h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... because that other one gets cluttered up with well-meaning types broadcasting on different frequencies.

Yeah, OK, so you've been ignoring me. Which is fair enough. I've been in a black mood.

But I read your Fates thing, and that's heavy. It's philosophical heavy, which is the heaviest kind of heavy.

I get moods for straightforward practical reasons, which is quite good, because they're the reasons you can get over. I mean, hey, look at me, I'm positively exuberant.

You, on the other hand, are irrepressible most of the time, but just now and again you go all dark about things you can't change.

It's part of what makes you interesting, sure, but is it healthy?

Tell you what. You talk to me again, and I promise to try be more cheerful. Deal?

Deal. Kind of - there isn't any new deal needed, you know. Not that I wouldn't want you to feel more cheerful. It's a choice sometimes, isn't it?

I was angry yesterday, it was easier . Bit kiddy though, saying 'It's not fair!'. So much just isn't.

Anyway. I wasn't ignoring you, not that I was aware of, not as an intention There's a couple of things I've put in a pending tray I guess - and maybe, with some UG stuff, for clearer skies.

Know what? What I really want to say, though it's pitiful in proportion but on the other hand it is something I should have been able to do something about, is that for reasons I can't explain but all work related and part of the injustice, I ended up lieing to someone about it (the Fates thing). Straight in the eye and direct. It'll hurt them when/if they realise. Even more if they come to understand why, because at heart they're sound.

People who are at heart sound shouldn't end up at odds with each other - we should do better than that. And I should have done better than lieing, that needs making right.

PS (third post, you said to talk), saving Bonnie and Clyde for a more right time.

Sheesh, rings the bell and buzzes off.

Just as well I don't mind talking to the furniture, Hatstand, hey?

So Barrow and Parker then? Really good read, yes. But something, oh, say along the lines of contrasting the romantic perception with the bleak and brutal facts, would have been .

You can quit looking at Post 3 like that. It helped at the time. Tension thing. It's all sorted anyway.

You know, if we get to post 6, I'll assume it was you he rang the bell for.

No.
I don't want to try a clooter.

Yeah, well, I've been kind of busy.

I suggested co-writing B+C to Jodes, but maybe he doesn't do research any more, or something.

Then, before it all turned into a tired old standard EG Entry, I thought about trying something a bit different. Enacting it.

The idea would have been to have signed up a Bonnie and gone on a sort of rampage, posting dramatised accounts of the shootings to PR and answering criticism with snatches of gunfights, before scarpering until next time. Maybe the piecemeal exchanges could be pasted together at the end in an interesting way.

Then I realised I didn't want to be someone I didn't like. So now I'm trying to think of something in a similar vein, with characters who periodically confront authority and make it look ridiculous.

Check out http://uk.geocities.com/lunchtimeproductions/images/forvie2007.jpg

It was quite a shock - I'm sure there's been no mention of a skeleton before. There was nothing more at the visitor centre. In fact, no mention of it there.

It's great having stuff for youngsters, just wish they'd think there might be adults interested too. Or perhaps we're not supposed to be.


B and C is not a tired old standard EG Entry, btw. Not imo, I hope I didn't imply that.

Poor Maly.

As for the adults, I don't know any

you keep it that way.

Hey, now that you've finally come to terms with your macho-mega-machine yearnings, I could show you all sorts of stuff. Just 'cos you've stood at the side of some steam engine, doesn't mean you've been there.

So - you up for some dirty pictures?

Ho yus!

OK. See if you can work out what's happening here:
http://www.tenaris.com/en/investors/annual2005/image/img_in_02.jpg

Very large coil of something. Looks a bit like on board a ship but that's unlikely.

Actually, looking against the ladders for scale it a pretty big something - so pipe or cable and more likely to be an end product than as part of the mechanism.

Good. There are men on the platform lower front for scale.
It's a reel of pipeline, and it is on a ship. The pipeline is going to be laid under the sea.

So - what's the pipe made of?

So there are! Never noticed, and it's even larger pipe than I thought.

Made of - well since you're posting it - steel probably. From the size and weight of the wheel it looks like something heavy, but obviously it's got some flexibility.

Phones, gas, oil?

Steel, yep. And gas transport.
Deep and/or very high pressure lines can't be laid this way, though. You need wall thicknesses that no longer bend round practical radii for a reel.
This ship, then, is a baby. We ought to look at some serious laybarges. By way of a treat, though, I've found a guy who likes laybarges and seabirds, so we can both enjoy some rapture.
Take a look at LB200 and Saipem 7000 here, an S-layer and a J-layer respectively. The letter describes the trajectory of the trailing pipe as it descends to the sea bed.
http://www.naturalbornbirder.com/offshore/survey.php

LB200 is a whopper! And like something out of MadMax. It's ginormous, a quite extraordinary monster! S7000's more of a vessel. Relatively! LB200 appears to be dangling daleks over the side. So how do they manage if they can't carry the pipe coiled? Putting sections together seems risky.

The Golden Plover is dead cute. It can be impressive too though. There were about 3000 on the mudflats at Forvie. Ever seen a flock that size take flight? They billow anf flow - like starlings do - but changing from clouds of gold, to white, to black.

More birds tomorrow.

needed now. Been trying to get the new stove going for the night. Phurnacite is very different to traditional coal. Night Pin.

PS his 3D shipwreck's pretty.

Cor!http://static.flickr.com/118/298566494_7c0f2d3fd7_o.jpg

Draglines later. Offshore to finish first.
They do join the pipes on board. They receive them in 12 metre lengths. LB200 (S-lay) has a series of if I remember 8 workstations where they prep, weld (several passes, each pass at a diffeent station), inspect and coat. The pipe runs alomg the barge in an incremental feed before running down into the water along the ramp (known as the stinger).
Saipem 7000 (J-lay) joins 3 pieces together on a fixed platform before swinging the now 36-metre section vertical and welding it onto the one before, still projecting above the waves.
Saipem 7000 is unusual because it self-positions using GPS and thrusters. LB200 on the other hand has a flotilla of tugs that pick-up and shift its anchors. LB200 then moves by winching itself alng its anchor chains.
Mad Max is good. I'm amazed that such a monstrosity floats.

Goes against instinct that such things, like boats made of concrete, should float. The reason I said risky was, (quite apart from working steel out at sea), that it's glorified plumbing really. And plumbing = leaks.

Magnificent though these two are, they're not really rivaling the big steam engine yet. It's turn of speed was sheer class - Linford Christie v Geoff Capes.