开云体育

Very OT: A response to Toby

Reginald Beardsley All Messages By This Member #92808 This will not be long, but I'll make a brief comment on my reasoning. If you look back to the bronze age, that was only possible because there were high tenor (high metal content) ores close to the surface which could be readily mined. And there were abundant trees with which to make charcoal to smelt the ores. Neither of those still exist. The natural resources left whether minerals or fossil fuels are difficult to reach and in the case of metals, very low tenor. It takes tens of thousands of people to get a single drop of oil in 9000 ft of water at 30,000 ft BSL. I worked a little bit on St Malo, a Unocal discovery before Chevron bought them. I was riding home on the bus and chatting with a Brit who was subsea systems manager for Jack, a nearby Chevron discovery. All he was responsible for was the equipment that sits on the sea floor and ties in to the production system. He had a $2 billion dollar budget. This was in 2006 or 2007 Jack, St Malo and another field produced first oil in2014. They were discovered in 2003 and 2004. The FSPO (floating storage, production and offloading) system cost $7.5 billion dollars. How many welders, machinists, fitters and other skilled tradesmen do you think it takes to spend that much money? This was 10 years of intense hard work by a vast number of people. My wild guess is that there were probably about 50-60,000 people involved at some point. Maybe only a few hours like me. All I did was do some synthetic seismograms for the well tie. If the trucks stop delivering food for a week, there will never be food on the shelves again. Almost everyone has less than a week's supply of food. So it they can get it, they'll stock up as much as possible. In the context of a "just in time" inventory management environment there is no capacity for increasing the supply if demand increases. And if demand increases because of a shortage of truck drivers because most of them are sick or dead from influenza, or there has been a Carrington even, a high altitude nuke detonated above the US, a Crater Lake or Yellowstone level caldera collapse or any of a very long list of events I can recite., there will be even less capacity to supply food. My doctor, whom I've known since we were 10, tells me people can survive without food for about 60 days. The net result i will be a period of 30-60 days of incredible violence during which 90% or more of the population will perish. The survivors will be scared and isolated. So social organization will be very difficult. The Hollywood "Mad Max" version of this is ludicrous. Look at thew costumes. Clothing laced together with leather strips through metal eyelets? Where in the hell are they going to get eyelets? There are no refineries at well sites. There is very little oil left that is not 1000's of ft down. What is left is in places like remote parts of Mynamar. There was a great article in the Oil and Gas Journal about 15-20 years ago about oil production in the interior. The wells are drilled by setting up a tripod with a pulley. A length of pipe with a beveled edge is attached to a rope. The length of pipe is raised and dropped until it fills with dirt. It is then hauled to the surface, the dirt removed and they start over. Periodically they drop plastic bags off water down the hole as they have found it increases the penetration rate. Once they reach the target, the oil is brought up using a bailer such as the well bucket a childhood friend used to draw water in the 60's. From there it is transported by young women in 5 gallon jugs to the refinery which consists of a still made from 55 gallon drums. The wells go dry pretty quickly, so they move over a few feet and rill another one. They even do this "offshore" in a lake using bamboo platforms. They are very resourceful people, but they are not going to be making semiconductors or machine tools anytime soon unless someone provides a lot of assistance. But those are the only people who have any readily recoverable resources. They will survive a collapse of civilization far better than the rest of us. But they will also have no access to the knowledge that makes modern technology possible. "Oh, but we can use scrap." Oh, yeah? And how many years before all the cars, trucks and other pieces of iron an steel are just brown spots on the ground? Far too low a tenor to be recoverable. A few metals such as gold don't oxidize, but most do. And all the metals important to technology do. Iron is extremely abundant and cast iron is just amazing. It's almost an argument for creationism it's so amenable to primitive methods. But if you don't have high tenor ore, you cannot dig up and smelt an ounce of it. Too much digging and too much tree cutting required. I got interested in DIY technology around age 20. So at 65, I have spent 45 years trying to prepare for such things. But after reading all those books on the history of technology it sank in that there were two problems: social organization at a large scale (how may people did it take to build the pyramids) and resources which were accessible to technology such as used in Mynamar. Which is only slightly more refined than Drake used in 1859. I have the tools to do almost everything and a library to tell you how. But I'm 65 and have glaucoma. So I'm in a race between dying and going blind. Both my parents lived into their 90's. I hope I do not. I can play guitar and harmonica rather well. Good enough that I can walk on stage and rip a tune with a band I've never played with. But I don't relish the idea of being "Blind Boy Rufus" (I was born with red hair and was given the nickname by my dad. I dropped when I graduated college with my BA in English lit). I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. So, Toby, that's a short version of why I abandoned the project. It's a very gloomy future. And after 65 years of learning everything (except biological sciences) that I could I can offer no solution. The Silicon Valley elite imagine that when the collapse comes they and their family will get in their personal jet and fly away. Which is possible if they can fly the plane themselves. But the pilot is more likely to shoot the owner and family and take his family than take theirs and leave his own behind. This is a wretched platform for writing. Doubtless there are many things in my writing which would make me cringe. I took a degree in literature because I wanted a good liberal arts education. The sole criticism I should make of it today is I should have taken math at least up to ordinary differential equations. I did do that later and a lot more. Kids in high school don't learn algebra, geometry and trigonometry because their teachers don't know anything about applying it. But every good skilled tradesman uses them every day. And then are insulted because they didn't go to college. It's hard to be motivated to learn something which is difficult if you don't have a clue why you are doing it and neither does the teacher. I'm going to end it here. Thank you Toby for asking. I hope that at least a few of you found it worthwhile reading. Reg
Tam Hanna All Messages By This Member #92818 Hello, let me comment on this aspect: I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. This is the fault of today's university administration. I could tell stories, both from personal experience as student and from my exwifes consulting agency. In short, it makes good sense why I stopped my studies after achieving a BSc. Tam With best regards Tam Hanna --- Enjoy electronics? Join 13700 other followers by visiting the Crazy Electronics Lab at On 23. 11. 2018 3:48, Reginald Beardsley via Groups.Io wrote: This will not be long, but I'll make a brief comment on my reasoning. If you look back to the bronze age, that was only possible because there were high tenor (high metal content) ores close to the surface which could be readily mined. And there were abundant trees with which to make charcoal to smelt the ores. Neither of those still exist. The natural resources left whether minerals or fossil fuels are difficult to reach and in the case of metals, very low tenor. It takes tens of thousands of people to get a single drop of oil in 9000 ft of water at 30,000 ft BSL. I worked a little bit on St Malo, a Unocal discovery before Chevron bought them. I was riding home on the bus and chatting with a Brit who was subsea systems manager for Jack, a nearby Chevron discovery. All he was responsible for was the equipment that sits on the sea floor and ties in to the production system. He had a $2 billion dollar budget. This was in 2006 or 2007 Jack, St Malo and another field produced first oil in2014. They were discovered in 2003 and 2004. The FSPO (floating storage, production and offloading) system cost $7.5 billion dollars. How many welders, machinists, fitters and other skilled tradesmen do you think it takes to spend that much money? This was 10 years of intense hard work by a vast number of people. My wild guess is that there were probably about 50-60,000 people involved at some point. Maybe only a few hours like me. All I did was do some synthetic seismograms for the well tie. If the trucks stop delivering food for a week, there will never be food on the shelves again. Almost everyone has less than a week's supply of food. So it they can get it, they'll stock up as much as possible. In the context of a "just in time" inventory management environment there is no capacity for increasing the supply if demand increases. And if demand increases because of a shortage of truck drivers because most of them are sick or dead from influenza, or there has been a Carrington even, a high altitude nuke detonated above the US, a Crater Lake or Yellowstone level caldera collapse or any of a very long list of events I can recite., there will be even less capacity to supply food. My doctor, whom I've known since we were 10, tells me people can survive without food for about 60 days. The net result i will be a period of 30-60 days of incredible violence during which 90% or more of the population will perish. The survivors will be scared and isolated. So social organization will be very difficult. The Hollywood "Mad Max" version of this is ludicrous. Look at thew costumes. Clothing laced together with leather strips through metal eyelets? Where in the hell are they going to get eyelets? There are no refineries at well sites. There is very little oil left that is not 1000's of ft down. What is left is in places like remote parts of Mynamar. There was a great article in the Oil and Gas Journal about 15-20 years ago about oil production in the interior. The wells are drilled by setting up a tripod with a pulley. A length of pipe with a beveled edge is attached to a rope. The length of pipe is raised and dropped until it fills with dirt. It is then hauled to the surface, the dirt removed and they start over. Periodically they drop plastic bags off water down the hole as they have found it increases the penetration rate. Once they reach the target, the oil is brought up using a bailer such as the well bucket a childhood friend used to draw water in the 60's. From there it is transported by young women in 5 gallon jugs to the refinery which consists of a still made from 55 gallon drums. The wells go dry pretty quickly, so they move over a few feet and rill another one. They even do this "offshore" in a lake using bamboo platforms. They are very resourceful people, but they are not going to be making semiconductors or machine tools anytime soon unless someone provides a lot of assistance. But those are the only people who have any readily recoverable resources. They will survive a collapse of civilization far better than the rest of us. But they will also have no access to the knowledge that makes modern technology possible. "Oh, but we can use scrap." Oh, yeah? And how many years before all the cars, trucks and other pieces of iron an steel are just brown spots on the ground? Far too low a tenor to be recoverable. A few metals such as gold don't oxidize, but most do. And all the metals important to technology do. Iron is extremely abundant and cast iron is just amazing. It's almost an argument for creationism it's so amenable to primitive methods. But if you don't have high tenor ore, you cannot dig up and smelt an ounce of it. Too much digging and too much tree cutting required. I got interested in DIY technology around age 20. So at 65, I have spent 45 years trying to prepare for such things. But after reading all those books on the history of technology it sank in that there were two problems: social organization at a large scale (how may people did it take to build the pyramids) and resources which were accessible to technology such as used in Mynamar. Which is only slightly more refined than Drake used in 1859. I have the tools to do almost everything and a library to tell you how. But I'm 65 and have glaucoma. So I'm in a race between dying and going blind. Both my parents lived into their 90's. I hope I do not. I can play guitar and harmonica rather well. Good enough that I can walk on stage and rip a tune with a band I've never played with. But I don't relish the idea of being "Blind Boy Rufus" (I was born with red hair and was given the nickname by my dad. I dropped when I graduated college with my BA in English lit). I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. So, Toby, that's a short version of why I abandoned the project. It's a very gloomy future. And after 65 years of learning everything (except biological sciences) that I could I can offer no solution. The Silicon Valley elite imagine that when the collapse comes they and their family will get in their personal jet and fly away. Which is possible if they can fly the plane themselves. But the pilot is more likely to shoot the owner and family and take his family than take theirs and leave his own behind. This is a wretched platform for writing. Doubtless there are many things in my writing which would make me cringe. I took a degree in literature because I wanted a good liberal arts education. The sole criticism I should make of it today is I should have taken math at least up to ordinary differential equations. I did do that later and a lot more. Kids in high school don't learn algebra, geometry and trigonometry because their teachers don't know anything about applying it. But every good skilled tradesman uses them every day. And then are insulted because they didn't go to college. It's hard to be motivated to learn something which is difficult if you don't have a clue why you are doing it and neither does the teacher. I'm going to end it here. Thank you Toby for asking. I hope that at least a few of you found it worthwhile reading. Reg
Adrian Nicol All Messages By This Member #92819 Guys, please! This is still a hijacked thread regarding power detectors on a group about HP Instruments. The world has (more than) enough on-line places for this sort of topic but I suggest this is not one of them. Adrian toggle quoted message Show quoted text On 11/23/2018 2:48 AM, Reginald Beardsley via Groups.Io wrote: This will not be long, but I'll make a brief comment on my reasoning. If you look back to the bronze age, that was only possible because there were high tenor (high metal content) ores close to the surface which could be readily mined. And there were abundant trees with which to make charcoal to smelt the ores. Neither of those still exist. The natural resources left whether minerals or fossil fuels are difficult to reach and in the case of metals, very low tenor. It takes tens of thousands of people to get a single drop of oil in 9000 ft of water at 30,000 ft BSL. I worked a little bit on St Malo, a Unocal discovery before Chevron bought them. I was riding home on the bus and chatting with a Brit who was subsea systems manager for Jack, a nearby Chevron discovery. All he was responsible for was the equipment that sits on the sea floor and ties in to the production system. He had a $2 billion dollar budget. This was in 2006 or 2007 Jack, St Malo and another field produced first oil in2014. They were discovered in 2003 and 2004. The FSPO (floating storage, production and offloading) system cost $7.5 billion dollars. How many welders, machinists, fitters and other skilled tradesmen do you think it takes to spend that much money? This was 10 years of intense hard work by a vast number of people. My wild guess is that there were probably about 50-60,000 people involved at some point. Maybe only a few hours like me. All I did was do some synthetic seismograms for the well tie. If the trucks stop delivering food for a week, there will never be food on the shelves again. Almost everyone has less than a week's supply of food. So it they can get it, they'll stock up as much as possible. In the context of a "just in time" inventory management environment there is no capacity for increasing the supply if demand increases. And if demand increases because of a shortage of truck drivers because most of them are sick or dead from influenza, or there has been a Carrington even, a high altitude nuke detonated above the US, a Crater Lake or Yellowstone level caldera collapse or any of a very long list of events I can recite., there will be even less capacity to supply food. My doctor, whom I've known since we were 10, tells me people can survive without food for about 60 days. The net result i will be a period of 30-60 days of incredible violence during which 90% or more of the population will perish. The survivors will be scared and isolated. So social organization will be very difficult. The Hollywood "Mad Max" version of this is ludicrous. Look at thew costumes. Clothing laced together with leather strips through metal eyelets? Where in the hell are they going to get eyelets? There are no refineries at well sites. There is very little oil left that is not 1000's of ft down. What is left is in places like remote parts of Mynamar. There was a great article in the Oil and Gas Journal about 15-20 years ago about oil production in the interior. The wells are drilled by setting up a tripod with a pulley. A length of pipe with a beveled edge is attached to a rope. The length of pipe is raised and dropped until it fills with dirt. It is then hauled to the surface, the dirt removed and they start over. Periodically they drop plastic bags off water down the hole as they have found it increases the penetration rate. Once they reach the target, the oil is brought up using a bailer such as the well bucket a childhood friend used to draw water in the 60's. From there it is transported by young women in 5 gallon jugs to the refinery which consists of a still made from 55 gallon drums. The wells go dry pretty quickly, so they move over a few feet and rill another one. They even do this "offshore" in a lake using bamboo platforms. They are very resourceful people, but they are not going to be making semiconductors or machine tools anytime soon unless someone provides a lot of assistance. But those are the only people who have any readily recoverable resources. They will survive a collapse of civilization far better than the rest of us. But they will also have no access to the knowledge that makes modern technology possible. "Oh, but we can use scrap." Oh, yeah? And how many years before all the cars, trucks and other pieces of iron an steel are just brown spots on the ground? Far too low a tenor to be recoverable. A few metals such as gold don't oxidize, but most do. And all the metals important to technology do. Iron is extremely abundant and cast iron is just amazing. It's almost an argument for creationism it's so amenable to primitive methods. But if you don't have high tenor ore, you cannot dig up and smelt an ounce of it. Too much digging and too much tree cutting required. I got interested in DIY technology around age 20. So at 65, I have spent 45 years trying to prepare for such things. But after reading all those books on the history of technology it sank in that there were two problems: social organization at a large scale (how may people did it take to build the pyramids) and resources which were accessible to technology such as used in Mynamar. Which is only slightly more refined than Drake used in 1859. I have the tools to do almost everything and a library to tell you how. But I'm 65 and have glaucoma. So I'm in a race between dying and going blind. Both my parents lived into their 90's. I hope I do not. I can play guitar and harmonica rather well. Good enough that I can walk on stage and rip a tune with a band I've never played with. But I don't relish the idea of being "Blind Boy Rufus" (I was born with red hair and was given the nickname by my dad. I dropped when I graduated college with my BA in English lit). I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. So, Toby, that's a short version of why I abandoned the project. It's a very gloomy future. And after 65 years of learning everything (except biological sciences) that I could I can offer no solution. The Silicon Valley elite imagine that when the collapse comes they and their family will get in their personal jet and fly away. Which is possible if they can fly the plane themselves. But the pilot is more likely to shoot the owner and family and take his family than take theirs and leave his own behind. This is a wretched platform for writing. Doubtless there are many things in my writing which would make me cringe. I took a degree in literature because I wanted a good liberal arts education. The sole criticism I should make of it today is I should have taken math at least up to ordinary differential equations. I did do that later and a lot more. Kids in high school don't learn algebra, geometry and trigonometry because their teachers don't know anything about applying it. But every good skilled tradesman uses them every day. And then are insulted because they didn't go to college. It's hard to be motivated to learn something which is difficult if you don't have a clue why you are doing it and neither does the teacher. I'm going to end it here. Thank you Toby for asking. I hope that at least a few of you found it worthwhile reading. Reg
Reginald Beardsley All Messages By This Member #92821 I thought I had started a new topic. My apologies if I did not. I don't want the discussion here either. It grew out of the Rad Lab discussion. I will, to a degree, indulge people if some want to discuss the subject in a private email thread. However, it would be pretty limited. I'm engaged in a major project to develop FOSS DSO FW for Zynq based DSOs. I am much more interested in the power detectors as I have a Millivac I'd like to revive even though my 438A w/ 8481D and 8482A is far superior. So far as I can tell, the only fault of the Millivac is a blown diode capsule, but at $400 for the capsule and $75 for a manual I'd have to find a cheaper repair.
Harvey White All Messages By This Member #92824 On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 13:23:12 +0100, you wrote: Hello, let me comment on this aspect: I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. This is the fault of today's university administration. I could tell stories, both from personal experience as student and from my exwifes consulting agency. In short, it makes good sense why I stopped my studies after achieving a BSc. Your average course textbook is roughly 150 USD or so. Making an Ebook out of them, the students are "only" charged 70 to 100 USD. Some order the dead tree copies, some don't. "look! we're saving them money!" Harvey Tam With best regards Tam Hanna --- Enjoy electronics? Join 13700 other followers by visiting the Crazy Electronics Lab at On 23. 11. 2018 3:48, Reginald Beardsley via Groups.Io wrote: This will not be long, but I'll make a brief comment on my reasoning. If you look back to the bronze age, that was only possible because there were high tenor (high metal content) ores close to the surface which could be readily mined. And there were abundant trees with which to make charcoal to smelt the ores. Neither of those still exist. The natural resources left whether minerals or fossil fuels are difficult to reach and in the case of metals, very low tenor. It takes tens of thousands of people to get a single drop of oil in 9000 ft of water at 30,000 ft BSL. I worked a little bit on St Malo, a Unocal discovery before Chevron bought them. I was riding home on the bus and chatting with a Brit who was subsea systems manager for Jack, a nearby Chevron discovery. All he was responsible for was the equipment that sits on the sea floor and ties in to the production system. He had a $2 billion dollar budget. This was in 2006 or 2007 Jack, St Malo and another field produced first oil in2014. They were discovered in 2003 and 2004. The FSPO (floating storage, production and offloading) system cost $7.5 billion dollars. How many welders, machinists, fitters and other skilled tradesmen do you think it takes to spend that much money? This was 10 years of intense hard work by a vast number of people. My wild guess is that there were probably about 50-60,000 people involved at some point. Maybe only a few hours like me. All I did was do some synthetic seismograms for the well tie. If the trucks stop delivering food for a week, there will never be food on the shelves again. Almost everyone has less than a week's supply of food. So it they can get it, they'll stock up as much as possible. In the context of a "just in time" inventory management environment there is no capacity for increasing the supply if demand increases. And if demand increases because of a shortage of truck drivers because most of them are sick or dead from influenza, or there has been a Carrington even, a high altitude nuke detonated above the US, a Crater Lake or Yellowstone level caldera collapse or any of a very long list of events I can recite., there will be even less capacity to supply food. My doctor, whom I've known since we were 10, tells me people can survive without food for about 60 days. The net result i will be a period of 30-60 days of incredible violence during which 90% or more of the population will perish. The survivors will be scared and isolated. So social organization will be very difficult. The Hollywood "Mad Max" version of this is ludicrous. Look at thew costumes. Clothing laced together with leather strips through metal eyelets? Where in the hell are they going to get eyelets? There are no refineries at well sites. There is very little oil left that is not 1000's of ft down. What is left is in places like remote parts of Mynamar. There was a great article in the Oil and Gas Journal about 15-20 years ago about oil production in the interior. The wells are drilled by setting up a tripod with a pulley. A length of pipe with a beveled edge is attached to a rope. The length of pipe is raised and dropped until it fills with dirt. It is then hauled to the surface, the dirt removed and they start over. Periodically they drop plastic bags off water down the hole as they have found it increases the penetration rate. Once they reach the target, the oil is brought up using a bailer such as the well bucket a childhood friend used to draw water in the 60's. From there it is transported by young women in 5 gallon jugs to the refinery which consists of a still made from 55 gallon drums. The wells go dry pretty quickly, so they move over a few feet and rill another one. They even do this "offshore" in a lake using bamboo platforms. They are very resourceful people, but they are not going to be making semiconductors or machine tools anytime soon unless someone provides a lot of assistance. But those are the only people who have any readily recoverable resources. They will survive a collapse of civilization far better than the rest of us. But they will also have no access to the knowledge that makes modern technology possible. "Oh, but we can use scrap." Oh, yeah? And how many years before all the cars, trucks and other pieces of iron an steel are just brown spots on the ground? Far too low a tenor to be recoverable. A few metals such as gold don't oxidize, but most do. And all the metals important to technology do. Iron is extremely abundant and cast iron is just amazing. It's almost an argument for creationism it's so amenable to primitive methods. But if you don't have high tenor ore, you cannot dig up and smelt an ounce of it. Too much digging and too much tree cutting required. I got interested in DIY technology around age 20. So at 65, I have spent 45 years trying to prepare for such things. But after reading all those books on the history of technology it sank in that there were two problems: social organization at a large scale (how may people did it take to build the pyramids) and resources which were accessible to technology such as used in Mynamar. Which is only slightly more refined than Drake used in 1859. I have the tools to do almost everything and a library to tell you how. But I'm 65 and have glaucoma. So I'm in a race between dying and going blind. Both my parents lived into their 90's. I hope I do not. I can play guitar and harmonica rather well. Good enough that I can walk on stage and rip a tune with a band I've never played with. But I don't relish the idea of being "Blind Boy Rufus" (I was born with red hair and was given the nickname by my dad. I dropped when I graduated college with my BA in English lit). I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. So, Toby, that's a short version of why I abandoned the project. It's a very gloomy future. And after 65 years of learning everything (except biological sciences) that I could I can offer no solution. The Silicon Valley elite imagine that when the collapse comes they and their family will get in their personal jet and fly away. Which is possible if they can fly the plane themselves. But the pilot is more likely to shoot the owner and family and take his family than take theirs and leave his own behind. This is a wretched platform for writing. Doubtless there are many things in my writing which would make me cringe. I took a degree in literature because I wanted a good liberal arts education. The sole criticism I should make of it today is I should have taken math at least up to ordinary differential equations. I did do that later and a lot more. Kids in high school don't learn algebra, geometry and trigonometry because their teachers don't know anything about applying it. But every good skilled tradesman uses them every day. And then are insulted because they didn't go to college. It's hard to be motivated to learn something which is difficult if you don't have a clue why you are doing it and neither does the teacher. I'm going to end it here. Thank you Toby for asking. I hope that at least a few of you found it worthwhile reading. Reg
Peter Gottlieb All Messages By This Member #92828 Getting an advanced degree is not for everyone.? Just because you can doenn't necessarily mean you should.? A few lines of work, and a few jobs, require these degrees but the vast majority do not. There are many people who have their Arks to carry technology.? Kids or no kids, Ark or no Ark, 99.9% of that technology will still end up in landfills.? Who's to say if that technology is worth saving or is merely a steppingstone to newer technology? It seems incredible that getting oil appears to be so difficult now, but maybe this is why solar and wind energy are getting comparatively cheaper?? Nobody is going to drill and refine their own petroleum but many thousands are already completely off the grid in terms of energy.? How?? They live in sunny areas, have modest solar arrays on their roof and carport and drive Teslas or other BEVs.? All their energy needs, including for their vehicle, are met by solar.? And yeah many also have gardens.? Not everyone has the resources and dedication to do this but it is possible today to live a high tech lifestyle completely off the grid. And yes that means a lab full of HP gear if that floats your boat. Peter toggle quoted message Show quoted text On 11/23/2018 7:23 AM, Tam Hanna wrote: Hello, let me comment on this aspect: I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. This is the fault of today's university administration. I could tell stories, both from personal experience as student and from my exwifes consulting agency. In short, it makes good sense why I stopped my studies after achieving a BSc. Tam With best regards Tam Hanna --- Enjoy electronics? Join 13700 other followers by visiting the Crazy Electronics Lab at On 23. 11. 2018 3:48, Reginald Beardsley via Groups.Io wrote: This will not be long, but I'll make a brief comment on my reasoning. If you look back to the bronze age, that was only possible because there were high tenor (high metal content) ores close to the surface which could be readily mined. And there were abundant trees with which to make charcoal to smelt the ores. Neither of those still exist. The natural resources left whether minerals or fossil fuels are difficult to reach and in the case of metals, very low tenor. It takes tens of thousands of people to get a single drop of oil in 9000 ft of water at 30,000 ft BSL. I worked a little bit on St Malo, a Unocal discovery before Chevron bought them. I was riding home on the bus and chatting with a Brit who was subsea systems manager for Jack, a nearby Chevron discovery. All he was responsible for was the equipment that sits on the sea floor and ties in to the production system. He had a $2 billion dollar budget. This was in 2006 or 2007 Jack, St Malo and another field produced first oil in2014. They were discovered in 2003 and 2004. The FSPO (floating storage, production and offloading) system cost $7.5 billion dollars. How many welders, machinists, fitters and other skilled tradesmen do you think it takes to spend that much money? This was 10 years of intense hard work by a vast number of people. My wild guess is that there were probably about 50-60,000 people involved at some point. Maybe only a few hours like me. All I did was do some synthetic seismograms for the well tie. If the trucks stop delivering food for a week, there will never be food on the shelves again. Almost everyone has less than a week's supply of food. So it they can get it, they'll stock up as much as possible. In the context of a "just in time" inventory management environment there is no capacity for increasing the supply if demand increases. And if demand increases because of a shortage of truck drivers because most of them are sick or dead from influenza, or there has been a Carrington even, a high altitude nuke detonated above the US, a Crater Lake or Yellowstone level caldera collapse or any of a very long list of events I can recite., there will be even less capacity to supply food. My doctor, whom I've known since we were 10, tells me people can survive without food for about 60 days. The net result i will be a period of 30-60 days of incredible violence during which 90% or more of the population will perish. The survivors will be scared and isolated. So social organization will be very difficult. The Hollywood "Mad Max" version of this is ludicrous. Look at thew costumes. Clothing laced together with leather strips through metal eyelets? Where in the hell are they going to get eyelets? There are no refineries at well sites. There is very little oil left that is not 1000's of ft down. What is left is in places like remote parts of Mynamar. There was a great article in the Oil and Gas Journal about 15-20 years ago about oil production in the interior. The wells are drilled by setting up a tripod with a pulley. A length of pipe with a beveled edge is attached to a rope. The length of pipe is raised and dropped until it fills with dirt. It is then hauled to the surface, the dirt removed and they start over. Periodically they drop plastic bags off water down the hole as they have found it increases the penetration rate. Once they reach the target, the oil is brought up using a bailer such as the well bucket a childhood friend used to draw water in the 60's. From there it is transported by young women in 5 gallon jugs to the refinery which consists of a still made from 55 gallon drums. The wells go dry pretty quickly, so they move over a few feet and rill another one. They even do this "offshore" in a lake using bamboo platforms. They are very resourceful people, but they are not going to be making semiconductors or machine tools anytime soon unless someone provides a lot of assistance. But those are the only people who have any readily recoverable resources. They will survive a collapse of civilization far better than the rest of us. But they will also have no access to the knowledge that makes modern technology possible. "Oh, but we can use scrap." Oh, yeah? And how many years before all the cars, trucks and other pieces of iron an steel are just brown spots on the ground? Far too low a tenor to be recoverable. A few metals such as gold don't oxidize, but most do. And all the metals important to technology do. Iron is extremely abundant and cast iron is just amazing. It's almost an argument for creationism it's so amenable to primitive methods. But if you don't have high tenor ore, you cannot dig up and smelt an ounce of it. Too much digging and too much tree cutting required. I got interested in DIY technology around age 20. So at 65, I have spent 45 years trying to prepare for such things. But after reading all those books on the history of technology it sank in that there were two problems: social organization at a large scale (how may people did it take to build the pyramids) and resources which were accessible to technology such as used in Mynamar. Which is only slightly more refined than Drake used in 1859. I have the tools to do almost everything and a library to tell you how. But I'm 65 and have glaucoma. So I'm in a race between dying and going blind. Both my parents lived into their 90's. I hope I do not. I can play guitar and harmonica rather well. Good enough that I can walk on stage and rip a tune with a band I've never played with. But I don't relish the idea of being "Blind Boy Rufus" (I was born with red hair and was given the nickname by my dad. I dropped when I graduated college with my BA in English lit). I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. So, Toby, that's a short version of why I abandoned the project. It's a very gloomy future. And after 65 years of learning everything (except biological sciences) that I could I can offer no solution. The Silicon Valley elite imagine that when the collapse comes they and their family will get in their personal jet and fly away. Which is possible if they can fly the plane themselves. But the pilot is more likely to shoot the owner and family and take his family than take theirs and leave his own behind. This is a wretched platform for writing. Doubtless there are many things in my writing which would make me cringe. I took a degree in literature because I wanted a good liberal arts education. The sole criticism I should make of it today is I should have taken math at least up to ordinary differential equations. I did do that later and a lot more. Kids in high school don't learn algebra, geometry and trigonometry because their teachers don't know anything about applying it. But every good skilled tradesman uses them every day. And then are insulted because they didn't go to college. It's hard to be motivated to learn something which is difficult if you don't have a clue why you are doing it and neither does the teacher. I'm going to end it here. Thank you Toby for asking. I hope that at least a few of you found it worthwhile reading. Reg
Harvey White All Messages By This Member #92830 On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 11:52:19 -0500, you wrote: Getting an advanced degree is not for everyone.? Just because you can doenn't necessarily mean you should.? A few lines of work, and a few jobs, require these degrees but the vast majority do not. Engineering for companies seems to require it, defense contractor engineers. Teaching college requires a master's degree minimum. There are many people who have their Arks to carry technology.? Kids or no kids, Ark or no Ark, 99.9% of that technology will still end up in landfills.? Who's to say if that technology is worth saving or is merely a steppingstone to newer technology? iPhone N-1 where iPhone N is the latest.... It seems incredible that getting oil appears to be so difficult now, but maybe this is why solar and wind energy are getting comparatively cheaper?? Nobody is going to drill and refine their own petroleum but many thousands are already completely off the grid in terms of energy.? How?? They live in sunny areas, have modest solar arrays on their roof and carport and drive Teslas or other BEVs.? All their energy needs, including for their vehicle, are met by solar.? And yeah many also have gardens.? Not everyone has the resources and dedication to do this but it is possible today to live a high tech lifestyle completely off the grid. Hmmm, have you looked at what it takes to make solar panels? Tesla batteries? In Costa Rica (gotten from someone who grew up there), they had solar hot water. Radiators and perhaps inner tubes. No high tech needed. Solar power? Don't think so. Windmills and water power might be possible, though. Don't know the local conditions. Harvey And yes that means a lab full of HP gear if that floats your boat. Peter On 11/23/2018 7:23 AM, Tam Hanna wrote: Hello, let me comment on this aspect: I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. This is the fault of today's university administration. I could tell stories, both from personal experience as student and from my exwifes consulting agency. In short, it makes good sense why I stopped my studies after achieving a BSc. Tam With best regards Tam Hanna --- Enjoy electronics? Join 13700 other followers by visiting the Crazy Electronics Lab at On 23. 11. 2018 3:48, Reginald Beardsley via Groups.Io wrote: This will not be long, but I'll make a brief comment on my reasoning. If you look back to the bronze age, that was only possible because there were high tenor (high metal content) ores close to the surface which could be readily mined. And there were abundant trees with which to make charcoal to smelt the ores. Neither of those still exist. The natural resources left whether minerals or fossil fuels are difficult to reach and in the case of metals, very low tenor. It takes tens of thousands of people to get a single drop of oil in 9000 ft of water at 30,000 ft BSL. I worked a little bit on St Malo, a Unocal discovery before Chevron bought them. I was riding home on the bus and chatting with a Brit who was subsea systems manager for Jack, a nearby Chevron discovery. All he was responsible for was the equipment that sits on the sea floor and ties in to the production system. He had a $2 billion dollar budget. This was in 2006 or 2007 Jack, St Malo and another field produced first oil in2014. They were discovered in 2003 and 2004. The FSPO (floating storage, production and offloading) system cost $7.5 billion dollars. How many welders, machinists, fitters and other skilled tradesmen do you think it takes to spend that much money? This was 10 years of intense hard work by a vast number of people. My wild guess is that there were probably about 50-60,000 people involved at some point. Maybe only a few hours like me. All I did was do some synthetic seismograms for the well tie. If the trucks stop delivering food for a week, there will never be food on the shelves again. Almost everyone has less than a week's supply of food. So it they can get it, they'll stock up as much as possible. In the context of a "just in time" inventory management environment there is no capacity for increasing the supply if demand increases. And if demand increases because of a shortage of truck drivers because most of them are sick or dead from influenza, or there has been a Carrington even, a high altitude nuke detonated above the US, a Crater Lake or Yellowstone level caldera collapse or any of a very long list of events I can recite., there will be even less capacity to supply food. My doctor, whom I've known since we were 10, tells me people can survive without food for about 60 days. The net result i will be a period of 30-60 days of incredible violence during which 90% or more of the population will perish. The survivors will be scared and isolated. So social organization will be very difficult. The Hollywood "Mad Max" version of this is ludicrous. Look at thew costumes. Clothing laced together with leather strips through metal eyelets? Where in the hell are they going to get eyelets? There are no refineries at well sites. There is very little oil left that is not 1000's of ft down. What is left is in places like remote parts of Mynamar. There was a great article in the Oil and Gas Journal about 15-20 years ago about oil production in the interior. The wells are drilled by setting up a tripod with a pulley. A length of pipe with a beveled edge is attached to a rope. The length of pipe is raised and dropped until it fills with dirt. It is then hauled to the surface, the dirt removed and they start over. Periodically they drop plastic bags off water down the hole as they have found it increases the penetration rate. Once they reach the target, the oil is brought up using a bailer such as the well bucket a childhood friend used to draw water in the 60's. From there it is transported by young women in 5 gallon jugs to the refinery which consists of a still made from 55 gallon drums. The wells go dry pretty quickly, so they move over a few feet and rill another one. They even do this "offshore" in a lake using bamboo platforms. They are very resourceful people, but they are not going to be making semiconductors or machine tools anytime soon unless someone provides a lot of assistance. But those are the only people who have any readily recoverable resources. They will survive a collapse of civilization far better than the rest of us. But they will also have no access to the knowledge that makes modern technology possible. "Oh, but we can use scrap." Oh, yeah? And how many years before all the cars, trucks and other pieces of iron an steel are just brown spots on the ground? Far too low a tenor to be recoverable. A few metals such as gold don't oxidize, but most do. And all the metals important to technology do. Iron is extremely abundant and cast iron is just amazing. It's almost an argument for creationism it's so amenable to primitive methods. But if you don't have high tenor ore, you cannot dig up and smelt an ounce of it. Too much digging and too much tree cutting required. I got interested in DIY technology around age 20. So at 65, I have spent 45 years trying to prepare for such things. But after reading all those books on the history of technology it sank in that there were two problems: social organization at a large scale (how may people did it take to build the pyramids) and resources which were accessible to technology such as used in Mynamar. Which is only slightly more refined than Drake used in 1859. I have the tools to do almost everything and a library to tell you how. But I'm 65 and have glaucoma. So I'm in a race between dying and going blind. Both my parents lived into their 90's. I hope I do not. I can play guitar and harmonica rather well. Good enough that I can walk on stage and rip a tune with a band I've never played with. But I don't relish the idea of being "Blind Boy Rufus" (I was born with red hair and was given the nickname by my dad. I dropped when I graduated college with my BA in English lit). I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. So, Toby, that's a short version of why I abandoned the project. It's a very gloomy future. And after 65 years of learning everything (except biological sciences) that I could I can offer no solution. The Silicon Valley elite imagine that when the collapse comes they and their family will get in their personal jet and fly away. Which is possible if they can fly the plane themselves. But the pilot is more likely to shoot the owner and family and take his family than take theirs and leave his own behind. This is a wretched platform for writing. Doubtless there are many things in my writing which would make me cringe. I took a degree in literature because I wanted a good liberal arts education. The sole criticism I should make of it today is I should have taken math at least up to ordinary differential equations. I did do that later and a lot more. Kids in high school don't learn algebra, geometry and trigonometry because their teachers don't know anything about applying it. But every good skilled tradesman uses them every day. And then are insulted because they didn't go to college. It's hard to be motivated to learn something which is difficult if you don't have a clue why you are doing it and neither does the teacher. I'm going to end it here. Thank you Toby for asking. I hope that at least a few of you found it worthwhile reading. Reg
Tam Hanna All Messages By This Member #92832 开云体育 Hello, What made the issue really quixotic was something else. The Austrian university in question had the books, in course strength, in the library. But, oddly, they still did not find the time to send students there to look things up. I had a discussion on that very topic today with the owner of a German scientific book publisher. She totally agreed with me on every count... With best regards Tam HANNA (emailing on a BlackBerry PRIV) Enjoy electronics? Join 11k other followers by visiting the Crazy Electronics Lab at Am 23. November 2018 15:54:18 MEZ schrieb Harvey White <madyn@...>: toggle quoted message Show quoted text On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 13:23:12 +0100, you wrote: Hello, let me comment on this aspect: I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. This is the fault of today's university administration. I could tell stories, both from personal experience as student and from my exwifes consulting agency. In short, it makes good sense why I stopped my studies after achieving a BSc. Your average course textbook is roughly 150 USD or so. Making an Ebook out of them, the students are "only" charged 70 to 100 USD. Some order the dead tree copies, some don't. "look! we're saving them money!" Harvey Tam With best regards Tam Hanna Enjoy electronics? Join 13700 other followers by visiting the Crazy Electronics Lab at On 23. 11. 2018 3:48, Reginald Beardsley via Groups.Io wrote: This will not be long, but I'll make a brief comment on my reasoning. If you look back to the bronze age, that was only possible because there were high tenor (high metal content) ores close to the surface which could be readily mined. And there were abundant trees with which to make charcoal to smelt the ores. Neither of those still exist. The natural resources left whether minerals or fossil fuels are difficult to reach and in the case of metals, very low tenor. It takes tens of thousands of people to get a single drop of oil in 9000 ft of water at 30,000 ft BSL. I worked a little bit on St Malo, a Unocal discovery before Chevron bought them. I was riding home on the bus and chatting with a Brit who was subsea systems manager for Jack, a nearby Chevron discovery. All he was responsible for was the equipment that sits on the sea floor and ties in to the production system. He had a $2 billion dollar budget. This was in 2006 or 2007 Jack, St Malo and another field produced first oil in2014. They were discovered in 2003 and 2004. The FSPO (floating storage, production and offloading) system cost $7.5 billion dollars. How many welders, machinists, fitters and other skilled tradesmen do you think it takes to spend that much money? This was 10 years of intense hard work by a vast number of people. My wild guess is that there were probably about 50-60,000 people involved at some point. Maybe only a few hours like me. All I did was do some synthetic seismograms for the well tie. If the trucks stop delivering food for a week, there will never be food on the shelves again. Almost everyone has less than a week's supply of food. So it they can get it, they'll stock up as much as possible. In the context of a "just in time" inventory management environment there is no capacity for increasing the supply if demand increases. And if demand increases because of a shortage of truck drivers because most of them are sick or dead from influenza, or there has been a Carrington even, a high altitude nuke detonated above the US, a Crater Lake or Yellowstone level caldera collapse or any of a very long list of events I can recite., there will be even less capacity to supply food. My doctor, whom I've known since we were 10, tells me people can survive without food for about 60 days. The net result i will be a period of 30-60 days of incredible violence during which 90% or more of the population will perish. The survivors will be scared and isolated. So social organization will be very difficult. The Hollywood "Mad Max" version of this is ludicrous. Look at thew costumes. Clothing laced together with leather strips through metal eyelets? Where in the hell are they going to get eyelets? There are no refineries at well sites. There is very little oil left that is not 1000's of ft down. What is left is in places like remote parts of Mynamar. There was a great article in the Oil and Gas Journal about 15-20 years ago about oil production in the interior. The wells are drilled by setting up a tripod with a pulley. A length of pipe with a beveled edge is attached to a rope. The length of pipe is raised and dropped until it fills with dirt. It is then hauled to the surface, the dirt removed and they start over. Periodically they drop plastic bags off water down the hole as they have found it increases the penetration rate. Once they reach the target, the oil is brought up using a bailer such as the well bucket a childhood friend used to draw water in the 60's. From there it is transported by young women in 5 gallon jugs to the refinery which consists of a still made from 55 gallon drums. The wells go dry pretty quickly, so they move over a few feet and rill another one. They even do this "offshore" in a lake using bamboo platforms. They are very resourceful people, but they are not going to be making semiconductors or machine tools anytime soon unless someone provides a lot of assistance. But those are the only people who have any readily recoverable resources. They will survive a collapse of civilization far better than the rest of us. But they will also have no access to the knowledge that makes modern technology possible. "Oh, but we can use scrap." Oh, yeah? And how many years before all the cars, trucks and other pieces of iron an steel are just brown spots on the ground? Far too low a tenor to be recoverable. A few metals such as gold don't oxidize, but most do. And all the metals important to technology do. Iron is extremely abundant and cast iron is just amazing. It's almost an argument for creationism it's so amenable to primitive methods. But if you don't have high tenor ore, you cannot dig up and smelt an ounce of it. Too much digging and too much tree cutting required. I got interested in DIY technology around age 20. So at 65, I have spent 45 years trying to prepare for such things. But after reading all those books on the history of technology it sank in that there were two problems: social organization at a large scale (how may people did it take to build the pyramids) and resources which were accessible to technology such as used in Mynamar. Which is only slightly more refined than Drake used in 1859. I have the tools to do almost everything and a library to tell you how. But I'm 65 and have glaucoma. So I'm in a race between dying and going blind. Both my parents lived into their 90's. I hope I do not. I can play guitar and harmonica rather well. Good enough that I can walk on stage and rip a tune with a band I've never played with. But I don't relish the idea of being "Blind Boy Rufus" (I was born with red hair and was given the nickname by my dad. I dropped when I graduated college with my BA in English lit). I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. So, Toby, that's a short version of why I abandoned the project. It's a very gloomy future. And after 65 years of learning everything (except biological sciences) that I could I can offer no solution. The Silicon Valley elite imagine that when the collapse comes they and their family will get in their personal jet and fly away. Which is possible if they can fly the plane themselves. But the pilot is more likely to shoot the owner and family and take his family than take theirs and leave his own behind. This is a wretched platform for writing. Doubtless there are many things in my writing which would make me cringe. I took a degree in literature because I wanted a good liberal arts education. The sole criticism I should make of it today is I should have taken math at least up to ordinary differential equations. I did do that later and a lot more. Kids in high school don't learn algebra, geometry and trigonometry because their teachers don't know anything about applying it. But every good skilled tradesman uses them every day. And then are insulted because they didn't go to college. It's hard to be motivated to learn something which is difficult if you don't have a clue why you are doing it and neither does the teacher. I'm going to end it here. Thank you Toby for asking. I hope that at least a few of you found it worthwhile reading. Reg 开云体育 Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#92824): /g/HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment/message/92824 Mute This Topic: /mt/28290682/102401 Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: /g/HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment/leave/defanged [tamhan@...]
Peter Gottlieb All Messages By This Member #92833 On 11/23/2018 1:39 PM, Harvey White wrote: On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 11:52:19 -0500, you wrote: Getting an advanced degree is not for everyone.? Just because you can doenn't necessarily mean you should.? A few lines of work, and a few jobs, require these degrees but the vast majority do not. Engineering for companies seems to require it, defense contractor engineers. Perhaps I should have said postgraduate degrees.? Corporate engineering jobs seem to require it, and many states for getting a PE accreditation. Teaching college requires a master's degree minimum. Yes. There are many people who have their Arks to carry technology.? Kids or no kids, Ark or no Ark, 99.9% of that technology will still end up in landfills.? Who's to say if that technology is worth saving or is merely a steppingstone to newer technology? iPhone N-1 where iPhone N is the latest.... It seems incredible that getting oil appears to be so difficult now, but maybe this is why solar and wind energy are getting comparatively cheaper?? Nobody is going to drill and refine their own petroleum but many thousands are already completely off the grid in terms of energy.? How?? They live in sunny areas, have modest solar arrays on their roof and carport and drive Teslas or other BEVs.? All their energy needs, including for their vehicle, are met by solar. And yeah many also have gardens.? Not everyone has the resources and dedication to do this but it is possible today to live a high tech lifestyle completely off the grid. Hmmm, have you looked at what it takes to make solar panels? Tesla batteries? In Costa Rica (gotten from someone who grew up there), they had solar hot water. Radiators and perhaps inner tubes. No high tech needed. Solar power? Don't think so. Windmills and water power might be possible, though. Don't know the local conditions. Harvey If you're starting from pre-industrial humanity, sure, but I thought the premise was a breakdown of today's society, in which case technologically we'd be starting from where we are now.? All those with off-grid solar systems won't have to bury them and start from scratch. Look to examples of modern major disruptions such as Puerto Rico, New Orleans, etc.
Reginald Beardsley All Messages By This Member #92840 Prior to WW II 5% of the population went to college. Medicine, dentistry and engineering were single degree professions. Liberal arts, which used to mean science, math, history and literature, was the province of the sons of families with substantial means. The GI Bill was a brilliant response to what to do with several million young men who had just returned from the war and who would cause significant trouble if not occupied in some constructive fashion. But education as a whole has become a complete scam. I was asked to serve on the geoscience department external advisory board where I got my BA and MS. In 3 years of trying I was never able to get any response from faculty members to my inquiries about what level of mathematics was being taught to the GIS students and what was needed. Having been heavily involved in geodetic software during my working career, I'm acutely aware of a lot of issues to the point that I think that all computer generating mapping is a specialist task. I've seen far too many major errors. I can't identify a well drilled in the wrong location, but I'm sure plenty have been. In the end I concluded that my appointment to the board was intended to separate me from my money and nothing else. They did not and will not get a nickel. The library is moving almost 700,000 books to a remote location to give kids more space to hang out in the library. I did not get my PhD at Austin. After 4 years I lost my financial support and so I went back to work as I could not justify losing another 6 years of income starting over at Stanford. But I did get what mattered. I acquired the ability to teach myself anything, which, despite being an autodidact, was not a skill I possessed when I finished my MS which was the required professional degree in geology going back even before WW II. I have though long and hard about education for the sciences and engineering. In my opinion, the level of mathematical preparation required now makes an MS essential if one is to be more than a technician. The PhD is nice if you have the motivation, but there are not a lot of jobs at that level. Science magazine had an editorial which highlighted that only 5-6% of PhDs found permanent employment in academia. My biggest complaint is the denigration of the skilled trades. You need almost 4 years of education to understand the systems in a modern automobile. Bill Fisher is famous for saying the best place to find oil is where you've found it. The West Texas Permian basin which was the hot play after WW II and where G.H.W. Bush made his money is going gangbusters right now because of the degree to which horizontal drilling has been developed. The strain on local infrastructure is so great the operating companies have pledged $100 million to local government to hire teachers, repair roads and all the other things needed. The calculus was invented about the time my ancestors came to the New England area. But it was almost 300 years before it became a routine engineering tool. Globalization has made us all highly interdependent. At one time I thought this was good. Now I realize is that it has made civilization a house of cards. I don't know when it will collapse, but I know it will at some point. During the last 200 years we have so successfully and ruthlessly consumed natural resources as to make me weep. But the physical world cannot support exponential growth for very long. Technology and civil order go hand in hand. You cannot have technology above the level of 1800 without a social framework which makes trade possible. Up until the early part of the 20th century most of the population was engaged in agriculture at barely above subsistence level and worked from dawn to dusk. But even at 1800 level technology very few were independent of the chapman, the traveling salesman with his wagon of things people could not make for themselves. Ultimately humans will become extinct just as every species eventually does. But technology will go extinct long before that. Jared Diamond in one of his excellent books cites the case of the Chatham Islanders. During the Pleistocene low stand when sea level was about 600 ft lower than it is today, the Chatham Islands were connected to Australia. After the rising water cut them off the inhabitants regressed technologically and lost knowledge of the needle, fish hook and other simple things. They lived in small bands of hunter gatherers of less than two dozen and were not sufficiently productive to support technical specialists.
Harvey White All Messages By This Member #92841 On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 20:06:47 +0100, you wrote: Hello, What made the issue really quixotic was something else. The Austrian university in question had the books, in course strength, in the library. But, oddly, they still did not find the time to send students there to look things up. You can lead a horse to wisdom, but you can't make him think... Wisdom, Horse.... Horse, Wisdom.... er.. HORSE, WISDOM! (Neigh....) oh, wait, I'm talking to the wrong end of the horse.... Harvey Students need to step up sometimes... I had a discussion on that very topic today with the owner of a German scientific book publisher. She totally agreed with me on every count... --- With best regards Tam HANNA (emailing on a BlackBerry PRIV) Enjoy electronics? Join 11k other followers by visiting the Crazy Electronics Lab at Am 23. November 2018 15:54:18 MEZ schrieb Harvey White <madyn@...>: On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 13:23:12 +0100, you wrote: Hello, let me comment on this aspect: I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. This is the fault of today's university administration. I could tell stories, both from personal experience as student and from my exwifes consulting agency. In short, it makes good sense why I stopped my studies after achieving a BSc. Your average course textbook is roughly 150 USD or so. Making an Ebook out of them, the students are "only" charged 70 to 100 USD. Some order the dead tree copies, some don't. "look! we're saving them money!" Harvey Tam With best regards Tam Hanna --- Enjoy electronics? Join 13700 other followers by visiting the Crazy Electronics Lab at On 23. 11. 2018 3:48, Reginald Beardsley via Groups.Io wrote: This will not be long, but I'll make a brief comment on my reasoning. If you look back to the bronze age, that was only possible because there were high tenor (high metal content) ores close to the surface which could be readily mined. And there were abundant trees with which to make charcoal to smelt the ores. Neither of those still exist. The natural resources left whether minerals or fossil fuels are difficult to reach and in the case of metals, very low tenor. It takes tens of thousands of people to get a single drop of oil in 9000 ft of water at 30,000 ft BSL. I worked a little bit on St Malo, a Unocal discovery before Chevron bought them. I was riding home on the bus and chatting with a Brit who was subsea systems manager for Jack, a nearby Chevron discovery. All he was responsible for was the equipment that sits on the sea floor and ties in to the production system. He had a $2 billion dollar budget. This was in 2006 or 2007 Jack, St Malo and another field produced first oil in2014. They were discovered in 2003 and 2004. The FSPO (floating storage, production and offloading) system cost $7.5 billion dollars. How many welders, machinists, fitters and other skilled tradesmen do you think it takes to spend that much money? This was 10 years of intense hard work by a vast number of people. My wild guess is that there were probably about 50-60,000 people involved at some point. Maybe only a few hours like me. All I did was do some synthetic seismograms for the well tie. If the trucks stop delivering food for a week, there will never be food on the shelves again. Almost everyone has less than a week's supply of food. So it they can get it, they'll stock up as much as possible. In the context of a "just in time" inventory management environment there is no capacity for increasing the supply if demand increases. And if demand increases because of a shortage of truck drivers because most of them are sick or dead from influenza, or there has been a Carrington even, a high altitude nuke detonated above the US, a Crater Lake or Yellowstone level caldera collapse or any of a very long list of events I can recite., there will be even less capacity to supply food. My doctor, whom I've known since we were 10, tells me people can survive without food for about 60 days. The net result i will be a period of 30-60 days of incredible violence during which 90% or more of the population will perish. The survivors will be scared and isolated. So social organization will be very difficult. The Hollywood "Mad Max" version of this is ludicrous. Look at thew costumes. Clothing laced together with leather strips through metal eyelets? Where in the hell are they going to get eyelets? There are no refineries at well sites. There is very little oil left that is not 1000's of ft down. What is left is in places like remote parts of Mynamar. There was a great article in the Oil and Gas Journal about 15-20 years ago about oil production in the interior. The wells are drilled by setting up a tripod with a pulley. A length of pipe with a beveled edge is attached to a rope. The length of pipe is raised and dropped until it fills with dirt. It is then hauled to the surface, the dirt removed and they start over. Periodically they drop plastic bags off water down the hole as they have found it increases the penetration rate. Once they reach the target, the oil is brought up using a bailer such as the well bucket a childhood friend used to draw water in the 60's. From there it is transported by young women in 5 gallon jugs to the refinery which consists of a still made from 55 gallon drums. The wells go dry pretty quickly, so they move over a few feet and rill another one. They even do this "offshore" in a lake using bamboo platforms. They are very resourceful people, but they are not going to be making semiconductors or machine tools anytime soon unless someone provides a lot of assistance. But those are the only people who have any readily recoverable resources. They will survive a collapse of civilization far better than the rest of us. But they will also have no access to the knowledge that makes modern technology possible. "Oh, but we can use scrap." Oh, yeah? And how many years before all the cars, trucks and other pieces of iron an steel are just brown spots on the ground? Far too low a tenor to be recoverable. A few metals such as gold don't oxidize, but most do. And all the metals important to technology do. Iron is extremely abundant and cast iron is just amazing. It's almost an argument for creationism it's so amenable to primitive methods. But if you don't have high tenor ore, you cannot dig up and smelt an ounce of it. Too much digging and too much tree cutting required. I got interested in DIY technology around age 20. So at 65, I have spent 45 years trying to prepare for such things. But after reading all those books on the history of technology it sank in that there were two problems: social organization at a large scale (how may people did it take to build the pyramids) and resources which were accessible to technology such as used in Mynamar. Which is only slightly more refined than Drake used in 1859. I have the tools to do almost everything and a library to tell you how. But I'm 65 and have glaucoma. So I'm in a race between dying and going blind. Both my parents lived into their 90's. I hope I do not. I can play guitar and harmonica rather well. Good enough that I can walk on stage and rip a tune with a band I've never played with. But I don't relish the idea of being "Blind Boy Rufus" (I was born with red hair and was given the nickname by my dad. I dropped when I graduated college with my BA in English lit). I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah. I have built an Ark to carry technology. But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. So, Toby, that's a short version of why I abandoned the project. It's a very gloomy future. And after 65 years of learning everything (except biological sciences) that I could I can offer no solution. The Silicon Valley elite imagine that when the collapse comes they and their family will get in their personal jet and fly away. Which is possible if they can fly the plane themselves. But the pilot is more likely to shoot the owner and family and take his family than take theirs and leave his own behind. This is a wretched platform for writing. Doubtless there are many things in my writing which would make me cringe. I took a degree in literature because I wanted a good liberal arts education. The sole criticism I should make of it today is I should have taken math at least up to ordinary differential equations. I did do that later and a lot more. Kids in high school don't learn algebra, geometry and trigonometry because their teachers don't know anything about applying it. But every good skilled tradesman uses them every day. And then are insulted because they didn't go to college. It's hard to be motivated to learn something which is difficult if you don't have a clue why you are doing it and neither does the teacher. I'm going to end it here. Thank you Toby for asking. I hope that at least a few of you found it worthwhile reading. Reg
Dr. David Kirkby from Kirkby Microwave Ltd #92842 On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 at 12:39, Adrian <Adrian@...> wrote: Guys, please! This is still a hijacked thread regarding power detectors on a group about HP Instruments. The world has (more than) enough on-line places for this sort of topic but I suggest this is not one of them. Adrian Agreed. There is far too much off topic stuff here. I will lock this thread Dave (group owner) ? On 11/23/2018 2:48 AM, Reginald Beardsley via Groups.Io wrote: > This will not be long, but I'll make a brief comment on my reasoning. > > If you look back to the bronze age, that was only possible because there were high tenor (high metal content) ores close to the surface which could be readily mined.? And there were abundant trees with which to make charcoal to smelt the ores.? Neither of those still exist.? The natural resources left whether minerals or fossil fuels are difficult to reach and in the case of metals, very low tenor.? It takes tens of thousands of people to get a single drop of oil in 9000 ft of water at 30,000 ft BSL.? I worked a little bit on St Malo, a Unocal discovery before Chevron bought them.? I was riding home on the bus and chatting with a Brit who was subsea systems manager for Jack, a nearby Chevron discovery.? All he was responsible for was the equipment that sits on the sea floor and ties in to the production system.? He had a $2 billion dollar budget.? This was in 2006 or 2007? Jack, St Malo and another field produced first oil in2014.? They were discovered in 2003 and 2004. The FSPO (floating storage, production and offloading) system cost $7.5 billion dollars. > > How many welders, machinists, fitters and other skilled tradesmen do you think it takes to spend that much money?? This was 10 years of intense hard work by a vast number of people.? My wild guess is that there were probably about 50-60,000 people involved at some point. Maybe only a few hours like me.? All I did was do some synthetic seismograms for the well tie. > > If the trucks stop delivering food for a week, there will never be food on the shelves again.? Almost everyone has less than a week's supply of food.? So it they can get it, they'll stock up as much as possible.? In the context of a "just in time" inventory management environment there is no capacity for increasing the supply if demand increases.? And if demand increases because of a shortage of truck drivers because most of them are sick or dead from influenza, or there has been a Carrington even, a high altitude nuke detonated above the US, a Crater Lake or Yellowstone level caldera collapse or any of a very long list of events I can recite., there will be even less capacity to supply food.? My doctor, whom I've known since we were 10, tells me people can survive without food for about 60 days. > > The net result i will be a period of 30-60 days of incredible violence during which 90% or more of the population will perish. The survivors will be scared and? isolated.? ?So social organization will be very difficult. > > The Hollywood "Mad Max" version of this is ludicrous.? Look at thew costumes.? Clothing laced together with leather strips through metal eyelets?? Where in the hell are they going to get eyelets?? ? There are no refineries at well sites.? ?There is? very little oil left that is not 1000's of ft down.? What is left is in places like remote parts of Mynamar. > > There was a great article in the Oil and Gas Journal about 15-20 years ago about oil production in the interior. The wells are drilled by setting up a tripod with a pulley.? A length of pipe with a beveled edge is attached to a rope.? The length of pipe is raised and dropped until it fills with dirt. It is then hauled to the surface, the dirt removed and they start over.? Periodically they drop plastic bags off water down the hole as they have found it increases the penetration rate.? Once they reach the target, the oil is brought up using a bailer? such as the well bucket? a childhood friend used to draw water in the 60's. > >? From there it is transported by young women in 5 gallon jugs to the refinery which consists of a still made from 55 gallon drums. > > The wells go dry pretty quickly, so they move over a few feet and rill another one.? They even do this "offshore" in a lake using bamboo platforms. > > They are very resourceful people, but they are not going to be making semiconductors or machine tools anytime soon unless someone provides a lot of assistance.? But those are the only people who have any readily recoverable resources.? They will survive a collapse of civilization far better than the rest of us.? But they will also have no access to the knowledge that makes modern technology possible. > > "Oh, but we can use scrap."? Oh, yeah? And how many years before all the cars, trucks and other pieces of iron an steel are just brown spots on the ground?? Far too low a tenor to be recoverable.? A few metals such as gold don't oxidize, but most do.? And all the metals important to technology do.? Iron is extremely abundant and cast iron is just amazing.? It's almost an argument for creationism it's so amenable to primitive methods. But if you don't have high tenor ore, you cannot dig up and smelt an ounce of it. Too much digging and too much tree cutting required. > > I got interested in DIY technology around age 20.? So at 65, I have spent 45 years trying to prepare for such things.? But after reading all those books on the history of technology it sank in that there were two problems: social organization at a large scale (how may people did it take to build the pyramids) and resources which were accessible to technology such as used in Mynamar.? Which is only slightly more refined than Drake used in 1859. > > I have the tools to do almost everything and a library to tell you how.? But I'm 65? and have glaucoma.? So I'm in a race between dying and going blind.? Both my parents lived into their 90's.? I hope I do not.? I can play guitar and harmonica rather well.? Good enough that I can walk on stage and rip a tune with a band I've never played with.? But I don't relish the idea of being "Blind Boy Rufus" (I was born with red hair and was given the nickname by my dad.? I dropped when I graduated college with my BA in English lit). > > I came to realize a few years ago that I am a modern day Noah.? I have built an Ark to carry technology.? But I have no children and most of the under 30 population considers books as door stops. > > So, Toby, that's a short version of why I abandoned the project.? It's a very gloomy future.? And after 65 years of learning everything (except biological sciences) that I could I can offer no solution.? The Silicon Valley elite imagine that when the collapse comes they and their family will get in their personal jet and fly away.? Which is possible if they can fly the plane themselves.? But the pilot is more likely to shoot the owner and family and take his family than take theirs and leave his own behind. > > This is a wretched platform for writing.? Doubtless there are many things in my writing which would make me cringe.? I took a degree in literature because I wanted a good liberal arts education.? The sole criticism I should make of it today is I should have taken math at least up to ordinary differential equations.? I did do that later and a lot more. > > Kids in high school don't learn algebra, geometry and trigonometry because their teachers don't know anything about applying it.? But every good skilled tradesman uses them every day.? And then are insulted because they didn't go to college.? It's hard to be motivated to learn something which is difficult if you don't have a clue why you are doing it and neither does the teacher. > > I'm going to end it here.? Thank you Toby for asking.? I hope that at least a few of you found it worthwhile reading. > > Reg > > > -- Dr David Kirkby Ph.D C.Eng MIET Kirkby Microwave Ltd Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, CHELMSFORD, Essex, CM3 6DT, United Kingdom. Registered in England and Wales as company number 08914892 Tel 01621-680100 / +44 1621-680100

Previous Topic Next Topic