
Bomb Designer, Mars Expert Sent by Obama to Fix Oil Spill - Flemlord
http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-14/obama-sends-bomb-inventor-mars-expert-to-fix-bp-oil-spill-in-mexican-gulf.html?xid=huffbloomberg
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jarin
Hmm 2 nuclear bomb people, an astrophysicist, a space mining expert, and a
maverick.

They are planning to divert an asteroid and crash it into the leak.

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fleitz
No, it's James Cameron's cover story for shooting the Abyss 2.

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eavc
I read the "In Defense of Homophobes" post.

Yeeesh. I guess it's better for that guy to be working in physical science
than public policy.

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jacobolus
Seriously. Pretty reprehensible:

> _“A number of critics have asked if monogamous homosexuals are also
> culpable. Quite apart from the question of the definition of monogamous
> (sexual contact with only one person in a lifetime? serial monogamy? some
> cheating? etc.), I suggest the following analogy: A man joins the Ku Klux
> Klan. He is not violent, and would never hurt a fly; he just wants a safe
> place to express his racist feelings. Is he culpable for the Klan's past
> acts of violence? I believe that even though he is not criminally
> responsible for acts that occurred before he joined, he is morally culpable
> for joining the Klan. The Klan has blood on its hands, and anyone who joins
> must share the guilt. So, too, with the homosexual movement.”_

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joe_bleau
I don't understand the 'junk shot' plan. They're talking about shooting old
golf balls, knotted rope scraps, and shredded tire chunks in, followed by
cement? I guess I just assumed that in such a highly engineered industry,
they'd have a design and spec for the 'junk', rather than relying on what
sounds like random, uncontrolled, scrap.

Maybe that's just popular description, and in reality the junk in the junk
shot is very well controlled?

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whyenot
I think it really is junk. The NYT(? I think) had an interview with someone
who used junk shots to close wells in Kuwait, and his favorite junk was lamp
cables because it contained both soft plastic and harder copper wires. My
understanding is that they are looking for something that they can pump into
the BOP, and that once inside will form a nice big tangle and hopefully plug
up the leak. What to use depends on the specifics of each leak and is more an
art than a science.

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joe_bleau
Still surprising to me.

I also read up on the BOPs a bit--very interesting. I would have expected a
last ditch line of defense consisting of some sort of powerful spring-loaded
ram with a maybe an explosive and/or mechanical trigger, so that if
_everything_ goes wrong, you can hook up a sub and yank something to clamp the
stem, even with no hydraulic lines connected.

Not that the annular BOP isn't a clever design, using the well pressure
against itself to clamp down tight.

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physcab
> He [Alexander Slocum] has a lot of creative ideas. One in 10 are really
> brilliant ideas, but nine are dumb,” said MIT professor Wai K. Cheng, a
> colleague in Slocum’s department.

I don't understand why some scientists come public with this type of negative
commentary. It only reinforces the type of closed-off competitiveness that
plagues academia. Sometimes I wonder what great advancements haven't been made
as a direct result of the lack of collaboration and inherent selfishness
within scientific fields.

~~~
delano
I'm not familiar with any of the people involved, but it could just be an
accurate statement.

Also, you left out the last part of the quote: _You can’t miss that one that
is brilliant._

~~~
physcab
Maybe he was joking. But whether it was joking or accurate, that was probably
a comment he could have kept to himself.

I guess I hear those types of comments all too often in academia from
scientists who are trying to make a name for themselves at the expense of
others.

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watmough
Steve Wereley's particle analysis estimate 70,000 bbls / day leakage.

The much publicized 5,000 bbls/day figure is from a surface only estimate by
NOAA. It's been discovered that much of the leak is forming large sub-surface
slicks. One such below surface slick is 10 miles long, by 3 miles wide, by 300
feet thick.

These guys are not going to be visible til / if they come ashore.

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dailo10
Finally! It's about time the government steps in. And I like their approach.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Whoops, didn't mean to downvote.

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mynameishere
Is it just me or does this not really seem like that hard of a problem? I
mean, it obviously is, but I don't see why they can't just attach an open
value to the tube, then close the valve when it's on. I mean look at it:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYFYVNvgg-A&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYFYVNvgg-A&feature=player_embedded)

Why not just get bulk carriers full of gravel and start dumping it until it's
buried? Are you saying that oil can get through a million tons of gravel?

If that sounds crazy, BP itself was talking about injecting golf balls into
the tube.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/may/10/deepw...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/may/10/deepwater-
horizon-oil-spill-oil-spills)

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barrkel
The oil is pushing back against the force exerted by a column of water 5000ft
deep - that's about 15MPa, or 1,500 metric tons per square meter. Again,
that's not the force with which the oil is coming out; that's the pressure the
oil is working _against_ and _still_ gushing out at a ferocious rate.

~~~
tmsh
I would think that, for example, pumping gravel over that leaking area would
be all the more effective. You basically just need a lot of volume of some
material, and the extreme pressures from above (and gravity) will work in your
favor.

At any rate, it's not like I have any experience in this. But it's a shame to
see people downvoting someone for simply offering an idea. Ah, but such is
Hacker News..

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po
People are down-voting because it's he starts out saying "Is it just me or
does this not really seem like that hard of a problem" which is just not true.
He then suggests two bad ideas.

The gravel idea is especially bad. That's like saying you're going to shut
down an industrial fan on the floor of a arena by dropping a box of packing
peanuts onto it from the ceiling.

The down-votes are people saying "Yes, it's just you. It's a hard problem.
Read about it some more and you will see why." Just because it looks simple on
Youtube it doesn't mean it's simple.

I don't see why you bemoan Hacker News for down-voting a comment that is
effectively a waste of time. It's a slap on the wrist. That's OK. Next time,
he'll read more about it and think the idea through more before commenting.

~~~
tmsh
If you look at his entire comment, he's asking questions. What I don't like is
that Hacker News sometimes discourages people from asking questions, and
promotes a culture of one-upmanship, of putting people in their place (or a
'slap on the wrist').

Perhaps it can't be avoided in an online forum. Perhaps it's the cost of any
type of voting system that is trying to save everyone time. But it's a really
good way to miss the big picture. Any revolutionary solution to any problem is
going to sound wrong at first. It's just worth remembering that sometimes.

If you disagree with someone, it doesn't mean you have to downvote. This may
seem like a bit of a stretch (this
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1350425> comment got me thinking about
it), but there's a reason governments don't last as pure democracies. There's
a reason they kill Socrates and make huge mistakes. The cognitive dissonance
associated with 'mob rule' is a very terrifying thing. It's why we balance it
with other branches of government, etc. Why we have constitutions, bills of
rights that protect a minority's viewpoint from majority rule, in law, etc.

Hacker News, newsgroups, the internet...don't have that balance. So the
responsibility is with everyone to be even more circumspect, to allow more
breathing room, instead of simply reaching for the easy downmod.

Or maybe Hacker News isn't a 'classroom'. Maybe it's only for people who don't
take much risk in their posts. I suppose there's some value in that. I admit
though it seems less honest, interesting and helpful to me as a site for
helping startups or people with a startup-like mentality.

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po
You make good points.

I up-vote well reasoned comments I don't agree with. I also up-vote comments
that ask questions. I ask lots of questions on Hacker News.

I would down-vote a comment that starts out dismissive of a complex problem
without having a reasonable explanation.

A simple problem and a problem you don't understand will appear the same. We
all do it; the Dunning–Kruger effect is a well known cognitive bias. For that
reason, I appreciate a humble tone and I use the one tiny tool I have to try
to encourage it.

BTW: here is the official place to give suggestions:
<http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/546759/>

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tmsh
Not to be repetitive, but you make good points too, thanks. (And thx for the
info.)

