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camillomiller

Is the Valley ready for bigger earthquakes? Serious question

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California's been getting ready for earthquakes for a long time.

I've been wondering this too. Could become a S.P.O.F. for the web's future if there's a big one.

When I see some of the really old simple wooden housing stock I'd venture a guess and say no.

Better sticks than bricks.

Ha. Good point. ;)

Still I wouldn't call a lot of the 1900-1970s housing stock prevalent across SF and the Bay particularly earthquake ready.

It's mostly garbage. SF and California generally were supposed to be disposable. People didn't think beyond the bonanzas.

Given that when I pointed out we shouldn't be building all our infrastructure in once place I got downvoted to the bottom of this thread (currently at -4) I'd imagine the answer is a big NO and most people are hoping that if they pretend hard enough it can't happen it won't.

You were downvoted by a lot of people because you showed a serious ignorance of the area. A major earthquake is not going to "destroy" the area. It's a pretty standard part of business continuity plans around here to have measures in place for when a quake hits, and there's enough redundant infrastructure to ensure that any problems are pretty localized. It's drilled into peoples' heads around here that a quake is going to happen, and as such, nearly everyone has plans for how to ride things out.

Everyone has plans, but it's not possible to guess the systemic effects of everyone trying to implement their plans at once. We're just going to have to see. We work in a new industry that has never had to deal with a major earthquake, and for some reason we've concentrated it all in a place where there's bound to be one.

You were down voted because what you said made no sense. All of the infrastructure isn't concentrated here. You are confusing tech workers with data centers.

Apart from the fact that until today every traceroute I've done from Asia/Australia has ended up in California.

However today, after the earthquake everything is redirecting to New York and glitching out like hell (apart from facebook which now likes Moscow for some reason).

and I'm in northern Virginia near DC and a huge chunk of my Internet traffic goes to the Ashburn area, which is about 30 miles to the west of me. there are massive data centers all over the world, almost never at the premises of the Internet companies themselves.

you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Internet, my friend.

California is a big place and Silicon Valley occupies a very small portion of it. Today's earthquake has had very little, if any, effect here; so that's not the reason your traffic is being rerouted. I didn't even feel the quake, trains are still running, it's life as normal unless you live in Napa Valley (north of Silicon Valley).

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