A University of Illinois research team is working on turning pig manure into a form of crude oil that could be refined to heat homes or generate electricity
Best line in Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome - "Methane cometh from pig shit."
My understanding is that a rubber bushing essential to the operation of the BOP was damaged a few days before during a test of it (or something related) and this damage contributed to the massive failure of the BOP.
So remember boys & girls, safe drilling is like safe sex: use an undamaged rubber.
I am sure BP is doing everything it can to stop the oil gushing out, despite what all the (sometimes idiotic, very amusing) armchair engineers are saying is the "obvious" thing to do.
However, it seems the real battle that will have the greatest impact on the future of this is over who controls the media now, and that's where BP needs to get its hands tied.
BP does have a big incentive to get the leak stopped, since some damage awards will be proportional to the amount of oil leaked.
Of course, they have the same incentive to make potential jurors think there's less leak than their actually is, and this intervention may be cheaper than intervention at the well head.
Maybe this is the final push we need to actually invest money as a notion in alternative energy?
Or not... if the right wing gets involved.
Don't confuse the "rich wing" with the "right wing". The vast majority of Republican politicians just want to rule for the benefit of the rich. The whole social-conservative / southern strategy / religious right association is just a mechanism to get people to vote against their own best interests. If you admit you want to rule for the rich, you've got a big problem in a Republic with universal suffrage, since the rich are by definition a tiny fraction of the public. But politicians know that if you can make someone's knee jerk, you can make their hand twitch in a voting booth. So the Republican party cynically adopted positions that appeal to those groups, and occasionally throws them a bone to keep their support.
But in the run-up to the 2006 elections, the leaders of various socially conservative movements were complaining aloud that they were bringing a lot of votes to the table and not getting much in return... the only surprise is that it took them 26 years to notice.
Of course, by now that has been going on so long that the insane are starting to run the asylum. It's a pretty sure bet that Haley Barber is just shilling for the energy companies, but it's hard to tell whether the likes of Sarah Palin and Barbara Bachman are just trying to make people's knees jerk, or if they've actually drunk the Kool-Aide. Palin is so consistently behind Big Money issues that I suspect she's mostly just shilling, but you never know... As they say, you can't parody this stuff.
What's the problem? It is! This stuff is leaking out of the EARTH, with no factory processing, it's just, you know, leaking... All Natural (TM) oil. Just the Earth "doing it's thing".
Maybe you should click the "look at the numbers" link near the top of the article.
Also, I'm starting to hear estimates that the actual rate of leakage may be over twice the worse-case line on the plot at that link.
The actual amount leaked will be argued in court for decades, since one class of penalty is based on that amount. BP has a strong economic incentive to make people think there's less of it than there actually is.
...Those people of the effected gulf states will begin to believe it...
BP and some of our corporate-owned politicians are doing everything they can to keep people from believing there's any problem. BP has reportedly bought $50,000,000 of media outlets for maintaining their image. Also, reportedly, local police are turning photographers away from places where there's coated wildlife to be seen, and saying that they're doing it at BP's behest. (Since when did your local cops work for a corporation?)
Governor Haley Barber is skipping meetings about the problem and telling the media, "Come on in, the water's fine", comparing it to the light film of gasoline you sometimes see behind a motorboat when you get into the water to ski.
Every slot machine has a "Malfunction voids all pays" warning.
Actually, ever slot machine in the USA has a sticker stating that it is certified. Next time you're in a casino, look for a paper sticker on the side or lower front of the machine.
If a casino is running uncertified machines, there's probably a jail cell waiting for their designated fall guy.
Actually, the certification is done by a third party
Actually, that assumes that certification works in Colorado the same way it does in the state where I know how it works. If the CGD certifies the machines themselves, worse for them.
It's a slot machine, it's a simple device, if they spend the money on reasonable robustness they can easily achieve extremely low error rates.
They already do. I've seen the engineering that goes into slot machines made in the USA, and know a little bit about the certification requirements and procedures. It's jaw-droppingly stiff. After all, these machines deal with *money* instead of mere lives.
If the Colorado Gaming Division says the machine is defective, the couple should sue them for allowing it into service.
Actually, the certification is done by a third party, so the couple should sue the casino and the certifier, and the CGD only if it doesn't revoke the certifying agency's license to certify in their state.
So the casino isn't responsible for the operating condition of their machines, or for standing behind the results said machines promise customers? Why can the gambling industry get away with something we would never tolerate from power companies, car manufacturers, clothing companies, etc.?
There are *very* strict legal certification and tamper-resistance requirements for gambling machines in the USA. The software is about the quality of what they use on the space shuttle. I'll be astonished if the winners' case wouldn't stand up in court.
If two theories explain the same data equally well, the simplest is more likely./quote? Make that "more preferred". In general we don't know anything about likelihood.
The thing about Occam's Razor is that it filters out "special pleading" type arguments. If you want your pet in the show, you've got to provide motivation for including it.
while Israel has just boarded a flotilla of ships killing 19 people in the process for importing wheelchairs, cement and wood banning a webpage seems a rather trivial response in comparison
A lot of news gets ignored. A couple of weeks ago some guy firebombed a mosque in Florida while people were worshipping there. Not a peep on the news. A few days later two white supremacists shot a couple of cops who pulled them over for something, then got themselves shot in a firefight. Not a peep on the news.
Meanwhile, CNN is interviewing American Idol winners...
You and I both know, no matter what comes out...no matter how bad and damning the evidence is against BP...the USA taxpayer and consumer will bear the brunt of the cost of the cleanup.
That's "privatize profit, socialize risk" in action.
Seriously though this accident has thrown up a lot of interesting information - such as how the US imports vastly more oil than it produces on its own territories
According to the media, this well's oil would have been sold on the international market.
People who think "drill baby drill" will make their gasoline prices drop are living in a fantasy land.
why people don't believe demonstrable facts, and instead concentrate on how we can exploit that. The churches figured this all out centuries ago, surely the scientific community can too.
Sounds good... but in practice, religion gets its power by sexual repression, which wouldn't have much effect on a bunch of nerdy scientists.
Slashdot Mirror
A University of Illinois research team is working on turning pig manure into a form of crude oil that could be refined to heat homes or generate electricity
Best line in Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome - "Methane cometh from pig shit."
My understanding is that a rubber bushing essential to the operation of the BOP was damaged a few days before during a test of it (or something related) and this damage contributed to the massive failure of the BOP.
So remember boys & girls, safe drilling is like safe sex: use an undamaged rubber.
WWV? Did I miss WWIII and WWIV?
Guess that's what happens when you spend too much time on Slashdot.
I am sure BP is doing everything it can to stop the oil gushing out, despite what all the (sometimes idiotic, very amusing) armchair engineers are saying is the "obvious" thing to do.
However, it seems the real battle that will have the greatest impact on the future of this is over who controls the media now, and that's where BP needs to get its hands tied.
BP does have a big incentive to get the leak stopped, since some damage awards will be proportional to the amount of oil leaked.
Of course, they have the same incentive to make potential jurors think there's less leak than their actually is, and this intervention may be cheaper than intervention at the well head.
Maybe this is the final push we need to actually invest money as a notion in alternative energy?
Or not... if the right wing gets involved.
Don't confuse the "rich wing" with the "right wing". The vast majority of Republican politicians just want to rule for the benefit of the rich. The whole social-conservative / southern strategy / religious right association is just a mechanism to get people to vote against their own best interests. If you admit you want to rule for the rich, you've got a big problem in a Republic with universal suffrage, since the rich are by definition a tiny fraction of the public. But politicians know that if you can make someone's knee jerk, you can make their hand twitch in a voting booth. So the Republican party cynically adopted positions that appeal to those groups, and occasionally throws them a bone to keep their support.
But in the run-up to the 2006 elections, the leaders of various socially conservative movements were complaining aloud that they were bringing a lot of votes to the table and not getting much in return... the only surprise is that it took them 26 years to notice.
Of course, by now that has been going on so long that the insane are starting to run the asylum. It's a pretty sure bet that Haley Barber is just shilling for the energy companies, but it's hard to tell whether the likes of Sarah Palin and Barbara Bachman are just trying to make people's knees jerk, or if they've actually drunk the Kool-Aide. Palin is so consistently behind Big Money issues that I suspect she's mostly just shilling, but you never know... As they say, you can't parody this stuff.
What's the problem? It is! This stuff is leaking out of the EARTH, with no factory processing, it's just, you know, leaking... All Natural (TM) oil. Just the Earth "doing it's thing".
Maybe you should click the "look at the numbers" link near the top of the article.
Also, I'm starting to hear estimates that the actual rate of leakage may be over twice the worse-case line on the plot at that link.
The actual amount leaked will be argued in court for decades, since one class of penalty is based on that amount. BP has a strong economic incentive to make people think there's less of it than there actually is.
...Those people of the effected gulf states will begin to believe it...
BP and some of our corporate-owned politicians are doing everything they can to keep people from believing there's any problem. BP has reportedly bought $50,000,000 of media outlets for maintaining their image. Also, reportedly, local police are turning photographers away from places where there's coated wildlife to be seen, and saying that they're doing it at BP's behest. (Since when did your local cops work for a corporation?)
Governor Haley Barber is skipping meetings about the problem and telling the media, "Come on in, the water's fine", comparing it to the light film of gasoline you sometimes see behind a motorboat when you get into the water to ski.
Every slot machine has a "Malfunction voids all pays" warning.
Actually, ever slot machine in the USA has a sticker stating that it is certified. Next time you're in a casino, look for a paper sticker on the side or lower front of the machine.
If a casino is running uncertified machines, there's probably a jail cell waiting for their designated fall guy.
Actually, the certification is done by a third party
Actually, that assumes that certification works in Colorado the same way it does in the state where I know how it works. If the CGD certifies the machines themselves, worse for them.
It's a slot machine, it's a simple device, if they spend the money on reasonable robustness they can easily achieve extremely low error rates.
They already do. I've seen the engineering that goes into slot machines made in the USA, and know a little bit about the certification requirements and procedures. It's jaw-droppingly stiff. After all, these machines deal with *money* instead of mere lives.
If the Colorado Gaming Division says the machine is defective, the couple should sue them for allowing it into service.
Actually, the certification is done by a third party, so the couple should sue the casino and the certifier, and the CGD only if it doesn't revoke the certifying agency's license to certify in their state.
So the casino isn't responsible for the operating condition of their machines, or for standing behind the results said machines promise customers? Why can the gambling industry get away with something we would never tolerate from power companies, car manufacturers, clothing companies, etc.?
There are *very* strict legal certification and tamper-resistance requirements for gambling machines in the USA. The software is about the quality of what they use on the space shuttle. I'll be astonished if the winners' case wouldn't stand up in court.
I can generate barely-comprehensible political rants too:
porfnig ab kernck
"Fossil" fuels may not really be made out of fossils at all.
Yeah, that's what the dinosaurs want you to think.
Peak Whale Oil, for example.
Should we be worrying about peak porn?
How about a law that prohibits these companies from passing on their "mistakes" to the consumers?
How about a Congress that isn't owned by companies who want to pass their mistakes on to the consumers?
Oh, and I'd like a pony to go along with that.
My main problem with the teaching of evolution is the attempt to actually ban the discussion of any criticism of the theory.
Anyone learning about evolution in a classroom doesn't know enough about it to offer anything but the shallowest, most easily refuted criticism.
Same for physics, chemistry, and computer science.
Sorry, but that's just the way reality works. Don't confuse movies with reality.
If two theories explain the same data equally well, the simplest is more likely./quote?
Make that "more preferred". In general we don't know anything about likelihood.
The thing about Occam's Razor is that it filters out "special pleading" type arguments. If you want your pet in the show, you've got to provide motivation for including it.
The world is full of these types now in our age of appeasement.
The world has always been full of these types. There are lots of people in the USA who think you should go to prison if you burn a US flag.
while Israel has just boarded a flotilla of ships killing 19 people in the process for importing wheelchairs, cement and wood banning a webpage seems a rather trivial response in comparison
A lot of news gets ignored. A couple of weeks ago some guy firebombed a mosque in Florida while people were worshipping there. Not a peep on the news. A few days later two white supremacists shot a couple of cops who pulled them over for something, then got themselves shot in a firefight. Not a peep on the news.
Meanwhile, CNN is interviewing American Idol winners...
You and I both know, no matter what comes out...no matter how bad and damning the evidence is against BP...the USA taxpayer and consumer will bear the brunt of the cost of the cleanup.
That's "privatize profit, socialize risk" in action.
Those lying sons of bitches...
Make that "Bastard Pravaricators".
and maybe a name change?
Too bad "Gulf Oil" is already taken.
and how did the pencil pushers at the top translate this as an acceptable risk?
Apparently they just changed "unable" to "able".
Seriously though this accident has thrown up a lot of interesting information - such as how the US imports vastly more oil than it produces on its own territories
According to the media, this well's oil would have been sold on the international market.
People who think "drill baby drill" will make their gasoline prices drop are living in a fantasy land.
why people don't believe demonstrable facts, and instead concentrate on how we can exploit that. The churches figured this all out centuries ago, surely the scientific community can too.
Sounds good... but in practice, religion gets its power by sexual repression, which wouldn't have much effect on a bunch of nerdy scientists.