h a l f b a k e r yactual product may differ from illustration
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But would you even hear it over the normal alarm? |
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Call me old fashioned, I'm one of those people that investigate alarm sounds. |
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if I investigated every alarm I can currently hear, I'd have
very little time to waste on the internet. |
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// I'd have very little time to waste on the internet // |
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The horror, the horror ... |
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Just how many of those alarms are you personally responsible for
triggering ... ? |
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What happens when they test the extra alarrum? |
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Irreversible hearing damage. |
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Would the normal alarm sound when the auxiliary was being tested if there was a real fire? This would then create the necessity of a third alarm.... |
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How would the third-tier alarm ever be tested without causing total
panic ? It would be necessary to have a pre-alarm test warning tone,
which would make an unannounced test impossible - which is of
course completely unacceptable. |
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Maybe the first-tier alarm could be used as the test tone to preceed
the third-tier alarm (except when the second-tier alarm was about to
be tested). |
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Then the second-tier alarm could be used as a confirmation tone for
the first-tier alarm, unless the third-tier alarm was about to be used
for an unannounced test, in which case the first-tier alarm would have
to preceed the third-tier alarm (which would be used as a warning for
the second-tier alarm test, confirming that the first-tier alarm was a
real alarm, unless it was an unannounced test of the second-tier
alarm, in which case the first-tier alarm would only be an advisory for
an announced test of the third-tier alarm (in the absence of a real
alarm from the second-tier alarm, providing the announced test of the
third-tier alarm has been advised before the unadvised test of either
the first or third tier alarms has been initiated) which would then be
the precursor to the announced test of the second-tier alarm. |
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Any member of staff who is incinerated after assuming that an alarm
is in fact a warning for the unannounced test of a higher tier alarm
(where
a lower number designates a higher tier) may (on completion of the
appropriate forms) be entitled to attend an alarm familiarization
course, providing that said course is not interrupted by an
unannounced test of a first or second tier alarm, unless precceded by
an announced test of a third tier alarm acting as advice of an
announced test of an alarm of a higher tier (designated by a lower
number) in advance of an unannounced test. |
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Hire an arsonist to set an actual fire each week during the weekly test. Therefore, no alarm without fire, therefore no second alarm required. |
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You're just oversimplifying it to make things difficult, aren't you ? |
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My lab has (had!) an alarm system that includes a
voice. So, every Wednesday at 11am it would go: |
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"<whoop whoop noise> 'This is a fire alarm. Please
leave the building by the nearest available exit'
<whoop whoop noise>" |
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Then one Wednesday it went: |
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"<whoop whoop noise> 'This is a fire alarm. Please
leave the building by the nearest available exit. This
is not a fire drill.' <whoop whoop noise>" |
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And so most people who were paying attention left
the building. It transpired that the alarm system had
a manual override to add the "This is not a fire drill"
part of the message, and they had to test _that_ too. |
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I'm not sure if there have been any iterative
escalations of this system since then. |
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What would Jesus do, if he were flying coach in a 747 and the fire alarm went off? |
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Turn the wine into water? |
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//iterative escalations// |
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I think I may have walked into one yesterday. On my way to a meeting half way up a large tower block, I found the lobby full of people milling around in a "not sure whether this is an evacuation-drill" sort of way. |
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I heard no alarm, I saw no smoke and the lifts were still working, so I proceeded to my meeting - but that meeting was interrupted at random intervals by variously-worded interruptions over the PA system, which my fellow meetees had already agreed to ignore. |
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Being that I am an expert in this field, (It's my job to
announce over the intercom if it's a real drill or not, in
real
life), You should all listen to my idea about what to do
about
the "new alarm", in terms of how to test it. |
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I say the third
alarm would be tested by me screaming at the top of my
voice over the system "Every man for himself, get the fuck
outta the building as fast as you can, because this is a fake
alarm/alarm. And thank you, have a nice day" There that
settles that. |
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On reflection, maybe a better solution would be to have
the fire alarm sounding continuously, 24 hours a day, with
a silence denoting that the building is on fire. |
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//Every man for himself, get the fuck outta the
building as fast as you can// |
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In my [former] lab, people would have paused to
weigh up whether or not they could finish loading
their gel, do a quick plasmid prep, freeze down some
cells and put six years worth of labbooks into a
carryable box whilst retaining a 50:50 chance of
escaping with only second degree burns. |
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The problem with traditional alarms, is that during an
emergency, you want them to go from nothing, to working.
Now, during emergencies, like when things are on fire,
things often don't work. So when you hear nothing, it's
either because everything is OK, or, the the alarm is on fire
and you will only find out when it's too late. Naturally, this
uncertainty is the source of widespread anxiety whenever
people don't hear the alarm. |
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Into the fray marches the genius of Homer Simpson. By
simply inverting the whole alarm paradigm he has solved it's
inherent problem. Homer invented the "Everything's OK
alarm" <link>. We just need to implement these worldwide.
Nothing spreads the sort of unease entirely appropriate to a
fire better than a sudden silence. |
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If noisy fire alarms are found to be annoying, activating a smoke generator in the air conditioning system would be an effective alternative alarm. Different colours of smoke could be used for tests and real alarms. |
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For art galleries displaying modernist/surrealist paintings, large LCD screens could display images of motorised hole-boring tools and equipment, along with the legend "This Is Not A Drill" ... |
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Keep everybody happy, have constant nature sounds playing in the background and when the birds start freaking out and then everything goes silent... instinct takes over and all us ground-bound critters pay attention. |
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^ to [blissmiss] screaming; "Every man for himself, get the fuck outta the building as fast as you can!" |
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