Fire and rescue appliances are a bit of a problematic thing to buy as they never go very far and are retired with low mileages.
In my Australian State, South Australia, this a huge contrast with police who buy new from the manufacturer, get a three or maybe five year service contract from the manufacturer and then sell them when the warranty expires and they've done around 100,000 km (60,000 miles). So no servicing worries and they get some tax benefits so it works for them.
Ambulances have less mileage and my guess is retire after 10 years. Ambulances are very standardised so can swap metro and country vehicles to get value from the asset. There was a "twin life" ambulance (http://www.old-ambulance.com/Twin-Life.htm) that had a long life rear bit on a light truck chassis so swap out the motor bit two or three times every 200,000kms, but these days vans are used. There was much sadness in the ambulance fleet buying community when Ford discontinued the F150 type chassis in Australia.
But your average (fire/rescue) appliance in the city or country has low mileage. In the city plenty of use but never have to drive far. In the country not much use but do drive further but end up the same a very old vehicle without much mileage on the clock. Trailers can be even older 50 or 60 years before retirement. Another issue with a fire appliance is they carry water which is heavy, three tonnes is a pretty common load. And have other readers have mentioned a monopoly on manufacture wouldn't help.
I have heard that the problem with ex-emergency services vehicles is they tend to have low distance on the odometer but drastically higher engine hours, particularly idle hours. That is, they may sit with the engine idling for hours at a time to maintain power to the lights, radios, and other vehicle systems, and are generally closer in wear and tear to a vehicle with several times the mileage.
Another problem I have heard of is that while the actual mileage may be low, the miles that are driven tend to be much "harder", in the sense that an emergency services vehicle may be accelerating and stopping rapidly, and generally being thrashed without regard for the vehicle, leading to increased wear on the engine and transmission.
It reminds me of the saying attributed to Jeremy Clarkson, about the fastest car in the world being a rental.
Yes, trucks typically are running with the generator constantly on scene. Also many pumps are run on a PTO system where the transmission is put into a pump gear, further wearing on it since pumps can be run a lot on scene.
It's in Table 1, of the paper. The "safe" night-time level for the bottom 50% of the population is surprising low, 0-1.21 lux. I've been sleeping for years with 10-20 lux (inner city, blinds open so I can enjoy the city lights). Maybe I'll need to close the blinds?
I'm glad that Shanghai has moved to the next level in public transportation in meeting customer demand. Most cities don't have the funds to buy smallish buses and labour available as drivers. They don't have the money or willpower to get frequencies to turn up and go levels (ie frequent) and leave people with long walks to widely spaced routes.
The actual money can’t be the issue. It’s $136 for failure to stop at a stop sign in WA. If they enforced that for 30 seconds per day the cities would be wealthy beyond belief.
Or maybe not-but we’d have much safer traffic! Thus enabling revenue from fewer deaths.
But I digress- the problem with “revenue” for cities is they actively avoid getting it. If they actually wanted or desired more funds for the city, simply enforcing laws is all that is needed. It’s just not desired to have revenue I suppose, if it means enforcing laws and collecting dues owed.
Yes yes I’m probably being “unrealistic” but honestly? Maybe not.
Law enforcement should not be a primary mean of funding for anything, as this creates a plethora of perverse incentives for lawmakers.
That does not mean law enforcement is bad or unnecessary. It just means that law enforcements primary purpose should be to keep people safe and educate, not to fund the districts
TBH if I suddenly notice a massive change in stop sign or speed enforcement, to me, it'd be more of a signal of revenue gathering than safety. It somewhat undermines my opinion of police since I start seeing them more as a money making tool of the bossman.. I really couldn't care less if someone's speeding a bit or rolling stop signs as long as they are actually paying attention. For all I care you can even run red lights as long as no one is coming..
https://kakaku.com (A shopping comparison and review site) has menus not as long as McMaster-Car (down the left side), then more menus in the body and tabs thrown in to boot when you reach a product. Each product page is jam packed with more information. A lot of information yes, good design, not so sure.
I built a very bright light source using a lamp stand from Ikea and the brightest, narrowest beam LED reflector I could find from my big box hardware store. The project works and gave about 10,000 lux but had a few drawbacks. After reading a book for a while a got a headache. The slightest imperfection (read dirt) in the arms of the armchair becomes super obvious. When I look at my right arm holding the book, it's so bright I'm sure I can see veins and arteries. I ended up getting a lamp less bright and that's great for sewing/electronics/fine work but there are limits for how bright you might want to go indoors. I kept the too bright globe for demonstration purposes.
Why did you want a very narrow beam? It seems like the opposite of what you would want from a lamp but I think I'm misunderstanding. And do you have the name of the less bright lamp you got?
The headache could have been from LED flicker. I bought a corn cob LED bulb and it had some high frequency flicker that was visible when using a camera with no anti-flicker compensation.
And once it is released you'll know and the mystery will be gone. I (Australian) was very enthused when the "Somerton man" was resolved. But it took away mystery and wonder from me which actually gave me joy.
Sorry if I missed something, but was it really resolved? AFAICT they likely ID'd the man, but not really anything else about the bizarre case. The note, the clothes labels, the cipher, etc.
Strictly speaking there is a strong suggestion backed by forensic geneology as to who it is, but the Police haven't confirmed it. But for most people it's Carl Webb and not a spy or something more exotic and the ID is enough.
Put me on record as being in the "nothing ever happens" camp: Oswald done it, the grassy knoll is just a particularly grassy knoll, and the remaining 1% or whatever unreleased files contain a fat nothingburger.
You still have to explain the magic bullet impossibilities, fully intact bullet on the stretcher, Oswald as known CIA asset (CIA reports show this), etc.
None of this is really explainable by the official story.
> You still have to explain the magic bullet impossibilities
This has been explained ad nauseam. The bullet went in a straight line.
> Oswald as known CIA asset (CIA reports show this)
I’m sure the CIA has used a lot of unstable people all over. It’s not inconceivable that one of them went on to commit an assassination without being directed to by the CIA. Sometimes things are just boring.
I completely agree that this is the most likely case.
That said, the public deserves to know the extent of the CIA's involvement.
I would be wholly unsurprised if it turned out to be some Mujahideen type deal where taxpayers invested a bunch to up-skill this guy, left him alone once the reason for the investment was over and he eventually came back around to shoot at us.
Sure, maybe the CIA did it, maybe the Cubans or Soviets did it. I'm not really invested in the "real truth" of the situation. I'm just saying that I don't think the remaining documents are going to say anything that we don't already know.
