The two-word verification is an extremely clever use of distributed resources. It's called a "ReCaptcha". Only one of the two words is actually for verification. The other is from a book that is to be converted from print to an electronic format. The book has been scanned, and possibly OCR'd to automatically convert the words for which there is a high level of confidence. The rest is snipped up into individual words and presented to people like you to translate. The level of confidence can be turned up and down by giving the same words to a number of people. It sounds excruciatingly slow, but with millions of people doing a word at a time, lots of old print books are captcha'd* for posterity.
(* P.S. I hate words that are puns depending on a particular rhotacisation -- not all English speakers' accents are the same :)
Seems those little neutrinos weren't so speedy after all. We can all sleep soundly in our beds again. Lee can stop worrying about whether mass-energy conservation is preserved. Technophiles can keep those nerdy desk signs that read "To err is human; to really screw things up needs a computer".
"Lee can stop worrying about whether mass -energy conservation is preserved."
That never worried me. Your characterization here, mis-characterization rather, leaves me wondering whether you never did put it all together, never understood that Einstein actually meant what he said he meant, or whether you're just an inveterate liar. However, I don't think that getting an answer to that question is worth the nuisance of pursuing that subject. The candle's not worth the cost. So, I think I'll just file that one away as ‘unresolved’.
And, for another off-topic post; re: American politics…
The 20th, and perhaps final, debate of the Republican presidential primary season was held last night. Conservative columnists and talking-head, pundit, George Will, concludes:
"Neither Romney nor Santorum looks like a formidable candidate for November." WaPo
Hard to challenge that. Unemployment was still at 8.3% last month, and the recent economic are tenuous at best. It's been three years plus since the crash. Political history, conventional wisdom, suggests that Obama oughta be toast. But public opinion polling shows him beating all the Republican challengers by significant margins.
Precedent has been set. We have lost a drone over Iran. Who knows where those pesky things could end up? Or whose tanks(dictator) they may accidentally kill will flying around up there?
I was talking to someone today about the drilling we are doing in the Baaken area of North Dakota. The Republicans are not misinformed about the quantities. And while increased supply alone may not affect world prices, depending on demand from other areas of the world, domestic drilling will allow us to lower our imports. Not a bad thing.
"The Republicans are not misinformed about the quantities."
But, they do seem to be overlooking the fact that most of that oil isn't going to be recoverable. Unrecoverable oil, trapped in rock at 10,000 ft down, don't do us a whole lot of good.
[Troll]: "Your characterization here, mis-characterization rather, leaves me wondering whether you never did put it all together, never understood that Einstein actually meant what he said he meant, or whether you're just an inveterate liar."
[Lynnette]: "I was talking to someone today about the drilling we are doing in the Baaken area of North Dakota. The Republicans are not misinformed about the quantities. And while increased supply alone may not affect world prices, depending on demand from other areas of the world, domestic drilling will allow us to lower our imports. Not a bad thing."
Ignore crotchety ol' Lee. Most oil everywhere is not recoverable. Even after the most extreme tertiary recovery method, 40 to 60% of the oil in place remains unrecoverable. So that's par for the course.
What's not entirely known about the Bakken is what it's "production curve" might look like. The unconventional techniques of horizontal drilling and "fracking" means that the oil comes out quicker than it otherwise might. Those are the techniques that make the Bakken commercial in the first place -- shale is otherwise not porous enough to let the gloopy oil ooze out into the well. But there are hints that shale oil may deplete more rapidly, and production could fall off a cliff in the future instead of the more even declines of conventional fields.
Nevertheless, the Bakken is a superb resource and production rates could increase well into the next decade. Before getting too excited, bear in mind that it currently produces something on the order of 2% of US oil consumption, and although much is made of your declining oil imports, that's partly because your overall consumption has fallen.
Anyway, I hear house prices in North Dakota have increased due to oil money, and on a casual glance I see that nice houses in Bismarck must be, oh, at least a third of our post-gigantic-crash prices, so things must be looking up :-)
"Even after the most extreme tertiary recovery method, 40 to 60% of the oil in place remains unrecoverable."
And that's on a ‘good’ deposit. Estimates I've seen suggest the Bakken field may only be 5-15% recoverable; leaving 85-95% of the total as ‘not-gettable’, ever. There's a fairly vigorous dispute going on about how much is actually recoverable, often based at least as much on the persons' politics as on anything else. The enviro activists argue for even lower recovery rates (in the ≤ 1% range). However, actual recovery isn't gonna respond too well to politically inspired arguments and estimates. Point being, ya gotta watch for bias in your sources and especially watch for what they're claiming to be measuring. Just estimating the barrels of oil in the ground don't tell us that much.
I will rule nothing out. The techniques they are using now are allowing them to recover oil that has previously been labeled "unrecoverable". There is no way of knowing what will be developed in the future. And it is not only the Bakken area they are talking about. They have found another area below that and one below that. As I am no expert I can't theorize on how deep they could actually drill successfully. But the oil companies wouldn't be so interested if they didn't think this area was workable.
Pete, North Dakota is one big old-fashioned boomtown. The life isn't always easy, but the money is huge. All those farmers who have mineral and surface rights out there are cleaning up. And having the last laugh, believe me!
21 comments:
No hamsters were harmed during the posting of this post.
I hurt myself today to see if I still feel
Very sad, Zeyad, to think there are things destroyed that cannot be replaced. Remembrance of things past is important to our future.
Your post led me to an interesting site, though.
Here is an article on the current efforts to photograph a black hole that Pete may find interesting.
So many mysteries yet to uncover.
Hmmm...guess I should have checked that link first, since it doesn't appear to be working.
Here's another link to the same events. This one I'll check...
btw, Zeyad, I think I will have to retract the statement I made about Facebook earlier. I do think that it does have its uses. :)
P.S. So, really, what is the point of having two varification words?
Thanks for the link Lynnette. Will take a look.
The two-word verification is an extremely clever use of distributed resources. It's called a "ReCaptcha". Only one of the two words is actually for verification. The other is from a book that is to be converted from print to an electronic format. The book has been scanned, and possibly OCR'd to automatically convert the words for which there is a high level of confidence. The rest is snipped up into individual words and presented to people like you to translate. The level of confidence can be turned up and down by giving the same words to a number of people. It sounds excruciatingly slow, but with millions of people doing a word at a time, lots of old print books are captcha'd* for posterity.
(* P.S. I hate words that are puns depending on a particular rhotacisation -- not all English speakers' accents are the same :)
nice post
Veneers Dentist
Breaking news:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/breaking-news-error-undoes-faster.html?ref=hp
Seems those little neutrinos weren't so speedy after all. We can all sleep soundly in our beds again. Lee can stop worrying about whether mass-energy conservation is preserved. Technophiles can keep those nerdy desk signs that read "To err is human; to really screw things up needs a computer".
"Lee can stop worrying about whether mass
-energy conservation is preserved."
That never worried me.
Your characterization here, mis-characterization rather, leaves me wondering whether you never did put it all together, never understood that Einstein actually meant what he said he meant, or whether you're just an inveterate liar.
However, I don't think that getting an answer to that question is worth the nuisance of pursuing that subject. The candle's not worth the cost. So, I think I'll just file that one away as ‘unresolved’.
And, for another off-topic post; re: American politics…
The 20th, and perhaps final, debate of the Republican presidential primary season was held last night. Conservative columnists and talking-head, pundit, George Will, concludes:
"Neither Romney nor Santorum looks like a
formidable candidate for November."
WaPo
Hard to challenge that. Unemployment was still at 8.3% last month, and the recent economic are tenuous at best. It's been three years plus since the crash. Political history, conventional wisdom, suggests that Obama oughta be toast. But public opinion polling shows him beating all the Republican challengers by significant margins.
"…and the recent economic gains are tenuous at best…"
PeteS,
That word thing is kind of clever. :)
Except when it's annoying...
Precedent has been set. We have lost a drone over Iran. Who knows where those pesky things could end up? Or whose tanks(dictator) they may accidentally kill will flying around up there?
I was talking to someone today about the drilling we are doing in the Baaken area of North Dakota. The Republicans are not misinformed about the quantities. And while increased supply alone may not affect world prices, depending on demand from other areas of the world, domestic drilling will allow us to lower our imports. Not a bad thing.
"ybrain" Seriously?
But public opinion polling shows him beating all the Republican challengers by significant margins.
Well, if the election were held today, he would get my vote.
There, I've did my part for the book translating sector. ;)
"The Republicans are not misinformed about the
quantities."
But, they do seem to be overlooking the fact that most of that oil isn't going to be recoverable. Unrecoverable oil, trapped in rock at 10,000 ft down, don't do us a whole lot of good.
[Troll]: "Your characterization here, mis-characterization rather, leaves me wondering whether you never did put it all together, never understood that Einstein actually meant what he said he meant, or whether you're just an inveterate liar."
LOL.
[Lynnette]: "I was talking to someone today about the drilling we are doing in the Baaken area of North Dakota. The Republicans are not misinformed about the quantities. And while increased supply alone may not affect world prices, depending on demand from other areas of the world, domestic drilling will allow us to lower our imports. Not a bad thing."
Ignore crotchety ol' Lee. Most oil everywhere is not recoverable. Even after the most extreme tertiary recovery method, 40 to 60% of the oil in place remains unrecoverable. So that's par for the course.
What's not entirely known about the Bakken is what it's "production curve" might look like. The unconventional techniques of horizontal drilling and "fracking" means that the oil comes out quicker than it otherwise might. Those are the techniques that make the Bakken commercial in the first place -- shale is otherwise not porous enough to let the gloopy oil ooze out into the well. But there are hints that shale oil may deplete more rapidly, and production could fall off a cliff in the future instead of the more even declines of conventional fields.
Nevertheless, the Bakken is a superb resource and production rates could increase well into the next decade. Before getting too excited, bear in mind that it currently produces something on the order of 2% of US oil consumption, and although much is made of your declining oil imports, that's partly because your overall consumption has fallen.
Anyway, I hear house prices in North Dakota have increased due to oil money, and on a casual glance I see that nice houses in Bismarck must be, oh, at least a third of our post-gigantic-crash prices, so things must be looking up :-)
"Even after the most extreme tertiary recovery
method, 40 to 60% of the oil in place remains
unrecoverable."
And that's on a ‘good’ deposit. Estimates I've seen suggest the Bakken field may only be 5-15% recoverable; leaving 85-95% of the total as ‘not-gettable’, ever. There's a fairly vigorous dispute going on about how much is actually recoverable, often based at least as much on the persons' politics as on anything else. The enviro activists argue for even lower recovery rates (in the ≤ 1% range). However, actual recovery isn't gonna respond too well to politically inspired arguments and estimates.
Point being, ya gotta watch for bias in your sources and especially watch for what they're claiming to be measuring. Just estimating the barrels of oil in the ground don't tell us that much.
I will rule nothing out. The techniques they are using now are allowing them to recover oil that has previously been labeled "unrecoverable". There is no way of knowing what will be developed in the future. And it is not only the Bakken area they are talking about. They have found another area below that and one below that. As I am no expert I can't theorize on how deep they could actually drill successfully. But the oil companies wouldn't be so interested if they didn't think this area was workable.
Pete, North Dakota is one big old-fashioned boomtown. The life isn't always easy, but the money is huge. All those farmers who have mineral and surface rights out there are cleaning up. And having the last laugh, believe me!
thank you, i never heard of Muayyad Muhsin before. I'm googling his work right now.
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