There is this amazing app called NERV that, whenever there is a large earthquake anywhere in Japan, sends you an early warning push notification and an animated display with shockwaves emanating from the epicenter, plus a countdown timer for the first wave hitting you. The first it went off for me it felt like something out of sci-fi. I think I got 45 seconds this time before my apartment started shaking.
> The name and logo of "NERV" are used with the explicit permission of khara Inc., the copyright holder of the "Evangelion" series, and Groundworks Corporation, which manages the rights to the series.
For people unfamiliar wanting an easier comparison, Evangelion is Japans star wars. It'd be like learning of tornadoes from someone with Empire insignia
Which is funny to say because Star Wars is actually the Western version of samurai movies (especially but not exclusively Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress).
That's the movie that Lucas is pretty open about heavily drawing "inspiration" from (all the way down to specific characters and plot beats) but Hidden Fortress is itself part of a larger genre of similar stories.
Evangelion is so mega overrated of an anime im experiencing second hand embarrassment on behalf of Japan for letting its national personaification be exlempified by shinji.
It's an unpopular opinion for sure. Evangelion had great potential, a mysterious world, but it never reached it. I kept waiting for it to get good and then it just abruptly ended. I couldn't stand Shinji either. His situational paralysis was so frustrating. If he'd been a coward it would at least be understandable. But no, he sits there frozen half the show.
Lain is 10/10. Akira/Ghost in the Shell are great too. Evangelion is a weak 7/10 in comparison to them in every aspect imaginable. I also realized that Evangelion is Japan's version of assigning weird mysticism to religions they don't understand (much how westerners depict shinto/daoism/buddhism with tons of mysticism).
Evangelion is a disgusting anime to consider part of your national personification. Drop it and pick up Ghibli films more please Japan.
Evangelion is not “Japan’s version” of anything in terms of western religions. It’s one guy who was making a TV show. It’s not Japan’s “national personification.”
If you want to go down the rabbit hole you’ll find a lot of quotes from Anno and others on it.
A lot of it boils down to “we did this because it’s cool and we have no idea what Christianity is” down to Anno going “Yeah I could do this because no one in Japan is really going to care and I don’t really care about the Western world anyway.”
It’s fine to not like it but it’s quite a step to go “this is how Japan thinks.” It’s akin to saying America is personified by the Simpsons every time they go to Japan.
That's true, but I think the difference lies in the fact that the company using the NERV name for their product is a public disadter alert service, and doesn't seek to do or emulate anything it's named after.
That's not the same for a surveillance company or a defence contractor named after the big bad of a media franchise.
A private organization delivering critical infrastructure and emergency services. Just no. Not even if it has a cutesy anime external shell. It always ends up being a race to the bottom by the nature of it.
45 seconds is an incredible accomplishment. That’s a decent amount of heads up to get safer place. Obviously nerve wracking but great progress in alerts
Earthquake early warning systems are a top 10 peak human achievement in my book. No joke, I tear up watching videos of Japan's EEW system alerting people of possible danger just in time.
There are streamers who's whole thing is watching these alerts and setting up bobbleheads and glasses of water and stuff to show the shaking. It's so so so cool. Look at what we can do for each other you guys :')
It sounds impressive but it's worth considering that this was a large quake that was felt by basically half of the country. You do not get this much warning if you are anywhere near where damage happens.
The 45 seconds is better thought of as the time it takes for the quake to propagate to Tokyo
Yeah. That's leagues better than what I get in Taiwan. The alert often arrives when the building is shaking or even after. I've never had a meaningful headstart.
It would seem the forewarning depends a lot on the distance from the epicentre. This quake, for Tokyoites, was far enough from them that they could beat the earthquake's speed. I'm fairly certain the people on the East Coast near the quake got no notification ahead of the event.
I was in a chat with people in NYC when it hit. They got advance notice, although it was just “why is everything shaking?” Followed by me going silent for a bit, so they didn’t know what was going on until it reached them.
I was thinking of the more recent quake which I very much felt and heard in my older detached home in Queens. I was in Farmingdale out in Suffolk during the 2011 quake. I got up to walk from my desk, took a few steps then suddenly became disoriented for a few seconds as if I was dizzy. Then my coworker shouts "Holy shit did you just feel that? That was an earthquake!"
An Earthquake happened in SF recently where I got a push notification from Apple/iOS and I felt it maybe 5-10 seconds later. Nothing fancy though just a notification. I'm guessing it's not on for Japan? Seems like this app shows way more.
For big enough quakes you get notification from the government (a VERY loud and specific one too, being in public and hearing _everyones_ phones suddenly go off is... mildly terrifying) too; but they're so frequent and (usually) non-super-threatening that they don't get sent out for _every_ quake.
"not on for japan?" Are you expecting to have gotten a notification in SF for an earthquake in a place a 12 hour flight away? That sounds like annoyance, not a feature.
We also have the MyShake app here in CA, but I don't recall getting a notification through it for the last quake. I was asleep, though, so my memory is hazy.
But it sounds like Japan's system also sends push notifications which is why I was unclear about what you felt was different/missing. I think the specific tone sound we get from EAS is distinct.
you can actually customize how strong a quake you're notified for. but ymmv. the recent california quake was actually the first time that app even notified me.
At 45 seconds, load up social media. (although I actually missed the warnings this time, was focused on work) At least assuming the number is only 7.x.
If it were 8+ or somewhat closer, I'd get under my desk. (then pull up social media on my phone)
Specifically, the two reasons that it's no longer taught is that 1) rushing to get under a doorframe caused accidents 2) doorframes are no longer reinforced the way they used to be.
Hmm, why does this needs to be an app and not the built-in alert notification system? Outsourcing critical infrastructure and emergency services to private parties is always a terrible idea.
In many countries the authority and capability to send alerts is relatively decentralized and/or they require people to be inserted in the decision loop. Things are this way for policy and jurisdictional reasons. To change it you'd need to redesign the bureaucracy and authority, including many parts that have nothing to do with emergency services. Those changes are not going to happen.
Under these constraints it is effectively impossible to send automated alerts at scale with low latency as demonstrated here. A private app does not operate under such constraints.
There's things built into iOS and Android and the government does send them; but not for _every_ quake, only for the bigger ones, and if you're close to epicenter.
How many stories above the ground, and might you guess at your building's construction (wood frame, steel frame, etc.) and foundations (on bedrock, on loose sediments, etc.)?
No major tsunami is expected, local media reported initial waves were recorded as high as 40cm. The Japan Meteorological Agency forecasted up to 3m (10ft) waves.
I don't believe this earthquake is a big deal. Large earthquakes (M7.0+) happen in Japan several times a year, and given this happened in the middle of the ocean, I don't expect any major damage.
Yes, this is definitely only a medium deal, given that the tsunamis were mild. There is the usual concern that it might be a foreshock for a bigger quake but that's fairly unlikely.
Plenty of disruption (including a bunch of the shinkansen lines) and annoying evacuation up on the coast.
I will say that this was the longest swaying I've felt in my Kawasaki tower mansion apartment since moving here three years ago -- things were still moving about 5 minutes after it started.
I live in Aomori (Northernmost prefecture of Honshu) and we got the warning before the earthquake arrived by all the cellphones in the office going crazy at the same time. It was kind of funny, because we have a lot of new guys here who have never been to Japan before and it was their first earthquake ever xD
Depends on the location, the alert comes usually as soon as the initial tremors are registered. If you're at the epicenter, tough luck. For example, for me in Tokyo, the alert came 2 minutes before it hit, and even then, the actual earthquake was extremely subtle.
I’m Chiba so pretty far away from this one, and in this case it was like a real low frequency swaying that lasted maybe 3 minutes or so.
In the past there were small earthquakes closer to me that felt like quite a violent bump followed by higher frequency vibrations, but less than a minute. Those earthquakes were much smaller though, like magnitude 4.
> The 1989 earthquake in Loma Prieta, California, which killed sixty-three people and caused six billion dollars’ worth of damage, lasted about fifteen seconds and had a magnitude of 6.9. A thirty-second earthquake generally has a magnitude in the mid-sevens. A minute-long quake is in the high sevens, a two-minute quake has entered the eights, and a three-minute quake is in the high eights. By four minutes, an earthquake has hit magnitude 9.0.
Maybe there should be a web site americaquake.gov just for American earthquakes.
Why did Mongo have an "EARTH QUAKE" button on his spaceship control console? Did he have buttons with the names of all the other obscure bodies he encountered, too?
Are they making recommendations on that page? Are they trying to "know better" than the Japanese government because they too keep track of earthquakes? I'd say you seem to lack critical thinking, but you'd probably claim the American government stole it from you.
Japan has their own communication platforms for this, they're not relying on a US government site. I'm in Japan on vacation, and I got notified of the earthquake within a minute of it happening on the NERV app, which is a common disaster alerting app here.
Evangelion is extremely popular in Japan, everybody and their dog knows it, so it is obviously the second option. From the official app website, https://nerv.app/en/
> The name and logo of "NERV" are used with the explicit permission of khara Inc., the copyright holder of the "Evangelion" series, and Groundworks Corporation, which manages the rights to the series.
Evangelion is their Star Wars, at least in terms of merchandising and cultural references. I think I heard somewhere that it's known more for the pachinko machines than the actual media
How can any show with the beginning scene of the “end of evangelion” be the Star Wars or anything? Luke skywalker didn’t feel the need to choke his chicken to a knocked out Leia, but this is exactly what shinji does in the first scene of the end of evangelion.
Japan, that's how. Also, I'm not sure everyone who recognises Evangelion in Japan has actually watched more than the anime or rebuilds. A whole lot of people just know it as the logo on the pachinko machine
There is this amazing app called NERV that, whenever there is a large earthquake anywhere in Japan, sends you an early warning push notification and an animated display with shockwaves emanating from the epicenter, plus a countdown timer for the first wave hitting you. The first it went off for me it felt like something out of sci-fi. I think I got 45 seconds this time before my apartment started shaking.
https://nerv.app/en/
Does it play appropriate Evangelion OST track depending on magnitude though?
From the site:
> The name and logo of "NERV" are used with the explicit permission of khara Inc., the copyright holder of the "Evangelion" series, and Groundworks Corporation, which manages the rights to the series.
I wish more corps took themselves so lightly, while remaining serious about what they do.
Evangelion is what happens when someone does a very successful riffs on the genre that Gundam is the most prolific example of.
Which is funny to say because Star Wars is actually the Western version of samurai movies (especially but not exclusively Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress).
That's the movie that Lucas is pretty open about heavily drawing "inspiration" from (all the way down to specific characters and plot beats) but Hidden Fortress is itself part of a larger genre of similar stories.
Evangelion is a disgusting anime to consider part of your national personification. Drop it and pick up Ghibli films more please Japan.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole you’ll find a lot of quotes from Anno and others on it.
A lot of it boils down to “we did this because it’s cool and we have no idea what Christianity is” down to Anno going “Yeah I could do this because no one in Japan is really going to care and I don’t really care about the Western world anyway.”
https://gwern.net/otaku
https://wiki.evageeks.org/Statements_by_Evangelion_Staff
It’s fine to not like it but it’s quite a step to go “this is how Japan thinks.” It’s akin to saying America is personified by the Simpsons every time they go to Japan.
The style of your comment is not making a good case for knowledge of this subject.
Anyway I need to get back to working on the Torment Nexus.
That's not the same for a surveillance company or a defence contractor named after the big bad of a media franchise.
There are streamers who's whole thing is watching these alerts and setting up bobbleheads and glasses of water and stuff to show the shaking. It's so so so cool. Look at what we can do for each other you guys :')
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imH-ZyXwX5Q
The 45 seconds is better thought of as the time it takes for the quake to propagate to Tokyo
We also have the MyShake app here in CA, but I don't recall getting a notification through it for the last quake. I was asleep, though, so my memory is hazy.
https://www.fcc.gov/emergency-alert-system
But it sounds like Japan's system also sends push notifications which is why I was unclear about what you felt was different/missing. I think the specific tone sound we get from EAS is distinct.
If it were 8+ or somewhat closer, I'd get under my desk. (then pull up social media on my phone)
For me I always just turn on iPhone screen recording and marvel at this amazing app and wish we had something like this in California.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/myshake-earthquake-alerts/id14...
That would include Apple and Google.
For major quakes I think over communication is probably warranted.
Under these constraints it is effectively impossible to send automated alerts at scale with low latency as demonstrated here. A private app does not operate under such constraints.
This wasn't big enough in Tokyo to send out one.
How many stories above the ground, and might you guess at your building's construction (wood frame, steel frame, etc.) and foundations (on bedrock, on loose sediments, etc.)?
No major tsunami is expected, local media reported initial waves were recorded as high as 40cm. The Japan Meteorological Agency forecasted up to 3m (10ft) waves.
I don't believe this earthquake is a big deal. Large earthquakes (M7.0+) happen in Japan several times a year, and given this happened in the middle of the ocean, I don't expect any major damage.
Plenty of disruption (including a bunch of the shinkansen lines) and annoying evacuation up on the coast.
I will say that this was the longest swaying I've felt in my Kawasaki tower mansion apartment since moving here three years ago -- things were still moving about 5 minutes after it started.
kids in the park stared doing wobbly knee dance :D
felt the quake about 30sec later.
[1]: https://rubykaigi.org/2026/
[2]: https://www.japan.travel/en/japan-safe-travel-information/ts...
Surprised others said they felt it.
In the past there were small earthquakes closer to me that felt like quite a violent bump followed by higher frequency vibrations, but less than a minute. Those earthquakes were much smaller though, like magnitude 4.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale
Here you have the same earthquake, but reported by Japan: https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/quake/quake_detail.html?eve...
As a European, I feel fine that American and Japanese governments report on this.
Why did Mongo have an "EARTH QUAKE" button on his spaceship control console? Did he have buttons with the names of all the other obscure bodies he encountered, too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqVgrkmRF8Y
> The name and logo of "NERV" are used with the explicit permission of khara Inc., the copyright holder of the "Evangelion" series, and Groundworks Corporation, which manages the rights to the series.
https://nerv.app/en/
This kind of data is actually shared by governments with each other as well.
Science has no borders, much less disasters.