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"Do Not Eat iPod Shuffle": 30 Dumb Warning Labels
jfruhlinger writes "You'd think that people would know electronic equipment isn't for eating, but apparently you'd be wrong. Find out what dumb things companies felt compelled to warn their customers not to do in this list compiled by JR Raphael. Some of the best include: Don't throw your mouse at a co-worker, do not attempt to stop with hands or genitals, and do not put lit candles on phone."
That label works. I haven't eaten a single iPod Shuffle. At least, none that I've noticed.
hrmph- i remember those ads. They showed the shuffle next to a pack of gum. The "warning" was a joke.
whoosh.
AppleGeeks 170: Do Not Eat
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
With some of those LED tealights I've seen a warning that says you shouldn't light them with a match.
And the Pentium one was obviously a joke on the FDIV bug...
Seen on materials for a Pentium processing chip: "If this product exhibits errors, the manufacturer will replace it for a $2-shipping and a $3-handling charge, for a total of $4.97."
calculated on a P5 most likely
I've often marveled at the number of things which come with the warning "For External Use Only". I've seen it posted on things ranging from sunblock to various topical creams. Though I never have, I hope to see it on a box of ear plugs. That would quickly make it to the top of the list of dumb labels.
"If your phone rings and you discover it's in the back seat, do NOT crawl over the seat to answer it while driving."
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
I thought it was a refrence to the fact that the original shuffle was the size of a pack of gum.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Standard boilerplate warnings even if the car does something routine like stopping suddenly because of inattentive pedestrians. Somewhere someone may claim they tried to replicate the sudden stops and injured a pedestrian thus it was the car makers fault.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I saw one of those labels on a dessicant inside a computer I was building that said "do not eat". Two weeks later I was hospitalized for malnutrition! "No, doctor, I'm not anorexic, I was just following the directions on the warning label!"
Free Martian Whores!
Everything you buy from Harbor Freight has the same boilerplate on it:
"Always wear ANSI approved safety goggles etc etc"
I found the warning on an apple slicer, and all kinds of other silly things.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
I've actually read a lot of these labels mentioned before and always laugh at how stupid every warning can be. The funniest ones to me are when the warning label is placed in such a way that you break the warning it says not to do. Such as when a product says "DO NOT TURN UPSIDE DOWN" yet the warning is on the bottom. Supreme logic at work, or poor warning placement.
I saw only one quote from the Dremel manual, and it's probably the least ridiculous one.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If you would like the full article and marginally funny commentary, feel free to click through to the article.
For just the 30 labels:
anon - because karma be damned, too.
Seen on chainsaw: Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals.
But I've got balls of steel.
See here. The page (the article only shows a bit of it in the screenshot) said "iPod shuffle: Smaller than a pack of gum and much more fun.* ". The "warning" was a joke.
* actually, it was a [2] footnote, but Slashdot doesn't allow <sup> tags.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The author thinks they're the result of an overly litigious society, but a lot of these have to be firmly tongue-in-cheek. I mean, "Do not look into laser with remaining eye?" Someone threw that in as a joke, and kept on laughing after it got past editing.
i thought you were just idly guessing until I googled around and saw that Apple in an advert for the Mini which had a pair of hands in it said, "Keyboard, mouse, megaphone and display sold separately." and "Keyboard, iPod mini, dock, hands, AirPort, Bluetooth and PC sold separately."
so yeah. Apple has a sense of humor.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
When I was a little kid I was confused about the meaning of "don't drink and drive" as seen in TV ads. I drank orange juice before driving my Power Wheels jeep all the time, was I doing something wrong!? O_O
Also, this is so bizarre that it perplexes me to this day, but I remember watching some safety cartoon (I think it was at school?) that showed kids in dangerous situations, and then indicated that you shouldn't do them by showing a big lightning bolt through the picture. The usual obvious stuff, don't cross the road between parked cars, etc...
And then one of the scenes showed a kid drinking a glass of water in front of a funhouse mirror.
I don't think I took in any of the rest of it because I was trying to figure out how that was dangerous. I still don't know to this day.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Yeah, some of these are really "top brilliant tech writer jokes". The SGI mouse warning was obviously a joke (and funnier than the author's lame comment about it). Same with the TV antenna (which I think was my personal favorite).
As far as the 3D TV... reminds me of a subtly different message/grammatical error I saw on an LG TV:
"Prevent women, the elderly, children, or sufferers of serious medical conditions should not use the 3D functions of this device."
Healthy young men, only, please!
You realize that there is probably a story behind each of the warning labels. And an expensive lawsuit.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Lots of these are jokes, and I'd like to see some evidence that they ever actually appeared in manuals. The "do not look at laser with remaining eye" thing is a standard laser safety joke that's been going around for years. This whole thing is pretty lame.
Yeah, good point, every single business, which actually has to earn a profit rather than spit out cheap talk, and which has extensively analyzed court precedent and consulted with lawyers, is just being completely stupid and enjoys having to water down real warnings with tons fake ones.
It's can't possibly have anything to do with the non-trivial risk of dumb-shit juries, charming lawyers, or a court system that tolerates them. It's good we have you around to save everyone the problem of actually *looking* at the real world.
*jerk-off gesture*
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Well somebody forgot "Do not taunt happy fun ball".
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"Warning! Disconnect telephone lines before opening!"
As someone who was once zapped when removing a PCI modem, I can understand this one. Phone lines carry a moderate DC voltage, plus a higher AC voltage when ringing. It is a good idea to disconnect those lines before handling the circuit boards they connect to. It wouldn't be lethal, but it's unpleasant and could cause you to yank your hand away suddenly (right into a pointy heat-sink or razor-sharp edge of sheet metal).
EN: Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
ES: Tu gato tiene una piruleta apestoso.
FR: Aprenda a leer las instrucciones de shampoo en Inglés!
I8-D
Do not look into laser with remaining eye is such an obvious joke that I really, really feel bad for the author. Someone replaced his sense of humor with Folgers and he still hasn’t noticed.
Ignore this signature. By order.
You may want to try blocking everything from Idle then as that is what Idle is...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I think I'll write an article with silly warnings and write, "Seen on product X! For real! No lie!"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We at T-Mobile would like to apologize for accidentally giving you the wrong phone. We sent you the "G2 smartass phone" instead of the "G2 smartphone".
It is not even necessary for the suit to be won for this kind of ridiculous stuff. They could settle with no fault admitted. A pharmacy whose owner I know once received a prescription for codeine that looked suspicious. They called the doctor who supposedly had filled the prescription and he said no, he hadn't written a prescription to that person. The police were called and the woman hauled off. She sued the pharmacy for embarassing her and causing her mental trauma. The pharmacy consulted a lawyer and said that they would certainly win the case, but it would probably cost upwards of $50,000 in legal and court fess and advised them to settle for $30,000. Which they did.
As a side note, this is also the pharmacy where an employee shot and killed a robber, saving the lives of three people, and his reward for this heroic act is life in prison and the loss of everything he had acquired in his life which was all put toward his legal defense.
This is the same pharmacy that had been robbed twice before and one time the employees had been tied up in the back room, pistol whipped, and left with not a care whether they lived or died by the criminals.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I world with lawyers. As a rule, they will take the most safest and conservative way. If you said "Do you think we shoudl put a do not eat on this item?" they would say yes, not matter what it is.
Also, management will put warning stickers/signs that they think they might need, as well consultants, and so on
Your fallacy is that you think corporation are all group think like minded pursuit to complete optimization and efficiency. They are not.
The 'litigation society' is pretty much bullshit.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think somebody's missed the joke. 30 times.
I've been parked in front of this "DO NOT PASS" road sign for almost 3 weeks now...
Early on when we were becoming a litigious society (mid 80's) my dad purchased a new fan belt for his car. It didn't have a warning but instruction #1 was:
"Shut off engine before removing old belt"
Given the time it may have been an early C.Y.A. thing or maybe someone lost a few fingers.
Another personal favorite one I have seen a few times, most recently in the instruction manual for my Lawn Boy mower I bought last year:
"Do not use mower to trim hedges"
Time to offend someone
My iron has the warning "Do not iron clothes while wearing them." then adds "No, don't laugh. I've seen it done"
I like to think that the instruction writer who wrote these instructions fought for that addendum and insisted that if they have to treat some customers as idiots, at least assume some of them have a sense of humour.
Well, I can safely say in the case of the pharmacy that it is the citizens, through the jury, who FAILED MISERABLY.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yes, but the warning doesn't say what you're opening (opening a laptop usually refers to tipping up the display) and the warning is something you'd see before connecting a phone line to the laptop... this one actually made me laugh the first time I saw it on Vaio packaging (it would make sense in the dis-assembly part of the manual).
Actually, I suspect lots of these are snuck into the manuals by tech support staff as jokes.
True some probably did happen, and they couldn't resist putting them in there.
Not all are dumb, suggesting the author's experience from the actual field work, such as:
Seen on materials for a Sony Vaio computer: "Warning! Disconnect telephone lines before opening!"
There is 100 volts pulsed DC on a telephone ring signal, and if you are pawing around inside your computer
connected to a dial up modem when someone calls you it can lead to expletives and the possibility that
your co-workers will spill hot coffee while laughing at your dance.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Discontinue use of Happy First Poster if any of the following occurs:
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Considering it had no buttons and was just a metal stick, I could see how someone might eat it. I wonder if that iPod Shuffle actually carried the warning for real. (I suspect it's small enough to actually be eaten without much difficulty.)
And yes, I know it referred to the first iPod Shuffle.
It was not on purpose, and it was really annoying, especially since the iPod Shuffle is a no-user-serviceable-parts design. Once it dried out and I got the switch unstuck, I found that the electronics were mostly ok, but the battery or its charging system was toast, so it only works when plugged into a USB power source. Since then I've mostly used it as a memory stick, but 1GB is becoming less useful than it used to be.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Right, because it's a question of fact for a jury (not a question of law for a judge) if the case passes the threshold for viability in terms of whether or not the injury was the result of an open and obvious risk. Oh wait, it's not? Your theory went up in smoke? Oh I'm sorry! How insensitive of me to poke holes in your well thought out completely baseless assertion!
Okay, some of these are funny, just because they are so absurd.
Where I have trouble is in the realization that there are far too many of the pointless labels, which are generally ignored. So people get in the habit of ignoring ALL labels, even the important ones.
Thats when it gets dangerous.
Talk battery is nominally -48 VDC, on hook or off. It usually measures a bit lower in practice, due to line losses and the like. It really is a battery, for POTS: Telco COs run everything off batteries, and the phones are powered from them, more-or-less directly.
Ring voltage is AC, not DC. 90 VAC, 20 Hz.
At least, that's what the numbers are in the US. Prolly some other countries are different, I'm guessing.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
There is exactly zero chance of that being an actual warning label.
OK, maybe .00003 chance.
The Humblest Mollusk on the Net
My favorite warnings were on the dust jacket of 5.25" floppy disks from Beagle Bros, as seen here http://stevenf.com/beagle/diskcare.html
Best Software Company Ever!
Plus ca change, plus c'est les memes choses.
Seen on a Samsung 3D TV disclaimer: "Pregnant women, the elderly, sufferers of serious medical conditions, those who are sleep deprived or under the influence of alcohol should avoid utilizing the unit's 3D functionality."
It seems legitimate to me. Did anyone think this one was funny?
Anybody want a peanut?
I stood in front of the sign that read "employees must wash hands" for twenty minutes. No one showed up so I finally just washed them myself.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
I wish I'd been able to see the lawsuit that drove THAT warning. Though really, it would be fitting for very nearly every device that I own...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I say just let the cognitive deficient peons crash and burn without having dumb warning labels. Generations of having to actually use common sense may actually benefit future civilization by stupid people doing their civic duty and removing themselves from the gene pool. I don't know what effect this lack of ethics would have on future society, but it probably isn't much worse than what we have to look forward to within the next 100 years otherwise.
I haven't eaten a single iPod Shuffle
Have you ever peed on it?
The article is really fucking stupid.
Some of the "Warnings" were clearly jokes ("Be careful of bad language on this mobile phone, because a partner’s feeling is going to be bad."), others seemed silly but are something that people actually do, ALOT ("Do not use for drying pets."(Regarding microwaves)). Some were just lies or taken completely out of context, like "Seen on a Boeing 757 plane: "Fragile. Do not drop." and "Seen on a New Holland tractor: "Avoid death.""
"Seen on a washing machine: "DO NOT put any person in this washer."
PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO THAT!
"Seen on the packaging for a Rowenta-brand iron: “Do not iron clothes on body.”"
PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO THAT!
"Seen on an electric thermometer's instruction sheet: "Do not use orally after using rectally."
Some people fucking do that...
This article is even more shitty than the bitcoin ones slashdot has been spamming recently...
The manufacturer of a popular motorscooter placed a graphic on the inside of the compartment under the seat (where riders typically store their helmets) which depicted a cat with the universal "no" symbol. Henceforth this compartment has come to be known among scooterists as "the pet carrier".
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I think the issue is the ambiguity of the warning. It does not say to disconnect the phone line from the *computer* but simply to disconnect it. Many people now-a-days don't even know you CAN connect the phone line to a laptop and thus might think they need to disconnect their phone from the wall.
The best of the genre in TFA was:
"Seen on materials for a Pentium processing chip: 'If this product exhibits errors, the manufacturer will replace it for a $2-shipping and a $3-handling charge, for a total of $4.97.' "
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
they are all the result of product liability claims. Somebody has actually done each one of those things and successfully sued the manufacturer. Now you know why Jay Leno never ran out of material for Jay Walking.
Hold stick near centre of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.
welcome outside
Wonko the Sane
Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
What's REALLY scary, is that each one of these usually indicated that there was some litigation somewhere along the line regarding incidents such as these...
Stone
I have to say that this is a total epic win, for us, the smart ones. So, if I wanna eat my iPod, I should simply place it inside the fridge to keep it fresh and healthy. That just made my day!
Seen on a New Holland tractor: "Avoid death."
Pretty sure a tractor is one of the best ways to kill death if you don't have a potion.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Actually, I suspect lots of these are snuck into the manuals by tech support staff as jokes.
Yes, it's quite obvious that they're jokes when you look up the original sources. For example, the article only quotes the first warning of the following:
http://www.antennasdirect.com/cmss_files/attachmentlibrary/pdf/generic_instructions.pdf