Obviously, this object must be treated with great caution lest you be deprived of life or limb. Because this wrecking machine is probably too scary for some of you to view, I’ll bury it after the break. Open Thread.
Reader Interactions
69Comments
Comments are closed.
Someguy
STFU, Mistermix. Those warnings are necessary consumer protection. That huge inflatable could be a choking hazard, at least for bigmouth republicans.
Chickamin Slam
Of course they need the disclaimer. Otherwise they’d think Shamu would spring to life as soon as it’s blown up.
donovong
Really? Have you not seen the absolutely brainless ways that Americans can hurt themselves in really stupid ways, and then blame it on a manufacturer? Let’s face it – generally speaking, people are really, really stupid.
(I say this as a former professional woodworker who was sued by a NY couple who didn’t like the fact that the dining table I made for them would not hold up TO THEM HAVING SEX ON THE GODDAM THING. The suit was thrown out, but still…)
Carnacki
@donovong: I do hope your lawyer made them reenact the incident in court.
doug r
@donovong: Didn’t realize those folding card tables were handmade.
Glocksman
@Someguy:
Something else to ram down their throats, eh?
jonas
@donovong: I was at a pool party once with a large group of kids and adults playing in the water and all of a sudden there was this big commotion and a couple of people diving clothed into the pool. Went over to see what was going on and they pulled out this 3 year old who had sunk to the bottom and was starting to drown. His parents were like “oh yeah, he can’t swim, but we gave him this floatie toy and everything. Guess he fell off.” So yeah, stupid shit like this does happen and that’s why there are all these warning labels. This kid was just lucky that some folks at the edge of the pool (not his parents, natch) happened to notice he wasn’t on his floatie toy anymore.
mellowjohn
personally, i like the current commercial that shows a car driving on top of an elevated train with the subtitle “Fantasy. Do Not Attempt.”
Raven
It’s up to 13 so I’m guessing it will be easy to get a lane at the Y!
MattF
Now I’m imagining warning labels on actual sharks. Dangerous! Has Teeth! May Bite!
Jay C
@donovong:
Did you give them any assembly instructions they may have misinterpreted, like “Insert Tab A into Slot B….” or anything?
Ash Can
What Donovong said. Keep in mind how many people in this nation think that Sarah Palin would be a good president.
cleek
@MattF:
might have saved Volusia County FL a bit of headache…
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2003-10-02/news/0310020314_1_volusia-county-shark-attack-attack-file
Chickamin Slam
@donovong: Suddenly I had the thought. “If there was a big ‘Warning this box of pizza may be very hot when heated. Don’t burn your mouth by sticking it in,’ label” then John would not have hurt himself.
And if pets came with a warning from the animal shelter too. “This cat/dog may bite, shred, claw, damage you or your possessions. Discretion is advised.” Then when you trip over them in the dark halfway … you think “Maybe I should have paid more attention to that disclaimer.”
Culture of Truth
@mellowjohn: I was just thinking that about that ad when you beat me to it. It adds something like “Car Cannot Ride on Trains” LOL
JGabriel
Holy Mother of God, it is awful fucking wicked cold out there today.
4 degrees F, -16 C in Central Park, NY.
Edited to Add: Wind Chill, -13 °F (-25 °C).
Culture of Truth
[ Al Pacino voice ]
“This whole blog needs a warning!!”
OzarkHillbilly
Never forget the 2 guys who lost all their fingers trimming the hedge… With a lawnmower.
Mustang Bobby
On a menu at Olive Garden or some such place, there’s a warning: OLIVES HAVE PITS.
But give them some Old Spice and they’re okay.
Culture of Truth
Matt Lauer had the cast of The DaVinci Code and was asking them about the complaints of the Catholic Church and, they said well it’s just a movie and he got pissed and said “but but but don’t you think this movie should come with a disclaimer saying it’s not true?” and Ian McKellen leaned in and said “Matthew, I think the Bible should come with a disclaimer.” Ron Howard nearly fainted.
Biff Longbotham
That’s the biggest dildo I’ve ever seen!
jibeaux
@jonas: Oy vey. No 3 year old should be in a pool by himself. Or even a bathtub by himself.
Belafon
There’s a reason that Preparation H says not to use as toothpaste.
OzarkHillbilly
@Culture of Truth: But but but Dogma did.
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
I’ve got it! digitalPimple is actually Matt Lauer!
Hawes
Of course it needs warning labels. It’s not like it’s safe like a Bushmaster AR-15.
Villago Delenda Est
@Biff Longbotham:
You’ve never seen Rush Limbaugh before?
Mustang Bobby
@Culture of Truth: Last fall Costco (I think) got the fundies’ tits in an uproar when they put the bible in the Fiction section of the book sales.
They’re right; it should have been under Horror/Fantasy.
Glocksman
Since this is an open thread, I’ll share my experiences with Windows 8.1. :)
I build my own desktops, so I generally wait until I can get a good deal on the OS.
For example I got Windows 7 Home Premium for $49 during an MS promotional deal.
Last February, MS ran a Windows 8 promo where I could purchase a key for Windows 8 Pro for $14.99.
Personally I thought this was $14.99 too much after installing it on my netbook and then promptly deleting it and reinstalling 7.
Fast forward to now and I’m interested in hacking a Nokia 520 WP8 smartphone.
Problem is that the Windows Phone 8 SDK will only install on a Windows 8 or 8.1 machine.
After reading about the improvements MS made in 8.1, I figured what the hell and installed 8.1 on my desktop.
Because the key had been used before, I had to call MS’s activation center because online activation wouldn’t work.
Initially I was impressed because the installer even detected my wireless printer (Brother HL-5370DW), installed the drivers and configured it correctly without any input on my part.
It also loads much faster than 7 did.
Then the problems started.
There’s a program called the Wugfresh Nexus Root Toolkit that I use with my Nexus 5 and Nexus 7, and it was a PITA to get the drivers installed and configured properly thanks to MS’s goddamned driver signature enforcement.
In 7, you get a popup warning about unsigned drivers.
In 8, they just goddamned won’t install.
The solution turned out to be some command line mojo disabling driver enforcement until I was done installing the drivers and testing them through several reboots.
So if you have some hardware that lacks signed drivers, have fun. :)
Another problem that I didn’t expect is that the native email client doesn’t support POP email.
What the Hell? POP email is common as hell, though IMAP is also available in most cases.
The eventual ‘solution’ was to install Thunderbird.
Surprisingly enough, I found the metro desktop to be easier to use than I remembered it was on my netbook.
That’s probably because I had experience with it on the Nokia, though.
The default picture views sucks ass, as it always has on Windows machines, so on goes ACDSee.
Ditto for the default editor, so on goes the freeware Adobe Photoshop CS2.
Yes, it’s outdated but it’s free without pirating it.
Now that I’ve (hopefully) got the problems ironed out, I’ll be sticking with it for awhile.
If not, well that’s why I did an Acronis backup of my 7 install. :)
kindness
The pool death machine is a nice touch but who has manniquins in their house?
Snarki, child of Loki
Now those warning labels are just there to taunt us on porpoise.
Remember: DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN BALL!
Villago Delenda Est
@kindness:
The Marquis de Mittens has at least one, Anne.
Belafon
@Culture of Truth: This needs a Like button.
rikyrah
ALEC’s New Obamacare Obstruction Plan Won’t Work
Dylan Scott – January 6, 2014, 6:00 AM EST
Obamacare’s opponents are running out of options to stop the law.
The Supreme Court upheld it in the summer of 2012. President Obama was re-elected a few months later. The congressional GOP’s strategy of shutting down the federal government to de-fund the law proved a disaster.
That might help explain why the conservative movement’s latest tactics seem a little more desperate — and, according to experts, equally unlikely to succeed.
Heading into the 2014 legislative session, the American Legislative Exchange Council is pushing new model legislation that aims to undermine the federal health care reform law. The only problem is: It’s probably illegal.
Here’s what the bill says: If an insurance company accepts tax subsidies that trigger Obamacare’s employer mandate — in other words, if an employee at a company with more than 50 employees goes onto an Obamacare exchange to purchase insurance and gets financial help through the law — then that insurer would be prohibited from continuing to do business in that state.
The effect is that if an insurer is doing business with the Obamacare exchange, it’s putting itself at risk of being banned from operating in a state with this law in place. That would either force insurers to pull out of the exchanges or to decline to accept subsidies, which would unravel the foundation of the exchanges — or actually take their business out of the state.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/alec-obamacare-bill
Poopyman
@Belafon:
Causes gums to recede?
Villago Delenda Est
From Noisemax, the stupid, it freezes:
Limbaugh: Polar Vortex Is ‘Liberal Media Hoax’
Biff Longbotham
@Villago Delenda Est: You’re on to something here. This must be a picture of Rush all amped up on his Dominican Viagra.
maya
Now this is what BJ is all about:Timely threads on pool paraphernalia in -0° weather.
Glocksman
@Hawes:
Actually, most guns do come plastered with warnings like the one on this Ruger.
Ruger Warning rollmark
IIRC, Ruger started rollmarking that on their guns after being sued in the 70’s.
MattF
@Villago Delenda Est: Saw that– I guess a different space-time continuum has different laws of fluid dynamics. Or, OTOH, maybe Limbaugh is just reaching the level of his audience. We report, you decide.
Poopyman
@Glocksman:
Be careful you don’t get sued when customers try to have sex on them.
BGinCHI
All those warning are because of people like Cole.
Can you imagine how much damage he could do to himself with that?
Epicurus
Yes, their lawyers made them add the stickers, but: the reason there are such warnings are generally that some idiot has misused or abused a product in just such a fashion. Not that I’ve used one in while, but why do hair dryers have a warning not to use them in the bathtub?? Please…none of these devices are “foolproof.” The problem is that we have some very, very capable idiots.
Glocksman
@Poopyman:
Actually, on my PC case you probably could get away with that.
Cooler Master Scout
Though I imagine it might be a bit uncomfortable.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Chickamin Slam:
One of our cats did come with a disclaimer, actually. One of the clauses in the adoption contract was, “I understand that cats have no moral sense of right or wrong.”
We’ve had the cat for 7 years and we still joke about that occasionally.
maya
@Belafon:
Yet it says nothing about using it as a eye bag and face wrinkle cream?
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
It’s time to rethink the McCarran-Ferguson Act, the Truman-era legislation that left insurance regulation to the states. It may also be time to rethink some parts of ERISA.
The Obamacare opponents will stop at nothing. The latest legal challenge, which is superficially plausible but goes against almost a century of Supreme Court case law, is that because the shared responsibility payment has been declared to be a tax, the entire bill is unconstitutional, because it started out in the Senate and legislation that imposes taxes is required to start out in the House.
Elizabelle
First picture: I wondered if it was an aircraft life raft, with all those pictograms.
But no …
(And, since very first warning is “No protection against drowning”, it ain’t a life raft on any airline you are likely to fly.)
Glocksman
@Epicurus:
Indeed.
I would have thought these warnings from a Ruger firearm owner’s manual would be obvious.
But as you say, there are plenty of idiots.
tesslibrarian
Our temps dropped into single digits last night, so yesterday afternoon, a neighboring county sent out a public service text reminding people to bring their pets indoors and “Please don’t lick any flagpoles.”
‘Merica!
Mike in NC
@Epicurus: Yup, I bought a 6′ ladder at Home Depot several years ago and the thing came plastered with warning labels up and down all four legs.
MattF
@Glocksman: “Oh, wait… I shouldn’t be looking down the barrel of this firearm because the disclaimer said that’s dangerous.”
? Martin
@donovong:
Right, like there’s any other use for a formal dining table.
Mike in NC
@Glocksman:
I’ll never forget the sight of being on a NATO exercise in Scotland several years ago when a platoon of French paratroopers emerged from a village grocery store with rifles slung and carrying all the beer and potato chips they could handle.
Cacti
Libertarian-Juice front pager mistermix dislikes consumer protections.
Shocked, I tells you.
jayjaybear
@tesslibrarian: I triple-dog dare ya!
kindness
@? Martin:
Well that all depends. How often do you have formal dinners vs how often do you have sex?
@Glocksman:
When deer hunting season begins in the fall I refuse to take my pups up into the hills and hike around. For what ever reason I don’t know that I’ve ever run into hunters that weren’t fully lit on some alcoholic beverage or another. In fact, I know more hunters that go out to get all loaded up in the great outdoors rather than actually hoping to get a deer, duck or goose.
mellowjohn
@Glocksman:
so dick cheney must obviously have not been using a ruger when he shot his hunting partner in the face.
Interrobang
@jonas: After calling 911 about the kid, did someone call CPS? A kid who can’t swim has no business being in a pool in a situation like that, and any parent who’d somehow think it was okay because the kid had a “floatie toy” needs their breathing license revoked, never mind their parenting license. (Disclosure: I don’t have kids and don’t want them, but damn that’s some toxic stupid.)
Comrade Jake
I had an undergraduate prof. in mechanical engineering who did a lot of expert witness stuff. He had all kinds of horror stories. One of them concerned a pair of kids who were tasked with mowing a lawn and trimming some hedges. After they got done with the lawn they thought of the brilliant idea of simply keeping the lawnmower running, and just picking it up to trim the hedges. Both kids lost all their fingers, and the families sued the manufacturer because there weren’t warning labels on top of the mower.
different-church-lady
Dude, it’s a shark. SHARKS ARE DANGEROUS!
Glocksman
@mellowjohn:
You’re assuming that it was an accident….
Citizen_X
@BGinCHI:
I’m amazed that the Army apparently thought: “How can we make this soldier as dangerous to others as possible? Ah–put him in a tank!”
different-church-lady
@Citizen_X: Balloon Juice 1990: beings with “It was another typically shitty day in my division” and ends with “…and that’s how I rolled the tank over my own foot.”
rb
@jonas: Jesus christ. Sometimes I really hate people.
LongHairedWeirdo
@donovong:
Those are actually for a particular reason.
If they become aware of a danger in their product, and if they take *no* action, they are liable for punitive damages.
But if they showed that they were aware of the danger, and tried to reduce it, they aren’t. So they put a warning label on, because there’s not much else you can do to reduce some dangers.
I’m sure there are standards for when a company is aware, and what is reasonable to reduce the dangers, but I don’t know what those standards are.
(I saw an interesting story that said there’s a saw that can tell when it’s broken skin and immediately stop the saw, swiftly enough to all-but eliminate the risk of losing fingers (or cutting our lovely heroine in half), but it’s not required to avoid the risk of punitive damages.)
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: They don’t expect it to be upheld. It’s FUD intended to prevent signups (esp by small business, which they’d just as soon see crushed anyway).
Mnemosyne
@LongHairedWeirdo:
We have one of those at work — it’s called the SawStop and it’s really amazing technology. It’s not an add-on to a regular table saw, though, it’s an entire table saw system. You have to buy the whole thing, but if you do a lot of woodwork, it will absolutely save you a finger or two.
They did the “hot dog” test for us live when they installed it and it was pretty astounding.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mustang Bobby:
Comedy gold. Except…
1994, Air France flight, Paris-Dulles. Salad came with two whole black olives. Bit into the one very carefully…no pit. Good. Chomped on the other–you guessed it.
And I am still having trouble with that goddamn tooth after crowns, root canal, etc. Fucking Frogs…