Vhaldera - Slashdot User

Comment Tsunami Warning System (Score 1) 351

by Vhaldera on Monday April 05, 2010 @07:24AM (#31732024) Attached to: Tsunami Warning From Space?

I don't think its such a bad idea. I have to ask, would people really assume they are "under attack from little green men from outer space"? or "the gods are angry with them"? It's not first thing that would come to mind when I think of seeing the local area light up with bright light. That seems very 1950s, and extremely unreasonable.

Having the local area brighten suddenly, I would look around and then look up to search for the reason behind the sudden increase in luminance. what may be the reason for it before making assumptions like that. Measuring a tsunami is certainly feasible, even with low wavelengths, a tsunami is still a tsunami a excessively large mass of moving water in a series of waves. Instead of interfering with local emergency systems, a tsunami warning system as this could be used to complement local emergency systems by serving as primary warning.

Using different colours for the warning system would be pointless because until each you advertised each of the specific meanings to literally everyone, it would waste time for people to try to figure out what it meant. The biggest problem is powering such a system. (Perhaps you should get N.A.S.A.'s ideas for that part?)

On a point made by GrpA, if a person stopped to check a website to figure out if their area is about to be hit by a tsunami and one were on its way, then by the time they got outside, they'd be as good as dead.

"Do not go to look for a tsunami - if you are close enough to see one, you are too close to escape it unless above its level." (Wiseman, J (2004). SAS Survival Guide)

Tsunami Warning From Space? 351

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 05, 2010 @05:12AM from the that's-no-star dept.

Peter bayley writes "Tell me I'm crazy or tell me someone has already done it — but wouldn't a satellite equipped with a laser be a great way to warn people of tsunamis? I was pondering how to warn people in remote coastal areas once evidence of a seismic incident has been received by the monitoring stations that have now been set up following the large Boxing Day tsunami. The idea is to illuminate the areas that are likely to be at risk with a bright (but not dangerous) light. People would be told to head to higher ground if such a light appears in the sky. Put the satellite in a geosynchronous orbit. Make it tunable so that different colors can convey different meanings. You would be able to warn anyone, anywhere they can see the sky. The laser could be directed to illuminate only those areas at risk, skipping unnecessary areas to save power. Power could be varied so that it is visible day and night and through cloud (raise the power where the satellite detects cloud cover). I emailed some people at NOAA about it but they said it would stand on too many toes by circumventing local emergency service organizations in the various countries. I replied that countries could easily opt out, in which case the laser would be turned off for those countries — but received no further reply. Anyway, I thought the massed minds of Slashdot would relish the chance to demolish my idea."

EVE Online Battle Breaks Records (And Servers) 308

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @02:09AM from the blame-it-on-the-torrents dept.

captainktainer writes "In one of the largest tests of EVE Online's new player sovereignty system in the Dominion expansion pack, a fleet of ships attempting to retake a lost star system was effectively annihilated amidst controversy. Defenders IT Alliance, a coalition succeeding the infamous Band of Brothers alliance (whose disbanding was covered in a previous story), effectively annihilated the enemy fleet, destroying thousands of dollars' worth of in-game assets. A representative of the alliance claimed to have destroyed a minimum of four, possibly five or more of the game's most expensive and powerful ship class, known as Titans. Both official and unofficial forums are filled with debate about whether the one-sided battle was due to difference in player skill or the well-known network failures after the release of the expansion. One of the attackers, a member of the GoonSwarm alliance, claims that because of bad coding, 'Only 5% of [the attackers] loaded,' meaning that lag prevented the attackers from using their ships, even as the defenders were able to destroy those ships unopposed. Even members of the victorious IT Alliance expressed disappointment at the outcome of the battle. CCP, EVE Online's publisher, has recently acknowledged poor network performance, especially in the advertised 'large fleet battles' that Dominion was supposed to encourage, and has asked players to help them stress test their code on Tuesday. Despite the admitted network failure, leaders of the attacking force do not expect CCP to replace lost ships, claiming that it was their own fault for not accounting for server failures. The incident raises questions about CCP's ability to cope with the increased network use associated with their rapid growth in subscriptions."

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