Posts by Steven Raith

Ey-up, mardy Rochdale council has dropped plans for ban on swearing. Thank f$ck!

Scunny

Ah, S<censored>horpe, the bane of those suffering with poorly implemented content filters everywhere.

Steven R

Google Drive ate our homework! Doc block blamed on code blunder

Re: Vapourous clouds

It's not about the hardware, or the architecture, it's about the control.

When people say the cloud is someone elses server, it's the someone else part that's the point - it's down to them what lives on that server, and you have basically zero say on that.

Your computer might not have whizzbang replication across multiple continents, but if you set up a script to remove all references to titties and run it on your porn collection, at least that's something you have done, and it's highly unlikely to have effectively done it itself.

Steven "doesn't back anything up because all his data is worthless" R

Quebec takes mature approach to 'grilled cheese' ban

This article is just....

...is just grating.

Steven R

(Sorry)

Futuristic driverless car technology to be trialled on... oh, a Ford Mondeo

I keep seeing ST200s and more recently, ST220s going fairly cheap on AutoTrader.

If I had a couple of grand burning a hole in my pocket, I can't help thinking one of those with a centre pipe removal and a decat would be quite a giggle.

Probably make more sense to fix my car first though (which hasn't happpened because I don't have a couple of grand burning a hole in my pocket...)

Steven R

Vaping ads flout EU rules, even if to promote healthier lifestyles

Re: opponents are using guerrilla tactics

These days it's more likely to be the long and overreaching arm of Tobacco Control. You know, actual public health people.

No, i'm not even joking

It's becoming increasingly laughable, frankly. Or it would be, if they weren't taxpayer funded ideologues who are standing in the way of massively reducing the harm caused by the single most dangerous consumer habit out there.

Steven R

Ubuntu sends trash to its desktop's desktop

Obvious joke is obvious

What a load of rubbish.

I'm so sorry.

Steven R

South London: Rats! The rodents have killed the internet

Pfft

"Virgin Media broadband cabinet in Shropshire last year, resulting in, um, sluggish broadband services."

The wording suggests you're a bit ashamed of that pun, but we know the truth.

You love it.

Steven R

UK government's war on e-cigs is over

Re: the EU’s revised Tobacco Products Directive (TPD2),

And if Anna Soubry had actually read the contents of TPD2, she might have known that e-cigs were part of it, that the UK govt position on e-cigs was to keep an eye on them but not ban them, and that as such that required parliamentary scrutiny.

Except she didn't, she didn't, and we, as a result, didn't. It was nearly chucked out in the Lords, but for ASHs little sockpuppets being rushed talking points and scuppering the whole thing.

So we nearly didn't enforce it, and had it been fully debated in parliament, it likely wouldn't have been implemented at all, as it was against the broader government position of the day on the matter.

Woopsy.

Re: Just wait

"Sure as anything in twenty or thirty years we'l discover that sucking vape juice into your lungs over the long term gives you some kind of nasty disease."

Based on the evidence, it can clearly be stated that the chances of any smoking related diseases is slim to nil, for obvious reasons. For diseases of that ilk....well.....

Obviously, anything which stresses the airways will increase the risk of late life issues, but the general consensus, based on the research and the material science, is that any risk would be small - like that of spending a lifetime working in a kitchen or a garage. Not one worth worrying about if it's something you enjoy.

And these aren't crackpots saying this - these are the cream of the crop of those who not only work in tobacco related fields, but who are also actually allowed to perform research that is applicable to human health, unlike most of those who claim to the contrary - failed engineers and social scientists, mostly.

Steven R

Re: Oh god no resturant will be safe again

"Just told my employer/HR that if they allow vaping in the building they can have my resignation."

As it's not illegal, not harmful and it's not recommended by PHE to throw e-cigs in with smoking rules (because that would infer similar levels of risk, which is evidentially false, and discourage people from trying to use them, because if you still have to go outside and sit with the smokers, what's the point?) then one would hope that they'd accept, or even offer for your benefit.

After all, wouldn't want to employ someone who makes such rash threats to business continuity based on such poor evidence - or even worse, their own personal tastes.

That'd be bad for business.

Smokers not spending 20 mins outside twice a day, but sitting in the office doing productive stuff, is good for business.

Steven "pragmatic" R

Re: Is this the ONLY benefit to Brexit that Gov.Uk can come up with?

Given that the TPD was pushed through without parliamentary scrutiny by Anna Soubry, thanks to her utter rank incompetence - she thought e-cigs weren't part of the TDP...

...and that when the Lords - being aware of the above - were voting to scupper the implementation (TRPR), with testimony from various members who had clearly done the research, were familiar with it, and were speaking freely and openly about the problems of it...only to be scuppered by ASH putting pieces of paper into the hands of people they were owed favours by at the last minute (you can literally see some of them tripping over words and phrases they don't recognise or understand) who pulled the usual 'think of the children' bollocks.

I think it's damned right that the implementation that was, bluntly, forced through without proper debate in a parliament that's largely supportive of tobacco harm reduction - and has a long history in overall harm reduction (we pretty much pioneered it in the 80s with needle exchanges and other harm reduction strategies for injected drug users) - should be looked over again.

It's less about Brexit, and more about our utterly feckless MEPs screwing the pooch through their own lackadaisical attitude to their duties, taxpayer funded lobby groups desperate for more money, and the bad regulations that result from that.

Steven R

"erm no, if people start vaping in my work place I will be insisting on working from home."

I think you'll find that if your boss hears your justification for that, you might welll end up spending a lot more time at home than you'd like....a bit like if you demanded the same thing because someone changed from Old Spice to Lynx Africa, given that there's absolutely sod all evidence of harm from second hand vapour.

Steven R

Re: No vaping in the workplace please

Tiggity:

"Some of the vape clouds make me (a non smoker, non vaper) cough / struggle to breathe when I inhale them (hard not to when walking past someone on teh street) even more than "real" cigarette smoke does."

It's likely psychosomatic (caused by unexpected flavour/sensation in your mouth as you breathe), or you would likely be in serious trouble. Second hand vapour has a barely detectable biological effect, never mind toxicological. Traffic fumes should, based on dose/response ratios and known toxicity levels you're describing, cause you serious problems any time you're half a mile downwind of a town centre.

That's not really an exaggeration either. There's no sound biological/biochemical evidence that second hand vapour has even a reliably measurable response from the body - which isn't a shock given that most second hand vapour has very low levels of anything unpleasant in it above normal exhaled breath, full stop.

Study on the users - no notable risk,

Study on second hand constituents - nothing notably above bog standard exhaled breath in terms of phenolics, carbonyls and nicotine

Another study that finds much the same

I'm not saying you or Zanzibar don't notice the second hand vapour, or that you don't react to it - I'm saying that the chances of it being an actual biochemical response to the exhaled vapour is, effectively, next to nil based on the evidence.

Steven R

Re: Jesus, NO!

Avatar of They

"You do seem to be missing the point during your rant.

The ban is about the propagation of a harmful very addictive drug with unknown side effects long term."

You don't seem to know much about nicotine. Without lit tobacco being involved, it's not accurate to describe it as either harmful (in the doses used - the dose makes the poison) or particularly addictive. I'm not joking, without tobacco smoke, nicotine just isn't that interesting from an addiction standpoint. Nicotine is well known to be pretty harmless long term; there's no recommended 'stop using this' period for gum or patches, after all.

"Which is currently and thankfully outlawed"

What, e-cigs in the workplace? It's not and the official advice is not to treat e-cigs like cigarettes. It's perfectly legal to vape in enclosed spaces where it's not otherwise proscribed.

"...so anyone with working taste buds is spared having to breathe in a mixture of possible and probable harmful stuff (no one knows long term except the popcorn lung chemical that is now banned - allegedly.)"

Possible - anything is. Probable? There's already much evidence that that isn't the case. Also, popcorn lung, otherwise known as brochial obliterans, has a pathway that may be caused by Diacetyl. A chemical found in quantities at least two orders of magnitude (that is, at least 100x) greater in cigarettes than it is in e-cigs. Yet, we don't see popcorn lung in smokers - only in those who were exposed to, as far as I can find out, the powdered form of diacetyl, in factories, in the mixing rooms where it's being agitated up.

This whole thing has been debunked so often that it's on fucking Snopes.

"Everything you just listed is either proven safe to breathe in like perfume because it is extensively tested or has been around for year. Or is proven harmful (like bonfires) and has other laws surrounding it."

E-cigs have been on the market for ten years, and in widespread use for five. If there were signs of serious health implications, they'd be apparent by now, especially as 99.99 of users are, or were, smokers, who would have had compromised lungs and airways due to years of smoking.

But yet we don't see it, and there's very little evidence of any harms at all (I don't count research which involves injecting e-liquid into the body cavities of rats, and then being applied to humans, as 'research' ), and certainly nothing remotely justifying any kind of public use ban.

Hell, people can't even claim renormalisation as an argument given that youth smoking rates are dropping at levels not seen for decades...

Re: We already know.

AMBxx,

Even if we were to take the absolute worst case scenario with flavourings into account - which the Royal College of Physicians did in their overarching study on the subject

We'd still be talking about a tiny fraction of a risk of smoking, and frankly, not a huge risk over baseline day to day risks, and certainly not one that justifies a huge public health intervention like demanding a ban in enclosed spaces - which would infer similar levels of harm to smoking, which just is not the case at all.

Also, I'll bet that any research that does show some kind of link is demonstrably methodologically broken - such as running a coil designed for 8w at 20w, or similar....because that's about the only way you get carcinogens out of e-cigs - rampant, utterly foul tasting, retch-inducing abuse.

Here's a comparator of smokers, and vapers, carcinogen levels, from CRUK backed research.

Clicky for research

Here's that data compared to that of non-smokers - yes, Brad Rodu is pro tobacco harm reduction, but just scroll down to the data in the table which shows comparable levels of VOCs in e-cig users and non-smokers. Not that different, eh?

PS: If you're talking about popcorn lung, I've linked it elsewhere, but just for you:

It bears repeating, there's a Snopes on this - that's how poor the evidence is for popcorn lung.

Re: We already know.

AC, regarding the wiki link, let me talk to you about popcorn lung (bronchiolitis obliterans).

Ah, wait, Snopes beat me to it. Yes, fucking Snopes. That's how flaky that is.

Clicky for Snopesy.

(it's actually really very interesting)

That's why you never reference wikipedia directly, and why you read the research, to discover that most of it has horrific methodological flaws that mean it doesn't reflect actual real world usage of the devices.

Diacetyl and AP have been associated with respiratory harm in (as far as I could ascertain from reading up) airborne, powdered form in popcorn factory workers exposed to it eight hours a day in highly concentrated quantities in the mixing rooms - not in vapourised, liquid form - nor in in measures 100x greater than in e-cigs as it is in lit tobacco. The only exception to this is someone who claimed they got BO from sniffing their microwave popcorn. That he'd spent a lifetime working with harsh carpet cleaning chemicals didn't seem to be relevant...

This is what you learn when you do more than a basic wiki hunt and paste the first thing you find....

Steven "Has read the research, and a lot of it is fucking pathetic" R

Re: Jesus, NO!

Stripes...

"If passive smoking can harm people, how is vaping not going to do? I find the vapour from these machines extremely irritating, much more so than actual tobacco smoke."

Here are the three studies I posted earlier. That's how we know it's not going to harm people. It's a thing called evidence of lack of notable harm.

Just to be clear, we're not going to legislate on what you find irritating.

one study

two studies

Three studies, mwuah ha ha!!

Steven "Count....Vapula...?" R

Re: Jesus, NO!

Oh, Ryokumas....

"Nothing worse that walking in a crowded area and suddenly being engulfed in a cloud of artificial-smelling nastiness because some bugger who lacks the self-discipline to quit properly has take a huge lug on a vape then blown the whole lot out... almost more disgusting that getting a whiff of the real deal."

Well, that's personal preference - if you run the business, it should be your choice, not a legal dictat, as to whether vaping is banned. That's sort of the point here.

"That plus I have witnessed several incidents where vapers who thought they were being sneaky and sly have set off fire alarms."

If they were americium based ones, I'd be amazed if enough vapour got in there to set it off before everyone else noticed - it needs to be fucking saturated to cause it to interfere. The optical ones can be more flaky depending on how cheap they are, but even they need serious provocation. I think this is a problem with people cheaping out on their fire detection equipment, or someone not being familiar with what 'sneaky' means. I need to seriously take the piss to set off my smoke alarms at home, and that's when using my big devices, with the windows closed...

"A full ban on all forms of smoking and vaping in all public places is long overdue... but of course it won't happen, not while it's a tax cash cow."

No, it's because it'd be hugely unethical, completely unsupported by the evidence, and would give a false impression that e-cigs are as harmful as lit tobacco.

As for your other post....

"No, because that's an entirely natural process. Whereas deliberately burning (or superheating) a chemical that has been proved to be addictive for the purpose of breathing it in - and as a byproduct, forcing anyone in your immediate vicinity to do so as well..."

1: Superheating - you keep using that word; either you don't realise that it doesn't mean what you think it means, or you don't realise that an e-cig does the literal opposite of what superheating is.

2: Nicotine, in any context other than lit tobacco, isn't addictive in any realistic sense (and certainly not any clinical sense). Even in lit tobacco, it doesn't fit pretty much realpolitic definition of addiction, which typically involve the user going to criminal lengths to get their fix.

E-cigarettes may be as or less addictive than nicotine gums, which themselves are not very addictive.

I'm not even joking - Clixor for datas on nicotine without smoke, because that last sentence is a direct quote.

and Clixor for research comparing tobacco smoke and pure nicotine which mentions that...

Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that leads to compulsive drug seeking or addiction. However, several lines of epidemiologic and laboratory evidence presented in this chapter indicate that tobacco-delivered nicotine is substantially more addictive than are pure nicotine forms. Other tobacco constituents, delivery methods, and processes may play a critical supporting role.

So I hope that clears up that little misconception.

3: Seriously, people need to stop insinuating that second hand vapour is a thing that affects anyone biochemically to any notable degree when used as directed. This is very well established. Here is one study, another study and yet another study that all say the same thing - there is little to no evidence of harm to bystanders in any measure that require attention.

You take the level of exposure to which someone working with a lifetime of daily exposure would be expected to show health effects (the threshhold level value, or TLV). The levels detected are under 5% of that. To the users of the devices. Second hand exposure is orders of magnitude lower.

Second hand vaping is, quite frankly, not a thing that needs attention other than in respect of etiquette, with plenty of evidence to back this up, and anyone purporting that it is a problem clearly isn't familiar with the evidence. This includes a large swathe of the public health world, too.

Steven "check my post history on this subject for more info - we've been here before" R

His Muskiness wheels out the Tesla Model 3

"Don't forget to add another 500 quids for your home charger ( to get a full re-charge overnight )."

If you're commuting 100 miles each way a day, I'm thinking that rather than dropping £35k (or equivalent lease) on an electric car, you'd be better moving closer to work.

Or buying a different car better suited to the task. Square peg, round holes and all that.

The average commute is waaaay less than 30 miles total per day based on info I can find (obviously outliers will be outliers), so a 13a socket would be fine for those who are happy to finance themselves to the hilt for the latest piece of shiny and who have a drive, etc (again, square peg, round hole - you're not going to buy an electric car if you don't have a socket near where it's parked) - although there are some interesting concepts being tested where you can plug yer car into a lamp-post. No, really.

Sources:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105224314/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/distance-travelled-to-work/2011-census-analysis---distance-travelled-to-work.html

PDF warning:

http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/car-and-the-commute-web-version.pdf

Steven R

FREE wildcard HTTPS certs from Let's Encrypt for every Reg reader*

....because a script to run 'certbot renew' once a day (it won't do anything unless the cert is due for renewal, whereupon it'll automatically overwrite the old one) and telling your webserver to look for it's SSL cert wherever you made Certbot dump it is just far too much work for a competent sysadmin.

Steven R

Social media vetting for US visas go live

"Names and dates of birth for all current and former spouses, or civil or domestic partners"

Could be problematic if forgetting birthdays is why they're former partners....

I could have a more mature, nuanced opinion on this matter, but I'm really tired. Although suffice to say, my days of not visiting the US are certainly coming to a middle.

Steven "Unfunny observations and mangling lines from Firefly are the best I've got tonight" R

Dell BIOS update borks PCs

Frank,

Another said, "Let's hope Dell fixes it for free, the Dell Update software that was prepackaged, might I say, reminded me to update constantly. So I did... Well, I am not very happy with the update, so 2 stars out of 5."

So it sounds like it was Dells own update software that mandated the update happened.

Steven R

User loses half of a CD-ROM in his boss's PC

The Slo Mo guys on Youtube tried this. It looks pretty damned cool at 170,000fps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs7x1Hu29Wc

Enjoy.

Steven R

Troll it your way: Burger King ad tries to hijack Google Home gadgets

Re: Computer Misuse Act?

Interesting aside, I hear google has blocked the specific frequency of this ad to prevent it from working.

Clickity

So I'm guessing someone there kind of agrees with me/us, at least to some degree...

Steven R

Re: Computer Misuse Act?

Grikath, I tend to agree with you to a large extent - it's more a point of interest on the legalities of it than me calling to arms the EFF and demanding that BK get sued into the middle of next week.

Steven "distracting himself from other more annoying, less fun things with this" R

Edit, because I missed the window on the original post - by 'not illegal' I was thinking 'not quite the same as breaking into an office' or hacking a network, but the unauthorised use/exploitation of a known feature on many devices is not massively dissimilar, no?

Computer Misuse Act?

Isn't this the equivalent of unauthorised use of your computer?

It's effectively the same as leaning over to your desk, and typing in a search request. Yes, it might not be illegal, but it's unauthorised use of your system, and as it appears to be an auto-roll ad, it's likely unavoidable to the layman without an adblocker/noscript.

It's been a while since I read it in depth - anyone got an opinion on this? I'd be very interested to hear whether I am (or how far I am) off the mark on this.

That, and it's just a plain interesting idea that's tickling my brain.

El Reg Commentards - entertain me, you lovely misanthropes!

Steven R

Honor phone for paupers goes upmarket, assails flagships

Re: pronunciation?

It's "Huawei" obviously.

Steven "Sorry, someone had to do it" R

New plastic banknote plans now upsetting environmental campaigners

If we use politicians, then for once I'd support quantitative easing.

More meat for the grinder, eh?

Steven R

Boffins reveal how to pour a perfect glass of wine with no drips. First step, take a diamond...

I use a special glass to prevent drips.

It's genius. The glass is about a foot tall, and is normally topped with either cork, or a screwcap.

Solves every problem.

Steven "tramp" R

Good news, everyone! Two pints a day keep heart problems at bay

Re: A question

All right, calm down, Mr Hague, we all heard the stories about you back in the day...

Re: A question

That's what interests me - it seems unlikely that it's just having a measurable blood/alcohol level that's the cause.

i'd guess things like socioeconomic status, social life (IE not being an anxiety riddled shut in like me) would have a reasonable impact, too.

Steven R

Lawyer defending arson suspect flees court with pants on fire

Re: "not part of his defence strategy"?

If he did do it deliberately, he'd have to have shorted the cell out or severely abused it, as batteries - as a rule - don't just pop. They get shorted, overheated, or otherwise abused and then fail, typically through thermal runaway and venting.

There are exceptions (poor manufacturing practises, as seen by Samsung recently) but these generally don't affect the sort of cells used in e-cigs, which are normally cylindrical and are a mature, stable tech - not bleeding edge, trying to be as thin as they can flat cells.

If he had the cell in his pocket with a length of chain, his keys, or similar, then all he'll have proved is that his client may have done the same, rather scuppering his case.

It does all smell a bit fishy, frankly.

Steven R

Skype-on-Linux graduates from Alpha to Beta status

Re: Skype has been on the decline ever since Microsoft bought it.

Don't forget the complete lack of ability to search recent conversations, nor any local caching of local conversations (that I can find)

Someone told you something a month ago in Skype chat? Forget looking for it like you can on the Windows and Mac clients. The functionality just isn't there to store anything older than that, and there's no search option, full stop.

Bloody annoying.

And if I'm wrong about this, someone say so because I'd be ecstatic to be wrong about this.

Steven R

Amazon's AWS S3 cloud storage evaporates: Top websites, Docker stung

Re: Will the re-write history?

The status page may be running on AWS gear.

Oh the hypocrisirony.

Clicky for tweety that says "The dashboard not changing color is related to S3 issue. See the banner at the top of the dashboard for updates."

Steven "tempting fate" R

A non-Standards Soviet approved measure of weight? Sod off, BBC!

Re: What rot

Mate, up there, the sheep whistle in the wind.

And not from the mouth.

Steven "enjoy your dinner" R.

What rot

Everyone knows you can only weigh Kelpies in ChildSols - a factor of the number of children it has caught, and how naughty they were in life.

Steven R

PS: Having been born and raised up in the Highlands (no really, look for Thrumster on Google Maps) I was told that kelpie stories (among others) were sometime used by people who were caught, er, bothering farm animals - they're shapeshifters don't you know, that pony was a beautiful woman last night! - back before the renaissance hit the far north and science and skepticism overtook religious dogma and folklore for explaining things.

You know, around twenty years ago....

Vizio coughs up $2.2m after its smart TVs spied on millions of families

Re: 20 cents

Oh, you can guarantee they made a fuckton more than that per user from the data.

I vote that fines should be the turnover made from selling such data, then increase it by at least one order of magnitude.

Made $55m in data sales? That'll be $550m fine payable immediately, or C level execs get a minimum of a year in jail, thanks.

A couple of high profile major profit losses (or, ideally, bankruptcies and jail time for some of the smaller outfits who take the piss like this) would focus the mind a bit.

You know, you'd hope.

Well, I doubt it. I just want to watch the world burn.

Steven R

'Exploding e-cig cost me 7 teeth, burned my face – and broke my sink!'

Re: Stored Energy

I'm pretty sure I stated, quite clearly, that etiquette can be a problem with some people.

Etiquette is not something we typically base legislate on, because that would be utterly bloody barking, however.

Also, regarding your analogy, do you have your own personal air supply everywhere you go? Because the only difference between from a health standpoint between breathing in vapour and breathing in someone elses breath is that you can see it. Do you also hide indoors when it's frosty outside? All that vapour coming from peoples lungs! How rude of them to breath on me!

I will say again, to be utterly clear for you as you seem to have such poor reading comprehension, that if someone is blowing clouds in your face, that's an issue of manners - nothing else.

Steven R

Re: A "Twisted Vapers RDA" is just the "tank"

No, they're not. Kids are not using these devices, with the exception of existing and former smokers. That is backed up by all the population level data, without exception, so if the way e-cigs are being marketed is 'attractive to children' then it's spectacularly failing.

That, and reports of laundry/washing up capsules poisoning children with their pretty colours are several times higher than reported poisonings from e-liquid across all age groups.

But yet, I don't see demands for plain packaging and no marketing of 'summer breeze' and 'glade forest', after all, that sounds like some sort of fantasy land that kids would want to visit, which is just as stupid an argument as restricting sweet flavours because The Kids might like them.

It's a mostly empty argument completely diverts from the absolute fact that more children have died from ingesting laundry tablets (two in the last couple of years, dozens of extremely serious issues like respiratory failure and coma), or have died from cigarette related fires last year than have ever died from accidental ingestion of e-liquid - because the latter number is, at the last count, one in a decade; reportedly caused by someone storing a nicotine based liquid in a non-childproof bottle, within use of a one year old (!), which appeared to be being used for self-mixing - not a retail bottle.

You can try to regulate for stupidity, but I think one incident in a decade (and fractional amounts of reported poisonings compared to other perfectly accepted consumer goods) suggests that this is less of a problem than you'd like to believe it is.

Are there risks? Yes, everything has risks. Are they even remotely justifiable in banning flavours or seriously restricting marketing to adults, especially when compared to the unintended consequences, which is less people cutting down or giving up smoking - which I remind you, kills millions a year, directly?

When you look at the big picture rather than focus on the minutiae, not even fucking close.

Steven R

Re: A "Twisted Vapers RDA" is just the "tank"

It started getting called 'juice', but then certain more puritanical public health wonks - with absolutely no sense of perspective - started claiming that devices and consumables that were almost without exception are (and always have been) being sold to adult smokers, were somehow marketing to children.

Because it was being called juice. And they still claim that because some flavours are sweet, that is also marketing to children.

I'm not even joking - that's literally how pathetic and utterly, unforgivably desperate to demonise these products many in the public health world are.

Of course, some liquid manufacturers will do fucking idiotic things like infringing copyright on Pokemon and suchlike, but they typically don't last very long; no-one in the industry will stock that stuff, because - oddly enough - most vape shops don't want a visit from trading standards/the feds for even being perceived as possibly trying to attract kids; it's not like they need to, there's plenty of smokers and they're a far easier sell.

Steven R

Re: Was that vaper built by Samsung?

With home made mods, it's a bit like home made firearms - typically the person making it will have a good idea what they're doing and will know the risks (if not, I'm sure there are plenty of slots left in the Darwin Awards) as making even a mech mod requires a reasonable amount of engineering knowledge to turn the tube, thread the caps, etc.

With box mods, you typically have a MOSFET in there that will tend to burn out before the batteries pop; although that's not guaranteed, it's generally a truism that 'series/parallel' mods (without full protection circuitry) are less of a risk than a pure mech, particularly if they're in parallel rather than series.

I'll hold my hands up and say I've been out of the MOSFET game for a while though - I'm sure there are people more experienced than me who could wax on about that in more detail if they feel like it.

Steven R

Re: Stored Energy

The only real issue with passive vaping is etiquette; there's no evidence found of anything to worry about with regards to health (never mind toxicologically significant, second hand vapour is barely biologically detectable in people).

Etiquette is a concern however, because people cloudchasing on buses and the like is what engenders that kind of negative attitude towards people who have given up smoking, like we've been told to for years, in record numbers.

I've been given shit before for saying that the "snap-back and mech mod" crowd are, by a wide margin, the biggest problem that vaping has besides puritanical regulatory issues; I stand by that, to be blunt.

They're a tiny minority of users, but when most people think 'vaper', they think of someone who puffing a massive cloud and annoying people; whereas the reality is, the average vaper is Mildred Overfinch, from just down the road from you, who's given up a thirty year habit and can now walk up the hill without having to stop twice on the way to catch her breath. And who stealth vapes on the bus so well you don't even notice it....

The issue is that the puritanical arm of public health has tried to:

Find notable harm from e-cigs to the user; this has failed.

Find any harm from e-cigs to bystanders; this has failed

Find notable harm from nicotine to the user; this has failed

Find any harm from nicotine to bystanders; this has failed

Find a verifiable (IE non-random) gateway from e-cigs to lit tobaco; this has utterly failed, to the extent where research is deliberately misconstrued to try to show otherwise.

Now they are pushing to use e-cig relate fires and battery venting injuries to push their agenda (ignoring the fact, of course, that everyone who vapes is someone who doesn't smoke, reducing the number of cigarette related fires as it goes - and they aren't uncommon), and if (a small minority) of vendors and users don't stop pissing about and taking risks with these devices, it'll only take a few pictures like the ones in this article to get a WASPY, puritanical public health minister and the foaming-at-the-mouth kind of press to push for further restrictions on e-cigs (And of course they won't make a distinction between mech mods and regulated mods) to 'protect the children' and it'll fucking work.

As I've mentioned in these sorts of threads before, I've been neck deep in the public health, political and advocacy side of e-cigs for a good while now (As have many others) and we see these patterns repeat, time and time again. And it often works.

Steven R

Re: Battery problems aside..

Unicornpiss, it's not a 'health' aid; it's a harm reduced way of getting nicotine. A vastly harm reduced way.

Also, nothing is superheated; airflow cools the vapour as it leaves the coils. If you don't get enough airflow, the vapour tastes fucking acrid, and that's something you do once or twice, then rapidly learn how not to do it.

You can think what it 'sounds' like all you want, but I'd recommend having a good skim through the summaries in this report, and reading back to any that catch your eye.

Royal College Of Physicians - Nicotine Without Smoke - a 200 page report citing more than 180 papers discussing the pros and cons of e-cigs on personal, regulatory and population level, etc.

In all seriousness, despite being quite weighty (and by a wide margin, the most comprehensive report of it's kind) it's surprisingly readable and accessible.

Steven R

Re: The actual problems here...

AC, a freshly charged battery is still 'stressed', especially if it's been charged at high current; current in/current out stresses the cell so it's best to give it a bit of time to settle. In a multi-cell regulated mod running moderate power (say, 50w/12A over two cells) it's not a problem; pulling 50A from a freshly charged cell increasing the risk of overstressing the cell and raising it's internal temperature to the point where it can hit thermal runaway, though.

I'll grant you, I'm no chemist, but people with more experience than me in these matters have raised this as a danger point and I tend to trust them.

Fajensen, most e-cigs aren't *that* complex, and mechs are the exception, rather than the rule; normally you have

a battery or power source (most of which are simple 'select the power to suit your taste and capabilities of your atomiser)',

A tank to contain the liquid,

this tank contains an atomiser, that wicks the liquid and heats it to a vapour,

A charger (be it a USB cable for a device with a built in battery, or a seperate 18650 charger),

A liquid you like the taste of and has an amount of nicotine you're happy with (even zero nic)

This is barely any more of a faff than rolling cigarettes (papers, baccy, filters, lighter, ashtray) and only slightly more complex than buying a packet of fags. Once you find a setup that works for you, you just set and forget with 95% of devices; the only thing most newbies change over time is nicotine strength/liquid flavour as they wean off the fags and get their sense of taste back.

Mechs are like a Meccano set of customisable parts, so they appeal to a certain type of hobbyist, sadly not all those who find them appealing (nor those who sell to those types) actually understand the electrical forces involved; hence we get problems like that in the article.

Thing is, (outside of user error, which is rare, hence newsworthy - I'll grant you that shrapnel to the face ain't exactly ideal) it's nowhere like as bad for you as the fags. In fact, evidence of notable harm to end users of these device, even after a decade of use, is effectively non-existent; the risks appear to be comparable with many a lifestyle choice like having a strong coffee or having a predeliction for fried, rather than grilled foods etc - that is, minimal in the grand scheme of things.

Three months of cigarette use would show a laundry list of negative side effects. Side effects of e-cig use after several years are negligible, and in existing smokers (who are the vast, vast majority of users) they're getting health benefits over their extant condition.

So you stop smoking, without 'stopping smoking', as other than not killing you, the usage is pretty similar. So the slight extra complication is totes worth it.

Steven R

Re: ecig explosion in mans face caught on cctv (different person than this story)

There's always a man,

There's always a mech,

There's always a lighthouse.

Wait, what?

Steven "still making stupid jokes" R

Re: Stored Energy

A: it was banned, ostensibly, for health reasons

B: If you're affected by the tiny amount of nicotine in second hand vape, then never, ever touch a member of the nightshade family again - you'll get a damned sight more nicontine in your bloodstream from that, than you will from sitting in a room with a cloudchaser - not just because they tend to use zero nic (to avoid a niccy rush).

There is no toxicological or public health based reason to ban vaping in public places. There is an argument about ettiquette, but not about health.

It's not a case of there being no evidence of harm from second hand vapour, it's a case of there being good evidence of a lack of harm from second hand vapour.

A subtle, but important distinction.

Steven R

Re: 3000 mAh battery?

Some very basic research would show you that mechanical mods particularly, but most e-cigs that provide moderate levels of power (to allow for a good replication of smoking - or a better experience than smoking, the more likely to get someone off the fags) draw rather more current than a cellphone, which over it's SOC will try to draw less than 10w at any time.

A mech mod sitting at 0.1A will try to pull 40A from the cell.

3000mah doesn't last long in one of those.

The flipside is, my 'daily' device, a 4000mah regulated device with an atomiser that is perfectly happy (for my usage - not everyones) at 13w, will last the better part of two days before it needs charging.

Horses for courses, and one of the reasons why these things have a very high conversion rate with smokers; everyone has their particular brand (Marlboro, Lambert and Bambert, Lucky Strike), everyone has their favoured 'device' (premade smokes, tobacco, perhaps a nice pipe?), something NRT and inhalators simply can't replicate.

The question is, is the risk wort...oh, for gods sake, fags kill half a million a year and start 90,000 fires in the US alone, it's worth it.

Steven R

PS: If you want to boggle the mind, you can get a 300w (max) regulated mod that can take four of those batteries - so 12,000Ah. Apparently capable of regular use for two days straight at 120w....

When people talk about the unintended consequences of bad regulation, this is exactly what they're talking about.

Steven R

Re: Was that vaper built by Samsung?

There is, but I very much doubt the four battery one is a mech. If it's got a screen on it, it is, basically, perfectly safe unless abused - and they're very, very hard to abuse by accident in a manner likely to cause problems.

That's why pretty much every incident like this you see invovles:

Loose batteries in a pocket with change

A misconfigured mechanical mod

Badly made, market stall crap with shitty, badly made chargers (normally using a 510 connection, not USB - USB chargers are mature, you see....)

Steven R

BigClive is awesome, and I thoroughly recommend him to anyone who has a curiousity about how things that are vaguely electrical work (and, occasionally, can be made to go pop).

The irony in this instance is that the guy bought the mod from a shop, and had the shop maintain it for him - until the regs came along that said that if the shop changes the coils for him, they become a tobacco manufacturer (because it's the FDA, so of course that makes sense to them).

Shop refuses to service device, device gets poorly maintained, device goes pop.

Problem is, mech mods are, by their nature, extremely cheap to make. They're literally a tube of metal with threaded socket for the RDA ('tank' part that isn't actually a tank yadda yadda) and a threaded cap with a button at the other end to make contact with the battery. So you'll likely never see them disappear from the interweb bargain bizarres; best we can hope for is they end up as under the counter devices; that is, if someone really wants one, they can ask for one.

But Average Joe/Jane Smoker (who are, statistically, >90% of users) can come in and still buy a perfectly safe regulated mod that will perform just as well, without the risk of a faceful of industrial blowback.

Steven R