THIS column periodically publishes absurd product warnings spotted by our ever-vigilant readers. So we have a certain sense of fellow feeling with a group called the Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, which runs an annual competition for the “wackiest consumer warning label of the year”.
This year’s $500 first prize, announced earlier this month, went to Ed Gyetvai of Oldcastle, Ontario, who submitted a label on a toilet brush reading “Do not use for personal hygiene”. A $250 second prize went to Matt Johnson of Naperville, Illinois, for a label on a child’s scooter that said, “This product moves when used.”
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Previous winners include a label on a baby’s buggy advising “Remove child before folding”, a brass fishing lure with a three-pronged hook on the end that warns “Harmful if swallowed”, a warning on a carpenter’s electric drill stating “This product not intended for use as a dental drill”, a 30-centimetre CD rack that orders “Do not use as a ladder”, and a warning on a pair of cyclist’s shin guards saying “Shin pads cannot protect any part of the body they do not cover”.
Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch has the serious aim of exposing the burgeoning litigation culture. “Frivolous lawsuits, and concern about frivolous lawsuits,” its website states, “have led to a new cultural phenomenon: the wacky warning label.”
ACCORDING to London-based tabloid The Sun, the quake that caused last month’s Indian Ocean tsunami had other effects too. “The quake has also changed the angle of the Earth’s axis. Among the changes is the North Pole moving south by an inch,” it proclaimed on 11 January. Josh Phillips, who spotted this, wants to know if there is another direction it could have moved.
NASA publishes an Astronomy Picture of the Day, and Mark Fletcher noticed that the one it released for 7 December 2004 featured a view out to sea from the Australian coast. Why is that astronomical, he wondered.
But as those who visit can see, a dark diagonal line crosses the photo, apparently starting in the clouds at the top left and ending in a flash near a lamp post at the bottom right – and no one knew what had made it.
An impressive exercise in collaborative deduction ensued, in which only a few of the 2072 messages posted over the following month suggested UFOs, or made sarcastic counter-claims of “mass hysteria”. The near-straightness of the line led many to the astute thought that whatever it was moved very, very fast.
More delving ensued. Someone performed a Fourier analysis to extract the frequencies of barely perceptible wiggles in the line. In a moment of inspiration, someone else tore themselves from their computer to perform an actual experiment. By gluing a dead bee to the rim of a bicycle wheel and photographing it as it spun, the experimenter succeeded in replicating the slight wigglicity of the line.
Thus a consensus was reached: the line was formed by a bug flying just in front of the lens – possibly the most discussed bug in history.
Isn’t science wonderful?
A NOTORIOUSLY violent computer game does have some redeeming social use after all, as a grandmother in Santa Fe, Texas, and her three grandsons have learned. The boys were playing Grand Theft Auto when a four-man gang of robbers broke into the house and pointed a gun at one of the boys.
The game continued running untended on the PlayStation as the intruders went about their business, until a warning ripped through the air: “Stop! We have you surrounded. This is the police.” The gang panicked and ran.
Unknown to them, the game was programmed to play such messages at random though its speakers. And although the police that the burglars thought had surrounded them were merely figments of the game’s digital imagination, the real police soon picked up the gang and hauled them away.
SEVERAL readers have alerted us to a butter dish offer recently advertised in the UK on the packaging of Lurpak’s “spreadable” butter. The ad reads: “Limited Edition Lurpak Spreadable Dish”.
A picture of the dish is accompanied by the text: “Offer closes 20/1/05. Image is for visual purposes only.”
Alison Francis asks: “What other purpose would one have an image for – oral?” She also notes that the technology behind spreadable dishes must be revolutionary, and wonders if we will soon see it extended to items such as spreadable mobile phones or furniture.
“How appropriate that an eminent lecturer in communications research at Monash University in Australia is called Dr Yell”
INTERTOURSERVICE in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan offers entomological tours anywhere in the country you choose to go, complete with guides, interpreter and transport. “So we invite you to make fascination trip,” the promotional blurb concludes, “and catch with your own hands any insect you are interesting in or other collectors of insects who are known to you.” Sounds great fun.
FINALLY, Gail Davies feels sorry for the dusting mitt she bought recently. “The OatesClean (TM) Enviro Dusting Mitt is so effective, it picks up more common allergies than alternative cleaning methods,” the packaging told her. Poor little mitt.
