Category: Uncategorized

Grand Forks 311

You can now submit problems and requests directly to the city of Grand Forks with a 311 mobile app(lication) and online.  It looks like they are using the PublicStuff platform, which looks a great deal like SeeClickFix but the city apparently pays for.

Glancing through the Android app, it looks like they are keeping up with some of the requests and there has been a fair amount of activity since the app launched three days ago (but the list also includes requests from the testing phase before launch).

You do not need to log in or create an account to create an issue, but you do need to have an account to “support” (thumbs up) a concern.

I plan to keep the SeeClickFix sidebar up, at least for East Grand Forks.  [This was on the old Grand Forks Streets blog. 2014-09-10]

Submit issues or get the app here: http://www.grandforksgov.com/online-services/gf-311/report-a-concern

 

Petrel error: “unable to find first line of input data”

I ran into this today, and my best guess is that I was trying to use ASCII columnar data rather than Standard Keyword data.  

File that didn’t work:

MD TVD EW NS INC AZM
2018 2018 0 0 0.57 63.8
2070 2070 0.42 0.33 0.57 49.74
2160 2160 1.37 0.69 0.88 66.9
2250 2249.98 2.9 1.4 1.19 68.68

File that did work:

*WELL 33xxxxxxxxxxxx    
*XYUNITS  M    
*DEPUNITS F    
*COLUMNS *MD *INC *AZM
0 0 0
2018 0.57 63.8
2070 0.57 49.74
2160 0.88 66.9
2250 1.19 68.68
2340 1.55 71.48

Petra exports in both formats for individual wells but not for bulk export.

Statistics In Techlog

Question: How do you get statistics on log values (variable values*) for a given well?  How about a given zone in that well?

Answer**: In Techlog 2013.2.0 (not 2011 as far as I could tell), you can do this with the Statistics tool.

One well:

  1. Menu->Data->Toolbox->Statistics
  2. Select a variable from one of the wells and move it to the “Data type assignment” pane with the “Variables >” button and click “Create”
  3. Drag a well from your Project Browser to the Input pane of the Workflow Manager (right side).
  4. Click the Statistics tab in the Workflow Manager (right side).
  5. Click the purple “Play” button to compute statistics for your selection.

One well with zones:

  1. Proceed to step 3, above.
  2. Open the Zonation pane in the Project Browser.
  3. Select the zones you want to calculate statistics for.
  4. Open the Zonation tab in the Workflow Manager.
  5. Click the icon for “Insert zones from the zonation dock window.”
  6. Go to step 4, above.

I hope this helps someone at least a little bit.

*”Variables” are what Techlog calls digital logs.  Each type of log is a different variable.
**Drawing somewhat from this knowledge base article. 

Herald for “bike lanes and developing mass transit”?

Tom Dennis’ editorial in the Grand Forks Herald today is about electric cars, but he slipped in a little something else:

Money spent on one thing can’t be spent on something else; and in the case of electric-car subsidies, all kinds of other choices could have been made with that money, including spending it on environmentally friendly projects such as building bike lanes and developing mass transit.

I’m not out to paint Dennis and the Herald as having been against cycling infrastructure and mass transit, but I was surprised to see these statements in a town like Grand Forks, where people have had to fight hard to get concessions for alternative transportation.  Thankfully, the Herald goes against the popular notion sometimes.

(Although I’m generally in favor of electric vehicles (where they make sense), I can see the point.  The biggest name in electrics isn’t Chevrolet and the Volt, it’s Tesla Motors and whatever Elon Musk wants to do with it.)

Encouraging cycling for transportation and improving transit in Grand Forks/East Grand Forks would take a load (literally and figuratively) off our existing infrastructure by lowering the number of vehicles that pass over a given stretch of road per day.  It would reduce congestion as well–fewer drivers means fewer cars to be stuck behind.  Cycling can be part of a healthy lifestyle, at the very least would help people get 30 minutes a day of exercise.  Transit improvements help those of us with the lowest income–to get to school, to get to work, and maybe even to sell one of the two (or more) cars your family already owns.

It’s unclear whether the powers that be would take back electric car subsidies and roll that money into more traditional alternative transportation, but you can’t start if you don’t have the idea.

Online Schlumberger Petrel Community

Is there one?

I know the official Schlumberger Support portal exists (with a forum), and I understand that when you buy a license, you get access to that resource included (that’s how I have access).  It shocks me, however, that there isn’t a thriving community of Petrel enthusiasts (or even geological/geostatistical modeling enthusiasts) out here on the Internet.  What I’m interested in is more than a PDF of a workflow or a presentation that discusses theory–I want to know how people have used modeling software to solve real problems, because not all problems can be solved in the same way.

For example, check out the Laser Scanning Forum, which is a great resource if you’re into that, and which includes discussion of multiple software packages and how to deal with different data.  A quick search brought up the forum at Exploration and Production Geology, which could use a little more activity to be useful.  Every once in a while I’ll find a blog post that addresses some questions relating to what I am trying to do.  Of course, there is always my employer’s internal collection of workflows…most of which live in the heads of our experienced modelers.  (For the record, I am not an experienced modeler and I’m facing a steep learning curve.)

I understand that software this expensive is going to be used primarily for groups that are working on custom, confidential projects and are more likely to have received training straight from Schlumberger…but as someone who outside of work would much rather use open-source software and open-access datasets, the lack of “free” information for this caliber of software is certainly jarring.

QOTD: Smallest Model Possible in gslib?

Q:  How small can a 3D geological model be?  Does gslib even recognize units, or is the coordinate system external to the software?

A:  It does not appear that any coordinate systems are built into gslib, which means units are held externally.  “100” could mean 100 km or 100 microns as far as gslib is concerned.  http://www.gslib.com/gslib_help/format.html

(QOTD: question of the day)

Bonus: Grand Forks City Council on “Bicycle Craze”

Council Member Sande stated not aware when biking became rage in Grand Forks, that he keeps hearing about bicycling from a variety of people with variety of points of view, none seem cohesive and wondering what it would take to get us on the same page about the bicycle craze. The MPO, the engineering department and Trail Users all seem to have their own agendas and process, because heard tonight that we connected the loop, that we created the dead-end ourselves by approving the 42nd Street bikepath and then the 24th bikepath that went no-where in the first place, so if going to connect the loops, why did we make a non-loop in the first place,; great if could review our current ordinances, apparently there are some regulations where not supposed to ride bikes on sidewalks, an unenforceable ordinance – should look at that and should have a sub-committee, a task force, with regard to bicyclists and come together and get a good plan to see if could get on the same page.

From the April 7th minutes.