Comments on: Real-Time Global Bad News Map

Real-Time Global Bad News Map

fenriq — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:14:46 -0800

The Global Trouble AlertMap
Are you curious about that chemical spill in Minnesota? Or how about the bio hazard situation in Honduras? The Havaria Information Systems AlertMap is updated in (near) real-time and the wealth of bad news is fairly astonishing. Plus they've got RSS feeds for whatever bad (or locationally relevant) news you want delivered. There are USA only maps, Europe only maps and Hungary too (slow day, just a fire). Previously (focused on bird flu tracking though several comments note how freakin' cool the map is)

By: amyms

amyms — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:40:29 -0800

Wow, this IS cool!

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:44:07 -0800

I knew there was gonna be a fire in Hungary today! And this site confirmed it!

By: bshock

bshock — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:44:37 -0800

This looks quite interesting, but terribly incomplete. I'd like to see a similar map for human-caused trouble spots. Granted, that might require a great deal more work to update.

By: metasonix

metasonix — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 00:01:15 -0800

Great idea, and Hungarians invented it. BTW.....I suspect that the earthquake information on this map comes from the USGS site. The info provided looks amazingly similar. A shame that a US government or UN organization can't host such a website. Wonder how much of it is aggregated from their online sources?

By: onalark

onalark — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 00:53:51 -0800

Click on the links, this appears to be a very well-done feed aggregator with a novel presentation. I'm surprised Google didn't come up with this themselves.

By: algreer

algreer — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 01:21:47 -0800

This looks really great. A glitch - on the europe only map, clicking on the flashing aeroplane on the west cost of Ireland takes you to a Russian vehicle accident.

By: Catfry

Catfry — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 02:20:04 -0800

This is wonderful! er... I mean... It is fun to click on all the 'unusual' icons. What about that radioactive sign out in the pacific? And what is that 's' shape in Iran? Great resource!

By: Catfry

Catfry — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 02:23:04 -0800

Also, metasonix, down at the bottom on the main page you can se their data providers. And yes, USGS is one of them.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 02:55:49 -0800

A glitch - on the europe only map, clicking on the flashing aeroplane on the west cost of Ireland takes you to a Russian vehicle accident. Hmmm, maybe there's a connection.

By: mmahaffie

mmahaffie — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 06:00:01 -0800

It seems so obvious an idea for an aggregator that you know it has to have been done already. My guess is that there are similar applications already in place in various Emergency Ops Centers; they are simply not shared publicly. The cultural tendency for the Emergency Ops folks is to not put things out into the world at large like this. Having said that, I plan to send this link to my state's Homeland Security Department IT manager. I'll be curious to see how he responds.

By: mmahaffie

mmahaffie — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 06:08:27 -0800

It's interesting that the mouse-over text available for some of the incident icons is in (what I guess is) Magyar. And I wonder why not ll icons have mouse-over text. I can see that I will be spending way too much time on this. "Hours of Schadenfreudean (sp?) fun!"

By: grytpype

grytpype — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 07:16:58 -0800

"Whatta we got cookin on the big board? Nothin? Nothin at all?"

By: fluffycreature

fluffycreature — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:16:42 -0800

A good first attempt at aggregating this information. Compiling all of this and viewing in near real time would prove interesting, I would like to see (a better interface) this information captured and then play it over a year or decade. A for effort....

By: scarabic

scarabic — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 09:39:46 -0800

Man, the Pacific Rim is FUCKED UP.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:38:10 -0800

Brilliant site, long overdue in the making. Great post, thanks. Plenty of stuff one doesn't hear about usually, like the outbreak of Avian Flu in Tibet. Yeah, it's definitely surprising there hasn't been something like this out there ages ago. Wish the site were a bit more sophisticated, that the descriptions and mouse-over info were more in English than a hodgepodge of English and Hungarian. Still, a very useful and interesting site.

By: aerotive

aerotive — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:49:24 -0800

Very cool and NORADish.

By: X4ster

X4ster — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 21:38:55 -0800

fenrig, Thank's for posting this, it'll go right at the top of my list of links to check daily. I'll also be watching for alternative sites showing problems, developing disasters etc. worldwide that may be created in the future. This link provides a quick summary of all manner of problems worldwide and just may give an opportunity for better preparedness for those of us who are disaster responders. It helps greatly to have the earliest possible awareness or what we may have to deal with.

By: nekton

nekton — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:15:37 -0800

I was sort of disappointed to find that the little airplane icon (that looked like it was in Providence, RI) turned out to be a plane with a bent wing in Beverly, MA. I suppose that's a little bit more of an emergency than, say, air traffic delays, but still... I also find it interesting that the glowing biohazard in Texas turned out to be a stranded pod of dolphins. I wonder if this map has been noting the strandings of dolphins in MA over the winter as biohazards?