Geforce FX will cost $450

[martrox]

Heh...probably not in my lifetime.

Wishful thinking....... you got to be insane to live on top of or near a/an:
1)major fault
2)active volcano
3)anything having to do with nukes

and think it won't go off........

Remember...... hurricanes are ok IF you don't live in a condo by the ocean....... and tornados are ok IF you don't live in a trailer...... which, by the way, looked a lot better as beer cans........ 8)

 

[Crusher]

An entire small town got demolished this past summer by a tornado, and it wasn't a big trailer park. The reason tornados are an acceptable threat is because they're very infrequent and have a relatively small damage path. They also occur mostly in rural areas where the worst thing that happens is a tree gets blown over and a farmer loses some crops.

Hurricanes, however, are not something I'd want to mess with.

 

[KimB]

Heh...probably not in my lifetime.

Wishful thinking....... you got to be insane to live on top of or near a/an:
1)major fault
2)active volcano
3)anything having to do with nukes

and think it won't go off........

Heh, I've been in a few earthquakes. Most earthquakes are very small and aren't even felt, but a few are big enough to move rock by a few feet at a time and cause major damage. But I've never seen anything to make me believe that a large chunk of California will ever suddenly slide off into the ocean. There's not been anything like that in recorded history. I don't doubt that it's possible for a major earthquake to level a large part of LA or San Francisco (again), but you're not going to see movement on the scale of hundreds of square miles moving at once.

Remember...... hurricanes are ok IF you don't live in a condo by the ocean....... and tornados are ok IF you don't live in a trailer...... which, by the way, looked a lot better as beer cans........ 8)

Heh, I used to live in Georgia, too. We had many tornadoes passing within a few miles of our house each year. Usually the damage isn't that bad...but when a big one hits...nothing can stand...

 

[Crusher]

Looking at this picture, it seems more likey that land would be pushed above sea level, thus increasing the size of California, not reducing it.

 

[KimB]

If I remember correctly, that "blue" plate is the part that people seem to think would slide off into the ocean. This would be because the San Andreas fault is one of the few in the world that slides side-to-side. Most have plates just colliding, separating, or one going below/above the other. I kind of wonder if there will ever be land disputes on this? That is, if California slides (I forget whether the piece is sliding north or south...), who will own the land? Will it be set by longitude/latitude? Or by, for example, lines drawn today, that would move with the land? This may be a topic of interest in a few centuries...

The Pacific Ocean plate, however, is continually going underneath the North america plates, which is the reason that the Rockies and the Andes exist. And yes, this would seem to make it impossible for earthquakes along the San Andreas fault to allow part of California to slide off of the rest. Regardless, it's not going to move much in my lifetime.

 

[Mariner]

Bah! No good worrying about the effects of a bad earthquake along the San Andreas fault (unless you live near there). Natural disasters are just queueing up to wipe us all out. How about Super Volcanos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/supervolcanoes.shtml
http://www.solcomhouse.com/yellowstone.htm

Failing that our pals on the East coast of the Americas could be getting a bit wet in the future:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/956280.stm

We've also got rogue asteroids to contend with and I'm sure the scientists are still working out many more ways by which we could get annihilated.

And on that cheery thought, I'll leave. There are a few beers with my name on in the fridge.

 

[KimB]

Yep, the San Andreas fault is rather small in comparison to many other problems. One of the nice things about the "supervolcanoes" is that we will probably have a fairly significant amount of warning. Who knows? Maybe we'll even find ways of slowly releasing the energy, instead of allowing it to release all at once.

But right now, I still think the most scary are asteroids. The reason? Our detection systems today are vastly inferior. Perhaps if we detected a possible collision candidate a few years in advance, maybe we could do something. But as it is, one asteroid that came all too close to the Earth we only found out about three days after it had passed by!

That, and an asteroid actually has the potential of completely wiping out all life on Earth, if big enough. I don't think any natural disaster on Earth could do that (not even the largest tectonic movements).

Fortunately, the frequency of both tectonic movements and asteroid impacts are slowing, though at a very slow pace.

 

[darkblu]

Fortunately, the frequency of both tectonic movements and asteroid impacts are slowing, though at a very slow pace.

earth's core cooling down would hardly be conisdered fortunate in a longer timeframe. it's neiter fortunate nor unfotunate. it's the way it is.

 

[martrox]

Hopefully, before the earths core cools down, before an asteroid the size of Iraq destroys all life, before California fall into the ocean...... we will accually know what a GeForceFX...... costs!

 

[Nagorak]

Heh...probably not in my lifetime.

Wishful thinking....... you got to be insane to live on top of or near a/an:
1)major fault
2)active volcano
3)anything having to do with nukes

and think it won't go off........

Remember...... hurricanes are ok IF you don't live in a condo by the ocean....... and tornados are ok IF you don't live in a trailer...... which, by the way, looked a lot better as beer cans........ 8)

Well in a nuclear war pretty much every major US population center will be destroyed, so it's kind of hard to do.

Earthquakes are really no worse than Hurricanes. I wouldn't live in the LA area for anything (the valley has a floor that actually magnifies earthquake tremors) and SF is bad too, but other places like San Diego rarely see any quake activity, and what we do experience is fairly minor.

 

[martrox]

Earthquakes are really no worse than Hurricanes. .

I beg to differ here. I've lived through a bunch of hurricanes, and if you are prepared - food, water, flashites, radio, tape & cover all the windows - they really are not any worse than a camping trip. You have plenty of warning. If you don't buy condos built next to the ocean, don't buy substandard South Florida housing built in what was once part of the Everglades (don't get me started on this!) and don't live in a tin can, you'll be fine. Or, if you do live in any of these, get the hell out! The biggest problem with people dying in Hurricanes are those that have no respect for them..... I remember staying with a friend in Savanah when David hit back in the late '70's. His wife (born & raised north of the Mason-Dixon line) couldn't understand why we were preparing for what she thought was just a storm....... She now knows better. As I recall, Earthquakes don't give much warninmg, and taping & covering the windows doesn't help........much!

 

[LeStoffer]

Interesting how nuclear war, earthquakes, Hurricanes and what not seems more attentive than the elusive GeForceFX!


(... sorry, couldn't resist. Please carry on ...)

 

[martrox]

Actually, it costs less to prepare ones house for a hurricane that to buy the GeForceFX at the stated $450.00 price...........hehe!

 

[KimB]

I beg to differ here. I've lived through a bunch of hurricanes, and if you are prepared - food, water, flashites, radio, tape & cover all the windows - they really are not any worse than a camping trip.

Well, in terms of human damage, you're right, hurricanes generally aren't very bad (on the mainland US, anyway...they're much worse on the various Caribbean islands...as well as other islands elsewhere in the world). But in terms of property damage, a big hurricane can easily be worse than the worst earthquake we've had to date. I'd personally say that hurricanes are worse, though it is nice that they're easily predicted.

Earthquakes are generally localized, and the vast majority of them are not even felt. There are also a number of people working on attempts to predict earthquakes. It's not easy, but it may be possible to predict them, and one day prevent large ones (by releasing a number of smaller earthquakes). I really don't think it will ever be possible to disippate a hurircane.