Obama Scorecard

I read an article saying that while Obama T-Shirts were the most popular item in 2008 he has been pushed out of first place by none other than George W. Bush. Not being Obama’s biggest fan I found several sites selling “Miss me yet?” T-Shirts with GWB pictured like the one shown.

I almost bought one but changed my mind when I saw the item below.

Like they say, a picture paints a thousand words, even if the score on the right is lower than it should be. You can get these at Cafe Press.

I Wonder Why

HSE has become an important part of life in the oil exploration business but I have often wondered why it is that many of the HSE people seem to have things backward. Instead of looking at crews that get through without any HSE incidents the HSE people concern themselves with why accidents happen.

Seismic exploration is often carried out in harsh environments and long hours are put in by some crews on an extended basis. A lot of the activities routinely performed on a seismic crew are intrinsically hazardous but when you have been around the business as long as I have you will have seen crews back in “the bad old days” (before the concentration on HSE) that seemed to sail through without any problems.

Basically a crew getting through a survey without any HSE incidents is not the natural state of things. if you disagree you should take a look at the enormous lists of HSE incidents which occur worldwide to change your mind.

The difference seems to be in the attitude of the individuals rather than any designed safety precautions while a certain amount of sheer dumb luck is also involved in some cases. Any crew that manages to get through several years without any serious HSE issues, however, has more than dumb luck working for it. This is where some of the bright HSE people need to look to see what is going right and putting emphasis on achieving that on other crews.

Focusing on what went wrong after an accident occurs is necessary but only makes us wiser in hindsight. In addition I have seen many incident investigations where the HSE department will come up with a complete laundry list of problems rather than admitting that the accident was obviously caused by some idiot just plain doing something stupid. This sort of shifting blame to a system rather than an individual does not help anybody and often just annoys competent people with extra safety rules and regulations that only an idiot would need.

One example of this is a blanket rule which I have run into on many occasions. On one refinery job that I did everybody had to wear hard hats and safety glasses all the time to ensure that no idiot would be able to forget to use these items when they were actually necessary. I also recall working for an extremely HSE conscious client who insisted that all personnel outside of the accommodation area on a seismic vessel had to wear steel toed boots and a hard hat, even to the weekly crew barbecue on the forecastle deck.

One of the things that I have always said is that if you hire idiots you can’t expect any amount of training to make them safe. One thing that I wholeheartedly agree with is that safety starts with the individuals on the crew but when those individuals don’t measure up to a decent standard you need to question the focus of HSE. Nothing can be idiot proofed because whenever you think you have eliminated every possible hazard some idiot will come up with an ingenious way of hurting themselves.

Now if evolution was just allowed to take its course we might get rid of the stupid people by natural selection but the problem is that idiots don’t always just hurt themselves.

I realize that these sort of statements will offend a lot of the politically correct crowd (how something so wrong-headed can even contain the word “correct” in its name is completely beyond me, the other part of its name shows its origins and politics don’t belong in the work place, unless you are a politician) but it may also change somebody’s attitude and save an injury caused by an idiot.

New sensor supports oil exploration

Sensor Systems claim to have made a the first advancement in almost 50 years in seismic sensors.

The new device, an all-optical, fiber-optic omnidirectional geophone, requires no in-situ electronics, copper conductors, or electrical power. It incorporates a self-contained optical interrogation unit (using an optical time division multiplexing methodology) with integrated laser sources; all of the system electronics reside in the optical interrogator. Receiver electronics demodulate the optical signals from the geophones, translating them into digital electronic signals. A fiber optic telemetry cable provides the data path to and from the individual geophones. A single optical interrogator can address up to 128 individual geophones.

I have worked with marine gravity systems which improved by replacing the old gyros with fiber-optic gyros and this also increased the life of the gyros at the same time so this could easily be a major advance. The graph below shows a marked improvement in signal to noise ratio.

If the results really are as shown in real-world situations it should mean much better data and that is rally something to look forward to.

If anybody has more information on these new sensors please let us know in the comments below.

Small Times – New sensor supports oil exploration

Spending Your Way Out of Trouble

The world’s financial problems came about by having a government push financial institutions into providing home mortgages to people who would not be allowed to hold a credit card in a third world country. These mortgages were invested in by a wide range of outside companies without anything approaching due diligence. These companies include insurance firms and private pension funds who should have known better.

Long after it was obvious that there were looming problems with the so-called “sub-prime” mortgages investors (generally using other peoples money) continued to buy in. When the penny finally dropped there was such enormous exposure from financial institutions that many of them needed to be bailed out with government money. It sort of makes you wonder why these firms paid big salaries to their financial people if they couldn’t see this one coming.

After throwing money around like drunken sailors to “stimulate” the economy the world’s leaders including Obama, Brown, Rudd and many others are still wondering what to do next as they have to keep the money printing presses working full time just to pay for what they have already spent.

Perhaps they should take a look at history, particularly the quote below.

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced,
the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign
lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.
People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” ~ Cicero – 55 BC

Great Service From Amazon.com

A recent experience with Amazon’s service people has left me smiling. Generally I have rather low expectations for service from online sellers but this was one occasion when the service was genuinely excellent.

I had ordered some books and had them sent to my address in Indonesia using the cheapest method, which has worked okay many times before (though slowly) and the first shipment (out of two) arrived in about the normal time frame of about five to six weeks while the second shipment, which had been shipped the same day but probably from a different location, was nowhere to be found three weeks later than the first shipments arrival.

I notified Amazon about this and they apologized profusely and immediately reshipped all of the books again and also upgraded the shipping method for free. As luck would have it the original shipment arrived a few days later, thus setting a new low standard for Indonesia’s customs and excise people.

When I informed Amazon about the arrival of the original shipment they thanked me for being honest and asked me to ship the newer shipments back to them by the cheapest air method and let them know the cost so that they could reimburse me.

Amazon obviously has no control over delivery of their shipments once they go out the door. Their gracious apology and their wonderful service in reshipping the books was a very nice customer experience. The way that they handled things when the original shipment turned up several weeks later than even the usual long period is nothing short of amazing.

I highly recommend shopping at Amazon for this reason. The helpful attitude does not stop after the product is sold and they have your money, unlike many others.

Sudan Pictures

WNPOC Sudan (18 photos)
13 June 2007, Juba

Global Warming Scam

I think that it is high time that the public started calling the media on the garbage they are spewing about global warming, sea level rises and all of the associated ills which they are making up as they go along. Take a look at the old pictures and quotes below and make up your own mind.

Call me a climate sceptic but when I see a program on CNN saying that Bangladesh is being inundated because of climate change I start to get annoyed at the crap that the media spews. Every report regarding a flood, drought, tornado, heavy rain etc. etc. is blamed on climate change.

This is patently ridiculous and contradicts the media’s own articles. Consider some of the following quotes.

“Bangladesh is already facing consequences of a sea level rise, including salinity and unusual height of tidal water,” said Mizanur Rahman, a research fellow with the London-based International Institute for Environmental Development.

Link

ADVERTISEMENTS for beachfront properties should include warnings that they may end up worthless because of rising sea levels, a planning expert says.

Link

Now compare them with the quotes below.

Venice has also suffered serious flooding for the second time in two weeks, with the waters reaching 1.05m on Thursday morning.

Last week, the “acqua alta” (high water) reached 1.56m, the highest level since 1986, before falling back again.

Link

The USA sweated this year through its hottest summer in 70 years, with temperatures not seen since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, according to a government report.

Link

You will notice that the last one was from 2006, not 2007 as you would predict if you believe what the climate change people would have you believe.

Now don’t you think that this could be classed as evidence that the climate change people are talking through their hats?

Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
- Michael Crichton

Nokia E71

My all-time favourite mobile phone was my old Sony Ericsson P910i but SE’s later phones just don’t match up in features or ease of use. I replaced the P910i with a Nokia E61i after the scroll wheel got wrecked by an idiot in airport security in Jakarta knocked the phone off the scanner in his haste to look at the duty free booze I was carrying.

The E61 was okay for text messaging and such but I had a hard time setting it up to send and receive email no matter how many times I rechecked the settings. The other problem was the sheer width of the phone making it difficult to find a belt pouch for it. It fit into the pocket of a work shirt but I had it drop out when I bent over, luckily without breakage, just a couple of scratches and a dent on one corner. The E61 was solid with a steel battery cover and a large battery, making it good for those long conversations with clients when things go wrong.

I had a brief interlude with the Sony Ericsson G900 but a drop of sweat on the screen managed to find its way into the screens inner layers and stopped the touch screen interface from working at all. Just as well, I had been trying to find an excuse to junk the phone as signal dropping (in places where cheap mobiles had no problem) poor screen visibility in sunlight conditions and the tiny virtual keyboard along with a fairly opaque menu system compared to the old P series were getting on my nerves.

Time for a new phone. Previously I had a hankering after the Nokia E90 but after seeing it in real life I didn’t really like the bigger size compared to most of the current crop of mobiles. My bad experience with the SE G900 and the tiny virtual keyboard made me look for something with a full keyboard. The HTC TyTN II and the HTC Touch Pro were contenders with their slide out keyboards but the size, price and the fact that Windows mobile was driving the things counted heavily against them. Blackberries had the full keyboard but were pretty large as well.

Then I saw the Nokia E71. All of the functionality of the E61i was there in a a slimmer package. Even though this phone’s trim size fits in most cell phone pockets (those built in to many cargo/BDU type pants) the battery was the same size as the larger E61 giving excellent battery life of up to ten hours of talk time as well.

Signal strength is up there with the best of them and the phone is a quad band unit making it useful almost anywhere in the world. The connectivity is rounded off with HSPDA 900/2100, WiFi, Bluetooth (A2DP) and infra-red for those whose laptop no longer has an infra-red transceiver. Mine came with a 2GB MicroSD card for extra storage for email and such.

The newer phone has a couple of features that I found lacking on the E61i. The first is automatic key locking. I don’t know why Nokia left that out of the E61 but I always had to remember to lock the keys manually. The second is a real alarm clock function which can use multiple alarms. Finally Nokia built in the GPS in the E71. As there is nothing missing you have to wonder how they fit everything in there with a maximum thickness of 10 mm.

Thinks I like:

• Small size fits in pants pockets without making you look like you have a cancerous growth.
• Great signal strength and clear calls.
• Has fairly good office file viewing software.
• Solid feel.
• Sunlight viewable screen.
• Built in GPS.
• Full keyboard which I can use one handed.

Things I don’t like:

• Screen a touch small, I know it goes with the trim profile but my eyes are getting older.
• Keyboard a little cramped for my large hands, see above for why I can learn to live with that.
• Limp white colour, I prefer the grey version but there were none in stock anywhere.
• The shiny back cover in polished stainless steel with etched lines is a magnet for fingerprints.
• People asking how I like my Blackberry.

Vibroseis versus Dynamite

I’m currently on a 2D job which is mainly flat but it does have one portion in the middle which has some hills requiring bulldozer cutting. The client emailed me the other day asking about using vibes in the hills as somebody at the office had asked if it wouldn’t be better to use dynamite. On this job dynamite is not a realistic option as importing the stuff is difficult and drills are just not available to get it down to a decent depth so I needed to answer in such a way that he would be able to convince the doubters.

The first thing that I normally do in these cases is look for an expert opinion that has been published in a respected journal but as I looked around the Internet for any sort of scientific comparison between vibroseis and dynamite on flat terrain I came up empty, far less a comparison on steeper grades.

I know from several recent projects that vibes can be used pretty effectively in some steep areas but I am also perfectly aware that the laws of physics even apply to seismic crews and vibrators. The simple fact of the matter is that as we get to steeper angles the force that the vibe exerts is working at an ever increasing angle to the force exerted by the vibes weight which normally holds the machine down so the output power can never be equal to that on level ground so there must be a limit to what can be done with a vibe. The problem is to demonstrate that this limit will not be reached in the hills that we have.

As mentioned earlier my recent projects include two jobs in mountainous country. One of the jobs was a 3D done completely with vibes and the other was a 2D where there was dynamite available and some pattern holes could be drilled in the hard rock areas that were completely inaccessible to the vibes.

On the latter job the dynamite shots were not as good as the vibe records for adjacent shots. Penetration was poorer and the noise was far more noticeable due to the lack of stacking and correlation which favours the vibes. The terrain in that area was far worse than anything that we are up against here and the data was acceptable. I know that it isn’t really a fair dynamite versus vibes comparison using pattern holes but then again the vibroseis were being used in places that they were never designed to go.

Here on this project the same vibes are being used and the data we have been getting is very good but the question remains, would it be better to drill and use dynamite. Cost is a big part of the consideration when it comes to seismic, especially with the oil prices at current levels.

Maybe somebody out there has been involved in some sort of comparison testing that could be of help. Let me know in the comments below.

New Server Home for Seismic Talk

I have not made any posts for some time as I tried different software to run Seismic Talk and a couple of different hosting accounts. I tried using another gallery style as well with the images hosted on another service but could not get things set up to make it easy for other people to add albums to the gallery. After some time it was apparent that the other systems could not come close to the user friendliness of WordPress and Gallery2 with the WPG2 bridge making them work together harmoniously so I just updated the old site with a bit of a facelift and got all of the other bits up to date.

Seismic Talk is now hosted on a new account with its own IP address. I had tried to set it up on a Virtual Private Server but kept running into issues with file permissions causing automatic updating of plug-ins and the system itself to behave badly. This was not the fault of the hosting company, their equipment ran very well and served the site up faster than ever before, but one of the quirks of virtualization software in conjunction with the site software which even the best service in the world could not fix.

I could have gone back to updating things manually but laziness is a factor. The automatic updates work well on this new server and the speed should be okay even on a shared server as the system information always shows a low load factor for all of the different services and hardware.

The hosting company that I am using now did a fantastic job of moving the site with only a few small tweaks needed to get everything functional in its new home.

Hopefully now that things are set up I will be able to spend more time adding more posts for you to read.