Tag Archives: 2012

Earthquake Frequency

According to the USGS, the frequency of large earthquakes has remained constant over the last century. In a typical year, the planet has roughly 17 “major” earthquakes (measuring 7.0 to 7.9 on the Richter scale) and one “great” earthquake (measuring 8.0 or higher).

So, no, earthquakes are not increasing as a sign/symptom of the impending end of the world.

(via @2012hoax)

Update March 1: 2012hoax has a nice page showing how recent quakes fit into these statistics, including Haiti, Chile, and the one in Illinois a few weeks ago (which was really quite small — there are 130,000 quakes that size in any given year!).

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Case of Mondays: Usability, 2012, and Chkdsk

  • Usability question: Is it better for a form to auto-detect the credit card type from its number, or have the user select it as an error check? # (Consensus on Twitter & Facebook was to have the user select it.)
  • In case you were worried, the world will NOT end on this date (or any other) in 2012. #
  • Yay, the PC isn’t totally crashed! Grabbed a current backup & now running chkdsk. Work last week, home this week. Pattern? #
  • Chkdsk is FINALLY running. If you get a “cannot open volume for direct access” error trying to run it on Windows XP, try running msconfig and selecting a Diagnostic startup. #

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Tori, 2012 and Doublespeak

  • Cool: Tori Amos’ classic Little Earthquakes is today’s MP3 deal of the day at Amazon. #
  • 2012 Hoax says, “How to survive 2012: Do not piss off Chuck Norris.” Sounds like a good idea! #
  • WTF? Louisiana (ex) Justice of the Peace who opposes interracial marriage STILL claims he isn’t racist? #
  • And Maine bigots insist they aren’t anti-gay, they’re just “protecting” marriage…from people who want get married. #

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