Vox have recently published a series of articles asking various people what they think will be considered barbaric or unthinkable in 50 years time, in a similar way to the attitude towards smoking has changed in the past 50 years.
There were the sorts of predictions I had expected to …
I have just finished having a mega clear out. I have been storing all of my papers from highschool and university in a closet. When I say 'all of my papers' I mean class notes, coursework and exam papers.
All of it is now in the recycling.
I have had …
Last Wednesday, Iain Clenahan gave a presentation on an incident that happened in February 1997. This post is my attempt at summarising the talk.
Hunterston B is an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) nuclear power plant commissioned in the late 1970s. To cool the reactors, carbon dioxide (CO2) is circulated …
This month’s process safety beacon is on trusting instruments. Or to be more accurate, what can happen when you don’t believe an instrument and it turns out that the instrument was correct. It has prompted me to write about an incident I experienced last year. Luckily in our …
When walking around the supplies warehouse today I noticed the labels in a set of cabinets that look ready for dispatch:
It was nice to see kit destined for my old stomping ground.
For long periods of my life, I have ended up commuting to some place further East of where I live. This includes going to secondary school, going to university from my parents house, even for the period I lived in Norwich. The problem with commuting to some location further east …
I have failed to post for the past few days. This has been mostly because our house has been full of a stomach bug for over a fortnight and eventually you run out of energy and inspiration when each day is the same.
There are a few longer posts that …
The two folk sitting in seats next to me are, to the casual observer, talking to themselves. Both are on their phones with hands free kits, but both are doing all the talking.
They both look mad, but then me staring off into space as I listen to a podcast …
I see the EU have voted to scrap daylight saving time. Something I fully agree with. Stick with GMT (or UTC) and not bother switching clocks twice a year.
If you want more daylight in the summer, get out of bed earlier.
I had intended to send an email at the start of the month. Unfortunately I only just got around to sending it today.
Between the regen and family illness, this month has raced by. I hope that I haven't left it too late and that the email can still fulfill …
I had to take my son to see the out of hours GP at the weekend. After arriving spot on time, the receptionist confirmed our appointment and asked us to take a seat.
After half an hour, he got up from his desk, came over to the waiting area and …
Our family has been dairy free for a few years now. One of the alternatives we have found and liked is Go-On by alpro. This was a thick, high protein yogurt replacement that didn’t taste sour. Most supermarkets sold a small desert style version if it with some fruit …
Most folk are aware of the concept of cause and effect. Something happens that then leads to something else happening. I throw a ball across the room (cause), something gets broken when it is hit by the ball (effect). While there are many cases that a simple cause and effect …
This week seems to have flown by. To be fair, I did take Monday off to recover from nightshift, and the spent the rest of the week trying to recover from a cold/stomach bug. As a result, I have been very tired and not very productive with my down …
I am currently reading a book and I suspect that my politics completely disagree with that of the author's. The author makes many remarks that I feel are pretty and unnecessary, but bluntly criticise some group of people.
I am fairly sure that there are some useful things that the …
One thing I noticed during the regen was that I always ended up in a better mood after I had a teaching session. Anytime someone asked me about the process, I couldn't help myself and would launch into a lecture about it. I really do enjoy the opportunity to pass …
I am currently feeling very out of the loop. This is partly because I have spent the last 2 weeks on nightshift, which completely disrupted my normal routines and interactions. But the other reason is that my feed reader broke, the tool I use to keep tabs on updates from …
Last night we were running through the next phases of the regen and it suddenly hit me. There is not much left. Should be finished at some point over the weekend and I might not need to go in on Sunday night.
I think that might be the reason that …
I have just finished reading 'The Blue Zones' by Dan Buettner. The concept behind the blue zones is that there are certain areas around the world where people live much longer than normal. These areas have significantly higher numbers of people living into their 90s or over 100. Not only …
Last night was my rest 'day' during the event. Some folk don't like just taking one day off and feel that they need to take two in a row off to properly recover. I find that if I am on night shift, one is sufficient. There is no point in …
I remember this happening last year as well. I wake up about 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon after a night shift. Most days I have cereal for breakfast but at some point I have a craving for a full cooked breakfast, so decide to treat myself and …
During last night's shift, we were talking about the construction of the building we were in and one of the operators asked if I remembered them building it.
I knew it was a long time before I started working there but asked when it was built and was told 1997 …
Today, my wife was at work and the kids at nursery while I slept1. I woke up with just over an hour before I needed to collect the kids, so spend that time cooking dinner for the family while I had the house to myself.
It has been great …
Back in November my company offered everyone a half day pensions workshop to explain how pensions worked. It covered what limits you might hit in terms of various allowances and other tax implications. At the end of the session, we were invited to fill in some forms for one free …
It looks like the shutdown will be delayed slightly due to a vulnerability on a different unit. I went into work tonight to monitor a short trial, however the trial was cancelled.
I wasn't too bothered, I had intended to stay up tonight in an attempt to get my body …
Today was the last day before I am working nightshifts on the shutdown. This will involve long hours and sleeping at antisocial times. So today was a last chance to enjoy family life.
I was gifted a long lie in in preparation for swinging onto nightshifts. When I did get …
Today I spent the morning looking at various bikes to replace my aging cyclo-cross bike.
When I bought it, there wasn't much of a market in that area. I had actually wanted a fairly standard road bike, but the bike shop owner convinced me to go with the cyclo-cross if …
We are currently making contingency plans for the shutdown next week. Not the work related ones, but family related contingencies. Who picks up the kids from nursery, when do we pass them over to the other parent? What happens if all the trains are cancelled?!?
This is the first shutdown …
My bike is truly bust this time. After the chain broke previously, I tried replacing it but it still didn’t work, the chain just kept jumping. There was also more work required and the bike shop I took it to have recommended that to get a new bike will …
Aftery yesterday's fun, we decided to have a more relaxed day today. The morning involved tidying and resting as much as possible with two small kids running around. In the hope of getting more tidying and resting done, we put on some kid's yoga on the TV for the four …
We decided to go on a family outing to Dynamic Earth today. I was expecting the kids to be frightened at times but it didn't quite work out as I expected.
The youngest was completely fine with the whole thing and happy to run about and poke the model scorpion …
So it turns out there is a bit more I want to say about the Merrimack Valley Gas Explosions.
In yesterday’s post, I was rather critical of the immediate recommendations that were produced by the investigators. They seemed to be very focused on the human error side of things …
In my final post on the Merrimack Valley Explosions1 , I want to cover the recommendations that were issued in the Safety Recommendation Report. The report makes five urgent recommendations, one to the state of Massachusetts and four to NiSource, Inc., the parent company of the operating company in charge …
In today's post about the Merrimack Valley Explosions, I want to discuss the mitigating factors and layers of protection, or rather apparent lack of then in this case. Again I will clearly state, I don't have all the facts and am not in anyway involved. I only have access to …
I mentioned in yesterday's post about a series of gas explosions that occured while I was visiting family in the USA last year. In this post I will cover how this event that 'looked like armageddon' according to a fire chief.
As with most utilities, the gas network consists of …
While I was in America last year, I saw news reports of an accident in Massachusetts where a local residential gas network was overpressured. This lead to lots of explosions and fires over three different towns. The local emergency services received over a hundred 911 emergency calls within a short …
I have previously mentioned that my phone seems to be on its last legs and went on strike last month. Well it has gone on strike again. My main reason for not simply replacing it is that I don't like the phones on the market.
What I want is my …
We decided last minute to take a trip to IKEA this morning to collect a few items. When wandering around the store some strange woman crouched down to give my youngest son a cuddle.
Then I noticed that it was my mum.
Completely unplanned but it was nice to meet …
I took a rest day
For recovery not play
That was yesterday
What about today
Returning without delay
For a slow Friday
Last night was the second disastrous dinner and the first one I presented. When I first came up with the concept for the dinners, I was fully expecting to have to provide all the talks, at least for the first year. I felt that producing 11 talks wasn’t too …
The following is an aproximate transcript of my talk that I delivered this evening.
The main reference for the talk was the official report by Desmond Fennel OBE QC
Good evening and welcome to the second Disastrous Dinners. My name is Alistair Marshall and I am the organiser of this …
Today was one of those days that I didn't actually do much 'real' work.
By 'real' work I mean building, fixing or improving things. No today was a meta work day. A day spend talking or writing about other work.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It involved meeting others …
I remember1 a scene in Winnie-the-Pooh when Pooh Bear needs to think of something. He sits on his thinking log and wills himself to think. Think, think, think. But no answers come.
That is how I feel this evening. The more I will myself to think about the problem …
Considering that the next disastrous dinners is on Wednesday, and that I am presenting it, I thought that I had better start to prepare my talk this weekend. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to cover and say, but i also was aware that my knowledge on …
I wrote back in August about receiving a hackerX invitation and how I pointed out to them that I wasn't a full stack developer, but a chemical engineer.
Well I have received another invitation to one of their events.
Q: What if my employer is there?
A: Don't worry, before …
Yesterday Ken Perlin wrote about whiteboards on his blog and asks what makes the whiteboard "such a perfect vehicle for collaboration". I think a significant part of it is the lack of complex technology.
When you go to use a whiteboard, there is usually some problem you are trying to …
Back in 2013, I was the lead operations engineer for a shutdown event. It was not a full unit turnaround, however it did involve replacing the unit's reactors, which had been in operation since the unit was first built nearly 50 years ago, with new ones. On top of that …
A friend asked me to give some advice to a second year chemical engineering student they had met at a networking event. What follows is a slightly edited version of the email I sent them.
Hi (name removed),
Your email address was passed on to me by (name removed) who …
Last night I donated blood. This was the first time in over a year.
This morning I did my usual circuits session in the gym. Just after the halfway point, I started to get a little dizzy. Then my vision started to go.
I can confidently say that I found …
Today I discovered an unexpected practical benefit from playing computer games as a child.
In many platform games, you had to get to a location that was being guarded by a bad guy. In some games it was not possible to kill or remove the bad guy, therefore the only …
