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"Mud" is a technical term for all sorts of drilling fluids specifically designed to keep the pressure on an oil well.

In this case, they used a special type of "Mud", even, "Kill Mud".

Specifically it's an engineered fluid of precise, high density. It is dense enough to float most rock.

IIRC, it's injected down the space inside the drill pipe, then makes a u-turn after exiting at the drill face and flushes the drilled rock particles up between the drill pipe and the bore wall, thereby clearing the "drilled chips" out of the way.

For an excellent treatment of drilling technique, see "A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea: The Story of the Mohole Project" http://www.amazon.com/Hole-Bottom-Sea-Mohole-Project/dp/B000NPVA56/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275221670&sr=1-3 by Willard Bascom. He was director of the project some 50 years ago.

One example: To get an idea of the scale of a drill pipe, imagine a circular stairwell in a tall building with a marble first floor. Hang out over the railing from a few stories up. Grasp the end of a piece of piano wire that reaches to the marble floor. Now spin the wire with your fingers. It must reach the floor. It must also bear against the floor just hard enough that the properly-shaped tip of the wire can drill into the marble. You must not let the tip bear too hard against the marble or the wire above the tip will bend sideways and collapse out of vertical, making it unable to continue drilling. Easy.

Also explains how the actual bore need not be vertical, but can be bent off to the side. This was part of the justification Iraq used for invading Kuwait before Gulf I. The Iraqis claimed that the Kuwaitis were drilling wells near their mutual border, but curving the bores sideways into pools which were actually vertically under Iraqi territory.

Lost in all the discussion is that, according to one account I heard, the bore starts on the seabed some 5K feet down, but the end of the drill was already an additional 13K feet below that level. Expensive crap to lose.

Bullies grow up. They become managers. Yet, they are still bullies. Perhaps the physical abuse is gone, but there is plenty of workplace bullying. Everything from rudness, providing misdirection and denying it, to simply stealing a whiteboard and markers. How do you find the delicate balance between standing up to the bullying and keeping the job. Let's skip the "get another job" answer. There may be other reasons to stay on with the current employer.

check out the following books:
The No Asshole Rule (on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Asshole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace-Surviving/dp/0446526568/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275189483&sr=8-1
and The Bully At Work http://www.amazon.com/Bully-Work-What-Reclaim-Dignity/dp/1402224265/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Bullies grow up. They become managers. Yet, they are still bullies. Perhaps the physical abuse is gone, but there is plenty of workplace bullying. Everything from rudness, providing misdirection and denying it, to simply stealing a whiteboard and markers. How do you find the delicate balance between standing up to the bullying and keeping the job. Let's skip the "get another job" answer. There may be other reasons to stay on with the current employer.

check out the following books:
The No Asshole Rule (on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Asshole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace-Surviving/dp/0446526568/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275189483&sr=8-1
and The Bully At Work http://www.amazon.com/Bully-Work-What-Reclaim-Dignity/dp/1402224265/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Since nobody ever proved religion to be right, or the existence of any kind of god or any of that stupid stuff, then no, science doesn't have to prove them wrong

Is it that "nobody ever proved" it, or that many people reject the proofs on offer, or that people don't even look for the proofs?

[Prelude: Paralytic man brought to Jesus; Jesus forgives his sins; the nearby officials scoff] Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!" Mark 2

Now, Jesus uses the miracles to prove who he is, and implicitly proves that God exists. The proof to the witnesses is compelling.

Now, the problem we have today is that we were born in the wrong century to witness the proof, and subsequently also have to prove the veracity of the account. There is much to be said here, but to make a few brief arguments in support:

• Both Jesus' allies and detractors were present. The latter had good political reasons for denying the miracles, but they didn't, which suggests maybe they couldn't.
• Many of the writers of the New Testament were so convicted by the things they witnessed, they were willing to be executed on account of their testimonies.
• There is good archaeological reason to believe that the texts were recorded relatively close to the events and have been transmitted accurately, with respect to all other historical documents.
• To say that the miracles couldn't have happened because they weren't physically possible is to miss the point completely. The miracles only have value to authenticate Jesus and God precisely because they are physically impossible for the rest of us.

To those who say that no proofs have been presented, I ask: have you investigated to see what proofs are on offer? If not, you may find it a surprisingly rewarding pursuit. I recommend the book The Case for Christ as a good starting point (its by a journalist who set out as an atheist to disprove Christianity, but ended up a Christian).

But to hold a contrary position without even examining the proof on offer is to exhibit the behavior that is so often being condemned.

"If something that is established religious doctrine in your belief was contradicted by observational evidence, what would you be more inclined to believe?"

The Dalai Lama answered this question very directly in his book, The Universe in a Single Atom. He believes that if science contradicts old, traditional Buddhist beliefs, then those beliefs must be thrown away because they have been proven incorrect.

Religion and science don't have to be opposed to each other. The Dalai Lama wrote an excellent book on this: The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality. It's a very good read.

I got this book for my 13 year old nephew and it was a real hit. It's geared towards middle schoolers who are used to point and click stuff, guides them through a similar game engine, then gradually introduces them to coding concepts. He loves the book and the tools, although I am having a hard time getting him to move ahead and code for real, but it's a great start. I highly recommend the book.

I know I am replying to my own thread here but I submitted it without the proecessing links! ... you want to give the kid something easy for a beginner that gives him visual feedback and isn't "plumbing" like C++.

http://www.processing.org/

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Processing-Beginners-Programming-Interaction/dp/0123736021/

C++ is a good first language to learn but ONLY after the person discovers whether or not they like programming or not. A book I highly recommend is C++ Primer plus, because it starts from simple examples and explains why things are the way they are and gives you an idea of all the work that goes into "coding" a computer.

http://www.amazon.com/Primer-Plus-5th-Stephen-Prata/dp/0672326973

I know I am replying to my own thread here but I submitted it without the proecessing links! ... you want to give the kid something easy for a beginner that gives him visual feedback and isn't "plumbing" like C++.

http://www.processing.org/

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Processing-Beginners-Programming-Interaction/dp/0123736021/

C++ is a good first language to learn but ONLY after the person discovers whether or not they like programming or not. A book I highly recommend is C++ Primer plus, because it starts from simple examples and explains why things are the way they are and gives you an idea of all the work that goes into "coding" a computer.

http://www.amazon.com/Primer-Plus-5th-Stephen-Prata/dp/0672326973

... you want to give the kid something easy that gives him visual feedback and isn't "plumbing" like C++. C++ is a good first language to learn but ONLY after the person discoveres whether or not they like programming or not. A book I highly recommend is C++ Primer plus, because it starts from simple examples and explains why things are the way they are and gives you an idea of all the work that goes into "coding" a computer.

http://www.amazon.com/Primer-Plus-5th-Stephen-Prata/dp/0672326973

PHP Game Programming
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Through-Game-Programming-Second/dp/1598633600/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275079894&sr=1-3

Beginning C++ Through Game Programming, Second Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Through-Game-Programming-Second/dp/1598633600/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275079894&sr=1-3

Game Programming for Teens, Third Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Teens-Third-Maneesh-Sethi/dp/1598635182/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275079894&sr=1-6

PHP Game Programming
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Through-Game-Programming-Second/dp/1598633600/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275079894&sr=1-3

Beginning C++ Through Game Programming, Second Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Through-Game-Programming-Second/dp/1598633600/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275079894&sr=1-3

Game Programming for Teens, Third Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Teens-Third-Maneesh-Sethi/dp/1598635182/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275079894&sr=1-6

PHP Game Programming
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Through-Game-Programming-Second/dp/1598633600/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275079894&sr=1-3

Beginning C++ Through Game Programming, Second Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Through-Game-Programming-Second/dp/1598633600/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275079894&sr=1-3

Game Programming for Teens, Third Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Teens-Third-Maneesh-Sethi/dp/1598635182/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275079894&sr=1-6

Seriously - Pygame is MADE for your question:

1) Python itself was developed as a teaching/learning language.
I grew up bruised and battered by Atari BASIC on the 8-bit computers... I would have LOVED something like pygame back then.

2) Pygame is portable.. you're not tied to one particular platform... works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
I think PyGame even ran on the PS3 versions of Linux... before Sony decided to retract that feature.

3) Python's well documented:
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Game-Development-Python-Pygame/dp/1590598725

4) You DON'T have to write just games with Python or PyGame. You could make any kind of reasonable desktop application with it, although for non-game use I'd move on to some other binding like PyGTK, PyQt, or wxpython.

Don't listen to people who put down Python... if it's good enough for Google and Yahoo, it's good.
  (NOTE:By the above, I'm not advocating any programmer stick to just one language.. I'm just answering the original question)

Yeah, but can they give it the taste and consistency of Kraft Extra Heavy Mayo? Available from Amazon!

What, exactly, constitutes a 'True Data Disaster?

Maybe not a disaster, but this is pretty bad.

Even the drones at the Apple store will freely admit this while they tell you that they don't have any screen covers.

Really? I found this in 2 seconds.

See the following explanation for WHY two stage initialization: http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1339553

http://www.amazon.com/Cocoa-Design-Patterns-Erik-Buck/dp/0321535022/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260805943&sr=1-1

I dont know, chess can get expensive as well.

Apple will pull the app from the store LONG before they allow actual open software to slip through their stranglehold on content.

If you think Apple is doing any of this on principle. Since they're implementing iPhone as the literal textbook example from The Innovator's Solution, they'd also be close to opening the iPhone since Android is about to walk past them (the book shows that staying proprietary until the product is commoditized leads to the maximum profits).

The timing might not be quite right, but it's close.

I make me angry to have supernatural entities like ESPers in Star Trek, or in Silverberg books, but I have learned to live with it.

The reason why ESP finds its way into science fiction is that it is science. There's been 150 years of research into anomalous cognition, and insoluble problems remain with the purely materialistic viewpoint of mind.

Do the names Dean Radin, Hal Puthoff, J. B. Rhine, or Frederick Meyers ring any bells? They ought to. These people have done extensive documented research. And yet somehow the myth remains that ESP 'does not exist'.

It's weird, it's difficult (but not impossible) to replicate, it does not obey the inverse square law, it blithely disregards time and causality, and we don't have a model of it. But it's real.

Disclaimer: I'm in the remanufacturing industry

HP doesn't have an excuse. They have sold efficient printers in the past. Lets look at a few comparison inkjets currently sold by HP:

HP #21
Retail Price: ~ 20.00
Pages: 190 pages at 5% page coverage

HP #88XL Black
Retail Price: ~46.50
Pages: 2450 pages at 5% page coverage

You do the math. $40.00 buys you either 400 pages or 2450*. (*side note, the print head is separate from the 88 style cartridge. It is rated at about 40k pages for around $70.)

Furthermore, the 88 is more efficient price per page than some of HP's laser cartridges. Case in point:

HP CB435A
Retail Price: ~74.99
Pages: 1500 pages at 5% page coverage

You do the math. And the fun part? They don't sell 88 printers any more. As soon as people in my industry reverse engineer the carts, they release a new series of printers.

Guess what kind of inkjet printer I use?

Disclaimer: I'm in the remanufacturing industry

HP doesn't have an excuse. They have sold efficient printers in the past. Lets look at a few comparison inkjets currently sold by HP:

HP #21
Retail Price: ~ 20.00
Pages: 190 pages at 5% page coverage

HP #88XL Black
Retail Price: ~46.50
Pages: 2450 pages at 5% page coverage

You do the math. $40.00 buys you either 400 pages or 2450*. (*side note, the print head is separate from the 88 style cartridge. It is rated at about 40k pages for around $70.)

Furthermore, the 88 is more efficient price per page than some of HP's laser cartridges. Case in point:

HP CB435A
Retail Price: ~74.99
Pages: 1500 pages at 5% page coverage

You do the math. And the fun part? They don't sell 88 printers any more. As soon as people in my industry reverse engineer the carts, they release a new series of printers.

Guess what kind of inkjet printer I use?

Disclaimer: I'm in the remanufacturing industry

HP doesn't have an excuse. They have sold efficient printers in the past. Lets look at a few comparison inkjets currently sold by HP:

HP #21
Retail Price: ~ 20.00
Pages: 190 pages at 5% page coverage

HP #88XL Black
Retail Price: ~46.50
Pages: 2450 pages at 5% page coverage

You do the math. $40.00 buys you either 400 pages or 2450*. (*side note, the print head is separate from the 88 style cartridge. It is rated at about 40k pages for around $70.)

Furthermore, the 88 is more efficient price per page than some of HP's laser cartridges. Case in point:

HP CB435A
Retail Price: ~74.99
Pages: 1500 pages at 5% page coverage

You do the math. And the fun part? They don't sell 88 printers any more. As soon as people in my industry reverse engineer the carts, they release a new series of printers.

Guess what kind of inkjet printer I use?

Actually he was more critical of organized religion than he was of God. He was always critical of Man's abuse of power and organized religions hold power over people. Originally he set out to write a book proving that Joan of Arc was crazy and Christians were crazy for revering her. Later in life he devoted 12 years to researching her life, and eventually spent 2 years writing a very reverent portrait of her under the pen name translated from French "Her Faithful Servant". http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Recollections-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486424596/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274737370&sr=8-1 He would later state, "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books, it is the best."

First, I'm a huge fan of Twain, both as a man and an author.

That said, the forward for an early edition of a compilation of Twain's short works of social commentary, Mark Twain on the Damned Human Race suggested that he was bisexual and was fond of black men.

I personally doubt this and I don't know if this same forward is included in the current edition, but if it is true, it might be one of the things revealed in his memoirs. Given the societal views of his era when it came to homosexuality, I could certainly understand why he'd want to wait for a full century after his death to let the world know about it.

Is summed up nicely by this short, entertaining, and philosophical book: http://www.amazon.com/Illusions-Richard-Bach/dp/0440343194/

"Green's book is without a doubt the definitive practical guide..." The Views module author has a book coming about views: http://www.amazon.com/Drupals-Building-Blocks-Quickly-Websites/dp/0321591313

Amusingly enough, called the "Pandora Pro" (These things have been around for a few years now, so I don't think they were trying to make this association)

But, since you asked...

http://www.amazon.com/Genius-Pandora-Pro-mini-retractable/dp/B000OE07AA

Surprisingly easy to use for such a tiny little thing, too. If you can play a GBA-SP you can probably handle one of these.

No character ever stood for an "idea" independent of a word. Chinese characters stood, and continue to stand, for words, and only by extension for the ideas they convey.

Do what you enjoy first, and the money will come. (For example, it may just be marketing cheaper ways to do an expensive hobby) If you chase the money first, you can forget the enjoyment. Also, you may want to read http://www.amazon.com/No-More-Mondays-Yourself-Revolutionary/dp/0385522525

I didn't even get to scroll down to the comments, I saw the pictures and dropped my mouse. still laughing.

Too bad--there were literally hundreds of reviews, some of them really, really funny. Check this one out. It's a personal favorite.

If by "traditional Chinese characters" you mean the first writings made on oracle bones many thousands of years ago, then perhaps they can be called pictograms. However, the modern Chinese writing system is not pictographic or ideographic and Chinese characters, far from being some kind of abstract referents to things, is tightly bound to the structure of the Chinese language. See DeFrancis' classic work The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984).

His column broke such stories as Rivest, Shamir and Adelman on public-key cryptography, Mandelbrot on fractals, Conway on Life, and Penrose on tilings.

Wow.

... a similar story on Slashdot talking about open sourcing the battle against disease, with the concept that "with enough eyes, all bugs become shallow", and ultimately how there was the concern that it would create a new type of malware that could do a lot more damage than the rest of the world could offset. I mean, even when we're trying to do good, we can make things that are utter poison... imagine if some borderline nutbar in a university lab got dumped by his girlfriend and decided to take revenge on women in general by making an airborne pathogen that would leave men intact. Sure, you could make an antidote with enough people and effort, but how many people wold die in the meantime? We see the battle between dedicated coders already with DRM and DRM-cracking... if that were to happen in the bio-tech space, it would be an utter disaster.

The Economist is right, to a point, but they seem to have more faith in humanity than humanity deserves.

(disclosure: that Slashdot story years ago led me to research and write a novel about this type of scenario, so this is near and dear to my heart)

How about this?

Read some of the product reviews while you're there, BTW. I guarantee at least a few good laughs.

Why does Apple get all the press when the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk has been around for ages?

(check the user-posted photos)

I now have tears in my eyes from laughing so much. Brilliant.

Let this be sold through Amazon, so I can read more product reviews like this.

Good lord I thought you were joking. The top three reviews are _hilarious_. Oh, and people here are usually a fan of that fancy little <a> tag.

According to the "Stories" page on the site, there are roads, like the I-57 between Urbana and Chicago, that are straight as an arrow. Or, like the 405 just north of the Rosecrans exit, where traffic just stops. In both of these situations, you don't have to turn at all, which makes an ideal time to mount the iPad to your steering wheel and get in a few games of Bejeweled.

(While this article is a joke, there are hilariously similar products you can buy in real life. The customer reviews are mildly amusing.)

if it's anything like This I'm not interested.

http://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Office-WM-01-Laptop-Steering/dp/B000IZGIA8/

Why does Apple get all the press when the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk has been around for ages?
(check the user-posted photos)

The rest of personal attacks I'll ignore as I don't think add much to the discussion.

If I'd done just that, this entire sub-thread wouldn't exist. Perhaps there's a lesson in this for me.

I agree on "ethnic" and I think implying racial differences is racist, whether you're white or not.

I'll say it again because this is important. Racial differences do exist in some things (some medical conditions for instance). I admitted that in the matter under consideration, the differences, while showing some correlation with race are so unlikely to be caused by race (no doubt having more to do with culture and upbringing), that mentioning that correlation added nothing to the discussion. It was incorrect on my part, maybe even intellectually lazy. By any sane definition of the word, not racist. Words have specific meaning. Let's not use them arbitrarily.

If anything, my flippant remark about not being white was my worst mistake, because it appeared (incorrectly) to be an apology for racism.

Well, what you leave in "among other things" is, still, "Racism: racial prejudice or discrimination". Quoting you again: "ethnic and racial differences are dramatic", where you did discriminate by race.

*Sigh*. Prejudice is the act of pre-judging a group (specifically in this case - a racial group) of a certain (usually negative) behavior or mannerism. Discrimination is the treatment (or any noun conveying action taken) of groups (or individuals belonging to certain groups) based on prejudice.

No matter how hard you wish it, simply stating that a specific behavior has been observed [from personal experience] to show large differences between different racial groups is neither prejudiced [empirical observations] nor discriminatory [there is no action or even the possibility of any action implied]. The statement (while valid as a summary of observations) may be useless, but it certainly isn't racist. In practice, the PC movement discourages such things merely because they have tended to lead to discrimination - understandable, but I have the right to refuse such preemptive high-handedness. If I ever happen to fall that way, I'll be sure to look you up so you can berate me soundly for being racist. Until then, get it right.

Sorry for the lack of precision and the excessively aggressive first reply, that stained an otherwise interesting dialogue.

Thanks. While the accusation did sting initially, I've spent all this time trying to explain why you are incorrect, not defending myself (it's an objective matter).

There is a book by Thomas Sowell (a renowned economist) called "Applied Economics" (a more scholarly version of Freakonomics in some respects). His chapter on 'the economics of discrimination' is very enlightening on this point. He spends several pages properly defining all his terms. In retrospect, I can see why he did that. In any case, it (and the book itself) is very enlightening - you might find it interesting. Most libraries should carry it.

Anyone confused at all why Democrats would not vote against this measure need to read Liberal Facism.

When your body belongs to the state why should it matter if they force you to give blood or not? You live at the pleasure of the state. The state knows best after all.

And having read The Opinion Makers I have zero trust in them.

Now what? :D

You're absolutely correct. Been there, done that with all but the flexible screen and data in the cloud. I wonder if the GP has even seen the iPad TV commercials? You're not going to want to share your photos, watch a movie or read a book on a watch-sized screen. Commercialization of this device is no threat to iPad.

DOOM modding, that brought back some memories. Back in the day I had bought the book Tricks of the DOOM Gurus which was THE bible for making your own maps (it even came with a CD containing multiple editing utilities).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0672307170

This book was awesome, it was a step by step guide to build a map. Each chapter focused on a specific feature (elevators, doors, etc) and explained how to add those.

Quake 2 was fairly popular for modding as well, multiple utilities are available online as well as the actual source code of the game in case you want to get really creative.

If the choice is between DDR and world of warcraft, then even Lance Armstrong is going to benefit from choosing DDR.

That depends on the goals. World of Warcraft and other games, while not doing much for physical fitness, can help cognition. What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy: Revised and Updated Edition. A therapist I saw suggested I get some computer strategy games to play. Two she had me play while I saw her was Building Perspective and Hot Dog Stand.

Falcon

Spies Among Us: How to Stop the Spies, Terrorists, Hackers, and Criminals You Don't Even Know You Encounter Every Day

Black eggs are mentioned on page 164. The author's suspicions were raised by several seemingly innocuous clues, but I didn't find the brief excerpt all that compelling.