Cap'n Refsmmat

Or, for added innuendo: SCIENCE Wait till you see what comes out of my genes!

Could you clarify? Right, although if you have a perfect seal at the bottom, I don't think that would happen.

A lot of it doesn't seem to be coming to the surface, as is evidenced by the large underwater plumes of oil that have been discovered. I suppose if they could get a perfect seal around the leaking pipe, the pressure from beneath would push the oil straight up into the drill ship. But getting a perfect seal is hard.

Let me give an example. Let's suppose we have a twenty-centimeter diameter pipe that just has water in it, density 1000kg/m3. At the bottom, the pressure is 100kPa, about atmospheric pressure. The volume of that pipe is [math]0.01 \pi h[/math], where h is how tall it is and the answer is in meters. (0.01 is 0.1^2, the radius squared.) The mass would be 1000 times that, [math]10 \pi h[/math]. Suppose we pump all the air out of the top of the pipe, so there's a vacuum. The pressure difference is 100kPa. The force on the water column at the bottom will be [math]100 \mbox{ kPa} \times \pi r^2[/math], or 3141 Newtons. 3141 Newtons divided by g is 320kg, which is how much mass that force could hold up. So we let [math]320 = 10 \pi h[/math], solve for h, and get about 10m. For that pressure difference, a perfect pump could only pump water a maximum of 10m, no more. It's dependent on the pressure difference -- no pump can make the top of the pipe less than 0 Pascals, so you cannot increase that pressure difference without a pump at the bottom of the pipe. Now, in the oil well 5,000 feet under the ocean, the pressure at the bottom is much higher, but the principle is the same.

We're going to try something based on Sayo's old idea: [attach]412[/attach] Any ideas for alternate texts or scenes?

I suppose it's difficult when there's about 20 gallons per second flowing out of the wellhead, that you have to pump 5,000 feet vertically. You're limited by the height -- if the pressure at the bottom isn't high enough, it simply won't push the oil up, and a pump at the top is limited. For example, if the pressure at the bottom and top were both atmospheric, and your pump lowered the top to a vacuum, you'd only get 14.7psi acting on the fluid at the bottom, no matter how much harder the pump worked. It can't pump any harder. Similarly, pumps on the drill ships are limited by the pressure at the bottom. The only way to get over that is to put a pump on the seabed, which is hard.

Bump! Anyone have witty or funny shirt ideas? We might just end up having a few for sale for our lucky members. I've got the start of one -- Phi above suggested "I'm not a MAD Scientist, I'm more of a Thoroughly ANNOYED Scientist!", but then I saw this: http://cowbird.110mb.com/46.html Now I need to think of a joke based on the mad scientist vs. mad engineer dichotomy. Hmm. Ideas?

Electron microscopes don't work anything like optical telescopes or microscopes. You'd need some specialist equipment to have it load automatically.

Uh, according to your source, only four of the ships had goods with them, not six out of the seven. Regardless, I'm not surprised they did a crappy job being actual humanitarians. It's a political shot more than anything. That doesn't justify Israel's original blockade of potato chips, it merely means Hamas is stupid. The Israeli ambassador to the US was on the Colbert Report recently and stated the chips and snacks weren't allowed in because Israel didn't feel obligated to "provide" the Palestinians with them. But that's not the point; Israel doesn't have to buy crates of Pringles for the Gazans, they just have to let the Gazans purchase their own Pringles and have them shipped in. So if Israel didn't feel obligated to "provide" them, even if the Gazans would pay with their own money, it sounds more like Israel didn't feel obligated to let them have snacks. Why not? Collective punishment?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-eases-blockade-by-letting-in-extra-food-items-1996142.html Biscuits and potato chips were banned items?

Incidentally, the $75 million cap is not on how much they should spend on cleaning up the oil, but how much they are liable for in damages. They have to spend their own money to clean up, and when they're sued for damages by the folks who have lost their jobs, they're liable for $75m.

Incidentally, the $75 million cap is not on how much they should spend on cleaning up the oil, but how much they are liable for in damages. They have to spend their own money to clean up, and when they're sued for damages by the folks who have lost their jobs, they're liable for $75m.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_bomb#Types_of_nuclear_weapons

Russia already has a time beacon on 66.66 kHz. Why do they need a separate, secret time beacon?

Supposing you labeled the drug transactions as "baby-sitting fees" in the electronic system. How would the authorities know it was really drugs?

Hmm. My mom read a Turkish article calling the blockade illegal because it wasn't recognized by the UN. But recognition isn't the only thing you need for legality, of course. Gaza has been living with those "marginal" limitations for several years, and those are the limitations that the Goldstone Report declared to be violations of international law. I suspect they chose the direct route they did because they knew a legal challenge would get nowhere without massive international support. They chose the emotional appeal because it would achieve their goals rapidly. So far it's worked brilliantly. You can fault them for slightly dishonest tactics, but you have to admit they've worked brilliantly so far.

They checked via inspections. Nuclear missiles are big; you can't hide them in your suitcase. The disproportionality clause in international law regards the disproportionate impact of a blockade upon civilians; in the case of the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was no blockade on civilian goods at all. In the case of Israel and Gaza, the blockade bans many civilian goods, which is why it is disproportionate. Fair enough, but the military operations would not have been necessary if the blockade had been declared illegal and revoked much earlier.

Hmm. We've been debating the legality of the blockade and wondering if any international investigation would decide the issue, when one already has. The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict issued its report in September 2009, and ruled that the blockade is a war crime. http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/09/15/UNFFMGCReport.pdf Taken from section 13: "The impact of the military operations and of the blockade on the Gaza population and their human rights."

Has it been recognized? I don't know exactly how that works. I don't think they want to ease the blockade. They want it removed entirely, so they can have unfettered access.

It may vary from state to state. Many of them require stolen goods to be returned though.

Probably not. The quarantine was solely against offensive weapons. At the time, that meant "nukes and long-range missiles." The quarantine also did not last long enough to have a major humanitarian impact on Cuba, since Kennedy achieved his goals diplomatically within two weeks. Thus it wasn't disproportionate, as the Gaza blockade has been. Don't you think someone should establish that a crime was committed and allow her to defend herself before taking punishment?

And if Obama had tried taking humanitarian aid to the Iraqis? Zuabi wasn't sneaking missiles into Gaza. She was not attempting to aid Hamas. The analogy doesn't work.

Also, pawn shops are legally required to hand over stolen goods for free, I think, so if they won't return your goods, bring in the police report and evidence that the guitar is yours. Good luck.

I believe the standard procedure when someone is claimed to have broken the law is to hold a trial. In the US, we impeach Congressmen by holding a trial in the Senate. There has never been a Congressman successfully impeached. In any case, I don't believe Zuabi broke the law; as an occupied territory, Gaza is under military control, not Israeli civil control, so Zuabi would be violating a military blockade rather than a civil law. Also, in no event did she actually breach the blockade -- the ships stayed outside of the declared blockade area. Israel may have been allowed to stop the ships, but they were not yet committing any crime. Also, members of Congress, and members of the Knesset, have explicit immunity from civil or criminal trial. (Also, we don't threaten to strip citizenship of Congressmen who do bad things, we threaten to impeach them)

Update: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-prepares-to-confront-israel-with-aid-flotilla-1994124.html This is worrisome.