Amaranthian

So outside my work they're adding a new building, and since all of the city of Emeryville is apparently landfill or marshy land, they have to do some pile driving to shore up the dirt under the new building spot. This basically involves a big hammer making a lot of noise driving a big spike into the ground. Big as in like 50 ft long and a foot or so wide. It's pretty loud and you can feel the vibrations if you're relatively close. This is happening basically right outside my corner of the current building at work.

Check out a couple videos someone made yesterday:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oaklandearthgirl/3425906545
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oaklandearthgirl/3426731730

The seismometer iPhone application shown in the second video works pretty well. I have some screenshots of it sitting on my desk... the vibrations are damped through the building's earthquake resistant foundations and my desk setup. When the worst of it is happening, at my desk you can clearly hear it like someone's talking rather loudly, and my monitor is shaking so it's as if my vision's getting blurry.

Kinda cool, but we're going to have 6 continuous weeks of this starting in May. I think we're all going to go mad.