Laser Mouses might be used to predict/detect earthquakes (and ground movement).

mouses? Lamaar.

Probably call this more of a 'seismic' detector.

Could 'improve' the sensitivity by lengthening the light path.

Good price.

Is it red or IR? If red, can you see speckles?

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Great idea! I'm sure NSA could easily collect and store all mouse data (in fact may have already done so) from all over the world. A small algorithm and bingo! The entire world protected from earthquakes with a warnng!

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        /\  \         /\  \         /\__\          /\  \ 
       /::\  \       /::\  \       /::|  |         \:\  \ 
      /:/\:\  \     /:/\:\  \     /:|:|  |     ___ /::\__\ 
     /::\~\:\__\   /::\~\:\  \   /:/|:|  |__  /\  /:/\/__/ 
    /:/\:\ \:|__| /:/\:\ \:\__\ /:/ |:| /\__\ \:\/:/  / 
    \:\~\:\/:/  / \:\~\:\ \/__/ \/__|:|/:/  /  \::/  / 
     \:\ \::/  /   \:\ \:\__\       |:/:/  /    \/__/ 
      \:\/:/  /     \:\ \/__/       |::/  / 
       \_:/__/       \:\__\         /:/  / 
                      \/__/         \/__/

Maybe the sikulix logs are false alarms, are some kind of bug inside sikuli or perhaps even windows:

[error] RobotDesktop: checkMousePosition: should be L(62,13)@S(0)[0,0 1920x1200] but after move is L(516,407)@S(0)[0,0 1920x1200] Possible cause in case you did not touch the mouse while script was running: Mouse actions are blocked generally or by the frontmost application. You might try to run the SikuliX stuff as admin. [error] RobotDesktop: checkMousePosition: should be L(62,13)@S(0)[0,0 1920x1200] but after move is L(516,407)@S(0)[0,0 1920x1200] Possible cause in case you did not touch the mouse while script was running: Mouse actions are blocked generally or by the frontmost application. You might try to run the SikuliX stuff as admin.

These "mouse position jumps" from 62,13 to 515,407 seem unrealistic to me.

Also seeing the double report kinda confirms that this is probably something weird within sikuli or windows.

However this does not explain the screen saver interruptions. It could be caused by the same bug within windows.

Or perhaps the screen saver interruptions are indeed caused by mouse movements.

I'm thinking of perhaps writing a little applications to "observe" the mouse positions during a full night or day of inactivity on my part.

Just to see if such a simple application would detect tiny mouse movements which seems somewhat more believable to me.

I would not be surprised if such a little app would indeed detect such movements.

However, for now too busy with other stuff ;) also chance of earthquake in my part of the world small.

But if you live in california or so... and you a pc programmer you could give it a try ;)

Bye, Skybuck :)

They are IR. I keep wearing out microswitches in mice, so I bought three spares, and 50 new Omron D2FC-F-7N switches. The Switches were $12.90, delivered. That should last me several years. :)

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to 
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

I thought it would be a good alternative to Scientific American Amateur Sci entist articles about homegrown seismography. Indeed we have tried a while with my grad student in 2000, just after the big quake in Izmit, Turkey (au g 1999). I should say it was a good idea, and it would be easy to integrate into a wide network, but ours would require a specific setting, immune to jerky movements.

There was an initiative from Stanford, I do not know their recent progress but the web page is

.

Then there were many accelerometers arising, first by Analog Devices, and a new era started with smartphones equipped with very many sensitive sensors . I think a connected seismogrid should better be based on smartphones, wit h already connected to a wide network, and good selection of sensors.

Still i am in love with optical mice anyway. I am using those for laser spe ckle based motion measurements, fast machine vision cameras, etc. there are several nice projects disclosed in the web.

Best wishes for the new year, Adnan Kurt