From: andy@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Andy Michael USGS Guest)
Subject: Re: predictions
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 21:39:28 GMT

A few comments that relate to my experience with Jack Coles.  But first
the disclaimer as this may get touchy.
                       DISCLAIMER
Nothing in this submission represents an official opinion of the United
States Geological Survey or Government in any way, shape or form. The
contents have not undergone the internal review process of the U.S.
Geological Survey and thus can not be quoted or referenced.  This
submission soley represents the opinion of the author.

In article <9wmqoB2w163w@quake.sylmar.ca.us> nateh@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Nate Hawthorn) writes:
>Posts about Mr. Coles...
>>> What exactly *is* the data that he is gathering?
>and so on....
Last I checked he was listening to noise on AM radios.  He also has lots
of other electronics around but to my knowledge all of the predictions
were made by what he, and only he, could hear.

>I saw that someone said he is NOT releasing his data, but he does seem
>to tell us one is comming? (Sept 11?)..
Sept 11, 1992????  His last big prediction, which wasted about a month of
my time, was for Sept 11, 1991.

>So why doesnt he simply put together a list of his predictions for
>the last year or whatever and then show the events that seem to match up.
Most of his predictions are sufficiently vague that such lists are hard to do.

>I would assume that he would have a way of verifying that he made these
>predictions *before* the events, like telling a friend to write it down
>or something (this is simple).
The generally accepted method is sending a telegram to someone so it is
logged by Western Union.  We reccommended this to him last year but he declined.

>My data on my system logs to a computer, so I can even look back (actually I 
>*have* to look back because I let it run for days at a time anyway) and then 
>match it up with USGS data I get to see what I "predicted".
Good.

>I am just starting this, so I don't have data for the last year, and
>because I don't have much data my "theory" can be proven to work
>very easily. THe more data I have the more likely my theory will get
>thrown in the trash!
Happens around here too.  Some of the best patterns we've found have
dissappeared soon after being noticed.  This makes the chaos types
quite happy.

>Also, I really do not want to release my "method" to the public yet
>because I don't want some university using it and then inviting the
>news media over to see what they are doing and acting like they
>"thought" of it. I really hate that!!
That's why journals are used to establish priority in science.

>Also the USGS data "event times" never seem to be quite right, I wish
>we could E-Mail them with correct times so that they could correct
>them so I don't have to sit here and fiddle around. And some type
>of "binary" data file format would be nice so that it's all
>computer readable too??
OUR EVENT TIMES ARE OFF!?!  Admittedly origin times have standard errors
on the order of a few hundredths of a second, but I doubt that's what
you mean.  And we have a fairly substantial investment in clocks around
here.  Leap seconds are big changes to us, millisecond corrections are
enough to be announced in memos.

One source of confusion I can thing of is that the report discusses
event in local times but the table is in UCT (sometimes referred to as
GMT).  However the report states this.

As for Northern California data you can get in online via anonymous ftp
from alum.wr.usgs.gov in the pub/summary directory.  Internet number is
130.118.120.30.  That's the same directory I use the data from so we
aren't hiding anything.  Someday we would like to have a BBS but we don't
yet.  Sorry.

>I will be releasing my data as soon as I get enough, I don't think I will be 
>releasing my "method" for a while. THe data can stand on it's own, if it 
>shows the correlations correctly then it doesn't matter what I am using to 
>get the data or what "theory" people may have as to why the thing works
>(like why does a magnet stick to my fridge? who cares, it just does!)
Sorry, but scientists will care.  For one thing understanding the
mechanism helps get away from arguing about statistics.

Andy