From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Fri Sep 06 2002 - 20:57:45 MDT
>
>
>>From: spike66 <spike66@attbi.com>
>>
>>Currently building codes require smoke detectors to be
>>installed in new homes, one in each bedroom and in some
>>hallways, always on the ceiling. Its the law.
>>
Charles Hixson wrote: They are still a poor design...
Ja. Understatement. They are generally too large in diameter
to twist and remove with one hand, and even if one has a
sufficiently large and strong paw to manage it, one still
cannot remove the 9 volt battery without some kind of
pry device, which requires removal of both hands from
the ladder or wall, assuming one has a ladder, and is not
standing on a chair. This pry device is just perfect for
impaling hapless proles who fall off ladders or chairs stacked
with books.
Consider this rough estimate:
San Francisco has about a million proles and San Jose
about a million more and all the rest of the cities within
about 100 km, about a couple million more, so thats about
4 million, and each tract shack houses about 4 so thats
about a million households. Each tract shack has about 6
smoke detectors, so thats 6E6 smoke detectors, and
a battery lasts, oh, a couple years, so on any given day
there are about ten thousand batteries being changed.
You figure about half the households will either have
a young coordinated member to change the battery,
or can call one, so thats 5000 trips up a ladder per day
by some yahoo who probably shouldnt be up there, and
of those some will be in the aforementioned categories:
clumsy, elderly, drunk or stupid.
Out of 5000 ladder trips, I would not be a bit
surprised if 1%, or 50 proles a day, fall off and
damage themselves. Of those, I would not be
surprised if 5% are serious injuries, perhaps
even causing early demise as a direct or indirect
result.
So I would estimate in the 100 km radius from
where I live, 2.5 proles a day perish from falling
from ladders while trying to change the damn
batteries in their OSHA-mandated smoke detectors!
>Brian D Williams wrote:
>Don't wait for it to run out.
>
>For a number of years now various organizations have been
>advocating changing the battery twice a year, on the days we use
>for changing to/from daylight savings time. For those who live
>where this is not practiced, choose two other dates.
>
With the estimate given above, this doesnt help.
Other than it eliminates the grogginess aspect,
it actually makes the estimate worse, since it
increases by 4 the number of trips up the ladder.
>Spike youre too valuable to lose. ;) Brian
>
You are too kind.
Nowthen, just to show I am serious, I will mark these
comments with the appropriate emoticon. |8-|
How many lives do these smoke detectors save?
Consider the aforementioned 100 km radius from
my home just north of San Jose Taxifornia.
There is a house fire about, oh, I would say about one
a day on average. Since Taxifornia generally has
few fireplaces, the conflagrations are often cooking
fires, under which circs the smoke alarm is not just
useless but a blasted screeching annoyance in addition
to your ruined sustenance. }8-\
Another biggie is drunkards passing out while smoking
in bed. But if the unconscious sot is so konked as to
sleep thru a freaking BURNING BED, the howling smoke
detector probably wont rouse him either, so no help there.
Many of the rest of the fires occur when no one is
around, the classic oily rags in the garage scenario,
or the intentional insurance fire. Since in this
area, everyone works to pay off the mind-boggling
mortgages on these shacks, they often burn to the
ground in a totally deserted neighborhood, so no one
is at risk and no one is around to hear the alarm, and
we *still* dont know if an alarm in a midday Taxifornia
neighborhood makes any noise. (True story: couple
weeks ago, 5 streets over, a house fire started
during the day. Four houses were burning before
anyone noticed and called the authorities.)
Only those fires which start in the night while all
the residents are home and asleep are those in which
a smoke detector would actually contribute to
safety. If everyone is at home asleep perhaps
a quarter of the time, and ignoring the fact that
most fires start because some goof is doing something
stupid, and we assume 4 sleeping proles are thus
saved, *the smoke detectors are saving an average
of one prole per day.* |8-|
The previous estimate has these satan-inspired devices
slaying 2.5 a day, just in changing out the damn batteries! |8-|
Nowthen, extropians, where am I going wrong? Has the
government really mandated a safety device that causes
more risk than it alleviates? I do think so. |8-|
Its like those government mandated airbags that turned
out to be very dangerous to short people. Crimonies,
they already have nobody to love, now they have to have this
airbag problem too? {Kidding, Harvey, bygones. {8^D}
Anyone have a counterestimate on the smoke detector
thing? It should be interesting over the next few years
to be one who gathers statistics from the emergency
room. As new homes are built with all these smoke
detectors, the medics should see a gradual decline in
the number of smoking black corpses carried in the
door and a less gradual increase in the number of
broken and perhaps perishing geezers who fell while
changing smoke detector batteries. |8-|
spike
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