In case you’re living under a rock, which is a much more likely scenario now than it was this morning, the East Coast got hit with an earthquake. At around 1:53 p.m. How do I know it was around 1:53 p.m.? Probably some kind of seismic activity notification service, right? Yep. It’s called—maybe you’ve heard of it—Twitter.
It’s not new. Twitter’s been the fastest venue for breaking news for a while, thanks to the hive mind. Of course, as xkcd points out, earthquakes are one of those fascinating phenomena where Twitter is actually capable of moving faster than the event it’s reporting on.
The quake is reported to have measured a 5.8, originating out of Virginia. Plenty of evacuations, but thankfully only minimal damage was done.
It’s still a fascinating look at the world we’re living in. If you were wondering just how fast the new world is, just how quickly things move in a world where everyone’s connected at all times, you have your answer: faster than the world itself.
Source: USGS
I was on a conference call with the US Fish & Wildlife Service in DC when it happened. They started freaking out on the other end of the call, and they were yelling about terrorists. And here I am in Cali thinking, “Who wants to blow up the USF&WS?”
That reminds me of a neighbor down in Austin Texas taking her kid out of day care for about a month after 9/11 because she was worried that her tiny middle of nowhere daycare in middle of nowhere neighborhood in Austin far away from any high value or even high traffic targets was surely the terrorist’s immediate next target. For all I know, the kid was home schooled for the rest of his life.