Felt it all the way in Tokyo!
There is this amazing app called NERV that, whenever there is a large earthquake anywhere in Japan, sends you an early warning push notification and an animated display with shockwaves emanating from the epicenter, plus a countdown timer for the first wave hitting you. The first it went off for me it felt like something out of sci-fi. I think I got 45 seconds this time before my apartment started shaking.
>NERV
Does it play appropriate Evangelion OST track depending on magnitude though?
It is straight up the same NERV, so it might.
From the site:
> The name and logo of "NERV" are used with the explicit permission of khara Inc., the copyright holder of the "Evangelion" series, and Groundworks Corporation, which manages the rights to the series.
This is just the best. A very serious company, doing seriously cool and important stuff, also has an anime name/icon.
I wish more corps took themselves so lightly, while remaining serious about what they do.
For people unfamiliar wanting an easier comparison, Evangelion is Japans star wars. It'd be like learning of tornadoes from someone with Empire insignia
> Evangelion is Japans star wars
Which is funny to say because Star Wars is actually the Western version of samurai movies (especially but not exclusively Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress).
That's the movie that Lucas is pretty open about heavily drawing "inspiration" from (all the way down to specific characters and plot beats) but Hidden Fortress is itself part of a larger genre of similar stories.
Evangelion is so mega overrated of an anime im experiencing second hand embarrassment on behalf of Japan for letting its national personaification be exlempified by shinji.
it is a masterpiece, up there with ghost in the shell, akira, and serial experiments lain in terms of "japanese existentialist scifi"
Lain is 10/10. Akira/Ghost in the Shell are great too. Evangelion is a weak 7/10 in comparison to them in every aspect imaginable. I also realized that Evangelion is Japan's version of assigning weird mysticism to religions they don't understand (much how westerners depict shinto/daoism/buddhism with tons of mysticism).
Evangelion is a disgusting anime to consider part of your national personification. Drop it and pick up Ghibli films more please Japan.
i'll concede lain is better, but evangelion beats akira and maybe ghost in the shell. what problems do you have with it in specific?
"When it comes to the safety of this planet, it's NERV or nothin'." - ReDeath fan dub
Sadly we're stuck with companies naming themselves things like "Melchior" and "Palpatine" and somehow it's a good thing?
Anyway I need to get back to working on the Torment Nexus.
I'm starting to like the honesty.
I think that’s pretty much the same. NERV uses child soldiers and is secretly planning a fused hivemind. They are the Torment Nexus.
A private organization delivering critical infrastructure and emergency services. Just no. Not even if it has a cutesy anime external shell. It always ends up being a race to the bottom by the nature of it.
45 seconds is an incredible accomplishment. That’s a decent amount of heads up to get safer place. Obviously nerve wracking but great progress in alerts
Earthquake early warning systems are a top 10 peak human achievement in my book. No joke, I tear up watching videos of Japan's EEW system alerting people of possible danger just in time.
There are streamers who's whole thing is watching these alerts and setting up bobbleheads and glasses of water and stuff to show the shaking. It's so so so cool. Look at what we can do for each other you guys :')
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imH-ZyXwX5Q
It sounds impressive but it's worth considering that this was a large quake that was felt by basically half of the country. You do not get this much warning if you are anywhere near where damage happens.
The 45 seconds is better thought of as the time it takes for the quake to propagate to Tokyo
Yeah. That's leagues better than what I get in Taiwan. The alert often arrives when the building is shaking or even after. I've never had a meaningful headstart.
It would seem the forewarning depends a lot on the distance from the epicentre. This quake, for Tokyoites, was far enough from them that they could beat the earthquake's speed. I'm fairly certain the people on the East Coast near the quake got no notification ahead of the event.
I was in a chat with people in NYC when it hit. They got advance notice, although it was just “why is everything shaking?” Followed by me going silent for a bit, so they didn’t know what was going on until it reached them.
I usually get it a few seconds ahead of time at least, in Taipei. I figured it's more related to the proximity than anything else.
An Earthquake happened in SF recently where I got a push notification from Apple/iOS and I felt it maybe 5-10 seconds later. Nothing fancy though just a notification. I'm guessing it's not on for Japan? Seems like this app shows way more.
For big enough quakes you get notification from the government (a VERY loud and specific one too, being in public and hearing _everyones_ phones suddenly go off is... mildly terrifying) too; but they're so frequent and (usually) non-super-threatening that they don't get sent out for _every_ quake.
How do you use your 45 seconds?
At 45 seconds, load up social media. (although I actually missed the warnings this time, was focused on work) At least assuming the number is only 7.x.
If it were 8+ or somewhat closer, I'd get under my desk. (then pull up social media on my phone)
Standing underneath a doorframe is also advisable.
I'm pretty sure that is advice from the last millennium that is no longer taught.
If it's a big one and it's near you, you'd move away from the windows and heavy things that can fall, I suppose?
For me I always just turn on iPhone screen recording and marvel at this amazing app and wish we had something like this in California.
We do - gave me a few second warning of a 4-point one a month or so ago
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/myshake-earthquake-alerts/id14...
https://i.imgur.com/WJ0NM1J.png
Stop any trains. Open elevators at nearest floor.
I didn't feel a thing a bit south of Nagoya. Almost strange that there was nothing here, when you got shaking in Tokyo.
Hmm, why does this needs to be an app and not the built-in alert notification system? Outsourcing critical infrastructure and emergency services to private parties is always a terrible idea.
> Outsourcing critical infrastructure and emergency services to private parties is always a terrible idea.
That would include Apple and Google.
In many countries the authority and capability to send alerts is relatively decentralized and/or they require people to be inserted in the decision loop. Things are this way for policy and jurisdictional reasons. To change it you'd need to redesign the bureaucracy and authority, including many parts that have nothing to do with emergency services. Those changes are not going to happen.
Under these constraints it is effectively impossible to send automated alerts at scale with low latency as demonstrated here. A private app does not operate under such constraints.
There's things built into iOS and Android and the government does send them; but not for _every_ quake, only for the bigger ones, and if you're close to epicenter.
This wasn't big enough in Tokyo to send out one.
Receiving one of those sounds really scary.
> Felt it all the way in Tokyo!
How many stories above the ground, and might you guess at your building's construction (wood frame, steel frame, etc.) and foundations (on bedrock, on loose sediments, etc.)?