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Some Retailers Criticize Amazon's Recall of Eclipse Glasses (kgw.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Portland TV station KGW:
Amazon issued a widespread recall for solar eclipse glasses early Saturday morning, one week before the August 21 eclipse. That move stunned some sellers who say their glasses are verified safe.... "We recommend that you DO NOT use this product to view the sun or the eclipse," Amazon wrote... "Out of an abundance of caution, we have proactively reached out to customers and provided refunds for eclipse glasses that may not comply with industry standards." At least a dozen KGW viewers said they received recall notices from Amazon Saturday... KGW viewer Heather Andersen said she bought two separate sets of solar glasses and learned both were not verified. "I give up," she tweeted...
Manish Panjwani's Los Angeles-based astronomy product business, AgenaAstro, has sold three times its average monthly revenue in the past month. Ninety-five percent is related to the solar eclipse... Panjwani's eclipse glasses come from two NASA-approved sellers: Thousand Oaks Optical in Arizona and Baader Planetarium in Germany. He said he provided documentation to Amazon proving the products' authenticity weeks ago, with no response from Amazon. On Saturday morning, he woke up to 100 emails from customers after Amazon issued a recall for his products. "People have some of the best glasses in the world in their hands right now and they don't believe in that product," he said. "They're out there looking for something inferior." Panjwani said Amazon is temporarily retaining some of his profits because of the recall. He also has almost 5,000 glasses at an Amazon warehouse, which customers can no longer purchase. "That's just sitting there. I cannot sell it and I cannot get it back in time for the eclipse," he said.
Manish Panjwani's Los Angeles-based astronomy product business, AgenaAstro, has sold three times its average monthly revenue in the past month. Ninety-five percent is related to the solar eclipse... Panjwani's eclipse glasses come from two NASA-approved sellers: Thousand Oaks Optical in Arizona and Baader Planetarium in Germany. He said he provided documentation to Amazon proving the products' authenticity weeks ago, with no response from Amazon. On Saturday morning, he woke up to 100 emails from customers after Amazon issued a recall for his products. "People have some of the best glasses in the world in their hands right now and they don't believe in that product," he said. "They're out there looking for something inferior." Panjwani said Amazon is temporarily retaining some of his profits because of the recall. He also has almost 5,000 glasses at an Amazon warehouse, which customers can no longer purchase. "That's just sitting there. I cannot sell it and I cannot get it back in time for the eclipse," he said.
Both Thousand Oaks Optical and Baader are really well-known in the astro community. They both have been making solar filters for a long time and I doubt they would jeopardize customers safety and their brand recognition like this.
That's actually terrible advice - during the eclipse, the sun does not appear to be as bright, so it will be more "comfortable" to look directly at it, but there's still more than enough UV light to permanently damage your eyes.
I hope people don't listen to your advice. They may permanently damage their eyes. As a result, they may sue you. From https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/... :
The only time that the Sun can be viewed safely with the naked eye is during a total eclipse, when the Moon completely covers the disk of the Sun. It is never safe to look at a partial or annular eclipse, or the partial phases of a total solar eclipse, without the proper equipment and techniques. Even when 99% of the Sun's surface (the photosphere) is obscured during the partial phases of a solar eclipse, the remaining crescent Sun is still intense enough to cause a retinal burn, even though illumination levels are comparable to twilight [Chou, 1981, 1996; Marsh, 1982]. Failure to use proper observing methods may result in permanent eye damage or severe visual loss. This can have important adverse effects on career choices and earning potential, since it has been shown that most individuals who sustain eclipse-related eye injuries are children and young adults [Penner and McNair, 1966; Chou and Krailo, 1981].
No one who has actually seen a total eclipse of the sun is disappointed. No one.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
The problem Amazon faces is true of all safety equipment. If some fly-by-night or foreign vendor puts sunglasses on the store as being fit for solar eclipse viewing Amazon is on hook for injuries. The same will be true of any other safety equipment that fails. As the only deep pocket left in sight, Amazon will bear the hole burden. It is the result of making sure the injured person is compensated if someone is more responsible than the injured person. Our system encourages knee-jerk decisions just like this to prevent injuries.
It's the American way. Once you move away from caveat emptor, it is the only logical stopping place.
Sorry, but most good employers know when people take time off and plan around it. You may be surprised, but not too many people are going to see the eclipse.
You put in your request for time off in advance, maybe a few months to a few weeks, and they'll likely approve it because it can be slotted into the work. The more time you give, the easier they will at approving your request. Do it last minute and results can be iffy, but even so most employers will provide for short term leave, if possible.
For the eclipse, most people probably don't care. Or since it happens on a work day, they might take 10 minutes from their day to go outside and take a look, then head back in later. Given smokers take smoke breaks, that's all it's really going to amount to - a bunch of people taking a smoke break. Most people will just see a partial eclipse. Those who are going to travel to see the full eclipse have put in their vacation requests weeks ahead of schedule, because they needed to book hotels and other things.
And while people are expecting chaos near the total eclipse path, it's not as bad as you think - maybe a million people total over the entire band, out of a population of over 300 million is not going to seriously affect anything.
Ans UPS and USPS and others not doing deliveries? I'm sure they have more than a few people taking the day off. They either have replacement workers ready to cover (easy to do when you plan ahead), or plan for reduced throughput that day, because honestly, most packages will not be missed if they were delivered on a Tuesday instead of Monday. And if they were, then perhaps you should've paid for (guaranteed) express delivery instead of economy.
The world doesn't stop turning when people take vacations. Good employers plan for it - they know Thanksgiving is going to be an odd week, so they plan for reduced workforce around it - either delaying deadlines, hiring coverage workers, or just planning for reduced productivity. Same goes around the winter break. And summer too - employers plan for a good chunk of people to simply take time off during the summer. Hell, in China, Chinese New Year means the entire country is off a couple of weeks. If Foxconn and others can plan on their entire workforce going on holidays for two whole weeks, planning on a handful of employees missing every day isn't difficult.
Life happens. People get sick. Often the person you need that information from either goes on holiday, gets ill, or is otherwise indisposed when you need them most. And people live.
Employers that don't allow their staff to take vacations because it impacts their deliverables are not running an efficient ship. They're running a potential disaster - if missing one employee impacts the business to the extent that the business can falter, then it is a business that will falter. Basically, your boss is squeezing everyone, probably to make a few extra bucks. Well, they can make more money by getting rid of stuff like UPSes and RAID in the server room too - it's the same thing whether it's hardware, software, or wetware. You plan for any of those to go down, at the worst possible moment, too.
And I'm going to watch a shaky vertical smartphone video recording of the eclipse being played back on youtube.
Better safe than sorry.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Actually, I have seen reports of customers who ordered #14 welding filters (as well as eclipse gear not even intended to be used in any way for viewing) getting the same refund notice.
Vendors selling fake glasses are a problem, but Amazon is forcing this on a huge number of items -- virtually anything eclipse related -- and will be burning far more legitimate sellers than illegitimate ones.
In order to safely view the sun with a welding filter, you need a shade #12 or higher. The certification for those is more stringent than the ISO certification for visual eclipse filters.