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Up in flames

cringely.com

60 pointsableal14 comments

Cringely doesn't identify his friend from Purdue, but there is a professor at Purdue that has a long standing fascination with lighting charcoal grills.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Goble

"In 1996, Goble was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for preparing a barbecue for cooking in less than 5 seconds by the use of a smoldering cigarette, charcoal and LOX (liquid oxygen). This act attracted the attention of the West Lafayette, Indiana fire department, which warned him to never let them catch him in the possession of LOX near a barbecue fire ever again."

Writeup: http://www.humournet.com/collage.archives/collage096.txt

Watch it here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=sab2Ltm1WcM

Better than thermite!

My god I remember that guy from the late 90's. There was an Internet fad around then.

Now I feel old.

In other dubious class action news:

http://centerforclassactionfairness.blogspot.com/

I was really hoping the post will be about the opening photo - the industrial vacuum attached to the grill. Instead it was about something inherently boring.

Read the writeup linked here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3637392 (Use this video instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBLr_XrooLs

(But I'll quote for you: "Then we figured out that it would light faster if we used a vacuum cleaner.")

Youtube says your link is adult content and wants me to login. Believe it or not, I never logged in there, and was never asked to.

Damn Youtube, it's How to light a grill in 2 seconds, not a girl.

I don't buy the argument that you're above the law if you're a manufacturer. A credible argument for tort or truth in advertising reform across the board? For tax reform across the board? Sure.

But this whole they're so fluffy for building things in America so let's treat them specially, regardless of how superficial special might seem in this cases, is an insult to the rule of law.

It's not that they should be treated specially. The problem is that by being an American company and not hiding behind offshore resources they make themselves more vulnerable to the idiocies of our judicial system.

The proper remedy lies in tort reform, but given how successful we've been with that, I don't hold out much hope.

The solution is to take over as much of your manufacturing process as possible. That way Weber can avoid this type of convoluted scenario.

US companies used to do a lot more of this a hundred years ago. When industry is hitting on all cylinders and there's a lot of diversity of suppliers, owning your whole manufacturing stack is usually not very efficient. However, when key ingredients / suppliers in your manufacturing system are eroding, it becomes a method for keeping your operations in the US and controlling quality.

Web should manufacture their own valves.

tldr: companies that are legally held accountable for selling defective products might end up trying to evade taxes through holding companies to compensate for damages paid.

Is this actually the case? Cringely implies that the crux of the suit is a false advertising claim.

He says "the system as it is running right now doesn’t seem to be working as well as it should at helping U.S. manufacturing employment" after talking about the class action suit which seems to imply that a class action suit is against the interests of the US manufacturing sector.

You need to read it again. Or read it more carefully or something.

Basically what he is saying is that the class action system is giving an incentive to move manufacturing out of the US since then there is nothing to sue.

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