The fire alarm in my apartment is way too sensitive - all I have to do is boil some water and it goes off. Nobody in my building, myself included, takes it seriously or even pays attention to it because it goes off every other day, plus it's really getting on my nerves. Is there anything I can do about it to fix it? Do I need to just get a new one, and if so is there anything in particular I should look for? I have a low income, I don't really want to buy a lot of fire alarms until I find one that works.
You can use salt water to put out a fire, it is just much harder to get the salt water out of the ocean and to the scene of the fire. The Navy, Coast Guard, and many fire boats use salt water all the time. Depending on the time of the fires in NYC, really depends on the answer; if it was on the History Channel it may have been a long time ago before they had an adequate water delivery system (mains and hydrants) that led them to let the fires burn, not that there was salt water. The major downfall to salt water use is it corrodes the pump and piping.
Traditionally, it's regarded as bad luck to have a mirror on stage. A silver-painted imitation was used instead. You could have a mirror on the wall made from pieces of alfoil-covered ply that fit together like a jigsaw. It could then shatter when hit from behind by a stagehand at the appropriate time. A piece of black rubber sheeting behind the mirror would hide the stagehand's movement, and the whole thing could fit in a normal mirror frame attached to the wall. If the wall is at an angle to the audience, the fact it's a fake won't be obvious.
