This business problem at Woodside Pluto LNG in Western Australia caught my eye. A major cause of the delay is inadequate flare towers needing to be replaced by contractor Foster-Wheeler / Worley-Parsons. Takes me back to my first ever project in this business BP Sullom Voe Shetland Oil Terminal back in 1978/79 – where there [...]
Entries from November 2010
Defective Flare Delays
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November 30, 2010 at 6:18pm
by Psybertron
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The God of Compost
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November 29, 2010 at 5:53pm
by Psybertron
Posted on MD by John Carl, after Barbara Kingsolver. I believe in trees and that heaven has something to do with how dead trees gentle themselves into long, mossy columns of bright-smelling, crumbling earth, lively inside with sprouting seeds and black beetles.  I can not make myself believe in a loud-voiced, bearded God on his throne in the [...]
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Masters of Marketing
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November 27, 2010 at 9:48pm
by Psybertron
Said it before … about brew dog, but I only came to this site thanks to a hit on yellow-line-painting-over-road-kill being not only a meme, but in general a hoax too. I can believe that. Talking of which, ludicrously strong beer, but without the marketing, some of the most interesting stuff I’ve come across in [...]
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Foul-Mouthed Wisdom
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November 27, 2010 at 9:07pm
by Psybertron
Still never seen Paul Weller since The Jam days, must find the opportunity. Came to mind looking through the gig guide for Brisbane; so many gigs in general, including big names touring. Muse this coming weekend (I leave on Friday). Ho hum.
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Gabba Gabba Hey
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November 27, 2010 at 7:38pm
by Psybertron
In the last week of four here in Brisbane, and I think I’ve blogged only once about the music. In the three bars on/off Brunswick and Ann in “the valley”, that is Step Inn, Ric’s and Zoo, I must have seen 35 bands. Apart from Friday before last at Step Inn which had three separate [...]
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Metaphorical Mash-Up
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November 27, 2010 at 6:45pm
by Psybertron
Disappointed listening to Melvyn Bragg’s recent In Our Time on Metaphor. Makes the introduction referring to metaphor being as old as story telling – earliest writings in Gilgamesh we hear – as well as being a topic of interest to modern “thinkers”, promising. The contributors give us the benefit of their literary knowledge, though fail [...]
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Wind, the New Oil
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November 25, 2010 at 9:08pm
by Psybertron
I remembered noting this before driving through south Texas, the irony of seeing large wind-farms in the centre of the world of oil. (In memory only those around Bakersfield California seemed bigger.) I mentioned the irony here, seeing the huge wind farm at Sinton when I visited Port Aransas on Mustang Island, near Corpus Christi, [...]
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Real in the Wrong ?
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November 25, 2010 at 4:34pm
by Psybertron
Probably not, but the ref made a mistake by sending them off. He could simply have awarded the opponents an indirect free-kick for foul play, and got on with it. It’s all in the game.
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Logic is Autism
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November 22, 2010 at 3:27pm
by Psybertron
Not a new concept, but a very interesting NYT piece by Andy Martin. (Thanks to Steve Peterson on MD for the link). Thank you, gentlemen, for raising the issue of understanding here. The fact is, I don’t expect people in general to understand what I have written. And it is not just because I have [...]
Karen Armstrong
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November 12, 2010 at 7:47pm
by Psybertron
Linked to Karen Armstrong previously – her “Charter for Compassion” campaign was the subject of her TED talk. She ends up pretty campaigning and preachy in that piece, but she shows a sophisticated position in the God vs Science wars. Not surprising given her history and the enormous number of books she has written on [...]
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West Over East
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November 10, 2010 at 5:14pm
by Psybertron
Just finished The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Mohsin Hamid), so was taken with this perspective on the British PM visit to China. The east has been the dominant economic culture for 18 of the last 20 centuries. Lots of irony in the book, and the core metaphor is a bit thin / naive, a young author I [...]
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The Tyranny of Effort
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November 10, 2010 at 8:29am
by Psybertron
Good spot from Johnnie again.
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Brisbane Hills
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November 10, 2010 at 8:27am
by Psybertron
Why did nobody ever mention the hills ? Brisbane is a new location for me. Culturally and architecturally reminded me of Melbourne meets Perth meets Alabama with a tasteless church on every corner, except everywhere is uphill to/from everywhere else. I’ll either get fit or …. After three consecutive nights in the air, my first [...]
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A380 Experience
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November 10, 2010 at 8:04am
by Psybertron
Interesting (?) to fly in a Singapore Airlines A380 between the Quantas incident and the Singapore decision to change the engines. Not used to flying business class these days, but all I can say it was as quiet and smooth a flight as I’ve experienced, up front, top deck on a Singapore A380. Having survived, [...]
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Between Material & Spiritual
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November 7, 2010 at 1:05pm
by Psybertron
From David Morey via Horse at MoQ Discuss, an NPR blog from Marcelo Gleiser with an interesting little quote from Robert Pirsig‘s ZMM. The cause of our current social crises is a genetic defect within the nature of reason itself. And until this genetic defect is cleared, the crises will continue. Our current modes of [...]
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Interesting Take on Sanity
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November 2, 2010 at 10:21am
by Psybertron
Not sure I agree that the major reputable news organizations are necessarily a-political, but nevertheless interesting look at the politically biased reporting of numbers at the recent John Stewart and Stephen Colbert “Sanity” event. I’ve been in crowds of a quarter of a million a couple of times, and that’s quite an event. Restores your [...]
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Speaking Your Mind …
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November 2, 2010 at 5:47am
by Psybertron
For what it’s worth I don’t believe Harry should suffer any “punishment” for expressing his opinions the way he did. (I actually think Gomes was at fault, and Spurs have to live with their own cock-up. Clattenburg could have made a more judicious call, even though he was technically right in what he did. Fools [...]
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Why would Haliburton …
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November 2, 2010 at 5:38am
by Psybertron
… still claim that the cement design was not at fault in the Deepwater Horizon Macondo Well blow-out ? That is, whoever was at fault for accepting the design and its testing – lab testing and in-situ negative pressure testing – the “cement job” failed. The design includes the whole implementation and testing process in [...]
