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Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

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Re: Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

#91
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll promise I won't be a dumbass with them :( Can you also guarantee with absolute certainty that you'll never forget them anywhere another person who's unaware of the contents or the danger could find them?

>Can you also guarantee with absolute certainty that you'll never forget them anywhere another person who's unaware of the contents or the danger could find them? Why does he need to do that? We're talking about a product that lightly injured ~20 people for ~8mil units sold and seriously injured ~3. Should be be keeping his champagne in a protective enclosure?

If you have younger kids, or software engineers, around, you definitely should keep your champagne in a protective enclosure.

Re: Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve exhausted the branches of my imagination, what is the danger of 10 pressure cookers?

there's tons of material online from religious radical groups on how to turn one into an IED

e.g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspire_(magazine)

Re: Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because blinding people is bad and causes expensive lawsuits? How is this even a question.

And you also shouldn't put your dog in the microwave to dry it.

Are you saying that opening a food thermos is equivalent to cooking a dog in the microwave?

Re: Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

#94
This suggests a "knife skills" automatic habit to cultivate:† Whenever opening anything, point it away from your face, or at least move your face out of the line of fire. (Champagne, soda bottles, whatever.)

† "Knife skills" automatic habits = things such as, • always cut away from yourself; • whenever holding something down with the non-knife hand to be cut, curl that hand's fingers under, so that the non-knife hand's knuckles serve as a guard for that hand's finger tips.

Re: Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

#95
post #53
post #39

That sucks. I have both and the ones with the pressure relieve valve are a pain in the ass to clean. You have to pull out the rubber inner thingy, you can't get a towel inside the hole that thingy goes into, and in general the rubber thing gets lost easily. I wish Thermos would send me a few of those 8 million stoppers, I'll promise I won't be a dumbass with them :(

> I'll promise I won't be a dumbass with them :( Can you also guarantee with absolute certainty that you'll never forget them anywhere another person who's unaware of the contents or the danger could find them?

If I buy a lawn mower, I don't expect anyone to guarantee with absolute certainty that there will never be a person who thinks 'hey maybe I can just stick my hand in there to unclog it' and gets their fingers chopped off. Probably a wrong analogy but I can't even be bothered to think it through, of course fermenting food causes things to explode, how is that even remotely the fault of the manufacturer? I loathe the times we live in where everything needs to be padded and cushioned because heavens forbid we start expecting people to think for a second. I mean, the valve requires a crevice where all sorts of things can grow (I've seen them, I've cleaned these things after they were left in a school bag throughout two weeks of school holidays with food in them), I'm not going to complain that it would somehow be Thermos' fault if one of my kids got sick off something getting stuck in there. At some point, there is such a thing as 'personal responsibility'.

Re: Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

#96
post #94

This suggests a "knife skills" automatic habit to cultivate:† Whenever opening anything , point it away from your face, or at least move your face out of the line of fire. (Champagne, soda bottles, whatever.) † "Knife skills" automatic habits = things such as, • always cut away from yourself; • whenever holding something down with the non-knife hand to be cut, curl that hand's fingers under, so that the non-knife han…

I would say this is a big factor for Thermos.

with Champagne the injuries are probably more numerous, but this risk is part of the expected behavior.

Re: Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you also guarantee with absolute certainty that you'll never forget them anywhere another person who's unaware of the contents or the danger could find them? Why does he need to do that? We're talking about a product that lightly injured ~20 people for ~8mil units sold and seriously injured ~3. Should be be keeping his champagne in a protective enclosure?

If you have younger kids, or software engineers, around, you definitely should keep your champagne in a protective enclosure.

I've seen Champagne disappear faster off the shelf more so around MBA's who are celebrating accomplishments having dubious value, compared to engineers who have actually achieved remarkable milestones ;)

Re: Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

#98
post #10

I too from the headline assumed it was some sort of chemical contamination during manufacturing. But then I read the words "The malfunction is due to multiple models of containers missing a pressure relief function in the center of the stopper." How non-existent does your quality assurance have to be in order to miss such a critical, obvious and easy to identify flaw ? Looking at the published photographs, you don't…

I would assume that it was some cost optimization that led to the removal of the pressure relief.

OTOH I would assume that they didn't add the pressure relief until after finding out that people were getting hurt.

Seems logical to then be recalling any that are out there without the safety feature.

Re: Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

#99
This happened at the hospital I currently work at a couple years ago. A patient was brought some chicken noodle soup hot in the thermos but didn't open it. A few days later I was working night shift on that floor when we all heard a sound resembling a cross between a BOOM and a BANG (something you don't expect at 2AM). There was his thermos at the bedside table with no lid, still sitting upright. Scattered around (both floor and ceiling) was some fermented soup smelling of fermenting vomitus. And a lid-sized-and-shaped hole in the ceiling.

Re: Over 8M Thermos jars and bottles recalled after 3 people lost vision

#100
post #95
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll promise I won't be a dumbass with them :( Can you also guarantee with absolute certainty that you'll never forget them anywhere another person who's unaware of the contents or the danger could find them?

If I buy a lawn mower, I don't expect anyone to guarantee with absolute certainty that there will never be a person who thinks 'hey maybe I can just stick my hand in there to unclog it' and gets their fingers chopped off. Probably a wrong analogy but I can't even be bothered to think it through, of course fermenting food causes things to explode, how is that even remotely the fault of the manufacturer? I loathe the t…

I get your take that people should take the responsibility for things they are doing.

Without arguing your point there are a couple more things to consider from the perspective of the company and the society at large.

From the company perspective, if their product gets a bad reputation the sales will be worse. This could even extend beyond the one product. It doesn't matter if it is fair or nuanced at all. Even if everyone is a moron, investing in protecting the morons from themselves could be a good business decision.

From the society perspective, there is a positive-for-business intent in forcing a baseline for consumer safety and satisfaction. Threading that needle is of course hard but it makes it easier for a free market of consumer products to exist as a whole if the consumers can offload some of the investigation required before committing to something. The idea is that in a 100% buyer beware situation there is less buying overall and the market can't be big and as full of options because the cost/risk of buying isn't worth the end goal. You can make the counter argument that the trust should be part of the brand value but it might enable new companies and new products more effectively (making more good options in a free market) to reduce the consumer risk of purchasing their products.

Additionally, if everyone is doing the same prerequisite research (is this safe before I buy), it makes sense to consolidate this step either through curation/certification groups (the people who care fund it themselves - makes sense for specific preference choices [eg "plant based", "cruelty free"] or niches [eg "gluten free", "non gmo"]) or regulation (everyone funds it collectively - makes sense for broad application like "will I get food poisoning" and "am I risking being maimed").

Beyond personal purchases there's also society wide implications worth preventing for things like if a million cars exploded or if 10% of profession X and profession Y ended up losing fingers.

Like I said, not arguing with you about if people are dumb and if companies should be required to pay to deal with that, just pointing out there are other reasons a system might be in place beyond just a patronizing nanny state situation.

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