Capture Them on Film

One of the best deterrents and tools to help to identify people who break into your business or residential property is some type of video camera system – but a surprising number of persons don't seem to be making use of if.

I was talking to the General Manager of construction company specializing in renting the climbing cranes after the fourth alleged theft of copper wiring from construction cranes which would reportedly cost about $100,000.00 to replace according to one police officer.

Amazingly even thought this has allegedly happened on four previous occasions nobody has thought to install a camera system around this property and the Manager seemed absolutely stunned that I would suggest such a thing.

Yet a good quality colour camera system that could be set to work in concert with a motion detector so it was not running all the time would be one of the best ways not only to discourage such crimes but more importantly to get good descriptions for the police. Something they do not seem to have in this case.

In addition to such installation around business property it would be a good idea to install such camera around the perimeter and interior of the homes of any elderly family members who are living by themselves.

You could discourage any such attacks by posting notices on the exterior of the house and making sure that the cameras where installed with battery back-ups and in locations where criminals could damage or remove them before trying to break into the house.

These cameras nowadays do not have to be huge (think pin-hole cameras) to take excellent pictures.




 

Gulf Oil Crisis Illustrates Murphy's Law

The recent explosion at a BP oil drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico is a tragic illustration of Murphy's Law (that if anything can go wrong it will and at the worst possible moment) in operation and also the need to create a continuous assessment, planning and action program in order to deal with emergencies of all kinds.

With modern technology it would have been too difficult or design and create working models of that oil right coping with all kinds of natural or man made disasters from tropical storms and hurricanes to disasters such as the one which resulted in many deaths as well as the continuing destruction of animal and bird life in the Caribbean.

If they had any it doesn't appear that it included a plan to cope with things like explosions and how to deal with them. This has left BP having to play a desperate catch-up game which does not appear to be working.

Ideally one of the most critical things they should have done – and on a smaller scale – every person should do – is make it a practice to not only develop a plan to assess problems, plan effective responses and take the most effective action as they are erupting but also to make it a practice to anticipate problems -- before -- they happen so an effective solution can me put it place immediately instead of experimenting in the hope that something will work.

Maybe some of the game developers so preoccupied with creating war games could divert a little of their attention to creating a few games with possible solutions to such problems if nobody else can dol it.



See the report from AP  on the Google News  page Saturday, June 26, 2010 for a good illustration or example of what I mention here. Click on "Little Spent on  Oil Spill Clean Up Technology"