[LINK] home emergencies

[Karl Auer]

On Thu, 2009-02-19 at 07:14 +0000, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
> Certainly an exaggerated response to genuine efforts to save lives still
> the purely-personal no-proof effort to respond's appreciated thanks Karl

No proof. Hmm. While others' attempts to extrapolate a technology that
was used by a few enthusiasts a couple of decades ago into a functional
early warning system usable by hundreds of thousands of people who will
use it for the first time when the disaster is at their doorstep - this
is backed by extensive scientific research?

> Last time i used one battery CB radios will reliably get signal through
> when phone and power etc are down, and yes, they are definitely two way

Golly. Good to have an emergency channel filled with "Help!" and
"Where's Pooky?".

It doesn't scale, and cannot meet its stated objectives. Something we
should all be familiar with by now, the typical characteristics of a
wishful-thinking technical response to a fundamentally non-technical
problem.

> For many years Taxi systems used radio in mission-sort-of-critical jobs
> with little black boxes that identified individual senders, and allowed
> selective & private two-way communications. An existing reliable system
> that works, cheap & basically low-tech.

Yup. Works well with a tiny user base. Doesn't scale.

> But we know you won't agree.. you prefer the stay in your home and pray
> and dont put any hope at all in any technology approach.

Ah, the old Stephen is back, putting words in people mouths.

What I said was that people should listen to the warnings they *do* get,
and should either get the hell out WAY ahead of the fire or stay in
their (preferably well-prepared) homes while the fire passes, *then* get
out. Lo tech, but known to work. "Any" technology? Oh no, I'll put my
faith in firepumps, metal buckets and good leather boots right enough.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)

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