I have been repeatedly accused of refusing to accept the basic "facts" of Anthropogenic Cimate Change (ACC nee AGW, nee Global Warming, nee Global cooling). I think we really need to define terms.
In the following I'm going to rely heavily on The Shattered Greenhouse: How Simple Physics...
Is Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) a real phenomena? I don't think so, but others do. If AGC is real, is human-generated CO2 the driving force? I don't think so, but others do. If human-generated CO2 is the driving force in ACC, can it be mitigated? I don't think so, but others do. If...
Not very technical, but very international. We always get AmEx gift cards for our granddaughters in Colorado for birthday's (teenagers, who can keep up with what the might want?). They are moving to Italy next month and AmEx cards only work in the U.S. Anyone have any ideas on how to get gift...
I'm doing a talk next month about the Comparative Risks of Hydrostatic vs. Pneumatic testing. I know we've beaten this horse into the ground a number of times, but if anyone is interested in looking at the arguments in a coherent stream I've uploaded the narrated PowerPoint to a video. If you...
OK, we've heard it. And heard it. An heard it again--"millennials are different, they need different things from a workplace". A new study from Hay Research that looked at over 5 million employees finds it to be just another bullshit myth. Folks remain folks and the big difference between...
I have motion sensor lights in my garage (my office is off the garage and I don't like leaving garage lights on all the time). One of them stopped working. I pulled the middle (or 3 AAA's) battery out and it started working again. I finally looked closely at the battery I removed and it...
The picture below is from a screen capture off YouTube. My publisher says that the resolution is too low, and I'm having a lot of trouble finding who owns the picture so I can even ask their permission to use it.
Does anyone have a photograph of of a pipeline hydrostatic test failure that they...
I came across a YouTube Video yesterday that has completely changed my thinking on hydrostatic testing vs. pneumatic testing. First, after a lot of digging, I found some of the details on the line:
ANSI 600 line
Test was a fully degassed hydrostatic test (water for the test had been loaded 2...
I installed Windows 10 last week. I've clicked on Mathcad 14 a couple of times and got nothing. No error. No pop up. Nothing. When I go into file manager and click on the .exe I get "The application failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect". Then I ran the...
There is a 53 minute presentation at Evaluating The Integrity Of Official Climate Records from Steve Goddard (who starts by describing his qualifications which seem to be rock solid) that shows many high quality examples of how dramatically the climate data has been modified. One interesting...
Much is made these days about "renewable energy" almost always talking about (in declining order of importance to the narrative) wind, solar, hydro-electric, geothermal, solid biofuels, and liquid biofuels. What I cannot find is a definition that limits how renewable something has be be to be...
Methane is the most renewable material on the planet. I defend that statement in a new article on ENGINEERING.COM that was published this morning titled Does Petroleum Have to Come from Squashed Dinosaurs?
I'd be interested to hear any comments people have on this (or add them to the comments...
I recently joined NSPE, and this month our local chapter had a discussion about proposed/discussed changes in licensing. In New Mexico (where I live), NSPE is lobbying very hard for undergraduate programs to REDUCE the number of engineering hours required for graduation while increasing the...
I've heard a lot lately about what a wonderful success story the Orkney Islands is for renewables. One guy recently told me that if they can generate all of their needs from renewables there is "no reason why the rest of the world can't also get rid of nasty hydrocarbons". I started digging into...
I recently did some work as an expert witness. The lawyer hired a search firm that found me. I signed a contract with the search firm that said in effect I would submit invoices and they would pay them within 60 days of the invoice date. The contract says NOTHING about the law firm paying the...
I recently had a class full of engineers (range from 6 months to 22 years experience with the average around 6 years) try to work this exercise. The comments were mostly "its too hard" and "you didn't give us enough information". I allowed 16 minutes for them to work on it and let them work in...
I got this unknown error on Friday and Outlook 2013 appeared to be trying to receive, but at the very end it couldn't. I ran the Account set up test and got those tiny e-mails that it sends, but nothing else. Spent a couple of hours on the phone with Microsoft support. No Joy. The first...
There was a homework question this morning in Piping (thread378-388505) that is pretty sure to vanish by Monday. The guy actually photocopied his text book. Here is a screen shot:
In the first line the text's author says "... enters the bearing at 250 N/hr". Does anyone have any idea what an...
I'm putting together a fabrication package for my GasBuster and in talking to some welders the most difficult part of making it is the tangential 2 on 16 inlet nozzle. Apparently the template is never as spot on as one would hope. I'd like to include cutting templates for the pipe end and the...
I invented a vessel that I've been having fabricated at an local shop (New Mexico, U.S.). The fab shop has been doing the code calcs. I've been asked to send calcs specific to Australia by one client and China by another client. My local fab shop can't really do the country-specific calcs...
