Hacker News Reader

Christchurch quake had 10's of thousands of aftershocks. A few people I know were rattled to the point they were shell shocked and just had to leave town - every tremor triggering off "could this be it" all over again.

For a long while, every damn heavy truck driving past the office got a few people going really silent and pensive.

How many drops is this for you, Lieutenant?

Thirty eight... simulated.

<https://www.cactushugs.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/aliens...>

(For the uninitiated.)

There are a LOT of very small/deep/etc quakes in some places.

Sure, I see Riverside CA had over 6000 last year, though I doubt if someone who moved there two years ago would say they've "been through" over 10,000 quakes since, depending on their sensitivity, they might not have felt any of them, or maybe a dozen of them or something. I'm interested in specifics!

It's a bullshit number - ignore it. The same location could have had 1, 10, 1000 or 1000000 quakes depending on the threshold chosen. Or if just talking about ones you can feel, then the count varies a lot depending on exact location (and your sensitivity).

And the time and strength distribution of aftershocks is not linear - so the number gives you no feeling for what it means.