OT Fires in California

Some here about Grant and the two main characters. They've lead interesting lives. I liked the show but lost track of it for some reason. Maybe changes in tv programming providers.

Didn't YOU say that SED was for electronics ONLY?

John Larkin did put OT: in the subject line. He has posted recipes here. Yo u do have to understand that whenever he feels that he is being got at - wh ich happens quite often - he suggests that whoever is getting at him ought to be posting something about electronics (rather than showing him up).

Of course when other people post stuff about their electronics, he isn't al l that interested.

No, I said that this is an electronics design group. I do sometimes ask posters if they actually design electronics. If it were a knitting group, I might ask them what they knit.

Electronic design engineers have other interests, and it's not unreasonable to mention them now and then. The fires in CA are certainly affecting a lot of tech industries and engineers. The thread was non-political, non-insulting, and clearly labeled OT and did no harm to the group. Grown-ups can have polite conversations about all sorts of stuff.

But the majority of posters here don't design electronics and are here to exchange endless spirals of childish insults and tribal politics.

There are a few people here who are seriously competent at electronic design. They are usually polite and helpful and share what they can; two have written important books.

I have met and worked with some of the posters here. I hired one and that worked out very well for both of us. If I get lucky, I might find another great engineer here, or another friend. Ideally, someone who hikes and skis and actually understands electricity.

Sadly, I know some seriously good engineers who won't post here because of the horrible clucking of the nasty old hens who dominate the group. If you don't design, that's no loss to you. Cluck on!

Except that when you ask that "question" your aim seems to be to punish peo ple who aren't flattering you as fulsomely as you feel you deserve.

By which you mean they don't flatter you about your electronic design skill s as enthusiastically as you think you ought to. You find this deficit actively insulting.

There is a lot of tribal politics posted here. Your enthusiasm for climate change denial puts you in the right-wing nit-wit tribe along with James Art hur and Flyguy.

Win Hill is admirable. Phil Hobbs is pretty good.

And is willing to flatter you as extravagantly as you feel you deserve.

As far as I know, John Larkin posts more than anybody else, and that does m ean that he come closer to dominating the group than anybody else.

He does strike me as spending quite a bit of time clucking like a nasty old hen, mostly about how other posters are unkind to him.

He's not all that interested when other people post electronic design probl ems - most of them seem to be a bit too demanding for him to want to stick his neck out by suggesting solutions. Nobody here knows enough to post some thing helpful in response to every electronic query. and quire a few of the queries are from dumb newbies and require quite a lot of work to translate into questions that are specific enough to be worth answering.

We do get enough interesting questions and useful replies to allow the grou p to persist, but there is a great deal of off-topic noise.

The signal to noise ratio isn't high, and you do have to trawl through a lo t of noise to get to the occasional signal. The occasional social - or ant i-social - interaction is a side effect, but it may be what keeps the group active.

eople who aren't flattering you as fulsomely as you feel you deserve.

lls as enthusiastically as you think you ought to.

e change denial puts you in the right-wing nit-wit tribe along with James A rthur and Flyguy.

mean that he come closer to dominating the group than anybody else.

ld hen, mostly about how other posters are unkind to him.

blems - most of them seem to be a bit too demanding for him to want to stic k his neck out by suggesting solutions. Nobody here knows enough to post so mething helpful in response to every electronic query. and quire a few of t he queries are from dumb newbies and require quite a lot of work to transla te into questions that are specific enough to be worth answering.

oup to persist, but there is a great deal of off-topic noise.

lot of noise to get to the occasional signal. The occasional social - or an ti-social - interaction is a side effect, but it may be what keeps the grou p active.

The internet BULLY, SL0W MAN, is pushing everybody else with his NONSENSICA L rules! The DEFENSE against such BULLYS is just to IGNORE THEM!

News flash: putting out fires IS NOT mitigation: Other examples of mitigation measures include: Hazard mapping. Adoption and enforcement of land use and zoning practices. Implementing and enforcing building codes. Flood plain mapping. Reinforced tornado safe rooms. Burying of electrical cables to prevent ice build-up. Raising of homes in flood-prone areas.

In other words, CA is not "mitigating" fires by putting them out.

It certainly mitigates their consequences. Once a fire is out, it doesn't move on to burn anything new.

Mapping the hazard doesn't mitigate anything. It may let you observe the area carefully enough to mitigate the hazard out of existence when it moves from a potential to an actual risk.

That can help , if the practices are - in fact - thorough enough to be useful.

Ditto.

You do have to have some idea of how high the flood is going to go when it arrives. Levees that are two metres above the normal water level aren't all that effective against a three metre surge.

If you can get into them before the tornado hits. If you can't they don't mitigate anything.

That's not mitigating anything. Buried cables can't accumulate ice. That particular problem hasn't been so much mitigated as eliminated.

If you can raise them far enough.

Not in any sense that Flyguy can understand. He doesn't understand much, and most of what he thinks he understands is wrong.

=1

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people who aren't flattering you as fulsomely as you feel you deserve.

kills as enthusiastically as you think you ought to.

ate change denial puts you in the right-wing nit-wit tribe along with James Arthur and Flyguy.

es mean that he come closer to dominating the group than anybody else.

old hen, mostly about how other posters are unkind to him.

roblems - most of them seem to be a bit too demanding for him to want to st ick his neck out by suggesting solutions. Nobody here knows enough to post something helpful in response to every electronic query. and quire a few of the queries are from dumb newbies and require quite a lot of work to trans late into questions that are specific enough to be worth answering.

group to persist, but there is a great deal of off-topic noise.

a lot of noise to get to the occasional signal. The occasional social - or anti-social - interaction is a side effect, but it may be what keeps the gr oup active.

The DEFENSE against such BULLYS is just to IGNORE THEM!

Go for it. Flyguy is a reliable source of ignorance, but he doesn't seem to be all that good at ignoring minor irritations. He can talk the talk, but he can't walk the walk.

Not really. The sunsets around Santa Cruz CA have been more like a blood red sun surrounded by red, gray, and black smog.

I live in Ben Lomond which is in the CZU fire area. I evacuated early and have been living my formerly palatial office for the previous 15 days.

Then do it.

ld

ke it.

hough, have

are making matters WORSE by giving incentives to increase the fuel load in forests:

move on to burn anything new. So what? The original problems are still there: too much fuel in the forest s and

area carefully enough to mitigate the hazard out of existence when it moves from a potential to an actual risk.

eful.

t arrives. Levees that are two metres above the normal water level aren't a ll that effective against a three metre surge.

mitigate anything.

particular problem hasn't been so much mitigated as eliminated.

and most of what he thinks he understands is wrong.

Mitigating means you are eliminating or, at least, reducing the root cause of these fires. The root cause is an over-load of fuel in the forests. So-c alled "environmentalists" are blocking this, particularly the removal of de ad trees. Thus when fires do start, and the inevitably will, the fire becom es a conflagration rather than quick burning of underbrush. Think about it: forests were around a LONG TIME before man showed up and there wasn't cata strophic destruction.

Actually, the root cause is usually lightning strikes. No ignition source means no fire, no matter how much dry vegetation there is to burn.

They don't block it in Australia - we have fuel reduction burns every winter (when it isn't actually raining). It doesn't stop the vegetation burning in summer.

How would you know? "Many plant species in fire-affected environments require fire to germinate, establish, or to reproduce."

What might look like a catastrophe to you might look like a growth opportunity to some of the plants involved.

And we have been having climate change - from ice ages to inter-glacials - roughly every 100,000 years for the past few million years. The forests that have been around for "a long time" have moved around to cope with the regularly changing climate.

What's going on at the moment is moving the planet back to a state that's closer to the one it last experienced some 20 million years ago. The forests are going to have to move a bit further this time.

No, stupid, that is just an IGNITION SOURCE, not the root cause.

We are talking CALIFORNIA here, which, the last time I checked, is NOT in OZ.

It's called EVIDENCE, stupid, of which we have had MANY such fires, including some that are burning RIGHT NOW. Whole towns have been eviscerated, including in OZ.

An entire town getting eviscerated is definitely a catastrophe, stupid.

The forests CAN'T adapt to idiot environmentalists, stupid.

See above.

If you haven't got ignition you haven't got a fire. If you haven't got fuel you can't have a fire , so fuel is a necessary pre-condition for a fire but it's not the root cause.

It's got exactly the same problems, which is why we are shipping a few firefighter over to California to help you out.

The Australian example makes it clear that fuel reduction isn't a complete answer to the problem.

That's not evidence about what happened before there were idiot environmentalists around.

But towns haven't been around for a long time, so that can't have been the kind of catastrophe you were thinking of.

Why not? What's special about idiot environmentalists? They don't think hard enough about what they are asking for, but most of the problems for which the forests have evolved solutions don't involve any thinking at all.

Presumably Flyguy wanted to remind me that he can always find something moronic and irrelevant to say. He didn't need to bother.