Gorilla Salad posted:

Many of those alarms are either useless or so distracting and overwhelming they make things more dangerous. As you found out, loud screaming noises diminish our ability to function well. Add in a fire and it can be life threatening.

They work great as burglar alarms because, in that instance, you want them to be all confused and poo poo.

The problem comes when people decided to take the "louder is better" and apply it to situations where people need to be able to think clearly or they die.



Speaking of alarms, there was a study done more than a decade ago on why children and teens overrepresented in the data for house fire deaths, specifically in those homes with fire alarms. Turns out, the horrible annoying high pitch alarms do not reliably wake children up when they're in deep sleep.

You need a low pitch, bass sound or they won't even stir. A recorded voice clip is even better, preferably a mature woman.

It's been well over ten years since that finding, with dozens more experiments confirming the findings, but the vast majority of smoke detectors still don't have a low pitch alarm capable of waking a child.

Gorilla Salad posted:

Many of those alarms are either useless or so distracting and overwhelming they make things more dangerous. As you found out, loud screaming noises diminish our ability to function well. Add in a fire and it can be life threatening.

They work great as burglar alarms because, in that instance, you want them to be all confused and poo poo.

The problem comes when people decided to take the "louder is better" and apply it to situations where people need to be able to think clearly or they die.



Speaking of alarms, there was a study done more than a decade ago on why children and teens overrepresented in the data for house fire deaths, specifically in those homes with fire alarms. Turns out, the horrible annoying high pitch alarms do not reliably wake children up when they're in deep sleep.

You need a low pitch, bass sound or they won't even stir. A recorded voice clip is even better, preferably a mature woman.

It's been well over ten years since that finding, with dozens more experiments confirming the findings, but the vast majority of smoke detectors still don't have a low pitch alarm capable of waking a child.

FCKGW posted:

our autonomous robot cars have a taste for flesh and can't be stopped

https://twitter.com/dannoyes/status/979165525912690688

Platystemon posted:

Last time I was in the smoke alarm aisle I saw some voice alert models and thought “I don’t want a goddamn computer voice yelling at me when I burn toast”.

Collateral Damage posted:

I need a smoke alarm that I can shout "I'm only cooking!" at to disable it for 20 minutes.

Pigsfeet on Rye posted:

Mine should shout "Ohshitfuckshitfuck" when enabled.

PhazonLink posted:

My house fire story is that I walked away from the stove when heating a pan of oil on high.

Werong Bustope posted:

Cat screaming and biting my hands because he could smell smoke? Woke me the gently caress up.

Gorilla Salad posted:

Did you know that when you're asleep your sense of smell turns off?

A whole lot of dead people out there who thought, "Oh, I don't need an alarm, I'd smell the smoke and wake up."

Werong Bustope posted:

Solution: replace fire alarms with a system to release distressed cats into the rooms of sleeping people.

Collateral Damage posted:

I need a smoke alarm that I can shout "I'm only cooking!" at to disable it for 20 minutes.

Knockknees posted:

My cat woke me up one night when I had accidentally left the stove on after the flame had burned out. House was full of gas (and of course the house was all sealed up for winter too). I don’t know if it was the gas or because it was three AM but I remember feeling really stupid and it took me a while to figure out what was going on because I think I had become acclimated to the smell. But I just had that feeling “something isn’t right here”, and the cat keep being weird, so I stumbled around until I figured it out.

My cat also wakes me up for food, attention, and spite - so there’d be a lot of false positives on that system.

SpaceCadetBob posted:

Good news on this front. UL is actually changing their listing requirements so that all new smokes after 2020 will have to pass a battery of false fire tests. They will be required to distinguish between cooking fires and other common false alarm sources.

I know I'll be buying new ones as soon as the listing changes.

Randaconda posted:

https://i.imgur.com/Q0I8zap.mp4

Knockknees posted:

My cat woke me up one night when I had accidentally left the stove on after the flame had burned out. House was full of gas (and of course the house was all sealed up for winter too). I don’t know if it was the gas or because it was three AM but I remember feeling really stupid and it took me a while to figure out what was going on because I think I had become acclimated to the smell. But I just had that feeling “something isn’t right here”, and the cat keep being weird, so I stumbled around until I figured it out.

My cat also wakes me up for food, attention, and spite - so there’d be a lot of false positives on that system.

Heffer posted:

Speaking of sirens designed to be unsettling, when Chicagos tornado sirens overlap and echo off the high rises, you really know what the Apocalypse will sound like

Boogalo posted:

https://i.imgur.com/3kaQonO.mp4

Werong Bustope posted:

There was a fire in my block of flats last year while I was asleep (Saturday morning, 8am, demented old man who lives in the flat below had fallen asleep with a cigarette in his hand and set fire to his bed.) Fire alarms going off in the corridor? Didn't wake me up. Neighbour banging on the door? Didn't wake me up. Cat screaming and biting my hands because he could smell smoke? Woke me the gently caress up.

Solution: replace fire alarms with a system to release distressed cats into the rooms of sleeping people.

Delivery McGee posted:

Kibayasu posted:

I don't know how much it has to compare it to modern fire trucks but Regular Car Reviews drove a 1982 fire truck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX4V8xWJyPw

Mr Regular posted:

A firetruck is the best part of someone's worst day

Gorilla Salad posted:

A recorded voice clip is even better, preferably a mature woman.

Heffer posted:

Speaking of sirens designed to be unsettling, when Chicagos tornado sirens overlap and echo off the high rises, you really know what the Apocalypse will sound like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy_oX6SURRE

Boogalo posted:

https://i.imgur.com/3kaQonO.mp4

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Confirmed. My dad and all the other firefighters he worked with are all deaf as gently caress now.

Boogalo posted:

https://i.imgur.com/3kaQonO.mp4

koshmar posted:

Was this in Columbus? There was a recycling plant on the south side off of Parsons that caught fire twice in 2016.

The first time was tires and the second time was pallets. Whats the deal with Columbus and recycling plant fires.

Edit: Not Columbus, but they did have a recycling plant fire on Sunday too.

http://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/recycling-plant-fire-spreads-smoke-over-west-side-of-columbus

ExecuDork posted:

I read something in an airplanes-are-cool magazine when I was a kid, maybe 11 years old or so, about how jet fighters had some of the most important alerts set up as the airplane telling the pilot what was wrong in the voice of his (at the time, all fighter pilots were men) wife, girlfriend, or mother. The Air Force had these women come in and record the warnings for their pilots, so the airplanes would say things like "Honey, your left engine is on fire".

spog posted:

Now I think about, plummeting to your death in a burning jet is bad enough, you really don't want it pleading 'Daddy, please pull up' as it happens

ExecuDork posted:

This is really interesting. Also, it raised a question for me (probably a stupid question): What would happen if a tornado hit a high-rise? Like, a decent F2 or F3 makes direct contact with a 25-story apartment or office block.