other_usernames_gone

other_usernames_gone t1_j6fb48n wrote

A little tip for next time, hopefully there won't be one.

Buy an air quality monitor and have someone else on standby to call emergency services (make sure they do not follow you in under any circumstances)

If the CO2 got high enough you could pass out before you realise what's happening, then asphyxiate. Presumably your truck wasn't on for long enough and your shed wasn't air tight enough for it to be a problem but confined spaces and CO2 can be a deadly combination.

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other_usernames_gone t1_j5xx622 wrote

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other_usernames_gone t1_itx18up wrote

It would though.

You could evacuate areas ahead of time if a large enough earthquake is predicted, or get humanitarian aid set up ahead of time. Imagine if food or water was already there in the moments after an earthquake instead of a day or two later. We could pre-set up halls and other places as emergency accommodation before the earthquake even hit, and tell people where they are ahead of time before communications could be damaged.

People would know it's a bad idea to go swimming or climbing during those days. It would also be a great opportunity for people to get their earthquake plans sorted, pack things they want to bring with them if they get evacuated.

It's easy to put off planning for an emergency when it's a hypothetical but if you know there's a 90% chance it'll happen in the next few days it's a lot easier to get motivated. Obviously people will still procrastinate but it would help.

Of course inaccuracy could be a huge issue, especially with people not trusting it. But it would be a great boon if it worked well.

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other_usernames_gone t1_itwhl8s wrote

Not really, the comment I replied to seemed to treat it as a given.

But like how we don't need to wait for it to rain to predict it might rain we might not need to wait for an earthquake to start to predict it's likely to happen.

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other_usernames_gone t1_itvtojl wrote

That's not necessarily true.

If we understood the mechanics behind earthquakes well enough and had the technology to properly scan tectonic plates we might be able to predict them days, months or years ahead of time.

We might be able to notice "rough patches" in the tectonic plates, predict if and when those "rough patches" will get caught and use that to predict when earthquakes will happen.

Idk though, I'm not a seismologist.

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other_usernames_gone t1_irt1erh wrote

Maybe check the direction of the acceleration.

If you drop a phone and don't crash you'll get 9.8m/s^2 down for half a meter to a meter and then a stop.

If you crash you'll also get quite a lot of lateral declaration as you hit a tree or whatever and brake hard. The initial breaking will probably be longer than the amount of time a phone takes to drop.

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