begin quoting Bob La Quey as of Wed, May 07, 2008 at 01:18:11AM -0700: > On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 12:09 AM, Andrew Lentvorski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Bob La Quey wrote: > > > > > > > PS. I am still waiting for anyone to address the point > > > I made earlier. Fires are easily extinguished if they > > > are detected early before they grow to be huge conflagrations. > > > > > > There is existing technology for detecting fires within > > > minutes of their initiation. SoCal is not using it. Why? > > > > > > I wish you guys would say, "Hey Bob, you are an idiot." > > > > Well, you didn't actually provide us with anything concrete one way or > > another. If I'm going to call you an idiot, I'd at least like to have a > > reason. > > Duh, I provided a concept. Stop fires when the are > small. I refer ed without links to Spanish Forests. I asked > for private responses if anyone was interested.
Effectively requesting "no discussion". Not really the best way to promote discussion. Regardless... I read your "instrument the forest" and thought "that's interesting", but didn't really see where I could contribute anything to the discussion at that point. [snip] > > Before you complain about others not thinking, perhaps you should provide a > > few facts for us to actually think *about*? > > Here are a few simple facts that require no links. They > simply require common sense. Let me put on my contrarian cap... oh, look, I'm already wearing it... ;-P > A fire is most easily extinguished when it is small. > > Do you agree? Nope. A fire is *most* easily extinguished when it's exhausted its fuel. > All fires begin small. > > Do you agree? Nope. Fires started by volcanoes (we seem to be a bit short of such here in SoCal, we'll need to look at Yellowstone) or large asteroid impacts. Of course, these sorts of fires tend not to be the sort that leaves us caring about firefighting... > If we can find fires when the are small then they > are easier to extinguish then when they are larger. > > Do you agree? <adjusts contrarian cap> Not all small fires grow larger, surely? > Assertion: We can find fires throughout SoCal when they > are quite small. At this point I asked for private email > if anyone was interested. The references are to my own > work, which I will discuss publicly but only if there > are people who are actually paying attention and are > interested. We could. I'd buy that. Whether we run cable through the woods, or set up some sort of ad-hoc mesh network using a bunch of solar-powered (seems kind of silly in the woods, but hey) wireless sensors, or even just build towers and pay a guy to sit up in 'em looking for smoke.... we need information about when and where the small fires are in order to do anything about 'em. (Oooh, we could also have robots.) My personal inclination is to take preventative action -- the controlled burns to eliminate the excess fuel, so that even a nominally out-of-control fire would be self-limiting. But your instrument-the-forest approach intrigues me. > Maybe my earlier message was unclear. If so I apologize. > It is difficult to make even a simple statement that all can > understand. This is what makes me doubt the idea of a natural-language programming language. When intelligent and articulate people have difficulty communicating, it just shows how difficult the problem of communication really is. > > I was actually looking forward to your links (distributed detection and > > economically viable response is an interesting topic) and am a bit > > disappointed that you haven't provided any. > > You seem to feel the only reality is reference to the works of others. > Believe it or not Andy, occasionlly people do original work ;) While I Ha! > am far from being the definitive source on this subject, I can assure > you, and will here in this public forum, discuss the physical system > that we KPLUGers could build to do the detection needed. Others must > provide the response systems. Let's just presume we have the existing response systems. > I will not discuss this unless people pay some minimal attenition. > > I assert that we could, with quite realizable physical systems, detect > most of the fires in SoCal within a few minutes of their beginning. I > am quite willing, even eager, to discuss how in this forum for all to > criticize. Constructively, of course. My hindbrain is still chewing at my guess of your concept. Nom nom nom. -- The strongest assertions are the easiest to deny. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
