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FrozenGate by Avery

Laser bad press heats up

I bet he was seeing how long he could stare into the thing without blinking.

(I remember it was a "game" in 1st grade. Stare into a (1mw red) laser for as long as you can)
 





From the article:

"Neither the owners nor the potential victims of such dangerous “toys” can distinguish harmless laser pointers from hazardous ones, and we may see more such eye injuries in the near future."

Oh dear lord... Yeah, maybe if the standard test of a new laser pointer is by aiming it directly in one's eyes right off the bat! See, now this paints it in such a grim light, like just having an unknown type of laser pointer in your house is tantamount to suicide. If someone hands a five year old kid a 445nm 1 watt monster handheld, and says "Ok have fun see ya!", then YES I agree, disaster is near. However, if someone handed ME one of those, and I didn't know what I was holding in my hand, the very first thing I'd do is aim it at the floor on a carpeted spot as is my usual first handheld test. In a split second, I would know exactly what I'm dealing with, and I'd suffer no such similar eye injury as this reckless kid sustained, even with powers far above that which this kid was busy abusing. All that might happen is a tiny puff of smoke from the carpet. Education is the difference.

- NR
 
Thats a BS statement. I doesnt take a genius to tell that a super bright green will hurt your eyes if it comes in contact. My 50mW is so bright it hurts my eyes just staring at the dot. 150mW must light up the whole room.
 
I disagree. I deal with enough 'average' people on a daily basis that I can tell you.. Most people can't comprehend that 'light' can actually be dangerous for some reason. At least not something coming out of something the size of a flashlight or smaller. Heck, some people can't even put 2 and 2 together after seeing it burn stuff or pop balloons....
 
NightRunner417 said:
From the article:

"Neither the owners nor the potential victims of such dangerous “toys” can distinguish harmless laser pointers from hazardous ones, and we may see more such eye injuries in the near future."

Oh dear lord... Yeah, maybe if the standard test of a new laser pointer is by aiming it directly in one's eyes right off the bat! See, now this paints it in such a grim light, like just having an unknown type of laser pointer in your house is tantamount to suicide. If someone hands a five year old kid a 445nm 1 watt monster handheld, and says "Ok have fun see ya!", then YES I agree, disaster is near. However, if someone handed ME one of those, and I didn't know what I was holding in my hand, the very first thing I'd do is aim it at the floor on a carpeted spot as is my usual first handheld test. In a split second, I would know exactly what I'm dealing with, and I'd suffer no such similar eye injury as this reckless kid sustained, even with powers far above that which this kid was busy abusing. All that might happen is a tiny puff of smoke from the carpet. Education is the difference.

- NR
Click to expand...

Sometimes it comes down to intellegence and common sense. Some people are intellegent enough not to shine a laser in their eyes, and some have the common sense not to. Today it seems that some people have neither!

I have to put this in here:
Quote:
Originally Posted by qumefox
They really should relocate all the lawyers to some other planet, remove all the warning labels off everything, and let darwinism run it's course... The gene pool could certainly use the chlorine, after all.

This is the best quote I have seen in a long time! :D

Jeff
 
These laser pointers are not all that different from the BB guns that were around when we were kids. Some kids understood the danger and respected it. Others were stupid and took their own eyes out.

Heck there are some kids who took their own eyes out with a pencil. It doesn't take a powerful laser pointer to blind some kid. You have to accept that a certain percentage of the population are going to do some pretty stupid things to themselves and/or others no matter how much legislation or public awareness you drum up to try to prevent it.
 
Lol, y'all are cracking me up this morning, which is a good thing since I am almost off to work and things are not so lol there lately.

Actually, my own first experience with getting it in the eye with a laser pointer (it was someone else's, they thought it was really funny to do it) was likewise pretty dumb. It was a keychain pointer, one of the first of its kind I'm sure, and she just pulled it out and started giggling and going for my eyes with it. I reciprocated by being dumb enough to stand there and "take it like a man" before ducking my head away to avoid further attacks on my vision. I liked the girl, so that played into it (does a mating ritual that leads to blindness nullify the threat of natural selection?), and I was a newbie to lasers in general so I didn't really "get it" like qumefox pointed out about newbies. Then too, I'd also had a wicked whoops with tracking an airliner with a telescope when I was a kid (it just happened to cross the sun), so I did in fact recognize that "sunspot" = unhappy retinal tissue... So I was and wasn't really connecting with the danger until later on when I had time to think without the influence of hormones clouding my common sense.

This is why I feel it is SO very important to educate the masses, especially now that high power diodes are so easily available. What are we gonna do when an actual green diode of very high power hits the market? Create a new laser police force? The only decent answer is education combined with very harsh penalties for crossing the line, and it wouldn't hurt to have parents being responsible for their kids again.

- NR
 
Just heard the news on UK radio whilst eating dinner, I am disgusted how this might effect us people in the UK is new legislation is passed due to me being useless at assembling my own lasers parts even as easy as everyone claims it is.
The general rules are /always/ around for anyone with a laser surely, keep out of reach of young children and for the love of god have goggles on before even touching the dam thing.
I excluded common sense out the least for reasons I don't want to go into...
Bleh, best get a 1W blue before legislation messes everything up for me, I do love my green burner though hehe.
 
ZapU said:
How far can this go? We could be like Australia!
Click to expand...

Well, this was all over the BBC news today.

BBC - Newsbeat - Lasers pose 'threat to flight safety'

Apparently the reclassification to "offensive weapon" status may already be under way.

Time for UK hobbyists to stock up?

Shame about all this, for everyone. The world is getting smaller day by day, and what happens here in Europe must have some effect on the actions of fellow nations, like our special friends across the pond :)

It all adds to the momentum, and gives the nay sayers that much more credence I think.

I just wish Dragon Lasers would hurry up and put the Spartan 1 Watt back up.

tbh, I could see a general ban on pointers etc, but can't possibly see how they could stop DIY'ers building their own.
 
AND I quote:

"Most people don't need to own one of these things, they have no practical use whatsoever."

Say what? Geez... what... attitude. Seriously though, I can think of half a dozen VERY practical uses for a common laser pointer and I'm not even trying.

Anyway, I do agree that this problem can't be stopped. DIY'ers can do themselves a wicked 100mW and up red "pointer" in an afternoon from a DVD burner, or a nice ~100mW and up violet "pointer" from a blu-ray burner, or the ultimate 1 watt or higher blue mass murderer Hannibal Lecter style "pointer" from a Casio laser projector. This doesn't even touch the kind of mayhem available if you shop eBay. If someone wanted to, they could simultaneously electrocute, irradiate, burn and blind anyone they wanted to just by being patient and harvesting any number of amazing and potentially lethal materials purchased on the Internet, and put together the ultimate terrorist kit within hours of delivery. It's really ridiculous to think it can be stopped by new laws. That is NOT the answer and it may even make some people that much more anxious to break the law. This is a whole new world defined by new technologies every day, and what we have now will pale in comparison to what will follow. The ONLY solution, if there is one at all, is to learn new ways of thinking and acting based on these new experiences. In other words, we will simply have to "grow up" as our technology does.

One thing that's interesting... Any ban on personal lasers, anywhere in the world, will only have the effect of placing such lasers squarely in the hands of geeks, who are savvy enough to build them from scratch. Sort of like the whole argument against a ban on firearms, but on a much more brainy level. :-)

- NR
 
Most of the articles about aircraft incidents say that the green lasers are the most dangerous to pilots. Could they not just put a coating on the window that reduces the amount of 532nm light that can get through?
 
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