By spocko, on May 18th, 2013  I just read a really amazing story about a product that stops table saws from cutting off people’s fingers. You might think that manufacturers would race to incorporate this feature into their products. Yet the opposite happened. A coalition of table saw makers have taken multiple steps over years to suppress this technology.
If you wonder, “Why would manufacturers fight against a product that saves customers’ fingers?” you haven’t been paying attention to the power of association lobbying money.
The article describes all the various methods that the big power tool industry uses to block the incorporation of this technology into their product. It really is fascinating the way they turn losing your fingers into a right while transforming the makers of SawStop into some kind of greedy hucksters.
Steve Colbert did an excellent piece on this over a year ago. What I like about this piece is that they point out the way power tool manufacturing industry uses the same right wing tropes about “nanny state” and “freedom” that we see in the weapons industry. But if you look behind the scenes you see the manufacturers don’t really care about users freedom to cut their fingers off, they really care about their bottom line, the possible costs of lawsuits and having to pay royalties to the patent holders at SawStop.
What if one of them owned the patent for this technology and made it available to everyone for free? Would they then widely introduce it? I’ll bet they would, but after they got a bill passed like the gun makers did, one that keeps them free from liabilities from old saws that were made during the DECADE they fought the introduction of the technology.
I’m sure the people who work against safer products can count on both hands the number of reasons that a safer product like SawStop isn’t necessary and shouldn’t be mandated. Of course if they were using SawStop those 10 fingers would still be attached.
Image from By Mr. Greenjeans, gaylon keeling. Creative Commons attribution license
Cross posted at FireDogLake
By spocko, on May 17th, 2013
It’s Friday. When it’s foggy and gloomy in SF I watch happy videos. I like videos of people dancing and smiling. I think I’m going to post some of my favorites each week. I was just watching one from the Ghostworld Intro, ‘Jaan Pechan Ho’ Song from 1965 Bollywood film, Gumnaan Then Good Morning from Singing in the Rain.
But I also just found a new dancing video Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor in Where did you learn to dance. wonderful, check it out.
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By spocko, on May 11th, 2013
In my continuing quest to promote joyful videos of people singing and dancing I have found a new entry. I love how much fun they are having, knowing that they have done this before just for fun makes me happy.
So often videos capture horrible accidents and people doing embarrassing things. What a joy it was to see one where people are happily singing.
Science hasn’t figured out exactly how or why we are affected by music and dance, but when I see something like this, I’m grateful for the joy it brings.
Of course it is possible the whole thing was set up and faked. Don’t care. Still fun.
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By spocko, on May 10th, 2013 Have you noticed the Cumulus v. Rush stories in the press lately? What makes me crazy is thinking about all the questions that could be asked of the distributors, media corporations and the people who have made money or spent money on right wing media. Sadly they won’t be asked, although if they were asked I suspect the answers would range from, “No comment.” to, “We don’t have to tell you nothin’ Poindexter” and include lots of, ” We are a private company! Now drop and give me 20 stories on missing white women!”
Although public companies like Cumulus will answer a few questions, those answers will mostly be bullshit. I also know that no one in the press will call them on their doublespeak because shut up. But if I was an old timey journalist, wearing a fedora with PRESS in the hat band I would ask ‘em. I know I wouldn’t get any good answers of course, but it would be fun to watch the squirming. Today’s journalists aren’t about making anyone squirm. Not their job. Getting deeper truthful answers? Not their job. Reporting what they say exactly as they say it? That’s their job.
Here are a . . . → Read More: 9 questions the press won’t ask about Cumulus v. a Flaming Gasbag
By spocko, on May 9th, 2013 Via Retronaut.
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By spocko, on May 8th, 2013 I used to think that if only America’s political leaders could see the unemployed in the media, and hear their stories they would act. I don’t believe that anymore.
Right now in news rooms across the nation well-meaning editors are assigning someone to write a “balanced” story about the Dow breaking 15,000 that also includes some stories about people struggling to find work. They know not to totally cheer the Dow, “See, we know that not everything is okay, so here’s a sad story of a person sort of like you, which you will dismiss in 10 seconds because it’s depressing as hell.” ( Pam Spauling’s story “Over 55, out of work more than six months? Headhunters say you’re screwed.” made me loath my birthday and myself instead of loathing the people driving our economy. Their incorrect, destructive austerity metaphor is destroying lives as surely as bullets in our brains.)
I used to believe that personal stories, combined with cold hard statistics could break through to politicians and policy makers who would say, ‘Enough! The lack of good jobs with good wages is a national tragedy, we must fix it or I’ll never get re-elected!” I had the same delusion . . . → Read More: Where are my Commupance Stories?
By spocko, on May 6th, 2013
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By spocko, on May 1st, 2013
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By spocko, on April 29th, 2013
Of course the climate change deniers will have the usual excuses. Maybe they will add a new one. “I want to see the data! For all I know it is a bad Excel spreadsheet cell!”
And of course when you show them all the data they have new and exciting ways to attack it.
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By spocko, on April 28th, 2013
This is just the kind of story that they used to run on Channel 2 KTVU (when I watched it) or on the stations in the midwest. If this was done on the national level the people from New York would be mocking it with that, ‘Awww ain’t these hicks cute’ disguised as “These are only real people in America, the salt of the earth”
I liked this story. I could almost feel the heat. Nice video and voice over.
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Spocko's United Reserves Against Killing of Journalists and Liberals
Spocko’s Press Clippings Here's the New York Times story about my efforts to defund violent rhetoric on KSFO. January 15, 2007 by Noam Cohen
Bloggers Take on Talk Radio Hosts
Here is one of the SF Chronicle stories on January 11, 2007. By Joe Garofoli
Trying to censor blogger / Owner of conservative radio station KSFO demands liberal critic quit using audio clips
The tale of Spocko, a self-described "fifth-tier" blogger who lives in San Francisco, exemplifies how one person with a computer and an Internet hookup can challenge the views of a major media corporation -- and what a media corporation will do to stop him.
For the past year, Spocko has been e-mailing advertisers of KSFO-AM with audio clips from its shows and asking sponsors to examine what they're supporting. Some sponsors have pulled their ads, after hearing clips like one of KSFO's Lee Rodgers suggesting that a protester be "stomped to death right there. Just stomp their bleeping guts out."
[snip]
A little over a year ago, he became so annoyed by the "violent" tone of commentary on KSFO-AM that he and some of his readers e-mailed more than three dozen of the station's advertisers.
"I want to emphasize that if you withdraw your ads you aren't limiting their free speech, just removing your paid support of it," Spocko wrote to advertisers.
Join the EFF The Electronic Frontier Foundation provided me free legal representation in the ABC matter. Please consider supporting them!"
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