Offshore Oil Drilling

June 3rd, 2010

2010 Gulf Oil Spill

It is a huge embarrassment for US President Barack Obama that he proposed – admittedly under pressure from the Republican opposition – to expand offshore oil drilling greatly just before the BP catastrophe struck.

I didn’t make a post about it at the time, but I never understood why he did this. He pushed his health care package through congress without considering anything else for almost a year, and then, as soon as he got what he wanted (or as close as he could ever get to what he wanted) then he decided to appease his opponents. I could understand it if he tried to appease his opponents by throwing them this bone in order to get some leverage for the health care debate, and maybe that is what actually happened behind closed doors. I doubt it though, because if that was the deal, some embattled senator somewhere would have used that as a reason to support the “unpopular” health care bill. I can’t fathom what made him change his mind about drilling.

Back when the story about Obama being for drilling first broke and during the election, I was not against offshore drilling. What I am against is “drill baby drill” as a solution to our energy crisis. As covered in this long ago post about a talk given by a chief BP scientist that I was at:

[Given the] types and quantities of unconventional oil [that] are available at [certain] price points… [and] if the world can handle stable $140 a barrel oil there are literally trillions of barrels of unconventional oil that are profitable.

Some of that oil is deep under the ocean, and I’m sure that we will someday need it. To get it, we have to pay for it with higher prices. Apparently we also risk what is currently occurring. The point is that we don’t need it now. Luckily the spill did happen, and despite the fact that it made my guy look pretty stupid, and could easily destroy much of the environment and economy right where I grew up, it may propel us in the right direction.

Now all bets are off. In the United States, offshore drilling seems set to go the way of nuclear power, with new projects being shelved for decades. And, as is often the case, a crisis in one country may go global, with many other countries radically scaling back off-shore and out-of-bounds projects.

What we do, in fact, need are artificially high energy prices, not all at once, but gradually, forcing us to follow a more sustainable path. It’s awful that this spill had to occur to show the opposition and Obama what a folly it is to drill more now, but if it leads to higher energy prices in the long run maybe some good will have come of it.

Posted in Politics | Comments Closed

Lincoln Memorial

June 1st, 2010

I just love that shot of the Lincoln Memorial I posted recently. The snow scape, imposing angle, and most importantly the diffuse sunlight just make it seem so post apocalyptic. Well, if you ask people from D.C. maybe it was. But the sense is ruined by the multitude of people in the shot. So I removed them with the gimp, except for Emma, the fur hooded figure in the far foreground. I think it’s certainly an improvement.

I could have really used content aware fill, but sadly that feature isn’t in the gimp yet (actually looks like maybe it is, but plug-ins are way too much work). Lucky for me snow is very organic and the smudge brush emulates it well enough. It is also pretty good at background plant matter. Anyways, it in fact looks nothing like the Logan’s Run Lincoln Memorial, at least from the movie, but oh well.

Posted in Panoramas, Technical | Comments Closed

Roswell – March 2010

May 30th, 2010

I spent much of March and April of 2010 in Roswell, NM for work. I consistently flew there on Delta via Los Angles, which was always a ~14 hour three airport affair. I loved it, and I didn’t miss any connections on any of my trips to Roswell

Los Angles from the Air:

The first time I headed to Roswell was also my first time in L.A. Although, I never left the airport, so that makes counting it a bit strange. I find, that I airports count as going to a state but not a city. Such as, “the last time I was in California was when I flew through LAX to Roswell”, is fair but to replace California with L.A. isn’t. I suppose this is because cities have a character that one needs to explore to say that one has been there. States do too, but it highly varied from area to area, and people don’t expect you to be familiar with every area to say you have been there. One can often get a good sense of whats its like in a state from the airport; not so with a city. Anyways, here’s a shot of the iconic LAX entry way:

We worked at the airport in Roswell. The airport is something of an airplane graveyard, or at least long term, until the economy gets back on track storage yard. There are on the order of 100 planes in various states of disrepair strew about the airfield.

Working in Roswell sucked. But one day we took a half day off from working and went skiing for a full day. From the top of the slopes one can see nearby Sierra Blanca (on the left), the southernmost high peak in the contiguous United States, which means that all higher peaks are farther north. Towards the right, in the basin one can see White Sands.

On the way back from this first trip to Roswell I completed a challenge feat. I was on the ground in all four continental us time zones within one day. I accomplished this feat by flying from Roswell (Mountain) to Los Angles (Pacific) to Minneapolis & St. Paul (Central) and back to Boston (Eastern). It was the only time on any trip to/from Roswell, that I had a layover in the Central time zone, and therefore the only time I completed this feat. Google latitude should offer rewards for this sort of thing ala foursquare.

Posted in Panoramas, Trips | Comments Closed

Washington D.C. During Snowmageddon

May 30th, 2010

In February 2010 work sent me to the Shenendoa Valley of Virginia, about 2 hours from Washington D.C. I flew in between the two Snowmageddon storms, and made it out to Bridgwater, VA. before the second storm hit. The storm there dropped only four inches or so, which the local services were totally able to handle. Although, I did make the mistake of letting a friend from Los Angles drive in the snow, and he managed to get pretty suck in a parking spot. It was embarrassing; we didn’t tell the people who helped us out that I life in the north.

After the second storm went through, on Friday February 12th, Lincoln’s Birthday I managed to snag some time in Washington itself. I had never been to the district before. I had lunch with Emma, a CSG girl whom I mentored in college. She is pursuing a computer science degree at George Washington, so I guess I may have had some effect. She is a big fan of going to see the monuments. She claims that is often a drunken Saturday night activity. So we went to see them, with 2-4 feet of snow on the ground.

First we went to the Washington Monument:

On the way there, this is as close as I got to the White House:

Next we went to the Lincoln Memorial, which was not doing anything fancy for his birthday. It looked rather ominous on the snow covered hill, like something out of Logan’s Run, but with more people around. I am just in love with this photo. It is certainly my favorite of all the recently posted ones, even that 15 second exposure of Boston at night.

From there I got an off center shot of the Capitol building.

We then walked back to GWU and parted ways. I later drove much closer to the Capitol building on my way to the Air and Space Museum. I only spent an hour at the museum, which was all I had before my flight, and all I wanted to spend. I only had enough quarters to pay for 15 minutes of parking; damn it was expensive, but I didn’t get a ticket (probably thanks to the huge snow banks). It was really disappointed by it. Although, I hear the good stuff is all out by Dulles, so I will have to try that some time.

Posted in Trips | Comments Closed

Boston Skyline from North Point.

May 30th, 2010

I despise the North Point building in Cambridge, near the Museum of Science for its huge white lights. They are the brightest lights in the Boston skyline as viewed from the Cambridge, Somerville, and Arlington areas. The building, is nothing more than fancy apartments and condos, some with great views, but the bright lights atop it ruin the view for so many other areas. If it were a more important building in the city, maybe it would be ok, but I’m not even sure. Anyways, a friend of mine, Brian, until recently lived at North Point. Before he left he had a party and we got to go up on the roof deck. It provided a great view of the city, if only because it by necessity didn’t include those damned north point lights.

A panorama of the skyline:
It gets a little blurry on the right side, sadly I didn’t get a real stable image of that section.

This is possibly the best shot of Boston I’ve ever taken, it is a 15 second, hand steadied exposure of the Zakim Bridge, Financial District, and the MOS:

Posted in Panoramas | Comments Closed

Yo, Dawg This is Just Great

May 20th, 2010

I found this on reddit today:

It just makes me so happy to see all this censorship bullshit in a memebrid with the Xzibit Sup Dawg meme. Over the past two days You Tube and Facebook were blocked by Pakistan for hosting images of the Prophet Muhammad. I am completely and totally against censorship, especially this particular instance. Here are some reasons:

  • If no pictures of the prophet were ever allowed, how could we know what he looks like. If you draw a picture and claim it is of the prophet, but it is not of the prophet, then you are a liar, but there is no harm, no foul. Based on my understanding of the rules, only actual pictures of the prophet are bared, and if we don’t know what he looks like cause no pictures exist, then all pictures that claim to exist must not be of the prophet.
  • Ok, Ok, actual reasons to follow…
  • This is sort of like tolerance. The Catholic church teaches tolerance, all Catholics must always be tolerant of other peoples and cultures and respect their laws and customs. But, in carrying out this teaching, the church is failing to tolerate intolerance, which is a culture who’s customs and laws must be respected. Similarly, the Muslims, who I assume also teach tolerance, are being intolerant of our culture, in which images of the prophet are both allowed, and sometimes hilarious. Now, maybe we are breaking our own laws about tolerance by breaking their laws, but we already break our own laws about tolerance, so that must be ok.

I think my real point is that this is all really stupid. We are allowed freedom of speech as a basic right. Anyone who wants to play ball on the world internet stage needs to respect this. If you don’t want to play ball because we say things you don’t like, you are welcome to not play ball with us. That is what Pakistan has done; its fine. But you know, if we don’t want to play ball with you later, I don’t want to hear any complaining. I certainly can’t allow your actions to limit my future free speech through fear or any other mechanism, so don’t waste our time trying.

Just be more tolerant, and maybe we won’t break your cultural laws just for the lols. But as long as you’re intolerant of one of our most basic rights/laws, we’ll be intolerant of yours for no reason other than to point out that you should be more tolerant. Clearly, someone hast to make the first move, but it won’t be us because a more open society is always preferable to a more closed one. That is progress and you are welcome to hop on the bus anytime you like, cause its an open society, that’s the whole idea.

Posted in From the Internet | Comments Closed

Travel as a Graph

April 4th, 2010

I have been averaging more than one trip a month since July of 2009, and it feels like a lot of travel, so I want to record some numbers about it in case I want to compare at some point. For the purposes of this accounting, a trip requires that I got on an airplane or stayed in a hotel while not in the Greater Boston Area. For the record I have not stayed in a hotel in the Greater Boston Area during the time period. Lets start with a graph:


The blue line is 1 if I was not home (away) and 0 if I was home on a given date. If i was traveling home on a day the line is a 1. The red line is 0 when I am home, 1 when I am traveling for work, and 0.5 when I am traveling for pleasure. Since the red line is on top of the blue, you can really just think of the blue as personal trips.

This tells us that I spent all of October in Boston, a fact I had forgotten. I have been averaging 1.3 trips per month divided between 0.5 personal trips per month and 0.8 work trips per month.

This has lead to a total traveling percentage of almost 32% of days. That is on any given day there is a 32% chance I’m not in Boston. I would have expected that number to be much higher, but the graph seems to agree with it. If we look only at 2010 only I’ve been gone for a slightly higher 36%, but I really feel like it’s been 50%. That’s the point of the analysis. I now know that 32% is way too high.

Posted in Numbers & Statistics, Trips | 2 Comments »

ROFLCon Volunteer

April 4th, 2010

I’ve signed up to Volunteer at ROFLCon again. I haven’t gotten any assignments yet, but I’m super excited after seeing the initial schedule. Sadly it overlaps with Kentucky Derby Day so I won’t be throwing a derby party this year despite that I very much want to do that again as well.

Posted in ROFLCon | Comments Closed

Twitter

April 4th, 2010

I might start using twitter. I signed up for an account (http://twitter.com/liryon). I originally was planning on having it carbon copy from buzz, and facebook, but it looks like copying from facebook is impossible, which is dumb. It also looked like copying from buzz was possible, but for some reason, until today it didn’t work.

Today I began making preparations to use twitter as the source to copy to buzz and facebook instead. This is pretty standard setup that I know works, and supports open platforms. Despite that I know it works, I haven’t been able to get it to play nice with facebook yet. It was easy to make it play nice with buzz, and magically, making twitter link to buzz seems to have made my buzz to twitter link work. That’s good cause most of what I tweet/buzz/facebook post comes from Google reader. My Google reader has been interfaced with facebook for some time now.

I’ve added a little twitter app to the sidebar, which will hopefully liven up the content on the blog for anyone who regularly polls it for updates (yes you Paul) and isn’t on twitter.

Posted in From the Internet | 2 Comments »

King Cake

February 20th, 2010

I made a King Cake for Mardi Gras with my friend Sarah’s help. It turned out much better than I ever expected, and I would totally make another one if it didn’t take so long. I followed this great King Cake recipe I found on www.mardigrasday.com:

King Cake: Traditional New Orleans Recipe

Ingredients
1/2 cup warm water (110 to 115 degrees)
2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
3 1/2 – 4 1/2 cups flour unsifted
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon lemon zest, this is lemon rind, grated
1/2 cup warm milk
5 egg yolks
1 stick butter cut into slices and softened, plus 2 tablespoons more softened butter
1 egg slightly beaten with 1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1″ plastic baby doll

Directions

Pour the warm water into a small shallow bowl, and sprinkle yeast and 2 teaspoons sugar into it. Allow the yeast and sugar to rest for three minutes then mix thoroughly. Set bowl in a warm place for ten minutes, or until yeast bubbles up and mixture almost doubles in volume. Combine 3 1/2 cups of flour, remaining sugar, nutmeg and salt, and sift into a large mixing bowl. Stir in lemon zest. Separate center of mixture to form a hole and pour in yeast mixture and milk. Add egg yolks and, using a wooden spoon, slowly combine dry ingredients into the yeast/milk mixture. When mixture is smooth, beat in 8 tablespoons butter (1 tablespoon at a time) and continue to beat 2 minutes, or until dough can be formed into a medium-soft ball.

Place ball of dough on a lightly floured surface and knead like bread. While kneading, sprinkle up to 1 cup more of flour (1 tablespoon at a time) over the dough. When dough is no longer sticky, knead 10 minutes more until shiny and elastic.

Using a pastry brush, coat the inside of a large bowl evenly with one tablespoon softened butter. Place dough ball in the bowl and rotate until the entire surface is buttered. Cover bowl with a moderately thick kitchen towel and place in a draft-free spot for about 1 1/2 hours, or until the dough doubles in volume. Using a pastry brush, coat a large baking sheet with one tablespoon of butter and set aside.

Remove dough from bowl and place on lightly floured surface. Using your fist, punch dough down forcefully. Sprinkle cinnamon over the top, pat and shake dough into a cylinder. Twist dough to form a curled cylinder and loop cylinder onto the buttered baking sheet. Pinch the ends together to complete the circle. Cover dough with towel and set it in draft-free spot for 45 minutes, or until the circle of dough doubles in volume. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Brush top and sides of cake with egg wash and bake on middle rack of oven for 25 to 35 minutes until golden brown. Place cake on wire rack to cool. If desired, you can hide the plastic baby in the cake at this time.

Colored sugars
Green, purple, & yellow paste
12 tablespoons sugar

Squeeze a dot of green paste in palm of hand. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over the paste and rub together quickly. Place this mixture on wax paper and wash hands to remove color. Repeat process for other 2 colors. Place aside.

Icing
3 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 – 6 tablespoons water

Combine sugar, lemon juice and 3 tablespoons water until smooth. If icing is too stiff, add more water until spreadable. Spread icing over top of cake. Immediately sprinkle the colored sugars in individual rows consisting of about 2 rows of green, purple and yellow.

Cake is served in 2″ – 3″ pieces.

Actually, I forgot to do the “Brush top and sides of cake with egg wash” step but it turned out great anyway. Also I used a pecan instead of a plastic baby and blue instead of purple icing because I didn’t feel like going out in the snow to acquire them.

Posted in Cooking & Food, From the Internet | 1 Comment »

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