Posts by charvolant

CSIRO unveils new bushfire software and knowledge base

Re: well done CSIRO

I suggest you read the McLeod report. The RFS started putting a containment line around the fires in their area a week before the 18th. They came in for a bit of stick later on the grounds that they weren't able to complete them in the direction of Wee Jasper before it broke out. If you look at the maps in the McLeod report, you'll see the containment lines.

The "shit country" comment describes accessibility and value. If you can't readily access a fire, you start building containment lines by back-burning from well defined containment lines.

How do I know this? I was one of the people doing the backburning.

35% error rate is pretty good

Since the algorithms are said to be well-known and come in the form of circular slide rules, I expect that they're the McArthur models. They're extremely hard to use with any precision since the equation forms have exponentials all over the place. A little variation in temperature or wind speed, and the spread rate goes off the clock. So I'm impressed by the claim of a 35% error rate.

First FIRE TORNADO documented in Australia

Re: Flying trees

We don't use fixed wing aircraft because they need a place to pick up water. Something like a large lake, a convenient sea or a nice airport with a massive pump attached. These are a bit in short supply in Australia. A helicopter can pick up relatively quickly from a dam or a river and fly back to the fray.

Airborne stuff is good but it just knocks the fire down, slowing it up and allowing ground-based firefighters to then stop the fire before it gets its breath back. I'm part of the NSW RFS near Canberra and helped try to contain the 2003 fire on the NSW side ... and then fought it around the ACT when it didn't work. During that time Elvis dropped its full load in front of me, for which I will ever be thankful. It was really odd watching the fire spring up again afterwards, like a fallen bull pick itself up, shake itself and continue charging.

Incidentally, the whole point of using water on a fire is to get it to evaporate. Water has an absolutely stonking latent heat of evaporation and just sucks heat out as it turns to steam. One of the problems with airbourne water use is that it's quite an inefficient use of it. Although being able to deliver a nice lot of overkill is sometimes just what one wants.

Apple: I love to hate, and hate to love thee

That's the experience I had with my iPhone. It developed a problem with the display, was away for 1 week for evaluation (by the network provider) and 3 weeks for repair (by Apple).

I did get the repaired phone back, rather than a refurb, so I suppose that counts as better service.

Assange 'threatened to sue' Grauniad over leak of WikiLeak

It's a joke, Joyce

@Anonymous Coward

http://everything2.com/title/It%2527s+a+Joke%252C+Joyce