Things that make no sense to you

[Bystander]

For birth control: "...do not take if you are planning on becoming pregnant...". Ya think?

"Do not take if you are allergic to this medicine."

 

[DaveE]

"Do not take if you are allergic to this medicine."

It's not such a mystery if you're a corporate lawyer concerned about risk management. The correct translation is "don't sue us; you'll probably lose because we warned you not to be an idiot". This is probably the result of, like, 87 settlements paid for stupid s&^$. 97% of tort cases in the US are settled out of court. It doesn't cost much to add another sentence to the package insert. The fact that nobody reads it isn't relevant.

They're not saying their customers are stupid, they're saying their customers are greedy, trials are expensive, and jurors are stupid sometimes. It's all part of the "don't sue us" kabuki dance.

 

[phinds]

They're not saying their customers are stupid, they're saying their customers are greedy, trials are expensive, and jurors are stupid sometimes. It's all part of the "don't sue us" kabuki dance.

 

[gmax137]

"Do not take if you are allergic to this medicine."

It's not such a mystery if you're a corporate lawyer concerned about risk management. The correct translation is "don't sue us; you'll probably lose because we warned you not to be an idiot". This is probably the result of, like, 87 settlements paid for stupid s&^$. 97% of tort cases in the US are settled out of court. It doesn't cost much to add another sentence to the package insert. The fact that nobody reads it isn't relevant.

They're not saying their customers are stupid, they're saying their customers are greedy, trials are expensive, and jurors are stupid sometimes. It's all part of the "don't sue us" kabuki dance.

Hmm, I think the point of @Bystander 's post is, how is the patient/consumer supposed to know if they are allergic to "'catchyname' or any of its ingredients"?

 

[DaveE]

Hmm, I think the point of @Bystander 's post is, how is the patient/consumer supposed to know if they are allergic to "'catchyname' or any of its ingredients"?

Or which pollen from his neighbor's garden? Or what chemicals were used in making his shoes? Or the things in his Cheerios that aren't intended to be there? How allergic he is to a wasp sting? Exactly which sweetener they put in that junk food? Welcome to the real world, where people aren't protected from every risk. People don't always know exactly what causes their problems. Although that's why there are Allergists at the clinic.

Manufacturers just can't do perfectly precise product labeling. Although labeling has gotten much better since I was young (peanuts, for example). Pharmaceuticals are probably the best characterized and labeled thing you will ever consume, but no it's not perfect, it never will be. Still, I think it is reasonable to expect people that can't take atorvastatin to also know that Lipitor might be a problem.

 

[Hornbein]

Drum synthesizers

Not the invention part, it makes sense, Electric guitar distortion fuzz wah Jimmy Hendrix amazing
Electric piano, classic Fender Rhodes, Hammond organ – brilliant.
Synth drum…..why didn’t anyone say, “This sounds pretty naff to be honest let's drop that idea?”Exceptions? Autobahn sounds cool but that is an exception, the music makes it and acoustic drums with a tonne of boom would have sounded great too.
Most synths sound like Night Rider theme tune.
I went to a Simmonds exhibition in Manchester in 1980s. One guy playing and explaining how they worked.
They sounded cr*p and everyone was going nuts I just did not get it.
You could double up by pressing a button (bass drum) and it even extracted out of time notes!
So totally cr*p sound played by nontechnical non-musical out of time drummers.

Drum synth is cheaper than real drummer.

Kate Bush used to use a drum synthesizer to make an oppressive sound. To me, that's the only area in which they excel.

I can't stand loops and drum machines. But many if not most people prefer beats so simple that a drummer would get depressed playing them. So drum machines are the correct business decision in most cases of recorded music.

Suppose you are a dance troupe that wants to make a little money from a video. You have to use Youtube. If you use copyrighted music, then the copyright holder gets all the money. So you use a computer program to generate uncopyrighted background music. It's good enough.

As a hobby I pair up modern dance videos with copyrighted sound tracks. It takes only an hour or so and the result can be to my ears far superior. Let the copyright holders have the sliver of advertising money.

 

[pbuk]

Drum synthesizers

Make sense if you loose an arm. Many other great drummers have used electronic kit too.

 

[pinball1970]

Make sense if you loose an arm. Many other great drummers have used electronic kit too.

They still sound awful. I know this is subjective but Hysteria to me was horrible. Anthemic, soul less overproduced commercial garbage. Pretty standard for the 80s.
The drum kit is a very special instrument, it does not rely on pitch it relies on sound, the player has to show technique, creativity and dynamics totally different to a guitar player for instance.
The drum synth removes all of that.
I played one a few months ago. The kit cost a grand and the guy who owned it already had a double bass drum kit at the studio but packed away.
I asked him why he was using the electronic kit and he told me it was smaller lighter and quickly set up.The late great Buddy Rich used them once to my knowledge in the track 'You got to try.' Just for one bar I think, soon dropped. 1981 on Parky possibly.

 

[pinball1970]

Drum synth is cheaper than real drummer.

Kate Bush used to use a drum synthesizer to make an oppressive sound. To me, that's the only area in which they excel.

I can't stand loops and drum machines. But many if not most people prefer beats so simple that a drummer would get depressed playing them. So drum machines are the correct business decision in most cases of recorded music.

Suppose you are a dance troupe that wants to make a little money from a video. You have to use Youtube. If you use copyrighted music, then the copyright holder gets all the money. So you use a computer program to generate uncopyrighted background music. It's good enough.

As a hobby I pair up modern dance videos with copyrighted sound tracks. It takes only an hour or so and the result can be to my ears far superior. Let the copyright holders have the sliver of advertising money.

Kate Bush is an absolute legend. Whatever she does will be creative beautiful and pushing an envelope somewhere in the Universe.

 

[Bystander]

"Laser 'FOCUSED'...?"

 

[pinball1970]

"Laser 'FOCUSED'...?"

"I thought that Floyd's visual show was a little laser focused, they should have more back drop videos like they had in the 60s.
Make it real man."
Makes total sense.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Make sense if you loose an arm.

There is a famous trumpet player named "Wingy" Manone who lost an arm in a streetcar accident. Notorious prankster Joe Venuti once gave him a single cufflink as a gift.

 

[DaveC426913]

...lost an arm in a streetcar accident.

It was a noble sacrifice in order to save the five arms on the other track.

 

[BillTre]

"I thought that Floyd's visual show was a little laser focused, they should have more back drop videos like they had in the 60s.
Make it real man."
Makes total sense.

I think @Bystander was referring to the nature of "normal" laser light. An intense small dot of light with all the photons going in parrallel. Focusing not usually necessary.

There are however cases where you want focused laser light. for example confocal scanning laser microscopes have produced big advances in modern microscopy.

Putting the laser light through a lens (focusing it) allows you to generate images in various ways. The confocal mechanisms allows you to more easily assemble a clean 3D image, and being digital goes right into computers for 3D imaging. Its mostly used for looking at fluorescence, indicative of various things (chemical status, cell shape, watching cells move, location of labeled molecules in cells, ...)

The intensity of the light can also be used to affect living things and chemical things (usually by destroying things, sometimes by making a molecule active by breaking a specific bond).

In addition, there are multiphoton confocal microscopes. These are like a confocals, but rely on a great density of photons (in space and time) to have two (or more) photons arrive at a molecule at the same time (using nanosecond pulse lasers). If they are "there" at the "same time", then their energies can add up (approximately adding) to enough energy to activate the target molecule to fluoresce (or whatever else it might do). Among other things, this gives a greatly enhanced 3D resolution.
As the laser is focused down (along the z-axis) to a very small area (defined by the optics), the photon density goes way up.
The reason this is better than a normal confocal microscope is that the low end limitation on the background of a single photon confocal is the activation by single photons in less focused z-levels (in front of or behind the layer focused on). This kind of activaion in a two photon system is very unlikely due to the requirement of two photons simultaneously for activation.

 

[Bystander]

Flags on mailboxes: in the movies/cartoons, delivery raises the flag; in real life you raise the flag to alert the mail carrier.

 

[gmax137]

Flags on mailboxes: in the movies/cartoons, delivery raises the flag;

I don't remember seeing that.

in real life you raise the flag to alert the mail carrier.

Right on!

 

[DaveC426913]

Flags on mailboxes: in the movies/cartoons, delivery raises the flag; in real life you raise the flag to alert the mail carrier.

Interesting. I've never seen one used except on TV, so my knowledge is unreliable.
But this site suggests your version is also a myth:

​

5 Myths About Carrier Signal Flags in Mailboxes​

#1) Only Used for Outgoing Mail
Today, carrier signal flags are typically used to alert mail couriers about the presence of outgoing mail. In the past, though, they were used for incoming mail as well. In rural areas, couriers would raise the carrier signal flag on a mailbox so that the resident would know he or she has mail to collect. As a result, residents wouldn't have to make unnecessary trips to and from their mailbox. Unless the carrier signal flag was raised, residents would assume there was no mail to collect.
https://www.mailboxesandsigns.com/blog/2020/posts/5-myths-about-carrier-signal-flags-in-mailboxes/

 

[BillTre]

A friend modified my sister's mailbox so a little springy flag flipped up when the door on the box was opened to put mail in.

 

[Grelbr42]

In the commuter train parking lot I use, there are "disabled" parking spots close to the train. OK. That's great.

How did they decide how many such spots there should be? The lot is nearly 1/4 taken up by designated accessible spots. They are nearly all empty, pretty much every day. Usually there are one or two vehicles in the designated spots, often none.

Now, in the six months or so I have been using this lot I have never failed to get a spot. Still a lot of people doing the work-from-home thing. The commuter train and parking lot are not operating anywhere near to capacity. So it's not a big deal.

But it is kind of wacky that every morning I get to walk by nearly 1/4 of the lot totally empty.

 

[russ_watters]

In the commuter train parking lot I use, there are "disabled" parking spots close to the train. OK. That's great.

How did they decide how many such spots there should be?

The answer is building/construction codes dictate the percentage.

 

[gleem]

Sometimes you see a news article that grabs your attention mainly because it makes a statement where you say wait, what? “I don’t get it.” Much of these are political, but luckily, there are still some left for this thread

I read an article about the FDA’s having different regulations for red dye No. 3, not allowed in cosmetics but allowed in food. That made no sense. Sometimes there are good reasons for seemingly weird news since you just don’t have enough information or background about it. The FDA has different divisions, e.g., cosmetics and food, and that seems to be the root cause of the issue See https://www.consumerreports.org/hea...metics-but-still-allowed-in-food-a3467381365/

Recently Elon Musk disbanded the Supercharger department of Tesla. OK but why, isn’t the Supercharger system the gold standard for EV charging? Musk says that he did this because he wants to concentrate on reliability, and expand existing facilities but expand the network more slowly. But why the whole department?

.

 

[gleem]

Regarding red dye No. 3, It has finally been banned in foods in the US by the FDA.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/ot...n&cvid=f2b28083f50b498aafb2be4e08d1614c&ei=11

 

[phinds]

I seem to recall that some form of red dye was banned in the USA many years ago, but I don't remember if it had a number attached to it.

EDIT: a quick search turned up

• Banned: Red No. 2 (1976)
• Restricted: Red No. 3 (1990)

 

[gleem]

I seem to recall that some form of red dye was banned in the USA many years ago, but I don't remember if it had a number attached to it.

see post 351

 

[phinds]

see post 351

yes, that's what started this discussion about red dye. What's your point?

 

[gleem]

What's your point?

I thought you might have been thinking of its banning in cosmetics.

 

[WWGD]

IIRC it was often found in the list of ingredients in candies.

 

[DaveC426913]

And how could anybody forget when Red Dye No.5 was found in Red Razberry Zingers!

 

[phinds]

I thought you might have been thinking of its banning in cosmetics.

Yeah, that was the
Restricted: Red No. 3 (1990)

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I wonder how much different history would be if nobody drank alcohol.

Makes no sense: Leaders making crucial decisions while drinking. I wonder how many wars might have been avoided.