked with people who wanted things to work.  Those were my good times.  My bad times came when nobody really wanted things to work, but just have the appearance of working.  I was terrible at that.

With our 'New Hope' maybe things will work again.  I don't know how involved I can be, since my mind rebels at tediousness.  That's for a new generation.  Reminds me of two guys I met in the Dog Valley that were going to work on the new sewer.  I mentioned that they were starting on the worse section that didn't have enough manholes.  That seemed to surprise them, but it's up to them to be splurted all over with sewage when the supply exceeds their pump capacity.  I'm not there!

Add:  It turned out to be a minor academic matter about some seismic vaults I had installed.  So, the world is safe from me for a while longer.  :)

The Sargasso comes to the Caribbean

The Caribbean is choked with Sargasso weed.  Don't go there!  This is why, the equatorial currents from Africa are weak for some reason, leading to a big Sargasso playground off Brazil, fed by Amazon farming.

I haven't been looking long, but I think this is unusual.  A strong current would just sweep through.  Could lead to colder temperatures, but for El Nino.  I think we'll have a ton of snow.

Add:  a new map shows El Nino backing off again.  But the Atlantic backwash is getting stronger.  Obviously they are related, perhaps due to wind reversal.

Cars to become the next wave of software and commodity parts

Reference

Ken Okuyama is an automobile visionary and he fears that Apple and Google might take over the car industry. I think his fears are well-founded.

They are probably right that it will be the 'connected' software houses that will do this.  All the other companies are like HP or Timex;  their spirits possessed by intricate mechanics.  A fuel cell or battery and electric motors are all you need, and really good software.  Right now Tesla is putting everything into a better battery, but anybody can do that.  Right now I'm buying my rechargeable batteries as generic Amazon.

All the great car companies are following VW into the sewer, they couldn't get a brilliant software guy if their lives depended on it because they are ugly bureaucracies.  And these people in Palo Alto are 10-100 times more valuable than anybody you find in Texas or Detroit.  Tesla is run by a psycho and will soon die.  :)  or he'll go to Mars.

This must be network connected software and Google has the edge on this.  If one car finds something weird like an armadillo, then in an instant every car has the pattern.  Who can keep away spam and hackers.  My neighbour just died with a big Mac security incursion.  Bet they keep that quiet!

But Palo Alto is choked and they can't move anybody out.  Who wants to leave the Android Statues?

I CAN'T LEAVE!

This presents a horrible problem for Google and such.  As well, they are so overdue for a monster earthquake.  I suggest that Toronto picks up the ball.  :)

Addition:  Every company with a factory component becomes poisoned.  I know a computer company that is spending time on shaving everybody on everything, like phones and computers.  Soon they'll cut the free coffee.  :)  Death looms.

Where Big Companies go to Die

Reference

HP is splitting again.  Pretty soon, there won't be much left.  In the last 30 years they've only been good a printers, and how long it that going to live?  It's like Kodak and film.  40 years ago they were the super-hot company for engineers.  I remember their ridiculous reverse Polish notation calculators, and they forced everybody to learn that.  After that, they missed every major trend, except for Adobe printers.

Their motto was "No Standards", so everything they made was incompatible with anything else.  They were loved at the old company who put in all big HP servers, and all HP PC's.  I fought with them a lot, so I'm glad to see them go to the elephant graveyard.

ps.  Some like to blame the Crazy Lady who is now running for president.  I think they were just overtaken by the world, especially commodity parts.  They were the old custom gun makers of England against Samuel Colt and precision interchangeable parts.

Toronto Startup War of the Kittens

Apparently, during the Uber Kitten event, all the cool startups were fighting for Twitter points.  My son helped line them up for Studeo.  They are now in the top rank on the Kitten Index.  Employees in the banks were gnashing their teeth.  All the taunts can be found on Twitter.

Summary of Southern Ontario Earthquakes

I throw this up every year or so.  You'll notice the influence of the two megathrusts under Lake Ontario.  The gap between Hamilton and Cleveland is due to a huge Precambrian basin, shown in the reflection seismic.  The Hamilton fault is strongly defined.  These earthquakes continue to show a strong affinity to water, and are generally at a fraction of the rate of Oklahoma.  The rare earthquake (1 in 500) is a 6+.  The 'destructo' is an M7.  This class of earthquake is strongly shown in the sediments.

Stiletto Stampede

Reference

I just did this on my Earthquakes g+ collection, but it deserves a wider audience.

Secondary school l'istituto Tecnico Industriale di Avezzano, in L'Aquila, Italy, has reportedly banned wedges, flip-flops and high heels measuring over 1.6 inches. 

They are firmly in the Italian School of Earthquake Response, which is to run in panic with your hands waving about.  Perhaps they should learn Ducks with Covers, and await their death in a crummy stone-rubble Maffie school.  :)

Nevertheless, I think stampeding will kill many more people than buildings, but in Italy, who knows?

Time for bold new plans, Justin

Where is Canada's place in the world?  What can we do to make an impact and get oodles of money?  Obviously Big J would want to invest in roads and transit, but does that actually do anything?

These are some of the big things:

Turn Toronto into Palo Alto.  We have the tech talent, and the big underground downtown.  All we need to do is turn our expertise in penny mining stocks to tech startups.  We don't have to actually kill the big banks, they are dying anyway.

Turn Alberta into the geological capital of the world.  Let them improve my Geofish water treatment.  Go hybrid and fuel cell.  Off oil.

Go with my plan for Port Hope.  That is the ugliest place in the world.  Turn it into Neutron City, with world class nuclear research.

Vancouver has enough Asian money, and Montreal is hopeless, so we just worry about the East Coast.  I think they have to research cannabis.

:)

ps.  This is classic old macro-economic issue of 'Guns or Butter?'.  Deficit money should be spent on Guns, and then income from that to spent on Butter.  Justin has a majority and can do something bold in the next year before all his useless ministers drag him into scandal.  The alternative is spread the butter very thinly over every square mile.

Afghanistan blind thrust earthquake M7.5

It shows pure thrust, which I know is directed upward.

I'm surprised my Wikipedia article is still alive, although much improved.  A long time ago (at work), I did a huge amount of this.

Nepal was like this.  Within the valley no structure can survive since the pgv hits 2 m/s.  This is the ideal place for my idea of container houses.  For the other valleys, nothing will hit this one for a few hundred years.

Nepal was a bigger version, much closer to the 'Big Squoosh' of India.  The nearest strong motion device registered 100 cm/s.

Add:  We have to guess on the pgv, no instrument could survive.  It would have to be on a huge screw pile, and then it wouldn't give the true surface pgv.

Add2:  Ha, it was 200 km deep!  Should have read that.  Still a thrust, so it probably just put out 20 cm/s over a large area.

An Afternoon of Donuts and Wine

My son got a hootload of Air Miles points from Uber the other day, and got these $50 event tickets - an afternoon of donuts and wine tasting at The Rolling Pin.

We took Uber there, and I have a bone to pick.  My son mucked up Uber Select and Uber Black which we thought was a little step up, but Uber Black uses airport limos with a slight smoky smell, and cost me $40 to get there.  On the way back, he used his credit on Uberx, with a nicer car, and $22.  Lesson learned.

The event was magnificent, very friendly, like family.  We sat with a couple planning an Italian wedding so she was staring at all the wedding cake models they have, and their baker designer does wedding cakes.  The other half of the two owners was Vanessa, and she liked me as 'The Crazy One'.  I think she was crazy, too.

So there was a big plan.  Each donut was paired with a wine from Vineland Estates.  This first one had a sparkling white that went very well with the donut.  After that, I was in a sugar haze.

Their major invention, for which they won a prize, was to use a plastic laboratory pipette for instant injection of an alcoholic syrup.  Apparently it will be all the rage in Toronto soon.

When we left we got a goody bag.  (no advertised carry-donut).  When I got home I sipped an extremely dry red wine to sop up sugar.

This event will never be repeated, but Pass The Table makes up new ones all the time.

As for the rest of you, save all your sugar points * for the week and go to the Rolling Pin for a funky donut.  Vanessa is absolutely crazy, and you'll have a good time.

* learn to drink your coffee black, eat broccoli, and dry red wine.

ps.  I'm married, so I can't propose to Vanessa.  She must get a million a day.  :)

pps.  Right now I'm DYING of sugar overload!

ppps:  Recovered in the morning, lots of black coffee.

Addition:  Vanessa is very sorry for the missing donut.  I don't know if I'll every be able to make for amends, so I've done this.

We must bury the Scientific Method

All politics is local

All science is political

I finally concede that the Scientific Method (sm) is dead and we should bury it.  The last great sm-er was J. Tuzo Wilson, and he regularly gloried in all times he was wrong.  For him, it was a journey.

We now live in a world where you can never admit you were wrong.  Except for the start-ups in Palo Alto, where business failure is a badge of honour.  For the rest of the world, all money comes from political forces, where it is death to admit failure.

SM requires that you put forth a hypothesis that can succeed or fail against future (unknown) testing.  If you have many successes, the hypothesis is promoted to a theory.  A theory can still be proven wrong.

The modern way is to put up a hypothesis that can never fail (Consensus Science).  Instead, you 'synthesize' a theory from available data.  You may modify it as new information comes, but it is never wrong.

I am a hardcore sm-er but who cares about me?  I found it useful when you were actually doing active investigations.  For example, in my Rouge River Fault studies, I put forward the hypothesis that the marker horizon was as flat as a billiard table, slightly  tilted for the regional dip.  The investigation was designed to conclusively prove or deny it.  

Consensus Science is fluid and dynamic.  No great temperature rise?  Then bring in the oceans, even though you didn't before.  Can you imagine any PR department for a university admitting to a failed hypothesis?  Can you see the USGS doing such a thing?

No, the Scientific Method is dead, long live Consensus Science.

Thank god I'll be dead soon.  :)

Massive hurricane fed by full El Nino backwash

So, it has started.  Perhaps this lunge will be persistent.  We shall soon see Callie slipping away in mud.  Perhaps this storm will go to West Texas.  All is well in the world.  :)

Add:  It is a great irony that these hurricanes are the more magnificent heat dumps we have.  It's like having a little electric room heater.  You can have no fan on, and it gets hot in the corner.  Or you can turn on the fan and warm up the whole room.  The heat loss for the room is greater, but you feel warmer.

All over

That didn't last long.  I'm glad that nobody noticed.  Earthquakes are generally dead right now.  Here's what was driving me nuts, but I finally fixed the old hottub.

Oklahoma is starting to spark again, and they are calling Cushing a national security threat, which I called quite a while ago.

Depression Sabatical

I've gone totally manic in posting, and I'm now falling off the cliff.  I am an Intellectual Depressive.  That makes me brilliant but not suited for political life.  I can't explain to anybody why I write so much, and sometimes that gets to me.  I used to get a bottle of wine now and then from horrible Google ads, but they found my readers were fiddling, and cut me off forever.

When I do this, everybody sends condolences, and assure me that they actually read this stuff.  I am grateful to the very few, but this is not an attention-getting device.

Those who want the truth about earthquakes can go and read ..... er, nothing.  It's all bullshit.  You can read the PR from the old company and that will make you warm and fuzzy.  Have fun.

My Nexus 5x review

I got it yesterday.  Stupid thing needs a nano sim card, so I have to go and buy one.  It's exactly the same as the old Nexus except for the super-neat fingerprint reader.  Android Pay isn't in Canada, so this isn't that important.  It has rapid charging where I can't tell any difference.  I'm hoping to use it for navigation, which means super-expensive monopoly Canadian data, and I'm hoping the fast charger can keep up the charge.  The old N5 drained like a stuck pig when navigating in remote areas, and the charger couldn't keep up.

I will use the improved camera on my next trip.  I'll try it on the walk this morning.  Since I'm colourblind in red-green I won't notice anything, and web resolution is sufficient.  I'm sure these cameras (just like the phones) are hitting a saturation point (just like PC's) where Internet restrictions make more improvements unnecessary.  Chromebook phones are just around the corner.  The Fruit had better come up with something completely different.

Oh, and I needed to buy a usb-c converter cable, and a fast-charge car thing.  Very cheap on Ammie.

Yeah, Yustains will legally be available in Canada

I have decided to give a new term to that which will soon come to Canada, legally, the bane of Hooperism.  He did real well pushing that wagon in Toronto, beside the Fords.  I'll make another term - Ford Powder, and Crack Ford.  This white power should not be legalized, since it is just used at parties to drink more.

We'll soon have Yustains growing at the cottage.  It should be sold at the LCBO with a lot of tax, which will make the desperate Ontario Libs happy.  It becomes difficult for the Toronto wine bar scene, since it shouldn't be vaped.  That would expose the servers, and the designated driver.  I foresee 'Brownie Bars'.  Everything will have to be graded with the major Yustaboids labelled.  Innovation will come in the ratios, a high level of Yustaboid2 will let you watch Blue Jay games.  High levels of all 3 will let you watch the Leafs.

I'm so happy this will come in my old age.  I can see myself puffing on my Yustapipe.  I just have to see if my horrible allergy developed 30 years ago is still active.  One little bit and I was down with a migraine.

Add:  Yeah, just got my Nexus 5x!

The Western Quebec Earthquake Zone - Ottawa earthquake M3.1

This is a totally natural, 100% organic earthquake zone, with a rate of about 1% Oklahoma, and slightly above Toronto.  The mechanisms in the East are all the same;  essentially they are all water drains.  But the wq zone has an added strain rate due to glacial rebound.

Recall that our ice ages are on a 10,000 year cycle because they sink the land like a thumb pressed on a beachball.  The ice melts when it hits bottom and then the land rises again.  This causes a shear strain rate, the maximum of which is right at the centre of the old ice sheet.

Although the seismic rate is low, the seismic risk is high, since nobody is prepared for earthquakes, and the whole place is infested with goopy clay.  Perhaps now people will care about Ottawa because of the election.  :)  We could easily expect an M6 thrust right under the city, which is the 'everday' earthquake, about 1 in 100 per year.  A much larger earthquake is the standard 'city destructor' at 1 in 500.  These are the same odds for destroying Toronto, and causing a nuclear disaster.  Nearly all 'earthquake cities' live with these odds of destruction, and nobody ever considers an earthquake at these odds.  Too bad.  :(

 **hope -- perhaps with the new guy, we'll have real change.  :)

Dirty Old Amazon

Reference

Just got something from them today.  But that doesn't mean I think they are acting like a typical nasty company.

The pushback from the company more than two months after the Times published its story illustrates the level to which Amazon is trying to correct the narrative that depicted Amazon as a brutal place to work.

 Nearly 2 months late, and written by a super PR guy, and all he did was trash the people who spoke.  This was the modus operandi of the old company, and I was sick of it.  I condemn Amazon in light of my experience.  They could have run one of the those independent surveys, which the old company did until they found themselves on the bottom of the world.  Now Amazon is there.  :)

Amazon has to fight this 'perception', even though it may be true, because a brain will cost them three times as much.  I know someone going there who was hired before all this, is he having second thoughts?  Wait, is that a high-speed charger with auto control?  :)

 Add:  This sounds like something Pootine would say about conditions for journalists.  "Moreover, the people you talked to have now been eliminated, so their opinions don't matter."  Only people on the true outs with a vindictive, vicious organization would talk, the others would be worried about references, and Amie is too young to have crazy retirees!  I don't have to worry about Polonium Tea.

Add2:  Maybe it will take him 2 months to respond to me!  I can only hope.

Add3:  The horrendous cost of living is the only abuse at Google.  :)

Letter to Trudeau

I'm so confident that you'll win that I'm writing this letter in advance.  I was just as confident with my last 649 ticket.  Nevertheless, here is the letter.

Please, please make the nuclear regulator competent again.  We will forget that it was Liberal Ralfie, whom you still love, that brought in Farmer Keen to start decimating the place.  Harper just finished the job, turning it into total Toadie-Ville.

There will be consequences for having nobody at the wheel, and not very nice ones.  We are susceptible to a nuclear disaster at the 1 in 500 per annum probability level, when we should ride out a 1 in 10,000 earthquake, and only be at 1 in a million per annum for a nuclear release.  If you put a bit of transparency into the running of nuclear plants, you would see it.

PS.  Wow, who would have thought a majority?

Climate Change -- Lives of billions hang on a thread

This is the real climate change, not the soda pop fizzers.  Due to geology and plate tectonics our northern lives hang on a thread.  This news might stop immigrants.  :)

You have to click on the large version.  This is the week's ocean current map (find it yourself!).  It's a great video that leaves my Linux chuffing with heat.  In it you can see a strong lunge of El Nino, which, if it keeps up, means mudslides for Callie.  Of even more interest, is a 10% leakage off the tip of South America.

Now here's the knife edge, or thread of life.  There's no reason for El Nino to keep a regular 7 year cycle.  It regularly turns off for 100 years or more.  If that happens then all of Callie must desalinate with nuclear plants.  If the Atlantic equatorial current shift south, then we Canadians are aiming blowtorches at advancing walls of ice.  At least the Europeans will stop whining about their shrinking glaciers.  How about one big glacier, huh?  Bunch of crazies.  **

I always like writing about this, but my opinions are tomorrow's fish wrap.  :)

**Not just crazy -- TOTALLY EVIL CRAZY.  What sort of Nasti organization could keep that diesel thing secret for so long.  Look for the bodies!

***(I have no European readers :)

Water-Induced Earthquakes Rule the Week

Once again, in a boring week, water-drain earthquakes rule the world.  I have developed my hypothesis by combining rock mechanics with seismology.  Nobody else does this, since the world is too specialized, and everybody in science depends on hand-to-mouth political funding.  That's sad.

For myself, I have elevated it to a theory which has been proven time and time again.  I can be arrogant about this, since I am the only one, and totally isolated from the closed world of the Pay Wall.  :)  Others do not have this freedom, always worried about the fat old white farts who have tenure.

Earthquake mechanics is a philosophical science, since we can't actually can't go down there and look.  I use lab physics, and mining observations to construct my theory, but other people can come up with bizarre ideas.  Like all such science (climate), the discussions can become vicious, and always have been.

So I stay outside, safe in my bubble of no readers.  :)  It's fun.

Uber Takes Toronto

Yesterday, my son pigged out on free Uber stuff.  It started with a free lunch delivered by Uber eats.  In the evening, he and his downtown friends found that there were special Uber cars (top line) giving away Air Miles cards.  They would wait until the special cars were free and then book them for a little trip.  They got hundreds of dollars.

Uber lives on causing downtown congestion for free.  This is a massive economic externality which should be captured.  It's because the cities have tried to capture this by taxi medallions, which is horrible and won't stand in court.  They can give all the bylaw tickets they want, but they'll all be squashed.

Uber will go all out in creating new congestion.  Soon you'll see mobile uber restaurants and hotels rented by the hour.  There is nothing to stop them.

The only solution is to release the taxis, and create a uniform congestion charge.  This can be done with smart phones, no need for a major corrupt computer infrastructure.  In fact, that's a great idea for a Palo Alto startup!  Give the cities a means to fight Uber free-riding.  Of course, nobody running cities has any brains.  Too bad.  :)

Also, all this Uber stuff means that young people will sell a kidney to get a job downtown!

Yeah Bluejays

I'm such a big fan.

Cottage Report - The Closing

It was a beautiful weekend for closing.  The cottage has lake access only, and you don't want to be on a motor boat in November.  The pump has to be closed and everything drained.  All boats put away, and everything tucked up.  This was the weekend for evenings by the fire, and listening to the audiobook of the The Martian.  If you ever want to have a good sleep, listen to this for an hour or two.  It's 10 hours long, so plenty of restful nights.  Mind numbing detail.  After a while, I was getting restless because of a few large conceptual holes, but everybody else liked it.  Great for cold nights!

The colours aren't at their peak yet, maples are barely orange.

Oklahoma earthquake - M4.4, possibly up to M5.8

A long time since I wrote something about OK in the main blog.  This is a deep normal earthquake with only an Intensity of 5 right above it.  Distant stations reported a high magnitude, but the local effects were light, so they downgraded it.

ROSF

66.32

46.4

a

e

P

2015/10/10 09:31:32.2

-0.3

T

99.8

1.80

mb 5.7

LDG

LDG

∅

QUIF

66.59

46.8

a

e

P

2015/10/10 09:31:34.0

-0.2

T

73.3

1.52

mb 5.7

LDG

LDG

∅

SGMF

66.78

46.3

a

e

P

2015/10/10 09:31:35.1

-0.3

T

120.1

1.92

mb 5.8

LDG

LDG

∅

GRR

67.69

45.5

a

e

P

2015/10/10 09:31:40.9

-0.3

T

79.1

1.96

mb 5.6

LDG

LDG

∅

FLN

67.72

45.0

a

e

P

2015/10/10 09:31:41.3

0.0

T

13.1

0.48

mb 5.4

LDG

LDG

∅

LDF

I love when this happens, and this is the biggest discrepancy yet.

There is a huge felt area.  Had this been a thrust, you would have seen something.

Add.  Ok, I'm at the cottage now and have snagged a cell connection.  It will only last a few minutes.  This was an 'upside down' earthquake in that the main hammer went down to the centre of the earth.  The stations that reported an almost 6 are probably on the other side of the world.  With this earthquake, I predict the 'closer' will come within a year.  That's the earthquake which either destroys the city, or blows up all the oil tanks.

Add2 - Followed by a 4.5 strike-slip near Cushing.  I'm in the land of no internet, so I can't do much on this one.