7.1 Earthquake in Japan • Hacker News Board

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#101

Post by dfxm12 » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #95

bombcar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hundred years from now people are going to be absolutely flabbergasted how we just piped gas everywhere all the time. Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards.

> Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards. Since the mid-2000s there has actually been a push by Japanese utility companies for adoption of what they call "all-electric" オール電化. Adoption has been reasonably good with new-builds because they can also have solar panels. But adoption in older properties has been slower. First in general, electricity in Japan has tended to be more expensive than gas. Seco…

The study doesn't appear to be blind (not sure how you can do a blind cooking test). Also, The panellists were satisfied with cooking when they could control the heat as desired suggests inexperience with electric is a part of preference (as a personal anecdote, it took me a few months to get used to an electric stove in a new house after a lifetime of cooking on gas). This is also over a decade old. There have been some advancements in electric cookery since.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#102

Post by lstodd » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #90

traceroute66 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The mall had a (most likely gas) explosion If the internet searches are to be believed, that is indeed sadly likely to be the cause. The internet suggests the explosion happened on the second floor of the mall where a large food court is located.

A hundred years from now people are going to be absolutely flabbergasted how we just piped gas everywhere all the time. Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards.

Electrical is inadequate power delivery-wise and requires completely different cookware to the point that it's a different cuisine.

For example to replicate a gas burner you have to have above 15KW continious power. Good luck wiring that into your apartment, or feeding this with local solar. Or even finding an induction stovetop that won't melt its insides in a year or two at a measly 5KW.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#103

Post by sph » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

tkgally wrote: post #17

In parts of Kumamoto Prefecture, it registered 7 on the Japanese shindo (seismic intensity) scale, which reflects the amount of ground shaking at a particular location. The shindo is a better indicator of the likely amount of damage than the magnitude is. A shindo of 7 is extremely strong [1]. Ten minutes ago (at around 17:15 p.m. Japan time), NHK was reporting that there were many emergency calls coming in from Uki…

English link on the shindo scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_se...

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#104

Post by spike021 » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 2:19 PM UTC

DiscourseFan wrote: post #19

Kumamoto is barely finished rebuilding from the last quake, you can still see cracks in structures as you drive down the road. This is really horrible; not to mention the city is already beginning to depopulate as the youth move north to Fukuoka.

I wouldn't let this get in the way of going there though. Kumamoto is a very nice prefecture to see. They will rebuild (again) and it'll continue to be a great place.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#105

Post by reustle » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 2:19 PM UTC

goginko wrote: post #78

This was my first real earthquake since moving to Kyushu. After it stopped I looked it up, and the first place to post the epicenter and shindo was NERV's twitter...which is named after the org from the anime and has an anime screenshot as its banner ( https://x.com/EN_NERV ). Apparently it's a real disaster information service, though. It's been mentioned before but maybe interesting to some ( https://news.ycombinat…

You can keep an eye on this english tracker in the browser too https://earthquakesjapan.com

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#106

Post by peter_stokes » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 2:20 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #77

shoobiedoo wrote: post #43

Fukuoka here (about 100km from Kumamoto) and definitely felt it, so it must have been a real big one in Kumamoto itself. My friend was driving home from work closer to Miyazaki and didn't feel the quake, but had huge hailstones hitting his car. There's a rapture going on or something

[flagged]

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Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#107

Post by SoftTalker » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 2:29 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #40

amelius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the not so strong old buildings have collapsed during previous quakes?

Possibly, and then rebuilt. They rebuild houses every 20, 30 odd years anyway (according to https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl... ), and temples too https://longnow.org/ideas/long-term-building-in-japan/ .

Meanwhile here an 80 year old, completely unremarkable house is likely to get declared "historic" and you as the owner can't even change the windows without permission. Tearing it down would be virtually impossible.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#108

Post by mishellaneous » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #95

bombcar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hundred years from now people are going to be absolutely flabbergasted how we just piped gas everywhere all the time. Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards.

> Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards. Since the mid-2000s there has actually been a push by Japanese utility companies for adoption of what they call "all-electric" オール電化. Adoption has been reasonably good with new-builds because they can also have solar panels. But adoption in older properties has been slower. First in general, electricity in Japan has tended to be more expensive than gas. Seco…

odd not to mention resistance heating in what otherwise seems like a thorough review of the question

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#109

Post by sandworm101 » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #90

traceroute66 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The mall had a (most likely gas) explosion If the internet searches are to be believed, that is indeed sadly likely to be the cause. The internet suggests the explosion happened on the second floor of the mall where a large food court is located.

A hundred years from now people are going to be absolutely flabbergasted how we just piped gas everywhere all the time. Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards.

Replicating the power density of a gas pipe requires far more than 110v ac. The future might wonder why we accepted the danger of 5,000v power lines running through food courts just to avoid using gas burners.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#110

Post by klausa » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 2:49 PM UTC

lstodd wrote: post #102

bombcar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hundred years from now people are going to be absolutely flabbergasted how we just piped gas everywhere all the time. Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards.

Electrical is inadequate power delivery-wise and requires completely different cookware to the point that it's a different cuisine. For example to replicate a gas burner you have to have above 15KW continious power. Good luck wiring that into your apartment, or feeding this with local solar. Or even finding an induction stovetop that won't melt its insides in a year or two at a measly 5KW.

I can personally guarantee you that the average Japanese コンロ does not have a heat output that would require 15kW of power to match using IH.

And that’s before we get into the safety features of modern ones that bring that limit even lower.