Hi EQF:

There is a misundestanding here.

I had mentioned the planetary alignments example with the intention of showing that seemingly rare events may in fact happen quite frequently and not to imply that you use planetary alignments other than the sun/moon in your quake predictions.

I will revisit your web-pages (when I get the chance).

I see...a match based on tides/position but without the tone ...(with the assumption that there might have been a similar tone at the time?)

Regarding the 1/20000 calculation...be forewarned that planetary alignments (using more than sun/moon) also have small odds like this (when looking at timing) but that alignments and quakes happening are more common than you might think. So statistical calculations like the one you mentioned can be a pitfall leading you to believe the event was not a coincidence. When looking at a large number of cases these seemingly rare events may be more common than you think. You have to actually look at a large number of cases though to find out.

Congratulations on your persuasive abilities. I'm glad that you have supporters. I still think they may be looking more at your heart than your predictions though...(due to the missing statistical analysis of your predictions showing the success rate/false alarm rate). Do you plan on ever producing a success (hit) rate and false alarm rate ? Have any of your supporters asked for this type of information from you ?

I think argument from objective and knowledgeable people can help re-focus ones efforts to be more fruitful by identifying the pitfalls early on. Who wants to re-invent the wheel? I also agree that destructive arguements waste time and energy and I assume that that is what you are referring to.

Formal technical publications invite hostile reviewers as a matter of course to put the reasoning and data through a "sanity check" /"acid test". Supposedly, formal techinical publication yields a paper with fewer technical mistakes that would otherwise be present. Sometimes stuff slips through the cracks though....

It sounds like you self-published your paper. With recent technology improvements in publishing the costs have dropped down quite a bit. Some might even argue that the internet provides a near free way to publish something. It appears that you have done that with your web-pages.

Just what little "air change" I have left on this one....

$.002