Roger,

As I stated, I have found from long experience that it is impossible to argue with you regarding certain subjects. But, to help with this type of matter I am considering posting a report to one of my Web sites titled:

“Why Governments Can’t Predict Earthquakes”

It will explain how researchers can get their brain cells locked into some fixed mode regarding various subjects. In the mean time you might do some reading on the “Stockholm Syndrome.”

In the case of earthquake forecasting, the Stockholm Syndrome “captors” controlling the thoughts of government officials and earthquake researchers are the terrifying (for them) possibilities related to:

1. Reporting a forecast in public that causes a city to be partially evacuated only to have the earthquake never occur.

2. Reporting a forecast in public that does not cause any problems, but the earthquake never occurs. And the forecaster or forecasters are ridiculed by other researchers for their inaccurate forecast.

3. The fear that other people will steal their technology or individual forecasts.

My first formal earthquake warning was sent to the U.S. government on December 30, 1994, a little over two weeks before an earthquake devastated the city of Kobe, Japan. And I have circulated quite a few warnings and advisories since then. But not one of them to my knowledge has ever caused anyone to go into a panic and think about evacuating some city.

People in the general public simply read them and decide that they contain data being sent from one researcher to other researchers. And they assume that if there is something that they need to know related to the data then someone will eventually explain it to them.

I am an experienced disaster management professional. And I know what to say and not say in a public earthquake warning or advisory. Many other forecasters are too lazy to learn how to circulate forecasts in public without causing problems. And as a consequence, when they do circulate public warnings they often get themselves into trouble.

On another note,

I don't presently have time to work with anyone regarding software development. So, you will have a long wait to see the Perl code for my present program. However, the original probability equations and code have been stored on one of my Web sites for years.

The software work that needs to be done right now I have to do myself. Decisions need to be made regarding what code to create at the same time that the data are being displayed.

The latest addition to my forecasting program is starting to work really well. It lets researchers look at data going from the present back to the beginning of 2001, all at the same time.

These are personal opinions.