71–80 of 341 posts
They can and should own as much as they think makes sense.
Economically, the potential cost is trivial. Not a concern to me at all.
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> one can't help but suspect that sheer tradition is a somewhat significant factor Only if you didn't read the article. "There's a city-specific reason why San Francisco has stuck with wood rather than swap over to metals, and the answer lies in looking up. The high-voltage cables and wires that guide the city's (oft-maligned) public transport system Muni, and trolley cars crisscross above nearly every street, mean t…
There are plenty of ladders on the market that are non-conductive. None of them are wood because wood is conductive. (though wood does have some interesting fire properties that probably make them better anyway)
Americans seem to take a lot of pride in their fire brigades - their fire engines are still shiny and polished with more traditional signage and the fire fighters still wear helmets with their traditional shape. In the United Kingdom they wear more simple uniforms and the engines are just a box shape with no bells any more - seems a shame. Usually it's UK the has more ceremony in these kind of things.
> the fire fighters still wear helmets with their traditional shape. The helmets are practical. They're basically construction hard hats with a rain brim.
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> one can't help but suspect that sheer tradition is a somewhat significant factor Only if you didn't read the article. "There's a city-specific reason why San Francisco has stuck with wood rather than swap over to metals, and the answer lies in looking up. The high-voltage cables and wires that guide the city's (oft-maligned) public transport system Muni, and trolley cars crisscross above nearly every street, mean t…
And only if you're also about 40 years behind ladder tech - notice the stepladders in the "A view of the main repair facility" photo? They're nonconductive fiberglass. They're stronger than wood, lighter than wood, don't need to be oiled/varnished, don't require cutting down old-growth trees, and aren't susceptible to moisture damage. You can buy them exhaustively tested, mass produced, in whatever quantities you req…
How about the aluminum cross braces of your fiberglass ladder, how do those hold up in the high heat of a structure fire? What does that do to service life?
This is super cool but I'm positive this is also super wasteful
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That was also written before there were many commercially available tools. (Still a great book!) Perhaps tool specialist is more important today?
I believe a toolmaker on a team is still critically important. I have yet to see a team or organization that doesn't have a suite of (often poorly maintained) custom tooling that automates things together or provides functionality critical to the business.
They often fall in the middle of everything, and there is no set team to handle them (“everyone’s responsible”). Then as they’re critical, someone can’t just take half an hour to do a quick fix, it must be reviewed (and no one actively wants to review it, as it’s not trivial and not their job —- cf “everyone’s responsible —-). Plus anyone succesfully fixing them will be flagged as a potential maintainer when everyone else is running away.
Internal tooling in software companies is a beast in its own.
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It makes sense for a job where 95% of the time is spent waiting for an emergency to react to .
> a job where 95% of the time is spent waiting for an emergency to react to. this describes quite accurately the work of many people maintaining computer systems
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Not really. Most firefighters in the US are volunteer, so not enough pride to pay people to do it. In big cities, it's more of an internal camaraderie thing. They live together, cook together, shop together, etc. A lot prefer being at the station with their 'brothers' to being at home.
Most firefighters in the US are volunteer, so not enough pride to pay people to do it. Having a volunteer fire department does not mean there isn't pride. In fact, it can be argued the opposite -- Volunteer departments mean the citizens take enough pride in their brigade that they get directly involved in it, rather than farming it out as a civil service.