Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to 3410,
Are they saying that they have only one drill rig for this job, with only one motor for it?
Why do they – after more than four days – still appear to not have all the equipment they need for all forseeable contingencies?
The terrain is difficult, to put it mildly. Even if they had a dozen rigs they would still have to extract the broken rig before place a new one. Given that it takes quite some time to place them, it presumably takes quite some time to extract them, too, and would take more time again to place a replacement.
Similarly, even if they have a dozen replacement motors they still have to determine that it's going to take longer to repair than replace, remove the broken motor, and install the replacement motor.Get a grip. Things don't happen between ad breaks. No quantity of spares can prevent equipment failures, and no quantity of spares can magically repair/replace failed machinery.
As for only having one rig, they're not cheap, simple machines. They're specialised and expensive. I know that in your magical world where repairs and replacements take place at the speed of light money also grows on trees and spare capital equipment is just littering the countryside ready for use once every few decades, but this is the real world.
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It would be nice if more motorists treated the already compulsory rear-view and side mirrors as more than ornamental too, just to revisit an earlier point.
Side mirrors are more than ornamental. They're there for clipping errant cyclists who're minding their own business, keeping left, and obeying the rules on a two-lane road. Well, that's my experience. The middle finger was used for response to my "Fucking hell" as I bounced from moving car to parked car and tried to avoid doing a face-plant on a busy road.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Paul Williams,
possibly this distress is getting the better of some commenters?
That's charitable of you. I'd say that some commentators just don't quite get that real life isn't a Stallone/Willis movie, or even a reasonable facsimile of Backdraft. People die in real life, rather than getting to do a re-take.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Steve Barnes,
No, just real-world knowledge of how these people think. Sorry it's so boring and destroys your narrative, but some of us have sat through lectures on safety in emergency services work.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Hate to break it to you, Steve, but emergency services don't think "all necessary risks" is reasonable. The discussion about the liquor store shooting included many reiterations from me of the fundamental rule of emergency response: you are the most important person in the equation. Those around you are a close second, but your arse is not worth sacrificing. Manage risks, avoid exposing yourself to anything that's avoidable, and above all avoid becoming another casualty.
We're not talking about a military action, where the loss of some lives is an unfortunate, if necessary, trade-off to achieve a strategic objective. Even those lives are weighed before being thrown to the wind, but on a different scale. For rescue work, if you send in six and they succumb do you send in another six to rescue the now-35? And another six? And who wears the outrage for the unnecessary, avoidable deaths? Certainly not keyboard commandos such as yourself and the denizens of Your Views. -
Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Dismal Soyanz,
Any risk that cannot be readily contained and avoided is likely to mean we don’t go in.
As for it being the job, as someone pointed out upthread, the job is to help people
Precisely. Even EOD techs are taking considered, calculated risks when they stroll up to a suspected bomb and start poking at it. They've probably x-rayed it, and these days it's often as not a robot that's doing the poking. They may be very much on the borderline of totally batshit crazy, but they're still enough on the not-crazy side to not be suicidal.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
The Herald’s Your Views page is amusing in that most of the criticism of the police seems to be that they’re not acting like rescuers act in movies or in TV dramas.
I seem to recall making a parody post on this very topic yesterday. Oh, that's right, I did.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
Structural fire fighting kit is not designed for mine rescue. It's heavy (including BA, a fire fighter goes into a house fire wearing over 20kg), and it's hot. Modern structural fire fighting clothing is multi-layered, and protects by absorbing heat. It needs to be given time to release heat before it can be safely used again, which can take 20 minutes or more, and if it doesn't cool completely it can't be worn for as long before the wearer starts to risk being burned.
Conversely, it traps body heat. Walking 2.5km is a recipe for heat exhaustion. The design is so tailored to a specific "threat" that there are National Commander's Instructions (which carry the force of law) that structural kit is not to be worn for fighting scrub fires. It's not general-purpose rescue clothing, and is distinctly unsuitable for a very long walk. Plus, in a wet environment like Pike River Mine, by the time the clothing was needed it would be saturated and thus liable to turn into a steam room as the absorbed water began to boil off and cook the wearer. It's water-resistant, but very definitely not water-proof. -
Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Tom, again, read my explanation of Lead Agency. Especially the bit about the Operations Manager. You're not stupid, so try engaging your brain before you carry out your next bit of cop-bashing.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Why would it be the cops' job to waterproof the robot? See my big post above about just what role the cops will be playing in all of this.
Hint: They won't be the ones who're on the ground doing the grunt work.