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There's a reason that Centers for Disease Control and Child Development Center have the same abbreviation - CDC.
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They give you just enough cable to hang yourself with...  
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With 3 of the pages safety information.
If you can't find time to do it right the first time, how are you going to find time to do it again?
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.4.0 (Many new features) JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: EventAggregator
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In my first university level programming course, the professor introduced the concept of algorithms using the instructions (a.k.a. "manual") on his shampoo bottle:
* Wet hair
* Apply
* Lather
* Repeat
Actually, the manual was very useful for learning the basics of algorithm, and precision of description. He made a big issue of points such as 'Apply' - the whole bottle? Where should it be applied? what does 'Apply' mean? When he got to 'Repeat' (the first time), there was no indication of what to repeat, so he tried to repeat it all. But he couldn't 'Wet hair', as it was already wet! He reached 'Repeat' a second time, and a third time, and a fourth time ... The hot water tank ran empty, and his shampoo bottle ran empty ...
So silly manuals / instructions can serve a purpose, although not necessarily the way the manufacturer intended.
A similar experience:
A couple of weeks ago I spent the last grains of salt in that 1 kg box. Before I threw the empty box in the garbage, I noticed that it had a 'Best before' date. For table salt?? I consider sodium and chlorine rather stable elements, and the bond between them as well. I would never expect the potency of either to decay much with age.
My new box of salt also had a 'Best before' - three years into the future (2027). The old box was expired by two years (I do not use much salt in my cooking), so it was probably bought five years ago. The last few grains had started lumping together; I guess is the reason for the BB date. Not really "best before", but "may start lumping together after 3 years". I know to store salt in a dry place, so for me it took five years.
I guess referring to the date in your wedding ring as the BB date can be considered an NSFW joke inappropriate for the Lounge, so I suppose I should leave it out.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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Here in the Uk, even bottled water has a BBE ... but that's the bottle's fault as the plastic starts to leach chemicals into the water after a certain point.
When I was involved in industrial ink jet printers customers assumed that the BBE on teh ink cartridges was to make us more money - and they did due to a process called "flocculation" which caused the pigment to clump up and block filters in the print head which then had to be scrapped and replaced at a serious cost ...* 
* I did fit a replaceable filter between the ink cartridge and the head which filtered out 5 micron particles to save the "last ditch" 10 micron head filter, but ignore it for too long and flocculation would occur in the head itself and stuff it right up. Particularly if you didn't replace the cartridge filter when recommended.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I did a project once for a purveyor of very expensive ink. The goal of the project was to measure the volume of individual drops of ink from an inkjet printer. It was measured in units of picoliters. That was one of the very few projects I ever worked on where I never actually understand the point.
Something amusing: the word picoliters is being highlighted as misspelled. The suggested correction is helicopters.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Probably one of the Xaar heads: when I was working with them the droplet volume was either 40 or 80 picolitres* depending on the head you used.
And none of the distributors could understand that the amount of ink you used per print depended on what characters you printed ... "i" used a lot less ink than "W"
* I got "picolitre's", "kilometers", and "picolitres'" as corrections.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: the droplet volume was either 40 or 80 picolitres
Interesting. My company builds commercial inkjet printers. Our drop volume ranges from 6.5 to 13 picoliters, depending upon the product.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary Wheeler wrote: Our drop volume ranges from 6.5 to 13 picoliters, depending upon the product.
(my emphasis.)
I have a memory of some ink jet printers boasting of variable size droplets: The physical resolution was 300 dpi, but rather than dithering a 600 dpi output, you got 'true' greyish, or less saturated colors, with smaller droplets.
I actually thought that this was a standard feature on ink jet printers, but I know no more about them than the average customer (or at least average programmer). Maybe the technology of variable size droplets failed. Maybe it couldn't be used with some dyes for color printers. I don't know.
Or maybe the inkjet printers of today do use variable size droplets.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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While we do adjust drop size to an extent on-the-fly, it's more for ensuring drop uniformity than achieving different color intensities.
Software Zen: delete this;
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you still can't spell teh can you 
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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It's a feature, not a bug - it's in teh spec on my home page.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Have heard that pharma companies deliberately underestimate the expiry date on their medicines; however, not sure of how low/high is their 'factor of safety'.
Factor of safety = similar to how civil engineers design the dimensions of their structures, with a 'factor of safety'.
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I worked for a major Swiss pharmaceutical company CIBA and the expiration date is based on a percentage of loss of potency.
Antibiotics are the easiest to test and the most critical.
One antibiotic that is outdated can cause serious harm Tetracycline.
Look up Fanconi Syndrome
As a clinical pharmacist I have used many outdated medication for my personal use.
One BIG problem a number of years ago Physicians would donate outdated samples to
FREE Clinics who had volunteer Pharmacist but the clinics were not required to have
a Pharmacy License hence no inspection by State Board of Pharmacy
One law suite for mistreatment somewhere put an end to that concept
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I was talking about that with my doctor once. Regarding one particular substance he said, "that has no expiration date." The label said three years.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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For one lotion, my doctor told me that the expiration date was based on it being stored in room temperature, which for medicines often is a cabinet in the bathroom, and 'room temperature' is typically 25C. Keep it in the fridge, and it will last a lot longer! (Just make sure that it is clearly marked, and remember the kids.) He didn't say it would last "forever", but he sort of indicated "Don't worry about the expiration date as long as you store it in the fridge".
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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For cheese, I tend to read "Best before" as "Best after".
(Also, lots of wines are sold years after the indication on the label, and it hasn't hurt the quality  ).
The last few years, most food stores in my district has installed a separate cooler for "best before" food, where they put all the stuff that expires within 2-3 days, at 40-50% discount. As long as the food is marked "Best before", and not "Last consumption date", the store may legally sell it after the date, but the stuff in the BB cooler never reaches the BB before someone has picked it up.
Everybody knows that the safety margins on food are large. But commercial / public institutions, from restaurants to hospitals, cannot risk to be caught serving food as much as a single day beyond BB. So you regularly read stories in media about people who have learned the times when the institutions empty their fridges to the garbage. Excellent food, when still in sealed, unbroken packaging, are still cold from the fridge when the 'hunters' pick it up from the can.
There is a trend demanding more 'real' BB marking, to reduce the amount of food waste, and it is slowly catching on here in Norway. In my childhood, milk was dated three days into the future; at that time, lots of people kept their food in a cold basement - fridges was just starting to catch on. When they became commonplace, the 'lifetime' of milk was extended to a week. Nowadays, it is three weeks, but that is under the assumption that the carton is unopened. After opening it is a week - but if drink milk at all, you probably will empty it in less time.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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Amarnath S wrote: not sure of how low/high is their 'factor of safety'.
About 6 month according to wife who worked in stability department of pharma companies. After that you still have about 6 month in which degradation occurs but it's not so bad. More than 1 year: totally unsafe.
Mircea
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Amarnath S wrote: not sure of how low/high is their 'factor of safety'.
But do you really want to be the one that signs up for the study that determines that the medicine you have been taking for your condition is not actually working anymore?
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Maybe then, the placebo effect takes over. "I have taken the medicine, and it's working".
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Some placebo is so strong that it works even if you don't believe in it.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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Quote: I noticed that it had a 'Best before' date. For table salt??
Salt is good at collecting humidity. And anything coming with it. Living things are not much a problem, but all else can be.
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I remember a Honda manual that stated "do not eat this manual"
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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I guess that is because if every customer did, the load on their customer support would most likely increase.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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