
Patio11's perspective on the Japan Earthquake - swombat
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/13/some-perspective-on-the-japan-earthquake/
======
patio11
There is a bit of overlap here with my comments on HN the last couple of days.
I've had to explain it to 100+ friends, family, customers, clients, etc, so I
figured I might as well polish it and put it somewhere public.

At the risk of stating the obvious: I am not "HN's Japan Guy." There are many,
many HNers in Japan. A few dozen of them make it out to the Tokyo meetups.
There are many, many perspectives on this disaster -- this is just my wee
little contribution from a place well removed from most of the worst scenes.

~~~
cperciva
_I am not "HN's Japan Guy."_

Perhaps not, but I'd say that you're probably the best writer out of HN's
Japanese Guys.

(No offense intended to other HNers from Japan -- I'd say that you're one of
the best writers on HN from any location.)

~~~
create_account
I don't know about best -- most frequent commentator definitely.

------
mechanical_fish
_English-language reporting on the matter has been so bad that my mother is
worried for my safety._

I can believe it.

So, on the one hand, it often seems like HN spends way too much time absorbed
with inside-baseball conversations on the design of social news. How do we
keep social-media communities intelligent and informative? How do we prevent
them from being constantly trolled, dominated by sugar-coated memetic fluff
(e.g. "things on fire"), spammed by marketers, or deliberately hijacked by
paid sockpuppets, fanatical propagandists, and well-funded PR campaigns? We go
on and on about this stuff, routinely.

But on the other hand, we worry about these things because they are important,
and because we still haven't done enough. Especially in the USA, our failed
media infrastructure is a _very big_ problem. It creates an environment where
everyone is either perpetually ignorant or perpetually afraid, or both, and it
fuels random acts of sabotage and irrationality, and it serves as a constant
drag on our civilization's energy. So when, as an engineer, I think about ways
to advance my favorite design and engineering projects - smart civic design,
renewable energy, robotic exploration of space, cheap and widespread applied
genetics, popular appreciation of science, promotion of the creative arts - it
always seems to come down to education and information. Here we have an
example: Why, in a world where we can build a global information system like
this one, must patio11, with obvious reluctance, spend so much time restating
the obvious? (And, indeed, he _must_ spend this time, because the alternative
is that many of our friends, and relatives, and _especially_ our parents run
around like Chicken Little.)

~~~
elptacek
I guess it goes without saying that this very thoughtfully composed post also
implies is that it's not only the media infrastructure that is failed. But the
answer is written into the post as well: be involved. Apparently everyone in
Japan has a duty in times of crisis, and it's not something opted into.

I am genuinely jealous, after reading this post. In that I would love for _my_
country to have its shit together to this degree. That, also, goes without
saying.

~~~
defen
Japanese society is also ethnically homogenous (which increases trust and
social capital - see
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x/full)),
hierarchical, and strongly favors social harmony over individual expression.
I'm not convinced that a country like the U.S. could be as well prepared as
Japan seems to be. I'm not saying we couldn't eventually overcome a similar
scale disaster, but I think Japan is always going to have us beat in the
immediate to short term aftermath.

~~~
elptacek
"...strongly favors social harmony over individual expression."

I like how you put that. It describes my experience with Switzerland as well.
I remember the pros and cons of being an American ex-pat there -- it could be
quite rigid at times. As I get older, however, my frustration with this
dichotomy appears to be growing. Individual expression can get off my lawn.

------
nborgo
"An earlier draft of this post said 'lucky.' I have since reworded because,
honestly, screw luck. Luck had absolutely nothing to do with it. Decades of
good engineering, planning, and following the bloody checklist are why this
was a serious disaster and not a nation-ending catastrophe like it would have
been in many, many other places."

This is fantastic and worth repeating. Thank you.

------
alexandros
I hate to be -that- Greek, but the word typhoon in English is arguably either
Greek or Arabic in origin. <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=typhoon>

May the mocking commence.

~~~
wazoox
Typhon is a Greek titan, master of the winds. By some coincidence, the english
derivative "Typhoon" sounds very much like the Japanese word "taifu", but it's
obviously unrelated. The English (an other European languages) word definitely
comes from Greek.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhon>

~~~
Paulomus
I think it is more correct to say that all the typhoon words derive from Greek
(or at least a common source). Europeans borrowed a cognate local word (tufan)
to describe the cyclones of the Indian Ocean and 'correcred' the spelling to
the Greek roots.

[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=typhoon&searc...](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=typhoon&searchmode=none)

------
Klonoar
Thank. Fucking. God.

I am getting increasingly tired of explaining these points to everyone who
asks me (currently in Tokyo). A well worded piece that I can just link to,
very nice to see at the moment.

~~~
pokjhnboi
No thank Fucking engineers. God did the deed - engineers countered it.

Given the few 1000s casualties against a Mag8.9 earthquake I think God lost
this one

~~~
cubicle67
I think the thanks was for Patrick's article

~~~
Klonoar
Thank. Fucking. God.

...that you pointed this out. Yes, yes it was.

~~~
pokjhnboi
Sorry - I thought you meant

"thousands of people were killed - but one person survived, therefore a
miracle, therefore praise god"

------
mattdeboard
> "Japanese does not have a word for excessive preparation."

Neither does English, as you've just demonstrated!

~~~
lambda
Yeah, this is a fairly common snowclone
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone>) that is often false, or when true
transmits very little information at all:
<http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3001>

Just because someone doesn't have a word for something doesn't mean they have
a concept for it; they might express it in two words instead of one. Also,
most of the time you hear the claim that a language doesn't have a word for
something, the claim is wrong, and the language actually does have such a
word, while the person in question is ignorant of the language they are
talking about (I presume that patio11 is not ignorant of Japanese, but may
just be making a sloppy generalization).

It's used as a way of demonstrating that some entire culture thinks or acts in
some particular way, which is usually a poor approximation of reality. While
there are distinct cultures that have distinct practices, cultures are
generally not so homogenous as to not even have a way to express a particular
concept that goes against cultural norms.

~~~
patio11
As a linguist? I agree, I don't like it, and literally _that post_ went
through my head when I was re-reading prior to hitting publish. As a writer?
It is zippy and communicative, more than "The nation of Japan has chosen,
through its political process, to invest a large amount of its resource
surplus into disaster preparedness even though some observers believe it has
long-since passed the point of diminishing returns."

~~~
6ren
It's a nice line, btw is it literally true? It fits with Deming, quality and
six-sigma.

I ask, because Christensen claims that Japan success a few decades ago was
because all their successful firms (Toyota, Sony, etc etc) began with
disruptive innovations, that needed to be improved, with sustaining
innovations. Aiming at quality works really well for this.

He then says their recent hard times are because those disruptive innovations
have now become good enough - but the Japanese firms are still improving on
quality. He contrasts this with the US, where new disruptive firms are being
created all the time (aided by employee mobility, VC/angel/YC non-debt
funding, open markets, start-up infrastructure, largely unregulated
competition, and strong IP for R&D).

~~~
tghnjtghn
I think the difference is that Japanese disruptive firms can engineer things
like planes, ships, cars - US disruptive firms enable you to play games about
birds on your cell phone.

~~~
6ren
Based on surface news, it can look that way; but honestly it sounds like
you're trolling.

US was first with mass-produced cars (Ford); Japan with games (Nintendo). Both
these past innovations were disruptive.

Today, the US is pioneering consumer DNA testing (eg. 23andme), portable
computers (iPhone/iPad - industrial uses are appearing, it's not just games);

The suggested case is that Japan doesn't seem to be innovating disruptively
(although Nintendo has been working great at some disruptive stuff: wii and a
3D handheld). Disruptive innovation is possible in cars etc, such as the
smartcar, and hybrids. Note that the all-electric car, Tesla, is from the US -
and it's not clear that it will succeed. That's a big part of the disruptive
game.

If anything, I'm pro-Japan, but mostly I'm a fan of disruptive innovations,
and I sincerely hope that Japan will find a way to become disruptive again.
Maybe it's harder because they have an aging population now... yet this could
be a plus, because they could lead the world in innovations to cope with that,
that the rest of the world will adopt when they catch up.

Can you give examples of Japanese disruptive innovation in planes, ships,
cars? (I see your account is 14 hours old, and your comment history is a mix
of intelligent discussion and reddit-style quips - I urge you to favour the
former on HN).

 _EDIT_ if you are interested in constructive argument here, I'll offer some
of Christensen's thoughts on _disruption_ : it is lower-cost and/or targets
non-consumers of an established product (e.g. as _wii_ expanded the userbase
of "game-players"), but it's not good enough for high-end consumers (e.g.
hard-core gamers); over time it improves and replaces the established product
when it does become good enough (unless the innovation is "co-opted", as
_Kinect_ is trying to do with _wii_ ).

------
pieter
Perhaps someone can tell about about the perception of nuclear reactors in
Japan after the earthquake. Is there any knee-jerk reaction calling for the
demolition of all existing reactors and stopping of all plans, or do most
people have the same reaction Patrick has, seeing this as somewhat of a
success? Is there any hysteria about the current problems with some of the
reactors?

~~~
patio11
Interest in the nuclear question is running very high. Japan historically has
a complicated relationship with nuclear power, for all the obvious reasons.
(Heck, _I_ got freaked out when I saw the word "hibakusha" used in print today
in a context not related to WWII.)

I would characterize the tenor of reports I saw on NHK earlier as "visible
concern" on the part of the anchor and "restrained professionalism" on the
part of their expert guests

I've said this before, though: Japan is a big country and it's diversity is
often underappreciated. There is largely not a monolithic Japanese viewpoint
on this. The same goes for just about everything. (See also: the United
States.)

~~~
huhtenberg
I read what you wrote in the linked post, and your view of the situation
appears to be... erm... too bright if you will.

Were there not repeated cooling system failure resulting cooling pumps running
on _batteries_ (that needed to be swapped every few hours)? This sounds to me
less like "something working as designed" and more like scraping last fallback
options. Releasing (lightly radioactive) steam to ease the pressure in a
chamber they _have no view or control over_ doesn't sound that much better
either. Nor does the evacuation of 140,000 people "from the area around
Fukushima".

All in all, based on the quotes of Japanese authorities that sip into the
Reuters' feed - they did not have a situation under full control at several
points. They handled it as professional as it's possible, no doubts about it,
but it could've unfolded differently.

~~~
epochwolf
Worst possible case right now is a meltdown in the core (which is not
explosive, just hot thermally and radioactively). A meltdown is not a problem
because containment vessel is still intact and it's designed to handle a
meltdown. It's just expensive and a bit dangerous to clean up radioactive
sludge off the bottom of the containment vessel. (The building that blew off
just protected the containment vessel from weather.) The article linked by
anonymous246 explains in detail.

------
shadowsun7
Thank you, patio11. I saw this on Twitter and read half of it with my mouth
hanging open. (Somewhat related: this great post by Makiko Itoh
[http://makikoitoh.com/journal/memorable-tweet-japan-
earthqua...](http://makikoitoh.com/journal/memorable-tweet-japan-earthquake))

I can't help but think what a disaster of this scale would look like in almost
any other country but Japan. Checklists at almost every level of response is
unimaginable in most countries I know (though maybe Singapore ...). If this
were a 3rd world nation things would have been very, very different.

~~~
rmc
_I can't help but think what a disaster of this scale would look like in
almost any other country but Japan_

Probably might look like the 2010 Haitian earthquake or the 2004 Indian ocean
earthquake/tsunami

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_ocean_earthquake>

------
benohear
Brilliant article. I have written to the UK Guardian and Independent
encouraging them to syndicate it.

~~~
adelevie
Articles like this really demonstrate the value of HN as a community.

Most people would never think a relatively obscure software blog would be a
source of some of the most reliable information about an event that the entire
world is watching. Because we read HN (probably more often than we should), we
are more informed than a sizable portion of news consumers.

------
rbarooah
If I could vote this up high enough to reach the pages of the NYT, then I
would. It gives so much perspective on the kinds of things other governments
and societies could actually be doing right.

------
olivercameron
This is a great write-up, thanks Patrick. Very much agreed about the
hyperbolic news coverage, my Mother called me at 3am to warn me that a giant
tsunami was about to hit San Francisco (where I live). Human engineering
really prevailed this time. Still, shockingly sad to see videos like this:

<http://ow.ly/4dvh0>

------
mantas
Agreed. After living in Japan for a while, european point of view on this
earthquake makes me smile.

Anyway, prayers and best wishes to Japan.

On nuclear reactors: I bet Japan will restart them soon. Give them a month,
max 3. For the fcks sake, they still hunt whales. IMHO Japan is one of those
countries that still don't give a damn about loud-screamos. Although they'll
upgrade their plants to prevent failure like this one. Kudos to them.

~~~
brazzy
Re reactors: you're kidding yourself. The reacors that shut down regularly
will be restarted, sure. But those where cooling failed will NOT run in a
month or 3. Those where the core melted are gone beyond salvage.

And patio11 is talking bullshit as well: the situation at Fukushiuma may not
be a Apocalyptic Nightmare Scenarios _yet_ , but the systems did _not_ work
"exactly as designed", the situation it's _not_ under control, and may still
turn into a ANS if containment fails and the wind turns towards Tokyo (which
is forecast to happen around Tuesday). Flooding the building with sea water is
a desparate measure, not SOP.

~~~
radu_floricica
Since AFAIK they were designed to withstand a 8.2 earthquake, they pretty much
exceeded expectation. And we can reasonably count on the standards being
upgraded significantly after this.

I like a lot the comparison of nuclear energy with airplane safety: when you
look at the statistics, it's a lot safer. But when it fails, it makes the
headlines.

~~~
brazzy
The richter scale is pretty meaningless in that regard because it measures the
total energy released by a quake, not the destructive power at a given point.
To use it for a design spec, you'd have to specify the depth of the quake, the
length and frequency of the shockwaves and, most importantly, the distance
from the epicenter.

I'd be very interested to learn what those specs actually said. If it really
was a Richter scale value, it would logically have to be at point blank, which
this quake wasn't. If so, the energy that hit the reactors may well have been
considerably less than what they were designed for,

------
X-Istence
Thank you Patrick for a very insightful and interesting piece explaining how
Japan is engineered to react in situations such as these.

The checklists are absolutely fantastic. I've been a part of writing various
different disaster manuals that were to be used in the event of X and none of
them had checklists, I am going to have to add that in.

------
charlief
Thank you for this and it was highly informative, but the article's tone seems
a bit apathetic to me. It is still tough for me to stomach even a little
engineering pride in the immediate wake of a tragedy of this magnitude. I know
the policies and procedures in place worked as they should for the
earthquake's immediate damage, but what about the specific preparedness for
the tsunami, which will be the largest cause of causalities. It is an
enormously challenging problem, but surely more could have been done.

Also: Would be better to say Great Britain and Honshu are about the same size
instead that Honshu is larger (Britain is slightly larger). _Leiman Shock_ :
slight spelling error in Lehman Brothers?

~~~
Helianthus16
More can always be done. Confining your reaction to the emotional is
uninformative and exactly the sort of panic that our media creates and is
creating about this event.

If you can't slip smoothly from being sad about the death and destruction to
analyzing the disaster response dispassionately, that's your problem.

~~~
charlief
I think a comprehensive discussion includes the large moral impact:
causalities from tsunami. I believe the article was pretty apathetic to this
matter, and the high-number of causalities may conflict with the premise that
everything went as planned. You said more can always be done, but I would like
to know what. I think it is pretty self-righteous to prioritize our media-
distortion matters over this question. Perhaps I had poor choice of words, but
I believe this does not entirely invalidate my point.

~~~
Helianthus16
This post as a whole is not a comprehensive discussion of the quake. It is
explicitly about the media distortion of the event. If your point is valid it
remains off-topic.

Additionally, your language indicates you're still not grasping the problem we
are examining. There is no "premise that everything went as planned." That is
absolutely not his point at all. His point is that there is a hugely complex
system that performed admirably, that emergency relief systems are a war
against the unexpected.

I think it's pretty self-righteous to prioritize the decision-making that the
Japanese will take care of on their over examining and controlling our own
reactions, reactions based on a poor understanding of the emergency response
and hysterical reporting.

------
jkuria
Good to hear you are safe Patrick! And thanks for educating us on Japan's
Geography etc

------
lwat
Anyone with a mirror please?

~~~
patio11
I'm getting hammered pretty hard (Jimmy Wales decided to retweet it), and
discovered a bug in my Apache configs, but have fixed it. It should hopefully
hold up.

The larger bug is, of course, using Apache when if this had been on Nginx I
would be snug in my bed right now instead of getting paged. _shakes fist_

~~~
lwat
Thank you!

------
hunterp
Nukes are only "safe" when built to spec like the functioning,socialist
government of Japan is capable of. And then very "intelligent" blog articles
try to rationalize a cancer causing, radiation inducing thing. Nuke plants
that are old, not kept up to date, etc are very very dangerous. As economies
ebb and flow, the demand for energy always is present, but the resources to
keep a plant up to spec are not. Sustainable resources like hydro, wind,
solar, geothermal and tidal are far less worrysome, on a _different_ level of
dangerous, and do not require disaster contingency plans after contingency
plans. Keep It Simple Stupid, nukes are not simple and they are not stupid,
let us usher in an era of idiot proof nuke free earth that allows for energy
independence from the empire of the nuclear grid. To the solarnet! To the
hydronet! To the geonet! To the windnet! To the tidalnet!

~~~
mistermann
I have to assume you are joking?

~~~
hunterp
Not joking at all. The reason sustainables are not super popular is that they
have high initial investment costs, and represent decentralized power. Unless
you have a united force supporting them like the spanish government (Spain is
one of the most sustainable countries) or the recent 10 billion dollar
investment for offshore wind by South Korea, you are not really going to win
the economic battle necessary to get us going sustainable. Sustainables are a
form of decentralized power, so there are a lot of reasons why centralized
power does not want it to exist.

~~~
hunterp
Since this thread started, Japan has now 3 failed reactors, and 1 approaching
meltdown. I take that back. No government, private industry, etc, no matter
how organized is equipped to handle nuclear energy at the scale they currently
operate at. There are nuclear projects that operate on 1/100th the scale. And
this represents a decentralization of power. I'm still not interested in
nuclear power. There are so many lucrative, healthy, green, sustainable
alternatives.

