Duzzy Funlop posted:

last-ditch effort

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

I mean, yeah, the problem with americas crumbling infrastructure isn't for lack if it being inspected. All of it gets inspected to hell and back, it just that once the reports are turned in, the beancounters go "Sorry, no money.", and poo poo is left to rot.

We joke in this thread about "it ain't worth fixing until somebody dies", but that is literally americas policy these days on infrastructure spending. "Oh, it could go bad in the future? gently caress it, it's the present, not my problem or my money."

Duzzy Funlop posted:

Also, someone said earlier they had already seen new concrete being poured, referring to an image that showed the circled section, albeit from a different angle.

That section, however, had already been poured as a last-ditch effort in the 1-2 days before the emergency spillway even overflowed. So progress seems pretty drat slow as of at least this morning. And the state not giving the go ahead to fix a loving disaster waiting to happen seems perfectly reasonable. Bonus points if the holdup was due to the NOTAM issued earlier. (Then again, I cannot, for the life of me, imagine that it would have grounded emergency aircraft as well)

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

The spillway was apparently reasonably well-inspected and had an unexpected failure.

The emergency spillway is the issue. Various groups requested that the emergency spillway be upgraded from dirt to concrete during the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations. The improvements were turned down specifically because of cost.

Can you convince me that Obama/Brown also turned down similar requests? If you cannot, then the "both sides are bad" argument doesn't hold water. One side actively prevented a solution with lovely policy, the other you can maybe accuse of no being proactive enough in fixing republican mistakes and revisiting old issues.

Terrible Opinions posted:

Did the groups calling for the spillway to get upgraded simply stop voicing concern when Democrats got into power, despite them being of the party presumably more inclined to give a poo poo? Was Brown in the middle of some major upgrade plan that was interrupted by this flood? Was there some external force that made an upgrade impossible during the Brown administration that was not present during the Govenator's tenure? What makes the Democrats any less responsible in this particular situation? Like yeah on the whole and for almost all issues the Republicans are worse, but in this particular situation it looks like both of them did the exact same amount of jackshit.

ethanol posted:

Dams are dumb as hell

Platystemon posted:

Oroville Dam’s original, fifty‐year operating license expired in 2007.

It’s been on year‐to‐year temporary permitting since then.

Taeke posted:

Us Dutch are quite fond of them, and since the last major disaster in 1953 we seemed to have figured them out well enough. Posting this from the largest man-made island in the world, also 4.8 meters below sea level.

N is for Nipples posted:

Do you ever just think about how, in terms of altitude, all the water in the world is fifteen feet (or five meters or whatever) above your head? Or like, think about how high the pressure would be under that much water? Do you experience slightly higher barometric pressure than say, a town at sea level, or somewhere in America with an altitude of a few hundred feet?

N is for Nipples posted:

Do you ever just think about how, in terms of altitude, all the water in the world is fifteen feet (or five meters or whatever) above your head? Or like, think about how high the pressure would be under that much water? Do you experience slightly higher barometric pressure than say, a town at sea level, or somewhere in America with an altitude of a few hundred feet?

Terrible Opinions posted:

Did the groups calling for the spillway to get upgraded simply stop voicing concern when Democrats got into power, despite them being of the party presumably more inclined to give a poo poo? Was Brown in the middle of some major upgrade plan that was interrupted by this flood? Was there some external force that made an upgrade impossible during the Brown administration that was not present during the Govenator's tenure? What makes the Democrats any less responsible in this particular situation? Like yeah on the whole and for almost all issues the Republicans are worse, but in this particular situation it looks like both of them did the exact same amount of jackshit.

JB50 posted:

Do Republicans even control anything in Cali?

Deteriorata posted:

That means that each dam would be inspected every five years or less, assuming they spend a week at each one. Seems reasonable.

N is for Nipples posted:

Do you ever just think about how, in terms of altitude, all the water in the world is fifteen feet (or five meters or whatever) above your head? Or like, think about how high the pressure would be under that much water? Do you experience slightly higher barometric pressure than say, a town at sea level, or somewhere in America with an altitude of a few hundred feet?

Sagebrush posted:

Your cell phone's barometer can detect the difference in air pressure between your feet and your head.

ethanol posted:

Is the iPhone barometer really that accurate though, don't they need elevation data? Doesn't it pull elevation from gps, which is wrong


Or something

I guess a simple sensor could tell you the difference but maybe not the absolute values at top and bottom

Atticus_1354 posted:

I really don't believe that. Do you have an actual source that will back that up? How does it differentiat that from normal fluctuations in pressure that happen from the weather changing?

Atticus_1354 posted:

I really don't believe that. Do you have an actual source that will back that up? How does it differentiat that from normal fluctuations in pressure that happen from the weather changing?

PittTheElder posted:

Yeah, this the point where you have to start talking about relative and absolute accuracy. Your phone barometer is certainly capable of detecting the pressure change between your feet and your head (relative accuracy), but can't distinguish real height change from a wider atmospheric change (absolute accuracy).

Say Nothing posted:

oohhboy posted:

Trying to read altitude like that and getting that kind of result is bullshit. Standard air pressure changes is measured in one hpa per 30ft, you are not going to find find such a large difference from your head to toe. You are either reading noise, poor calibration, local airflow, movement or all the above.

There is a reason why aircraft Barometers are build like they are and the dial read only so accurately with advanced planes using radar altimeters.

The phone's barometer is there to act as a "GPS satellite" so it can give you a better reading of you location by adjusting for elevation measured against ISA. Do not use the phone to tell your actually altitude as you can be wrong by a thousand feet or more depending on the factors at play.

Phanatic posted:

This. That a spec calls for a resolution of 3' doesn't say anything about the *accuracy* of the measurement.

oohhboy posted:

Trying to read altitude like that and getting that kind of result is bullshit. Standard air pressure changes is measured in one hpa per 30ft, you are not going to find find such a large difference from your head to toe. You are either reading noise, poor calibration, local airflow, movement or all the above.

Alereon posted:

That is the claimed accuracy. Here's the datasheet for the iPhone 6 sensor, note that they specifically say that one of the applications is telling what floor of a building you're on. This is not bullshit, we have had this technology for years, we are living in the sci-fi future now.