First day as an ex-employee

Yesterday was my last day at Noble, so for at least the time being I'm no longer a corporate stooge of Big Oil. As last days went, it was pretty tame; I finished cleaning my personal belongings out of my office, I turned in my badge, I shook hands with a lot of people. What struck me is how unaffected I was by all of it.

Admittedly, I haven't had that much experience when it comes to leaving jobs. When I got laid off from AT&T, I ended up crying on my last day. I think that was partially because it was the only real job I'd ever had, and I was scared as all hell. When I got fired from NBM, there was more crying, but those were the sort of frustrated tears you tend to have when you've been screwed over by your boss completely out of the blue.

So I guess with those as my only experiences, I expected at least to get sniffly on my last day at Noble. And... nothing. It really just felt like any other day. Who knows, maybe in a week when it all hits home I'll have a nice little cry because I miss my coworkers and my job.

But I kind of doubt it. I think, fair or not, I really said my goodbyes to the job back in February when I got accepted in to grad school. And even before that, I was slowly drifting away. There hasn't been a whole lot of work for me to do since the economy took a dump, really. Budgets are tight, exploration is limited, and I think a lot of us were scrabbling for things that would just make us look busy. But that feeling of not being needed really hit home in January, when I had the opportunity to start working full time again and discovered that I just didn't have enough work to justify charging forty hours on the clock.

So rather than that sharp, abrupt severance that I had with my former jobs, this feels like I've simply come unmoored and drifted slowly away. There are worse ways to part from a job, I think. I'll miss my coworkers, but I certainly don't miss crying over it.

And it also helps, I think, that I've got a three year adventure to look forward to.

5 reasons a zombie would make an excellent pet

1) More intimidating than a rottweiler, yet quieter.
A lot of people keep guard dogs on the understanding that these razor blades with legs will intimidate a burglar enough that he won't even think of smashing your window and making off with your porn-filled iPad. Barring that (or if you happen to have an extremely stupid burglar scoping out your house) a guard dog will still stop the burglar, but also splash blood liberally all over your carpet and walls. But your iPad will be safe. The down side to this sort of protection plan is that dogs bark. That's part of the intimidation act, letting the bad guys know that there's a dog waiting to gnaw on their femur in this house. But it also means that you have to listen to a lot of random woofing every time the neighborhood children run across the street, or the neighbor's handbag dog takes a crap in your rose bushes.

On the other hand, a zombie serves many of the same functions as a guard dog - intimidation of intruders by standing menacingly in backlit windows or doorways, chilling vacant stare that puts fear in the heart of evildoers, leaving a twenty foot long smear of blood on your linoleum - but without the hell hound-style baying. Instead, there's the much quieter (but still intimidating in its own way) moan of "braaaaaaaains." As distinctive as the howl of the Hound of the Baskervilles, and twice as pants wetting, since it's a zombie and not just a nice dog that's been coated with glow in the dark paint.


2) Other than the blood, easy to clean up after.
Think about it. Have you ever, once, in all the zombie movies you've ever watched, seen one of the walking dead stop for a potty break? Their relentless pursuit of living flesh, unbroken by the occasional pitstop, is one of their most terrifying features. So yes, you may have to spend a lot of time spraying your carpets down with Nature's Miracle to get out all the blood, but say goodbye to having to scoop poop out of a box of clay bits, or hunting for it in the overgrown jungle of your backyard. Personally, if I had the choice between slipping on a dog turd as I run through the grass or slipping on a bit of some trespasser's intestine, I'd vote for the intestine every time.


3) No vet bills.
Zombies are like Hondas. You get one, and then you just run it until it falls apart. It doesn't really matter what one eats - no more running your pet to the vet because the little darling thought that eating four inches of plastic tubing sounded like an excellent idea. No more vaccinations - once you're a zombie, rabies is about the last thing in the world you'd be concerned about. A zombie will take a licking and keep on ticking, at least until someone destroys whats left of its brain with a well placed shovel blow or a couple episodes of Jersey Shore. And if that happens, it's easy enough to find a new zombie once you've said a few words over the ashes of your former pet.

Bonus: Like other pets, you can name all of your zombies the same thing. They won't care. They're zombies.


4) You don't have to walk a zombie.
Seriously, leading one of the undead around on a collar? If that sounds like a fun time to you, you've got some issues, man.


5) Save on pet food.
Your pet food budget basically drops to zero once you've acquired a zombie. Instead of paying good money for the meat that was too weird to be made into sausage, all you have to do is let your zombie wander the neighborhood. The neighborhood cat that keeps peeing in the bushes right in front of your house will make a lovely snack. Those awful children who think its hilarious to bounce a basketball against the side of your house at three in the morning when you've got a hangover? Gone. The weird guy that stole that pair of underwear you threw away because it was just some holes held together with elastic out of your trash can? I wouldn't bet on those odds in Vegas.

Now, I'm sure there are some bleeding hearts out there that will say a healthy, happy zombie is an indoor zombie, and not one shuffling through the streets of your neighborhood and decimating the squirrel population. These people should go back to their hippy retreats where they can fondle their dread locks and convince themselves that tofu isn't actually made out of styrofoam. It's a freaking zombie. If it gets hit by a car, the zombie will likely come out just a little more ragged than it started and get a free snack on top of the deal. Want cleaner, quieter neighborhoods where nothing even survives to become roadkill? Outdoor zombie, all the way.

In which I owe Isaac, big time

You may or may not know this about me, but I have a soft spot that is actually larger than my entire body for cats. And a soft spot only slightly smaller for dogs. If there is a dog or a cat looking sad or sounding pitiful, I will be there, and I will quite likely be sniffling a little bit myself. This sometimes gets me into... well, not trouble exactly. But into awkward spots.

Thankfully, my friends know this about me and put up with it. Such as when my best friend, after driving up to Denver to visit, ended up sitting with me for hours at an animal shelter on July 5th so I could hand over a little lost dog that I'd found.

Tonight was another example. Isaac had just dropped me off and I was fumbling for my keys when I heard a pathetic mewing. It took me a while to locate the source, which involved a sad little game of Marco Polo where I wandered around the grassy area of my complex and meowed, then listened for the kitty to meow back. Then I had to go in my house and locate a flashlight. Then I had to look around some more. I eventually found a cat a little more than halfway up one of the pine trees near my house.

Common wisdom says that if a cat gets itself up a tree, it eventually will get itself back down. Common wisdom can hang itself; I didn't think there was any way I'd be able to sleep tonight with a sad kitty crying outside my window.

So I called Isaac, because I knew he'd still be awake, and hoped he had a ladder. And, remarkable enough, he didn't tell me to go to hell, even though he'd just been sitting down to eat something. Instead, like the amazing friend he is, he tied his ladder to the roof of his car and drove over to help. I spent the wait standing under the tree with my flashlight and meowing at the cat. Quite a few people from my neighborhood passed by in that time, and they probably all thought I'd gone mental.

Getting the kitty out of the tree was a two person job. Isaac climbed up and tried to peel the cat off of the tree. Considering how small the cat was, it had an impressive, kung-fu like grip and Did Not Want To Move. He managed to get the cat wrapped up in a towel, which he then handed off to me. I tucked it under my arm like a football and carried it down the ladder.

So, Operation Rescue Cat From Tree was a success. I'm sorry to say that Operation Shove Cat Into Carrier was not, however.

It's very likely that the cat is a resident of the neighborhood. There are several people here that let their cats outside. I think that these people are all insane. My housing development is next to a highway and two extremely busy streets. We're also near an open space where there are coyotes. I tend to disagree with the practice of letting cats wander unattended outside to begin with, and here I just worry they'll end up as road pizza or a coyote snack.

But anyway, this cat didn't have a collar, so I had wanted to shove it in a carrier, hold it captive in my house, and probably take it to the vet the next day. Because it was quite the adorable little cat as well. Unfortunately the cat had other ideas and escaped. I tried to follow it, but it ran off toward the highway and I didn't want to pursue, just in case the cat thought that might be a good avenue of escape.

And Isaac still loves me, and most of his blood remained in his body even after his wrestling match with an extremely displeased cat in a tree, so I suppose it could have gone a lot worse.

Inception

The quick review: You really, really, really ought to go see this movie.

If Memento was the warm up, Inception was the main event. I really don't want to go into a lot of detail about the story or the concept. If you want to know either, you can read other reviews and get a reasonable explanation of both. But to be honest, I think it's best to just go in knowing that there are dreams, and a McGuffin that allows people to share them, and then you can just get knocked on your ass by the rest.

It says a lot about the writing, and how tightly plotted the movie was that afterward, my husband and our friend David were bickering about whether or not a section of screen time that was supposed to be three minutes actually was three minutes long, or if it was longer because it felt longer. When the plot of the movie is so tight that you are left with nothing to pick at but tiny details, it is impressive indeed.

And of course, there was one moment of plotty gut punching powerful and genuine enough that it made every occupant of the theater let out a dismayed exclamation at exactly the same time. Which is quite the accomplishment when you consider the average audience, which has had its brain melted by horrible attempts at 3D this summer.

It's beautiful, and it's suspenseful, and I actually cared about each and every one of the characters. Go see it.

And: Soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. Bigger win than Sherlock Holmes on the music front, and I didn't think that was possible.

It's a Bad Universe out there

Finally! Phil Plait's sooper sekrit project has been revealed! He's been talking about this (or rather, annoyingly not talking about it other than to say that there's a secret project) for months and I've been dying to know what it's about. It looks like a lot of fun, sort of a Mythbusters with more focus on the science.

This makes me really, really wish that I had cable. Maybe I can talk Mike in to it.

I'm very entertained by the little trailer. I'm not sure if my favorite bit is Mutant!Phil shooting lightning out of his eyes at the UFOs, or Phil just saying "oh god" when he's apparently being taken on some crazy maneuver in a jet.

(Phil has now posted about his project on his blog.)

The Pelican in the Room

I am getting increasingly worried about the Macondo well's continuing shut-in state, not to mention the way BP and Admiral Allen seem to be bickering about it. I guess the good news is that the pressure has built to a reasonable level and has pretty much parked there. That's certainly better than the alternative¹. And to a certain extent, I can understand why what was supposed to be a pressure test has been extended for days to keeping the well shut in. Because it is preferable to allowing the well to continue to flow into the Gulf.

However.

BP's making noise about wanting to try another surface kill. I suppose because the last one went so well. Now, one point in favor of this is that they've got the well actually shut in, so there's at least some integrity to the well cap now. But I'm with Bob Cavnar; I'm worried about the continuing integrity of of the casing and the flex joint², and I'm also worried about the integrity of the formations. There have been concerns since the beginning about casing damage that could allow oil/drilling fluid into the surrounding formations, which could lead to failure, fracturing, and give the oil a new pathway into the open water. This hasn't happened yet, but it very well could, and with no warning. And, now that the relief well is getting close enough to completion to give us a little hope, that kind of failure could needlessly complicate those efforts as well.

If you've ever watched the movie True Lies, think about the scene where the terrorists are driving along the highway across the Florida keys, and the bridge basically gets blown up around them. One of the trucks ends up teetering between staying on the road and falling off into the ocean. The terrorists try to creep toward the back of the truck, hoping to get it to sway back onto the highway. Then a bird (a pelican, I think) lands on the hood and they all go tumbling into the drink.

That sort of farcical balance, teetering between safety and disaster, is what this is making me think of, and BP's inexplicable maneuvering is the pelican in this equation.

With the new cap on the well, they've got four good fittings they could hook in to for the purposes of pumping oil. One excuse for not having done that yet is that one of the risers still needs to be completed, and I believe that one or two of the vessels they would be using aren't there yet. (And of course, constant weather worries.) But what about the vessels and risers already on site? As far as I know (again, geologist, not engineering expert) they ought to be able to just retrieve oil from a couple of the valves and not all of them. They should be able to just take whatever capacity the vessels on site have, which would also keep the well at a lower pressure even if they're not taking the full flow. Why are the pushing the pressure on the well by keeping it shut in if they're worried about the flex joint failing? Why are they looking at a plan that might cause catastrophic failure with the relief well so close to completion? And so on. Unfortunately, I'm not in full possession of the facts, and through no fault of my own; there's a lot of detail that BP is keeping to itself.

I'm starting to fall into the paranoid camp that thinks BP is fighting to keep the well shut in and even pushing for the inexplicable attempt at a static kill because that will prevent truly accurate measurements of the well flow. Since, after all, knowing how much the well can flow at would give a pretty accurate way to measure just how much oil has gone into the Gulf, which is important since fines are charged per barrel - and fees for removal of oil from the lease are also charged per barrel.

It would also be easier for me to dismiss my growing sense of paranoia as misplaced suspicion if it weren't for the fact that this company has already shown a blatant disregard for safety in the interest of savings/profit. BP was aware of the leak in the BOP's control pod for months, and did not see fit to have it fixed. They didn't bother to run a cement bond log³. They didn't conduct a circulation test to see if there was gas in the wellbore. And so on, and so on, an infuriating list that just gets longer and longer the more times BP is called to testify.

BP killed eleven people because they thought the savings were worth the risk. Which is an easy enough decision, I suppose, when you're making it from hundreds of miles away from the drilling rig. BP has put a knife in the heart of the Gulf of Mexico's ecosystem because they thought the savings were worth the risk. BP destroyed the livelihoods of thousands because they thought the savings were worth the risk. No one set out to kill eleven people or damage an ecosystem or destroy the livelihoods of people; but all of these things add up to show a disregard for risk, where the people making the decision about that risk are not the ones that will bear the brunt of the damage if the odds turn sour.

So how paranoid am I actually being, if I find it a reasonable conclusion that they just might be willing to risk exacerbating this heartbreaking situation because it could get them out of some fines? It might be worth the risk. At this point we're all just teetering at the edge of disaster and waiting to see where BP lands.



1 - As in, constant low pressure or a sudden drop in pressure, which would basically indicate that the oil's found a different way to escape the well.

2 - Mr. Cavnar provides a more technical discussion of that issue here. The problem is, none of us armchair quarterbacks knows precisely what fittings/etc are being used, and no one's bothering to share that information.

3 - This is basically a sonic assessment to see if there's cement fully surrounding the casing, which lets you know if the cementing worked properly. Logs usually cost by the foot, so running a log through the entire 15,000 foot length of this well would be a costly proposition. In the past, I've seen different types of logs (for a cement bond log you really have to run the whole thing) that companies have tried to save on by only running them for sections of the well, a couple hundred feet at a time. As a geologist, I find this practice very annoying.

Leave My Elves Out of This

NOTE: This is a time travel entry - it comes from the past! I just got around to posting it today.

I am at TAM still as I write this, though it won't be posted until I get home since I am, you could say, highly skeptical of the South Point Hotel's claim that a day of internet access is worth a thirteen dollar fee. So hello from the past, I'm having a lot of fun and hope you are as well.

We just got done watching DJ Grothe interview Richard Dawkins. For the most part I found the discussion quite fascinating, and I really liked the interview format. It meant that DJ got to be a little combative (but not hostile, mind you) and force Dr. Dawkins to clarify some of his points. Generally, it was fun and very interesting.

There was one point where I got a bit riled, however. DJ mentioned an interview that Dr. Dawkins had done yesterday, where he had something to say about fantasy literature. Basically, Dr. Dawkins said that he thinks (though by the time DJ had thrown a couple “hey now, you realize that I'm a giant nerd” salvos his way, he'd backed down to “I wonder if...”) that fiction involving “profligate” magic contributes to children being credulous and thus more susceptible to religion. And he basically came down against fantastical fiction that was not exceptionally hard science fiction.

As someone whose hobby is writing fantasy and speculative fiction, you can imagine I had a rather negative reaction to that statement. Because some day I would like to make some money off of this hobby (not that I'm going to stop writing if I don't) and no one likes to be pointed at as a possible source of mental decay among children.

I tried to ask a question at the end of the interview, and didn't get to. Then, while waiting for the elevator and complaining bitterly to my dear friend Micah about this terrible injustice to the fantasy nerds of the world, Micah pointed out that Dr. Dawkins was standing right behind me. I had a moment of utter panic, where I tried to justify just slinking quietly away and saving my cranky point for when I could expand it to a work of total and passive aggressive blog spew. I didn't want to be that person, however. Somehow I found the courage to walk over to Dr. Dawkins and say, as nearly as I can remember it:

“Dr. Dawkins, I would like to make a point as a writer of fantasy and speculative fiction. Have you considered that if you read these sorts of stories, you might be less likely to accept religion. Because sure, Jesus can turn water into wine, but Harry Potter can kill you dead with two words.”

And then he smiled politely and escaped down the hall, though I'm pretty sure I did speak clearly and loudly enough to be heard. I did not pursue, as he looked rather harried and I didn't want to be one of Those People.

That done, I now feel like I can engage in some passive-aggressive blog spew, guilt free.

There are a lot of factors coming in to why that particular statement – which likely would have been a throw-away if DJ Grothe weren't a proud Nerd-American – really set me off. For one, I already get a bit snippy when it comes to privileging science fiction (hard sci fi particularly) over fantasy. It's an old, old argument and one that can probably raise the blood pressure of anyone that's spent any amount of time in the fan communities. Suffice to say that I fall on the side of fantasy/scifi-ish spec fic simply because I already live in a universe with our laws of physics, and if I'm going to escape into a book, I'd be quite charmed if the laws of physics wouldn't read over my shoulder for five minutes because damnit, I happen to like elves. I am well aware of the beauty, majesty, and wonder inherent in the natural world. I am a geologist, and for a reason. But if I want to read a book about elves, I'm going to read a book about elves, and the majesty of the natural world can damnwell amuse itself for ten minutes while I willingly suspend my disbelief.

I also don't take kindly to people looking down on my hobbies. I don't think anyone does. And while I'd never claim that most of what I read is “great” fiction (however you define THAT) I take real exception to the notice that reading fiction rots one's brain in any way. Particularly when my next best option is watching an episode of Lockdown on MSNBC¹.

But Rachael, you say – you, of course, being the voice of an actual reasonable person in my head – he's not talking about you. He's talking about kids. Sure, fine. I've been reading fantasy since I could read. I grew up on books that had pictures of unicorns on the cover. My mother read The Hobbit and the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy to my brother and I when we were little, and I don't think she did it in order to make us more credulous. At least I sure hope not.

I can almost - almost - see where Dr. Dawkins is something from. Almost. If I try really hard, I can imagine what it might be like if a child were given nothing but fantasy works and then allowed to read them in a complete analytical vacuum. A negative effect in that case is perhaps plausible. And I will also be the first to admit that I am not a psychologist, and I have not researched this topic. But there are several reasons beyond my knee-jerk moment of temper that I find this idea highly suspect.

There seems to be an assumption that the parent/guardian of the child would actively encourage them to think of the fantasy world as one as real as our own. There may be parents like this out there. I wouldn't know. But I doubt it's the majority. I would wager that just about any parent, their child frightened by something that happened in a fairy tale², would then assure the child that it's only a story, that the frightening thing is not real.

And supposing there is a parent who either actively encourages a child to blur the line between fantasy and reality or simply remains completely uninvolved in their child's developing relationship to literature. Is it then the fault of the fiction the child reads, or the fault of terrible parenting if that child eventually becomes a very credulous adult who is willing to believe in magic? Do we expect that such children would become serial killers if they were fed a steady diet of horror and true crime stories rather than sword and sorcery fantasy? Would science fiction (of the Richard Dawkins approved variety) cause such children to be more grounded in reality if they're reading things that couple reasonable physics with, say, aliens?

Even in the complete absence of parent input, children are quite capable of observing, on their own, that the laws of the fantasy world do not work. Particularly when we are talking, as Dr. Dawkins did, of “profligate” magic, where its existence is intrinsic in the world and its use is simple and matter-of-fact within the story. No matter how hard you pretend that bit of wood is a magic wand, it's still not going to turn your annoying little brother a dog. No matter how many frogs you chase down in the swamp, none of them turn into princes. And so on. One wonders if this is actually a case for skepticism, since after the fourth time you jump off the back of the couch and do not, in fact, fly even after your best friend SWORE that was fairy dust, you may well start wondering if you were a bit hasty to believe the claims of that Peter Pan person.

Children also believe in Santa Claus because we tell them that he is real and then deliberately provide evidence that he is real as well - even evidence as simple as presents with a “From: Santa Claus” tag on them and an empty plate with a few crumbs on it, left from when Santa supposedly ate those cookies. If given absolutely no corroborating evidence, how long would a child continue to believe in the myth of Santa Claus, particularly when exposed to peers who are eager to disabuse them of such a babyish notion?

As a personal observation, as far back as I can remember, I was very well acquainted with the difference between pretend and reality. When I pretended to be a tiger, I knew very well that I was not actually a tiger. When I pretended there was magic, I knew very well that it didn't exist. There may very well be some children that simply cannot tell the two apart after they've hit a certain age. I would daresay that those children likely require psychiatric intervention.

Consider the Christian Literature industry. In the book Rapture Ready, Daniel Radosh points out that there is a lot of general Christian fiction and romance, but not a whole lot of sci fi/fantasy. There's also the point that there are fundamentalists of many stripes that think Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons are of the devil. Why is this? Are they frightened of a fantastic tale that posits miraculous powers that do not come from their god? Is there some latent fear that fantastical fiction that doesn't have a religious bent to it may actually negatively effect someone's beliefs somehow, particularly since these books often utilize elaborate (and completely made up) religious systems? I can't say for sure, but I think this is a point that really ought to be considered.

From what I've observed in regards to children growing up Christian – particularly in the more fundamentalist sense of the world – they're often completely inundated with the Bible, told repeatedly that it is without a doubt true. Rather than picture books of fairy tales, these children often read picture books of Bible stories. I'm really forced to wonder if this constant reinforcement of “No, THESE stories are real” is what is necessary to convince children that they ought to believe them. I rather doubt any parent treats fantasy stories like this.

One might point out that it's not too hard to find people in the scifi/fantasy nerd culture that have some very credulous beliefs. I don't particularly buy this as proof. Is the rate of credulous belief in these communities greater or smaller than in other groups that form around common interests? And even if that ends up being the case, we are often fond of saying that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Does fantasy fiction encourage credulity, or do credulous individuals enjoy fantasy fiction because they are already prone to a plethora of irrational beliefs and the stories feed in to those beliefs?

I posit that it is just as likely that if you are well versed in fantastical fiction – and also well aware that there is a solid difference between fantasy and reality – it may actually make it a little harder to believe in religious stories. If you read Lord of the Rings and understand its complete and beautiful mythology AND also know that something so complete and detailed was created by one man, I wonder if that would make you just a little skeptical of other complete and beautiful mythologies, written down by human beings – even if you've been told that they're actually true.

I am not going to get ridiculous here and trumpet the super awesomeness of fantasy or speculative fiction as reading material. We all have our own tastes and our own reasons for reading what we do, and we all gain a certain something from what we read, or we wouldn't be reading it. Some of us (and from a tender age) need a little break from reality now and then, and we're comfortable with the idea that reality will be waiting for us right where we left it once we emerged. I suppose you could argue “garbage in, garbage out,” but I'll say this. There's certainly worse garbage out there than elves.



1 – No, really, what is with this show? It's completely awful and without merit – it's basically like Convict Zoo or something – and yet I can't look away. I'm very worried what this might say about me as a person.

2 – And here I mean “fictional story that the parent believes is only a story.” Just to be clear.

It takes WEEKS to drill 40 feet?

On Countdown last night, Keith Olberman reported that the relief well is 40 feet away from the well that's blown out, and it's expected to take several more weeks to reach it. I thought I'd clarify this, since it may be a little confusing as to why it is going to take several weeks to drill 40 feet.

Per USA Today the relief well is aimed for a point 18,000 feet deep. From the somewhat nonspecific language of the news article, I'm assuming that the 18,000 feet is the subsea¹. This means that the actual drill string for the well will likely be significantly longer than 18,000 feet, since it's being drilled directionally and is thus not the shortest possible distance from the point they're aiming for.

My knowledge mostly relates to how wells are drilled on land, but as far as I know, the principle is the same for offshore drilling. Basically, the actually drill bit is at the end of the drill string, which stretches the length from the rig floor to wherever the bit happens to be at the time. The drill string is effectively a long, long pipe through which the bit can be powered and drilling fluid (mud) can be circulated.

Drill string is, as you can imagine, not just one insanely long pipe. It's made out of joint after joint after joint of pipe. This pipe normally comes in lengths between 30 and 45 feet. So basically, when you're drilling you start with, say, a 45 foot length of pipe. You drill down 45 feet until that pipe is basically at the floor of the rig, then you add another 45 foot length of pipe, then drill down more. And so on. And so on.

The sectional nature of drill pipe is important in this case because as drill string is pulled from the hole, you also have to break it off a section at a time and stack the pipe on the racks. This process can be done fairly efficiently for what it is, but that doesn't quite get around the fact that when you have to pull an 18,000+ foot drill string out of a hole 45 (or whatever) feet at a time, it's not exactly a speedy process.

And that is, in fact, what's having to be done, at pretty regular intervals. As close as the relief well is, they really don't want to miss the Macondo's² pipe, and they're effectively attempting to locate something a bit smaller than a dinner plate. Directional surveys do have error attached to them, so they don't have a precise enough location on the well they're trying to hit to just drill blindly.

So basically what is happening at this point is that the relief well is drilling a little bit (maybe a foot or so, I don't know for certain) and then they're pulling up the entire (18,000+ foot) drill string so they can put a magnetic tool down the wellbore to check the location of the Macondo's pipe. Then they pull up the magnetic tool, put all 18,000+ feet of the drill string back down and drill a little more.

I think "excruciating" is a fair way to describe this process. But with the care that's taken, there will hopefully be a very good chance of hitting the blown out well on the first try, which is the really important thing. Playing fast and loose is certainly part of what caused this issue; hopefully some care and precision will get the Macondo killed finally.

Also, I'll add that around the time the relief wells started drilling, we had a company meeting. I didn't end up attending, but my husband did and reported what had been said. It was mostly one of the VPs passing on information about the disaster. One of the things he said is that THE best directional drilling engineer in the business is at the helm of the relief well. So here's hoping.


ETA: I found this video released by BP³ explaining (with animations) the drilling process for the relief wells. The narration isn't exactly scintillating, but I think the animation can really help you visualize the process. I'll admit, the thing I found most interesting was the enormous range in casing sizes that they've had to set. Casing gets set in layers; I've never seen this many layers, but then again I've never worked on a well at a depth of more than 10,000 feet.

Note: In the video, they refer to "MD." That stands for "measured depth," which is the length drilled. Measured Depth is normally not the same as Subsea Depth, since it's really a measure of wellbore length rather than a quantification of depth below sea level. In this case, they mention a 13,000 foot measured depth, which may seem a little confusing. They're talking about 13,000 feet drilled and not counting the additional footage that it takes just to get from the drilling platform at the ocean surface to the ocean floor, which is approximately 5,000 feet.



1 - Depth below sea level as measured in a line perpendicular to the surface of the sea.

2 - The proper name of our favorite underwater oil "volcano."

3 - I consider this video propaganda-free, since it's a good representation of the drilling process and at no point does the boring narrator compare directional drilling to "a graceful dive into the Earth's hallowed seas of rock" or some shit like that.

The Diversity of Skeptical Thought

There was something of a theme at TAM 8, an informal one I think. A few of the speakers have said some tough things, and I think that they were very necessary. Massimo Pigliucci had a few words to say about the occasional hubris of skeptics. Carol Tavris talked about why people believe the way they do, and how difficult it is to convince them to back off on any belief. Phil Plait spoke on what he sees as a problem of tone in the skeptical movement – his most salient point was to ask everyone who had their mind changed by being called an idiot or worse to raise their hand. There weren't very many hands.

I think the most important point in this underlying theme was actually made by someone who did not have a formal speech – Hal Bidlack, the MC. At the beginning of TAM, he said that this would be his last one. Later, I managed to catch him in one of his rare five seconds of standing still, and asked him if he meant as an MC or just in general. He said it would probably be his last TAM ever. And when I asked him why, he said “Creative differences.” Over the course of this Amazing Meeting, he made a few comments, about having learned to not discuss religion with skeptics, and about how we must remember the diversity of politics within the movement as we cannot assume all skeptics hew to the liberal ideology¹.

At this point, I wouldn't dare to put words in Hal's mouth. I respect him far too much, and I'm trying not to speculate over his reasons. But I would also be lying if I didn't say that I was wondering, and this has caused me to do a lot of thinking. I'm upset because I'm going to miss Hal, a lot. TAM isn't going to be the same without him. And I'm upset because I feel that he's been on the receiving end of some extremely shoddy treatment because he's a deist.

Since I joined the skeptical movement four years ago, I've noticed a very real internal unease that has, over time, boiled to the surface: the relationship between atheism and skepticism. There is a massive overlap between these two movements, but it is important to note that not all atheists are skeptics, and likewise, not all skeptics are atheists.

I am actually one of those skeptics who is also an atheist. I say it in that order because that's how I think of myself; skeptic first, atheist second². Philosophical questions of gods hold very little interest for me; I have no patience for those kind of debates. And frankly, the sometimes strident overlap between the two communities has made me uncomfortable. Me, who is a member of both. Perhaps the best example of this comes from TAM two years ago, when Don Nyberg during the papers session effectively said that anyone who isn't an atheist is a moron, and has no right to call themselves a skeptic. It was a moment that upset a lot of people, including myself – and Hal Bidlack. No one has stated that at the podium quite so baldly since then, but it's still there at times, in a subtle, uncomfortable undercurrent.

There is a very fine line that I see, as a skeptic and an atheist. When someone claims the power of prayer has worked, we have a responsibility to question and report. When someone claims that they can prove evolution is bunk and creationism is true, we have a responsibility to question and report. All of these things are claims that happen within the realm of the physical world and have solid evidence that can be collected and considered. Sometimes, such as in cases of false miracles or faith healing or evolution denial, we can conclusively demolish those claims. And we should. There are many, many religious claims that deserve – no, DEMAND – that we turn a skeptical eye to them and give it our intellectual all.

But that fine but important line approaches when we speak about the very basic belief in a a higher power. Someone who claims that they have proof god exists because intelligent design is real and evolution is wrong ought to bear the brunt of skeptical fury. Someone that says that they believe in god and think he just sort of set things in motion and stepped back – such as a deist – is something of a different question, I think. Someone who says that they believe in a higher power not because they necessarily can claim evidence, but because they need that belief or feel in their heart that it is true – that's not something we can test.

This verges on these philosophical arguments that I find so immensely tedious, so I will be to the point. We can and have proved that intelligent design is bunk, that creationism is laughable, that literal historical claims from a plethora of holy books are unsupportable. But I challenge you to disprove a deist's god, who set the great clockwork of the universe in motion and did not meddle further. I challenge you to neatly demolish a higher power who exists as a feeling of love and connection within someone's heart. Frankly, you can't³.

You may find such a “marginal” god or higher power unsatisfying. That's fine. I'm not particularly thrilled by it either. I'm an atheist, after all. I may not understand (and certainly don't) how someone can justify a belief in god because they feel the truth of it. That said, it's not for me to assume that everyone thinks the same way that I do about it, perish the thought at the utter ego it would take to think that everyone should. But let me make my point clear: When we reach the point of discussing a deity or higher power whose presence causes no testable effects upon the universe, we can neither conclusively prove or disprove him, her, or it. And when we have reached that point, it is for our own conscience to decide.

I have looked at what evidence I feel there is in this matter, and I've concluded: probably not.

That does not mean someone else cannot conclude: I have no idea.

Or even that someone who finds my position unsatisfying cannot conclude: possibly yes.

I think that Paul Provenza was being sarcastic during his talk when he said that, “everyone has their process.” But we all do, in fact. We all think about things differently, have different feelings and needs and thought processes. That we all agree on such a myriad of things is, quite frankly, amazing. That we agree on the value of this process called skepticism is even more so. And I think that everyone who is a skeptic, if they are good and honest, does their best both to apply their skepticism to themselves, and to admit that we each have our own sacred bulls that we don't really want to see gored.

Perhaps this is a sacred bull of the skeptical atheist, to think that everyone who is a “good” skeptic must of course agree that there is no god.

I have heard this refrain since I've joined the movement, sometimes subtle, sometimes not. Somehow, you're not a “good enough” skeptic if you're not an atheist. You're not a “real” skeptic if you retain the belief in some sort of higher power. You're stupid. You're weak-minded. You're against the cause.

I find that all incredibly offensive.

Carol Travris' talk springs to mind here, and a few of the salient points that she made. One is that we are all naturally biased to think that we are more (insert trait here) than other people. So we are naturally biased to think that we are more rational or more intelligent than others who disagree with us. Another was that once we have made a decision, we have a natural tendency to rapidly strengthen that position and become more extreme in our expression of it. These things should be first in anyone's mind when there's occasion to expound on the superiority of a particular position. Is it that my position is truly that superior, or have I thought myself on to that pedestal? Am I really smarter or more rational (whatever that means) than this other person, or have I fallen prey to my own ego?

No one is rational and skeptical 100% of the time and in every area of their lives; anyone who says otherwise is either fooling themselves or has allowed their own ego to drive the conversation. There is really only one requirement to be a skeptic: a dedication to applying skepticism and its methods to your life and the world around you to the best of your abilities. You are not required to be an atheist. You are not required to be liberal. Thank goodness you are not required to be a libertarian, or I would have gotten thrown against the wall and stoned to death a couple of years ago.

So you're an atheist. That's great. So you think that the world would be a better place if everyone else was an atheist as well. It's not my place to tell you that you're wrong; I don't know what a world of nothing but atheists would look like. But you don't forward your position by insulting and belittling people. You don't aide your message by calling anyone who disagrees an idiot. If your aim is to convert people to your way of thinking in a rational environment, insulting them and marginalizing their contribution is not the way to go about it. And you do violence to the cause of skepticism when you use your belief that everyone ought to agree with your 100% of the time to attack those of you who only agree with you 99.99% of the time.

When I took my introductory women's studies course, one of the first books that we looked at was called Feminist Thought by Rosemary Putnam Tong. At its most basic, it was a catalog of the many diverse schools of feminist thought, some of them directly conflicting with each other, throughout the successive waves of the movement. But in its own way, it was much more powerful than simply that. It showed the feminist movement as a rich and diverse collection of passionate, thinking women, throughout its history. These women often did not agree with each other, and didn't have to; the strength of the movement as it grew was built upon the diversity of thought, the many angles from which each challenge could be met, all tied together under the common feminist cause.

Where is our diversity of skeptical thought? We are not as big of a movement as the feminists, though we could perhaps argue that we are an older movement, one that is simply experiencing a strong new wave today. There were the great thinkers throughout the enlightenment. There was Harry Houdini, and his tradition of thought and investigation. There are the grandfathers of today's skepticism, such as James Randi. And today there are feminist skeptics, and scientific skeptics, and artist skeptics, and skeptics who specialize in investigating paranormal claims. There are atheist skeptics and agnostic skeptics and Christian skeptics and Buddhist skeptics and who knows what else kind of skeptics. We each have our own place among this diversity of thought and perhaps like the feminists, that diversity – while occasionally providing planes of fracture – will ultimately strengthen our cause by giving us a broad base from which to think and act. We each have our own voice within skeptical thought, and it is not for us to deny others their place to stand and speak.

I am not asking that atheists silence themselves. In the discussion that is the skeptical movement, no voice should be silenced if we wish to utilize our full strength. However, this also means that neither should atheists seek to silence or marginalize others. We are (for the most part) adults. I should hope we could be capable of discussing and accepting our differences while celebrating our points of agreement, all without resorting to unworthy devices such as ad hominem attacks. It is very possible to disagree with someone – and strongly – without resorting to name calling and insults, unless your aim is to make certain you have one less ally⁴.

As atheists, we often criticize the religious for making everything about their religion; you know, That Guy who “gave it up to the lord” and Jesus told him to wear the red shirt. We often criticize the religious for their dedication to their ideology, for their attacks on others who believe differently; you know, That Guy who thinks atheists are just blinding themselves to the glorious truth, that we're lost and willfully ignorant. We often attack the religious for their refusal to acknowledge our sovereign right to think and feel differently than they do, and the validity of those thoughts and feelings; you know, That Guy who thinks atheists are soulless because we cannot feel god's love. We often disparage the religious for their dedication to the in-group/out-group paradigm; you know, That Guy who says he can't be friends with an atheist because we're not saved and not worthy of respect. We often attack the religious for attempting to exclude all viewpoints at odds with their own; you know, That Guy who thinks atheists shouldn't be allowed to speak within the community because we don't have anything good to say.

You know That Guy? I have heard people eerily like him on occasion at our events, and I don't like it one bit.




1 – Hal Bidlack ran as a democrat for congress two years ago.

2 – If we're going to do the full labeling litany of political/social beliefs, just for the record, I would be a Skeptical Liberal Feminist Atheist. I quite frankly do not consider my atheism to be that intrinsic to who I am.

3 – Richard Dawkins basically stated at his talk that if there were an intelligent creator/first mover to the universe (even presumably a non-meddlesome one) everything would look a lot different. I have a lot of respect for Dr. Dawkins, but I think he's gone a bit over the top on this one. Unless I'm missing something fundamental about physics where we think the current physical laws are as “unintelligently designed” as the biology.

4 – Put another way, you can be confrontational and strongly opinionated without being a dick. True fax.

TAM 8 in quick review

Back home from TAM 8. I've got a couple of long things I've written, set off by specific things that happened, but those will keep until I've had time to think a bit longer and edit. For the most part, I had a heck of a lot of fun. Can't wait until next year!

The Good
I liked almost all of the talks, though I missed a lot of the stuff on Sunday just because I slept late (non-alcohol-related upset tummy) and had to leave early to catch my flight.

DJ Grothe gave me a goodbye skeptical hug when we were headed out of the hotel! Squee!

As always, the SGU dinner was a highlight of my TAM. I even wore a dress for it this year, and I never wear dresses. And of course the two hours of live SGU in the morning were definitely worth dragging myself out of bed earlier than I ever get up for work these days.

I got to make an angry vagina hand puppet with Sean Faircloth in the feminist skepticism workshop. That's right, you heard me. And Sean Faircloth gave an extremely good speech on Friday. I wanted to vote for him (Sean Faircloth for... for... EVERYTHING!) and to throw dirty big handfuls of cash at him and the Secular Coalition for America.

Hanging out with everyone was fun, of course.

I really enjoyed the "interview" format that was used for both Randi and Richard Dawkins.

Simon Singh and his epic, epic hair.

I feel like there was something of an unofficial theme this year of skepticism directed toward ourselves as a movement. Massimo Pigliucci, Phil Plait, and Carol Tavris all took a turn at this, from looking at the trouble our egos get us in to (Massimo), to how we can often work counter to our own goals (Phil), to an acknowledgment that it's really easy for us to think that we're more whatever (such as: skeptical) than everyone else (Carol Tavris). I think these are really important points that need to be made, and probably more than once. Massimo pointing out that skeptics are for the most part not, in fact, scientists, is one that struck a real chord with me. I've run across some people who consider themselves skeptics who are also global warming deniers, and claim to have read the literature. I've probably had more environmental science education than a great many of them, and let me tell you, the literature doesn't make a lick of sense to me; I think anyone that lacks the specialized training but still thinks they can better understand/analyze/interpret the data may very well be beyond hubris and in to some new, terrifying realm of pure ego.

I regained a lot of respect for Michael Shermer this year, actually. And his power point was only mildly embarrassing instead of an abomination that threatened the fabric of space and time itself. So good on him.

Really, I can't be that descriptive about the good, since so much of it was good, and it all sort of blurs together in a big ball of awesome.


The Bad
Really don't like what they did with the seating this year. I know that it was necessary to take away the tables so that we could fit enough seats in. But could we maybe put an inch or two of space between each of the seats? I know I'm kind of tubby, but those chairs are narrow enough that it wasn't a comfortable situation for anyone with broad shoulders.

I was also kind of annoyed about the reception. This was my first year of doing it, but everyone told me that it was basically a reception like you'd expect it. Instead this year they tried to have some kind of guest conversation in the middle of it, on the floor where almost no one could see. It's a bad idea to tell people to come expecting one thing and give them something completely different. If I'd known it was supposed to be "shut up and listen to the guest" time, I could have come prepared for that instead of being half drunk and in the mood to chat with my friends. I ended up stomping off like a big flaming drama queen (since I was kind of drunk and not terribly rational) after being told that my talking to a friend was "ruining" the reception. I get the impression a lot of other people ended up leaving to talk.

This was Hal's last TAM, due to "creative differences." I've got a lot more to say about that, but it will be its own post. Needless to say, I'm going to miss Hal a lot and I don't think TAM will be the same without him, his cheery outlook, and his bad jokes.

I still miss being on the strip. I don't really like feeling like I'm just trapped in the hotel, probably because I'm not a big fan of just hanging out and drinking. I really need to get better at meeting new people.

I did not have the money to go see Roy Zimmerman. Boo. I also did not get to have my much anticipated crab dinner due to scheduling conflicts. Double boo.


The Bizarre
The moon hoaxer that was following Phil Plait around and then tried to get in Adam Savage's face during his talk. That was very, very strange. I thought Adam handled it really well, though. He's probably pretty used to that crap, sadly.

The guy that had a "question" for Randi, which turned out to be him wanting to tell us all about his "ability" to magically fix post operative nerve damage. There was a collective facepalm when he said that could "even do it over the phone." He apparently filled out the paperwork for the Million Dollar Challenge.

Okay, this was a fun bizarre, but when I was at the SGU Steve Novella sat at my table for a little while. And said the word "fuck" like three times. Which just seemed so strange considering you never hear him cuss on the podcast, of course.

And seriously, what the hell was up with that terrifying green packing-foam-like thing masquerading as cake during lunch on Saturday? Proof of aliens? Just maybe.

2012: The world ends in an explosion of bad dialog

1425: So here goes. I'm watching a horrible movie for the first time, and I'm going to try to write down my thoughts as I have them. We'll see if something clever results. Until then... previews. Whee!

On being unemployed

I'm incredibly lucky, and I know it. I've got a job, and a good one. I'm going back to school in August and will receive a more than reasonable stipend. I'm now married, and to someone that has a very stable job with a salary that we could both easily live on as long as we were a bit austere in our spending.

But you know, I see shit like this¹:

ANGLE: Well, I said that it had spoiled our citizenry. That's a little different. They're not spoiled. What has happened is this system of entitlement has caused us to have a spoilage with our ability to go out and get a job.

And it momentarily robs me of my ability to speak coherent English. After some jumping up and down and arm waving and gurgling shrieks of rage, I'm able to once again communicate like a semi-literate human being.

So here goes.

Dear Sharron Angle:

Fuck you. And I say this in all seriousness, knowing that I have made a conscious effort to tone down my normally salty language for this blog and I've now officially blown it in this post. Fuck you. Your original quote was insulting. Your pathetic attempt to wiggle out of it during this interview has crossed the line into the willful degradation of millions of Americans. So yes, fuck you.

Your response shows that you have never faced unemployment. It reeks of the lazy entitlement of someone who has never lived in fear of what will happen when the benefit checks stop coming in the mail. It stinks of privilege, of the sure, arrogant knowledge that, well, I'm okay, screw everyone else.

You know what's sad? I actually used to buy into that disgusting lie. I used to cuddle with my privilege at night and tell myself that people who depended on the social safety net were just lazy, they obviously didn't want to work as hard (HAHAHA) as me, so screw 'em. And this, despite the fact that my father was a union steward when I was little, and I can even remember a little bit about what it was like to be on strike.

You know what changed that? I got laid off. And then when I got another job, I got fired. And then suddenly there was nothing between me and losing my house except for my unemployment check and a rapidly draining savings account.

So let me tell you what it's like. It's been five years since that time, and it's still all very vivid in my mind.

Being unemployed is carefully calculating the exact amount of money you'll need to pay your mortgage and all your bills, then adding in the bare minimum of calories you'll need to survive - in the form of ramen noodles, most likely - and then dividing that out into precisely how much of an hourly wage you need, so you know what jobs you can actually afford to apply for.

Being unemployed is realizing that the jobs for those wages are too infrequent, and trying to figure out where you can shave off more money. Well, it's almost summer so I can just not turn on the air conditioning. I'll survive. I won't turn on lights to save on my electricity bill. I'll stop driving my car so I can probably get away without insurance.

Being unemployed is applying for job after job after job and being confronted with a deafening silence on the other end. No one bothers to tell you any more if you didn't get the job. They just bin your resume and you have to assume you've been rejected, without even the closure of a recorded phone call or a form letter. It's being rejected, every day, constantly, and never even being told why.

Being unemployed is calculating the cost difference between birth control pills and just having to buy more feminine hygiene products, because it's a way to save a few bucks a month.

Being unemployed is lying on your resume to make yourself look less experienced, so maybe you'll have a better chance of landing an entry level job.

Being unemployed is assuring your mom that no, it's okay, I've still got plenty of money left in my savings account, don't worry about it. Because your parents have already supported your far too much since you moved out, and you feel horrible even thinking about asking them for money and hope that it won't come to that - or that it won't get worse and come to you having to move back in with them. It's feeling so grateful that you want to cry when your mom insists on paying for your health insurance, because you were just planning to let it lapse and keep your fingers crossed about not getting sick.

Being unemployed is walking everywhere or begging for rides from your friends, because you want to save your gas budget for the week just in case you actually get an interview and you can't afford bus fare either.

Being unemployed is spending hours on hold with the unemployment office, because their website is down and you have still have to go through the humiliating process of proving that you've been looking for a job if you want your next check.

Being unemployed is feeling guilty when a friend buys you dinner because you can't afford it, even after you've bought that friend dinner dozens of other times when you were making good money. Because you feel like no one should be spending money on you.

Being unemployed means that when you do spend money on yourself, because you're so fucking depressed about the constant rejection that you just can't handle it any more, and a flavored tea from Starbucks is so cheap and so nice on a hot day, that when you're done drinking your treat you realize what you've done, and you shouldn't have spent that money, and then you throw your treat up because you're so upset with yourself.

Being unemployed is being asked by some entitled asshole why you aren't working for McDonald's, they're always hiring², because it apparently just doesn't matter if you want to be able to pay your mortgage. And it's also wondering if maybe they're right, if maybe it's somehow your fault or your bad planning for buying a house and then (five years later) getting laid off.

Being unemployed is slowly losing your respect for yourself, one day at a time, because you've known all your life that you should be working to earn your keep, and no one will give you a job.

And you know what? I was lucky. I had an understanding roommate who was helping me pay my mortgage at the time. I had an amazing, supportive family and a lot of amazing, supportive friends. I had a lot of warning that I was going to get laid off, almost six months when my department at AT&T barely made its quota of people taking voluntary retirement, so I saved a lot of money. And maybe some of that stress and fear I felt was my own damn fault, because right at the start of my unemployment I sucked most of the life out of my savings account flying to England twice to see Mike - which I can't honestly say I regret, since that probably directly lead to us getting married this last year.

But none of that changes certain things. None of that changes the constant, crushing depression of getting rejected for jobs, day after day. It doesn't change the fact that people treat you as if you're unemployed because you just don't want it enough or because you're lazy - because after a while you start believing those things and your self-worth goes even more down the shitter. It doesn't change the utter guilt you feel every time you cash one of those unemployment checks, guilt that makes it impossible to feel relief that you'll be able to keep your house for another month, because everyone's told you that you didn't earn that money, despite the fact that you've been paying in to unemployment insurance every working day of your life.

So fuck you, Sharron Angle. I invite you to find out what it's like to be unemployed with a mortgage, or unemployed with debt, or unemployed with a family to support - or just plain unemployed with no one to care for but yourself. It's not fun. It's not easy. It's hard enough without people like you looking down your noses. It must be nice to pander to the privileged, who have convinced themselves that they'll never be unemployed, that they'll never need the safety net. It's all a lie. It could happen to anyone.

Maybe it should happen to some people.



1 - Actually I watched the entire interview because I was curious. I link to the Huffington Post piece because they have a convenient transcript, not because I'm taking their word for it.

2 - Particularly today, this ignores the fact that there are more people that need jobs than there are jobs. But I guess you just must not want it hard enough if you're not willing to hunt down the other applicants and, I don't know, kill them.