News Feed on Carbon Dioxide

Good morning,

my digest of Carbon Dioxide news... click here!!

Have a good day!

Weekly feed on sustainable energy

Hi all,

this week's digest on sustainable energy...click here!

Enjoy, do not hesitate to comment, share, scream... whatever you feel like as long as I can hear it!!

Macondo, 19 months later

Le mois dernier j'avais fais un post sur Macondo et comment BP essayait d'entrainer Halliburton avec lui dans sa descente aux enfers. Visiblemetn le DoJ a décidé que Halliburton n'appartenait pas aux pariats, malgré de très belles rumeurs sur des effaçages de données sur les disques durs. Je lisais à nouveau l'article où j'avais laissé le commentaire et ce bloggueur (pseudo au nom de Riskmanagement) et ses commentaires étaient très pertinents. Il parlait de l'utilisation par BP du Corexit, le fameux dispersant de flaque d'huile qui en fait réduit l'hydrophobie et augmente la masse, d'où le fait qu'il commençait à flotter entre les eaux (plumes sous marines). Ce Corexit visiblement est très utilisé aux US encore et est un des composants des effluents du Mississipy (selon RiskManagement). Donc ce qui c'est sûrement passé dans la tête du responsable qui a pris la décision c'est qu'il savait que le Corexit était encore commun et que cela n'allait pas changer la donne beaucoup, et que c'était un moindre pris à payer que d'avoir une marée noire dans le golfe. Ce qu'il n'avait pas calculé (en même temps c'est pas son boulot) c'est que les médias pourraient sauter sur le fait que c'est un produit officiellement bannit. Comme le produit entre temps avait sûrement été acheté en trés grande quantité (pour BP) pour baisser le prix ou en quantité plus faible (petits industriels), il fallait l'écouler pour ne pas se retrouver avec ce produit en stock. Le gros problème allait être le recyclage de ce produit devenu toxique.
Qui a déjè eu à faire à des bâtiments en amiante comprend quels sont les problèmes de la détoxication et les coûts qui s'en suivent. Donc déjà qu'ils ont acheté le produit, en plus ils vont devoir payer pour s'en débarasser. la zone en gros!!! La solution est un écoulement sous le bras, business as usual, ni vu ni connu. Le pire est que toutes ses entreprises qui ont acheté du Corexit avant qu'il soit bannit ont tous pensé la même chose, la plupart n'ayant pas une quantité importante du produit. Sauf que la somme des petits consomateurs donne une quantité importante de produit rejeté dans le fleuve de façon journalière. Bon, ce n'est qu'une théorie infondée mais vous comprenez le fonctionnement. BP n'a pas fait le liens avec les médias parce que simplement personne n'a songé à s'en préoccuper. Big mistake!!

Mais bon encore une fois je diverge et ce qui m'amène à publier aujourd'hui est plus le fait que Halliburton s'est fait tailler un short en traversant la motorway mais le camion BP lui est pas passé dessus!! Ça ramène la question à savoir vers qui Halliburton va se tourner pour lui passer une partie des frais de la catastrophes.

New Feed on sustainable energy

Good morning, I tried to speed up my blog feed but with the work it is not easy. The thing is I discover all these new website that recompile all thoughts and things that interests you. I tried scoop.it and so far I am quite interested by the format. So I will see if I can post a digest of that, it might help you understand furthermore why I come to the conclusions I write: first digest for renewable energy.

So far it is just a link, I'll try to see if I cannot integrate the website within my blog...

Macondo, 18 months later

First of all, happy 2012, for all of you, let this year bring you wealth and health. 

As you all know the Macondo catastrophe in Gulf of Mexico is still been settled by the US Dpt of Justice. After the astronomic 41 billions of dollars will be spent (and already part of it has been spent) by BP to recover the local economy and ecology. But the responsibilities are not yet fully understood, agreed and settled. A quick article from Reuters forwarded by the Finantial Times came to my twitter account saying BP is trying to give full responsibility to Halliburton for the disaster. The whole story forwarded by FT can be found here, and there was this comment posted by a person called RiskManager that was very interesting and constructive. I did take the liberty to copy-paste it in order for all my readers to see it and I did insert some links to wikipedia for the technical terms, just in case:

If, as seems likely, the majority (perhaps 80%) of the blame ends up with the contractors, people will have to invoke amnesia to avoid facing the awful truth. Yep, everything you so passionately (hysterically?) believed about this event was false. For example:

1. The actual environmental impact was very modest
2. The impact of the human hysteria was massive, in economic and stress related mental health problems
3. BP told the truth (too much as it happened) all the time
4. Contractors tried to stay silent or lied when forced into a corner
5. BP failed in its oversight of contractors
6. Contractors failed in their duties, seemingly negligently. All of them. Cameron made a blowout preventer that did not work, Halliburton used a defective cement design then tries to cover up, Transocean mismanaged the well and then failed in every step of blowout detection and response procedure

Now, when I find that my understanding of something is totally, utterly wrong and that as a result I have bayed for the blood of someone not to blame as I claimed, I would look back to find out why if only to avoid being so humiliated again (who likes to find out they have stupidly self harmed?)

The answer to why you had it totally wrong was..... the media..... US politicians.

Well we are stuck with the politicans until election time. Then they can be held to account. But who holds the media to account?

You do.

Change what you read. Mass media is making you more ignorant the more you read. Nasim Taleb said this, he is correct, mass media is corrosive to intelligence but strong fertilizer for hysterical sensationalism and fear, which of course is why you dear reader "consume" it. Just don't pretend it is making you smarter. It isn't.

To his comment I would like to add two things:

• I do not agree with this point. We do not know yet the extend of the environmental impact as the oil plumes have been mixed with some very toxic chemical thanks to BP's mitigation plans and the underwater currents are extremely powerful and ride the entire ocean(s). You also seem to forget all the political and hide'n-seek game BP played at that time. Even if they are not faulty of every thing, they were nowhere near innocence.

• I know the fault as to be directed ALSO to contractors, but not only. 80% for me is too much if you consider BP runs its priorities by agenda. Do not forget they were late on schedule, the rig contract is strict and BP spent much more money than they expected. I have the feeling there has been of couple of heated meetings and nobody wanted to angry up the client, hence little resistance might have been encountered if BP asked for a speed up in the process. When the doors are closed we all know that what is on paper can be short cutted if it can make your boss happier. Cutting a couple of 100k WILL make your boss happier. Things are not black and white and all the parties involved into these meetings have to be made accountable for the final decisions, either for having taken the decision or just for not having resisted enough. Sometimes when the contractor steps up strongly against the client it isn't beneficial at first, but when the big picture shows up then everybody is happy. The fact that a catastrophe like this one has never happened before, nobody could assess the yet-to-come damages. Now I totally agree with the government responsibility, for lack of oversight and too much appeal for profit. This is the down side of a wide open economy, when you allow too much freedom to one economy it actually harms the other co-existing with.

Feel free to comment!!

CO2 and Us (as we know it)

Carbon dioxide is an increasing topic in industries but it remains a very unknown gas to the majority. I mean, we all know what CO2 is, where it comes from and why it is so bad... or is it? Without CO2 life would not be functioning on Earth, from temperature to plant life cycle. Hence Us, Human Being as we consider ourselves as the supreme state of evolution (till someone proves it wrong, like for the geocentric theories 500 years ago) would not even exist!!

 I have been part of a course we gave to some employees of the brazilian Petroleum National Agency last week. My presentation is simple (nothing new), I just recompiled and synthesized a couple of facts. The whole presentation is available here. Inside the presentation there is a link to a video but you should be able to access it as I modified the link to go straight to YouTube. In case you cannot directly view the video, you should be able to watch it from here. Feel free to leave your comments, as I do enjoy interaction  :-)..

Life form out of my blog - La vérité est hors de mon blog

So I received amazing answers (I don't if it is the Karine I know, I use to write with a "C") of people that do follow my blog. I felt very surprised (a bit as if you discovered there is life out there!!). Apparently I have to write more so I'm going to try to be a bit more consistent with my writing, as well as trying to be actually readable and (if I can make it) funny.

__________________________________________________________

J'ai reçu des réponces suite à ma dernière entrée, ce qui m'a beaucoup surpris. Bon c'est pas foule, mais c'est déjà un début. Comme ils sont tous en français je vais imaginer que le "biotype" de mes lecteurs est français (ou du moins prédominent. Je vais probablement me mettre à écrire plus en français du coup. N'hésitez pas à interagir avec moi, ça fait plaisir de  partager un avis, une expérience. Au moins je me sens pas comme Mulder ou les oreilles du SETI qui cherche, cherche et parle tout seul à l'univers en expension. Pour ceux qui veulent j'ai un compte twitter ou je mets des informations sur ce qui m'intéresse, comme je ne sais pas encore vraiment si je vais tout organiser dans un blog ou si le microblogging va rester mon activité principale. Il y a pas mal de sites qui permettent dejolies mises en pages fluides, un fois de plus c'est une option que je garde ouverte. Additionnez moi, écrivez moi...@++ et merci encore

Un jour quelqu'un va vraiment se blesser - jeux de mains jeux de vilains (Part 01)

Voyons si j'arrive à rassembler toutes mes pensées autour de ces nouvelles. L'Homme a un défaut qui parfois peux être une qualité, mais qui je trouve est plus souvent un problème: mémoire assez limitée ou plutôt "sélective".
Pour placer le contexte, nous sommes dans une situation où le chateau de carte économique est en plein courant d'air. Tous les signes nous montrent que telle quelle la situation n'est pas viable. Entre l'Europe qui passe son temps à sauver ses États en banqueroute et les US qui courrent après les sous pour payer leurs fonctionnaires il ne fait pas bon être broker à Wall Street... et pourtant. Depuis Nick Leeson (Barings Bank) en 1994 jusqu'à Kweku Adoboli (UBS) en Septembre dernier il y a eu pas mal de "petits" délits. Un calcul rapide des coups les plus glamours (ceux qui ont été reporté) ont couté plus de 15 milliards de dollars, c'est autour des 10 milliards d'euros, de quoi renflouer quelques dettes d'État. L'exercice peux paraître compliqué, se demander oú est partit cet argent, d'où est-il partit, a-t-il existé. L'argent peux-t-il se mesurer comme Laplace le ferait avec les éléments (rien  ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme). Ma femme qui en connait bien plus que moi là dessus me regarde en riant avec mes théories physico-biologique pour comprendre l'argent, parce que ce n'est pas comme ça. Les sommes n'étaient pas présentes, "n'existaient" pas. Tout était bati sur une spéculation faite de confiance et de mauvaise statistiques dignes des vaudoux du Benin pour tenter de faire revenir l'argent avant 46h chrono (plus vite que la Redoute), sinon vous êtes remboursés (comme à la Redoute). Il y a une notion fondamentale qui n'habite pas encore le conscient de ces hommes et ces femmes qui sont à cette hauteur du championnat et qui ont l'autorisation de manipuler des sommes d'argent si importante qu'on se croit dans un jeux vidéo (eux aussi d'ailleurs, vas te représenter 750 millions d'euros physiquement avec tes propres référentiels, c'est inhumain). Cette notion est la répercution, l'intégrité (celles là vous aviez pas besoins de moi), le manque de "cojones" aussi. Cojones pour changer un système qui va vraiment blesser quelqu'un un jour (depuis 1995 personne ne veux mettre en place un vrai système de controle interne?). Cojones pour avoir un petit peu d'éthique et ne plus penser que c'est le farwest ou le dernier El dorado des chercheurs d'or (quand vous pensez aux sommes qui passent ça doit vraiment donner le vertige). Ce secteur d'activité n'étant pas le miens, vous comprendrez que je n'écrirais rien qui vous fasse changer votre façon de voir le Monde, ou ce monde spéculatif. D'autres blogs sont beaucoup plus précis dans ce domaine avec beaucoup plus d'informations. Vous pouvez par exemple voir un résumé de la dernière boulette spéculative de UBS en anglais ici, le blog décrit bien qu'une seule personne a réussit à perdre presque une année de revenu net de la banque, et tout les bénéfices de marchés entre 2008 et 2011. Ça rassure pas...
Bien sûr ils disent qu'ils vont faire une enquête, interne même. Les résultats on les voit pas mais ce que l'on peux voir et essayer de tracer, ce sont les possibles résultats d'enquête des anciennes boulettes spéculatives. Maintenant que depuis 1995 on connait bien ce type de fraude, tellement glamour qu'elle a fait le scénario d'un film.
Ce qui impressionne le plus c'est la courte durée des peines de prison. La peine max fut d'un japonais qui a passé 8 ans en prison pour avoir perdu près de 3 milliards d'une entreprise corporative nippone. Un vieux blog de Andrew Beattie explique le problème en profondeur. 
Se concentrer sur les raisons de la perte nippone sur le marché du cuivre entraine vers une ramification encore plus profonde de manipulation banquaire ou financières que les banques supportent indirectement par des emprunts à taux avantageux (JPMorgan et Enron par example). Quand on s'y intéresse on voit que chacune de ces manipulation financière appartient à un type de fraude particulier, mais toutes ont la même finalité qui est de manipuler un vice de système pour profits personnels (ou oligarques).

To be continued...

Who reads me??

My dear reader,

I do not know who you are, and that notion of anonymity keeps me wondering the kind of person you are. Are you a potential friend? a fellow blogger? A familly member trying to get some news from me and making sure I am doing ok? Just some random web surfer that pressed the wrong link and quickly hit the back button before anyone notice (hope not)? An automatic bot program that will try to sell me some random penis enhancer (this neither)? I am somewhat anxious to know if my production has any meaning to anyone, a mix of personal pride and self esteem along with pure curiosity. If you feel like please leave a feedback at the bottom of this post, mind to register so that I can get the warm feeling of "friendship". Thank you so very much for the kind attention.

Alexandre

Reverse Engineering

What is the global energy strategy but reverse engineering... Well nothing else I'd say. Economic forecasts from audit firm never got it right, so to gain and keep control you have to start from the solution and engineer your way to there.

Banks, from 2008 till today

What can we say? At least not that the truth was being unfolded. I just navigated through some news. Starting with this one, then I navigate from there, interested in bank stress tests because I never really understood how it work (I still don't and I need to resolve this one day). I realized that HSBC and Santander were to be noticed within the weak banks when you tweaked the input conditions (like, bad conditions but still). As I am a client at these banks I decided to look for myself and see what they said about the stress test. So I googleled "HSBC bank stress test" and saw a couple of strange strings from 2009 (following the 2008 Lehman Brother's crash). One of which was disclaiming so wikileak-type information (Assange might have close to these guys back then). Then it showed a couple of links, some of which where banned (by blogger itself). Others showed very amazing information and counter information on how American banks where heavily investing over their risk-based capital (up to 10 time for Goldman Sachs). That information was asked to be silenced by US Federal Reserves to avoid problem within the share holders. All that during recession and we all know what happened and what still happens. Now when you see that new information coming straight from the latest G20 committee. UK banks will have to get their shit together or else... obviously not said like this but the tone seemed pretty clear. One positive point is, eventually government are thinking of intervening into these multinational banks because it seems that in 3 years we are not learning from our mistakes. Good thing to hear also is that, because it depends on the country (at least banks can be contained), Brazil having strong conditions make that banks are healthy and not in position of breaking (for whoever can read portuguese, try this website).

Reality Check

Today's discussion with my colleagues, over lunch. It's not always that I have matching experience with people, usually where I am now (research center) I look very much like a big time traveler, that went to a lot of places and seen a lot of things. Back there in ops it was a different pictures, I looked more like a newby learning his place in the World. So yeah I heard a lot of stories, some are in this blog already, some other might not have their place in it (this can be revised). One of my colleague, which is now a good friend of mine actually had similar experiences. Not the same places nor the same experiences but that what makes it nice, the sharing is always interesting.
So we were talking about nothing and everything when came the subject of the work places and their images in the human pre-conceptions. We sometimes see people, friends, acquaintances going to work to foreign places for what it represents rather than what it really is. Best example are places like Barcelona, Paris or NYC. For new industrialized countries like South American or developing countries the image of Europe is idealized by it's life style and "joie de vivre" oftenly coming from broadcasting and enhancements of the experience by natives going abroad wanting to show that life is what it looks like on TV (it never is but they wont say it not to look bad or simply not to worry their own familly, but that how the cycle goes on). Seems like a total paradise and promise of a better future. Truth is it most of the time was like this, but not anymore and it is very easily debunkable by doing a "reality check" (term happily chosen by my buddy but very accurate): A brazilian thinks of Barcelona like it's a wonderful city, lots of culture, good food and nice weather. You make good money easier because of high employment and, well, it's Europe so it just cannot be bad. What you see on TV corroborates what your representation from the place is (oftenly travel documentaries or movies). You have not a good life where you live, so you decide to join the money and leave your place for this new TV fancied Barcelona. The example my friend gave had a good diploma but probably had very high expectations of what it would be like with her diploma in Barcelona. Result is, she is in Barcelona a waitress earning minimum wadge with a lawyer's degree. She argues that she would not earn that much money as a waitress in Brazil, true. Now she left at a time where Brazil was probably experiencing some difficulties but as now the economy is booming a lawyer's salary in Brazil would probably be much higher than in Spain where competition is fiercer. The problem was probably elsewhere and she never wanted to face it. Going to some other places looking for an El Dorado nowadays is overrated because El Dorado simply never existed and doesn't exist. If it does the counter part is heavy enough for you not considering it as one at all. The "reality check" will probably have her realized that she was better off in Brazil than abroad, but it might not have looked that glamorous. In Brazil being in Europe represents the quintessence of good taste and success (don't ask me why, European are desperate to look for an excuse to go work in Brazil, at least the Latin Europeans). It is very rooted within the culture of the country and in most layer of the society it is highly considerated (modest layer dream of it, wealthy layer insist on going there). A simple fact is Paris being the number 01 dream destination of all (or most of) Brazilian.

TBC

My corporate Dell is a shitbag (and I mean it!!)

Corporate contracts are probably the best way to sell out ll the dropped product, which is why one corporation can get a better deal on purchasing items "corporatively" (also I did start a reboot of my slow ass computer at that moment, I am handwriting this blog now). You can easily deduct that the quality goes heavily impacted. This is where I will share some of my experience, not only as an energy professional but also as ajust-arriving-senior employee (that after 5 years of industry right??). It all started 5 years ago (image blurring, my legs goes all moving and I have now a bad shirt and a stupid smile on my face.. gosh I'm a newby again!!), when I joined Schlumberger (SLB) I received a Dell computer (and a yellow fever shot) like 50000 other employees (not the YF shot, and not at the same time.. are you still following?). The computer is a standard SLB computer with a standard image consisting on a Microsoft (MS) Windows XP pro SP2, MS Office pro, Eureka mailbox and a McAfee AV (OMG). This is why you can distribute it to 50000 employees. It's all in there, you cannot mess around, you better go to work now! But that whole combination of "corporate" software proved (and still does) to be disastrous. Six months later the problems starts, when the system is not that clean, your computer is filled with cookies from notorious and less notorious sites, fragmented like champolion's rosetta. These corporate things don't really care about that, they will run using their necessary memory at whatever cost, even the cost of your work! So the AV would scan at anytime thoroughly using 100% of available memory so that I could lose my work confidently. As you know I was in a remote place so there is no IT support (on my own!) and calling would not solve because it meant sending the computer to the nearest available IT center from Pointe Noire: Paris!! I then decided I would manually kill the AV whenever it was poping up and working. That went up to 2 to 3 times a day as the image was configured so that the AV would reboot if killed (clever beast!). Next step has been to uninstall McAfee and switch for a free little but powerful AV (petit mais costaud!!) which was doing a great job, until.....

Until I discovered that deep burried within the realm of the company there was a group of anonymous yet powerful few that would protect the SiNET from the bad and the ugly:

 The Justice League of SLB intranet!! 

That day, when uninstalling McAfee, I became the bad and the ugly while uninstalling THE GOD OF CORPORATE ANTI VIRUSES. 

An anonymous email was sent to me warning that "someone" was running "an asset" without "protection", a dozen of other emails CC'd to me arrived on my mailbox showing the importance of the reaction my felony engendered. I was an outlaw, I felt the unbearable forces of righfulness and Close-To-God's mightyness. I was about to forget myself on my boxers!!

I never unsinstalled McAfee AGAIN and I do not wish to my worse enemy. But the problem has not stopped and has been recurrent independantly of the OS or the machine, the root of evil was embedded in the image developped between Dell, SLB and MS (my machine just switched off, 10 min for a motherboard not handling the docking station).

So what happens when you are reporting a computer problem? Well, when you report a problem on your machine to Dell, unless you litterally work across the street from their firm it takes up to 2 months to receive the new equipment and I am being air here! I know stories worse than mine. It is my second corporate Dell computer since I started the company and the problems survived al updates on the image, so they are everywhere (damn you justice league). On my latest battle with the Third Kind (the Electronic Kind), as if I hadn't enough, my computer start to slow down and I eventualy was unable to do any work. My first thought went to my old ennemy of always: McAfee-The-Devil, so I went on a holy hunt again and start to kill the application. That was without counting on.. you already know who I think of... yes, the Justice league of SLB Intranet striked again by implementing an immediate reboot upon killing.. policy: thy cannot stay without protection on the net!!! I was on the dark side, trying to ripp away the corporate justice, attacking them, keeping them busy. I was angry at them but then I realized the problem was not them (at least not anymore), it was deeper: it was hardware. This was a way deeper but nevertheless corporate problem.
You see it seems Dell makes its net by selling at low price a high volume of equipment that would also have a lower quality than the ones they sell to homes. It sounds easier to replace faulty items on a standard PC than on a customized one and items don't need that level of attention anymore. Mass production for mass sells for corporate uses trying to cut prices as a policy. The only thing that would be increase is After Sale Services (ASS). A normal PC you would sell to a home needs a more dedicated, nurturing ASS taking more time, needing more caring because the customers aren't computer literate. You want to sell equipments that work to avoid ever-long ASS requirements. Now corporation is different, they have a huge park of computer, hence dedicated IT personnel and Dell's ASS would deal with these pros and not the mere customer. Professional to professional ASS, you already know the needs so 1 ASS rep can attend much more at a time. So it does not matter so much if the equipment fails more, your dedicated ASS will deal with the situation. Eventually it is all about how Dell can make things integrated and cut down prices.
But here I am, slow computer with an apparent hardware issue. Our IT tries to help, but he is no ASS so he quickly propose "let's talk to the ASS!" "to whom?" "To dell!" "are they that bad?" "No they've got a good ASS"  "Wow they're that good?" "well I've seen better ASS" "What?" "What what?"...
My buddy said once when I was crying my problems at him I had 3 possible origins for that problem: the cables, the boards, the docking station. So basically as a researcher you try all possibilities one by one and pray it's not the motherboard.
So I changed the cables but the computer remained slow. I moved on to the docking station and waited 8 weeks to get the new one shipped. You know how corporation company work: you pass your order to the system, it goes from local to regional supply chain, from then the orders goes to Dell Global. This already took at least 4 weeks (oh yeah we're that good). Then Dell ships it back to us it takes 4 more weeks so if you sum it all I would have waited less by walking there taking my docking station and coming back home with it!
But nevermind I do have the docking station and my problems should be over. Well I did wait 8 weeks only to realize that it was the motherboard that was failing after 10-20 minutes of using the docking station. They probably extended tests at Dell, but the cards passing all the tests go for whole sale and the ones passing all the critical tests but not all the tests are reserved for corporations if the other boards all falty. If I had to go through all these problem for my personal Dell I'll be dead angry asking for a refund and going to buy an ASUS or (OMG!!) a Mac. But because I am in a corporation, laws of corporations are much more compliant with that sort of incident (or they understand each other because they all do the same).
Sweet Corporation Deals!!

Expensive Oil, Cheap equipment

I don't know how it is in other industries but, in mine there is like a motto: it must be economical (aka cheap). I may be a bit caricatural and extremist, but if you look at a particular segment of our industry it is totally turned towards that motto. Unfortunately I am talking about the field part, the extraction part of the industry, the one directly in contact with the oil, the field, environment and all what it means (aka Macondo disaster, just look for the spill containment technology at that time). Looking at a rig you can see that companies will look at building it the cheapest way, within the boundaries of the technically possible and the economically feasible, the human or environmental factor is not a priority into the equation unless governmental pressure. Security measures are written in blood because people wouldn't work on it or using it otherwise and also because it is safer, not the contrary. Our industry we don't work to create the value, we work to extract it so in a way it is for free. Aeronautics are workers creating a value, same for automotives or space commuters. Mining extract something that originally came out of pure luck. In Africa some countries have to import flower and eggs because the inhabitants are not stimulated to go to the field and harvest. They prefer the 8-12 hours of rig hours where they have less responsibility and the security of the salary rather than the never ending farmer prospecting and the varying income of an independent. I don't blame, I have that but governments should stimulate stability in order to diversify economy and get their country away from fragility. That's why we have so much accidents, a lot of them aren't divulged not to stimulate the media and give bad advertising.
To resume (but not to spit on production companies, some really show a different behaviour) the main difference between operating companies and service companies lies from the fact that the latter are delivering a value added where the earlier extract value without creating it. Where it becomes complicated is when within the same company you have also research or services. These people create value added hence the difference in philosophy (and a possible window of change). But the essence of the producing company is to get from the soil something that they have not created. The notion of property comes from the money and the odd you put into prospection in order to get the oil.

Denver Colorado yihaaaaaaa!!

J'ai toujours tendance a venir pas trop prepare pour les voyages. Probablement un instinct de fuite des idées préconçues. Me voila à Denver dans le Colorado et le pays des T-Rex. Toujours bluffé par la taille de leurs installations et mon admiration infantile pour les camions américains (ooo Optimus!!). Les rocky mountains sont vraiment jolies et me rappelent le ski.
En fait cette ville est preparee pour la neige, on se croirait autour de Perpignan avec les longues barrieres en bois pour arreter la neige en cas de vent. Vu que Denver est au pieds des montagnes (d'où le surnom Mile High City) mais aussi au bout de 1000 km de prairies le vent doit vous en décorner plus d'un. Le Colorado on dirait que c'est des plaines a perte de vue (depuis l'avion, ce qui impressionne) aux pieds des montagnes. Denver ne parait pas une grande ville, on arrive vite au centre.

Cette ville est à taille humaine et très propre. Elle a une forte histoire liée á l'exploration minière, l'or et la ruée vers l'ouest. Ancien outpost d'échanges entre la civilisation et le Wild Wild West. Moi qui voulait satisfaire ma culture personnelles je voulais faire les musées (histoire naturelle, musée du dollar puisse que Denver est une des villes qui sert de marché aux farmers du mid ouest...) mais j'ai fini par satisfaire les besoins des autres et j'ai passé ma journée dans un autre symbole de l'Amérique: les shopping malls (erfff!). N'empèche que Denver donne envie de prendre ses pompes de trecking et partir faire 50km dans la montagne. En plus Aspen est pas loin donc :-D.
Maintenant vous vous demandez ce que je suis venu faire à Denver? Non je ne suis pas partis en vacance, pas l'habitude de laisser ma femme à la maison à s'emmerder seule. Je ne suis pas venu faire un séminaire de rodéo (énormément de foire aux bébettes par là), j'ai assisté à une rencontre internationale de mon travail. Un peu les oscars du pétrole, une foire gigantesque du petrobiz ou tout le monde se regarde et montre comment il est beau et fort (avec une image comme ça comment voulez vous qu'on se foutte pas de votre gueule, non mais franchement!!). C'est comme les oscars du pétrole en gros. Des stands énormes avec des écrans dans tous les coins, des stands de display pour les nouveaux équipements. Il y en a pour tous les goûts! Les gars ont tellement de merchandizing que le dernier jour je suis allé faire mon shopping et j'ai faillis casser mon joli bag!!! mazette mazette 50 stylos, 4 tasses, 3 protèges bouteilles et 8 revues plus loins, il était temps de rentrer. Si vous êtes plutôt un NERD (ça arrive) vous pouvez suivre les présentations dans les salles annexes, près de 100 par jours sur les 3 jours, ça donne mal à la tête. Sinon  c'est un défilé de personalités locales du biz qui arborent leurs décorations que la conférence vous donne. Genre vous avez un badge, et puis un fagnon de présenteur si vous faites une présentation, et si vous avez plus de 30 ans de métier on vous en file un autre, vous pouvez être special guest (un autre..). Au total vous avez un tapis sur le sein gauche où on viens de vous acrocher le badge d'admission (si maman j'te jure, ils m'ont filé un rouleau entier!!). Sur la photo il y en a un qui a un petit bout de tapis taggé sur le sein (deuxième en partant de la droite) ça peux descendre assez bas. Je ris pas mal de tout ça mais j'ai beaucoup aimé quand même, c'est sympa de participer à un évènement comme celui-ci

Corporate Automation

Life in an office can be extreme. When the A/C is not properly functionning the temperature can be a real issue. Either X-cold or X-hot. No openable window is also a problem. We discovered that there was a way to overcome this problem, we called it HASTM, just like french links would pronounce the donkey (zee hass!). HASTM (a.k.a. Human Automation System, Trade Mark) is when you cannot have a proper automated control of your A/C (by temperature), you call the technician whenever you are that cold that you plan to bring pinguins to keep you warm or so hot that a sauna bathtub is a chilling thought. The technician then either shut down or start up the A/C, so you only need to bear 20 min of unbreathable atmosphere. Simple, efficient but not between lunch hours and breaks and you don't need to service that damn faulty temperature automated system you bought from a dodgy russian company for peanuts. You can call it "using the A/C technician to switch a button", we call it HASTM, it is more... corporate!

Carioca feature. Pt02 - Malandragem

Okayyyyyyyyyy now you saw my impressions after 6 months of Rio style. I have learned a bit more now and I'll tell you one thing first: I thought I was understanding, but now I can say I did not clearly understand what is malandragem. The one thing I know now is that I do not understand much more than before, but at least I know it.

Malandagem has it's root deep down Rio de Janeiro's book. The early mixing of the population, being the second most africainized of all Brazil (Salvador de Bahia is the first) has a lot to do with it. Malandragem is the attitude of urban survival and I do believe now you find it in a lot of places, just that the brazilian have given it a name. Maybe because here is it quite "romantic". We were explained by Mestre Toni Vargas (capoeira master that I deeply respect) that there were various type of malandro, his dad for instance was a snooker malandro. It involved a very neat appearance and master the pool. The idea was to bring people to bet against them and try whatever it takes to win, without loosing the confidence and the appearance of complete mastering. It's like a heist, but for everyday's life. So to come back to capoeira, you can find in old videos masters coming to the capoeira meeting in white suit and white hat coming to play. They are deceiving people, they will bring you to their favorite pitch and then win you over with their art.I believe that even what I write is just a part of malandragem as you must adopt it as a philosophy of life, a survival guide. It has survived up to date and the carioca have this feature as part of their way of life. One deviation would be people trying to profit from anything without really caring of their surroundings. They have a small circle of trust because they are trying to profit from anybody so the circle is always thinning out. These people are so busy trying to profit out of you and trying not to be used that it becomes their major activity. Being "malandro" is actually quite cool if you are able not to push it too hard, otherwise you end up not trusting people and loosing other's trust.

Carioca feature. Pt01 - Malandragem

I did start this post about 12 months ago after having spent 6 month in the cidade maravilhosa: Rio de Janeiro. I will just try to edit the first part, take the non sense out and leave it clear. The folowing post will be what I do think now, 12 months after. So it might be interesting... or not. You tell me!! So brace brace, cos we're going deep.


Last year: It's been a while since I wanted to talk about this. All brazilian sort of want to be malandro as a way of being (aka doing malandragem, doing things as a malandro or like a malandro would do) but you don't really have to be a carioca (carioca is the inhabitant of Rio de Janeiro) to be a malandro. But what on earth is malandro? who is malandragem? WTF am I reading this blog??? If this is what you are asking yourself, then you're in the good spirit, now let me drive you through my understanding after 6 months of living in the cidade maravilhosa.
Malandragem is not someone, but an act. Malandro is someone that practice malandragem. For what is malandragem, I think I will need to feed you with examples rather than trying to summarise the behavior. I first started to hear about it when I was learning capoeira (brazilian martial art, my "heroin fix" so as to say, but I quit being an addict, I am now afficionado, I switched my addiction to my wife...that's another subject, read the other blog). In capoeira when someone is called malandro it is almost a bliss, especially for us non brazilian because it meant you understood some of the essence of the game and you could deceave your playing partner, trick him and eventually sentence the "lethal blow" (2011 September me: dear God what am I writing!!). Dont worry, no gringo capoeirista has ever been lethaly hit when that was done, it's a bit exagerated, just to give a dramatic notion (2011 September me: gee, I an't giving the art any credit!!). Being malandro would be faking you got hurt during the spar so that the partner would slow down and the moment you see an opening from your patner's position then you can throw a move that would destabilize him (2011 September me: I hope the readers know about capoeira or they'll think they are reading chinese). There would be a lot of acting around, and it would go as far as mimicry to be able to deceave your patner. Playing tired, changing the pace of the game to fake tiredness.... all that is included into malandragem. You sort of want to take advantage of a situation over your patner to win. Poker can have that same philosophy, it's an art of tricks and fooleries. So when I was learning capoeira I was learning malandragem and it had an amazing function of teaching me human behaviors, my own limits and actually my own self towards the other. learning to impose myself, through malandragem. 


...End of part 01, but personnaly I am not very impressed. I'll try in the next post to give you better impressions

And the world is...idle

I am coming across something I never thought could happen. Actually that stage is probably worse than overloaded: I am idle. It has been a while now, I used the free time it was giving me to prepare for my wedding but now I have to see it face to face. The function of research within a service company that has NOCs as client (sole, so far) is not the fast'n furious style where I have no life. On the contrary I have to learn that I can have a real life outside, made of activities and it also mean that I have to engage with my wife on a lot of things. It is cool actually, I quite enjoy that - I suppose - but I am not yet familiarized with the idea. I am chased by remorse after a day where I cannot measure the work I have done during the day. I used to sit in the morning with a pile of tasks as big as a mall and not leaving the base till I have walked it 250 time through to chase the boys and ask them to do stuff. I was asked to dostuff too, I had my short term, middle term, long term plans, weekly and quarterly report plus the EOMRs (End Of The Month Report) and all these tasks with abbreviations that make you feel like you're watching a tamil movie without subbs. I was staying 14h a day and piling for the next day, leaving the office my hears buzzing looking like a ghost: I had stuff to do. Now, if I have a meeting during the day I'm happy. I meet the client today, then he ask for a meeting next week to finish the task... what about tomorrow morning 6h30am???? sorry, got the kids, friends, movie to watch and my kid need a sister so we're busy and missy wont let me go back home so late at night. Not been able to measure your work is probably the most frustrating of all when you had the feeling of what you were doing during the course of a day. The first time I arrived I thought I would start my project the next, ignoring people's advice on not believing what they say about starting ASAP because we're in a hurry to get results. They did not tell me that in between would go the national bank holidays, Xmas, NYE, Carnival and their own birthday. Each delaying the whole process by a week, and Xmas/NYE/Carnival meant no potential work in between. So I have to learn to manage my free time to be ready when the pressure will quick in. Some experience that even after almost 18 month I am not fully mastering (meaning not at all).

I used to be in this world, I did a PhD so I know what research means, but when you do your PhD you have a goal, a deadline, a set of tasks pre-determined by your thesis coordinator and so on and so on. He, actually, knows how to manage the time that looks free but that you need to master entirely. Time is of the essence, to be more precise, of the issue. I have to learn to make the most out of the free time that I have to prepare myself for the quick and I never learnt it. I need to fill my day with apparently meaningless things that actually will easy up my world when I'll be doing the research and I cannot seek anybody's help because it depends on the way I organize myself. 

I think that, eventually, the goal of this period is to understand how to work when you do not have a set of tasks, but only a distant goal and no pre-defined roads to walk you through. I will have to develop that further because I think this is the answer to my late anxieties.

What Would We Do Like Google Does?

Just realized I did not publish at all in May, that wedding organization is just keeping me busy like nut!!! Been reading that book lately, from Jeff Jarvis. There are some stuff I will need to debate as in: Can we (really) apply this line of thought, this business model, to the energy sector, I mean the O&G one? I'm gonna prepare (if I have my 5 min within this cloudy organization of mine) some lines of thought and see if I can instal a debate (this meaning I would need to have readers actually following me!!). Stay tuned!