Lawyers have been submitting plenty of billable hours in the three years since BP's well blew in the Gulf of Mexico. Today they are actually in court, making arguments to a jury. One thing the delay has done is allow time for people to forget what happened.
Let's do a little review. The BP well was drilled 13000 feet into a high pressure gas and oil deposit. For some reason BP decided not to bring the well into production. Instead BP tried to shut it down. They pumped cement between the drill pipe and the rocky hole to seal it. After the cement was given enough time to harden, pressure readings indicated that the cement job was leaking. Donald Vidrene and Robert Kaluza, two BP executives aboard the drill rig, ordered the readings ignored and to proceed to pump out the drilling mud. Personnel from Trans Ocean (rig owner) and Halliburton (cement contractor) protested, saying the well was leaking high pressure natural gas. The BP men ignored this advice and continued to pump out the mud and replace it with sea water. The mud is very heavy and a 5000 foot column of mud is enough to contain the gas. Seawater is much lighter and cannot withstand gas pressure. The highly flammable natural gas, under great pressure, forced its way all the way up the drill pipe out onto the drill rig and ignited. The resulting fires and explosions sank the rig and killed 11 workers. Mr Vidren and Mr. Kaluza took the fifth amendment to avoid testifying at the inquiry, and then fled the country.
An attempt was made to close the blow out preventer, a 500 ton valve on the sea floor to shut off the drill pipe. This attempt failed. Better than a year later, the blow out preventer was salvaged from the sea floor and brought up to a dock. Engineers reported that the drill pipe was off center which prevented the rams from closing the pipe off. That's a major design failure of the blow out preventer..
The root cause of the accident is the decision by the BP executives on the rig to ignore indications of a leak and pump out the drilling mud. The failure of the blow out preventer is a secondary issue, apparently that design is an industry standard. I won't fault BP for using an approved industry standard device, even it failed to work.
The above information is from the Wall St. Journal, the only paper to cover the accident. The rest of the MSM were conspicuous by their absence.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Sequester Sky is still Falling
We have the president and secretaries of Navy and Interior on TV whining about awful budget cuts. Suck it in Obama administration. If you can't handle a chicken feed 3% fake budget cut, the Republic is doomed.
Fake budget cuts happen when the agency gets less than it asked for. Real budget cuts happen when the agency gets less money than it got last time. The famous sequester is all fake budget cuts. Nothing real about the sequester.
The Republicans gave you a $600 billion tax hike just last month . Naturally they aren't gonna give you another one this quarter. Get used to it.
Fake budget cuts happen when the agency gets less than it asked for. Real budget cuts happen when the agency gets less money than it got last time. The famous sequester is all fake budget cuts. Nothing real about the sequester.
The Republicans gave you a $600 billion tax hike just last month . Naturally they aren't gonna give you another one this quarter. Get used to it.
Oscars go world wide
Iranian TV carried the Oscar show. The mullahs thought Michelle Obama's dress was too revealing and had them airbrush on a high necked blouse.
The amusing part is that Iran is so hungry for Hollywood fluff from the Great Satan that they are showing the American Oscars. Presumably it ran with Persian subtitles, but it is hard to imagine getting much enjoyment out of the Oscars if you don't understand English. And know something about the movies, actors and actresses. It's like watching football or NASCAR. You have to be a fan to get much out of it. Sounds like Hollywood still has a lot of fans in Iran. There is more to being a superpower than nukes and planes and tanks.
The amusing part is that Iran is so hungry for Hollywood fluff from the Great Satan that they are showing the American Oscars. Presumably it ran with Persian subtitles, but it is hard to imagine getting much enjoyment out of the Oscars if you don't understand English. And know something about the movies, actors and actresses. It's like watching football or NASCAR. You have to be a fan to get much out of it. Sounds like Hollywood still has a lot of fans in Iran. There is more to being a superpower than nukes and planes and tanks.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Pediatrics scores again
This in from NPR. The pediatrics association is now advising doctors to lay off the antibiotics for childhood ear infections. They claim the ear infection often clears up by it self, the antibiotics can lead to upset stomaches, and overuse of antibiotics is breeding up generations of drug resistant super bugs.
Right. So kiss goodbye to that pink bottle of amoxcylin in the fridge.
And, speaking from personal experience, those ear infections REALLY hurt bad. And kids get a LOT of them. Like at least once a winter until they grow out of them. And the antibiotics make the hurt go away within hours, not days. And compared to the pain of an ear infection, upset stomach is a none starter. And in a country that routine feeds antibiotics to farm animals to make them gain weight faster, don't worry about the small amount of antibiotics given to small children.
Right. So kiss goodbye to that pink bottle of amoxcylin in the fridge.
And, speaking from personal experience, those ear infections REALLY hurt bad. And kids get a LOT of them. Like at least once a winter until they grow out of them. And the antibiotics make the hurt go away within hours, not days. And compared to the pain of an ear infection, upset stomach is a none starter. And in a country that routine feeds antibiotics to farm animals to make them gain weight faster, don't worry about the small amount of antibiotics given to small children.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Virus Hunting
Where do you look for virii? Simple, you look in computer memory (RAM). Computer programs of any kind have to be loaded into memory to work at all. Windows uses the name "Process" for each piece of programming loaded into RAM. Process Explorer is a freeware program that lists all the processes loaded into memory. It can be downloaded from the web. Just Google for "Process Explorer" to find a site to down load it from.
When running, Process Explorer displays a list of all programs loaded in memory, and thus runnable. A typical computer will have about 30 processes loaded. Most of these processes are parts of Windows and are supposed to be there. But if you have a virus, it will show up in the Process Explorer.
So how does one tell the harmless and necessary parts of Windows from virii? Just right click on the process name and Process Explorer will Bing (Microsoft's Google competitor) the internet for information on the program name. Cool. You will get dozens of hits on every process name.
You want to read a number of them. Many of the hits are from websites offering magical Windows Washing programs. I don't trust magical Windows Washers, they can be virii themselves, or they can break your computer. But postings from Microsoft.com, Da Tech Guy, Bleeping Computer, CNET and many others are reliable. Take a preponderance of evidence. If all the posts say it's part of windows, or all the posts say it's a virus, you know where you are at. If most of the posts are wishy-washy, and the single post that calls it a virus sounds like a rant, then it means no one really knows what it is.
So what do you do when you find a virus lurking in RAM? It only gets into RAM by loading itself off disk at boot time. You have to use Windows Explorer to find it on disk and zap it. In fact just to make sure it's really gone, I'd empty the trash after deleting the file.
This is hand-to-hand virus fighting. You only need get into this sort of thing after your anti virus program[s] have failed to kill.
When running, Process Explorer displays a list of all programs loaded in memory, and thus runnable. A typical computer will have about 30 processes loaded. Most of these processes are parts of Windows and are supposed to be there. But if you have a virus, it will show up in the Process Explorer.
So how does one tell the harmless and necessary parts of Windows from virii? Just right click on the process name and Process Explorer will Bing (Microsoft's Google competitor) the internet for information on the program name. Cool. You will get dozens of hits on every process name.
You want to read a number of them. Many of the hits are from websites offering magical Windows Washing programs. I don't trust magical Windows Washers, they can be virii themselves, or they can break your computer. But postings from Microsoft.com, Da Tech Guy, Bleeping Computer, CNET and many others are reliable. Take a preponderance of evidence. If all the posts say it's part of windows, or all the posts say it's a virus, you know where you are at. If most of the posts are wishy-washy, and the single post that calls it a virus sounds like a rant, then it means no one really knows what it is.
So what do you do when you find a virus lurking in RAM? It only gets into RAM by loading itself off disk at boot time. You have to use Windows Explorer to find it on disk and zap it. In fact just to make sure it's really gone, I'd empty the trash after deleting the file.
This is hand-to-hand virus fighting. You only need get into this sort of thing after your anti virus program[s] have failed to kill.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Radioactive waste leaks
News is full of talk about tanks of liquid radioactive waste leaking at Hanford. So why don't they bring in some new tanks and pump out the leaking tanks? If the local tank store is out of stock, how about using some railroad tank cars? Or highway tank trucks? Ought to be able to scare up something in a day or so.
No talk about doing anything about the leaks. Instead we hear soothing talk about no hazard to human health.
I'm glad Hanford on on the other side of the country from me.
No talk about doing anything about the leaks. Instead we hear soothing talk about no hazard to human health.
I'm glad Hanford on on the other side of the country from me.
Guns for Newbies
Been a lotta talk going around about this, up to and including Joe Biden (he likes shotguns). Long post on one of my favorite blogs, all about various calibers, stopping power, full of recommendations by name of obscure guns I barely even heard of. The kind of jargon that goes well in gun magazines. So, here are my recommendations for the total newbie (doesn't own a gun, hasn't fired and gun, doesn't watch many action adventure movies).
Get one that you can shoot well. A .22 caliber hit beats a .44 caliber miss. The bigger guns are more more likely to kill your target, if you can hit said target. Bigger means heavier, harder to hold steady, kicks harder and has a louder report, all of which add up to harder to shoot. Compromise on something you can shoot well, rather than a Dirty Harry style hand cannon.
Handguns are convenient, fit nicely into a drawer, a purse or a glove compartment. It is also VERY difficult to hit anything with a handgun, even at very short range. Long guns are much easier to aim and get hits with. They are also more powerful than handguns, a hit with a rifle or a shotgun is much more likely to kill your opponent than a hit with a handgun.
To do any good, you have to figure on doing some practice shooting. You need to practice long enough to keep all your shots inside a 10 inch circle. (At 25 yards with a handgun, at 100 yards with a rifle). Always wear ear defenders when shooting, they will improve your accuracy. The report of a gun is so loud it scares most of us, and the scare makes us jerk the trigger when we should be gently squeezing it. Shooters call this condition "flinching". Once a flinch is learned, it's hard to overcome. Ear defenders muffle the report enough to prevent a flinch from developing in the first place.
The fit of a hand gun to your hand is very important. The right fit prevents the grip from twisting or sliding in your hand as the gun is fired, which makes the second shot more likely to go where you want it to go. A regular sized handgun is easier to shoot. The little snub nose jobs are harder to aim (and grasp). You really have to shoot a handgun to know if you are going to like it.
Revolvers are more dependable than automatic pistols. Revolvers have no safeties to forget, need little lubrication and have no springs under compression waiting to break. Just pull the trigger and a revolver goes bang. Automatics not so good. American Rifleman magazine did a comparison shopping piece on small automatic pistols not long ago. For each gun reviewed, they listed the number of times it jammed while shooting it. Stick with a revolver.
Get one that you can shoot well. A .22 caliber hit beats a .44 caliber miss. The bigger guns are more more likely to kill your target, if you can hit said target. Bigger means heavier, harder to hold steady, kicks harder and has a louder report, all of which add up to harder to shoot. Compromise on something you can shoot well, rather than a Dirty Harry style hand cannon.
Handguns are convenient, fit nicely into a drawer, a purse or a glove compartment. It is also VERY difficult to hit anything with a handgun, even at very short range. Long guns are much easier to aim and get hits with. They are also more powerful than handguns, a hit with a rifle or a shotgun is much more likely to kill your opponent than a hit with a handgun.
To do any good, you have to figure on doing some practice shooting. You need to practice long enough to keep all your shots inside a 10 inch circle. (At 25 yards with a handgun, at 100 yards with a rifle). Always wear ear defenders when shooting, they will improve your accuracy. The report of a gun is so loud it scares most of us, and the scare makes us jerk the trigger when we should be gently squeezing it. Shooters call this condition "flinching". Once a flinch is learned, it's hard to overcome. Ear defenders muffle the report enough to prevent a flinch from developing in the first place.
The fit of a hand gun to your hand is very important. The right fit prevents the grip from twisting or sliding in your hand as the gun is fired, which makes the second shot more likely to go where you want it to go. A regular sized handgun is easier to shoot. The little snub nose jobs are harder to aim (and grasp). You really have to shoot a handgun to know if you are going to like it.
Revolvers are more dependable than automatic pistols. Revolvers have no safeties to forget, need little lubrication and have no springs under compression waiting to break. Just pull the trigger and a revolver goes bang. Automatics not so good. American Rifleman magazine did a comparison shopping piece on small automatic pistols not long ago. For each gun reviewed, they listed the number of times it jammed while shooting it. Stick with a revolver.
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