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The 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time
Ant writes "An article at the Radar lists the ten most dangerous toys of all time, those treasured playthings that drew blood, chewed digits, took out eyes, and, in one case, actually irradiated. To keep things interesting, the editors excluded BB guns, slingshots, throwing stars, and anything else actually intended to inflict harm." My favorite: 'Feed Me!' begged the packaging for 1996's Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kid. And much like the carnivorous Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, the adorable lineup of Cabbage Patch snack-dolls appeared at first to be harmless. They merely wanted a nibble--a carrot perhaps, or maybe some yummy pudding. They would stop chewing when snack time was done -- they promised. Then they chomped your child's finger off."
"It's unclear what effects the Uranium-bearing ores might have had on those few lucky children who received the set"
Exactly. It has the N-word in it so it must be dangerous, right? I highly doubt kids who played with this would have even got a fraction of the dose that they normally get from naturally occurring radon. But any risk is too great, right?
Part of the reason the world is so anti-nuclear is that simple science educating toys like this are banned and exaggerated anti-nuclear views (like that of the author) remain unchallenged. Perhaps my generation was the last one where parents normally bought their children electronics and chemistry sets. Today we would fear that the child would be shocked or chemically burned (regardless of the probability).
Do not reach into Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kid with remaining fingers.
I actually had #9 the Battlestar Galactica Missle Launcher. I remember from the Viper Pilot figure in the picture.
Of course, the discontinueing of these toys wouldn't be needed if people would use their common sense. Then again, I guess that is too hard to expect from the average American.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
The problem with (America) is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be capital punishment for stupidity, let's just remove the warning labels from products and let the problem solve itself.
And yea, after reading the article, hehe. Wow. I wish I'd had the Atomic lab. Oh the fun I'd have had with that! Those bastards that snapped my bra in high school would have MAJOR issues now...
*Maniacle laughter followed immediately by a chase scene involving a bunch of men in white coats*
Happy FUN BALL!
-only $14.95-
* Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Happy Fun Ball.
* Caution: Happy Fun Ball may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
* Happy Fun Ball Contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
* Do not use Happy Fun Ball on concrete.
Discontinue use of Happy Fun Ball if any of the following occurs:
* Itching
* Vertigo
* Dizziness
* Tingling in extremities
* Loss of balance or coordination
* Slurred speech
* Temporary blindness
* Profuse sweating
* Heart palpitations
If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Happy Fun Ball may stick to certain types of skin.
When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration...
Failure to do so relieves the makers of Happy Fun Ball, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.
Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
Happy Fun Ball has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
Happy Fun Ball comes with a lifetime guarantee.
Happy Fun Ball
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
It's the all black costume that makes you look like an Invisible Pedestrian. None of the drivers will be able to see you- carry out clandestine missions at night in the middle of the road without getting spotted. I didn't see the Invisible Pedestrian Costume listed here so they must have liked it.
I don't see the Bag-O-Glass listed either. Another stimulating, wholesome toy.
The Battlestar Galactica one seems a little silly. It was recalled because some kid put it in his mouth and shot a missle down his throat? Well no shit pieces of plastic are dengerous if you swallow them. Chess pieces are dangerous under that definition. What makes them any different from the 100000 other toys that shoot plastic missles of some kind? A little unfair to add them to that list imho.
Oh, honestly. It's people like you that make it so that we can't have cool toys anymore.
Have you looked in a chemistry set lately? They've taken all the fun stuff out. What fun is a chemistry set supposed to be when you don't even have any potassium nitrate? Lame.
Now, you can't even get an alarm clock with radium dials on it anymore, because "oh noes, the terrorists will get it!" Well, let me tell you: if a kid can't play with radioactive materials in the privacy of his parents home anymore, the terrorists have already won.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I'm wondering if it really chomped the fingers OFF, or if they just got caught. The article doesn't really seem to say. I have a hard time thinking they'd design a mechanism powerful enough to sever a finger.
You are so right! I remember when I had a chemistry set when I was younger it came with everything BUT chemicals. Yet it had all the directions on how to use the nasty stuff. WTF!?!?!? Least I had cool rents that generally got me what I wanted. Just had to promise not to burn the rug. Kids now don't even get that much. Dumb-ass gummy science kits are the rage. Stupidity abounds.
It's sad, before even opening the article I knew that lawn darts would rank #1 on the list. I guess it mildly annoys me because they aren't that dangerous if you know how to use them properly. Just make sure that there's nobody down range, and don't do anything stupid with them (like throw them straight up over your head) and no one gets hurt.
I remember playing with Jarts as a kid (<10 years old) many times over. No one ever got hurt from it. There was enough common sense to keep people behind the shooter when playing the game. I guess it seems silly to me that people keep picking on Jarts because there are so many other "dangerous" things out there as well. Jarts is in a small way, a slow form of archery (sharp objects propelled at a target down range), and know that it can be made relatively safe if the proper precautions are taken. I suppose that even something as innocent as playing horseshoes could be dangerous too, should someone take a blow from a heavy chunk of metal to their head. But it's always Jarts that gets picked on. According to a wikipedia article the incident that led to the banning of lawn darts was mostly a result of the combination of lawn darts and beer. That's frequently a bad combination of anything.
Of course without lawn darts, we wouldn't have neat T-shirts about them. The rest of the list is interesting too. I'm surprised at how many kids that mini-hammock (ranked #3) has managed to strangle over the years.
-Through the server, over the router, off the firewall... Nothing but 'Net!
Do you realize that smoke detectors contain americium-241, which is radioactive? I doubt the minute radioactivity in the kit would have been more dangerous than, say, a dental X-ray. While some other toys on the list were genuine death (or finger-)traps, I think the inclusion of the inclusion of kit on the list is merely a result of confused paranoia.
I'm kind of surprised that chemistry sets and wood burning kits failed to make the list. Nothing says child safety like hot sharp iron and alcohol burners.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
OH MY GOD! A kit with a tiny amount of... almost completely fucking inert U-238. As long as you don't, I don't know, lick your hands afterwards, it's even perfectly safe to handle with your bare hands.
Are you completely ignorant about radiation or just retarded?
For some reason I'm thinking of the following exchange in "Hogfather":
The mother took a deep breath.
"You can't give her that!" she screamed. "It's not safe!"
IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather, IT'S NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.
"She's a child!" shouted Crumley.
IT'S EDUCATIONAL.
"What if she cuts herself?"
THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.
Uranium-238 generates no alpha-radiation, it generates BETA radiation. You know, same stuff that the Potassium in you generates. U-238 is about as unsafe as lead for the same reasons (being a heavy metal), but radiation is not one.
Great Intellect...
...but we were talking about the parents here I think ?
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Bleah... Americanised list. Softy toys for softy boys all of them (except the darts)
As far ast the U238 set, I would say that it was a safe toy compared to my "Junior Chemist" chemistry set which I got when I was 8. The thing had the lot - KMnO4, NaOH, NH3 solution, S, HCl and many other wonderfull things. In reasonable quantities and concentrations (where in solution). The floor of my room kept the scars from some successfull experiments for years to come.
Same for the cannon - it is a joke compared to my neighbout T34 remote controlled battle tank (my parents bluntly refused to buy me one). That thing could shoot plastic rounds circa 5 mm in diameter and move. Both on remote control. Ideal toy for an eight year old and a six year old to chase the family cat. The only advantage the cat had was that the tank while remotely controlled had a manual reload so we had to fetch it after every shell to pull the reload lever. The fun continued until the cat found out that he should attack the person with the remote, not the tank. After that we called a truce.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I've injured myself with airsoft guns many times and I'm pretty careful and since you're actually shooting at other people with them unlike BB guns
Pussy.
KFG
If you're wearing eye-protection the chances of anything more than trivial injuries from Airsoft guns is practically zero.
At close range on bare flesh you can break the top layer of skin, but the damage under such circumstances from, say, a paintball impact is even worse.
When I was a kid my friends and I use to use air-rifles the way kids now use Airsoft "weapons". Not a game went by without one of us having to have pellets extracted from subdermal layers!
By comparison Airsoft is way safer. Unless you point one at a cop. Then all bets are off...
One thing that was somewhat surprising was that a few girl toys made the list (cabbage patch and sky dancers).
Also, the motorcycle one that jams the throttle sounds really dangerous. The kids didn't do anything wrong - it was just defective.
I'm surprised the Honda Kick and Go didn't make the list. I remember that I got one of those as a kid just before they were pulled off the market because they were dangerous (I'm not sure exactly why they were dangerous.)
My parents still have mine, I think. The last time I was at their house, they had my daughter riding it and I was like "no way - those things were recalled" and they were like "you rode it and you are still alive" and I was all like "yeah, and you guys kept a vicious dog that mauled children and I have scars on my face to prove it, so I'm not interested in hearing parenting advice from you".
So, there you go.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
A few months ago there was an article at Poynter.org, about how journalists hate getting assignments for these seasonal safety articles even more than people hate reading them. Christmas, New Years, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, all annual observances that "we all experience together," strike fear and loathing into journalists, who cower under their desks when the editor approaches.
You greatly overestimate the radiation levels.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
You are probably right, but I think that water rockets for kids under 6 are almost as scary (fun). I had a blast with those. They can be very powerful. One can have a lot of (mass x velocity) by the time it hits and shatters a window.
I am actually disappointed that the old model rockets did not make it onto the blacklist! Those freaking things really were dangerous. I had a quad-E engine 2-stager that could lift several hands full of nails over 500 feet into the air, and then dump them when the chute was deployed. Don't ask me why I know this... ask the local police. I also used them as "nukes" in bottle rocket fights with the other one-eyed freaks in the neighborhood. Counterbalance a duct taped egg onto one of those babies and gauge the trajectory properly, then you were invincible!
FairTax baby!
Even adults can barely contain their jealousy when the little brat from down the block whizzes by on that shiny plastic hog.
Much like Seinfeld and people who owned a pony as a child, so am I and people who owned these things. My cousins had not one, but two of them. A fact that they never seemed to realize meant that they should give me one. Despite the fact that I told that to them constantly.
I used to have the cheap hammock when I was a kid - is was great, because without a bar you really could wrap it around yourself like a cocoon and then have someone swing you for a full 360 loop. I'm rather surprised they were strong enough to hold...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
According to this, "no serious injuries have been reported".
We apologize for the inconvenience.
You've got to be kidding me. I think your brain shut off the second you heard nuclear and radiation. I am astounded that the first thing you think of when you see this isn't, "children might swallow the slightly radioactive material, and get sick from heavy metal poisoning." but, "terrorists are going to buy a whole bunch of these kits, and then use the marginally radioactive material to slightly irradiate people with a small pipe bomb! ZOMG!!11 TERRORIRST!!"
Do you remember those steel Tonka Trucks? The ones that were big enough you could bend over as a small kid and 'drive' them around?
When I was a kid, I remember this kid named Don who lived down the street from me. One afternoon he drove his dump truck over to another neighbor's house who happen to be baby sitting me and my siblings. He came running up the sidewalk leaned down with his head tilted up looking at us screaming his head off as he was faking running us down with his truck. He didn't notice an uneven step in the sidewalk and it caught the front tires of the truck and stopped the truck cold. Since he wasn't expecting it, his arms buckled and he fell teeth first onto the back of the truck slicing his lip just under his nose and removing several of his top front teeth.
When he stood up, and it was like slow motion, his upper lip fell down below his lower lip, but still connected on either side. He made a spitting motion and what looked like bleeding cicklets fell on the sidewalk. He looked down and then up and wiped his mouth and when he moved his hand, I could see his tongue exploring the hole where is teeth and lip used to be. And then it was just like a fountain turning on, everything went very bloody and he began to scream. He cupped his mouth with both hands and ran home with a very distinctive trail of blood following him. Later, his mom returned to collect his teeth so they could be reinserted, but the teeth were wrecked. Most of them weren't even connected to the root(?) anymore, but sheared clean off.
Don moved a few years later but I hardly ever saw him again. His face was really disfigured and the wound was obvious. He was self conscious of it and I know he got made fun of.
I just remember how popular those toys were. I had the grader, but it wasn't as good for 'driving' around so I never did. Considering what happened to Don now that I'm grown-up, thank dog.
A cloud chamber and a small amount of radioactive isotopes are not dangerous, at least not any more than common household chemicals. And while they may have been "linked to Gulf war syndrome", the US military claims it's harmless and has not trouble using it around civilians in large amounts.
It's a disgrace that this science kit is found among a list of dangerous toys; the journalist should be ashamed of his ignorance.
But have a dental x-ray running in your room for a couple years and you might have a problem.
A more recent candidate for the list... the wego kite tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEgTzSrTDMI
This thing isn't on the market for obvious reasons. :)
Actually, most of the playgrounds I see today are made out of metal coated with rubber, which is much more durable than wood. The only plastic parts are slides, roofs, and some of the toys (beanbag toss, slats in log bridges, etc.)
And I have to say the metal playgrounds are miles better than the "awesome wood playgrounds" they replaced. Wood playgrounds were shitty--they were built small, often very unimiganitive design-wise, they splintered terribly, and they were never maintained.
As for gravel--that's the second worst to use on a playground* and I've never understood why people would choose it. Sand is much better, and I see sand a lot more often than I see rubber mats (which are actually quite hard) or shredded rubber.
Of course, my experience with playgrounds may not be representative, since I live in a pretty affluent area and thus we can probably afford more expensive gear.
I'm not entirely sure why you're so hostile about it. It's a playground. Get over it.
*The first worst is woodchips. Yes, I've seen it once. It didn't last long because the kids kept scraping the shit out of themselves.
I bought a cheap hammock without bars 2 years ago at wal-mart for my dorm. Under the loft, above the futon. Dont pass out drunk in a crappy hammock though, you will wake up with a sore neck. Or completely wrapped up and turned upside down in it as several people found out...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Wham-O had at least two products that should be good candidates for the above list, but I didn't see them.
First (and more obvious), the Slip N Slide, and all of its various incarnations and copycats.
Second, was a sort of tetherball variant they sold in ~1985 called "Zing Zang". It featured an adjustable steel pole with a spike on one end (designed to be inserted into the ground), and a wire coil on the other end, onto which a cord with a captive tennis ball was attached. The tennis ball cord would theoretically start in the middle, with each player (holding a hard plastic "raquet") assigned a different direction (clockwise or counterclockwise). The goal was to get to the top or bottom of the coil to win. But most kids I knew would just swing the pole around like a giant two-handed flail, bringing down tennis ball torture on opponents... while trailing a steel spike behind them that would often go forgotten until it lodged in someone else's knees or groin or chest.
I'm all for kids learning through play and as a kid some of the most dangerous things I played with were motorways, tall trees, cigarettes, alcohol and... well you get the idea. This top-ten list is a hoot - and I can sort of see why poisonous plastic things might not make a great present. But you have to wonder when those responsible for controlling what kids have acess to start insisting all apple trees have matresses put under them, just in case. And in so doing, take away all the fun of real world learning - it's one thing being told that something is dangerous but far better and fun to learn first hand that snipping a worm in two doesn't make two worms, only two halves and a bit of goo.
Sure they may be dangerous, *but you haven't lived* until you've driven your Power Wheels Motorcycle through a barrage of uranium tipped lawn jarts while navigating an obstacle course of hammocks.
Excuse me, but each of these samples was likely far less irradiating than an average depleted uranium bullet. All the terrorists have to do is to pick american bullets shot all over their country, grind them to a powder and voila, a dirty-bomb irradiation material, many tons of it, for free. As opposed to 3 small samples which would likely have to be placed directly in contact with your skin for 5 years to increase risk of cancer, and totally useless for a dirty bomb, because the explosion would spread it so thinly that they wouldn't be stronger than background radiation.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
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Furthermore, as a chemist I can tell you that everything is a potential danger, when applied in a certain way. Just mix all the stuff from your cleaning cabinet together. Or
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
I remember a toy that I had around 9 years old... it was called Mr. Football (and had a catchy jingle) and it was basically a device that threw football passes. Unlike some modern air gun versions that work only with soft foam footballs, Mr. Football was simply a timer and high-powered spring catapult. I begged for it, and my parents got it for me. But they realized it was dangerous and kept it locked up in the shed, only allowing my friends and I to use it while they were around. So of course I had to steal the key.
This took only a day or two, and soon my friends and I had Mr. Football out and operating without any adults around. This was wonderful because we knew well that a football was about the least interesting thing you could load into a catapult. We started with rocks, then open soda cans, and eventually insects. It was extrodinarily fun. Until the accident.
While trying to launch a caterpillar, we were waiting for the catapult to go off, when the little creature managed to get to the edge of Mr. Football's powerful plastic hand. With the timer only a couple seconds from going off, one of my friends went over to make sure the caterpillar didn't escape. I warned him to get away from the thing, but too late -- it went off and smacked him right in the face. He fell to the ground and was crying. We went over to check him out. He had a bright red abrasion on his cheekbone and brow, but he seemed okay at first. Then we noticed that his eye was filling with blood. Specifically the iris; the white was normal save for being a bit bloodshot, but the bottom half of the iris was filled with blood. He said he could see but that it was blurry. We sent him home and told him not to tell his mother or we'd all get in trouble.
Of course we all got in trouble. He had to go and get several surgeries on his eye to correct the damage, and I was told it wouldn't ever be 100% again. He moved away a year later so I don't really know. A lawyer or someone like that came by once later to pick up the device, because I think there was a class action suit, though my family wasn't involved in that. I don't think the item was on store shelves a year later. Not sure how much my friend's injury had to do with that.
Anyways, I was sort of hoping to see it on the list, but no dice.
Cheers.
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It has to be the bicycle, no? I distinctly remember my friends and I doing head on collisions on purpose on our bicycles. It was a form of jousting without the lances, I think. Man, the things you can get away with when you're under 100 lbs.
Anyways, I think we should ban bicycles.
Just kidding.
Oh shit, a Cabbage Patch dissenter! Run and hide man they'll be coming for you, chomp chomp chomp gulp and no FunkSoulBrother no more.
Wait a second, someone's knocking.
get a clue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
you may have already seen this, but fyi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
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Which is exactly what the US government and corporations don't want to happen. Look at the laws being enacted, the charges and/or suits being filed and the way our school system is run. Sure wouldn't have wanted people with these attitudes today back when me and my friends played chicken in the park with our ever present pocket knifes. Never even heard of anyone actually getting hurt while playing chicken, but then we usually didn't play chicken with someone whose knife throwing we didn't trust. Now we had a few make some awful faces while playing stretch with them, grab their groin and sit down for a while. We wandered the towns and countrysides with our pocket knives and either a bb gun, slingshot or a bow often. Every once in a while some property got damaged but was extremely rare that anyone got hurt to any degree worth complaining about. Often the slingshots and bows we made ourselves. Heck, we even used to make cannons with pipes and firecrackers or even some gunpowder some kid had made.
Frankly we have been going downhill for years. I think we were more responsible as kids and our parents even more so when they were kids. Until our kids can roam around freely again and learn from exposure to things and doing they will never be as capable of taking care of themselves or feel as responsible to being a good citizen. If we keep crowding the kids into the cages of the public school system and locked into large group stuff after school we shouldn't be suprised when they start behaving the way rats do in overcrowded pens at the pet store. Same goes for adults!
I can't tell you how many times I've been shot, intentionally, with a BB gun. No, literally, I can't.
It's rather more than one, something less than a gross. Stings right good. Might even leave a mark. For a long time if you were one of the Indians (no shirt, that's how you could tell the Indians. We didn't have Native Americans. We had Apaches and Comanches; and one weirdo who thought it was cool to be a Blackfoot).
Teaches you the first lesson of not being seen right quick.
KFG
Two of my favorite all-time toys were M80's and H100's (quarter stick of dynamite). Me and my friend would spend a whole day trying to see how high we could blast a coffee can into the air. At the time it seemed normal and fun. Now I look back and think about how no one in our suburban neighborhood seemed to care that we were methodically blowing stuff up all day long in various places.
Another "toy" that was a fad: burning plastic. Yes, just the simple fun of watching pieces of plastic combust and form sizzling, bubbling, congealed masses dangling from the end of a stick. I remember my friend moronically started whizzing the stick around with the sizzling plastic dangling and some flew on his hand causing a blister.
Buy maybe our ultimate crazy passtime required no toy whatsoever: one summer it was all the craze with the kids on our block to hyperventilate. All it took was one kid knowing how to do it and very quickly the "technique" was transmitted among all us kids as though it were some kind of esoteric rite, and we were all doing it. How fun to breathe heavily and then hold your breath and then suddenly wake up moments later after having lost consciousness.
Oh yeah, I also remember the time in gradeschool when I "discovered" this really cool powder in a cabinet - if you left it on your skin it would cause it to become dark for a really long time (like a few days). It was silver nitrate.
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Sadly common sense and children are rarely together. My cousins have scars from Jarts (and then darts, and penknives).
They used to play some kind of splits/chicken. They would throw the Jart left or right to the person and the person would need to do the splits. In order for it to count it would have to be thrown in range of the other person to pick up while making them go through the pain of moving the legs further apart.
They got jarts in thier feet and legs.
One of them also got one in the hand after they were playing some kind of knife throwing trick that you see in the circus.
Might?
Yeah, especially if you had to dig one out with a pocketknife. That might leave a mark for life.
KFG
I had a wooden playground in Elementary school and it wasn't so great. It had some buried tires, a couple platforms, a weird wiggly balance beam thingy, some swings, and that was it.
I can understand why you guys ignored the bean bag toss game, since it's designed for 2-5 year old children. Including that on an elementary school playgrounds is stupid.
One of our evil metal and plastic playgrounds even has a TOWER with a cool chain ladder, a bendy piping ladder, a slide, a roof, and even a balcony. Other items on the plaground include a cootie house (with a little plastic counter to sell mudpies from and a plexiglass bubble window that everyone makes faces on), another slide, a fireman's pole, a rubber bridge, monkey bars, swings, and a broken zipglide (it gets replaced every year or so and lasts about three days before it's broken by five or six kids using it at the same time). I happen to think that's way cooler than a wooden playground which was disintigrating two years after it was installed.
The Water Wiggle was a toy which would attach to the end of a garden hose, and jet the water out of a plastic hood looking thing in such a manner as to chaotically fly around the lawn. Responsible for at least one death according to this page.
I am not old enough to have experienced this thing myself, but have heard horror stories both from my parents and a and the mother of a friend of mine. She actually knew someone who was seriously messed up by one when she was growing up. Surprising it wasn't mentioned in this particular article.
Wow, you're rude, an idiot and got modded insightful. Congratulations.
First of all, being made of wood doesn't make a toy awesome. You can make a plastic replica of any toy and it will be exactly the same. Except it won't be wood. Big deal. Half my toys were wood, the other were plastic. I din't care, I didn't even notice. I was too busy playing with them.
You don't like the plastic toys from today? I think that has more to do with you "growing up" from an imaginative child into a cinical adult.
By the way, there are lots of reasons for using plastic. For example it's easier to produce (and color), cheaper, cleaner, lighter. Especially early plastics were not safe at all and ALSO splintered.
The same applies to rubber mats. Much easier to clean, easier to use.
Oh, and yes modern materials are safer. How unfortunate! If you think that taking risks is essential to having fun (and life in general) then something is wrong with your head. Personally, I like to not having to fear for my life all the time. There are plenty of other challenges left.
Also, of course parents should look after their own children. But doesn't that also mean providing a safe environment for them?
Oh and one more thing, guess what material the toy in question was made of?
A friend of mine who has a one year old kid once said to me: "he [the kid] hasn't lived when he doesn't have any scars when he reaches puberty." My friend is right of course. There are toys in that list that I would gladly give my kids, if I had any. The Sky Dancers, the cannon and the Creepy Crawlers I think are particularly cool and not too dangerous.
-- Cheers!
What happened to the idea of kids playing to practice for the real world?
That's the purpose of play for the rest of the animal kingdom, with the various wild cat species being the best example (play centers around hunting skills and establishment and maintainance of heirarchy, when they grew up those innocuous activities became "real", and because they had practiced in youth, they make better decisions)
people are too sheltered now.. and even i was when I was a kid. This is one of the things I dislike about my fellow liberals.. it's one thing to be egalitarian when people ask for it and truly need a helping hand or protection from active disenfranchisement.... its another to overprotect and thereby deny real life lessons to both kids and parents. In real life you will often handle or live around objects which can cause you harm, and parents should realize that if their toys don't do it they can rest assured their kids will manage to get other everyday objects to serve that function. At the same time, making toys which are not idiot proof will teach kids how to take proper precautions both in everyday movement and when handling tools with similar risks.
For example:
When I was 7 I was given the gi joe crusader..
this thing had articulated everything.. including landing gear.. which was made of thin hard and jam-prone plastic with way too much spring tortion.
one day this gear jammed, and in the process of being freed literally ripped off my thumbnail.
But guess what.. nobody sued..
My nail healed, and I learned the importance of handling with care anything which could potentially jerk uncontrollably by experiencing a relatively minor injury.
I mean, imagine if I had made this arguably inevitable mistake with more "adult" tools.
Getting hurt, just like copyright infringement, is a question of "when" in life, not "if". If you prevent one means people will inevitably encounter another through which to learn these lessons.
That said.. this list is far from accurate.
There are antiques i've seen from the turn of the century which have such gems as open flame, boiling substances, and serious electrical hazards.
it should really be read as "the 10 most dangerous toys produced since 1950"
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I'm just happy to see that lawn darts made the top of the list. When I heard the title of this article, that's what I immediately thought of.
You'll shoot your eye out...
Sorry had to be said
The reason kids are now making 'Crofty-bombs' in our country might just be caused by a total lack of having any imagination, or because the chemistry sets just don't bang loudly enough any more. They're bored, don't know any nice fun things to do, so they blow up their classmates. With just some regular warm water, aluminum foil, and some sink unclogger (a nasty chemical in itself) in a small bottle, they blow up the weirdest things. Yesterday I heard on the news two kids of 14 and 15 blew their home-made bomb in the snout of a donkey.
In the old days, they'd mix chemicals up at home. And injure themselves. Yeah, I can see why this is such great development...A great step forward for all of us.
It's not just this. I remember a Christmas special a year or two ago called "Merry F***ing Christmas" or something along these lines that demonstrated the true purpose of Christmas:
Natural selection through Christmas presents. Got a kid that was dumb enough to stick his hand in an EZ Bake oven? That one's a moron. Better try again! What about another boy who ducks when someone aims a BB gun in his direction? That's a keeper!
The real terrorists aren't the ones with bombs strapped to their chests. They're in our law firms, preventing our children from blowing themselves to tiny bits with their "Actual Working Holy Hand Grenade" when they don't listen and count to 4. This is not what God intended. God gave us Jesus and Christmas and all that so we could kill off our dumbest kids and raise only the smartest.
Let me tell you, the terrorists have already won, my friends. They won long ago...
Tickle Me Elmo Extreme goes on a killing spree. News at 11.
Thank you slashdot for brightening my life with the misery of others, especially bratty children!
GPLv2: I want my rights, I want my phone call! DRM: What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28331 I still have Jarts from the 70s at my grandma's house, by the way. And they're still fun.
I didn't see anyone mention those guns that shot the plastic discs.
WikiLink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracer_gun
Good cheap eye shooting out fun right there!
fingers
Damn ad-heavy split up articles.
1. Lawn Darts
2. Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab
3. Mini-Hammocks from EZ Sales
4. Snacktime Cabbage Patch Dolls
5. Sky Dancers
6. Bat Masterson Derringer Belt Gun
7. Creepy Crawlers
8. Johnny Reb Cannon
9. Battlestar Galactica Missile Launcher
10. Fisher-Price Power Wheels Motorcycle
So it seems they missed the latest threat:
The Nintendo Wii
- http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/
Example injuries from that site:
- Girl Dislocates Knee While Playing with Wii
- Attack on Girlfriend Proves Fatal to Boyfriend's Wii Privileges
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
If dental x-rays are so safe, then why do they give you a lead sheet to put over you balls, and why won't the dentist be in the same room as the machine whilst it runs? Also, would you give the radioactive part of a smoke alarm to a child to play with?
More than a decade ago I inherited a chemistry lab that was about 30 years old at that time, came in a beautiful wooden box and was essentially unused. About 1/3 of the chemicals found therein would not be included in todays chemistry sets due to their toxicity (including some carcinogens). Even back then, the bottle for benzene was left empty by the factory, but that was just because of the flammability, the users were to get there benzene at their local drugstore or chemist, according to a note inside the bottle.
During one of my first trip to the US I was absolutely astounded by the existence of BB guns. Almost as dangerous as a real one and for...kids ?!? The neighbor's kid (then 7 year old) would wander around without supervision shooting everything that moved: frogs, birds, large insects... I would have kicked the shit out of him when I first saw that if it was not for the fear of the parents, lawsuits and such crap (to say nothing of the fear of being shot myself). Absolutely insane. I learned a year later that he shot one of his friends in the eye. I guess that's how you build up a card carrying NRA member.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Two words: parental supervision.
If you leave an under 3 to play alone then you are asking for trouble.
My little Linux and tech blog
I would have kicked the shit out of him when I first saw that if it was not for the fear of the parents, lawsuits and such crap
Well yes, for someone who is inherently violent, such as yourself, a BB gun might be something they shouldn't be allowed to handle. Thanks for being the reason cops need to exist. Thanks a fucking lot.
I guess that's how you build up a card carrying NRA member.
I'm a Zen Buddhist. I do have card envy though. We don't use them. I think it's because there are no documents pockets in the robes or something. Anyway, I'm told this is just my ego, but actually it's because that now that I've conquered my ego I could occasionally use something to remind me who I am. Like when asked by a cop. Most of them aren't Zen Buddhists and don't understand.
Around here they also have real guns, which are certain leave a mark. I don't like guns.
But it's still fun to plink tins cans now and again; a nice change from traditional, nonviolent Zen Buddhist pursuits, like armor piercing archery.
KFG
I'm wondering if it really chomped the fingers OFF
Yup. 35 fingers and one penis. Uhh, don't ask...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
1. Tinker toys. I can't be the only kid who made a crossbow for himself out of these.
2. Chemistry sets. Explosives and poison for young anarchists.
3. Home electronics kits.
4. Chemical rocketry sets.
5. Water rockets.
6. Boomerangs.
Plus all the other stuff kids commonly played with: tire swings, dirt bikes, slingshots, bb guns, shuriken, lighters, etc. and other improvised toys. Maybe kids are safer now that those things are pretty much on the forbidden list in the US, but I'm pretty sure they have less fun.
I think it's less of an issue with people thinking Americans are generally stupid, than thinking people are generally stupid but Americans get away with blaming others.
:P
It is rather odd, wouldn't you say, that a country that has had a history of thinking communism worse than atrocitous dictators would implement one of the core problems so effectively in their own justice system?
You might want to have a look at the Stella Awards. Stuff like the most recent "winner", who bought a mobile home, put on the cruise control and left the wheel to go make food. Obviously, she crashed. She successfully sued and was awarded a ridiculous amount of money and a new mobile home for her stupidity. If it had happened anywhere else, she would have lost her driver's licence, been at the very least fined for the reckless endangerment of others in traffic, and possibly been subjected to a psychiatric evaluation to see if she could be turned loose on society once more or not.
So, it's not so much that the rest of us think Americans are stupid, as we think that American culture (or at least their courtroom culture) encourages and rewards stupidity, while taking away any element of personal responsibility.
The radioactive part of a smoke alarm is in the presence of you and your family, every day of the year. Oh noes.
The lead sheet over your balls is because YOUR BALLS ARE DAMN SENSITIVE TO THAT KIND OF THING, and dental X-rays are pretty focused and strong. The dentist leaves the room so 1. he can monitor the results and 2. to prevent being exposed to that kind of thing many times a day for multiple years.
The radioactivity in the toy is still damn stupid, but the average inhabitant of Cornwall probably still gets more radioactivity.
Look it up if you don't know that classic example.
Isn't it more educational for them to blow themselves up than donkeys ? (not to mention beneficial to the gene pool) ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
So that's what they're called. We used to make those when we were kids in the 70s. Only we used granny's prescription bottles--which were made of glass--adding another layer of danger.
You are aware that some people use the metal, not plastic, rounds for softguns, right? And that it's not entirely unpopular to increase the spring load or air pressure?
I know people have shot things to shreds with modified guns and/or metal balls.
Used properly, a softgun is fairly safe, but some people don't realize they can be dangerous at point blank range. Especially with metal rounds.
Oh yes- woodchips. I went to an elementary school that used woodchips in its playground. I liked it at first (it was easier to clean out from my shoes than sand) but I grew to hate it. First, the splinters, then I played on the parallel bars and fell off them while hanging upside-down- head trauma, nosebleed and several splinters (oh, and woodchips up the nose=pain).
OSx86 FTW
True story:
After begging and pleading with their parents for years, my friend Pete and his older brother finally got BB guns one Xmas.
Of course, the first thing they did was go into their room and had a shootout. Pete's brother nailed him direct in the eyebrow over the left eye. Pete scraped the BB our of his eyebrow, at which point a little fountain of blood began flowing. Pete's first words were "I'm going tell!"
Since they both knew that they would lose their precious armaments, negotiations ensued about how things could be amicably worked out. In the end, Pete settled out of court for the opportunity to shoot his brother in the ass three times.
I would have smacked a little sense in that kid too.
Plinking cans is fine. Plinking frogs, birds and assorted critters for the hell of it isn't.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
In some countries (like in Switzerland) minors can go train shooting using actual military riffle (starting from 16 years old, as far as I remember. They are allowed to keep the riffle at home) and using air riffle even younger (starting from 13 years old. There was a law wanting to lower that age to 10 y.o.).
Safety is strictly enforced in the shooting ranges and the young receive complete instruction about avoiding hazards before getting the actual gun.
Accident are rather rare.
Not that I appreciate the situation (I hate guns), but, just to mention that *YES* as long as you keep safe, lots of stuff that are apparently forbidden in the USA (according to TFA), are just madeless in other countries just by asking for parental supervision/better safety mecanism/whatever is required to avoid stupid accidents.
I mean... Making a *darts*-game forbidden ?!? Just because some idiots got drunk and/or didn't follow basic safety principle ? By making it forbidden one's only embarrassing all the other 99% "normal" people out there, who just took the necessary precautions and now feel that this again will make the rest of the world think that Americans are idiots.
Under your logic, candles on birthday cakes should be made illegal until a kid turns 16 y.o. because some idiots may try to put them off with his bare hands instead of blowing.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Isn't propaganda a wonderful thing ?
I too was wondering about the amount of heavy metals in the kit and the potential toxicity of it. Nowadays it's easy to make a very minute source, back then I'm not sure the implications were completely understood.
Potentially, if done properly, it could be a very fun (and quite safe) toy though. Except that nobody would buy it because of the exact same reactions exhibited by the GP (ZOMG! nukular! terrorists! thinkofthechinldren!) bah.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Well, if the sources in the kit were packages like standard exempt sources today (little round brightly colored plastic discs with a hole in the middle), they practically invite consumption. They look like lifesavers! One of my friends in junior physics lab (mostly jokingly) kept saying she wanted to eat them. Now give that to a not so bright kid... OTOH, the only parents who are likely to get such a thing for their kids are also the same parents who are likely to be smart enough to watch out for their kids, too.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
More like "Ten most AWESOME toys of all time".
Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
There was this think called common sense.....something lacking, thanks to personal injury lawyers and stupid judge/juries that allow such stupid lawsuits. Plus, back then, they didn't know a lot about radioactivity.....
Plinking cans is fine. Plinking frogs, birds and assorted critters for the hell of it isn't.
Thou shalt not harm any sentient being, but you just try splainin' that to the sentient beings.
KFG
they are asking parents to supervise their own fucking children.
Then you support a major increase in the minimum wage? Most people are too busy working to supervise their children, and don't have the money to hire someone to do it.
Where is the Bag O' Glass? Pretty Peggy Ear-Piercing Set? Mr. Skin-Grafter? General Tron's Secret Police Confession Kit? Doggie Dentist? How about Johnny Switchblade, Adventure Punk or the Teddy Chainsaw Bear?
What kind of kist is this?
Waitasec... Under the "SkyDancers" entry, it mentions "broken ribs". I can see the other mild forms of damage, particularly eye injuries, but how the hell would six ounces of plastic and foam, even spinning as fast as its little plastic launcher can make it, manage to break bones?
I took issue with a few other entries as well, but it seems like many of these "dangers" don't really involve the toy itself, much like "injury while under the influence" - The alcohol doesn't hurt you, your actions while drunk hurt you.
Some stupid kid probably launched one of these off the roof to see how far it could go, then proceeded to fall off the roof. Do we blame the toy for that?
when I was a kid, you insensitive clod.
All we had was rifles and shotguns.
And enough sense to know these WEREN'T TOYS.
Nobody got shot, lost an eye, or anything.
Perhaps that's because lawyers were rare, back in the day...
they actually made a radioactive energy kit FOR KIDS?! Why don't they just put "For ages 8 and up, especially terrorists" on it? They could build a dirty pipe bomb (radiation spreading) using just a couple of those kits probably.
You know, the sad part is that nowdays a kid who has graduated from high school might actually think this could happen.
Whatever happened to 8th grade physics?
Let me tell you, the terrorists have already won, my friends.
And just so you can spot them, they wear three piece suits and like to use code words in Latin for critical parts of their communication.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Oh, the irony in the requisite terror claims on this one is just awesome. They'll use an element named after our country from a device created to save lives in order to kill us all!
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
NO, they couldn't. Even in those cool kits of old you wouldn't be able to come up with enough material to make a dirty bomb that actually mattered - you'd need several kilos of bad stuff (or stuff that was much more refined than anything that would have come in a kit like this).
Most people in this country (like yourself) haven't the slightest clue about radiation. They hear the word and instantly panic, all the while flying back and forth between their brick houses in Denver where and their wooden house in Miami. (One of these houses has three times the background radiation as the other. Which is it?)
As for this particular lab, I haven't been able to find the specs but I'll bet you a mod point that your average american smoke detector has a far greater intensity of ionizing radiation than anything that Gilbert put on the market. There are probably clocks out there with radium painted dials that are far more radioactive, not to mention all of the uranium oxide they used for dinnerware until production of the bomb in WWII dried up the supply. (The product line continues to this day, but they stopped using the radioactive glaze back in the 60s. Google up Fiestaware.)
In other words, back in the day, it was far more likely for somebody to visit Crate and Barrel to obtain enough materials for a dirty bomb than it was Toys R Us.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
yes, but those fine x-rays pictures! watch your teeth grow and fall off!
~~~ Paf. Le chien.
You've got to be kidding me. I think your brain shut off the second you heard nuclear and radiation.
Yeah, it's like the U.S.A. is Pee Wee's Playhouse, and "radiation" has been the Secret Word for over 50 years.
President Pee-Wee: Okay kids, now what do you do when you hear the word "radiation"?
People: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
President Pee-Wee: That's right! Good sheeple.
The enemies of Democracy are
C'mon those are all toys. If you really want to get hurt, buy a weapon.
They didn't even mention the best part!!!!
Caps, my ass. The cool thing about this _line_ of toy guns generically called "Shoot-N-Shell" was that they fired hard plastic bullets from heavy brass cartridges. You would buy a whole set of ammo: bullets, cartridges, and caps. You'd push the bullets into the cartridges and put an adhesive cap for effect onto the tail of the cartridge. The bullets were driven from a spring in the cartridge and fired when the hammer struck it.
I, in fact, had the Derringer Belt Gun but they made a whole line of solid metal Shoot-N-Shells from six-shooters to rifles. And don't begin to believe that they had the politically-correct red plastic attachment you see in the photo. Real little guns for little people back then.
Shoot-N-Shells were fantastic boy toys -- except for the putting out eyes thing. The fact that they weren't as powerful as BB guns perversely encouraged shoot-outs.
********
And a note on #7: If we are going back to the early 50s with the Gilbert set, there were far more lethal toymakers than the Creepy Crawler. Kids were melting lead at home to make toy soldiers well into the 60s.
I used to have one toy that certainly should have made the list. I don't remember who made it, but the toy was an enclosed, circular plastic maze with a nickel-sized ball of mercury contained within. The idea is that you tilt and rotate the toy to maneuver the mercury drop into the center of the maze. Imagine what would happen if the plastic broke. Imagine how many of these toys were simply thrown away in the garbage.
Come to think of it, my father may still have it somewhere. I'll have to find it and take it to the hazardous waste disposal site when I visit next time.
And what about those that do kill you? Look at the list of toys in the article - most of them killed several people at least.
Parents used to be able to give their 10 year old child a .22 calibre rifle and ammunition without fear of being seen as some kind of nutcase.
One of my good friends gave his boy a rifle when he was four or five, I think. He was riding a four-wheeler at (double digit ccs, I think) six. By seven he'd taken a 6 point buck. He's a good kid, but his father also supervises him very closely, and is adamant about safety (gear and methods). I once saw the kid get on the four wheeler without his shoulder pads. He was in his room in five minutes, and the next time he got to ride was two weeks later.
At t-giving this year, my 4 year old daughter was reaching for a candle to blow it out. My wife, right next to her, told here to be careful and not tip it. Well, she grabbed it and moved it towards her. And tipped it. And got hot wax on her hand. She stiffened, blew out the candle, looked at my wife with that "uh oh" look, and my wife cleaned the wax off. My wife know the wax would be hot, but not seriously injure her. My daughter didn't cry because she knew she'd been warned (and there were eight other adults around - she's a prideful thing). She was much more careful with the second candle. A good lesson, imho.
As a kid I burned and cut myself too many times to remember. Personally, I'm not sure anybody kid respects something until they've been hurt by it. *shrug* We have "real" toys in my house. They can hurt, but it would take an awful lot of effort to seriously injure yourself with the toys she gets to play with "by herself".
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Playgrounds nowadays do have mainly woodchips, sand or that rubber matting.
But when I were a lad, we didn't 'ave any of that poncy stuff. We 'ad proper 'ard tarmac.
Under all the playground rides, slide? tarmac. Swings? Tarmac. Metal climbing frames and roundabouts? Tarmac.
And our swings were the proper ones, no "harnesses" to hold the child in.
No Tires. Just hard plastic seat connected by 2 chains to the metal crossbar 15 feet up.
We used to have competitions to see who could swing and jump off the furthest.
Kids should NEVER be wrapped in cotton wool. A few cuts and grazes are part of growing up.
http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/flubber/flubber.h tml
If that cannon came back to the market today, people would think that the rebel flag was more dangerous than the projectiles. Whiners.
They were replaced because the pressure-treated lumber they were constructed from contained high levels of arsenic, and children have a bad habit of putting hand-in-mouth, thus absorbing the arsenic.
Now that non-arsenic PT lumber is readily available, you are seeing a resurgence of the wood playground sets.
get over it. Kids will hurt themselves. When my sister got her firstborn, I asked if she would take any precuations. The only thing she did was put a vase up high. For the rest nothing. All corners were just as sharp as before. Het reasoning was that if he would bump himself, he would cry and then stop doing it.
That what doesn't kill you, make you stronger.
As a kid I have broken my share of bones and am sometimes still surprised when I hear that some people never had broken anything as a kid. The thing that hurt most was loosing a fingernail when I drove over it when on the skateboard.
Kids have been coming home crying and under blood for several centuries, so what is up with the current wussies? How can they learn that a videogame is just a game if they have no sence of reality? If you hit somebody in a game or in real life is different. Try it out. Also you will learn that a game does not have a bigger brother and the person you hit in real life does.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I went to a school with a really old-school playground in it for a year. It was this really old parochial school in the center of downtown where we were bussed for a year while the new school was being built.
I remember collecting pieces of lead and wax in that playground, to add to my lead and wax collections (I still have that lead collection- gathered it all up and melted it into a big puck of lead that I still have.)
There's a bit of hysteria out there about certain substances. I ordered a bunch of new parts for some projects from Digi-Key recently. On the invoice, all kinds of the chips and capacitors were marked 'ROHS' or whatnot. I said 'not for long, hahah' and reached for the roll of 63/37 solder and the iron to solder them in the circuit board.
And mark my word, it's important for us to keep good track of who those 'ROHS' fuckers are, because when the dendrites ('tin whiskers') start growing in everybodys' electronic devices in a short while, we'll need a list of bureaucrats and do-gooder committe-types to hammer to death. Not necessarily physically. Massive junk-science lawsuits and legal penalties will do.
Sadistic as it may be, that picture with the jart stuck through the kids shoulder is priceless!
Ever done a `man` on `top` ?
Kids will ALWAYS find ways to injure themselves (sometimes fatally)
And yes, fine, protecting them from some things like toys that break to reveal sharp impaling needles and things should be banned. But some of those toys?
As someone mentioned elsewhere, have sticks, trees, stairs, lakes etc been "banned"?
Because thousands more kids have been injured doing what kids do without the aid of a plastic toy.
They're going over the top with safety, if you deny that then I refer you to the story of schools banning the playing of conkers. One of THE traditional playground games from time immemorial.
(For the americans out there, a "conker" is a horsechestnut and the game involves drilling a hole down the centre of the conker and threading some string through it. Then each player holds his conker out at arms length while the other uses his to try to smash it, each taking turns. Each hit scores a point. Destroying a conker gains the points of that conker too... leading to the phrase "Mine's a 50'er" or "mine's a 102'er".
During the summer months we had a similar game based on wooden lolly sticks.
1. Lawn Darts
2. Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab
3. Mini-Hammocks from EZ Sales
4. Snacktime Cabbage Patch Dolls
5. Sky Dancers
6. Bat Masterson Derringer Belt Gun
7. Creepy Crawlers
8. Johnny Reb Cannon
9. Battlestar Galactica Missile Launcher
10. Fisher-Price Power Wheels Motorcycle
Honorable Mention: Manley Toys Disco Light
i had a woodchips playground when i was a kid (we called it 'tan-bark') and a rubberized playground. for the record, it hurts WAY more to face plant on a flat rubber surface than it does on loose woodchips.
plus you could huck woodchips at your friends and nail 'em right good up the side of the head when you were horsing around. ah, childhood.
Please allow me to hate the creator of the 120-character limit: *HATES*. Thank you.
That reminds me of the days I spent making mortars for fireworks with my friend. It is pretty awesome watching a flaming, colorful ball of light fly up into the air while dashing into the woods so that the police can't find you.
Or sticking bottle rockets into the eye sockets of this oddly humanoid hunk of metal and shooting them at the girls across the street.
Or taking apart disposable cameras to get the capacitors in the flash circuit to build a Tesla coil. Or putting said Tesla coil out on the front lawn and dancing around it waving fluorescent lights (which will glow when close enough to the tesla coil) on Halloween. Oddly enough...we had a lot of candy left over at our house that year...
Oh man, I wish I could do all that again.
It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
DU would be OK as a terror weapon (because people are ignorant) but almost useless in causing actual harm. It's too dense to remain aerosolized. Once it's on the ground or in the water table it would slightly increase the amount of radon in the environment. "Yield to Islam, heathen dogs, or we'll slightly increase the rate of lung cancer in your cities over the next few decades" just falls flat as a threat.
His toys were very controversial, however I'm pretty sure they were safe. Take one of his most popular toys, a bag of medical waste, which he called "Johnny Doctor," or the hand gun, "Johnny Street Gang (no ammo included)" that he tried to sell. Of course, there was also the bag of broken glass he marketed as "Bag of Broken glass," however I assert that the light refraction off of the glass shards made that toy educational; it taught kids the science of colors and light.
Everyone knows about BB guns but when I was a kid Daisy sold this strange cast iron thing that you were supposed to attach paper bullseye targets to. In other words it was a big, flat piece of metal that kids were supposed to shoot at. The purpose? It produced a truly awesome *ding* sound when you hit it. "You'll shoot your eye out!"
Crossbows and Catapults was a game where two players build little castles and then try to destroy each others castles with the aforementioned medieval weapons. Made of hard plastic, powered by rubber bands and firing solid plastic discs that weighed about an ounce it was a lot of fun. But being boys my brother and I were unsatisfied with the catapults destructive power so we augmented it with about a dozen extra rubber bands, increasing the catapults force so much that its plastic frame actually warped when we pulled it back to full strength. We had turned a child's game into a pair of homemade honest-to-god slingshots. We soon found that shooting them at each other was much more fun than knocking over little castles. Getting hit by one meant a bloody silver dollar size welt. My brother actually sent one through a single layer of sheetrock.
You're thinking of Denis Leary's Merry F#$%n' Christmas Special. I think it was on last year. They have some clips from the show on the Comedy Central site, but not the segment you're talking about.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Oh, that's a college level course these days. 500 or 600 level in most places. 8th graders have to pass tests these days. No time for learning.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Another "toy" that was a fad: burning plastic. Yes, just the simple fun of watching pieces of plastic combust and form sizzling, bubbling, congealed masses dangling from the end of a stick. I remember my friend moronically started whizzing the stick around with the sizzling plastic dangling and some flew on his hand causing a blister.
Oh yeah, I remember burning plastic. Did you and your friends ever use the black pvc pipes, drip them in water to make interesting scultures and shit?
On of the more stupider things that we did was soak a tennis ball in gasoline. Then we would set it on fire and play hand ball with it. God, how stupid was that?
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
IMHO, any guy that wears a bra in highschool had better be prepared for a bit of hassling.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Material is not the main point, but it is related. Better materials are a great way to make the same toys safer, which means that safety doesn't have to mean taking them away.
People who want safer toys usually do not want to remove the exercise, fun, imagination, challenge or whatever, they only want it SAFER.
The GP made the point that somehow quality of (a childs) life has declined by making it safer. If this is done by removing whole ranges of toys then I agree. But that's not what is happening. Every kind of toy that existed 50 or 100 years ago still exists, only usually in a safer shape.
You say toys have disappeared, but the only example you give is still very popular (at least in Europe, where a lot of schools and playground have them). Seriously, if it's so easy, name ten?
I didn't say danger is not part of my life, but I said I don't think it is essential. I do go hiking, but not on the Mount Everest. I do cycle to work every day, but not on the highway and I appreciate that there are speed limits. And oh, a lot of the bicycle paths are seperated from the main road by concrete barriers, which I think is a great idea. I don't care about hunting, as long as nobody does it in my backyard near children.
And coffee should be hot, but not cause third degree burns, especially not at a drive-thru restaurant.
I dunno. I think it's the smart ones that get in the most trouble. Inquisitive kids are the ones who try to figure out exactly how combustion works and what makes things go boom. Or who figure out how to get their c02 cars to take a model rocket engine. Or who tear apart electronic devices containing powerful capacitors. Who here hasn't done their fair share of learning through second degree burning?
Speaking of moderation abuse, whoever thinks being such a blatant jerk is in any way "insightful" has definitely abused the system. Parent is flamebait, pure and simple, and any "insightful" commentary within said post seems accidental at best.
Airsoft minigun loaded with metal BBs.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
But I would argue that while the inquisitive ones perhaps experiments more, they take greater care for their safety while doing it. The "dumb" ones would let stuff explode in their face because they would stand 3 feet away instead of 3 yards :)
Dangerous? Not compared to other toys not on this list! As near as I can tell, the criteria for this list is a commercial toy sold after 1950.
The common wooden top. Take a block of hardwood, lathe it into the classic top shape, then stick a sharp nail in the point. Wind it with string and throw it hard at the sidewalk. Helps to explain why Uncle Jack is missing the tip of his pinky finger.
Marbles and jacks. Obvious choking hazards. But more than that, marbles of yesteryear were ceramic with lead based glaze. Swallow one of those and you're poisoned. I'm amazed our grandparents lived long enough to breed.
Slingshot. Yes, I know the list deliberately excluded them, but just think how dangerous they are. Even when used responsibly, the elastic could snap, ripping your arm while sending the projectile into your brother's eye.
Yo-yos. While not particularly deadly, they have an amazing tendency to give concussions to small children trying to do 'round the world.
Sticks. Baseball bats. Cricket bats. Plain old hickory stickball stick. You don't need much imagination to know how dangerous they can be.
Balls. If the swinging bat doesn't hit the catcher, that rock hard baseball might. Ever been hit by a softball in the head? The "soft" in the name is a cruel irony.
Toy boats. There can't be anything dangerous about a toy boat, can there? No. Not unless you're running along with your toy sailboat, trip, and get impaled through the heart with the mast.
Sigh. Childhood is so dangerous.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
And what about those that do kill you? Look at the list of toys in the article - most of them killed several people at least.
What about "that which does not kill us only makes us stronger?" How about natual selection?
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
to this: http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/ymboa/ymboa.html my childhood was bland even though it was not so much spoiled by clueless journalists and other sissies.
It says on the page:
"Warning! - Many subjects outlined within this site are extremely dangerous and are provided here for information only. Please don`t experiment with high voltages or chemicals unless you are fully conversant with safe laboratory practices. No liability will be accepted for death, injury or damage arising from experimentation using any information or materials supplied."
Sounds like fun, but please be kind to animals and dead bodies of criminals, and don't kill yourself or others.
Je me souviens.
Time for parents to grow up and take some responsibility. If your kid isn't mature enough, or responsible enough, to play with a toy, then that toy is in no way something you should let your kid play with.
Bang on! In some cultures, especially long ago, kids weren't reckoned according to their chronological age, but according to their 'chore age': "Oh, she's old enough to fetch water, but it will be a while before she can weave". "Son, I think you're old enough now to watch the sheep."
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I pity the poor kids who don't learn this until too late.
Kids will take chances, me, I did, but by making mistakes is how we learn. Depriving your child from making mistakes is MORE dangerous. Better a BB gun than a 9mm Glock or an ounce of nail polish than 5 gallons of gasoline.
We know this child from being born to 16, his current age. He has never had a chemistry set, has never tossed a lawn dart, has never been scorched by a toy or played with tommy guns -- the parents are overly protective. They will buy him every computer game toy out there though. His friends swap him games, and killing 45 people in 3 minutes is now fun. He gets his violence from computer games without the pain.
He is dysfunctional socially inept dropout. No social skills that don't start and end with with kill, f'ck or a7it. Kicked out of school - had the cops over dozens of times for willful car theft and destruction of property multiple times. Doesn't even have bad friends. Truly a Nintendo/TV product.
Parents need to buy the lawn darts, site down and TEACH the kids to use them safely, TEACH them how to take a ski-doo out on their own... TEACH them the safe use of a firearm... and lock them up until they they are mature enough.
Some kids are mature enough to hunt on their own at 12, while others aren't mature enough at 80.
When I was about 8 I found my father's lead soldier kit in my grandparents' house. Worked perfectly - a little 4 or 5 inch electric cauldron with no lid, just basically a bowl in which the lead melted, and then you poured it into the molds for some nifty 19th century soldier figures. No safety glasses, gloves, warning stickers. Just chucks of lead and lots of heat. That was FUN! Still, I don't think I'd let my own kids do that nowadays...
I tried to have a conversation with a friend of mine about how African nations could be pulled out of the violence and poverty they have.
Among my friend's reactions:
1) We should use the CIA to pick somebody to run the country.
2) As soon as we go in there and help them with farming and water projects, they'll use the money to attack us.
3) Why should we do anything to help somebody when they'll never pay us back.
So, much like the poster you're talking about above, we have a group of people that is WAY too large that are scared to death. They can't see the good in anything anymore. That everybody out there is out to get us, and rather than eat, they'd like to fire missiles at us.
It's depressing.
Sorry to partially hijack the thread, but the poster you replied to, my friend and the rest of these panicky types need a cookie.
My mom says I'm cool.
Oh my gosh that reminds me of another awewome toy we used to have (in addition to jarts which were mostly too lame for us kids): we had a device that consisted of multiple beer cans fastened together end-to-end to form a mortar launcher. At the very bottom was an small triangular hole in the side of the can made with a can opener. If you put some lighter fluid in there and shoved a tennis ball in the device and lit it the tennis ball would shoot way into the air with this really cool "thop" sound.
If you can't afford children, don't have children.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
I think the problem here is that you're talking about the awesome wooden playgrounds designed by Leathers & Associates, but he's talking about the crappy "Big Toy" playgrounds which completely sucked.
As a republican I feel it my responsibity to manufacture criminals. People need punished!
Who said you had to rely on rational argument? "Yield to Islam, heathen dogs, or we'll spray your city with nukular radioactivitiness!" and you'd have half of America crawling around in fear. It's a sad state when the mere thought of nuclear materials scares all rationality out of the general population...
What part of learning about avoiding strangulation in a hammock or playing around with radioactive materials is going to prepare kids to be adults?
After reading that story, my face - and eye - feel funny. Ack!
No radioactivity. Less explosive power than a Sony battery. Lame.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
Ahhhh! Nothing on this list compares to the fun of a simple pack of balloons, a book of matches, and a tank of acetylene.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
'nuff said.
Though I'm way too late to get modded, and most mods probably won't recognize it.
If you can't afford children, don't have children.
And what if your job gets outsourced and you go from making a nice $60,000 a year salary to being an assistant manager at a Burger King? That's part of the problem with a lot of "pro-lifers" they only care about the kid when it's in the fetus, but after it's born, it's sink or swim elitism, baby.
Oh wow, this coffee I spilled on my lap burned me, I wonder why that happened.
Contrary to right-wing propaganda, the lawsuit was not filed because the woman claimed McDonalds was responsible for making her spill coffee on herself. She knew that part was her own damn fault. The lawsuit was filed because McDonalds kept the coffee so hot that she suffered third degree burns on her legs. She was burned to. the. bone. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that McDonalds purpously kept it dangerously hot, that they had recieved hundreds of complaints from both customers and health inspectors.
Far from being a frivolous lawsuit, the McDonalds Coffee Incident was an example of a good consumer lawsuit.
What about "that which does not kill us only makes us stronger?" How about natual selection?
The fact that stupid people frequently end up hurting other people rather than themselves. Next question?
"Oh, here's the problem: somebody set the doll's switch to 'Evil'."
Table-ized A.I.
People like a good story. And if it's true, all the better (whether it is or not). And I love how my comment on "all people are equally capable of stupidity and we should to our own flaws first" gets modded as flamebait. Nice...
i.e. the supid ones need to be weeded out early. It's not like we don't have fun making more of the little bastards. ...is that the dumb ones can hurt others before they hurt themselves. The 10 year old idiot with a lawn dart can take out the eye of a passing Eagle Scout before he takes out his own.
My grandma tells a story of a neighborhood kid who was coming back to the farm after doing some hunting. Rather than empty his gun, he shoots his last round into the family's outhouse. Problem one: his sister was using it at the time. Problem two: now he's an only child.
oh crap! My priest is a terrorist!
They did that on Sleeper Cell a couple of nights ago. Granted, they were just getting the radioisotopes to test their lead-lined cooler so they'd be sure it wouldn't set off the Geiger counters when they loaded it up with the real nuclear payload. On the show they went out and bought at least 50 of the things from different stores.
Depleted uranium is mostly U-238. There is some U-235 left in it but it's much less than even naturally occurring uranium. That's why it's called "depleted." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
The toy every boy wanted.Two urethane(I presume)balls molded onto two 16" or so strings attached to each other with a ring.The point was to use physics to make the balls clack and rebound at the top and bottom of the swing.(I realize a safer toy with a handle is on the market,much shorter and smaller).The recall came after it was found that not only would the balls shatter but could smash bones astonishingly easy.It was way too tempting to use these as a bola on you cat or siblings.Great status symbol for a boy in the early '70s.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Did anyone else see that first picture of the kid that had a jart stuck in his shoulder and immediately start playing with it in Photoshop?
When my father-in-law passed away a few years ago, as we cleaned up the garage, we found an original boxed set of Jarts. They were a little scuffed up, but all the pieces were there. I thought about selling them on Ebay, but what the heck, they might still be fun!
So, I took them to a NASCAR race at Richmond, where you tailgate all day long waiting for the night race. Guess what? Drunken red-necks love dangerous toys - they were the hit of the horseshoe set! A wild horseshoe gives you a bruise. A wild Jart gives you a story for the boys back home.
We've had a wooden house on a public playground in my hometown. It stank of urine and alcohol. The sand areas often contained hidden treasures of the broken beer bottle variety too. Especially lovely near/in the crawlspace (which was a concrete sewer pipe).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Your irrelevant comment about "pro-lifers" aside (I'm firmly in the pro-choice camp, thanks)--that's where "backup plans" come in, yes?
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Fucking sweet. I have to try that. First I need to get a sixpack. If you don't hear from me in 24 hours all I ask for is a moment of silence.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I especially agree about the coffee...
That restaurant in that famous MacDonalds coffee case - the reason they lost isn't because of the popular derisive impression. They lost because the plaintiff proved that the management had been dinged by the local food authorities for exceeding the allowed temperature of their coffee for at least three weeks previous to the incident in question. Other patrons had been burned and complained, but none as bad as the woman that sued. They deserved to lose!
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert A. Heinlein
Yeah, it's like the U.S.A. is Pee Wee's Playhouse,
That has got to simultaneously be the most appropriate and most depressing metaphor I've seen this week...
Why not kill the stupid hurtful people?
Most childeren are born in third world countries with terrible poverty. Rich people have fewer or no childern. I do not think your idea is working.
I spend most of my time in small towns and small cities so I haven't seen a lot of playground structures, but the one I had in elementary school (gr. 3 to 7) was the best I have seen. The metal ones are usually low, fairly disconnected platforms, slides, poles, and monkey-bars.
I have very little to do so here's a diagram as close as I remember: E-shaped wooden playground structure (with heights).
Legend:
A— plastic tube tunnel with static properties.
B— swinging plank obstacle.
C— swinging tires obstacle.
D— high catwalk with little nubs to trip over.
E— raising catwalk with wavy bridge.
F— bridge to the platform, with a dip in the centre.
G— platform with walled room underneath; poles to slide down on two sides.
H— half-tube slide to the ground; in retrospect it was plastic like at A.
I think a section like B might be around 14-feet long.
It was built with 4x4s iirc so there were 4-inch gaps in the walls which many climbed up; the wood mostly wasn't broken such that you could get a splinter. The floor of the playground was mostly bark wood chips that gave one tonnes of little splinters if touched, so everyone avoided touching it; it was a poor choice for sure. Nobody that I know of sprained or broke anything while I was there, but a few people ended up crying; I never heard of any injuries after that so presumably nothing serious happened. Eventually the playground was destroyed due to weakening wood. It was replaced with a few low metal structures that looked lousy—liability-free and cheap to put together I guess.
The only problem with sand is that you can get sand in your shoes fairly easily. I'd guess decent wood chips are ideal but I haven't tested any. The bark shards were actually somewhat soft but otherwise sucked.
I'd say though that a good design would be better in metal than wood for the most part, although I wonder about the slipperiness of the bars.
Damn, now what am I going to do...
Probably from jumping out of the way after "Oh jesus it's coming at my face!"
Spaceballs the Flame Thrower! The kids love that one...
Seriously though, I fondly remember Jarts. About the only dangerous thing that ever happened when I used them was a broken birdbath (and I was aiming for it). I vaguely remember hearing about some kid who put one through his skull, but I assumed that was just an urban legend. Guess not... I wonder if my grandparents still have that Jarts set? It would be cool to show my kids how 'dangerous' toys used to be. Those things were fun!!!
Who needed the gun? My brother and I would take a roll of caps (100 per roll), lay it on the pavement, and hit it with a sledge hammer.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
Bewitched is under copyright; ie semi-permenently lost to history. Another example, perhaps?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
"...and we'll all be gay when Johnie comes marching home." Its also interesting the way it ends with, "and girls want one too."
That tends to become more of a problem after the stupid people reach adulthood, which is why they should be given the chance to off themselves as children.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Those issues have nothing to do with each other. There's plenty of us so-called "sink or swim elitists" that are pro-choice, and plenty of "pro-life" morons who also favor state nanny-ism.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
My god, man! Are you mad?! Somewhere, at this very moment, a terrorist is reading this! How dare you reveal our weaknesses to the enemy?! What next, suggesting that they steal television remote controls? You sick, sick bastard.
I actually have to agree with this poster very much. His language may be coarse, yes. But as someone who was a child at the time the bigtoys/playgrounds switched to plastic/rubber coated, I must concur that the older wooden playgrounds were far superior. Not because they were wooden, in fact the splinters did suck a lot. However, they were bigger, crazier, more innovative, and just plain more fun. They also contained far more dangerous designs. Bigger drops, longer slides, those tire pits you could bounce around in which often cause you to fall, slides made of metal rollers, large ordinary metal slides that were faster, a steamroller style hamster wheel sort of running-in-place device, and all sorts of fun structures. We stopped using the bigtoys altogether at some parks and schools right when they changed them to the stupid new designs. With the old designs, being able to fall from high up, move quickly on slides, and launch way into the air because the swings were so big was part of the thrill. The renovation of California's bigtoys pussified them all so much that now they are much less fun.
Ideally they should have switched to plastic and rubber to avoid splinters, yet still keep true to the the awesome structural designs of the past. But someone might get hurt, oh no! When you are a kid is the time you can have fun hurting yourself and still recover easily. On that note, might I add our liability laws in the US are hideous and should be wholly rewritten.
I remember that case too: her nylons were actually melted to her legs. We're talking about major burns, surgery, and permanent scarring. It's a great example of how a case can be mistold to give the wrong lesson.
And to the trolls who talk about "natural selection" with children's toys, behavior is part of natural selection. We babysitters, godparents, and relatives of the next generation improve our chance of the next generation carrying our genes by protecting them from fools and teaching them elementary caution. If you want to have completely awesome raw lives and evolutionary forces at play, strip naked right now and go find your own food for 3 days without getting it from others or borrowing any tools from them.
I had a rock collection set that I received as a gift - complete with a nice specimen of asbestos.
FPGA, Wireless, ASIC, Verilog, VHDL, HW, 10yr exp, Team Lead, Ottawa (More? Email above. slashdotusername=dgmartin98 )
Sorry if I overreacted; I took his example to mean the total radiation exposure from such a kit being equal to a single dental X-ray.
> Who here hasn't done their fair share of learning through second degree burning?
Thankfully, my little brother's skin healed quite nicely.
Your posts are usually more insightful and a lot more entertaining, even though I knew I'd get flamed or moderated into oblivion.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Don't bother reading. The author wants 'total safety' to be implemented, meaning that Kids will no longer be allowed to play with anything. CSPC bureraucratic unlimited power dreams realized.
The items listed, like lawn darts, flying toys, plastic darts and cap guns are objected to because they have caused problems when swallowed, or when thrown at someones face. No admission that anything might have been the fault of a person using anything wrongly. Most of the argumenst seem to be from some lawsuit, and are almost totally devoid of reality. You can only imagine what she must think of BB guns, or bow and arrow sets. A Kite would be one of her greatest nightmares. Just imagine how many kids could be strangled with the string, or poked in the eye by a stick! One cap gun was presented as a problem because caps might be set off near a childs groin! She actually wrote that. Proof yet again that the only unlimited resource is stupidity.
As previous posters comments show, one science kit had 'radiation' as the primary problem. The amount of radiation was less than that recieved from exposure to sunlight in the park, but that has no relevance to this clueless child abuser. (Yes, limiting children the way this person wants to is abuse.)
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
You don't even necessarily need a modified gun. A good air-powered one can draw blood at range, as well as shoot right throw something like a CD at a decent distance.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Raising the minimum wage is usually stupid.
Tell me where the money comes from and you'll see why.
Consider the typical business that pays min wage and
to whom they pay it.
Take fast food for instance. If you raise prices to cover
the increased costs you suddenly have you lose customers
(who are NOT making more for the most part and thus won't PAY more)
and thus make less money to pay wages with.
Your only other option is to get the same amount of work per $
spent.
Lowering profits is not much of option, not only are publicly traded companies REQUIRED to maximize profit, but in some cases the margin is small enough that a significant upswing in costs is killer.
What is really brain-dead is how my state did it, they created a feed-back loop, fortunately a loose open loop that other factors can swamp the feedback on.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
The most dangerous toy I've personally ever seen was the original Mr. Potato Head.
It didn't come with a potato. You used it with real potatos. It was a bunch of parts like eyes and a nose and arms and stuff, with long, sharp spikes on the other end. You'd drive them deep into actual tubers instead of some soft vinyl thing.
Now that was a dangerous toy.
Sportsstuff Wego Kite Tubes Withdrawn from Market after Reports of Deaths and Injuries
and how do I know this? - I gave my nephew one for his birthday.
Reportedly, it was loads of fun, right up until his older brother ignored a few important safety instructions then violated what is printed on each side of the tube in large, friendly letters:
Never kite higher than you are willing to fall
thereby earning himself an impressive goose-egg and blown sinus from an estimated 30 feet up at 40 mph. The recall notice arrived in my inbox shortly after. The good news is, no lasting damage, although he looked an awful lot like Saku Koivu right after that eye injury. Even more amazingly, his mother (the nephew, not Saku's) is still speaking to me.
Darn, I wanted to try it myself.