On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 22:28:59 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 11/03/2011 10:00 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Yes - the thing that really shocked me was seeing the damage from the
>> tsunami in*California*.  That an entire bay was essentially destroyed
>> in CA from this gave me pause just because of the distance it traveled
>> before causing that damage - and thinking how much worse it is in
>> Japan.
> 
> You can get the BBC sites. You may have seen this.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709850

Yeah, some stills were taken from that video footage for another article 
I was reading on it.

Steve's been having trouble getting news in English there (his Japanese 
is pretty good for conversation, but following along on a news broadcast 
is another thing).  He's been trying to catch it on the BBC and on Al 
Jazeera's English site.

Jim

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On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:26:00 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I'm guessing everyone here has heard, but there was a massive
>> earthquake in Japan about 12 hours ago.  Reports say it registered as
>> 8.9.
> 
>   I have always wondered why there are so many huge cities at places
> where earthquakes are very common. One would think that the danger would
> kind of deter big populations from forming there.

Pretty much anywhere you live there is a potential for natural 
disasters.  I live in Salt Lake City, about 20 miles from a major fault 
line.  We're going to move west in the next year, and where we're 
planning to go is not far from Mt. St. Helens.

The thing is, being near water is something that is/was good for 
agriculture, so that's what makes costal areas fairly popular.

Jim

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Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I'm guessing everyone here has heard, but there was a massive earthquake 
>> in Japan about 12 hours ago.  Reports say it registered as 8.9.
> 
>   I have always wondered why there are so many huge cities at places
> where earthquakes are very common. One would think that the danger would
> kind of deter big populations from forming there.

Big cities are on coasts, for obvious reasons. Half of all coasts 
(approximately) are logically on the side of the continent where the 
earthquakes happen.

When we have spent enough time with high-speed over-land transportation that 
coasts are no longer preferred places for big cities, we'll have less of a 
problem with sudden changes in water levels.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> When we have spent enough time with high-speed over-land transportation that 
> coasts are no longer preferred places for big cities, we'll have less of a 
> problem with sudden changes in water levels.

  Actually coastal cities are still quite important even today because
transporting large amounts of cargo from one place to another is still
cheapest by sea than any other form of transport. (With smaller forms of
commerce and the transportation of people the significance has dropped
quite a lot in the past decades, of course.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > You can see
> > where giant youkai and Godzilla legends originate from the sheer
> > devastation left...
>
>   AFAIK, the concept that Godzilla (Gojira) and other kaiju originate
> from ancient Japanese folklore seems to be just a misconception.
>
>   Youkai are part of ancient folklore and mythology, but they consist
> mostly of supernatural creatures taking various forms of small animals
> such as raccoon dogs, foxes, cats and wolves, or sometimes even humans.
> The closest youkai is probably a mountain ogre (but I don't know how
> large the mythology says they are, but from the description it probably
> wasn't deemed anywhere even close to gigantic; I'd guess human-sized or
> slightly larger.)
>
>   Godzilla and other kaiju were most probably a pure invention of the
> 1950's Japanese movie industry, mostly inspired by King Kong. (In other
> words, gigantic monstrous animals as a movie plot were actually invented
> in the US before they were in Japan. This is not to say that there were
> not pieces of fiction, mostly literature, that had gigantic animals even
> earlier. However, none of them were probably based on Japanese folklore.)
>
>   I suppose that the closest you could get in ancient oriental folklore
> is dragon myths (which were probably inspired by dinosaur bone fossils).
> In a way this could ostensibly be a source because Japanese dragons were
> most often associated with rainfall and bodies of water. (I wouldn't be
> surprised if some myths associated tsunamis with dragons for this reason.)

You're probably right in all accounts.  I was probably mislead by current mangas
retelling of youkai which were probably inspired by kaiju in turn, not folklore.

Though I believe it wouldn't be hard for ignorant peasants in past ages to
attribute such massive destructions by nature to gods or giant monsters.

The giant bones of dinosaurs are thought to have influenced legends, including
giants and dragons.

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On 12/03/2011 12:03 PM, nemesis wrote:
> Though I believe it wouldn't be hard for ignorant peasants in past ages to
> attribute such massive destructions by nature to gods or giant monsters.
>

Everyone knows that the Giant's Causeway was built by Finn McCool in his 
quarrel with the Scots giant Benandonner. The Frost Giants in the 
Northern European myths left massive stones in their wake after 
retreating from the land of Man.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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> When we have spent enough time with high-speed over-land transportation
> that coasts are no longer preferred places for big cities, we'll have
> less of a problem with sudden changes in water levels.

The problem will then be space in Japan, you have a choice between a 
tiny apartment in a popular safe inland city, or a big house near the 
coast.  I suspect lots of people will still choose the house, no matter 
how convenient the transportation network is.

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