I don’t know why, but for some reason I got to wondering about this newer DVD technology that is called Blu-ray.  (And I note that the “r” is lower-case in the trademark.)  When the Battle of the Formats was raging a couple of years ago, everybody more or less just sat back and watched, instead of jumping in and voting with their pocketbooks on which DVD format would end up dominating the entertainment disc market.  They had wised up and weren’t going to get stuck with a new generation of “Sony Beta” video clunkers.

So now here we are, a couple of years later and it looks to me like the Blu-ray still hasn’t taken off yet.  And I’m wondering why.  Well, I know why I haven’t embraced it yet, but what about the televiewing public at large?  In my case, for one thing, it requires purchasing a new DVD player.  Initially they were commanding around $600 for the machines while everybody was still buying the older format (what’s that called, by the way?  “Old Format”?)  So even though the price of the players has come down considerably, there is still no incentive to buy one.

Another impediment (for me, anyway) is the unecessarily higher price being charged for the Blu-ray version of the movies.  Plus, most of the DVD’s that I buy are older tv programs and some newer quality tv series.  Most of those aren’t even being offered in Blu-ray.  Probably because they weren’t filmed in high-def. in the first place.  I can get along very well, thank you, watching my DVD’s in ordinary digital transmission rather than HD anyway.

Apparently, the public at large is getting along just as well.  Blu-ray is out there, available and fairly wide-spread, and still premium priced.  But is the format ever going to take off and become the standard?  All the ordinary players now, including my 3-yr.-old machine, had what’s called an “upconvert” feature that converts older, analog DVD’s into a digital output for today’s television receivers.  I suspect that is still another impediment to the public conversion.  When it comes to selling to the masses, price talks loudest.  Perhaps I should start paying attention to how Walmart will be peddling Blu-rays this Christmas season.  They are definitely the pace setters for mass marketing now.

Something else that is important to me is the ability of the new players to play the old analog DVD’s as well.  I’m pretty sure that they do, otherwise hardly anybody would buy one.  But then, not many people are buying them now, relatively speaking.  So what gives?

I did look up some basic facts about Blu-ray that I found interesting.  For one thing, that technology allows the placing of much more digital information on the disc than the older style.  In fact, it has five times the storage capacity of the traditional disc, 25 GB on a single-layer disc and 50 GB on a double-layer.  That’s impressive if you’re concerned with information storage, such as a research library would be.  Something else I learned is that it got its name from using a blue-violet laser to read the disc instead of a red laser that the older machines used.  The advantage of that is  it has a shorter wavelength than a red laser, which makes it possible to focus the laser spot with even greater precision. This allows data to be packed more tightly and stored in less space, so it’s possible to fit more data on the disc even though it’s the same size as a CD/DVD.  Pioneer Electronics has developed a 20-layer protocol that holds 500 GB of data.

So why aren’t people buying the things?

We’d better start accumulating our daily data and get this equipment checked out now.  I need some more coffee.

I see that a few folks are already having some fun with the “Fill In Your Own Headline” posting that we put up last night (next item down).  When I first read the article, it reminded me of another funeral home fire that I reported last year, but I got a little carried away on the headline (click HERE) and I learned that I can’t be trusted with those things.  Thanks for helping out, Guys.

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The other day STATter911 linked to still another story about a municipality (this time West Palm Beach, Florida) that spent a bundle on a consultant’s report that recommends slashing FD positions and doing silly things like operating 2-man engine companies.  This kind of stuff goes on all the time with these “consultants” who come charging in with the pre-determined conclusion that eliminating jobs is the solution.  Sometimes the city council takes them seriously and goes ahead and decimates the fire department, ending up with a real mess that they never recover from.

These consulting groups know all about safe operations, R.I.T.’s and task performance standards, but they recommend the layoffs anyway for one basic reason:  They want to stand before the council/board and tell them that their proposal will save the city/county X millions of dollars and thus justify the meager hundreds of thousands that the council spent on the study.  That’s how these consultants earn their living, conning the politicians.  If the council chooses to ignore or pare back on the recommendations, then it becomes their decision and the consulting group rides off into the sunset with their saddlebags stuffed with $$’s and another tic on their resume.

I recall from quite a number of years ago when the board of supervisors for my county hired one of these outfits to examine the operations of the FRD and make recommendations on how to improve the efficiency.  The board wasn’t looking to slash the budget, they just wanted to make the department operate more efficiently.  That didn’t matter, these saviors only knew one thing, “Fire the bastards!”  And when they turned in their report it was filled with three dozen little items that surrounded the Big Suggestion to whack about 20% of the uniformed positions and eliminate most of the ladder trucks.

Which leads us to the most memorable part of the report.  In lieu of having truck companies show up to rescue people, they suggested that we have 2 or 3 strategically-located “flying squads” (in a 400-sq. mi. jurisdiction) that would be dispatched on every fire call to do the rescue work.  I could just picture the FF’s hollering up to the poor slob on the windowsill, “Hang in there….the flying squad will be here in about 12 minutes!”  But wait, there’s more …..  The consultants got specific with the creation of the Flying Squads by advising the supervisors that they should be staffed with “action-anxious firefighters.”  Their exact words.  A defiintion that probably describes 95% of everybody on the force.  That one sure generated some ridicule for this outfit.

Fortunately for us and the citizens, the board paid off their debt to the consultants and then ignored the entire report.  That was the first and the last time they wasted the citizens’ money on those snake oil salesmen.

Hey, it’s getting late.  We’d better get this equipment checked out now.  I’ll make sure there’s some fresh coffee.

Following up on yesterday’s thoughts (HERE) about unsafe electrical appliances and counterfeiting the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) label, I’ve learned a few more things about it.  One of our readers brought up a good point in that one practice that the fraudsters are doing is to acquire a legitimate approval and number with a proper device, and then after that, they begin attaching it to sub-standard copies of the approved product.  In effect, you are seeing a bona fide label that has been applied to a non-approved cord.

There is a Codes and Standards Blog online published by Kelly P. Reynolds (HERE) that has some good tips on how to recognize a genuine UL mark when shopping/inspecting.  He also has a list of tips on how to spot a counterfeit mark such as being able to identify the proper design of the label, including things like the lack of a toll-free phone number for customer service.  Part of the article suggests three sales sources that you should be suspiscious of, two of which we mentioned yesterday.  One is the “deep discount” or dollar stores, another is the flea market, and thirdly is the long-practiced warning of avoiding deals that are too-good-to-be-true.

Reynolds also informs us that beginning this past July 1, the UL has begun issuing their label printed as a holographic mark.  Go ahead and read his brief posting to learn what this new design looks like.  CLICK HERE to see the list of product lines that the UL is requiring to use the holographic label effective now.

Recently there has also been a proliferation of cheap, faulty Christmas tree lights bearing counterfeit approvals.

Another thing that FD’s need to be aware of is their localities’ willingness to identify and then prosecute violators who sell these defective items.  Using a counterfeit label is fraud, and that is against the law everywhere.  But what about selling electrical products without any lable at all on them?  The adoption of acceptable codes are the choices made by state-level and local authorities who have the ability to not require basic safeguards like this.  What does your area use for an electrical code?  A fire code?  Does your local prosecuter pursue violators who ignore the safety requirments?

At the very least, we can all work to  educate ourselves on this growing problem and take steps to protect our own families from these potential fire hazards.

Time to get the equipment checked out now, so let’s get started.  I’m going to get a fresh pot started.

Science takes a look at buckling up:

I was reading an article (HERE) about a police raid on a flea market over the Labor Day weekend.  It took place in Hillsville, Virginia, a small mountain town in the SW corner of the state that holds a big flea market and gun show every Labor Day that brings visitors from a wide area, and because of that there are several hundred dealers set up in the market.

Acting on tips and past experience, the Virginia State Police had 12 special agents visit the show on the first day of the 4-day event looking for counterfeit merchandise.  “We were just mainly looking for vendors who were selling expensive hand-bags, watches and jewelry,” (State Police Sgt. Michael) Conroy said. “If someone was selling a designer purse for $25 that would ordinarily sell for several hundred dollars in a store, that’s something we were looking into.”

After doing their preliminary scouting around the setup, they went back and arrested 10 vendors who were selling large quantities of knock-offs.  After going through the on-site booking procedure, the police next seized the suspected counterfeit goods and literally filled a 40-ft. trailer with the contraband evidence that had an estimated value of $2.5 million.  What caught my attention in this story was that one of the vendors was arrested for selling electrical supplies that had fake Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL) labels on them.  “We found a surge protector that had a counterfeit UL label,” Conroy said. “If someone installed it in a home and it caused a fire, it could have resulted in a loss of life and destruction of property.”

That triggered a faint light in my memory bank.  I recall reading something a couple of years ago about all these cheap, counterfeit goods that are pouring out of Communist China and flooding Americans stores, and one of the serious issues was the proliferation of electrical goods with the phony UL labels on them.  A huge outlet for these items, mostly extension cords and similar things like the aforementioned surge protector, are the so-called “dollar stores” that have sprung up around the country.

That leads me to further wonder just how are fire departments equipped to identify and deal with counterfeit UL -tagged products?  How widespread is it?  I think I’ll start looking into this for a little while and see what’s going on with it.  Meanwhile, I know that many of our readers work in fire marshal offices, so I’d appreciate it if you’d let us know, either in the Comments or by email, if your FM is doing anything to identify and remove these inherent hazards.  How do you spot them?  Is there an ongoing inspection program where you look for them?  Inquiring minds want to know.

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After you finish up here, make sure that you scroll down to the next posting and read FossilMedic’s announcement.  After a tedious process, the 2nd edition of his book Fire Officer: Principles and Practice jointly published by IAFC and the NFPA is now available for purchase.  For some unfathomable reason they didn’t put his name on the cover, but it’s on the inside along with about 18 months of hard work and I want to take a moment to offer Mike a hearty “Congratulations !!” for bringing the project to fruition.  After you read his brief description of the contents, I’m sure that many of you will want to get a copy for your own career enhancement, both paid and volunteers. 

It is officially released for sale tomorrow, but you can pre-order it now by clicking on the Amazon.com link that we have at the end of the posting.  And don’t forget to order one for the station library, too!

Now let’s get this equipment checked out.  I’ve got to get the coffee started.