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Wrong Chemical Dumped Into Olympic Pools Made Them Green (arstechnica.com)
Z00L00K writes: [Ars Technica reports:] "After a week of trying to part with green tides in two outdoor swimming pools, Olympic officials over the weekend wrung out a fresh mea culpa and yet another explanation -- neither of which were comforting. According to officials, a local pool-maintenance worker mistakenly added 160 liters of hydrogen peroxide to the waters on August 5, which partially neutralized the chlorine used for disinfection. With chlorine disarmed, the officials said that 'organic compounds' -- i.e. algae and other microbes -- were able to grow and turn the water a murky green in the subsequent days. The revelation appears to contradict officials' previous assurances that despite the emerald hue, which first appeared Tuesday, the waters were safe." I would personally have avoided using the green pools, but that's just me. "Hydrogen peroxide is sometimes used in pools -- often to de-chlorinate them," reports Ars. "Basically, the chemical, a common household disinfectant, is a weak acid that reacts with chlorine and chlorine-containing compounds to release oxygen and form other chlorine-containing compounds. Those may not be good at disinfecting pools, but they still may be picked up by monitoring systems. Hydrogen peroxide can also be used to disinfect pools but must be maintained in the waters -- not a one-time dumping -- and can't be used in combination with chlorine." Apparently, the green water irritates eyes and smells like farts.
Just happened to have 100+ gallons of hydrogen peroxide sitting around.
More likely, they tried to be clever and use it in an attempt to sanitize the pool after a test for high bacterial load.
I found the explanation amusing. Now I'm looking forward to the explanation of how two dangerous chemicals, sodium and chlorine, combine to form a compound essential to life.
They need to rebrand this page in yellow and black and call it "Slashdot for Dummies".
The turds and the muggings are kind of a turn off.
I have no problem with new venues being built, provided there's a plan to use them afterwards. That means you're not only relying on the Olympics to cover the cost. It can be opening the venue to the public or hosting more events there. It's probably best to focus on cities with many existing venues, though.
The problem is that many of the cities meeting that standard are in the United States. There's a definite IOC bias against the United States, so this isn't an appealing solution. Apparently the United States is no longer good at bribing officials, which is why they lost out on the 2022 World Cup. Never mind, of course, that Qatar has to construct 12 stadiums at immense monetary and human cost while all of the venues in the United States already exist. Many large universities in the United States have venues for their Olympic sports programs, which is an inherent advantage over most other countries.
People would throw a fit if the Olympics were regularly rotated through the United States every 12 years or so. If the IOC focused on reusing existing venues and required plans to reuse new venues, it would fit into the IOC bribe money. It would also favor countries like the United States, and there are too many people with an anti-American bias to let that happen.
I'm an engineer with an MBA.
As am I. I went to business school concurrently with my engineering masters to learn how to better manage the projects I work on. Frankly there are a lot of bitter engineers here on Slashdot that are looking for a scapegoat for what they perceive (sometimes rightly) as injustices in the workplace. Blaming "MBAs" is their modern version of blaming Jews or moneylenders as an easily demonized group that in reality has little or nothing to do with the actual problems. It's just tribal scapegoating. There are just as many incompetent engineers as there are incompetent business majors. I run into both almost daily.
I treat anyone who blames "MBAs" with a sort of corollary to Godwin's law. As a discussion progresses the probability of some idiot scapegoating "MBAs" for a problem approaches 1. If they blame MBAs for a problem they no longer have a reasoned argument to make based on actual facts and so they lose the argument and the discussion is over.
Nothing in my studies ever suggested to cut corners for short term profits. It was focused on long term growth strategies and employee development. To remain globally competitive you have to build from within.
This is 100% true. I remember several case studies being used to highlight the dangers of seeking short term profits through financial engineering. The professors took substantial pains to show how short term profit seeking will often backfire long term and damage a company.
The companies that are off shoring functions will most likely find themselves in more trouble a few years down the road.
I've actually done some work in global sourcing and I can confirm this anecdotally. Offshoring tends to result in all sorts of management headaches and quality problems. Send work to China and you'd better have someone actually in China to keep an eye on things. I had a client some years ago who blew up their supply chain and sent work all over the place and only then realized that it caused all sorts of quality, logistics and lead time problems. Not to mention that shipping parts halfway around the world often eats away much of the savings.