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We Will Fight Until The End
- ajiang 12y agoI have no idea whether or not this is a sound legal / business decision. And yes this could just be "taking off the steering wheel" in a game of chicken. But damn, you have to respect an entrepreneur for taking a stand.
- Tossrock 12y agoIn case you want to buy them before their possible bankruptcy: http://zenmagnets.com/the-zen-gift-set/ http://zenmagnets.com/the-zen-gift-set/
- jw2013 12y agoAs the ban of ZenMagnets's primary opponent was in 2012 [1], and the government seemed to want to ban ZenMagnets [2], I find it amazing it is still out here in the business two years later and with a record sale $700k last year (a jump from $50k in year 2012). So nothing happened during these two years? ---- [1] Banning Buckyball Magnets Is Statistically Ridiculous: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eliyahu-federman/banning-buckyball-magnets_b_1711110.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eliyahu-federman/banning-bucky... [2] US Government Wants to Ban Zen Magnets: http://gizmodo.com/5932638/us-government-wants-to-ban-zen-magnets http://gizmodo.com/5932638/us-government-wants-to-ban-zen-ma...
- wudf 12y agoThe way they phrase it, "magnet sphere," makes what they sell seem so arbitrary. It really helps them make the case of pro-democracy, as if it could be any object banned from sale simply because we cannot trust consumers with them.
- abstrakraft 12y ago"We will combat the CPSC’s magnet prohibition until triumph, or until a glorious death of insolvency on the legal battlefield." I like this guy. Where do I donate? Or should I just buy magnets?
- tehwebguy 12y agoGood! The way that Bucky Balls was abused was insane. They voluntarily went above and beyond to ensure that their vendors knew how dangerous they were for small children. They required a signature on a super non-standard document agreeing to indicate that they are not a toy for small children. (I had to sign one to order them wholesale for my last company.)
- smacktoward 12y agoThe actual complaint (http://zenmagnets.com/images/Complaint%20Counsel%27s%20Second%20Amended%20Complaint.pdf http://zenmagnets.com/images/Complaint%20Counsel%27s%20Secon...) indicates that this company includes with some of its products a printed warning reading, in part, > Strong magnets can cause fatal intestinal pinching. Place swallowing magnets on your don't do list along with breathing water, drinking poison, and running into traffic. If the safety level of your product can be reasonably compared to drowning, being poisoned, or getting hit by a truck, you probably shouldn't be surprised when the product-safety people show an interest in it. Moreover, of the three things the warning compares their product to, only one -- poison -- is an example of an actual product you can buy (nobody's selling home drowning kits), and that one only gets by with a warning in cases where it has a substantial beneficial use. Bleach, for instance, is sold with a warning label, but that's because bleach has substantial benefits as a cleaner of clothes and surfaces. Those benefits provide an argument that they outweigh the risk it poses if swallowed. What are the practical, non-entertainment benefits of magnet balls? If there aren't any -- if they're a toy, a novelty -- it seems completely fair to hold them to a higher standard. A toy is the definition of a non-essential product. So if your toy carries a risk of killing somebody, well, there's plenty of other toys out there that don't.
- amandle 12y ago> only one -- poison -- is an example of an actual product you can buy (nobody's selling home drowning kits) They're also not selling magnet ingestion kits
- phaus 12y agoYou can buy water and cars too. A set of zenmagnets is no more a suicide via intestinal pinching kit than a gallon of water is a drowning kit. There are millions of things on the market that you can kill yourself with; when would you say that personal responsibility should come into play? Also, magnet sets are educational as well as entertaining.
- JamisonM 12y agoIf you leave a gallon of water on a table unattended it is very unlikely any passing child will use that gallon of water to drown themselves. All this pretending that the practical differences between this product and all these other things is trivial drives me a little crazy.
- aresant 12y agoWhat I love about this post as a marketer is how Zen Magnets positions themselves as being the only 1 of 3 companies in this space to take a stand. When a quick search shows many, many alternatives - a cursory list: http://www.magnicube.com/ http://www.magnicube.com/ http://neoballs.com/ http://neoballs.com/ http://www.klikyballs.com/ http://www.klikyballs.com/ http://www.supramagnets.com/ http://www.supramagnets.com/ And that's how you build a brand, and command a premium price !
- cthalupa 12y agoMagnicube is the one that just settled, Neoballs is a subsidiary of Zenmagnets Klikyballs' website and product packaging seem to be very reminiscent of Buckyballs, but I'n not sure if they're related or just trying to cash in on the similarity. So their marketing is a tad bit closer to truth than it might appear on the surface ;)
- yownie 12y agoJUST TELL ME HOW THEY WORK!!!
- oofabz 12y agoIt's legal to sell guns, muscle cars, whiskey, swords, hydrochloric acid, and fireworks. But magnets? Someone might get hurt!
- megablast 12y agoI guess the distinction is that those are clearly not for kids. The complaints comes because of problems that have arisen with kids in the past.
- mnarayan01 12y agoKids have killed themselves with literally all of those. At a significantly higher rate than with buckyballs for most, if not all, of them.
- goblin89 12y agoI'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment here, but: This thread brings up many different hazards from our everyday lives and compares them with neodymium magnet toys. Is this a fair comparison? We interact with most of these hazards every day. Any given kid would be educated about electric wires, hot stoves, fire, sharp objects. If not the kid then at least the parent would be educated about the dangers of ingesting bleach or laundry detergent, and so on. Yes, sadly above hazards still cause many deaths, but they also are much more widespread than neodymium magnet toys. Now take our magnets. - They're new and sufficiently rare. Average kid wouldn't know its dangers—average parent doesn't! (Compare to guns, fireworks.) - They're shiny, attractive, and with funny physical properties to boot. Inviting to play. (Compare to hydrochloric acid.) - We're already nearly blind to all the swallowing hazard labels around us. Magnets are awesome and I definitely would buy myself a set, but the controversy doesn't seem to me totally insubstantial.
- kruczek 12y agoEither there is something I don't understand about this whole story, or something is seriously wrong with people coming up with such bans. As far as I could understand the only risk is for children to swallow these magnets? Or is there some other hazard due to them being magnets? If it's only about swallowing, then how is it different from any other object of similar size? If we ban them because they are "new and sufficiently rare", then how is it we don't ban all new products below certain size threshold? Everything is new in the beginning. Same with shiny and attractive, there are many such objects which can be swallowed (e.g. jewlery) and somehow these are not banned.
- jedberg 12y agoA few years ago someone (I think it was actually the Zen Magnet folks) sent a bunch of Zen Magnet sets to the reddit office. We kept them on a shared desk and you could often find a programmer playing with them while thinking about their code. They were also far superior to the bucky ball set we had. Even though I have a couple of sets already, I'm going to order another to support their cause.
- jonnathanson 12y agoI've only ever owned Buckyballs (4 sets at that, not including sets I bought for friends and family years ago). Had never stumbled across Zen Magnets until tonight. Having read this, despite any apparent redundancies with the 864 balls I already own, I ordered a set from Zen. Happy to support them.
- ajmurmann 12y agoEvery time I go to a theater and I cannot drink alcohol in the auditorium because children happen to be allowed in the movie or something like this happens I start dreaming of child-free zones, where I can walk around with a bottle of beer while playing with Bucky Balls and look at nipples. At least the prohibition of magnetic balls at least actually protects children from something that can do actual harm to them unlike seeing adults drink in moderation or seeing exposed body parts.
- chroma 12y agoI think you are dreaming of Las Vegas.
- GeneralMayhem 12y agoOr San Francisco - only about 15% under 18, lowest in the country.
- bellerocky 12y agoUnless you can afford a private school, I don't think San Francisco is a good place for kids. I take my daughter to the Exploratorium, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the San Francisco Zoo, and there's also a nice playground near the skating ring close to the new Target, but other than that I've always avoided the city. It's just not a kids kind a place.
- madeofpalk 12y agoSounds like a self fulfilling prophecy.
- jzzskijj 12y agoAny idea what is the actual harm of seeing a human body part? Especially in non-sexual context? How does it wreck a child if they see that "this man has a penis like my father does". At least in Finland we go to sauna and naked swimming in lake with grandparents and friends of parents starting from age around 1 year old. There would be at least a few million pedophiles, alcoholics and mental cases due to that in our population, if nakedness would be such a scary thing. As a child I probably saw more breasts in women's saunas than in my adult life :-) Just asking this in a curious manner. If people find exposed body parts, the ones they also have, somehow disgusting, then it is quite understandable to me.
- lobo_tuerto 12y agoThey are doing it the samurai way. How appropriate.
- sgnelson 12y agoI don't know which is the greater danger to freedom, "Terrorism!" or "Think of the Children." But in either case, it seems that we are somehow supposed to give up certain aspects of our lives because there is a almost an infinitesimal chance that we may be a victim of "something." It's great marketing though.
- beedogs 12y agoThey're both great wedge issues to get draconian legislation rammed through a reactionary Congress. The excuse-du-jour is either terrorism or child porn.
- jzwinck 12y agoThe article mentions two possible paths forward, but I can think of a third. Make the spheres large enough that swallowing is impractical. 1.75 inches seems to be a standard for this. Would giant magnetic spheres not be fun to play with?
- lisper 12y agohttp://unitedweball.org http://unitedweball.org
- smsm42 12y agoI have some of those and they are definitely fun to play with.
- snegu 12y agoThe fun part of these things is building intricate shapes with them, mashing them in your fingers, etc. You couldn't do any of this with larger balls.
- Raphael 12y agoSounds like an easy way to crush your fingers. I'll take the small spheres.
- BorisMelnik 12y agokind of an open question: what can we do to help their / your cause other than buying magnets and sharing on our social profiles?
- NhanH 12y agoAs someone who didn't realize about the risk of those things. And cursory google doesn't seem to have that much info, what exactly is the risk of swallowing them?
- jeorgun 12y agoFrom my understanding, they're only dangerous if you swallow more than one of them; then they can attract each other through organ walls and cause serious damage.
- unethical_ban 12y agoIf multiple small magnets are ingested, they will likely pinch and rot tissue while working through the intestines. Without reading, I don't know if any children (the main culprits of swallowing small items) have died, but I know some have gone to the ER.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- lisper 12y agoSwallowing one is no problem. But if you swallow two of them separately then they can attract each other while traveling through your intestines. The magnetic force is strong enough to perforate your intestines, requiring surgery. Without treatment they can lead to sepsis and death. I'm all for keeping them legal (I have several sets of Buckyballs) but they can be seriously dangerous. That combined with the fact that they look perfectly innocent is the real problem.
- justinpombrio 12y agoAFAIK this is still hypothetical: there is no confirmed case of this ever happening. Not to say that there's no risk, just that it's evidently a small one.
- eurleif 12y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet_toys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet_toys >The Centers for Disease Control reported 33 cases requiring surgery and one death.
- beedogs 12y agoThe solution is pretty simple: people who have kids that eat rare-earth magnets should just have smarter kids.
- BorisMelnik 12y agothis just shed some light on the same question I had for me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet_toys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet_toys
- pravda 12y agoWas I the only one happy about Buckyballs being shut down? https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S7Tka4NUmUo#t=10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S7Tk... That guy was an uber-douche. I think the difference between the magnets and skateboards, bicycles, trampolines, etc. is that you can LOOK at those three and know that they are dangerous. The magnets are sneakier. It's about time Zen Magnets is getting shut down. We'll always be able to buy direct from China.
- voltagex_ 12y ago>It's about time Zen Magnets is getting shut down. We'll always be able to buy direct from China. Are you saying you'll buy from China because it's cheaper or that Zen Magnets somehow doesn't deserve to exist?
- pravda 12y agoI am saying, if you need round magnets for some technical use, you can always buy direct from China. http://www.dx.com/s/magnet+spheres http://www.dx.com/s/magnet+spheres It is better if it is more difficult to buy them. Kinda like hi-powered lasers. Would you want 500mW lasers being sold at the corner store?
- voltagex_ 12y ago>It is better if it is more difficult to buy them. Kinda like hi-powered lasers. Would you want 500mW lasers being sold at the corner store? I get you now. I'm still not sure where I stand on the idea of "protecting people from themselves" (but in the case of lasers it seems to be "protecting people from idiots"). I think it would be a shame to see magnets become more regulated. It's only a few small steps from "Zen Magnets shut down" to "Customs seizing all tiny magnets in the mail" (I think Australia may be doing that now, though someone should correct me if I'm wrong) Edit: http://www.productsafety.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/997715 http://www.productsafety.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/9... (sigh)
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- xupybd 12y agoWait in the country where they have a right to own a fire arm, they are not allowed magnets. :|
- termain 12y agoWhy not coat them in an emetic?
- tesq 12y agoViolent abdominal heaving + swallowed magnets = greater chance of injury
- hash9 12y agoI thought the danger was if 2 or more were swallowed and they attach in the intestine. If kids have an unpleasant experience after downing one maybe they wouldn't try another? They might even puke them up before they cause more serious damage, plus mom/dad are alerted that something is wrong. A vile tasting coating could also help.
- ekanes 12y agoI've got 3 little ones, youngest is a toddler. Initial thought was, "doesn't matter, could hurt a kid, ban it." The article is well-written and strong without being shrill. Changed my mind. Hope this goes well for Zen Magnets.
- deciplex 12y agoGlad to hear it. I hope you learned from the experience.
- natch 12y agoChildren don't read the instructions, is the problem. But they do run companies sometimes... also a problem.
- rfatnabayeff 12y agoThere's a much more safe alternative with almost same possibilities - a kinda "balls-and-magnetick-sticks". In that case, spheres are just metallic, not magnetic. Only joints, sticks, have magnetic ends capped inside the plastic. These spheres are much safer and the visualizing abilities of that toy is almost the same.
- cheshire137 12y agoWoohoo! Love this attitude. I just purchased the Zen gift set to keep on my desk at work.
- FiatLuxDave 12y agoMost of the discussion in the comments here have been about whether it is better to protect children or allow adults freedom. Yawn! The best comments here are those from jzwinck, termain, and rfatnabayeff, which provide possible technical fixes to the problem. I would have much more respect for Zen Magnets if they took a good product with a problem, and made it better by hacking around the problem, rather than just fighting "the good fight".
- joshdance 12y agoHere are the three comments about ways to solve the issues: jzwinck - "The article mentions two possible paths forward, but I can think of a third. Make the spheres large enough that swallowing is impractical. 1.75 inches seems to be a standard for this. Would giant magnetic spheres not be fun to play with?" termain - "Why not coat them in an emetic?" rfatnabayeff - "There's a much more safe alternative with almost same possibilities - a kinda "balls-and-magnetick-sticks". In that case, spheres are just metallic, not magnetic. Only joints, sticks, have magnetic ends capped inside the plastic. These spheres are much safer and the visualizing abilities of that toy is almost the same."