Denial of availability risk: earthquakes

I love this U.S. Geological Survey site web site and I just have to do a blog piece about it. I guess we could use the topic of “denial of availability risk” as the computer security category. It’s kind of like the tail wagging the dog, but, what the heck.It came to my attention when David Kennedy Manager of Risk Analysis at Verizon Business mentioned an earthquake and referred to the USGS data in a Twitter post.I’ve been a lunatic about nearly every field of science since, oh, about the fifth grade, so I look at this every day. The map indicates quakes on a world map with color and size-coded squares. Red squares indicate quakes in the last hour, blue in the last day and yellow in the last week. Larger squares indicate stronger quakes.I felt an Earthquake once. It was the level 4.4 April 23 quake in Lancaster County, Pa. I was working on my computer in the second floor of my in-laws home in a very rural,  very quiet place in Northeastern, Pennsylvania. The little wood-frame house seemed to flex. I went downstairs and ask if anyone else had felt it. They hadn’t. The thrilling experience was apparently covered up by sound from the television.I (continue reading...)