by Maitri
on July 15, 2010
Note: Just in case the history books say otherwise, let it be noted here that it took 87 days to cap the Macondo well. Now we wait on the relief well for “final” work.
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Set aside the catastrophic risk aspect of this disaster for a few minutes of preventative analysis. No “comprehensive,” company-wide safety program on the planet can combat the ultimate imperative of the production side of modern businesses, which is to get the job done as quickly and economically as possible no matter what. This has some startlingly obvious repercussions.
NPR | Massey Mine Workers Disabled Safety Monitor
… an electrician deliberately disabled a methane gas monitor on a continuous mining machine because the monitor repeatedly shut down the machine. Three witnesses say the electrician was ordered by a mine supervisor to “bridge” the automatic shutoff mechanism in the monitor.
“What makes it criminal is that somebody actively takes steps to defeat the safety protection. And that should be prosecuted. You’ve put production over the safety of your employees.”
Digital Journal | Shortcuts may have led to well blow-out, BP faces record fines
An independent engineer with expertise in well failure analysis has called BP“s actions before the blowout as horribly negligent. Gordon Aaker, Jr, P.E., is a Failure Analysis Consultant with the firm Engineering Services, LLP, and told Committee staff it was unheard of not to perform a cement bond log with the single casing method.
Now, was this just a series of bad decisions by a few employees on a given project? How did these employees gain the leeway to authorize said unsafe activity without blessings from farther up the chain? Or do higher-ups not care how the job is done until a mine or rig explodes into a PR nightmare? Either approach is frightening. I hope these are questions being discussed during the (ersatz) moratorium.
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by Maitri
on July 13, 2010
In which we find out that the methane is just the farts of the Decepticons submerged at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico who were getting bored of waiting to take over the world once again so they ordered out for Taco Bell.
No, don’t read that. Read this: The Gulf of Mexico spill is bad enough without turning it into a disaster movie
The idea that there is a huge, continuous, high pressure reservoir of [methane] gas beneath the sea floor, just waiting to explode, is fundamentally mistaken. If there was, do you think BP would drill through a vast, easily obtainable hydrocarbon resource to get to a more technically challenging reserve?
… This doesn’t mean the methane being released from the leaking well isn’t worrying: in fact, it’s potentially a huge ecological problem for the Gulf of Mexico. Bacteria in the water column will happily respire it and use up all the oxygen, creating the ˜dead zones“ we“re hearing so much about. Seriously, isn’t reality bad enough? Do we really need to pretend we“re in a Michael Bay movie?
I point this out, of course, to dispel myths, promote facts, promote sound policies at all levels, etc. etc.
And still haven’t forgiven Pierce Brosnan for Dante’s Peak.
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by Maitri
on July 12, 2010
Newsweek on the decline of creativity in America and solutions. Change-oriented and conscientious programs, staffed with teachers who support and encourage student curiosity, can turn this around.
This really requires understanding what creativity is, which as the article describes is alternating between divergent and convergent thinking, i.e. lots of unique, seemingly themeless ideas coming together to form a solution to a particular problem. It’s not solely genetic, nor does it “grace” anti-social folks with Asberger’s. The most critical paragraph of the article for me is:
They“re quitting because they“re discouraged and bored, not because they“re dark, depressed, anxious, or neurotic. It’s a myth that creative people have these traits. (Those traits actually shut down creativity; they make people less open to experience and less interested in novelty.) Rather, creative people, for the most part, exhibit active moods and positive affect. They“re not particularly happy”contentment is a kind of complacency creative people rarely have. But they“re engaged, motivated, and open to the world.
Kids who are encouraged, engaged, motivated and open to the world. This really requires parents, teachers and politicians – adults, essentially – to stop being narrow-minded, mopey doomsayers. Try to remember when you were a kid.
With that, I return to my own creativity block.
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by Maitri
on July 9, 2010
Go read Pistolette’s take on Mitch Landrieu’s State Of New Orleans speech. All of it.
Wow, Ray Nagin is the bald, black version of W. We always knew it, but it isn’t so stinkingly apparent until you’re confronted with the final bill. Um, waiter, we didn’t order all that. Too bad, it’s your lucky day to pay it.
If you come away from it thinking “Boy, am I glad I don’t live in that city,” you are blind and deaf. It is everywhere in this country and especially bad when visitors from India say, “Hey, this sounds just like home!”
Meanwhile, back at the oyster farm, they’re all dead and, as oil comes ashore, the Mississippi coast faces its largest environmental crisis since Katrina. Someone alert Haley Barbour. Oh wait, he doesn’t really care.
Southeast Asia handled the tsunami aftermath better than this.
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by Maitri
on July 9, 2010
The loss of LeBron James to the Miami Heat will hit cash-strapped Cleveland in the wallet, no doubt about it. But, it will hurt Akron, where James is from and more than a star attraction, the most. It’s a pretty tight-knit Catholic-school sports community up there and they’re losing their hometown kid who stayed.
Each post and tweet on the topic has given me Brett Favre Deja Whiplash something awful. LeBron owes Cleveland nothing – Big Sports is a cold hard business after all, well it is when franchises fire players as opposed to when they’re dumped – but The Ego of The Decision. Why do so-called professionals and their handlers have to be such divas about it and not just Quietly Go like grown ass men?
To my family: Big Group Hug. We’ll always have Repeat The Three-Peat.
Gotta go put my neck brace on. Ow.
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