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Poison, Poison Everywhere

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Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#201

Post by LorenPechtel »

hammock wrote: post #47
noduerme wrote: post #46

Amazon is so completely irresponsible for their marketplace that recently, shopping for a glass oral thermometer (because the digital ones suck) I stumbled on reviews with photos showing products that had no mercury inside and actual blobs of mercury stuck to the tip that goes in your mouth. These were still for sale. I feel like even 10 years ago, online marketplaces would have taken measures to prevent stuff like t…

Why are they even selling mercury thermometers for oral use when an alcohol one (the red liquid) does fine

The old mercury ones were a lot easier to read. And faster.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#202

Post by LorenPechtel »

pixl97 wrote: post #25
davnicwil wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's incredibly surprising to me that lead was added to gasoline specifically at all. I'd always assumed it was some expensive-to-remove byproduct of manufacture or something, so they left it in to save costs despite the risks. Why did this happen?

Lead in gas increased compression rations and allowed us to build higher horsepower engines. Lead is still used in avgas for this reason. Engine knock was a big problem at the time.

AFIAK only permitted in some old engines that were designed to need the lead.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#203

Post by LorenPechtel »

antonchekhov wrote: post #195

A former coworker who was a serious gun enthusiast experienced dangerously high levels of lead in his bloodstream - he had chronic headaches and other bodily pains. He visited shooting ranges several times per week, and also packed (assembled? made? I'm not sure the nomenclature) his own bullets. His doctors believe he aspirated atomized lead particulate doing so much shooting practice, and/or bullet manufacture. He…

The risk would mostly be from the range, not the reloading. The problem is bullets are intended to scrape pretty hard against the barrel to get them spinning. That inevitably causes lead dust and indoor ranges can be pretty dangerous because of it.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#204

Post by LorenPechtel »

rao-v wrote: post #96

The reality is that poison is dose dependent, and we’ve mostly identified all the dangerous things and their doses. That lead in the bottle and the formaldehyde in your cheap clothes is bad … but not in a way that will detectably cause you harm or impair your life

The problem is the supply chain is now so compromised by many little players that pop up, sell cheap stuff, vanish.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#206

Post by more_corn »

bad_username wrote: post #87
teddyh wrote: post #6

Empowering individuals to solve collective problems rarely work. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178680 > The appropriate solution is legislation.

This mindset is dangerous - "weak individuals, you better let the strong benevolent government solve your problems". The appropriate solution is legislation AND individual empowerment.

What if the solution begins with science?

Leaded gasoline was known to be problematic from day 1. The science was suppressed for years. Look up what happened immediately after that iconic tv stunt where the guy washed his hands in leaded gasoline (he had a psychotic break from lead exposure and was institutionalized)

Forever chemicals were known to be problematic and far more prevent than expected. 3M suppressed the science for literally decades. Senior leadership at 3M deliberately suppressed the data.

We should crush without mercy those who rob us of the right to protect ourselves when they suppress the science that is supposed to provide warning. Make penalties for suppressing science so severe that nobody attempts to do it. How specifically? If you hide information that your product kills, you get prosecuted for murder. If there are financial damages make them treble damages. Make it hurt so bad it’s not worth doing.

The answer is knowing. Individuals and institutions knowing the real dangers and acting appropriately. The place of governance is punishing those who knowingly hide the dangers and prevent us from taking appropriate proactive action.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#208

Post by deanishe »

noduerme wrote: post #99
BrenBarn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think brands were a weak substitute for artisans / bespoke makers who had to personally stand by their work. Another way to say that is "companies are too big". When companies become big enough that they don't have to worry about the repercussions of screwing over their customers, they're too big.

Right. Absolutely. But then again, everyone can buy jeans now and you don't have to ride your horse across 500 miles of desert and hitch it up to Levi's store. So no one who orders em online now knows what they were worth then. No one's riding horses around in their underwear anymore. To be serious: I don't think that overpopulation or delivering better things to more people is really the problem. Big companies are i…

> Small businesses are fantastic drivers of prosperity and creativity

That's a huge generalisation. Plenty are every bit as dodgy as the big ones.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#209

Post by stefs »

noduerme wrote: post #50
hammock wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they even selling mercury thermometers for oral use when an alcohol one (the red liquid) does fine

I wondered that as well, but they are. I've started to think there's an organized effort by a government with a lot of state-owned enterprises to actually dispose of toxic waste by shipping it to gullible American consumers. Not that it isn't also poisoning people there.

well, the chinese outsourced hog farms (pork production) to the U.S. because the farms are considered too toxic and environmentally destructive for them.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#210

Post by kragen »

marcosdumay wrote: post #191
kragen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It surely reduced it by a tiny amount compared to just straight octane, but ethanol reduced it by something like 10%. So using TEL instead of ethanol gave you about 10% higher gas mileage.

If you are comparing it to pure ethanol, yeah, that's the ballpark. Leaded gas compared to ethanol mixed gas with equivalent octane numbers should have something around 1% or 2% difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Chemical_reacti... says "Gasohol E10 (10% ethanol 90% gasoline by volume)" is 33.18MJ/liter, while "Petrol (Gasoline)" is 34.2MJ/liter. That's a 3% difference, which is much closer to your 1% or 2% than to the 10% I had believed. E85 is lower still in energy density.

All of this is assuming the engine has the same efficiency on both fuels, rather than, for example, using a much higher compression ratio on the ethanol.

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