JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Who knew that water was needed to fight fires?
https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/14/la-fires-illustrate-a-nationwide-competency-crisis/
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“In other words, when you’re given the titles, honors, and pay of a prestige job like mayor, governor, or fire chief, then you have to take the blame for what happens on your watch. This creates good incentives. Otherwise, bad leaders would be handsomely rewarded merely for concocting a flood of excuses.”
Hang on…. isn’t ‘bad leaders would be handsomely rewarded merely for concocting a flood of excuses’ what they always do anyway!!
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But, but, but – think of the delta smelt!!
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NSW farmers praise ‘common sense’ bushfire water regulation changes
ROBERT WHITE
NSW farmers have backed “commonsense” rules allowing landholders to fight bushfires using surface and groundwater on their own property without needing a licence and prior approval.
The Minns government will remove red tape that previously resulted in offenders facing two years’ jail and fines of more than $1m for fighting fires using water on their own properties.
The change broadens what is considered stock and domestic water usage so landholders can use water on their property for training and controlled burns when carried out under the authority of a firefighting agency.
It also allows landholders to prepare for the threat of bushfires by storing the water in a tank or dam for future firefighting with a maximum volume for each property of 100,000 litres.
Farm owner and chair of the NSW Farmers Association’s water task force, Richard Bootle, has been fighting fires as part of the West Bogan bush fire brigade for more than 30 years and welcomed the change as “a really good step forward”.
“What we’re seeing in California right now obviously we don’t want to be seeing across NSW,” Mr Bootle said. “We just need to be able to grab the water where we can get it, as fast as we can get it, and get to a fire.”
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Folks down in the lower southern region of WA, in forest areas, have to maintain two large water tanks – one for their own water, and another, to be kept full at all times, for the use of the local country fire brigade. Sounds like a sensible idea.
10
Has anybody attempted to predict the cost of repairs for leaking rooves as solar panejs age?
110
These guys say the average cost of an uninstall is £300-500. An install is £6000 – but this includes the cost of the panels.
https://www.skylampsolar.uk/solar-panel-removal/
Also a drain on skilled/able-bodied labour I guess when facing a construction skills shortage in a sickening populace.
Another good question there Ted1
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Somebody here (Rick?) commented recently on the need to climb up and remove all the tree litter that was jammed under the panels. I think somebody mentioned that it cost $800 to remove their old solar panels in Australia.
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These folks maybe? https://www.globalresearch.ca/los-angeles-smarter-city-2028-olympics/5876967
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We have seen lots of collapsed houses in LA.
So why don’t you see hundreds of brick walls still standing? They are fire proof aren’t they?
Well no.. The bricks are fine, the mortar is the weak link.
Whether you are in LA or Melbourne (Australia). Your typical residential house brick walls do not have fire resistant mortar.
Understand that those residential walls will collapse if they are subject to continual temps above 3oo C.
Why is that?.. Well I’d need more than 400 words to answer it all…..So I will give just one example of many:
If there is ANY moisture in the mortar.. That water will turn to steam, which then blows the compromised structure apart.
I have spent 30 years firefighting, dodging flying bricks….. Ahh well it is what it is.
If any want to know more about mortar.
https://www.civilengineeringweb.com/2020/09/types-of-mortar.html
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My mind still spinning from the idea of ‘fighting fire with fire’ (had you asked me in a pub quiz before I learned about this during last week or so from you on this site, I would have said this saying must have military origins)
Now, my idea that brick buildings are safer in a fire is shattered.
Any thoughts on fibre versus copper cables? Noticed power poles standing in LA while the wires were blazing. Found some science stuff below, but I am not sure I comprehend. Also wondering if the cost saving in not fire-suppressing fibre in buildings (don’t have to coz it doesn’t get hot in use like copper) has implication for how buildings burn in catastrophic fires?
Among them, the ignition time for optical fibers was the shortest, with a TTI of merely 8 s. Additionally, the heat release rate per unit area (HRRPUA) of the four cables remained relatively unchanged but reached their first peak earlier. This phenomenon was attributed to the cables experiencing higher external heat radiation, causing a rapid increase in the surface temperature and promoting thermal decomposition of the outer layer materials, leading to accelerated combustion reactions and an increase in heat release, resulting in a faster rise in the heat release rate per unit area. Furthermore, the peak heat release rate (PHRR) of the four cables showed varying degrees of increase. The total heat release (THR) for the cable exhibited a slight rise. Moreover, the mass loss rate (MLR) for all four cables was accelerated, and the proportion of mass loss for cables and wires was lower compared with those of network cables and optical fibers, with a maximum difference of 54.23%. This discrepancy primarily arose from the larger proportion of non-combustible components in cables and wires. https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/6/11/431
I read this as in a catastrophic fire event, fiber will combust quicker than copper and more of its mass will burn up?
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I heard they don’t have a lot of brick in California buildings because of earthquakes. So they build out of wood which handles earthquakes quite well.
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Yes, brick construction does very poorly during earthquakes. You have individual rigid units weakly joined together. It just tumbles apart. So does steel reinforced concrete. The concrete is rigid but with poor tensile strength, although strong in compression, and adheres poorly to the steel under shock waves. Especially sheering shock waves. It crumbles. Even steel framed buildings do poorly. It was found from examining the failures of steel framing during the Kobe earthquake, that shockwaves distort the steel because of its malleability tearing apart fillet welds, and riveted and bolted over lapping connections.
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An old college buddy from Panama (MS Civil Engineering, several patents for new concepts in canal lock structure) pointed out, there is a way around the brick problem in tropical climates. (Panama is a high earthquake zone.) Use hollow concrete blocks with steel rebar inside, using loose fitting joints. Blocks can slide around with the shaking, but not fall apart because of the rebar. It has good fire resistance as a side benefit.
Drawback, the resulting building is ugly as sin, and can’t be insulated.
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Many are brick veneer like homes built in Australia with timber or steel frames then brick walls tied to the frame. They rely on the timber or steel frame for structural integrity. There are plenty of double brick fire places that do not explode when a fire is raging inside them. And they are still standing after the rest of the structure is collapsed:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIF.YrWjgd%252fxmHbNJ4t4J4y0RQ%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=52c08e8a2b1e73d9ddceb9cb17aa5308d5f7cbcb25d29b206c83e2b5ccc7a0ab&ipo=images
And
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIF.vgOSlTTUAeuCeomB07DMIA%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=a32e16e9f6cefed520a20402f6e2bf20cccd00e5a9fe26217d8481863d95fc25&ipo=images
I have also seen images of structural brick facades on some Spanish style homes that are still standing.
71
Regular readers might remember my exciting dispatches a year ago from Austria regarding the exasperating vagaries of my hire car which was far too clever for its own good.
Back again this year and the new hire car is even more hysterical than the last one.
As well as it having a melt down driving down a narrow alley,beeping furiously, and beeping again if there is something remotely behind you when reversing and screaming when parking somewhere within three foot in front of a wall, this one has two new tricks
If I touch one of the road centre lines it will nudge me firmly back.
If I have the temerity to actually cross one of the road markings when passing, even on a dual carriageway and indicating, it will beep as I cross it and beep again when I return to my original lane.
I don’t see how anyone new can develop any driver skills if they have this intrusive nanny constantly telling them off.
Perhaps more to the point any joy or independence in driving withers in exasperation. Which is possibly one of the points of these devices and will prepare the way for autonomous driving
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My 40yo son made two predictions about autonomous cars. He fully expect his 7yo son may never need a driver’s licence because they will not be a requirement to operate a vehicle within a decade. The second prediction was that his doddering parents, if still around, would welcome an autonomous car scheme because it overcomes the humility of having your driver’s licence cancelled.
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RickWill,
Lucky you to have a clairvoyant son.
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Incidentally the small town in Austria I am staying has had its first white Christmas in thirty years
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Do you go barefaced even when people around you mask up? – you health fascist!
https://indoxicate.me/dont-be-a-health-supremacist/
“The fascistic core of health supremacism is the idea that those who are healthy are somehow ‘better’ people, and that society may and must protect their interests and flourishing (rather than the interests and flourishing of members of society at large).”
I am unsure how the interests and flourishing of the healthy are in conflict with the interests and flourishing of society at large? I guess if vaccines are to consider safety of more than six months, that is a challenge for those with only 12 months left to live so the healthy should take the dangerous vaccines might be an example of how this translates?
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Will they never learn? Lefties hold immigrant event in their theatre, immigrants decide to stay and invite their friends. At least they haven’t burnt their generous hosts’ house down yet, like the people invited into sanctuary city LA.
https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/newsreel/paris-theatre-warns-of-bankruptcy-amid-occupancy-by-homeless-migrants
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The irony,it burns!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZj9bi7YNmI
You lied, you faked
You cheated, you changed the stakes
Open up, make room for me
Now open up, make room for me
Lose myself inside your schemes
Go for the money, honey
Burn Hollywood burn, taking down Tinseltown
Burn Hollywood burn, burn down to the ground
Burn Hollywood burn, burn Hollywood burn
Take down Tinseltown, burn down to the ground
01
FWIW – More LA amazings –
“Kvetching About a Vetch Now Fetching a Retch”
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/01/14/kvetching-about-a-vetch-now-fetching-a-retch-n3798796
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“”No one is quite sure if those phone poles ever did get replaced, but in an irony of ironies, it turns out that the endangered Braunton’s milkvetch is what’s known as a ‘chaparral’ plant. That also means it reproduces best when hit by a good old wildfire.
It’s the damnedest thing.”
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And it can be done –
“A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE:”
“The simple truth, as even NPR admitted with disbelief, is that Florida and other southern, Republican-run states — with every bit the same level of dangerous seasonal fire exposure — are light-years ahead of sclerotic California when it comes to fire mitigation. And it is very much a matter of governance, not resignation to fate. Florida and other southern states prove, with their smartly and lightly regulated regimes of controlled burns of brush and deadwood, that you can prevent massive fires with intelligent policy. As Lehmann’s firefighter friend aptly points out in her piece, “politicians never want to admit that nothing we can do will stop the really bad fires once they’re going.” Which is why politicians in more practical (read: Republican) states have figured out that the best way to avoid that situation is to prevent the really bad fires from getting going in the first place. California forgot this, but it can remember it again.”
https://instapundit.com/696169/#disqus_thread
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California is not the ideal place to build stuff. The current LA fires provide some support for that. But the bigger risk of loss is earthquake.
The Richter predictor gives a 0.2% chance of a 7+ magnitude quake off California within the next 30 days. San Francisco is closer to the hotspot than LA but still California,
https://www.richterx.com
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FWIW
“But You Can’t……”
“….. use salt water on wildfires, it will ruin the environment and the equipment!”
Yes, you can
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=252669
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https://www.checkfire.co.uk/fire-safety-news/an-introduction-to-fire-boats/
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FWIW
“Old Joe Biden Reminds Us Yet Again That Leftists Live in a World of Pure Fantasy”
https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2025/01/14/old-joe-biden-reminds-us-yet-again-that-leftists-live-in-a-world-of-pure-fantasy-n4935982
Something else that “ElBowen” won’t read I guess
30
Melania Trump for Australia
Melania Trump is still hiring for her team. She plans to leave a few positions open until after the Trumps move back into the White House.
“I don’t want to hire too many people on my team and spend too much taxpayer money. I want to make sure that every position, they are talented, they have merit, they know what they are doing, and … they are team players. They don’t have their own agenda. They’re serving me, they’re serving my office, and they’re serving the country.”
Now she’s what we need, not the inept self-serving WEF puppets destroying this once great country.
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Biden: lost your job? Learn to code!
Zuck: AI will replace coders in 2025
https://youtu.be/oAfhceUT_wI?si=v5PkbMT632YdXh11
At least the masses will have lots of free time “to be creative”.
Bob Ross, look out!
AI writing its own code. What could possibly go wrong.
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Painting a glass bottle from the inside!
https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_sq0igvTrRw1z23obp.mp4
Now that is amazing!!
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Microsoft January 2025 Patch Tuesday fixes 8 zero-days, 159 flaws
40 Elevation of Privilege Vulnerabilities
14 Security Feature Bypass Vulnerabilities
58 Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities
24 Information Disclosure Vulnerabilities
20 Denial of Service Vulnerabilities
5 Spoofing Vulnerabilities
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-january-2025-patch-tuesday-fixes-8-zero-days-159-flaws/
Third parties have also released their latest patches, so it’s update time!
That’s security done. Next up – bug fixes!😎
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Instagram is now showing users AI generated images of themselves.
Using Meta-AI to edit selfies, Instagram can use your face on ads targetted at you.
That’s immersive marketing.
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