A BAD DAY FOR LASERISTS

[BlueFusion]

I idle on #pseudo-servers on ECnet (where #laserchat is hosted, our chat channel) so I saw this item from the Digg bot (a Digg RSS feed)

<Digg> "The Most Dangerous Object in the Office This Month: The Photonic Disruptor" :: http://digg.com/offbeat_news/The_Mo..._the_Office_This_Month_The_Photonic_Disruptor

Looking further shows me

The Most Dangerous Object in the Office This Month: The Photonic Disruptor

This laser is borderline illegal. With an output of 105 milliwatts, it's 21 times more powerful than your average presentation pointer. It was designed for SWAT and military use in nonlethal takedowns.

I posted the following comment on the Digg thread

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PLEASE NEVER BUY FROM WICKED LASERS. YOU WILL BE ROBBED!!!
THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A SPYDER OR PHOTONIC DISRUPTOR SERIES LASER MADE THAT EVEN MEETS ITS RATED POWER
WICKED LASERS ARE THE KING OF DODGY BUSINESS PRACTICES
SPREAD THE WORD
For half the price you can get the same power, but actually the same power or more (as Wicked have a reputation of being WAY under spec, and Nova way OVER spec) at www.novalasers.com
Or for the same price, and a bit more, you can get a RPL series at www.optotronics.com that will provide DOUBLE the rated power of the PD.
To find out more about burning lasers, and how you can put together a red laser at ~185mW for under $60, go to www.laserpointerforums.com

Then decided to follow the link to see what sort of lies and disreputable business WL is spreading now.

This laser is borderline illegal. With an output of 105 milliwatts, it's 21 times more powerful than your average presentation pointer. It was designed for SWAT and military use in nonlethal takedowns. The adjustable-focus green ray will do permanent retinal damage to anyone within about 60 feet, visually disorients people up to 1,150 feet away, and illuminates objects almost 2 miles out. Alternative uses: melting plastic, lighting fireworks, and settling heated disagreements over Wired kitchen queue-cutting on Burger Thursdays.

And absolutely no reference to where to buy it.

Regardless, I proceeded to register and post the same comment to proof against anyone with half a brainstem who googled "Photonic Disruptor" and got it.

I thought that this kind of promotion for WL needed some serious countering. I encourage you to register with Digg and continue the fight against WL.

 

[MarioMaster]

i'm waiting for someone to be permanently blinded by some idiot that thought it would be funny to shine in people's faces

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

This is the kind of crap I fear most. Idiots with guns, knives, lasers, cars etc.

They only encourage nerdowells to make legislation against those of us who are careful and respectful. Soon, everything we are allowed to do today will be a privlige, -- licensed and taxed.
Although we here and other laser forums promote safety, The idiot factor will destroy our hobby.

Mike

 

[disma]

There will be too many laws, and there will be no scientific advancements, all the people that experiment with stuff considered too dangerous, will be considered criminals. Its the same way with high voltage... anything thats real interesting, and exciting is considered to be too dangerous, and they think we need to be protected from it all because of the one jerk. Man this stuff really makes me upset....

Max

 

[Teslahed]

Lasers are dangerous when misused by idiots, but then so are kitchen knives. You can blind someone with a kitchen knife or worse pretty easily. Unfortunately, being relatively new, lasers are an easier target for politicians wanting to make a name for themselves by banning something dangerous for the 'public good'.

 

[Switch]

I can't belive all the ignorant people posting in that thread....This just shows that everybody knows cars, knives, guns are dangerous but when it comes to something new(well new to all those ignorant people like the ones posting in the thread) and potentially dangerous: QUICKLY BAN IT!!!

 

[nikokapo]

as a wise man said

just remove the warning labels off of everything and the problem will solve itself

 

[spinout059]

Lasers are dangerous when misused by idiots, but then so are kitchen knives. You can blind someone with a kitchen knife or worse pretty easily. Unfortunately, being relatively new, lasers are an easier target for politicians wanting to make a name for themselves by banning something dangerous for the 'public good'.

And with elections thsi year, we may have one canadate trying to do just that for HER self.... as she did with Grand Theft Auto...