Taiwan Earthquake 28
doodzed writes "A massive earthquake has just hit Taiwan. Many buildings have been toppled and over a hundred people are confirmed dead. It is hard to predict what the ramifications to the computer industry will be. Most of the world's motherboards and a lot of chips come from there. Those machines can't be reset overnight if they survived. I guess memory prices are going to go up again, but this pales in comparison to the human toll. Please pray for the victims." The story's at CNN.com - and everywhere else. Things don't look good in Taipei right now. Update:Spock_NPA writes "According to this article, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company indicated at 6:00 PM PDT that the company's building has successfully withstood the effect of the earthquake." But according to this Reuter article, analysts in Seoul still expect to see higher chip prices.
Why increasing RAM prices IS tragic. (Score:1)
Granted, there was significant damage in Taiwan, but not so great an amount of damage that it alone will account for the increase in computer part prices we will soon be seeing.
A bit offtopic... (Score:1)
Also, there've been people who seem bothered by the presence of religion, stating that it doesn't help. Please remember that this is your view, it may not be THEIR view. Seeing as nobody can 100% explain the universe (science is great, but what caused the singularity which resulted in the big ban? no, we can't explain it.), it's best that we all just accept that somebody's beliefs might differ from yours. I'm a devout agnostic
As for the price of RAM, I don't particularly mind paying a bit more for reasons such as this.
And now the politically correct: 'please take whatever actions that you believe could possibly help the victims of this terrible tragedy.'
damned quake- must vote for Chen Shui Bian (Score:1)
taipei...it was like 2am in the morning and first the power went out and then the building started to shake hard(16th floor). i woke up, and slept. my chen shui bian flag and badminton racket fell down. a cd rack also fell down. mankit mankit mankit. the power was off for more than 24 hours... i think only one building in taipei, a 12 story hotel collapsed. in taipei county, a building completely uprooted and fell down sideways intact(i think it was also 12 stories). the focus was only 1 km under the epicenter. it was under the center of Taiwan. it wasn't in the ocean or something. i think there is only one way.
Vote for Chen Shui Bian for 2000 president
It's Y2K (Score:2)
This is probably off-topic (Score:1)
Why all the flamage over the "pray for the victims remark"? Would we have equal flamge if the slashdot editors suggested a purely secular approach as some have suggested? Of course not.
Why is it assumed that geeks must necessarily be atheist or agnostic? I know that I am not, and I also know that many of my friends are quite geeky and quite deeply religious.
It comes down to epistemology -- how do we KNOW anything? One method is mathematical proof. That is, you attempt to derive observable facts that will consitently, unambiguously, and in a mechanistic fashion explain the world. This is fine for certain realms of endeavour -- if you are designing a rocket I have to ride in or a drug I have to take, that's how I want you to operate.
However, it simply does not work for explaining spiritual (and to a lesser extent emotional) matters. This is because we simply cannot gain objectivity in these areas. We cannot be objective when WE are the subject, any more than an otherwise skilled doctor can treat himself. We need a far more intuitive approach. We have to know things by the same sloppy, organic methods we use to know (hopefully) simple, everyday things. Love, hate (these aren't emotions, but motives -- there is a huge philosophical difference) are known this way. As is "how to get to the seven eleven".
The efficacy of prayer is proved to me by this kind of sloppy, casual knowledge. When I pray for something, I see the direct results of the intercession of a loving God. Sometimes, the result is to give me peace in something that would otherwise be intolerable -- but is nevertheless necessary. C.S. Lewis said "Prayer doesn't change God, it changes me". It always changes
And sometimes, the result is direct divine intervention. I cannot count the number of times I have seen prayer result in an
C.S. Lewis wrote (in
For all those out there objecting to a little call to prayer: have you ever tried it? And can you say that, in the ultimate sense, it was not answered? You cannot reduce prayer to something it is not and then blame it for not working in the way you expect. Too many people think that prayer should be some kind of "cosmic vending machine". So, when they do their "please give me this God!" and don't get it, blame prayer.
Don't blame prayer, blame your definition.
Don't f*ck with Mother Nature (Score:4)
If one looks at earthquake prone regions one also sees a good relationship with hi-tech areas. The San Andreas Fault runs extremely close to Silicon Valley. The LA region is threatened by earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault and to other earthquakes closer to LA. The rolling hills in the LA area are the products of compressional stress that are active. Smaller earthquakes will result wrt to those big one on the San Andreas, but these will be close to high population areas.
The Pacific Northwest is now considered to be a high earthquake threat region. Earthquakes are infrequent wrt to geological time, but the big one there will be huge.
Tokyo (and the rest of Japan) is a high threat earthquake zone. The last "big one" happened about 75 yrs ago; the next big one is not that far off. For that matter, the next big one in the SF region is not that far off. Taiwan is a high threat area. Look at the mountains on Taiwan. They are the result of compressional stress that is actively building up and being released.
Turkey, Iran, northern Italy, Greece, northern India, southern China, Indonesia, parts of Mexico (Mexico City is a risk area because it sits on a bowl of jello), Peru, Chile, and many more areas are high risk areas.
The "biggest" earthquake that we have much info about in the continental US took place in New Madrid area where Missouri meets the Mississippi River. The earthquake reportedly stop pendulum clocks in Boston. Other "freak" earthquakes occured in Charleston, SC, Portugal, and Boston. While these earthquakes are generally smaller than the really big ones, the building code in so-called low risk areas are not up to acceptable earthquake building codes.
Earthquakes are something that you cannot image. I was once camping when an earthquake occured right underneath me. I was above the focal point. It scared the sh*t out of me. The earthquake was measured as a magnitude 3.
Re:Don't f*ck with Mother Nature (Score:1)
An area may, indeed, be earthquake prone, but there is no way that someone can validly say that a large (or small) earthquake is likely to happen soon (or unlikely to happen soon, for that matter.)
Leave the predicitions to Nostradamus. At least he doesn't feign scientific backing.
Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing (Score:1)
Last week a "major" power outage of a mere several hours in Taipei caused RAM prices to skyrocket again. The manufacturing cost of a 128MB SDRAM DIMM is over $180, sources claim. This puts 128 MB of memory for your average PC user at nearly $300 retail.
The major memory manufacturers have recently been leaving the low-profit-margin RAM markets to begin manufacturing higher-margin flash memory. The increasing demand for RAM brought about as people begin to hurredly upgrade their computers for something some bozo decided to call "Y2K" that everyone thinks will be the end of the world -- so why would you need extra RAM anyway? So these people have caused the memory manufacturers to begin to switch back to producing RAM recently, but man, if you want a setback you got a setback. Good luck getting RAM. Get it while it's still cheap. Soon you will be paying $200 for 64MB SDRAM!
~GoRK
"Most of the world's motherboards..." -- Bollox (Score:1)
some updates (Score:1)
About 22:00(CST, +8) here, Japanese Resecue Association had arrived here helping the resecue in Taipei county. They brought some equipments for earthquake resecueing, such as infrared sensor for searching survival, and trained dogs.
The death toll had reached about 1700, 4000 people were injured, 200 people lost, and 2700 are traped.
As a resident here in Taiwan, I sincerely thank for the international community for caring about this event.
earthquake vs atomic bomb (Score:1)
Scary MSNBC headline! (Score:2)
Not to make light of this situation (you can read my other posting in this topic for my views on it), but the alt tag beneath the main headline picture on MSNBC reads:
Death tools and redundant litigators? Why does this remind me of a George Lucas plotline?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
pray for Taiwan, Timor, and Turkey (Score:1)
Happy, kinda (Score:1)
My heart is particularly warmed at the shock and dismay displayed by the theists. How can we be so callous, so cold?! How dare we suggest that religious wars are basically people killing each other over who has the best imaginary friend!
I'm not going to lay in to these people here at length - that's what my website is for. But to all of you who stood up to these subserviant twits and said "enough is enough", thanks.
My
Lazlo > Quux26
http://www.intap.net/~j/aah/
My
Quux26
Re:It's Y2K (Score:1)
Yes, I can.
My
Lazlo > Quux26
http://www.intap.net/~j/aah/
My
Quux26
Comparison with Hurricane Floyd (Score:1)
Please note that in my home state of North Carolina, the death toll from the flooding resulting from Hurricane Floyd has topped 50. People (and, unfortunately, bodies) are still being rescued and recovered from cities that are underwater. Oh, and it's raining again.
Slashdot covered this story as "RedHat will be shutting down their servers and colocating them for the duration of the storm." I have NO PROBLEM with this coverage, and I have NO PROBLEM with their coverage of the Taipei earthquake.
Slashdot is a site for TECHNOLOGY NEWS. There are plenty of other media outlets where you can get general news. This does not mean that Rob etc. (or the general Slashdot community) are unconcerned with the human toll, but as a tech news site, there is a responsibility to at least mention the technological impact.
As for me, I don't pray, but I am donating my time, money, and goods to help those in need in NC, and will be donating to the Red Cross for disaster relief in Taipei.
For more information regarding the situation in North Carolina, please visit the News and Observer [news-observer.com].
This is important because ...? (Score:1)
Life has no intrisic value -- only what we give it.
Will I be able to afford that 1 gig RAM upgrade next year?
global stupidity unaffected (Score:1)
some of the nicest people you'll ever meet... (Score:1)
We should have a motherboard auction and donate the proceeds or something. I know it wouldn't help much of anything, but it would make me feel a little less useless.
Hope the road is as easy as it can be in the coming weeks.