When the Ridgecrest earthquake reached L.A. yesterday evening (no damage this far from the epicenter from that quake or the one the previous day) I was “in” a moving elevator under attack in the “Vader Immortal” Oculus Quest VR simulation. I didn’t realize that there was a quake at all, everything seemed part of the VR experience (haptic feedback in the hand controllers was already buzzing my arms at the time).

The only oddity was that I heard a strange clinking sound, that at the time had no obvious source but that I figured was somehow part of the simulation. Actually, it was probably the sound of ceiling fan knob chains above me hitting the glass light bulb fixtures as the fan was presumably swaying a bit.

Quakes of this sort are actually very easy to miss if you’re not sitting or standing quietly (I barely felt the one the previous day and wasn’t immediately sure that it was a quake), but I did find my experience last night to be rather amusing in retrospect.

By the way, “Vader Immortal” — and the Quest itself — are very, very cool, very much 21st century “sci-fi” tech finally realized. My thanks to Oculus for sending me a Quest for my experiments.

–Lauren–