Subject: how to demonstrate the Hubbert Curve at wal-mart.
I was reminescing on the multiple ways I have devised over the years to erode my spouse's sanity. One of them has been the singing toy aisle at Wal Mart, with whatever flavor of the month "press here" is selling. (this month it was pigs in various Elvis and other outfits.) I like to turn on about a dozen of them until it sounds like something from a steven king movie.
To demonstrate the peak oil concept: gather together a good number of singing toys. Different ones are good because they're distinct and have different act lengths. A dozen or two is a good number, you can use a Billy the Singing Bass to represent Gawhar (long song). Sort of like different sizes of oil fields. Then start turning them on, one at a time. The sound will literraly make a bell curve on the "annoyance" scale. For the record, my wife's angry faces are most amusing at the point of peak singing.
Which goes to show, it is irrelevant what a field's decline rate is. If an oil field were like a tank, where you could turn it on and deplete it at a fixed rate, there would still be a Hubbert curve and a peak. (although albeit with sharper curves) The toys play their little blathers at a constant rate.. from start to stop.
1: no toys are singing.
2: more toys are not singing than singing.
3: all toys are singing.
4: most toys are singing, but some are finished.
5: about half the toys have stopped singing.
6: more toys have stopped than are still singing.
7: all the toys are done.
File this under general silliness.







