Latest news with #JohnMills
Fast Company
13-07-2025
- General
- Fast Company
How Watch Duty became a go-to app during natural disasters
During January's unprecedented wildfires in Los Angeles, Watch Duty—a digital platform providing real-time fire data—became the go-to app for tracking the unfolding disaster and is credited with saving countless lives. Six months out from the fires, Watch Duty's founder and CEO, John Mills, shares how his small nonprofit responded in the heat of the crisis and became a trusted source—even for government agencies. As wildfire season rages on and Texas recovers from devastating floods, Watch Duty's story underscores both our growing vulnerability to natural disasters driven by climate change and the power of community-based solutions to keep us safe and connected when it matters most. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today's top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. As I understand it, Watch Duty is a nonprofit and it's an app that gathers information largely from volunteers, right? From regular people who are monitoring fires? It's like a community? Very much so. You can look at Reddit and Wikipedia in a similar way. The difference is, we do it live. We have about 200 volunteers, about 20 paid staff, about 10 of those are radio operators themselves. But the information really comes from fire service radio. So after going through a couple of disasters, you realize that there's not a Starlink in every truck. The communication systems aren't very good. The firefighters are in danger, and the only way to hear what's actually going on is through them collaborating with each other in real time, through the radio. And so we hear: 'Fire starting here, burning over this ridge.' 'Tankers and dozers are coming.' 'Holding the line to Highway 87.' 'Now the wind's picking up, the fire's spotting over the ridge.' 'It's burning over so-and-so, houses are being impacted.' You hear this live. There is no data source for this. There's not a place for this to happen without us. So that's how we do what we do. And this community of volunteers, are they fire workers? Or are some of them just watching and sharing what they're seeing? A lot of them were 30-, 40-year wildland firefighters, dispatchers, reporter types, sons and daughters of firefighters who grew up in the fire service with the radio chatting in the background. So it sounds like there was a community that was there that you tapped into. I understand you had to persuade them a little bit to see you as more than just a tech guy. That's the beauty of this. We just saw the human behavior and helped enable them to do it better. One of the fires I went through, which was one of the big ones in 2020, when the sky turned red up in Northern California, I was watching them on Facebook and Twitter already doing this. So they were kind of regionalized. There was someone in Red Bluff, someone in Redding, someone in SoCal, someone in Sonoma, Napa. They were independently doing this. They knew each other. They would talk and collaborate a little bit, but they wouldn't organize together. They weren't adversarial, they just didn't spend time really collaborating. The innovation was really [to] convince them all to work together—that I was not [just] a techie. That I lived here, like them, in the same danger that they did. The key was to convince them that I'm here to help. I'm part of this community. I'm not sitting in my laboratory in Silicon Valley trying to profiteer off of your disaster. And the information that they're sharing, the app puts it into a more usable form or a more accessible form? Yeah, it's a great question. We didn't change their behavior. They were always listening to radios and speaking the language of the fire service and putting it on Facebook and Twitter. What happens behind the scenes is actually a lot more data. There's a lot of signals coming in, and a lot of it is very tactical and minor, and we don't want that to go out on Watch Duty. And so they're collaborating in Slack. They're all talking and listening. It's very rare where there's one person running an incident. There are many people in real time content editing: '15 acres heading north-northwest. Was it 50 or 15?' 'Oh shoot, let's wait for the next transmission, air attack's about to be overhead.' 'We're going to get a size-up on the fire.' Then we deploy the information on Watch Duty. So in real time, they're collaborating. Someone has the con, or control, and that person's essentially incident commander. So of the folks who are on duty or running the event at that time, some of them may be volunteers and some of them may be your staff people? advertisement Yeah, it's a mixed bag. Like many nonprofits, there's paid staff and then there's volunteers. And a lot of our volunteers are now either changing careers or having a second career, because first, they contribute and they listen, and then they start to report, and then they become a staff reporter or a regional captain in the area and help run and collaborate certain parts of a state or a region. And then many of them actually become full-time employees. During the fires I saw that Watch Duty passed ChatGPT as the No. 1 downloaded app. The traffic must have really caught you by surprise, just like the fire did. Yeah, it did. Here's the sad part: We've been the No. 1 app in the App Store three times. This time was the worst, by far. Yeah, I mean, L.A.'s own emergency alert system, there was one, but it was buggy. It was sending false alerts. So it wasn't just L.A. residents that were using Watch Duty, right? It was government officials and firefighters and the helicopter pilots. Everybody seemed to be on it. Yes, the government also uses Watch Duty. We're on all the big screens and all the emergency operation centers. We've done something that others haven't been able to crack, and it's a usable format. So whether you're a little old lady or a 'hose dragger' or a 'brush bunny,' as firefighters refer to themselves as in the wildlands, they all use it and it's done something that we didn't see coming. We assumed that the government had all that information and they just weren't telling us, not out of malice, but they're busy, they're trying to fight the fire. It's very granular, the information we share, and then quickly we realize that we're getting emails from tanker pilots and dozer operators and others telling us that we give them more information than overhead gives them. And that's when we really realized this is a much bigger company than we ever thought possible. It's strange. Is Watch Duty's success, I don't know, an example of the government's failure or the failure of tax-funded technology? Or was there just no investment in this? Yeah, look, I mean, we work so closely with a lot of these government organizations and there's failure abound. It's everywhere. It's how we voted as individuals. It's the other software vendors who were selling lackluster products. It's the government having no other options. There are so many points of failure here. It just really compounded that day and it was very apparent how necessary we were. It's hard to just point blame at one person or one org. I know that's what everybody wants is they want to blame the boogeyman so we can go fix it. And it's not just climate change, it's bad forest management. It's like there's so many things that are all working against us here. It's making this problem extraordinarily bad.
CBC
10-07-2025
- CBC
Golf carts, chargers stolen from Cumberland County course
Social Sharing The general manager of a Cumberland County golf course says security cameras show it took all of 20 minutes for a trio of thieves to steal five golf carts and a number of chargers early Tuesday morning. "It's certainly an organized group," said John Mills with Northumberland Links in Pugwash. "There was no vandalism, no damage, just what they needed to do. And off they went with the golf carts," he said. Nova Scotia RCMP say three people, a black pickup truck pulling a closed utility trailer and a seven-metre U-Haul truck were on the property around 1:19 a.m. AT. Mills said the five dark blue E-Z-Go golf carts with Northumberland Links branding were purchased last year at a cost of $12,300 each. Four superchargers and three regular chargers were also taken and the business is still going through the insurance process. Universal keys for golf carts can easily be purchased online, which is something the course itself has done to replace lost ones, according to Mills. "So we're going to look at what we need to do to enhance our security for sure. But we've never had a problem in the 36 years I've been here," he said. Mills said the price of golf carts shot up during the pandemic. As an example, he said carts the course bought in 2008 were traded last year for about the same amount as the original purchase price. "My speculation is that once they go out of the region, there's all kinds of property owners or campground people that would like to have a golf cart just to get around," he said. Thefts elsewhere in Canada Last year, New Brunswick RCMP received a report of the theft of golf carts from a business in Mactaquac. A total of four carts were stolen in two instances in July and October, according to a news release. There have also been a string of thefts reported in Ontario, with course owners and distributors suspecting there is a thriving black market. In a statement, Nova Scotia RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Guillaume Tremblay said there's no indication at this time that the Pugwash theft is connected to similar incidents in other provinces. An investigation into the Northumberland Links theft is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact Cumberland County RCMP or Nova Scotia Crime Stoppers.
Telegraph
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Aged 11, Quatermass gave me the willies. Now it's even scarier
There's been much attention paid lately to the original Quatermass sci-fi horror series, which went out in the 1950s in black and white on the BBC. And rightly so – they're still scary enough to give you the sweats. But for my two cents, it's the colour 1979 revival by ITV (available to stream on ITVX Premium) that should give us the screaming abdabs today. This big budget mini-series starring John Mills was, along with the first TV screening of Chinatown, a highlight of ITV's re-opening night, after a long strike blacked out the channel for the whole summer. (Other highlights were Crossroads and George & Mildred, so you can't say ITV weren't bringing us the full spread of brow, high to low.) But reviews and ratings were stinking. This was the age of Star Wars in the cinema, and Blake's 7 and Buck Rogers on TV – swashbuckling stuff. Quatermass, which depicts a broken-down dystopian near-future in harrowing, Threads -like detail, was badly out of step. Close Encounters has a similar documentary feel, but its benevolent musical aliens and flattering vision of humanity are the Pollyanna to Quatermass's Greta Thunberg. Like its predecessors, the series was written by Nigel Kneale, a man whose talent was for thinking, 'What's the worst that could happen?' and then trebling it. (He was married to Judith Kerr, creator of Mog and The Tiger Who Came To Tea – never were opposites more attracted.) The reviews slated Quatermass for being a slow downer, and for featuring hippies as a main plot element, which in the age of punk rock made it seem dated. (In fact, Kneale had written the script years before, but the gestation process of television had kept it incubating for a decade.) But Kneale was 46 years too early; this Quatermass is the dystopia for our time. The Britain of Quatermass is beset by blackouts, fraying infrastructure, and the rise of private security in place of a defunct police force. OAP Professor Quatermass himself has retired to the country, and doesn't realise how catastrophically far things have fallen until he enters London at the start. The cities are torn apart by gang warfare – he is brutally mugged in the opening moments, which sets the tone for the whole thing. Television itself is represented by the Tituppy Bumpity Show, a pornographic entertainment for kids complete with furries, dildos and rainbow-bright cut-outs which looks exactly – and I do mean exactly – like an LGBTQ+ event in schools, or one of Channel 4's self-satisfied excursions into 'inclusivity'. And there's a generation gap – well, more of a canyon. We meet a youth cult-cum-protest movement called the Planet People, whose members look exactly – and I do mean exactly – like our own Just Stop Oil/Antifa/Queers for Palestine marchers, though slimmer and cleaner. (Amusingly, both Corrie's Brian Tilsley and Toyah Willcox can be seen among this throng.) The wilful ignorance and smugness of the Planet People – 'Stop trying to know things!' one of them shouts at our hero – are very reminiscent of the recent Glastonbury crowds chanting ' Death, death to the IDF '; though regrettably our real-life modern Planet People aren't scooped up in huge bursts of 'lovely lightning' to be gobbled up at a space buffet. For the drama unfolds to reveal that all the decay and dissolution is not accidental or pointless, as in real life, but the work of an alien intelligence that's harvesting delicious young human meat. The Planet People are following an implanted instinct – they literally are a herd – and the human race is so much pâté de foie gras, nom nom nom. Our civilised periods are just fattening-up exercises, human dignity merely our rations of fodder. The earth is a battery farm. Horror is about tapping into primal human fears, but Kneale was unique. Because he not only does that, but he tells you that's what he's doing, as he is doing it. Quatermass is obviously dated in other ways. We have an old man as the hero, and a white, middle-class old man at that. It's age, experience, Western science and culture – mixed with Jewish ingenuity – that are the only hope of saving the day. Imagine trying to get that past TV execs today – a show with a leading man aged 71 would be unthinkable. As in all Kneale's work, though, female characters are up front. Brenda Fricker, Barbara Kellerman and Margaret Tyzack all play competent, intelligent professionals. Unlike modern TV, this feels perfectly unforced – they're just there. Quatermass, like a lot of 1970s drama, (think of Upstairs Downstairs, I, Claudius, Rock Follies) has an outspokenness, and casually assumes its viewers are intelligent and paying close attention. The production values of these shows are often rotten by our standards (though not in this case – it looks amazing, bar a plasticky stone circle), but they confront very uncomfortable subjects – race, sex, violence – in ways that ours stick flimsy plasters over. Watching when I was aged just 11, Quatermass gave me the willies. The aliens, not so much; it was the bleak future of Britain that shook my infant soul. In the intervening years, I sometimes thought back and chuckled complacently at Nigel Kneale – well, he got that wrong, I worried for nothing. But looking around us in 2025, I'm not so sure. Come, lovely lightning, and drop on us!
Time Magazine
26-06-2025
- General
- Time Magazine
TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2025: Watch Duty
The real-time wildfire alert service Watch Duty proved itself a lifesaver during the Los Angeles wildfires in January. The nonprofit's staff gathers data from automated monitoring systems, wildfire cameras, radio scanners, and satellite imagery, while leaning on a team of volunteers—including current and retired firefighters, dispatchers, reporters and first responders—who verify reports and confirm information with on-scene personnel like emergency crews. When disaster strikes, users in affected areas are alerted with up-to-date wildfire maps and info. Since 2021, the service has grown from three California counties to 22 states, including the entire Western U.S. It had 7.2 million active users in 2024, and saw 600,000 new users register in just one week in January. Watch Duty is successful because 'it speaks factual truth and clarity during our darkest hours,' CEO and co-founder John Mills says. The service will expand across all 50 states and begin tracking other natural disasters this year, he adds.
Times
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Sam Neill: I was bullied into auditioning for James Bond, and failed
I grew up loving British actors and British films — everything from Alec Guinness to John Mills and Alastair Sim. But the first one I really admired was James Mason, particularly after watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, an absolute cracker. He had such tremendous charisma and became a mentor to me. When I was in my late twenties and working in Australia, he and his wife sent me an air ticket and said: 'Come and stay with us in Switzerland because we like what you do and think you should have a career abroad.' He changed my life. Dunedin, where I grew up in New Zealand, may have had fewer than 100,000 people, but we had seven proper cinemas. On Saturday mornings our parents would dump us at one for the Chums Club: I'm sure they were pleased to get rid of us for an hour or two. We would watch serials — the one I remember clearly was Roy Rogers, who had a great steed called Trigger. It was a riot of uncontrolled kids, creating an unbelievable noise. Not a calm experience. I think I'm the Prince Andrew of cinema crying. I don't remember ever crying at a movie. Perhaps I've had the odd sniffle, but if I have, then I'm not going to admit it. I never imagined for a moment that I would be an actor, coming from a small, obscure town in the furthest away place. There was no moment. I'm surprised to this day. I'd just finished the film Sleeping Dogs (1977) in New Zealand, when I got an audition to star in My Brilliant Career, which really put me on my way. I think I've done three auditions in my life, and the other two I failed. I was bullied into auditioning for James Bond by my bully agent [in 1986], and failed that. The other — and I quite wanted to do this one, unlike Bond — was for Pretty Woman. They said someone else was better on both occasions, and they were right, of course. I was a bit of a mod growing up, with button-down shirts and narrow trousers. I was quite smart, really. Soon, I deteriorated and eventually corroded into hippie gear with flared trousers and things that you wouldn't be seen dead in these days. I was very conscious about what I wore as a teenager because there were these wonderful, exotic creatures who we found immensely attractive. The least we could do is look presentable. It was either The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle by Beatrix Potter or Winnie-the-Pooh by AA Milne. Many years later, oddly enough, I was making a very strange horror science fiction film in London called Event Horizon, and we were renting AA Milne's house. It was strange going from the stark space horror to the comfort of little bears at night. I spent most of my childhood at boarding school, but when I was at home my older brother would read to me in the mornings. It fired my imagination. • The 60 best Netflix series to watch this month The first records I bought were 45s. It took me a long time to buy an album — I'd have to save up money during the holidays. The first was the great jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell's Midnight Blue, one of the greatest albums ever made. It's curiously adult, given that I was probably 13 at the time. The local venue when I was growing up was Dunedin Town Hall, which held the distinction of being the only place which didn't sell out when the Beatles visited in 1964. That gives you an idea of how conservative it was. The first act I saw there was Bobby Rydell and Del Shannon. It wasn't the greatest concert I've ever been to, but thankfully I've been to many good ones since. I can't recall the first, but the most famous was Barack Obama. It was a few years ago, and he'd been out of power for a few years. I was invited to be an interlocutor when he was on tour. The only thing not on the table for discussion was Trump. He was very warm, and I'm glad we have a photo together. • Read more TV reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews I'm not famous. I'm in Melbourne for a few weeks, and occasionally someone stops me, but I'm never chased by autograph hunters. I'm just an everyday, reasonably useful actor who has been serving his time productively. But the offer to star in Jurassic Park was a red-letter day. Anything Spielberg touched was gold, yet I had no idea what a cultural phenomenon it would become. I'm now associated with dinosaurs, and the older I get, the more I look like one myself. And now we've got a new one with Scarlett Johansson, and I'm looking forward to seeing that. I actually played her father many years ago, in The Horse Whisperer directed by Robert Redford. So it feels like I've passed it down the family. I don't think you ever really make it. But I do remember a great moment of satisfaction when I turned the key and unlocked the front door of the first house I built. I didn't feel like I'd made it, just that I'd made something. Untamed is on Netflix from Jul 17 What are your formative cultural experiences? 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