Freerunner and Earthquakes

Brandon Kruger bmk789 at gmail.com
Sat Apr 19 23:42:52 CEST 2008


On Sat April 19 2008 5:29:50 pm Richard Guest wrote:
> Yeah, it's an interesting idea.
> I read something similar on Evil Mad Scientist
> http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/seismometry2
>
> The detection/pinpointing part requires both accurate detection of shaking
> and timing - obviously the timing is critical for triangulation.
>
> I think the *cool* factor for something like this would be the ability to
> measure a persons actual physical experience of an earthquake. There are
> *lots* of existing seismometers that will do the *fixed* point detection a
> whole lot better, but none (that I know of) that will be (relatively)
> unobtrusive to the users daily life and still give an actual measurement of
> physical shaking intensity.
>
> You shouldn't have to wait that long for e/q info... In New Zealand the
> news media mostly regurgitate what we post on http://www.geonet.org.nz/
> There's near-realtime shaking info on the front page, and if there's
> actually an earthquake people can submit a "Felt Report" to tell us how
> they experienced it.
> It would be really cool to see how a personal accelerometer trace
> correlates to the fuzzy-logic of the felt report!
>
>
> End thoughts...
>
> --
> Rich
>
> On 20/04/2008, Brandon Kruger <bmk789 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > After recently having a 5.2 earthquake here in the Midwest, I realized
> > the potential in the Openmoko for detecting/pinpointing earthquakes. 
> > What this
> > is mostly dependant on is the accuracy of the accelerometers in the
> > Freerunner.  From what I've read, Macbooks' accelerometers and detect and
> > measure earthquakes fairly accurately. [1]  If the Freerunner's
> > accelerometers are precise enough and it could be attached to a fixed
> > ground,
> > we could use GPS to retreive an accurate location and record and upload
> > accelerometer data to a database.  Many different devices running this
> > could
> > provide intensity levels at many different locations and (at least fairly
> > accurately), pinpoint an epicenter.  This data could become useful to
> > researchers and would provide information about an earthquake faster than
> > almost any news network would provide.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > [1] http://www.suitable.com/tools/seismac.html
> >
> >
> > --
> > ----
> > Brandon Kruger <bmk789 at gmail.com>
> > http://onedollarlinux.com
> > BLOG - http://onedollarlinux.com/personal/
> >
> > Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
> > See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > community at lists.openmoko.org
> > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Wouldn't GPS provide an accurate time?  I thought GPS sends its own official 
time, like an atomic clock.  I could be wrong.  Anyone know more about this?

-- 
----
Brandon Kruger <bmk789 at gmail.com>
http://onedollarlinux.com
BLOG - http://onedollarlinux.com/personal/

Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
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