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Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

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Re: Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

#241

Post by TAeGTrVNmP »

wtvanhest wrote: post #199
TAeGTrVNmP wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got some extras that I'm willing to share. E-mail me your address and I'll mail you a pair. I'm in SoCal so they should arrive in SF in time for the eclipse. I got mine directly from one of the NASA-approved suppliers, precisely because I don't trust Amazon anymore. Had to order a small batch, even though I only needed a few: I figured not going blind is worth ~$30.

Wow, thanks! What is your email? Mine is in my profile.

Hmm, I don't see it. Maybe my karma's not high enough? Looks like my e-mail's not visible either; sorry I'm not too familiar with HN's system.

Anyway, my e-mail is [HN account name] at x0.ms.

Re: Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

#242

Post by nobodyorother »

woliveirajr wrote: post #220
saosebastiao wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon wanted the savings of commingling without the expense and investment in proper systems for it. For accurate accounting of the source of a piece of commingled inventory, you need sku-level inventories with unit-level accounting. This is expensive, because it means each unit needs to be individually marked (e.g. a sticker with a unique ID number) upon receipt, which is more labor intensive than just counting the…

Well, what amazes me is that it seems to have be done this way for a long time, no? If so, it has a very low amount of problems and complains, since they could grow so big. If bad suppliers were a constant, they would be bad-mouthed enough and wouldn't have grown that big. Or their inner working is better than this article implies...

Or they're a big enough seller that their (basically) monopoly position allows them to generally ignore bad feedback.

Re: Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

#243

Post by CamperBob2 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #189
CamperBob2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, "they" are not "turbo-capitalists." "They" are criminals. Or were, in any case. At least some of the executives responsible for that incident were executed.

You say that like there's a difference.

Here in the US, I think we've seen what the rhetoric of false equivalency gets us. Go peddle that somewhere else.

Re: Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

#244

Post by dboreham »

panarky wrote: post #233
dboreham wrote: post #180

Reading the comments here, I wonder if folks have read the article? The problem seems to be not that Amazon has recalled counterfeit items but rather they have recalled legitimate product, blaming the legitimate seller for the fact that Amazon can't keep straight where their safety-critical inventory came from. It is as if they have a bin for "Viagra" in the warehouse into which they put shipments from Pfizer, along…

The article does not say Amazon commingled glasses from multiple sources. Before I purchased eclipse glasses from Amazon, I first checked with NASA for approved brands, purchased an approved brand, and have not received a recall email from Amazon. The fact is that we don't know what happened at Amazon, whether they commingled inventory or incorrectly included legitimate suppliers in the recall or if there were real i…

True, but we know that inventory commingling is an issue in general for Amazon so it seems reasonable to assume they have done so in this case given that there are two vendors cited who provided strong claims to have been selling proper product, but were still subject to the recall.

I ordered a variety of different products and so I can see which were recalled and which were not. Based on that sample my guess is that they recalled anything with the text "solar eclipse" in the description that they could not conclusively prove complied with the relevant human-eye exposure standards which include manufacturing, documentation and tractability requirements. This would have caught : truly unsafe product; safe product that lacked the necessary paper trail; safe product that wasn't manufactured in the approved facility; product that was never marketed for human eye protection; compliant product that couldn't be separated from the above categories due to Amazon inventory commingling.

Re: Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

#245

Post by xur17 »

jklein11 wrote: post #215
bdcravens wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a given SKU, Amazon commingles inventory, so who you bought from may not be the company who stocked the FBA shelf with the product. Surely Amazon can trace it back, but I think Amazon lost the "just a marketplace" defense a long time ago as a result.

Is the process of commingling inventory documented? That policy is slightly alarming. What would stop someone from sending boxes full of rocks to the fulfillment center with the sku of an iPad?

When you sell products through Amazon FBA (ship to Amazon, and they sell and ship it with the Prime logo), they give you the option to commingle inventory for most products if they have a UPC on them. They scan the UPC and then credit your account with 1 of the product. Your product is then mixed in with the rest [0].

[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId...

Re: Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

#246

Post by cr0sh »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #114
jdavis703 wrote: post #57

Is there anything particularly dangerous about viewing the sun directly? When I was dumb and young I'd look at the sun for seconds at a time without any problems developing so far. Is the danger that an eclipse encourages you to stare at the sun without encountering any pain?

You can give yourself arc eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photokeratitis I haven't gotten it from the sun, but I got a minor case of it from welding with the incorrect lenses (it may seem fine to use gas welding goggles for MIG welding, but it's really not). It's really not pleasant, your eyes feel all scratchy and too large for their sockets.

> It's really not pleasant, your eyes feel all scratchy and too large for their sockets.

I've had hints of that from welding when using a proper mask, but inadvertently not wearing a dark enough shirt (worst case is a white t-shirt - can bounce the UV up under the mask; it's not as bad as "arc eye", but can still be uncomfortable afterward).

Other welding safety lessons:

1. Be very careful welding on zinc-coatings (galvanized steel); have plenty of ventilation, and don't inhale any of the fumes (a fan to blow the fumes away can help). You can get zinc-poisoning, which feels like a very bad flu-like symptoms. I'm sure it can be fatal, but mostly you'll feel really terrible afterward, and there's no cure except to wait it out. Better - remove the galvanization (grinding or with pool acid), or use a respirator under your mask (specifically one rated for it - there's a particular one 3M makes that if you research this topic, people recommend).

2. Less known: Never weld on steel that has been cleaned using chlorine-based solvents (like certain kinds of brake cleaner). There's a tale out there from a guy who did it, and lived to tell about it. Basically, the intense heat creates a change in the chemical to form phosgene gas; even a small amount can kill you. This poor soul managed to live, but not without some major after-effects that will cause him trouble the rest of his life:

http://www.brewracingframes.com/safety-alert-brake-cleaner--...

Note that not all brake cleaners have chlorine (they are banned in California, for example), but this is one of those things that if you've never heard of it, but you find yourself welding (especially if you also do your own brake fluid changes or brake jobs, or other auto work) - and you clean your parts (hey, let's use brake cleaner - that'll do it!) - you wouldn't think there'd be a problem - until it's much too late.

Get the word out on this last one, too - not many people know about it (most welders know about welding on galvanized steel).

Re: Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

#247

Post by schoen »

jaclaz wrote: post #145
raverbashing wrote: post #37

Use an old floppy disk to see the eclipse. I'm serious It seems opaque, but it is transparent enough to see the sun

I may be "old school" but the "traditional" way is to use a welding mask glass, something you can usually buy "around the corner" for a very little amount of money and I see that NASA also advises about it: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/safety.html >One of the most widely available filters for safe solar viewing is a number 14 welder's glass, available through welding supply outlets. And both colour fim and no…

Another longer article on that same site (by a different author) actually mentions the grandparent's suggested method of looking through a floppy disk medium:

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/safety2.html

> Many experienced solar observers use one or two layers of black-and-white film that has been fully exposed to light and developed to maximum density. The metallic silver contained in the film emulsion is the protective filter. Some of the newer black and white films use dyes instead of silver and these are unsafe. Black-and-white negatives with images on it (e.g., medical x-rays) are also not suitable. More recently, solar observers have used floppy disks and compact disks (both CDs and CD-ROMs) as protective filters by covering the central openings and looking through the disk media. However, the optical quality of the solar image formed by a floppy disk or CD is relatively poor compared to mylar or welder's glass. Some CDs are made with very thin aluminum coatings which are not safe - if you can see through the CD in normal room lighting, don't use it!! No filter should be used with an optical device (e.g. binoculars, telescope, camera) unless it has been specifically designed for that purpose and is mounted at the front end (i.e., end towards the Sun). Some sources of solar filters are listed in the following section.

> Unsafe filters include all color film, black-and-white film that contains no silver, photographic negatives with images on them (x-rays and snapshots), smoked glass, sunglasses (single or multiple pairs), photographic neutral density filters and polarizing filters.

This second NASA author seems to believe that floppy disk media (with the hole covered) may actually be safe for eclipse viewing, just not very effective.

Re: Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

#248

Post by s0rce »

simonh wrote: post #76
s0rce wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem specifically could be easily solved by not allowing any random seller to sell the same item on Amazon without the purchases having any idea.

I'm not sure what you mean. They do track everything, otherwise they couldn't match up your payment for the product with the vendor it actually came from in order to pay them. The question is what else are Amazon willing to do with that information, which turns out to be very little or nothing because as soon as Amazon gets humans involved in the transaction making actual decisions, their costs shoot up.

I'm not sure what Amazon does (looks like they don't actually track) but from the consumer side you basically get a random item. Say you order a specific product, like a Macbook charger, Amazon sends you one from any number of vendors and you most likely get a counterfeit one and you have no idea who the product came from. Look at the reviews for a product like this you can often see a bimodal distribution of people who got a legit item and people who got junk.

Re: Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

#250

Post by seandougall »

jws wrote: post #193
netsharc wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They put some sort of deadly chemical in baby milk to make it more frothy, because that's a sign of more protein... they don't give a shit ("they" being some turbo-capitalists...).

It was a more mundane horror. The melamine acts as a filler but also tests as protein. In the body it causes kidney trouble. In the end, 0.001% of the babies fed the adulterated formula died. (3 out of 300000). That makes being fed the tainted formula roughly as deadly as traveling 500 miles in a car in the United States. So it wasn't a case of adding deadly poison, it was a case of adding an almost safe ingredient b…

Speaking as somebody who has chronic kidney disease but is very much not dead (last I checked), I feel compelled to point out that the car analogy omits the vast majority of the people impacted, many of whom will have lifelong battles with cardiovascular health and increased risk of serious illnesses (e.g. gout). Kidney damage is permanent and irreversible. Renal tissue does not regenerate.

Just because only six babies died from acute kidney damage (according to the article you linked, which does not quite agree with your numbers) does not mean that's where the damage ends. Evidently there were 54,000 babies who were impacted severely enough to be hospitalized -- that's 18%, a far cry from 0.001%, and most definitely not an indication that an ingredient is "almost safe". Ignoring 53,997 of them makes your analogy incomplete to the point of being specious.

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