Re: [DDN] ARC system created: SMS to Email in Tsunami hit areas now ineffect
Steven Elster wrote: I have written my friend in India, and he says: there are plenty of cell phones around here, even in the tiniest villages. He further goes on to say that a cell phone earthquake warning system was in fact in place in at least one village here on the southeast coast. They got notice; everybody was evacuated in an orderly fashion and not one life was lost. Students of earthquakes know only a few things for absolute certain. They include the fact that if a geographic area has never had an earthquake, it never will. A good example is Korea. The experts also know that if any area has ever had a shake, it can be unreservedly assured there will be more. What nobody knows is.when? While I salute, body and soul, the efforts to provide warnings that can go instantly and affordably to everyone on the planet with a radio, television, phone or computer, I suggest we be careful about promises impossible to keep. Predicting earthquakes - at least for now - is a fool's game. Preparing for their aftermath is not. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] ARC system created: SMS to Email in Tsunami hit areas now ineffect
John Hibbs wrote: Steven Elster wrote: I have written my friend in India, and he says: there are plenty of cell phones around here, even in the tiniest villages. He further goes on to say that a cell phone earthquake warning system was in fact in place in at least one village here on the southeast coast. They got notice; everybody was evacuated in an orderly fashion and not one life was lost. Students of earthquakes know only a few things for absolute certain. They include the fact that if a geographic area has never had an earthquake, it never will. A good example is Korea. Which hasn't had an earthquake yet that we know of? One never knows. The experts also know that if any area has ever had a shake, it can be unreservedly assured there will be more. What nobody knows is.when? While I salute, body and soul, the efforts to provide warnings that can go instantly and affordably to everyone on the planet with a radio, television, phone or computer, I suggest we be careful about promises impossible to keep. Predicting earthquakes - at least for now - is a fool's game. Umm. As far as I know, I wasn't talking about predicting earthquakes. I leave that to seismologists (who 'didn't know who to call' about the tsunami), but the system by which they warn people is something which can be worked on... Such that it's not dependant on people 'not knowing what phone number to call'). Preparing for their aftermath is not. And used in disaster relief when nobody is warned, or even when people were warned. Earthquakes are not the only disasters. In fact, not knowing who to call in an age of so much lauded technology is much more of a disaster, IMHO. If we can't use all this knowledge and technology to save lives, we're pretty much doomed anyway. That's part of what happened, and what has been swept under the rug - conveniently. We may as well go down kicking and screaming, right? -- Taran Rampersad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxgazette.com http://www.a42.com http://www.worldchanging.com http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net Criticize by creating. Michelangelo ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] ARC system created: SMS to Email in Tsunami hit areas now ineffect
In a message dated 1/23/05 1:23:56 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: From reading about the ARC system, I can't quite figure out if it is already set up to do the above. Does anyone know the answer to this? Here is another. Dont't know if the administration believes in it..yet I have been involved as a student of the National Center for SuperComputing Applications and some of the recent disasters have been classified so I could not attend or was not invited but. This is a remarkable consortium Multi-Sector Crisis Management Consortium Technical Point of Contact: Management Point of Contact: Name: Tom Coffin Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 703-248-0105/0072 NCSA Division: Cybercommunities Name: Janet I. Thot-Thompson Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 703-248-0102 NCSA Division: Cybercommunities Project URL: http://www.mscmc.org Summary: The mission of MSCMC is to reduce the time required to insert IT innovation to improve systems and processes for the crisis management community and to develop models of information technology in crisis management to demonstrate what it means to manage a crisis using advanced integrated communications and information technologies yet to be developed. The MSCMC is a virtual, distributed collaboration among government agencies, academic research partners, and private sector partners. The chair of the Consortium is a rotating position currently held by Syed Qadir of the National Response Center (see http://www.nrc.uscg.mil/index.htm). Janet Thot-Thompson, NCSA, is the acting executive director. The Consortium convenes meetings, workshops, and seminars using the ACCESS center in D.C. as its international headquarters. This uses IGrid and Supercomputing to read groups and to work through disasters on an international level. How much funding they have, I don't know but it is an intriguing model in that there is almost instant communication which can get down to the lowest level from the top of the infrastructure communications to blog in a few seconds, if we wanted it to. Grid.org http://www.grid.org/ Sincerely Bonnie Bracey bbracey at aol com ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] ARC system created: SMS to Email in Tsunami hit areas now ineffect
Hi all, I am wondering about the ARC system in relation to the following: I have a friend who lives in Madras and who experienced first hand the horrors of the tsunami. At the same time, I have a neighbor who studies earthquakes. Apparently UCSD, in San Diego, sends out emails of all earthquakes via its 'Earthquake Notification E-mails' from the USGS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/products/services.html While I don't know quite how, I hear that a program can be written that will send these earthquake notices as text messages to a cell phone. And further, I wonder if these earthquake messages could be filtered such that only those messages that might impact a particular geographical area were sent to the people with cell phones in that area. I have written my friend in India, and he says: there are plenty of cell phones around here, even in the tiniest villages. He further goes on to say that a cell phone earthquake warning system was in fact in place in at least one village here on the southeast coast. They got notice; everybody was evacuated in an orderly fashion and not one life was lost. First, it seems like a cell phone warning system can be implemented directly between a data service and the people of a village. But the data service -- like the 'Earthquake Notification E-mails' from the USGS is probably free to anyone who wants to use it. On the other hand, filtering down the warnings so that they apply to a particular region would take technical knowledge, I don't know how much. From reading about the ARC system, I can't quite figure out if it is already set up to do the above. Does anyone know the answer to this? Thanks Steven Elster [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] ARC system created: SMS to Email in Tsunami hit areas now ineffect.
This is really, really amazing, Taran. I've been lurking for the most part on the tsunamihelp volunteers list, and I'm in awe at the dedication by you and everyone else in getting the job done. One question for you about the ARC system - if I understand it, the system will let anyone send an SMS to a particular phone number, then it will forward the message to all appropriate parties. Users would have to pay their mobile provider's rate for international SMS messages, assuming they charge more for international texting. If that's the case, would it be possible to set up national nodes so that a person in Sri Lanka could send their SMS to a Sri Lankan number while a person in Indonesia would send theirs to an Indonesian number, etc? congratulations on the great work - keep it up but try to get some rest as well! :-) andy Taran Rampersad wrote: If the information in the following link seems slightly familiar - it may be. It's a project that got into production in less than 2 hours after we got the right people together - which took 72 hours. http://www.knowprose.com/node/1145 This is what can be done. This is action. -- --- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldivide.net Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com --- ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
