The Spanish government had been active in those areas before there was a Mexico. And I'm not sure pointing at Mexican atrocities is a particularly effective way of defending American atrocities (not that the Indians were simply quiet, innocent victims, there was plenty of violence from lots of corners). The whole thing is one of many historical messes I am glad to say that I did not take part in.
My point was mostly that your response still painted an overly simplistic view of the situation (which I would say is the wrong tack to take when you are complaining that they have poorly characterized things).
One can understand that this would so shock a Brit that he might drop his second or third pint of Guinness Stout that he'd swilled that day. Which is to say, what a Brit might find commonplace (down two or three pints of Guinness Stout in the U.S. and you're a de facto alcoholic) in the U.S. is seen as entirely normative.
I think you might be over estimating the pervasiveness of local standards there. In my general region (Michigan), drinking 3 pints is not anything particular (certainly, some groups would find it excessive). I would extend my blase attitude towards 3 pints to most large cities.
To us, alcoholics are the people that wake up drunk and keep drinking to avoid the hangover, not people that 'binge' a bit.
I guess my age might be a factor (I'm not particularly ancient).
I've learned a good bit more history since I left K-12 than I did during school. And I haven't been trying very hard.
Certainly, it would be better if people sought to paint as true a version of history as we can come up with, but it isn't as if the typical high school history class is so in depth that these students are going to be mentally borken when the graduitate.
What does influence mean? I mean, if you piss into the wind, your piss has some influence on the wind, but not quite as much influence as the wind has on your piss.
Well, if it disperses, it doesn't seem very likely that a few parts per billion is going to demolish any food chain, and if it doesn't disperse, a few hundred gallons per square mile seems equally unlikely to have much impact (it would likely have some nasty localized effects, but not 'ecosystem destroying effects' by the time it reached the Atlantic or Pacific).
Also, the relief well seems like it is a pretty sure thing (it seems like it failing would be roughly equivalent to the initial disaster), so I'm not real worried about the 'if we fail to contain it' scenario.
Elsewhere, you worry about the viscosity and density of the oil impacting circulation. Do you really think that something mixing at a few parts per thousand (at the most) is going to disrupt the massive energy flows of the ocean?
Sure, but my point was not to try to gauge the exact effects of this spill, it was to downplay concerns about a few million gallons spilled into the Gulf of Mexico contaminating fisheries in the Atlantic and Pacific.
It should become quite a lot clearer fairly soon, now that they are trapping some of the leaks.
The maximum amount they are trapping can be easily calculated by watching the boats they use to transport it away, and the change in the Gulf over the next couple of weeks can be used to estimate if they are staunching a lot of it or not.
Yeah, uh, that's what I meant. Standby time is longer that talk time because the phone and tower identify each other and then spend most of their time not talking to each other. If the phone hasn't established communications with a tower, it is going to be 'shouting out trying to find a tower to talk to' and use up it's battery faster than it would on standby.
That's a bit silly. If you round the spill up to 10 billion gallons, by the time it fully disperses, it will constitute much less than 1 part per trillion of the ocean.
I can see being wary of gulf catch, but why worry about stuff from New England?
It doesn't have to be an operational problem. All they have to do is position themselves behind the market, and they will take a huge sales hit.
They haven't done that so far (in the last 10 years...), but they have been on top for a long time, and it is very difficult to tease out just how much of that is by intention (which might run out), and how much is by luck (which will eventually run out).
I'm somewhat skeptical that they can continue to execute, but doing the math, a couple of million iPads is only about 5% of their revenues (likely less, it takes aggressive price estimates to get that high), so who knows.
It also depends on how fast their hardware markets cycles, I'm not sure that the majority of people buying iPads today are going to be ready to buy a new one in 2 or 3 years (but maybe people really are that spendy; I'm typing this on a 4 year old laptop that replaced a 1997 desktop...).
They are sold on contract. That is not a lease. With a lease, the phone company could expect to get something of value back from the customer, not a well used, obsolete phone.
There are dozens or hundreds of industry people working to solve/address the problem (at a minimum, they are working on the relief well, which has a very high probability of success, it will just take 2 months to complete).
These 5 people had a meeting where they were briefed in on the specifics of the problem.
Corruption and lack of imagination are not the problem, the sheer difficulty of the situation they have put themselves into is the problem.
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The Spanish government had been active in those areas before there was a Mexico. And I'm not sure pointing at Mexican atrocities is a particularly effective way of defending American atrocities (not that the Indians were simply quiet, innocent victims, there was plenty of violence from lots of corners). The whole thing is one of many historical messes I am glad to say that I did not take part in.
My point was mostly that your response still painted an overly simplistic view of the situation (which I would say is the wrong tack to take when you are complaining that they have poorly characterized things).
So the area now known as Texas rose out of the gulf in 1836? Or was there a conflict in which settlers fought for independence from Mexico?
A relief well is highly likely to work and is well underway.
Wikileaks is (probably) busy setting up to do some fund raising.
Even selecting a manageable list of names and dates would introduce bias.
One can understand that this would so shock a Brit that he might drop his second or third pint of Guinness Stout that he'd swilled that day. Which is to say, what a Brit might find commonplace (down two or three pints of Guinness Stout in the U.S. and you're a de facto alcoholic) in the U.S. is seen as entirely normative.
I think you might be over estimating the pervasiveness of local standards there. In my general region (Michigan), drinking 3 pints is not anything particular (certainly, some groups would find it excessive). I would extend my blase attitude towards 3 pints to most large cities.
To us, alcoholics are the people that wake up drunk and keep drinking to avoid the hangover, not people that 'binge' a bit.
I guess my age might be a factor (I'm not particularly ancient).
That's a bit histrionic.
I've learned a good bit more history since I left K-12 than I did during school. And I haven't been trying very hard.
Certainly, it would be better if people sought to paint as true a version of history as we can come up with, but it isn't as if the typical high school history class is so in depth that these students are going to be mentally borken when the graduitate.
What does influence mean? I mean, if you piss into the wind, your piss has some influence on the wind, but not quite as much influence as the wind has on your piss.
Okay, but there are still several square miles of ocean (something like 20) for each gallon of oil.
So the biggest harm is going to be in the Gulf, before the oil has begun to disperse much. The rest of the ocean is barely going to notice.
What do you mean 'don't paint it'?
Ocean currents are driven by massive energy flows, not by subtle local effects.
Well, if it disperses, it doesn't seem very likely that a few parts per billion is going to demolish any food chain, and if it doesn't disperse, a few hundred gallons per square mile seems equally unlikely to have much impact (it would likely have some nasty localized effects, but not 'ecosystem destroying effects' by the time it reached the Atlantic or Pacific).
Also, the relief well seems like it is a pretty sure thing (it seems like it failing would be roughly equivalent to the initial disaster), so I'm not real worried about the 'if we fail to contain it' scenario.
Elsewhere, you worry about the viscosity and density of the oil impacting circulation. Do you really think that something mixing at a few parts per thousand (at the most) is going to disrupt the massive energy flows of the ocean?
Sure, but my point was not to try to gauge the exact effects of this spill, it was to downplay concerns about a few million gallons spilled into the Gulf of Mexico contaminating fisheries in the Atlantic and Pacific.
Sorry, 10 billion gallons would be something like 30 or 40 parts per trillion in the ocean.
It should become quite a lot clearer fairly soon, now that they are trapping some of the leaks.
The maximum amount they are trapping can be easily calculated by watching the boats they use to transport it away, and the change in the Gulf over the next couple of weeks can be used to estimate if they are staunching a lot of it or not.
The companies are multinationals. Their home charters are a matter of convenience.
Yeah, uh, that's what I meant. Standby time is longer that talk time because the phone and tower identify each other and then spend most of their time not talking to each other. If the phone hasn't established communications with a tower, it is going to be 'shouting out trying to find a tower to talk to' and use up it's battery faster than it would on standby.
That's a bit silly. If you round the spill up to 10 billion gallons, by the time it fully disperses, it will constitute much less than 1 part per trillion of the ocean.
I can see being wary of gulf catch, but why worry about stuff from New England?
That is their primary plan for stopping the leak.
Only because history has been relatively boring.
The human impact of the 1918 flu will almost certainly be much larger than the human impact of this thing.
It doesn't have to be an operational problem. All they have to do is position themselves behind the market, and they will take a huge sales hit.
They haven't done that so far (in the last 10 years...), but they have been on top for a long time, and it is very difficult to tease out just how much of that is by intention (which might run out), and how much is by luck (which will eventually run out).
I'm somewhat skeptical that they can continue to execute, but doing the math, a couple of million iPads is only about 5% of their revenues (likely less, it takes aggressive price estimates to get that high), so who knows.
It also depends on how fast their hardware markets cycles, I'm not sure that the majority of people buying iPads today are going to be ready to buy a new one in 2 or 3 years (but maybe people really are that spendy; I'm typing this on a 4 year old laptop that replaced a 1997 desktop...).
Hence the "Zing!".
They are sold on contract. That is not a lease. With a lease, the phone company could expect to get something of value back from the customer, not a well used, obsolete phone.
No.
There are dozens or hundreds of industry people working to solve/address the problem (at a minimum, they are working on the relief well, which has a very high probability of success, it will just take 2 months to complete).
These 5 people had a meeting where they were briefed in on the specifics of the problem.
Corruption and lack of imagination are not the problem, the sheer difficulty of the situation they have put themselves into is the problem.
Only 1 shuttle exploded before Mir was deorbited, and that happened before space-side construction of Mir had even begun.
Also, calling a hyphenated word a contradiction in terms is pretty bad style.