User talk:Malkinthecat

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Welcome to WikiProject France

Welcome Malkinthecat, to WikiProject France! Please direct any questions about the project to its talk page. If you create new articles on France-related topics, please list them at our announcement page and tag their talk page with our project template, {{WikiProject France}}. A few features that you might find helpful: The project's Navigation box points to most of the pages in the project that might be of use to you. Most of the important discussions related to the project take place on the project's main talk page; you may find it useful to watchlist it. We've developed a number of guidelines for names, titles, and other things to standardize our articles and make interlinking easier that you may find useful. Wikipedia:France-related tasks You can help! Vous pouvez aider ! Here are some France related tasks you can do: Requests: Gérard Garouste – Émile Peynot – more... Translation from French:See TRANSWIKI/French for details. fr:Formation territoriale de la France métropolitaine to Territorial formation of France – Loi constitutionnelle du 23 juillet 2008 to French constitutional law of 23 July 2008 – fr:Arbel Fauvet Rail to Arbel Fauvet Rail – fr:Merir to Merir – more... Stubs: Category:France stubs Category sorting: Category:French writers – Category:History of France Verify or Factual Accuracy: Gui de Ceriz – Rennes-le-Château – Simone Weil Update: Bischwiller NPOV : Foreign relations of France (Middle East section) – Torture during the Algerian War – François Mitterrand – Jean-Marie_Le_Pen – John Calvin – Marie Antoinette Wikify: Dida Diafat – French architecture Citations: Vichy France (section) – Falaise pocket – Charles de Gaulle – Vaux-le-Vicomte – Economy of France – Louisiana Purchase Merge: – Bourbon Family Compact Copyedit, Style or Cleanup: Antoine de la Sale – Albert Camus – Breton language – Claude Debussy – French Revolution – French language – Jean-Paul Sartre – Napoleon III of France – Nicolas Sarkozy – Picardy – Rennes – Sarah Bernhardt – Toulouse – Girondist – Louis XIV Expand: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen – Vaux-le-Vicomte – Basque language – Being and Nothingness France-related Wikiprojects: Wikipedia:WikiProject France view • edit • discuss • history • watch If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me or any of the more experienced members of the project, and we'll be very happy to help you. Again, welcome, and thank you for joining this project!

--STTW (talk) 14:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Your work on the Visbreaker article

First, I would like to say that you did an excellent job of improving the article greatly when you edited it in June 2007.

However, I do have some questions to ask you:

(1) In your equation 1 for calculating VBN:

VBN = 14.534 × ln[ln(v + 0.8)] + 10.975

Does it use the log to the base 10 or the natural log to the base e? From studying the literature on that equation, I get the distinct impression that it should be the log to the base 10 ... that is log₁₀.

(2) In your equation 2 for calculating the VBN of a blend:

VBN_Blend = [%_A × VBN_A] + [%_B × VBN_B] + ... + [%_X × VBN_X]

I don't think you meant to use %. I think you meant to use weight fraction (i.e., % ÷ 100). In other words, if the % of a blend component is 50, then we should use 0.50 in the equation. Am I correct in saying that the weight fraction should be used instead of the % ?

(3) Also, pardon me for asking, but are you positively sure that the blending should be done on a weight basis rather than a volume basis?

I will watch here on your Talk page for your answers to the above three questions. After reading your answers, I will make whatever changes are needed in the article. Thanks in advance and regards, - mbeychok 04:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Mbeychok, Thank you very much for your comments.

The equation I quouted for VBN is that used by Exxon at their Fawley refinery near Southampton. I double checked on my copy of the blending notes (which I still have) and the log they use is definately to base e - in fact they have even put an NB to that effect. I have a feeling that there are other VBN formula that use log to base 10.

Also, the notes state that VBN blends by mass not volume.

I used this approach for years after quitting Exxon and moving into trading (were we did a lot of fueloil / 6 oil blending) with no problems at all, so I am pretty confident that they are right.

Your second point - you are quite right. It was what I intended, but your way of expressing it is far clearer than mine.

I'm trying to get my hands on a nice photo of a visbreaker that I can use without infringing copyright - it is about the only type of processing unit that I do not myself own a photo of. If you have any ideas of a source I would like to here of them.

I'm going to add some more content to the Visbreaker entry when I get some free time and I hope that over the winter I will work up some other units. I would appreciate your critique once I've done these if that would be OK?

By the way - the changes you've made to the article are great. Particularly the diagram. I'm still feeling my way a bit with the software!

Bst regards, Jon Malkin the Cat 13:26, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I have independently confirmed from other sources that your equation (1) should use the natural logarithm to the base e.

If I had a visbreaker photo, it would already be in the article ... but I don't have one.

Don't worry about feeling your way with the software. It takes quite a while as I found out myself.

If I'm not being too nosy, what made you decide to run a guest house in France? Sounds idyllic. I spent 2 years in France during WWII ... one year in combat and one year after the war ended (and I have fond memories of that year). Regards, Milt. - mbeychok 14:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

No problem - you're not being nosy. We were living in London but had a holiday home here. My wife (who was a freelance chemical engineer desiging oil refinery operating plants, btw) spent a summer here on her own with our two eldest girls in 2002 while I stayed in the UK to work. She really didn't want to come back to the UK after that.

I was employed by El Paso at the time - they had bought Coastal Corp, as I am sure you will remember, whom I had joined in their London Trading group a while before. El Paso then "did and Enron" and we were all let go. I was kept on as a consultant for a while as they needed someone to help dispose of various assets in Europe, but after that decided she might have a point, took the pay-off, sold the house and away we flew.

It has worked out very well - the children love it here and we get a quality of life here that we could not have afforded in the UK (London was VERY expensive), and we always had a hankering to do something in the service line.

Where were you stationed in France? Jon Malkin the Cat 16:03, 4 October 2007 (UTC)