My TV started working again after shaking some cables-so I will not get enough work done, will not become rich and famous, and so will have time to keep posting.

speaking of which, the last 2 earthquakes this Weds evening were both on the Northern Mid Atlantic ridge. The first was a 4.8. A bit over 7 hours later there was a M5.4 800 km to the north. The 4.8 was too small to have a significant static stress change at that distance. The time lag was too long for P or S wave direct triggering. Coincidence? Sure it could be. But, I've seen a lot of this-pair of earthquakes (or 3 of them) in the same day, a couple thousand or few hundred km apart. I would say that this is not a coincidence, and that no one understands what is happening. Since I believe that how earthquakes are triggered is not well understood, then I am open to many of Lowell Whiteside's (and other) ideas, as long as they are a little bit plausible. But, there has to be a correlation, and it helps if there is a physical reason why there should be a relationship. I happened to sit between 2 well-known geophysicists at a SCEC meeting quite a few years ago; both knew Lowell, and one had calculated the stress on a fault from a (strong) magnetic storm. It seemed plausible. But, now Roger's correlation of solar flares to M5s does not look like anything is there. But, we have not checked magnetic storms to M 5+s, or to M3s, or to M3s in a particular region.
Chris

• NEIC earthquakes