Venice, LA aka End of the World:Hurricanes, Oxygen-deprived Dead Zone and a Forest of High-risk Oil Rigs

Venice, Louisiana is aptly nicknamed “the end of the world.” The community of 1000, which includes Venice, Orchard and Boothville, is south of New Orleans is the most southerly terminus of the Great River Road and the last community on the Mississippi River. Venice was almost completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. East of Venice, LA is a human-induced oxygen deprived dead zone on the Gulf of Mexico seabed with too little oxygen to support fish, shrimp, crabs and other forms of marine life, that expanded to its largest on record by 2008 of c. 8,000 square miles.

One of Venice’s main industries is to provide service and transport for off-shore petroleum platforms, including BP’s  Deepwater Horizon oil rig which exploded 2010-02-20 killing eleven people and causing a huge oil spill.

Deepwater Horizon, built in 2001, was a Transocean-owned semisubmersible drilling rig but it was leased to BP (65%), with partners Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Mitsui & Co. owning the remainder.

BP plc founded in 1909 as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (See wiki for its Iranian-British-American history), which became The British Petroleum Company plc then BP Amoco plc now called BP) “is a British global energy company that is also the third largest global energy company and the 4th largest company in the world. As a multinational oil company (“oil major”) BP is the UK’s largest corporation, with its headquarters in St James’s, City of Westminster, London.[2][3][4] The company is among the largest private sector energy corporations in the world, and one of the six “supermajors” (vertically integrated private sector oil exploration, natural gas, and petroleum product marketing companies). BP’s 2009 reports a revenue of $246.1 billion, a net incomeof US $16.58 billion, a total equity of US $101.6 billion with 92,000 employees worldwide. wiki source

See dramatic photos here.

BP’s Gulf of Mexico Deepwater operations which include Atlantis Oil Field, Thunder Horse, Mad Dog, Pompano, Holstein, Horn Mountain, Marlin, Nakika and Tiber oilfield (announced 2009; production not commenced) operates from Houston, Texas.

“Transocean LTD is the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor. The company rents out floating, mobile drill rigs, along with the equipment and personnel needed for operations, to oil and gas companies. The company was spun-off from its parent, Birmingham, Alabama based Sonat, Inc. in 1993 and was originally called Sonat Offshore Drilling, Inc. Sonat Offshore acquired the Norwegian group Transocean ASA in 1996 and adopted its name. In 2000 the company merged with Sedco Forex, and was renamed Transocean Sedco Forex. In 2001 the company bought Reading & Bates Falcon. The name of the company was simplified to Transocean in 2003. Sedco Forex was originally part of Schlumberger until 2000 when it was spun off. Sedco Forex was originally formed from the merger of two drilling companies, the Southeast Drilling Company (Sedco) and French drilling company Forex. Transocean employs approximately 26,300 people worldwide and has a fleet of 136 vessels and units as of March, 2009. It was incorporated in the Cayman Islands while the principal office is in Houston, Texas. On December 8, 2008, the company’s shareholders voted to move its incorporation from the Caymans to Zug, Switzerland. The company has offices in 20 countries around the world, with major offices in Stavanger, Aberdeen, Perth, Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia. On July 23, 2007, Transocean announced a merger with GlobalSantaFe Corporation. The merger was completed on November 27, 2007.” wiki source

Steven L. Newman, CEO became CEO of Transocean in March 2010 just before the explosion. Newman joined the company in 1994 in the Corporate Planning Department. Mr. Newman holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and an MBA from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business.

Macondo prospect:
“The Macondo prospect is located on Mississippi Canyon Block 252 in the Gulf of Mexico in a water depth of 4,993 feet (1,522 meters). BP serves as the operator and holds a 100% interest in the prospect, which was acquired at the MMS Lease Sale #206 in March 2008. On Feb. 23, 2009 an EP was submitted to MMS (OCS-G 32306) proposing to drill and temporarily abandon two exploratory wells on the field. Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon semisub, which caught fire on April 20, 2010, was drilling the Macondo prospect. According to Dow Jones, the well had reached a depth of at least 11,500 feet (3,502 meters), when BP filed a permit with MMS to temporarily abandon the well. The rig sunk after erupting into flames from a blowout. BP may drill a relief well, if required, and will utilize a nearby drilling rig, which is available to commence drilling immediately source.”

Web 2.0 and the 2008 US elections

Watching the incredibly long line-ups of patient Virginian voters waiting in the early morning rain is really watching history happening. This election has shaken things up. Candidates in the future will not go through the same hurdles if they are not white, middle-aged and male. And youth have shaped the use of media with Web 2.0, texting, etc key to campaigns.

Regardless of the outcome, this election has made changes already in terms of the democratic deficit, voter fatigue and the crisis of confidence in the electoral process.

I was pleased to see my images used in this historic event through Flickr’s Creative Commons License:

“My Boots My Guitar “Wake Up America””

which James also embedded in his makepoliticalsnowviamedia blog providing a full list of clickable credits to the authors whose Creative Commons licensed works used.

A Gaggle of Web 2.0 Editors

I must admit that I have left glaring grammatical errors and sloppy spelling mistakes in my blog posts on a regular basis. I’ve noticed them but stopped myself from correcting them to avoid spending too much time online.

According to Marshall Kirkpatrick‘s ReadWriteWeb article, bloggers lose credibility, authority and lack legitimacy in their knowledge claims when they cut corners on editing grammar and spelling.

Kirkpatrick recommends gooseGrade which offers an open crowd source tool that allows readers to edit blog posts and suggest changes. Writers and editors can potentially earn credibility points by participating.

I’ve registered and edited gooseGrade’s deliberate errors just to see how it works.

It’s a great idea although it could become addictive to anyone used to correcting copy.

For some reason I used to think that blogs were a place where writers could be more relaxed about typos etc. I guess n0t.

Next Wave of Semantic Web: a Time-Relevant Widget

Zeldman suggested a plug-in to time-associate lifestreams (egostreams), microblogs, blogs, aggregators, social bookmarking, social media, etc. My use of a myriad of semantic web services has become a virtual mnemonic tool, a digital cartography of memory . . .

Visitd bloggersblog through my twittr stream http://snurl.com/25t6q [twitter_com] and read this post http://snurl.com/25t5r [www_bloggersblog_com] which referrd 2 this comment on http://snurl.com/25t5z [www_zeldman_com] about potential of a plug-in to time-associate lifestreams, microblogs, blogs: Flickr, Ma.gnolia, del.icio.us, Twitter

read more | digg story

Seven Tips for Making the Most of Your RSS Reader

RSS is a big deal, as anyone who’s subscribed to even a few feeds probably knows. Once you get past just a few feeds, though, it can quickly get overwhelming. RSS can leave you feeling inadequate, brain-dead and uninspired.

read more | digg story

In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop

NYT article on the at-risk lifestyles of high-speed, high-stress, high-adrenalin lifestyles of pro-bloggers chasing new improved on-line newstories 24/7.

Thanks to twitter and Steve Rubel’s lifestream for bringing this article to my attention.

“digg.com blurb: “Some professional bloggers complain of physical and emotional strain created by an Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.”

read more | digg story

This reminded me of an article by Kate Argyle (1996) in Rob Shields useful anthology entitled Cultures of the Internet. Argyle’s account of what happens when a member of a virtual community dies challenged notions of that Internet communities were blasé and that the Internet itself fostered  a culture of distance and indifference. See http://www.socresonline.org.uk/1/3/van_loon.html

Webliography and bibliography

Argyle, Kate. 1996. “Death on the Internet.” in Shields, Rob. 1996. Cultures of the Internet: Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies. Chapter 8. London: Sage. ISBN 0 8039 7519 8

Google maps Mars

Official Google Blog: Announcing Project Virgle

The world’s 50 most powerful blogs

Aldred, Jessica; Astell, Amanda; Behr, Rafael, Cochrane, Lauren; Hind, John; Pickard, Anna; Potter, Laura; Wignall, Alice; Wiseman, Eva. 2008. “The World’s 50 Most Powerful Blogs.” Posted March 9, 2008. Updated March 14, 2008. << Technology << The Observer. The Guardian. UK.

Once a blog has reached the status as one of the top 50 it seems to enter into the realm of mass media, albeit an alternative and social mass media. It is encouraging then that rant-free blogs that serve as a thinking press, like Kottke and Crooked Timber, are so highly placed. Thanks to ReadWriteWeb again for drawing this valuable article to my attention. When I added it to my delicious favourites, a tsunami of key words were automatically generated. (The irrelevant synopsis is an excellent example of concerns re: poorly dugg articles that sparked debate recently in ReadWriteWeb.) papergirls.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/the-worlds-50-most-powerful-blogs.

http://digg.com/world_news/The_world_s_50_most_powerful_blogs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/09/blogs

https://papergirls.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/the-worlds-50-most-powerful-blogs/

Dashboard for Dummies: Self-submitting and auto-generation

This freeze-screen image WordPress, Flickr and Digg is from my Flickr album. Wordpress and digg: Self-submitting and the auto-generation of headlines, descriptions and categories. Bricoleur/bricoleuse refers to a do-it-yourself model of using social media as a way to share resources by producing a bricolage of content, codes and connectivity with tools, methods and technologies usually created for another purpose.

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Science: the State, Market and Civil Society

Thanks to Corey Beaman for his stunning photography and video clip shown above which he made available via the Creative Commons license in Flickr. He also recommends the www.audi.com/ironman on his blog http://oneighturbo.com/. Billionaire technophile, Tony Stark is Iron Man, who directs a major industrial complex, wearing either his indestructible, hi-tech suit of armor or driving in his invincible Audi R8 which is oddly similar to his armour right down to details like Stark’s artificial heart which resembles the Audi’s mid-engine (http://oneighturbo.com/).The Audi R-8 was chosen by the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada as the “2008 Canadian Car of the Year, ” a 420 horsepower, 250 km/hr, two-seat sports car.As Quirks & Quarks’ Bob McDonald wrote in his blog, “Now there’s a clean, efficient car for you, perfect for a country with speed limits of 100km/hr and snow deep enough to ground this low rider on the first turn.”  McDonald used the Audi R-8 as an example of what might happen when publicly funded science is limited to one kind of science: applied science driven by building, nurturing and protecting investment climate and the economic environment See Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada’s Advantage . He argued,“Take clean cars for example. Scientists have been working for decades on emission controls, fuel efficiency, fuel cells and alternative ways of making wheels go around. But until regulations are in place that force automakers to use these technologies, they often don’t make it to the road. [. . .] It seems the automakers and the journalists who write about them still think it’s 1969. So if the government is going to invest in new technologies, then regulations, penalties and tax incentives must also be in place to help those technologies get out of the laboratories and really make a difference. Here’s the other danger of focusing on applied science: it doesn’t really develop anything new; it just improves on what’s already out there.”

“The 2008 Federal budget includes more money for science, which is a good thing, but the cash comes with a catch. The scientists have to do what the government wants, not pursue the basic questions of the universe. The new budget is mostly aimed at supporting the auto industry, manufacturing, fisheries, genomics and nuclear power. In other words, applied science that contributes to the economy. Of course, we need clean cars and new products. Applied science is aimed at developing new technologies, new industries, jobs and perhaps a boost to the economy. If it all happens within the four-year tenure of a politician, everyone looks good. But here’s a word of caution about this approach to funding research; it may not actually produce anything, and basic science can end up on the back burner. When the government invests in new technologies, industry doesn’t have to adopt them, and often resists doing it if extra costs are involved.”

More

Webliography

Bernier, Maxime. 2007. Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada’s Advantage Corporate Publications. Industry Canada. (May 2007)  http://www.ic.gc.ca/cmb/welcomeic.nsf/vRTF/PublicationST/$file/S&Tstrategy.pdf

McDonald, Bob. 2008-03 http://www.cbc.ca/technology/quirks-blog/2008/03/new_government_adds_insult_to.html

McDonald, Bob. 2008-01-25  http://www.cbc.ca/technology/quirks-blog/2008/01/no_science_in_the_pms_ear.html 

McDonald, Bob. 2008-02 “Budget for science, or at least one kind of science.” http://www.cbc.ca/technology/quirks-blog/2008/02/budget_for_science_or_at_least.html

McDonald, Bob. 2008. Budget for science, or at least one kind of science quirks Friday, February 29, 2008.