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User: IdolizingStewie

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  1. Re:will they pay ? on BP Prepares Complex "Top Kill" Bid To Plug Well · · Score: 1

    As of yet there is no reduced supply. If the major ports start getting backed up due to hull cleaning operations, we may see some reduced supply, but the well that blew out wasn't producing yet, and as far as I've heard, a grand total of 5 platforms have shut in as a preventative measure due to being surrounded by oil, which is a negligible amount of the Gulf production.

  2. Re:And how would you do that? on BP Prepares Complex "Top Kill" Bid To Plug Well · · Score: 1

    That's rather misleading. BP's failure to maintain proper a double barrier is no more routine in the GoM than it is in Norway. Best practices are best practices. I guarantee every well I've been on offshore has had a double barrier policy at all times. Onshore, in well understood fields, I've occasionally gotten variances to have a single barrier for limited duration completion operations, but it involved a several page written explanation of risk management that had to be signed off by my boss's boss. It would never have flown in an exploratory well like this. Then again, I don't work for BP.

    The design of this well had two barriers at all times - the mud and the BOP at first, and the cement and casing and the BOP later. The problem comes in because the faulty cement job seems to have been known prior to removing the mud, generating the single barrier case. (For those not in the industry - the BOPs were a failed barrier, having presumably passed their last test, but the cement in this particular well cannot be considered a barrier at all because it never tested.)

  3. Re:I want a car with a survival instinct. on IBM's Patent-Pending Traffic Lights Stop Car Engines · · Score: 1

    The casualties incurred in transportation are already at an easily tolerable level (demonstrated every day).

    I work on an offshore oil platform. That's generally considered to be a fairly dangerous job. I have at least 2 and frequently 3 or more safety meetings per day. You know what part of my job I'm most likely to die doing? Driving to the heliport. Maybe people do tolerate this, but they damn well shouldn't.

  4. Re:Are there any submariners here? on BP Prepares Complex "Top Kill" Bid To Plug Well · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Navy offered its ROVs, but the industry had better ones.

  5. Re:will they pay ? on BP Prepares Complex "Top Kill" Bid To Plug Well · · Score: 1

    The way things are done in the oil industry BP is at fault. Period. No matter what turns out to have happened, short of deliberate sabotage by someone else's employee. If BP did not do it personally, they either ordered it done or failed to have the appropriate procedures and supervision in place to prevent it.

    Furthermore, I'm wondering why you think that fining Halliburton or Transocean will not result in them charging their customers more, who will then make up the money by charging the consumer more. All that does is increase the number of steps.

  6. Re:And how would you do that? on BP Prepares Complex "Top Kill" Bid To Plug Well · · Score: 5, Informative

    So what do you do? Pretty much what they did - cotinue and hope for the best.

    Umm, I have to say I work on all surface stacks, but if I was the company man in charge - and yes that is my current job for another major (... okay, fine, company person) - we'd shut the pipe rams, bleed the pressure above them, and fix the annular. Changing out an annular preventer on a surface stack is a relatively routine procedure. Close the pipe rams, bleed the pressure off, unbolt the top, remove the annular, cut a new one in half to go around the pipe, replace it, retighten the bolts, retest, and get on with it. I find it hard to believe that they don't have a way to replace the annular with an ROV. The blowout preventer is not a singular piece of equipment. The annular, the pipe rams, and the blinds can all be functioned and replaced separately. If your blinds are messed up, you have to get more complicated and start setting plugs, but anything above that you should be able to change fairly easily.

  7. Re:Not very critical, actually. on Oil Arrives In Louisiana; Defense Booms Inadequate · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's funny how many people keep suggesting things that are already going on. All the majors have contributed engineers and other assistance. They're just not broadcasting it, preferring instead to get on with the work.

  8. Re:lots of empty on The Go-Anywhere Cyber Cafe In a Shipping Container · · Score: 1

    You can get these things fairly nice. When I'm offshore, I live in temporary quarters that are basically a modified shipping container (1 bathroom, 2 4-bunk rooms) and have my office in another. Mine, I will admit, have air-conditioning, but still, I have no complaints at all.

  9. Re:How is the porn part relevant? on FTC Takes Out Porn- and Botnet-Spewing ISP · · Score: 3, Informative

    It is a slight misquote of an example used by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr in the majority decision in Schenck vs the United States. The proper quote is falsely yelling "fire" in a theater.

  10. Re:pressure on Can Oil-Eating Bacteria Help Clean Up the Gulf Oil Spill? · · Score: 1

    It doesn't make sense for it to have been an overpressured gas pocket, because they weren't drilling, they were done cementing. Any such pocket should have been hit and dealt with when it was initially drilled through. We've got to be looking at either a mechanical failure or human error. Rather than mud in this case, there was cement at the bottom and I would assume brine above it and a closed valve at the top holding the rest of the necessary pressure. Combine a bad cement plug and somebody opening the wrong valve and you've got a problem. Add in BOP issues and you've got a huge problem.

  11. Re:So why can't they.. on Why You Can't Pry IE6 Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands · · Score: 1

    My company can't use IE8 with IE6 compatibility because the vast majority of us are still using Windows 2000. (There is a small percentage currently serving as a trial run for the upgrade to Vista, but that's been in the works since I was hired on a year and a half ago)

  12. Re:Why redirect them? on Is Internet Explorer 6/7 Support Required Now? · · Score: 1

    I can't speak for anyone else, but I've tried that and it doesn't work when I'm at work or VPN'ed in. Only works when it's not running through the corporate servers. It will depend on your IT department, of course, but it's not a guaranteed fix.

  13. Re:This is how it's done where I'm from... on Why the IRS Should Automatically Fill In Returns With What It Knows · · Score: 1

    Ooops. Thanks for the correction. I always get those backwards. My point remains the same, though.

  14. Re:This is how it's done where I'm from... on Why the IRS Should Automatically Fill In Returns With What It Knows · · Score: 2, Informative

    You do know that the number of exemptions you put on your W-2 does not have to match the number you put on your 1040, right? Go to the IRS website, fill out the information for the calculator, and put in the numbers that it gives you. Last year I spent 10 months with 0 exemptions and extra money withheld, and then after getting the first time homebuyer credit, changed it to 18 exemptions to get a grand total of $0 of income taxes withheld from those last paychecks b/c I had already overpaid. Nobody gave me any trouble about those 18 exemptions.

  15. Re:Kindle lacks navigation for visually impaired on US DOJ Says Kindle In Classroom Hurts Blind Students · · Score: 1

    My roommate in college was blind and, yes, she attended normal classes just like the rest of us. She has even moved on to grad school now. She really didn't need that much assistance - someone to show her to her classes the first few times until she had the route memorized, a friend to tell her the food available in the cafeteria, and someone to translate the written study materials into Braille.

    Jaws made her computer eminently usable, and she had a Braille keyboard to print things she could read later along with her normal printer to print for other people. She could listen in class as well as anyone else, and take notes. She was even a research assistant for one of her psych professors.

    http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=12533 is a neat article that might give you a bit more insight into blind people in the classroom.

  16. Re:Domes in Houston on Vermont City Almost Encased In a 1-Mile Dome · · Score: 1

    I know this is Slashdot, and being aware of sports isn't cool, but just fyi, Reliant is the (American) football stadium. Both the old baseball stadium (the Astrodome is visible in one of those pics) and the current baseball stadium, Minute Maid Park, survived with relatively minor damage.

  17. Re:I hate analogies, but... on Bank Goofs, and Judge Orders Gmail Account Nuked · · Score: 1

    Just curious, but how exactly do you know what the dead pastor was thinking?

  18. Re:Born in December on A New Explanation For the Plight of Winter Babies · · Score: 1

    He paid for it with the extra years spent earning living expenses instead of a real salary to get the second 2 degrees. And for the record, my husband graduated with a 3.8 for his BSME with little to no scholarship money awarded him. Then again, maybe it's because he was born in February.

  19. Re:Dumb. on Will Your Credit Report Disqualify You For a Job? · · Score: 1

    That's funny. My name automatically changed with all the agencies when they noticed my accounts changing names after I got married.

  20. Re:Dumb. on Will Your Credit Report Disqualify You For a Job? · · Score: 1

    It doesn't matter if you pay it off or not. The dollar amount reported to the credit agencies is the amount on your bill when it is issued, not when it is paid.

  21. Re:August on Navigating a Geek Marriage? · · Score: 1

    I made an effort not to walk all over my husband when we were first dating. It didn't work until he realized he had to put forth some effort too. I can only argue "You're right" "No, you're right" for so long until finally I give in. "Ok, I'm right."

    Part of communicating is making sure you aren't being walked over either. What exactly am I supposed to do if you insist I am right on every occasion? How do I avoid walking all over you if you won't let yourself be right occasionally? That's all I'm saying.

  22. Re:August on Navigating a Geek Marriage? · · Score: 1

    I know keeping money separate works for some people, but honestly, I make 33% more than he does. Why does that mean I get 33% more fun? Does that mean I get to retire earlier while he still works, since he doesn't have enough money to retire? I just don't understand how it works.

  23. Re:August on Navigating a Geek Marriage? · · Score: 1

    That might work in the 'ideal' world, but, in the real world, you do that, and she will walk ALL over you for the rest of your lives together

    If she does this, it means you married the wrong woman.

    No, it might just mean you are so determined to "win" the argument by losing it that you're not being reasonable. I don't want a guy I can walk all over, but at some point, I'm going to stop trying to compromise and just win. That's the point at which I will dump you.

  24. Re:Geekiness is irrelevant. on Navigating a Geek Marriage? · · Score: 1

    Seconded.

    Since the preacher who married us was halfway across the country where I had grown up he asked that we both read this book and attend counseling with a preacher we trusted near us. Call it my geeky analytical nature, but we had already discussed most of the practical stuff that came up in the counseling, and it was clear to the preacher we had already had these discussions. I found reading "The Five Love Languages" to be the much more useful bit.

  25. Re:Depressing, but not uncommon on Student Sues University Because She's Unemployable · · Score: 1

    And in the implementation I've been exposed to, you wound up with 25 PTO days your first year, rising from there. And yes, that is in the US.