GONE FISHING

So long, see ya! I might be back.

A Technical Fable

Prologue

This has nothing to do with a company just recently mentioned, but the bug was put in my brain on how I would address the president. Since I have read eastern warrior books, and am up on my anime cartoons, I feel well-qualified to do it.

Most Honourable President,

I feel humbled in your virtual presence, and hold down my bow for a count of ten. I am but an old technical warrior, and I lay down my sliderule at your feet.

I shall tell you a fable of a land far away, in the epoch of time, known as The Eighties. We were brash young warriors of the Engineering Clan. At that time, we were just leaving our sliderules, and getting into a ritual knows as Feeding the Mainframe. It required long lineups, carrying very heavy boxes of punch cards, which kept us strong.

Now, the chief Warlord was IBM, who controlled all he could see, and determined a margin of 400% to sell his hardware. We accepted it, since it was better than sliderules.

Lord of IBM had a legion of Suits, who had great talent. The went to the military and government and branded the name of IBM into everything. They could keep their 400% forever in these places, and still do.

But one rebelled, Count Dec. He affixed 300% to his banner, and we technical warriors flocked to him. Alas, the suits invaded, and they caused him to be addicted to that margin forever. They could not hold it and he died.

Count Dec was driven out by Lord Sun, who put up the flag of 200%. He was a technical warrior's dream. But the suits came in and had many parties. They convinced him to keep up the 200% by abandoning the techies, making the software bloated, and going after telecoms. He died.

Viscount Apple is still doing nicely at 100%, but he is marketing to arts students.

And so you have put up the flag at lower than the other guys. There's not much room at the bottom anymore. The technical warriors love you, but you have listened to the suits, and strive for the higher margins. They have deceived you and set up a massive blind bureaucracy, support by fancy ads. Listen to the technical warriors, they can help!

Asus Comes Through

I still think I went through infinitely too much trouble, but Asus is now shipping a new eeebox by express courier. Obviously, one of the 30 email addresses may have penetrated.

Since I am standing on top of this popular blog that nobody ever clicks on, I had an advantage. If you look up Asus Service, I'm the top hit. I withdrew my witty post, but it will live on in infamy.

What could Asus do to repair the damage? Will I ever order any Asus product, through cheap internet channels? Do I have any confidence in them? Do I have to give up in their superior products and descend to old Acer, because of this fear? Who knows?

Hint to Asus: Click on my ads!

I really do feel sorry for you.

Really Nice Volcano Pictures

Article

These are very pretty.

Asus post taken down

I have taken down my Asus post, because there is no response, and I feel sorry for these clueless ones. I'll just assume these poor Taiwan engineers are out of their depth.

These small computers are probably unrepairable. For the next netbook, I will buy the Costco Aspire One, because you can take it back when it blows.

Empire Through Geophysics

Article

Who says Napoleonic Conquest is dead? The world is still a giant Risk game, only this time we are sending out explorer geophysicians to plant the flag. I love how they talk, like they are grabbing territory for the MotherLand. No scientific cooperation here! No sharing of the data! This is war, godammit!!

Maples are really, really, dead

Article

Looks like this guy puts the kabosh on bringing the Maples back to life.

Salton Sea Sags

Article

The mysterious Salton Sea reveals its secrets. And it's riddled with faults! I'm more surprised that it took so long to do a geophysics survey, than with the results.

So it looks like this area is being pulled thin like taffy, and it sinks. There is still no word on the exact date when this whole shebang rips asunder. :)

North Dakota Gets Seismometers

Article

See? Who says North Dakota isn't being primed to be the next nuclear waste site attempt? They have to put seismometers up for a year to say there's no seismicity. Then they get out the dart board and pick a site. The whole thing then becomes a battle of political will, and can be canceled if the N.D. senators are powerful enough.

Chalk River Leaks Stopped

Article

AECL is reporting that the reactor has been drained out and the heavy water leak has stopped.

I just like that sentence. 'The rain has stopped, and the roof isn't leaking anymore.'

Cracked Zone Earthquakes

Article

Is it possible to have a zone so thoroughly cracked that self-similarity fails at scales larger than 1 km? This is most likely the case in the Eastern Tenn. seismic zone. This zone crackles away like popcorn with small earthquakes, and there is no evidence that large earthquakes are possible. As I've mentioned before, fractal self-similarity has a range, from the smallest to the largest. Usually, the smallest is at the scale of the actual rock crystals. The large limit depends on the geometry of the fault zone and determines the maximum magnitude for the largest earthquake.

For a large seismic zone, such as the San Andreas, the top limit is at a thousand klicks or so. For Pacific subduction zone, the limit is thousands of klicks. Interior zones, such as Hamilton or New Madrid have varying top limits. For Hamilton, it is around 20 km, which limits things to M6.5 or so. New Madrid has a limit of around 100-200 km (per section), which gets it up to an M7.5. As I have said before, these zones grow with every earthquake.

But the Eastern Tenn. zone has always fascinated me. It appears totally disorganized, and could never spit out a major earthquake. With this zone, I have always wondered if it could evolve to a standard zone, or if one could possibly determine what the maximum magnitude is.

The Western Quebec seismic zone is somewhat similar, as long as one stays away from the major rifts. It is most likely thoroughly fractured and has a low 'upper limit'.

Rain Fishing

It really did clear somewhat more this weekend than most. Friday was flat cloud, and allowed water tubing. Saturday was lovely. We hiked up to The Hole, and caught some nice fish. I only kept one, a really big largemouth, which was probably one of the biggest I've caught. I saw them splashing on the surface, so I though lures would work, but it was deep worms again that worked.

The rain held off until after I could bbq it on a cedar plank. Yummm. Sunday morning looked nice, but it only lasted a couple hours. Once again we were chased out early by the rain. Cindy the wonder dog went nuts the first day. I walked up and saw her bounding down the hill, chasing a young fat forest groundhog at unbelievable speed! Then she grabbed in her jaws, but it was as big as her, and just jiggled out. Then they pared off snarling at each other, and I could finally grab her while the groundhog ran away. Later we heard her barking in the rocks, and finally went to see what's up. There she was, stuck in a crack in the rock! We looked in one way and saw her head. I had to climb over a brambly mess to look in the other way. This crack made a tunnel about 8 feet long, and was too narrow at the 'head end'. Naturally, I was yelling at the stupid dog to back up. She tried a few feet and stopped when her butt stuck a little. I could finally reach in and grab her tail. She was a trooper and still backed up. I could then grab her hind legs and pull them out, so things narrowed a lot. Finally, she popped out in a big cloud of dirt!

So, right after this, the neighbour found a beaver, and Cindy went off after it, swimming out trying to find it. Since she's 9 years old, she spent the next 2 days lying around, recovering.

Oil Wormholes

Article

I just loved this little article! It mixed geology, geomechanics, physics, and all sorts of things.

Bruce Nuclear Sees the Light

Article

Bruce Nuclear has ended its very silly plan to build nuclear plants on impossible sites. I predicted that this would happen, but my Nanticoke buddies got all worked up about it anyway.

The only impossible site remaining is the deep waste disposal pit at Bruce. This will soon join its brethren in the 'great idea cesspool in the sky'. :)

Obama Barrels to be Pushed to 100 Years

Article

No urgency for a waste site. Nuclear waste to remain on-site for "more than 60 years", which I take to be more than 100 years.

Can these cheap barrels take that? Each site builds them as "cost-effectively" as possible. What does this do to new nuclear?

Living in the Danger Zone

Article

A nice philosophy article on why people live on the edge.

Fried Asus Eeebox Continued

Well, they've had it over a week, and when I phoned, they just said it wasn't ready yet. That's all! I know it isn't ready yet! He said maybe this week, but he didn't know anything about it.

The more I think about it, it was probably a power spike. These things are like those small lcd screens, extremely sensitive to power spikes. I had a chain of two surge protectors on it, but it wasn't enough. Now, I just bought a fancier new type of surge protector (for this, when I get it back) that I have on my lcd tv upstairs.

Laptops aren't as susceptible, because they have a battery to absorb the spike. These tiny things with no batteries have no way to dissipate the energy, it goes right to the motherboard!

Had this been available at Costco, I would have returned it. Something for me to remember the next time.

Perhaps less need for deep geothermal drilling

Article

A more efficient method to extract power from low temperature thermal springs. I'm not sure, however, whether there are a lot of these things around. Anyway, a more exotic fluid can help the turbines. Meanwhile, the deep drillers trigger earthquakes, and may start a volcano!

The big problem with geothermal energy is the horrible heat conduction of rock. A natural hot spring, by definition. has solved the problem but taking advantage of a huge network of interconnecting channels. Deep drillers hope to create a single channel between two boreholes, which is tricky enough (nearly impossible!). Most likely, this ends up being a short single channel. They pump water through, but how much heat can they get? What if the channel clogs? I tend to think these people are like the windmill farms, putting up useless structures to suck up government money.

Another Design for Obama Barrels

Article

Not one of these barrel arrangements is the same. For this one, they get a lead canister, and all the radioactive tubes are shoved in. Here, after 20 years, you also get radioactive concrete. Once the tubes start busting, it will be difficult to take them out and transport to another location.

Alaska Tsunami Risk

Article

So many risks in Alaska, I don't know if this adds anything. But you can see the place is a great big bowl that would love to suck up a tsunami!

Niagara Tunnel Chuggin'

The tunnel is very interesting at the mid-point of the sandstone layer (I think!). Note the high-stress spalling at the top. And they are using steel sets and mesh. I wish we had micro-seismicity monitoring here. We'd probably hear a lot of snap, crackle and pop! I wonder if they will continue to rise through the sandstone, and what will happen when they get near the top.

How close were we to a new nuclear plant?

Article

They won't come out and say by how much we missed the boat. If they had said they were willing to pay 24 bills and the price came to 26 bills, then we would know that Ottawa only had to cough up 2 measly bills. That would be nothing to get rid of AECL!

And I don't understand their pricing. Was that 4 units at 26 bills? That's only about 6 bill per pop, which is cheap! Of course I think the total cost would be astronomical, the way they were going about it.

So, let's say the economy picks up, and we're all going with electric cars to get to the beautiful, hot and sunny cottage (come back to me, Al Gore!!). The existing nuclear stations cough up blood on their steam generators, which is expected any time now.

What do we do? Are the Chinese paying umpteen billion per nuclear plant? NO! We can have a decent cost-effective nuclear plant, if we use the Westinghouse design for Wesleyville. WESTINGHOUSE FOR WESLEYVILLE, YEAH!
If the Port Hope Backwater Boys want to make a stink about it, then we dump all our sweaty underwear on them, because we are going to sweat, and not go anywhere. They can also pay for our extra carbon, and fill the place with windmills. :) Heck, every square foot in Ontario will look like jet-engine Wolfe Island. Let's hope the wind climate doesn't change!



Of course, if they are allowed to clog up progress, then everybody should be allowed, and the whole province can go the way of Japan.

Putting all this funnin' aside, Ontario needs to make a place for it in the world. There are horrible consequences to allowing it to become a backwater. If we become generally poorer, it's the bottom that falls out. Right now, I see us heading this way, but we've been known to turn when we see the cliff. Can't see any turning yet, but I have faith.

Cold Cottage

Back again from a cold, rainy cottage weekend. Got caught in the bizarre situation of being just ahead of the convoy transporting the body of a soldier. The bridges were packed! The traffic was terrible until I was in the express lane in Toronto, and all the police started closing off the entries. Boy did we zoom! And the collectors were jammed.

Year of No Summer Shuts Down Nuclear Plants

Article

I suppose if the weather were continuously like this season - room temperature, cloudy, windy, etc. then we wouldn't need any nuclear plants. At least last year we got 2 weeks of summer!

Now, who are we going to believe on this global warming thing? Myself, I go with the gloomy Russians who say we are in to some cold weather because of sun cycles.

More Montreal Concrete

Article

I'm not making this up! I like visiting Montreal, but I don't look at the bridges, and now I won't look up! Unfortunately, if you have a lot of spontaneous failures, it doesn't bode well for earthquake capacity. Like the AECL Rusty Bucket, if things are falling apart on their own, there will be massive failure when the earthquake hits.

And Montreal is one hot earthquake zone! However, cities that are living under the Sword of Destruction, seem to be livelier. Who gives a hoot? I don't even worry about the Next Great Toronto Earthquake, since the city is doing a good job of destroying itself. :)

Geologic Flypaper

Article

This is a nice article on the most ancient 'pre-corals'. They were bacterial mats which built up structures by snagging rolling sediment.

Soft Rocks - Saviours In Earthquakes

Article

This is an interesting earthquake article. I'm still chewing over the implications. Are earthquakes started in 'soft rocks' better than the 'hard rock' variety? Is it just a matter of depth? The problem is that 'soft rock' implies lower stress drop, and for a given magnitude, it means the displacement has to be greater. This is not good.

Yet, it didn't wake up the poor schnooks that were camping right on top of it. They were probably camping on 'hard rock', which is good for earthquakes. Doesn't sound like the earthquake ruptured right beside them, or they would have had trouble finding the latrine in the morning!

So, this hard vs. soft thing has me very confused....

Earthquake Machine Shut Down for a While

Article

Officials seem to be flabbergasted. So they are shutting down the giant earthquake machine, designed to destroy all of California!!!! Ah, we love the drama!

They will soon learn the Law of Alternative Energy - it ain't all it's cracked up to be. You can't push on a rope, you can't inject into this crap without earthquakes, and you can't have a quiet windmill.

Mama, Don't Take Your Kids to Toronto!

Back from another beer run and shopping trip to Montreal. As you know, the woman of my financial life does a lot of work there. The kids had a great time shopping for clothes. Seems to be nothing but sales, and anything on the deep discount rack is better than anything in Toronto, and at a very low price.

The hotels were full of kids doing athletic things at the pools and such. The streets at night were alive and non-stinky. All in all, think about diverting from swine-ish bubonic Toronto, and go to Montreal!

You know that nothing is going to be settled here soon. Nobody has died, and the union is starting to pump out 'standard formula' commercials.

Squid get shocked by earthquake

Giant squid have washed up after an off-shore earthquake. Most likely they got blasted by the acoustic shock from a shallow, high stress drop earthquake. Supposedly that's how some whales hunt them, by emitting a sonic shock wave.

Chinese Foundation Failure

This was sent to me by email. I have no idea about the details, but the building looks like it was built on straws. Really good French Concrete!

Write of Passage

I'm sitting here, after a cold weekend at the cottage, a crumpled old man. It started with a basic concept that each of my kids had the right to spend a totally drunken wild weekend at the cottage with their friends. Why not live the life of beer commercials once in your life?

I did it at the end of Grade 12. We were all campers and we went to camp the the upper lakes, but of course, we had to have The Night. We all got smashed, and smoke room-grown cannabis, that had the power of toilet paper. One girl went toxic when we went skinny-dipping. All I remember was struggling with this mass of slippery, naked girl, trying to stop her from sinking beneath the waves. :) Actually, it was quite scary because we thought she'd kill herself.

On to modern times: the 20-year-old boys, no girls. I took them up myself, since I wanted the place to remain in one piece, and these guys can't see beyond their nose. The logistics of a cottage binge drink are quite complex. You have to take up all these huge guys, plus food, plus stuff, plus booze, and jam them into a van. Then you have to unload everything, and load a boat, and haul it up to the cottage. They had to provide all their own supplies, but the horrible thing happened, they ran out of booze on the second night!

The weather was cold and generally terrible. In the sunny breaks, they went tube fighting, which is using two flat tow tubes. We go for a few loops on the boat, and they they start the fight, which is like rugby on the waves. They try to knock each other off the tubes, while hitting waves which are throwing them 2 m high! It was hilarious!

Friday night was quiet for me. I drugged myself up to sleep with my anti-depressants, and they went for drinking games. With enough booze, they quietly passed out one by one. A little barf over the rails, but quickly cleaned up by the incessant rain. Saturday, I took the bedraggled bunch over to the fishing hole. By definition, no fishing hole is good, unless it is nearly impossible to get to. Down deep valleys full of bugs, climbing up cliffs, and topping hills. One guy had to take 15 beers with him and ice. Fishing wasn't that good, but we got 2 really nice largemouth bass. Drank only a few beers, and the rest had to be hauled back. The ice was good for the fish.

Second night, the worst thing for me happened. They ran out of booze! They just stopped at the ridiculously noisy stage, and couldn't get to passing out. Then they howled, and went swimming, and screamed, and played music till dawn. I kept getting up, and telling them not to scream, but the effect lasted 5 minutes! I'm going to get glares from the whole north half of the lake!

More water sports the next miserable day, and a ton of recycle bottles at the dump, and we all got home safely. On to the next kid in 2 years!

Canada to be Squeezed Out of Isotopes

Article

If there was anything to the Avro Arrow mess, it was that Canada can't afford that sort of thing. The whole Chalk River site was made with US bomb money, and they have been milking that out for years. We rely on their charity for the bomb-grade uranium. Really, we're over our heads, here.

Now, they might try and make the stuff themselves, by inventing a totally new process. Personally, I don't see them doing it, but they'll think they can, thus sucking money out of Chalk River. Personally, I'm happy to see it shut down, since I think it's a deck of cards on a Seismic Cesspit, but that's just me.

Asus Dead - 6

Now, they have great confusion over what is an eee box, they want the serial number of a laptop. I wish I could make a song about it like this.

Asus Mucks Me Up

All I want is a little respect,
Not being handled by happy robots,
Who needs this, with my overflowing cup?

'Cause Asus mucks me up.

Pirate Party of Canada

Article

This is neat! They focus on the very nasty aspects of intellectual property legalism, and how it destroys the economy. Very disorganized, and no great brains that I have seen. If I wasn't terrified of politics, I'd go for it.

Alberta Health Records Sprayed Out

Article

Back on my Healthcare IT kick. You have all these PC's downloading porn, and then accessing the health records. What will happen? Screenshots are the Achilles Heel, since somebody has to view the records. It's not the same as accessing a huge flat file, and all the encryption in the world can't save you here.

Asus Dead - 5

As the movie says: "AHHH! It's like I'm taking crazy pills!" Now, they tell me I don't have a valid serial number - please correct it. Nothing else! I already went through that with someone else! I asked "What the heck is the serial number, with all these other stupid numbers everwhere? " It's not like they have a big arrow and say "This is the serial number!". No, they have to call it a V/N and surround it with other numbers. And you can't tell the difference between a 'OH" and a zero. Would they help a bit? Blah...

Whirlpool Sandstone No Problem for Niagara Tunnel

Well, there ya go. Here I thought there would be some problem with a mixed face, and the thing is just crunching away at top speed. I think they intend to keep this roof for a while now. I don't know if they have to rise and break through eventually.

Hit By Microsoft

I retired an old computer for the middle son, and fired up a new one. I just used my old copy of Vista. It worked for a month, and now we get the dreaded "You are scum!" message, and it shuts down the computer.

I know the solution is to phone them, wait forever, and beg them to please allow this horrible thing. I can't do that! I'll try other solutions first.

Help Required for Mississauga & Toronto Transit

We've got the engineer nephew staying with us for a while, and he finally got a co-op job, which this year is quite an accomplishment. But the job is way over in Miss. and right now it takes him 2.5 hours each way!

So, is there any way to cut the time? Trouble is that you might have to combine GO, TTC, and Miss. Transit, and there's no Google program to do that.

Chalk River Brings on the Dark Ages

Article

“We'll be back in the dark ages in terms of health care,” Dr. Urbain said in an interview.

Yes, they will hit us in dribs and drabs, as to when this horrid thing will work, if ever. Every month, they will say they need another. A bit like the Maples, really.

Toronto Bubonic Garbage Brings Down Stockmarket

Article

Middle son was supposed to be a city lifeguard this summer, but he's just a bum, hanging around the house. So I really want an end to this strike! I think some US travel site picked up my Bubonic Plague in Toronto story, so they issued a travel advisory.

Feel free to defend Toronto in the comments!

Buying a New Laser Printer

I have had my Samsung CLP-510 for many years. As you know, I run Linux, because of its greater ability to snatch and convert movies! Also, it keeps old computers running forever. But, it is really rotten for cheapo devices that work only with Windows. That's why I usually have a couple of windows machines around. For example, I bought a Lexmark x9350 for the daughter, and Lexmark hates Linux! Their products are called 'paperweights' by the Linux crowd. So if I use the scanner, I always have to route through a windows machine.

Now, the old clp-510 has its own language, but their is a flaky Linux driver for it, called Splix. As well, this is a usb printer, so I use a cheap, flaky network print server box. It has worked for me over the years, but it regularly gets a big heart attack, and I have to reinstall everything to get it to work.

What if I had a standards-compliant Postscript machine? Or in other words, when would Adobe offer their drivers to cheapie printers? They finally did, and the Samsung clp-350n is my new printer. I'll be able to hook it up to the network, and print from any machine! I haven't found a standard network scanner yet, but perhaps one day.

Iceland Borehole Hits Magma

Article

Wow! This is interesting. I suppose you can't drill anywhere for very long without hitting magma in Iceland. Even more interesting is the fact that they want to drill through it! The concept of magma spurting out the hole doesn't phase them.

Asus Eee Box Dead - 4

OMG! I had to fill in the RMA form again!

Slow Week - July 6

I'm actually skimming the news each day, but there's nothing of great interest. Had a nice cottage weekend at the bro-in-law, and we had one day of sunshine! Yeah! First in a week! We let off a big Costco box of fireworks, off the dock. We were in competition with a neighbour 2 docks down. First they would shoot, and we all cheered, then we would come up with something. We had the bigger box, so we won!

This is 'pick your courses' week for the university kids. Daughter had to learn that if you want a popular course, you have to zoom right at the minute! "Nobody told me!" she wailed.

We lent our GPS to our old neighbours for the weekend. They had to go to Ohio, and I could set everything up so that it talked to them, and they didn't have to touch it. "What an amazing thing!", they told me.

I am reading voraciously with my Sony bookreader. They did a great job designing it, and it's too bad nobody knows about it. Such a sad company...

And, of course, Asus keeps screwing up on my warranty process, but it's summer, and what the hey...

Niagara TBM on the Sandstone Autobahn

As of July 6th 2009

Tunnel is 4656 meters (15,275 feet) long
with no roof line over-break
average 20 -21 metres per day

Wow, just smokin'! Wish I knew whether it was into the sandstone yet

Nuclear Column

Article

I like this guy. I don't think much will come out of all this gaming with Ottawa. Fish or cut bait.

Asus Eee Box Dead - III

Just was informed that my first request for an RMA was caught up in a system failure. Trying again.

Great Idea from Old Media

Article

Ontario Power Generation operates 10 AECL units. They have expertise and workers who are skilled in keeping nuclear plants running -- and they have a better track record than AECL. Why not ask OPG to take a look at Chalk River and the MAPLE reactors?

My fingers are sealed! I wont' say anything!

Rats are People, Too

Article

If the stupid pesticide ban is allowed to destroy my fruit trees, then they can bloody well have a ban on spraying garbage! The strike will only end if we have Bubonic Plague ravaging Toronto. The victims will understand their great sacrifice. :)

Bring out your dead, Toronto.

Nuclear Liability Act Rises from the Dead

Article

This has tickled my warped humour bone in my head. Years ago, the Nuclear Liability Act (NLA) was a very big thing, with a very big trial. Behind this was the simple fact that the nuclear operators could never get open-ended liability insurance for a nuclear accident, and so most of it would have to be covered by the government anyway. The gov't, in turn, did ding the operators for a few hundred million for insurance they had to buy. It was a case of very remote odds, and very high consequences.

Anyway, the 'anties' (yeah NORM!), were very big on wiping this implicit gov't coverage out by legal means. That would effective destroy all nuclear in the country and plunge us into one heck of cold, dark winter. Naturally, it couldn' happen, but it didn't stop them from trying.

They brought in some seismic stuff, and I countered it. It was a very long boring trial, and I don't remember any of it. After that trial, the air went out of Norm and his buddies, and I died a slow intellectual death. I existed only for intelligent opposition, and the CNSC also died. Naturally, the operators never believed in earthquakes (or a modern version of them), and I wasted away, only to be happy with retirement. (The operators still mindlessly go through the seismic provisions set 30 years ago).

That's why I was soooo happy to see that Norm was still alive! It reminded me of the happiest moments in my career.

June BSSA Report

After I read it all, there's really nothing I want to extract. One article sounded interesting, in that they accepted there must be a physical limit to surface ground motion, but then they used acceleration, for which there is no physical limit!

Another went heavily into predicting ground motion for the next great Cascadia event, but again they went with acceleration. One article on basin motion in Seattle went with PGV, but I failed to find the point. I always like to read the articles on stress modeling for adjacent faults, but I always find this to be a bit of a dream.

Drowned Turbine Rotors are Back

Article

You can't drown a good rotor! The rotors have come back to Pt. Lepreau. Of course, they are totally useless right now, since old rotors were supposedly put in. But maybe the whole project is so hopelessly late, they can still do it!