Fit for firefighting?
The human body works in strange ways. I spent January working out on a cross stepping machine, akin to cross country sking. An average workout would last for one hour, at roughly 200 Watts, equalling a burn rate of 800 calories in one hour. Most of February, I was half sick and extremely tired due to stress-related lack of sleep, so no sports. Started again this week, and already on my second workout it’s one hour at 230 Watts, with a 950 calories burn. This elicits a solid WTF. Although I was smashed it would seem my body sort of continued the workout? Strange.
Of course, that’s a steady workout, I try and keep the heart rate between 130 and a maximum of 150. I guess today’s involuntary workout would have been beyond that, as I had to bike the 2,5 kilometres to the fire station for a call. Didn’t make it in time, but an excellent workout!
Twitpic’s explosive growth
Twitpic’s reponse to why they’ve had scaling issues comes as no surprise. It is probably no coincidence that the main surge happened following the plane-in-Hudson twitpic, at least from the looks of it. There are a few other services out there, but Twitpic is somewhat convenient and ubiquitous. And there aren’t many services users are willing to forgive for downtime.
Learning from mistakes
Mistakes are fundamental to the learning process. This certainly applies to firefighting, which, as most other disciplines, is in a state of constant evolution. We learn from experiences, and continously adapt better practices or technologies.
Evolution requires a culture that is willing to deal in an open and honest manner with mistakes or tragedies, which often are a direct result of mistakes.
Over here, we like to take a glance at the US, where major incidents, such as Charleston and many others, are thoroughly examined by bodies such as NIOSH. Further, there is much ground work done by the likes of NIST who look closely at conditions during the incident, to name one example.
None of this is happening over here. There was once a brief period of time when reports were honest and included recommendations, but this is no more. We have a fair deal of fatalities, but the reports are kept “politically correct” as to not hold anyone responsible or liable.
This is in my view insulting to our fellow firefighters who lost their lives, as well as future tragedies that could have been avoided, would recommendations have been provided.
Any system will take time to change, and “we” are trying to do just that, also by reading between the lines and providing “our” own view of things. This is also why I am currently learning basic work with the 3D software called Blender, which should enable me to animate incidents. Much more can be taught in a short time with animated visuals.
More to follow.
Deskploration
Sometimes I wish our very own human eyes would have an adjustable iris.
Abstract serendipitous procrastination
Working on the imagery for the upcoming DVD about extrication, I got sidelined in photoshop and this is what came out of it. I think I’m going to do a photoshopping contest.
-
Welcome
Welcome to Irakli West's personal pages on the Web. I am Danish, live close to Munich in Germany, and run FWnetz, an online magazine and training resource for firefighters. In real life, I am Regional Manager Northern Europe for Paratech and currently training to become a specialist in Urban Search and Rescue as well as Heavy Rescue (it's fun, challenging and serves a good purpose)
-
Twitter
-
Pictures
-
Video