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CPSC approves new magnet safety standard for certain non-toy products
- Overtonwindow 4y agoI guess this is a good thing… But whenever the government wants to regulate some thing, it makes me nervous. When they wanted to regulate drones, I went out and bought several of them. Powdered alcohol? Disgusting but I bought it. Do I need to start collecting magnets before they are regulated out of existence?
- malfist 4y agoHave you considered how much time, money and emotional energy you spend sticking it to the government?
- analognoise 4y agoSome heroes don't wear capes.
- malfist 4y agoThey just paint themselves with leaded paint because the government told them they couldn't?
- mod 4y agoIt occasionally crosses my mind while I'm having the time of my life flying my FPV drone.
- echelon 4y agoFPV drones are regulated? When and why did that happen, and how has it impacted the hobby/sport?
- bragr 4y agodepends on the weight. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-107 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F...
- mcculley 4y agoDrones in general are regulated in the U.S. There are many restrictions.
- mrguyorama 4y agoDrones in general are regulated, I think for size and capability, and also where you are allowed to operate them. Operating a FPV based drone requires a certain license I think, as does operating a drone "out of line of sight" The regulations are somewhat dumb. The issue is that drones took remote controlled flying things from being a niche hobby that required monetary, time, and emotional investment, which prevents you from doing as much stupid crap that can harm other people, and gave it to everyone. Predictably, a portion of "everyone" is an asshole who is so self centered they literally don't think about the ramifications of their actions, or worse, actively enjoy harming others. These people started flying drones in places like airports, and legislators suddenly got spooked that every idiot could cause a bird-strike equivalent issue, or just drop a poorly operated drone from 100ft onto someone, which would really hurt them. Basically, "the public" is offensively irresponsible, so they lose their toys. Drones are just a modern day radio spectrum, with similar cutouts for kids to still play with toys. Most people ignore the rules because the FAA doesn't police it that much, though they reserve the right to.
- ceejayoz 4y agoIf you really like sticking it to government, have you considered not donating money to them? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33020479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33020479
- mod 4y agoWhat a weird flex. Can we talk about how you managed this? I really hope you didn't go back and read pages and pages of my comments to find a gotcha. This is HN, so I assume you've built a tool to do it. I'm really curious to hear about the method. I don't "really enjoy sticking it to the government." First of all, I just chimed in on the other guy's comment. I made a joke about FPV drones. Second of all, the guy who is supposedly sticking it to the government didn't make that claim himself. He was accused of that by the next comment. I think he probably just wants to check stuff out before it becomes illegal, and that doesn't make him a crank.
- ceejayoz 4y ago> Can we talk about how you managed this? I have an odd memory for username/comment pairings (and other oddities like ten year old URLs, but don't ask me what I had for dinner last night), and find the "government sucks, cops rock" scenario frequently puzzling.
- mod 4y agoI personally find it quite easy to like parts of the government while disliking other parts of it. My position on police is complicated. I don't speak to police. I don't like interacting with police. I've met some officers that were real dicks. I don't like our justice system. I still can donate to the police retirement fund and the shop with a sheriff program, the latter of which is really about the kids, and the former of which falls in line with my some of my other beliefs. I don't believe in the hate-motivated politics going around right now. I don't personally feel very confused or conflicted by this situation, although I could see how others might view it as cognitive dissonance--largely because they're working with like 0.01% of the relevant information about me used to form my decision. Edit: also, thanks for revealing your method. I confess I know a few usernames by heart, and recognize yours as familiar, but there's only maybe 2 commentors here I could nail down to an specific comment. I figured it was probably just some search-box wizardry. 2nd edit: Time to change usernames again, haha. I cycle them sometimes to avoid all the metadata.
- ponow 4y agoIt's either that or bend over.
- kahrl 4y agoOh yeah. He showed them. Buying pounds of powdered alcohol is really sticking it to 'em. Definitely not an irrational response at all.
- mod 4y agoYou made up the "pounds" part, he didn't say that. Also, buying things before they disappear is hardly "sticking it to the government."
- mrguyorama 4y agoAny purchase of powdered alcohol is irrational, as it was clearly a terrible product once you got past the stupid headlines. It would be like bragging "The gov banned landmines with oversensitive triggers so I bought a couple!".
- tengbretson 4y agoIf they did this prior to the enactment of FOPA in 1986 they are likely very wealthy right now.
- worik 4y ago> Have you considered how much time, money and emotional energy you spend sticking it to the government? Yes. Hardly worth the effort these days. The real enemies of freedom these days are private corporations.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoYou can DIY powdered alcohol. It's alcohol that's been mixed with a cyclodextrin
- boringg 4y agoYou could have just read this instead and saved yourself from wasting money on powdered alcohol: https://www.wired.com/2015/05/powdered-alcohol-experiment/ https://www.wired.com/2015/05/powdered-alcohol-experiment/
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kristopolous 4y agoDo you also have bags of asbestos, buckets of leaded paint, poof your hair up with black market CFC hairspray, maybe decorate with radium glowing clocks?
- bombcar 4y agoPreban Freon was an actually decent thing to have around especially if you have a device that’s not easy to replace.
- kristopolous 4y agoThere's personal responsibility individuals have for harming others from known consequences for their decisions and behavior. The resulting government policies are usually a direct result of multiple cases in civil litigation. The libertarians rules have been followed. Some of them just really don't believe in what they preach.
- bombcar 4y agoMeh I’m still salty about gas cans. Spilled way more fuel with the new ones than I ever did with the old.
- buildsjets 4y agoActually, yes, I DO maintain a strategic reserve of banned/difficult to find resources, for example R12 Freon, R22 Freon, Halon 1301, Halon 1211, various compressed gasses of assorted toxicity, Methylene Chloride based paint strippers, , a few hundred pounds of lead ingot for my smelter, radioactive lanthanated/thoriated tungsten electrodes, etc. My limited selection of asbestos is all safely encapsulated in cross-corrugated stainless steel sheets with seam welded edges, so no worries there, but when you need to protect equipment from exposure to a 2000F flame, there really no substitute. (Fiberfrax will sometimes do in a pinch, for a limited duration.)
- yummypaint 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- greyface- 4y agoBackground: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet_toys#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet_toys#United_S... I have a set of Zen Magnets that I bought a decade ago. They're fun to play with, and I guess now illegal to manufacture.
- aidenn0 4y agoSome kids put literally everything in their mouth so I can see not wanting those in a house with toddlers. It would be nice if we could agree upon what level of danger is acceptable at a society level. There are billions of households on this planet, so if X% of them have some $UNSAFE_FOR_TODDLER_OBJECT, Y% of those end up with a toddler in them, and Z% of those end up ingesting them, you end up with a startling number of injuries to toddlers. Does that justify banning such objects? Warning labels can help, but there's lots of "oh, I got that in college and threw away to box" or "it was owned by my 19 year old nephew who is staying in our spare bedroom" &c. so even if every parent reads and understands all the warning labels (already a fantasy), Y% will never be zero.
- CobrastanJorji 4y agoI think two important factors might be how obvious the danger is and how useful the object is. A kitchen knife is obviously dangerous and also extremely useful, so it definitely passes both tests. A magnet toy does not appear remotely dangerous but serves little practical purpose, so it fails both tests. A laser pointer's danger is medium-obvious and laser pointers are at least a little useful, so it's sort of in between the two extremes. If "small magnets are super dangerous to kids" was general knowledge, it'd probably make the magnets significantly safer to sell.
- etrautmann 4y agoWhy is entertainment or stress relief not a valid purpose?
- madelyn 4y ago
- StrictDabbler 4y agoThe linked summary isn't clear on the rule itself and the rule documentation is 37 dense pages, but the key point: Each loose or separable magnet in a product that is subject to the rule and that fits entirely within CPSC’s small parts cylinder must have a flux index of less than 50 kG^2*mm2. Deeply frustrating, even if it's justified.
- calibas 4y agoI was wondering what the risk is, from Wikipedia: > The swallowing of small magnets such as neodymium magnetic spheres can result in intestinal injury requiring surgery. The magnets attract each other through the walls of the stomach and intestine, perforating the bowel. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported 33 cases as of 2010 requiring surgery and one death. The magnets have been swallowed by both toddlers and teens (who were using the magnets to pretend to have tongue piercings). Defenders of the toy say that the rate of injury is approximately 1 injury per 100,000 Buckyball sets and less than 1 injury per 21.5 million individual magnet pieces.
- ouid 4y agomultiplying by the number of pieces in the set to pad their numbers should carry a prison sentence
- mixedCase 4y agoIs the risk not altered by the amount of pieces?
- ouid 4y agowhy not multiply by the number of atoms in the set? Say i sold poisoned popcorn and everyone who ate it died, but i only offered it in barches of 1 million kernels, and I said, "Ok, but deaths per kernel of popcorn are almost imperceptibly low" It's one of the most disingenuous statements i've ever read
- bob1029 4y agoI assume we can still buy dangerously-strong magnets that are for non-"consumer" purposes?
- bombcar 4y ago> intended to be used for entertainment, jewelry (including children’s jewelry), mental stimulation So magnetic dildos probably out. Fully automatic assault magnets - just fine.
- filoleg 4y agoWe cannot even have fully automatic rifles in the US, so the assault magnets would have to be either semi-auto or bolt action, sorry to disappoint.
- bombcar 4y agoBolt action magnets actually exist https://www.grainger.com/category/material-handling/lifting-pulling-positioning/lifting-magnets-and-suction-cup-lifters/manual-lifting-magnets https://www.grainger.com/category/material-handling/lifting-... And semi auto magnets would be electromagnets I assume.
- ferminaut 4y ago> The final rule does not include items that are “…sold and/or distributed solely to school educators, researchers, professionals, and/or commercial or industrial users exclusively for educational, research, professional, commercial, and/or industrial purposes.”
- euroderf 4y ago"solely" implies some kind of authentication of the recipient by the sender, which sounds sufficient yet not too onerous.
- foota 4y agoThis feels like overreach to me...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- MostlyInnocent 4y agoMy stance on high-powered magnets is the same as on high-powered motorcycles. Sure, you can have them, as long as you and all your passengers/bystanders have signed an organ donor agreement.
- kragen 4y agoAnother loss of freedom for US citizens, permitting corporations to retain yet another freedom that has been taken away from real human beings. > the subject products do not include magnet products sold and/or distributed solely to school educators, researchers, professionals, and/or commercial or industrial users exclusively for educational, research, professional, commercial, and/or industrial purposes. They're specifically targeting artisan jewelers: > Another example of a subject magnet product is jewelry with separable magnets, such as jewelry-making sets One more step towards prison-style "knives are contraband". However, this is specifically for magnets that fit inside the CPSC's "small parts cylinder" (defined in medieval units as 2.25 "inches" long by 1.25 "inches" wide, which is 57 mm × 32 mm in modern units), which is designed to approximate what a toddler can swallow, so large strong magnets (over 32 mm diameter or 57 mm long) are not affected. You can saw large strong magnets into small strong magnets. Nickel-plating them afterwards to reduce the risk of chipping is a big pain, but not always necessary. All this in response the death of one toddler in the US and one 8-year-old in Poland, plus 56 other hospital admissions over a three-year period.
- rrobukef 4y agoI'd like to correct your statistics: 1119 sampled emergency department treatments over 11 years and an estimated 25000 emergency room visits for the whole of the US. An estimated 20% (5000 people) were hospitalized. 94% of the visit involved things falling under this regulation. In a separate study, 46.4% of the children required procedures, of which 14.2% required surgery and 9.6% got sick ("morbidity"). They also mention at least 3 death-cases. Source: the report [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-09-21/pdf/2022-20200.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-09-21/pdf/2022-2...]
- kragen 4y agoI appreciate the correction; 230 visits per year across the US is indeed significantly different from 19 visits per year. But this corrected statistic still paints an overall picture of an almost insignificant risk, hundreds of times smaller than being struck by lightning — more like the injury and death rates of shark attacks, falling cows, cactus spine injuries, slipping on orange peels, and fights between humans and roosters. This hardly seems like an adequate justification for extensive new restrictions on valuable experimental materials. It seems more like the EU's unreasonable new restrictions on access to borax.
- midoridensha 4y agoMeanwhile, over here in Japan, you can buy many different sizes of tiny neodymium magnets in the 110-yen stores.
- GaelFG 4y agoOuch for wargammers :x they were a costly but wonderfull utilities for modular miniatures, sceneries and 'avoid broking your miniatures during transport'. Edit : after some research : - I dont know if that will affect wargames : we use small magnets anyway - After seeing the power of 'big' neodym magnet, I understand better the regulation ^^ I did'nt realized the scaling dynamic of force with volume and you clearly can make very dangerous stuff with 'not so big' magnets