If Exxon wants to fund climate research, good. Once their research comes out then if it disagrees with your pet theory then argue based on the facts, but don't denigrate the funding of those who may interpret things differently than you do. Doing otherwise is following in the footsteps of the church who forced Copernicus to recant because it disagreed with their theory.
The volcano may be relieving pressure on the artesian system enough to lower the pressure, but we don't know. The Indonesians who are the only ones with detailed knowledge haven't been exactly forthcoming on the issue that I have seen. The method proposed in TFA doesn't exactly inspire any confidence that they have a good idea...
The major issue is: Has the breach weakened the previously impermeable layer?
If so, plugging the hole won't be enough. If not, then it may be possible.
Your percolator analogy still has little to do with the mud volcano's processes. The percolator works because the water vapour bubbles upwards and induces motion in the surrounding liquid. By bringing the heat into the process you're only confusing the issue as dissolved gasses have very little to do with it.
Instead of using a percolator, imagine a waterbed covered with books. The water in the bed is the mud layer, the membrane containing the water is the clay layer, and the books represent the earth above the clay. Once the membrane containing the water is pierced, the weight of the books forces the water out much as the weight of the earth is now forcing the water out of the bed. Now imagine that the water in the bed erodes the hole once it has been made making the problem worse.
To stop a percolator, turn off the heat. To fix a leaky waterbed, you need to patch the liner or wait until all the water drains out.
As I remember it from the initial stories, the problem arose when the oil company drilled through a relatively thin clay layer into a very thick mud bearing layer under very high pressure. The clay layer acted as a dike to stop the underlying liquids from migrating upward. Normal drilling technique when such geography is present would have been to insert a liner in the drillhole in order to protect the clay strata from erosion, but this was not employed here. When the drillhole pierced the clay strata, the high pressure mud below it quickly eroded the initial breach into a large breach which followed the drillhole upward to transform it into the mud volcano that now exists.
It is a situation that has a lot in common with the levee breaches in NO after Katrina. In NO, initial attempts to repair the levee breaches by transporting large, heavy blocks into the breaches were unsuccessful as the breaches were just too large and the blocks were swept away. I expect the big ball method described in TFA to have as little effect as the big block method did in NO. It was only when the water levels equalized in NO that the corps were able to finally seal off the breaches.
It seems to me that your method of using explosives to fix the problem would do nothing to help and would probably only widen the breach in the clay layer, much as using explosives would not have helped in NO. Using explosives in the mud bearing layer is impractical (beyond just getting the into place as another poster noted) as the mud bearing layer is too thick to be obstructed in this manner. Using explosives in the clay layer would only widen the breach. Using explosives above the clay layer would do nothingf as the pressure is already high enough to work it's way to the surface once it is through the clay layer.
The only means of resealing the breach as I see it would be to drill through the clay layer (using liners to protect the clay from erosion) and then inject cement in large enough quantities to cause a plug to be formed below the clay. I have no idea if it is feasible as I do not know how large the breach has become and how much cement could be pumped in before being swept away.
The "experiment" described in TFA where the debit was halved by plugging one out of two holes in a bottle is false as there is only one hole at present. Even if they achieve their goal of dumping the balls so that they settle on the clay layer, the mudflow will just erode around them and create a yet larger breach as nothing in the plan allows for the erosion of the mud layer.
You're making assumptions:
- That the small ISP routes everything through a machine running tcpdump
- That the small ISP has the human & technical resources available to rapidly read through a warrant and setup something capable of filtering out what the judge has specified
Large ISPs are used to fulfilling these kind of requests as they most likely have done the same thing for years on telephone lines. Not all small ISPs are (but most of the small ISPs where this was true have disappeared/been absorbed into larger structures).
I cannot in vision any scenario in which an ISP is incapable of isolating a single customers traffic.
Then "envision" a small ISP without the resources needed to setup the requisite surveillance connected to a larger ISP which can lets the feds sniff the whole pipe to the smaller ISP.
And do we give a fuck about that Italian reporter? We do not.
Spoken with all the sensitivity of a true borg... Given how much flack the US caught over this specific incident in Europe & how much the USA needs allies to avoid an ignominious unilateral retreat, yes we do give a fuck.
As for your clarification, given that the device must have cost a non-negligible amount of money to develop and test, I'm supremely confident that it will get deployed to Iraq & used. The sophomoric carping of a few civilians is not going to stand in the way of a general with a mission & a budget. It won't be the first weapons system that gets debugged while in active service.
the war isn't won by heavy-handed bitch-slapping Iraqis into submission, but by convincing those people to trust you and give the new government a chance.
As is well recognized by the troops and is reflected in their training (Try looking up "hearts & minds"). What makes you thing that it will be overused indiscriminately on every iraqi they encounter? The military is not going to be using this more than it needs to as it recognizes that too much force is counterproductive.
In situations where it's use is warranted, better a temporary burning sensation than lead poisoning.
So the cases where civilians were mistaken for hostiles when approaching troops but didn't recognize that they were perceived as being a threat and were shot like the italian reporter are all figments of our imagination?
It seems to me that a non lethal, surefire means of communicating GO AWAY! that makes people go away without killing them would be very useful to the troops in Iraq.
Stone/Molotov throwing mobs have become a major problem in many countries. While often lethal to bystanders and more rarely to the authorities, they aren't considered to be valid targets for firearms in most countries until it's too late.
Having a non-lethal tool to dissuade these mobs from getting out of hand is a better solution than allowing them to kill or being forced to kill them.
Ask yourself: who wants to have sex with someone who burns sponges in his microwave?
I've met quite a few women who I wouldn't trust to wet a sponge before microwaving it that I'd like to have sex with -- and they weren't all blondes either...
These are the stupid CD's that I need the external DVD player for. Due to the bad TOCs, PCs & Macs never mount the disks but the external DVD player can play them. Using it's digital out gives me perfect copies which I can then split into songs & transform into MP3s.
Yes, there are alternatives to buying DRM'ed, but their legality is still not confirmed.
Bzzzt, incorrect! I still buy CD's and rip them myself which, contrary to what the RIAA would have you believe is legal.
If the CD is "copy protected" (given to me as a gift as I refuse to buy any DRMed media), I play it through my external DVD player which has a digital output connected to my PC's sound card. Slightly more work, yet also incontrovertibly legal.
If they were intelligent, the tank is outside. Hydrogen is actually pretty safe. As it's much lighter than air, any leaks dissipate upward quickly before it can reach flammable concentrations. It'll go BOOM nicely in enclosed spaces, though.
Actually I'm curious. Dous anyone have any info on what the guy is using to store the hydrogen? He's electrolysing it from water during the summer when his energy budget is positive, then storing it for months until he needs it during the winter. Sounds like he's using some major tankage just for the hydrogen & I'm assuming that this will be a major budget item.
Public sources. Janes, FAS, Haze Grey, other web sites. The Usenet groups sci.military.* & sci.space.* used to be a good source of knowledgeable people before they dried up & died. One or two have shown up on slashdot (& are in my friends here on/.).
The cited page described a F15 launched ASAT missle, so it didn't describe any lasers. As for working, well if you say so. Getting an interceptor to hit a target at orbital speeds has been more a case of misses than hits. It's one of the reasons that using a system such as the 747 based laser in my first post has been developed. One reason that the USA only tests the ABM's based in fort Greely on ballistic missiles that all debris reenters the atmosphere. Much like the Patriot batteries in GWI, the ABM missiles may have a secondary capability for faster/higher targets, but once again, it's probably only of marginal use.
On one level the USA has had a reliable ASAT weapon since the 50's. Detonating a nuclear warhead in orbit would certainly fry any sat that the USA would chose to target. I'd label this capability as having pretty much the same level of operational status as using the ABM's as ASAT's: To be used only in emergency situations.
as TFA mentioned and others have already noted,/.'s title was wrong as the Chinese used an interceptor & not a Laser. So, yeah I expect that there are a few hundred/thousand new hasards in orbit at present.
Duh, kinda like saying that the birdshot I fire at your butt for saying something dumb is your valuable scrap metal. In some small twisted way it might be true, but that's beside the point for just about everyone.
Orbital junk is already a hazard that manned missions have to route around. Adding to it by adding thousands of little bits & pieces is not what anyone would call neighborly. a piece weighing only a few grams is almost untrackable & yet a lethal danger. Just tracking down all the pieces is beyond current technology. Doing anything about them (except avoiding the larger bits) is science fiction.
No, the USA HADthis capability in the past but once the cold war threat was over, dismantled it. While we have other systems such as the experimental 747 borne laser that probably has some asat capability, we no longer have any operational ASAT weapons.
It's provocative because even though a Chinese sat was targeted, by blowing the sat up into little pieces in uncharted and unpredictable orbits, the test created orbital hasards for everyone else.
10 to 1 the guy is trying to protect his own grant money by drying up grants to people with competing projects. It's an international game that hasn't changed from the time of Louis Pasteur who had to defend against entrenched interests in the 1850's.
Slashdot Mirror
If Exxon wants to fund climate research, good. Once their research comes out then if it disagrees with your pet theory then argue based on the facts, but don't denigrate the funding of those who may interpret things differently than you do. Doing otherwise is following in the footsteps of the church who forced Copernicus to recant because it disagreed with their theory.
+1 insightful!
The volcano may be relieving pressure on the artesian system enough to lower the pressure, but we don't know. The Indonesians who are the only ones with detailed knowledge haven't been exactly forthcoming on the issue that I have seen. The method proposed in TFA doesn't exactly inspire any confidence that they have a good idea...
The major issue is: Has the breach weakened the previously impermeable layer?
If so, plugging the hole won't be enough. If not, then it may be possible.
Your percolator analogy still has little to do with the mud volcano's processes. The percolator works because the water vapour bubbles upwards and induces motion in the surrounding liquid. By bringing the heat into the process you're only confusing the issue as dissolved gasses have very little to do with it.
Instead of using a percolator, imagine a waterbed covered with books. The water in the bed is the mud layer, the membrane containing the water is the clay layer, and the books represent the earth above the clay. Once the membrane containing the water is pierced, the weight of the books forces the water out much as the weight of the earth is now forcing the water out of the bed. Now imagine that the water in the bed erodes the hole once it has been made making the problem worse.
To stop a percolator, turn off the heat. To fix a leaky waterbed, you need to patch the liner or wait until all the water drains out.
It is a situation that has a lot in common with the levee breaches in NO after Katrina. In NO, initial attempts to repair the levee breaches by transporting large, heavy blocks into the breaches were unsuccessful as the breaches were just too large and the blocks were swept away. I expect the big ball method described in TFA to have as little effect as the big block method did in NO. It was only when the water levels equalized in NO that the corps were able to finally seal off the breaches.
It seems to me that your method of using explosives to fix the problem would do nothing to help and would probably only widen the breach in the clay layer, much as using explosives would not have helped in NO. Using explosives in the mud bearing layer is impractical (beyond just getting the into place as another poster noted) as the mud bearing layer is too thick to be obstructed in this manner. Using explosives in the clay layer would only widen the breach. Using explosives above the clay layer would do nothingf as the pressure is already high enough to work it's way to the surface once it is through the clay layer.
The only means of resealing the breach as I see it would be to drill through the clay layer (using liners to protect the clay from erosion) and then inject cement in large enough quantities to cause a plug to be formed below the clay. I have no idea if it is feasible as I do not know how large the breach has become and how much cement could be pumped in before being swept away.
The "experiment" described in TFA where the debit was halved by plugging one out of two holes in a bottle is false as there is only one hole at present. Even if they achieve their goal of dumping the balls so that they settle on the clay layer, the mudflow will just erode around them and create a yet larger breach as nothing in the plan allows for the erosion of the mud layer.
You're making assumptions:
- That the small ISP routes everything through a machine running tcpdump
- That the small ISP has the human & technical resources available to rapidly read through a warrant and setup something capable of filtering out what the judge has specified
Large ISPs are used to fulfilling these kind of requests as they most likely have done the same thing for years on telephone lines. Not all small ISPs are (but most of the small ISPs where this was true have disappeared/been absorbed into larger structures).
Then "envision" a small ISP without the resources needed to setup the requisite surveillance connected to a larger ISP which can lets the feds sniff the whole pipe to the smaller ISP.
Spoken with all the sensitivity of a true borg... Given how much flack the US caught over this specific incident in Europe & how much the USA needs allies to avoid an ignominious unilateral retreat, yes we do give a fuck.
As for your clarification, given that the device must have cost a non-negligible amount of money to develop and test, I'm supremely confident that it will get deployed to Iraq & used. The sophomoric carping of a few civilians is not going to stand in the way of a general with a mission & a budget. It won't be the first weapons system that gets debugged while in active service.
As is well recognized by the troops and is reflected in their training (Try looking up "hearts & minds"). What makes you thing that it will be overused indiscriminately on every iraqi they encounter? The military is not going to be using this more than it needs to as it recognizes that too much force is counterproductive.
In situations where it's use is warranted, better a temporary burning sensation than lead poisoning.
So the cases where civilians were mistaken for hostiles when approaching troops but didn't recognize that they were perceived as being a threat and were shot like the italian reporter are all figments of our imagination?
It seems to me that a non lethal, surefire means of communicating GO AWAY! that makes people go away without killing them would be very useful to the troops in Iraq.
Stone/Molotov throwing mobs have become a major problem in many countries. While often lethal to bystanders and more rarely to the authorities, they aren't considered to be valid targets for firearms in most countries until it's too late.
Having a non-lethal tool to dissuade these mobs from getting out of hand is a better solution than allowing them to kill or being forced to kill them.
I've met quite a few women who I wouldn't trust to wet a sponge before microwaving it that I'd like to have sex with -- and they weren't all blondes either...
These are the stupid CD's that I need the external DVD player for. Due to the bad TOCs, PCs & Macs never mount the disks but the external DVD player can play them. Using it's digital out gives me perfect copies which I can then split into songs & transform into MP3s.
If the CD is "copy protected" (given to me as a gift as I refuse to buy any DRMed media), I play it through my external DVD player which has a digital output connected to my PC's sound card. Slightly more work, yet also incontrovertibly legal.
Naaaahhh, that could never happen...
If they were intelligent, the tank is outside. Hydrogen is actually pretty safe. As it's much lighter than air, any leaks dissipate upward quickly before it can reach flammable concentrations. It'll go BOOM nicely in enclosed spaces, though.
Actually I'm curious. Dous anyone have any info on what the guy is using to store the hydrogen? He's electrolysing it from water during the summer when his energy budget is positive, then storing it for months until he needs it during the winter. Sounds like he's using some major tankage just for the hydrogen & I'm assuming that this will be a major budget item.
Did you really think that someone with access to classified sources would jeopardize himself by posting information to /.?
LOL, [phayes applauds]...
Public sources. Janes, FAS, Haze Grey, other web sites. The Usenet groups sci.military.* & sci.space.* used to be a good source of knowledgeable people before they dried up & died. One or two have shown up on slashdot (& are in my friends here on /.).
The cited page described a F15 launched ASAT missle, so it didn't describe any lasers. As for working, well if you say so. Getting an interceptor to hit a target at orbital speeds has been more a case of misses than hits. It's one of the reasons that using a system such as the 747 based laser in my first post has been developed. One reason that the USA only tests the ABM's based in fort Greely on ballistic missiles that all debris reenters the atmosphere. Much like the Patriot batteries in GWI, the ABM missiles may have a secondary capability for faster/higher targets, but once again, it's probably only of marginal use.
On one level the USA has had a reliable ASAT weapon since the 50's. Detonating a nuclear warhead in orbit would certainly fry any sat that the USA would chose to target. I'd label this capability as having pretty much the same level of operational status as using the ABM's as ASAT's: To be used only in emergency situations.
as TFA mentioned and others have already noted, /.'s title was wrong as the Chinese used an interceptor & not a Laser. So, yeah I expect that there are a few hundred/thousand new hasards in orbit at present.
Only with earthworms can you cut their heads and their assholes off at the same time...
Duh, kinda like saying that the birdshot I fire at your butt for saying something dumb is your valuable scrap metal. In some small twisted way it might be true, but that's beside the point for just about everyone.
Orbital junk is already a hazard that manned missions have to route around. Adding to it by adding thousands of little bits & pieces is not what anyone would call neighborly. a piece weighing only a few grams is almost untrackable & yet a lethal danger. Just tracking down all the pieces is beyond current technology. Doing anything about them (except avoiding the larger bits) is science fiction.
No, the USA HAD this capability in the past but once the cold war threat was over, dismantled it. While we have other systems such as the experimental 747 borne laser that probably has some asat capability, we no longer have any operational ASAT weapons. It's provocative because even though a Chinese sat was targeted, by blowing the sat up into little pieces in uncharted and unpredictable orbits, the test created orbital hasards for everyone else.
10 to 1 the guy is trying to protect his own grant money by drying up grants to people with competing projects. It's an international game that hasn't changed from the time of Louis Pasteur who had to defend against entrenched interests in the 1850's.