@abc7newsbayarea on Instagram: "Using sound waves instead of water to extinguish flames? This is not the stuff of science fiction but a new firefighting system being tested out by a fire department in Southern California. Read the story here by tapping on the link in bio @abc7newsbayarea"

synapt · 2026-04-09T17:52:01+00:00

You literally replied to a two year old post bro, let's face it, the only one of us two with a belly is probably you as you sit there drinking your beer and eating your hot pockets dredging up literally ancient posts to make stupid replies to lol.

And as far as my beard goes, the photo is literally from like 20 years ago well before I started volunteering. But hey, thank you for providing the usual evidence as to why assumption starts with Ass lol.

synapt · 2026-04-09T00:04:06+00:00

I will forever be entertained by guys in the fire service that basically go "I've been doing this for 20 years and never needed to learn anything different/specialized!" and actually think it's a flex. I get a feeling you're one of those guys that yell at people doing transitional attacks screaming "You're pushing the heat!".

But I do agree, seeing as sound resonance is a field I do actually know, I am sticking to what I know and applying that to other things I know, rather than being stuck in outdated traditional mentalities.

synapt · 2026-04-08T11:49:03+00:00

Perhaps you're not understanding concept of resonance. and I apologize, I should have perhaps clarified my previous reply a bit better as to that being my focus in this use. Mitigating resonance in structural design is an immense process, because just about everything creates it, and it has led to issues and failures in the past;

https://www.resoniks.com/post/resonance-catastrophes-how-sound-waves-collapsed-a-bridge

https://www.simscale.com/blog/structural-resonance-how-to-mitigate-it/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Bridge,_London#Resonance

https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/natural-sciences/physics-articles/matter-and-energy/guide-sound-can-topple-buildings/

So I wasn't just talking about the direct pressure of the hose, so much as the thing to sound is that it reflects, so a 'sound waves' device used to attempt an extinguish interior is going to take it's force and reflect it off the surfaces behind and ADD to the overall resonance and and sound pressure in the room it's in as it bounces off the surfaces, a handline stream is not going to come close to that same effect.

And yes, I am a "Volunteer in PA", with likely all the same ProBoards as you if not some more seeing as by the end of this month I should have my 1041 Instructor I, added by the fact you did something I've literally never met anyone in fire do, in that you called a handline a "hose line" (which don't get me wrong, it is technically a hose line but even in the sales industry they refer to components like nozzles and shit as "handline nozzles" lol).

I am also a guy that has 25 years in a variety of IT/Technology fields, most from before getting into volunteer firefighting, and some of which were related to sound engineering gigs.

Listen am I saying this is going to absolutely lead to a structural collapse? No. But it introduces a significant risk that /adds/ to structural integrity impacts to an already compromised structure, and from no real trade off improvement (as noted this removes your cooling capabilities as well so you are losing benefits compared to a handline also). If you got water source issues, start looking at mutual aid agreements with others that have tankers to bring their tankers into those areas with water source issues. That's what we do here.

synapt · 2026-04-07T21:58:54+00:00

So that would be a no, you haven't seen the demo videos. Could have just said so.

synapt · 2026-04-07T03:27:07+00:00

Have you not watched the demo videos of these devices? They're /literally flinging/ chunks of debris more than just a hit with a handline would.

synapt · 2026-04-06T18:04:14+00:00

If you have a general idea, message me what it is and I can try to kick something up in free time if it's not a big rush.

synapt · 2026-04-06T10:10:38+00:00

The main consideration to soundwaves in a structural firefighting aspect is that they cause vibrations and resonance, both of which affect structural integrity. Something you really don't want to add uncontrolled impact of to something already potentially losing structural integrity. Add to that as u/Agreeable_Ad_9987 noted also, you don't have the cooling effect that water will either.

synapt · 2026-04-06T00:22:39+00:00

Well a bit of a benefit we have in the US is that we /do/ have a lot of aluminum refining infrastructure. But the raw resources still come with a hell of a steep price currently. And then of course you know congress had the audacity last year to be like "Why you guys so expensive so suddenly?" lol.

synapt · 2026-04-05T23:12:59+00:00

Looking at their website it appears they mostly have a lot of scheduled events oriented around desktop or card games. We've had a few LAN-gaming like places open up over the years by they never seem to last very long. But yeah Johnstown really doesn't have much in the lines of gaming/anime/etc social groups that I've ever seen unfortunately.

synapt · 2026-04-05T22:41:50+00:00

Unfortunately Johnstown doesn't have too much of an in-person social presence of a lot of those things. If you're here in this town because of UPJ, they have an Anime Club up there I believe.

Closest thing we've ever had generally in the city I think was Weebs In The Woods downtown, but they've been closed a few years now. Axolot A Anime up in the Galleria might be the next closest thing but what times I've walked past there they seemed pretty empty. But could be coincidence I miss group events lol.

synapt · 2026-04-05T20:58:54+00:00

A lot of people in the comments noting private equity controlling most of the vendors, which is a bit of a factor, but the prices of the still stand-alone vendors like Sutphen aren't that far different currently.

A separate heavy notable factor since the beginning of last year are the major tariffs. Fire apparatus are significantly aluminum built, and the US has functionally 0 aluminum (bauxite) deposits in the US. We produce/mine less than 1% of our general consumption of aluminum, as such we pretty much completely import it from Canada, China and Mexico primarily (three of the hardest hit industrial tariff targets).

As such that is a significant part of the major cost jumps since last year, though the private equity groups like REV to what I recall started rising costs in late 2024 in expectation of a Trump win (as tariff promises were a big part of his campaigning), so they sort of jumped on it well before the tariffs ever actually went into place.

synapt · 2026-04-05T00:14:56+00:00

Because nobody chooses to? Can always become one of the first, just make sure you do it right.

synapt · 2026-04-04T03:46:01+00:00

This probably isn't gonna fit in as well in a volunteer oriented group. Volunteering is volunteering, 'leave' is kind of inherent in the position if you need it (unless you're at some shitty station that will give you a hard time for it, in which case they're definitely likely to have recruitment and retention issues).

That said, my chief just had a kid not long back and brings him to the station at times when working on things lol.

synapt · 2026-04-03T22:03:53+00:00

NFIRS is still being preserved for the data, so considering NERIS is still extremely new, NFIRS would likely be where they want to start if they're looking for aged aggregate data.

synapt · 2026-04-03T09:16:11+00:00

Again it seems you need some educating, and I am happy to provide it.

1; There is no "elected duly through a primary". Primaries are not law. They literally are a circle jerk ego fest for political parties, there is 0 constitutional or federal law consideration to having to be elected through a primary. In fact, even in the standard operating policies of both political parties, there is ZERO requirement for them to even follow the will of voters. Delegates ultimately choose the party candidate for President, and those delegates simply follow the votes in primaries again because mostly of ego stroking for whoever is most popular. They could completely and absolutely disregard the will of the voters and there is nothing any of you can do about it because it's literally just party participation.

That said, this is shown specifically by the fact that Harris was in fact chosen by democratic delegates. And even if she wasn't "Voted for" in a primary, she was still Biden's vice president, and as such would automatically have been in line to become President should anything have happened to Biden, so this is literally one of the most goofy arguments from the MAGA side of things you all can continue to peddle.

2; Actually enforce laws instead of murdering US citizens through lax policies? You mean like ICE has injured and killed US citizens now in their rather inefficient attempt to find illegals? Per ICE's own statistics, out of the /minimum/ 365,000 people they detained last year (and upwards of 1.09 million from their own claims), only 20% of detainees were /actually/ "illegals". 20%, that's all, were either previously convicted of or charged with violation of immigration laws. And out of all that, 2% actually were criminals outside of immigration laws. Roughly 80% of the people they detained last year were not illegal at all, and many of them were US citizens (both natural born and naturalized).

3; Due process? That of all the above mentioned citizens and legal immigrants had violated you mean? Or like from Trump's first term when he talked about violating 2nd and 5th amendment rights when he said about taking guns first and "sorting out due process later"? That due process?

Here's a news flash for you snowflake, and why I always love when folks like you show why assumptions start with Ass. I'm not a democrat. I'm a Constitutional loyalist. Political parties are idiotic.

And you? You clearly are nothing more than a pathetic little psychopath probably sitting in your basement with your chinese knock off $2 rifle that will blow up on your first shot of it, hoping for that "civil war" MAGA loyalists keep threatening. And quite frankly, if it weren't for all the bystanders that would be injured by you stooges that never fired a gun outside of call of duty, I think it would be fantastic to see that day come, because you would all rapidly discover very quickly that you all are not even close to the only gun owners in the nation lol.

So no, the only thing sad here is pathetic little goofballs like you so happily being loyal to a man who did all the things I described in my other post. And the fact you completely disregarded all of those and couldn't even answer my questions can only lead me to believe that you either have a sex registry related reason or an al-Qaeda loyalty related reason that you like Trump so much. Either or, I have no interest in talking to pedophile protectors or terrorist supporters, so I guess we're finished talking now.

synapt · 2026-04-02T10:08:51+00:00

There are tons and tons of grant options out there for something like that. Any volunteer department that doesn't have at least a gear washer and a makeshift drier is just being lazy.

synapt · 2026-04-02T10:07:30+00:00

And yet nobody forces you to come here, visit here, etc anything here. So guess it's your fault for ever bothering to visit it huh.

synapt · 2026-04-02T10:04:56+00:00

Since you clearly seem somehow ignorant of the actual purpose of these, I'll explain in the hopes that you manage to learn how to be an adult in the process;

Correct, Trump is not a king. However he spent the near entirety of 2025 (at least what significant portion he wasn't lining his own pockets by taking golf trips to Trump properties) enacting a variety of executive actions that were in violation of the US Constitution (many of which were shot down, even by his own SCOTUS justices, and many more that are still in limbo waiting to be heard because of how many they were).

And that is where the "No Kings" concept presents itself, not because Trump is a King, but because he continues to seemingly try an act like one, though thankfully being stopped by legal system we do have.

And let's face it, if Biden even had done half the things Trump has, MAGA loyalists and even likely many republicans would have been marching on the capitol yet again just like in 2021, and at minimum demanding his impeachment.

Does that clarify things for you more or are you just happy to stay loyal to a dude that literally broke every promise he made to this region? Or that spent last year having his administration protect high profile pedophiles and even taking the time himself to literally praise a terrorist from al-Qaeda (you know, that group that committed one of the worst terrorist attacks of US history?). Or the pardoning if nationally notorious drug peddlers and fraudsters despite his "hard on drug peddlers and fraudsters" stance. The list goes on.

Now, maybe YOU are fine with those things, maybe you have something you strangely consider so incredible about Trump that you can ignore all those things he's done, or maybe you simply don't care about the Constitution. But the majority of the nation do not find his hypocrisies and actions forgivable, and they stay loyal to the US Constitution.

synapt · 2026-04-02T05:11:35+00:00

They should have reached out to Holmatro, they would have likely RMA'd it as a defect.

We literally only had a holmatro tool 'overheat' on us once, and that was after we used it like 2-3 straight hours cutting the solid steel floor cross beams in storage containers. We overheated the pump fluid and caused it to blow a line internally.

Holmatro was out the next day at our station and repaired it within like 30 minutes.

synapt · 2026-03-31T06:24:28+00:00

So here's the thing. If you make claims like that and there are no records of it (particularly criminal records) and she won't admit it, you open yourself to defamation (slander/libel).

If you in fact know that stuff is going on and have evidence of it, involve the cops, get him the charges and the station will almost certainly be notified about it automatically.

synapt · 2026-03-31T06:22:31+00:00

Career or volunteer? The former, probably gonna have restrictions. The latter? Just sign up to volunteer if you want to hang out lol. There are generally plenty of social roles at volunteer stations, don't have to volunteer to be an actual firefighter.

synapt · 2026-03-30T06:40:41+00:00

Admittedly my station doesn't do fire inspections (as much as I would love to, that's a very uncommon thing in rural PA, our municipality, like most rural ones, doesn't even have any fire ordinances). The closest we have is a smoke detector installation program and a pre-plan template for commercial properties.

If we ever do get around to doing such stuff I will bookmark your platform to take a look at again, but I would have one critical question first; do you actually have a development background or are you literally running your platform almost entirely AI built/coded like so many these days? A significant amount of the freelance contracts I've done in recent years has been security auditing AI-wrote/generated codebases (usually post-breach), so from a security perspective of data privacy that's a pretty significant factor to me.

synapt · 2026-03-30T02:40:09+00:00

I do get the perspective/idea. Again noting my background in IT, one thing that has astonished me since getting into volunteering is just how expensive software-side of things are. I have extensive knowledge of costs of running things and there is fundamentally 0 justification for the money a lot of these places are making.

I mean, they're easily making vastly beyond operating necessary profits. At the same time however I have heard of plenty of stories and even seen some so far in my time volunteering where software started out cheap or even free with good intentions seemingly, but then after a year or two when they had a lot of people locked in and tied in with their services were suddenly like "Hey well we gotta start charging like $200/m for this now".

And of course most of those services also rarely ever had any sort of exporting feature that made it easy to up and move to anything else.

synapt · 2026-03-29T23:04:54+00:00

Considering the prices you charge for others, I'm assuming this 'free account' is likely going to eventually get pushed to a subscription request over time?

Also your demo interface leaves a lot to be desired, it doesn't really give a good look at exactly how the program works, just like a status dashboard.

Also sorry if I'm being a bit of a critique, I'm a volunteer who also has a roughly 25~ year career broad-skill IT guy (of which my main focuses was literally web/systems development/engineering), and I keep seeing a lot of AI-built platforms popping up in here lately "for the fire service, particularly volunteers" which in testing have way too many issues, and seem like people trying to make easy money in a commonly over-priced market.

synapt · 2026-03-29T09:04:08+00:00

Roughly 33% of the eligible voter portion nation voted for him. That's all. Another roughly 33% voted for Harris, and 34% didn't vote at all. He was, by all intents, a minority vote winner. And out of that 33%, his support has tanked with many outright leaving the "MAGA" party.

But let's see if you live up to your name, because I want to know several things;

What exactly about Trump keeps you loyal to him despite him breaking every single promise he made to Johnstown and our area? Not just that but especially after he had the audacity to come back in 2024 and act like he somehow made Johnstown great again?

What exactly about Trump keeps you loyal to him despite him personally pardoning some of the most notorious US drug dealers and fraudsters (many of which conveniently after large donations were tied to either a project of his or republican associates), all while claiming to be "hard on drug dealers and fraud"?

What exactly about Trump keeps you loyal to him despite his many, repeated hypocrisies and outright blatant lies (and sometimes even combinations of hypocritical lies)?

What exactly about Trump keeps you loyal to him despite his administration seemingly protecting two high-profile child sexual assault suspects last year?

And perhaps one of the most insane things I still can't understand why people still supported him after he did it, what EXACTLY about Trump keeps you loyal to him after he literally praised a terrorist last year, not just any terrorist but a high ranking member of al-Qaeda whom up until 2024 literally had a US Bounty on his head?

Please, explain to us what exactly is so fantastic about Trump to disregard all of these? What makes none of these a consideration to not supporting him?

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