Category Archives: asides

The Perfect Fire

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From Longform.org, a story of a fire in an abandoned warehouse - The Perfect Fire:

The message that there might be people inside was relayed over the fire-department radios. Brotherton and Lucey walked back across the roof to the AB stairs, tromped down one flight, and started searching the top floor for people. Routine. At 6:22, only the thinnest haze of smoke hung in the corridors. More than two dozen men were in the warehouse, looking either for homeless people or flames. Each man had a tank strapped to his back filled with oxygen compressed to forty-five hundred pounds per square inch–enough for thirty minutes of relaxed breathing, half as long humping through a burning building–and connected to a plastic face mask. But the air was so clear that no one had bothered to put his on.

Chills, and heart-wrenching.

Frustrating Insight

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Found this fascinating and yet frustrating bit of insight into market psychology:

“The price you pay is always wrong. If you sell then by definition you are lowest price in the market. If you buy, then your bid is the highest… [P]rice is what you pay while value is what you hope and pray for.”

That… is just depressing to think of. And why you have to take emotion out of major purchase decisions.

MilInt

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Following the recent massacre at a US Army base in Texas by a psychologist gone crazy, (emphasis mine)

The Pentagon has responded… by deciding to screen all United States defence services for staff who are unstable and potentially violent.

Pause for effect.

You’re looking for people who are potentially violent… in the Army.

(sauce)

Heads up: Using phone-based GPS illegal in Australia

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Gizmodo reports that, looking at the laws governing use of hand held device in a car, using a phone based GPS system is illegal in Australia:

According to Traffic Services Commander of the NSW Police, Assistant Commissioner John Hartley:

Under Rule 300 of the Australian Road Rules, which prohibits the use of a hand held device while driving, if the unit is a mobile phone then any function connected to the phone would be classified as use and this includes GPS.

Rule 299, of the Australian Road Rules permits a GPS but not one connected to a mobile phone. A smart phone is still a mobile phone regardless of what else it may be capable of.

That means that even if you buy TomTom’s iPhone bracket and stick your iPhone in it to use the device as a satnav, because the iPhone’s still a phone, using it is against the law. The same rule goes for any Nokia device offering turn-by-turn navigation, any Telstra phone with WhereIs. If your satnav has a SIM card or mobile phone capability, then you run the risk of being fined.

[I]n NSW you’re looking at a $253 fine and three demerit points. The penalty in other states might be different, but the law is the same across the country.

Urrk. Watch out for that before you drop a hundie on the TomTom app for the iPhone.