What about the $2,043 nut that turns in both popular directions (clockwise AND counterclockwise)?
https://www.amazon.com/Pentagon-Catalog-Ordinary-Products-Ex...
The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)
71–80 of 198 posts
Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the kitchen has many hazards that are not expected in a drive-through restaurant, and your point about how she held the coffee is presumably why the jury found the plaintiff 20% liable rather than 0%.
Yes, and now the "Caution - Hot" markings on the cup keep us all much, much safer. Any temperature above 100*F is going to burn . There is no safe temperature above 100*F that is not going to cause 2nd and 3rd degree burns.
The warning was made more prominent and, probably more importantly, they switched to rigid styrofoam cups that are less likely to buckle as happened in that incident. Furthermore, the Wikipedia article shared in the thread elsewhere details how such burns take substantially more contact with skin to happen if the coffee is not served so hot.
Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't seem to match what's in wikipedia: > Liebeck's attorneys argued that coffee should never be served hotter than 140 °F (60 °C), and that a number of other establishments served coffee at a substantially lower temperature than McDonald's. The attorneys presented evidence that coffee they had tested all over the city was served at a temperature at least 20 °F (11 °C) lower than McDonald's coffee. Reading th…
Of course the plaintiffs attorney argued coffee should be lower temperature - it literally was their case. And no, there is no coffee professional (organization, individual, whatever) brewing coffee at 140*F. Additionally - 140*F water is still going to burn if you spill it all over your clothing. Lastly, the customer removed the lid of the coffee while between her legs, which is how the cup was crushed and coffee ra…
The issue was the temperature it was served at, not the temperature it was brewed at...
Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't seem to match what's in wikipedia: > Liebeck's attorneys argued that coffee should never be served hotter than 140 °F (60 °C), and that a number of other establishments served coffee at a substantially lower temperature than McDonald's. The attorneys presented evidence that coffee they had tested all over the city was served at a temperature at least 20 °F (11 °C) lower than McDonald's coffee. Reading th…
Of course the plaintiffs attorney argued coffee should be lower temperature - it literally was their case. And no, there is no coffee professional (organization, individual, whatever) brewing coffee at 140*F. Additionally - 140*F water is still going to burn if you spill it all over your clothing. Lastly, the customer removed the lid of the coffee while between her legs, which is how the cup was crushed and coffee ra…
Nobody is saying the coffee should be brewed at a lower temperature.
Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. This claim appears to contradict what the story says, as far as I can tell? He's the original: > The military bought the hammer, Kelman explained, bundled into one bulk purchase of many different spare parts. But when the contractors allocated their engineering expenses among the individual spare parts on the list-a b…
I think a more accurate analogy is that if you bought those 3 items and they did have proper itemized cost, but the whole package also had a $500 shipping charge. And then it’s not obvious how to distribute the shipping cost across each item. And in both situations it’s probably better to itemize by itself, though maybe some system didn’t allow for non tangible costs like “R&D”
Much better analogy.
Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
"when the contractors allocated their engineering expenses among the individual spare parts on the list... they simply treated every item the same" Sounds like an extra hammer would have cost an $15+$420=$435. Anyways, we'll never know. I will say, the one thing I believe, is that the government had a bucket of money to spend on the project. Let's say it was $1 million. And the contractor was going to get all of it,…
You’re ignoring the underlying math. If they needed 2 hammers then both hammers would have cost less. Thus rather than 2 * 435$ hammers + other junk you get 2 * 430$ hammers + other junk which is also 5$ cheaper (or whatever the actual number works out to.) Net result a total that’s 15$ higher and a different set of otherwise meaningless numbers.
Hey! Buying that second hammer reduced the per-item R&D costs across the entire order!
Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)
#77What about the $2,043 nut that turns in both popular directions (clockwise AND counterclockwise)? https://www.amazon.com/Pentagon-Catalog-Ordinary-Products-Ex...
What are the unpopular directions?
Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)
#78A plumber once showed me his $805 wrench. It cost him $5 on AliExpress, and in the middle of his tightening a bolt with all his weight, it split into two and one half hit him in his tooth. The co-pay for the tooth implant was $800, hence his "$805 wrench" and a moral not be cheap on your tools.
My friend showed me his $700 jacket once (a long time ago). It was given to him while gambling in atlantic city, when he lost $700.
Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)
#79The so-called "real" explanation of the $600 hammer doesn't make the story any better. The hammer did indeed cost $435. If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. Just because the extra $420 was "R&D expense" for something else, doesn't make the hammer any cheaper. Even in the most charitable explanation, this makes it impossible to know the real cost of anythin…
I was playing poker with an old High School classmate who worked in Washington. I mentioned my consulting company chared 15% - 25% overhead for project management over what our Engineers got hourly. He laughed, said "In DC that would be 200%" I guess I believe it, from all this.
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Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understood that anecdote to be true. Fisher spent $1M (of "then" money) creating a "space pen", capitalized on the unique opportunity and publicity, and went from a startup to a $60M company. They knew that the astronauts could use a pencil, but that wouldn't be very profitable for them. For Fisher, it was a capitalist triumph, and symbolized American values. For the U.S.S.R. it symbolized U.S. wastefulness, and wa…
I'm pretty sure regular ballpoint pens work just fine in space. Try writing with one upsidedown in earth gravity; they work fine.
They actually don’t. They work fine for a few words then the ink fades out and is basically gone after the fifth or sixth word. I just tried (go ahead and try it yourself, I used just a regular Bic pen). A similar thing occurs when writing on a vertical surface.
Pens also do poorly when cold.
Space pens use a pressurized ink cartridge that works independent of orientation and works when hot or cold. They’re cheap. It’d be dumb to NOT use a space pen on a mission now.
Before the pressurized ink cartridge of the space pen was invented, they used grease pencils.
Actually, the space pen is an example of successful private invention inspired by and then applied to and utilized by NASA.