Expert's Prediction about Italian Earthquake

The central Italian earthquake was apparently predicted a month in advance by Gioacchino Giuliani, an employee at a physics institute at Gran Sasso, near the badly-hit city of L'Aquila. His warnings where scoffed at by Italian authorities. They even forced him to remove information about his prediction from his website. I can see why someone would be ignored, but in a free country, it seems a bit extreme to inhibit one's basic freedom of speech. He's now demanding an apology for the legal assault upon him.

From my memory, there seems to be a series of solo scientist that are able to score one accurate earthquake prediction. Sometimes, they kinda get a second prediction right too. However, I've never seen these scientist able to continue their predictions accurately in a way that can usually save lives. Gioacchino Giuliani feels like he could've saved lives if the authorities listened to him. The problem is that even if his method proves to be repeatable, this is the first successful prediction he has made, at least that I've heard about. First time for anything is an occurrence; second time a coincidence; the third time is a pattern. For him to be recognized, he's got to get it right three times in a way that is repeatable by others and useful to authorities.

The difficulty with this is that earthquakes happen very infrequently in any one location. The factors that lead up to earthquakes vary from region to region and even quake to quake. What may be an indicator for an earthquake in one location may not work in another location.

In my opinion, I do think the authorities owe the expert an apology for violating his freedoms. However, it is understandable as to why they ignored him. There's a lot of crackpots out there making predictions all the time. The authorities have no idea who to listen to until some method (not a particular person) provides to be successful repeatably.

Back to life

This blog just may be getting back to life. There's more stuff going on that I'm comfortable blabbing about in the public eye; not that I have much of a public following me these days. :)

There's a few of stories I'll be writing about soon, including some cool about additions to my life.

I actually have a Bestseller, of sorts

Well, as funny as this might sound, I have a #1 bestselling book on Amazon.com. No, I'm not raking in millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of books sales. I think the book has reached something like five sales total, ever. However, in the set up in Amazon.com, this is enough for me to have the bestseller for one particular category, Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan. It's a Kindle electronic book called Ghost Stories of Olde Vol 3. As of right now, it is actually listed as "#27,893 in Kindle Store" overall. Not bad for public domain content that is buried deep in Amazon.com's listings.

I actually have five listings currently on Amazon.com for the Kindle. I'm not making any substantial money. In fact, as of right now, I've not earned enough to even quality to receive any payment. Hopefully soon I'll earn my first $10. Joy. At this rate, I'm earning roughly 16¢ an hour (that's $0.16 for those who've never seen the cent ¢ symbol before) for the time it took me to make those books.

Featured in Pontiac Performance Magazine

With Alice, a profile feature article was written about me and my 2009 Pontiac G8 GT in the Spring edition of Pontiac Performance Magazine. (Original post/backup link)

Birthday thang

It's been awhile since I've used my birthday as an excuse to get the gang together. In fact, I think it's been a few years. It used to be one of many excuses I used. These days is a busy time. Work takes up more time, keeping a house organized is harder than I anticipated for two people.

Well, this year my excuses start up again! It will be a little late in the month; Allie and I are having a BBQ at the park outside our house. The invited group is an eclectic mix twenty, thirty and forty-somethings (and some of their kids). Damn, I'm actually having a gathering where it is a given that the kids are invited. Back in the day, this would've been a question not even touched. I must be getting older. And here I am with no kids of my own. Of course, OPC are a lot of fun, mostly cuz they left when their parents do.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the party!

Cell phones and illegal telemarketer calls

It is illegal for telemarketer to call your cell phone. This is per the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. That law prohibits solicitation calls where the recipient is charged for the call. This act has no expiration, so the protection of cell phones from telemarketers will remain intact until the law is changed (which is not likely).

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is not the "Do Not Call" list. You do not need to submit your cell number to the "Do Not Call" list to have protection. "Do Not Call" list is legit, of course, that that is mostly for landlines, not cell phones.

The is an urban legend going right now right now online that is trying to scare people into submitting their cell numbers to a scam website. If you receive that email, do not go to the email's link. Do not forward that email on. It is an attempt to steal information.

The FCC wants anyone who has received a telemarketer call on their cell to report it to them here: http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm