My house was built in 1935 and contains 2" lumber that is actually 1 7/8". This presented a bit of a challenge when remodeling. The industry reduced lumber dimension standards several times in the 20th century with the final reduction agreed in 1961 when the 2" finished lumber dimension was reduced from 1 5/8" to 1 1/2".

A year and a half ago, a 3.5 sigma 750 GeV bump appeared in the LHC data. New physics was heralded and a hundred theoretical papers attempting to explain it appeared. It was a statistical fluke and disappeared as more data was collected.

Now we're faced with a 2 sigma anomaly and the shouts of new physics are once again repeated. This is even more likely to be noise.

Physicists have been predicting new physics for 30 years. It was a major justification for the promotion of the LHC project. Nothing has been found. There's a lot of desperation at work here. It's sad.

For a good summary of all of this from a CERN experimentalist who called the 750 GeV noise, see Tommaso Dorigo

Actually, a blast furnace is used to produce pig iron from coke, iron ore, and limestone: not steel. Pig iron has a high carbon content, about 4%. A basic oxygen furnace or an electric arc furnace is used to turn pig iron or scrap steel into new steel by burning the carbon down to 1% or less, removing impurities, and creating the desired alloy (by adding Mn, Cr, Ni, Mo). A blast furnace runs in a continuous process, with raw materials loaded at the top and pig iron and waste removed from the bottom. Shutting one down is complex; there is no off switch. Loss of control would make for a very bad day.

The hardest part of the transition from individual contributor to manager is to avoid falling back into your comfort zone. Managers primary must solve people problems: motivation, communication, cooperation, team dynamics. New managers are often unfamiliar or inexperienced with these types of problems. When faced with people problems and technical problems, the tendency is to address the technical ones first. This provides them with the sense they're making a contribution. But your job as a manager isn't to solve technical problems. Your job is to build a team that can do this. Letting go of those tasks which are your core compentency is very hard and many fail to make the transition.

I suppose someone who gets a "healthy whiff of chlorophyll" becomes green with envy.

$1 spending in 1980 = $2.77 spending in 2007 (due to inflation). Federal spending rose from $894M to $2.7T (1980-2007), a factor of 3. Pretty close. Real GDP increased from 5.9T to 13.4T (1980-2007). If taxes remained a constant percentage of GDP, we should now be spending 6.3X 1980.

The population grew from 227M to 300M (1980-2007). The idea that a larger population doesn't lead to proportionally larger demand for government services (roads, police, courts, etc.) is odd.

Given inflation and growth in GDP and population, you'd expect a large growth in federal spending. The actual growth was 3X. (0.894 to 2.7). The U.S federal government spent $3.5T in FY 2010 and is expected to spend $3.8T in FY2011 - large but significantly less than $6T.

Both parties have been simultaneously increasing spending and cutting taxes. It's the combination that has driven the country to its parlous financial state. To blame it all on spending increases is counter-factual.

You're assuming that nothing useful can be accomplished in a few seconds. The applications in Coachella all complete in less than 10 seconds. A few seconds is plenty of time to duck under a table.

As for epicentral distance, the intensity drops 90%/100km after the first 100km. If you're 200 km from a magnitude 7 event, the intensity may be low enough to not matter, unless you're up-rupture, or on alluvial soil, or at convergence zone for shockwave reflections, etc. If you're in the SF Bay Area you're less than 100 km from likely epicenters, so it's a few seconds of warning or nothing.

Large events mean large rupture. If you're up-rupture you'll see more intense shaking than at the epicenter, not less. Simple metrics like distance from the epicenter provide no guidance about intensity.

Portions of the system have been in operation since 2001. There have been several moderate and many small events. The system has produced no false positives or negatives, so far. It works by detecting the P-wave (6.2km/s), analyzes it to estimate the intensity of the coming S-waves (3.6km/s), and automatically triggers protective measures if the intensity is expected to exceed MMI V. It does not estimate earthquake magnitude, since that tells you nothing about the intensity at your location. The P-waves convey about 6% of the earthquake's energy; the rest is conveyed by the S-waves. The P-waves provide a natural warning that you're about to experience strong shaking.

The warning time varies from 0 (at the epicenter) to many seconds farther away. A networked system provides up to 1 second of warning for every 3.6 km from the epicenter. This is enough time to protect equipment and give people a chance to prepare themselves.

Since about half of the people in the world have below average intelligence, the other half probably *does* know better.

Good source for mechanical parts: http://www.sdp-si.com/
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