The words of Douglas Adams, and they just about sum up my feelings about the Asian earthquake and tsunami.
We’ve been collecting improbably named Americans at work, so my eyes lit up when I saw a certain Waverly Person, director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center, being interviewed about the tsuami on CNN. The following evening I heard him being interviewed by Roger Hearing on The World Tonight on Radio 4. The interview was extraordinary – Roger pressed him on why no-one called any governments in the region to warn them a tsunami might be on the way, and Waverly said “who would you call?”. Roger suggested looking them up in the phone book. He could also have suggested calling their US embassies, using the internet – or maybe even just calling CNN.
Now, a lot of harsh words have been thrown at Waverly – at least in my office, any way. I think this is a bit harsh. Waverly looks like a nice man, he’s getting on a bit. He’s also based in Denver which is (a) the dullest city I’ve ever visited, and (b) a long way from the sea, so tsumanis are not only not his area of expertise, they’re probably not on on his mind. Well, they probably are now.
Cringely comes up trumps again this week. He says a tsunami warning system could be set up, not over ten years costing millions of dollars – but within a year using some smart software, data already available on the internet, running on low-end PCs with a dial-up internet connection. Let’s hope he’s right and that some smart programmers make his idea a reality.