September 7th, 8:59am 0 comments

Strange behavior and earthquakes

 

Well, a short while after a week bracketed by an earthquake and a hurricane that broke the record heat wave and drought of this summer, people are beginning to reflect a bit on what just happened. Lesson 1- tweets are faster than tremors! People in NYC were actually getting tweets about the earthquake BEFORE the tremors hit. (Are apes and birds on Twitter?)  Lesson 2 - social networking trumps common sense! I was at the top of one of the "tall" buildings in Washington when the earthquake hit, and I have to say, tweeting was about the last thing on my mind.  What's up with that anyway - has social networking eroded any sense of self-preservation?

 

 

The following from All Shook Up: Mapping Earthquake News on Twitter from Virginia to Maine | SocialFlow Blog.  

 

"The proper response to an earthquake? Run, scream, take cover?… no wait, Tweet!

"On Tuesday, the denizens of the East Coast had exactly this choice, and they responded by flooding the interwebz with messages: startled, mundane, humorous, informational. And it happened fast. Seismic waves travel at 3-5 km/s, communication signals in fiber optic cables move at a speed of 200,000 km/s [as this XKCD cartoon brilliantly notes]. Tweets do take time to compose, but significantly less when you’re tweeting “EARTHQUAKE”!

"We thought you’d like to see some of the data behind it. The visualization below replays the spread of earthquake related Tweets across North America, from the moment the epicenter hit Mineral Virginia (1:51PM) on August 23rd through its spread across the East coast and the South."

 

 

 

 

 

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