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by jubjubbird 1329 days ago
Too bad Google gets the credit for the amazing https://www.shakealert.org system developed by the USGS and other public entities. Altering the user is the easy part, detecting the earthquake is the hard part.
3 comments
amf12 1329 days ago
Android also has a "detection" feature in non ShakeAlert locations. Android phones' accelerometer is used to detect earthquakes and warn other phones in the area: https://crisisresponse.google/android-alerts/

Android phones' accelerometer also detected the tremors: https://twitter.com/davey_burke/status/1585148438844694528

It's a pretty cool technical problem to solve while optimizing latency.

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pythonaut_16 1329 days ago
That's a narrow take.

Detecting an earthquake early and alerting millions of people quickly are both hard problems, and both had to be solved for this to work.

Much of the hard work on Google's side just happens to overlap with other use cases that they've already scaled.

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ilyt 1329 days ago
Were it be built from scratch earthquake detection is still harder part than message distribution.

"deliver same message to subset of subscribers" scales horizontally pretty easily.

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pythonaut_16 1329 days ago
Be my guest to go build one then.

Oh but if you're truly committed you'll need to avoid Cloud computing resources, avoid Twillio, don't use any Google services, no Firebase Cloud messaging... You probably shouldn't use Android phones either...

And remember any delayed or failed messages put people's lives in danger...

Or we can just admit that Google as a whole had some impressive achievements here alongside the Earthquake team.

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lttlrck 1329 days ago
Come on, this is a mean-spirited mischaracterization of what they wrote.
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pythonaut_16 1329 days ago
I thought it was fair given their oversimplification of what delivering messages at scale requires.

The point isn't that the Earthquake Detection isn't impressive. Why do we have to deny Google any credit here? Is it just because they're a big tech company?

IMO it feels like another "I could build Dropbox in a weekend" comment.

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canadaduane 1329 days ago
"altering" made me laugh a bit. I think you mean "alerting"! :)
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