Crazy claims made by electronics/electrical salesmen

[VK3DRB]

Around 1983, I walked into electrical store in Randwick in Sydney after being attracted by a big sign says "The Compact Disc is Here!" I walked in and the salesmen told me the CD players spin the discs around at 50,000 kilometres per hour." 

More recently I walked into a vaccuum cleaner store. He did not sell Dyson, but sold Chinese brands instead. I asked why and he said the Dysons are rubbish - they break easily - that is why he does not sell them. We went out of business soon after.

I am interested know know other fairy stories told by salesmen over the years to those of us who are not easily fooled, especially when it comes to electronics. I have many more experiences, but these two stood out in my memory.

[Rerouter]

The guys math is off by a factor of 200, but its still a rediculous number,

its a circumference of 37.6cm,
a 52x read speed (max) was 10400RPM

so 0.376 * 10400 * 60 minutes in an hour / 1000 meters in a kilometer,

the edge of the disk is moving at ~235 Km/hr

That number is crazy sounding to me now that i have done the math, no wonder those drives got hot, the air drag on the edge of the disk, and the motor power to fight it would have set in stone that max speed more so than the risk of disks exploding.

[rsjsouza]

This was not mine, but from a manager I had. He was part of a company that manufactured telephone sets (including cordless) and one day at a store he was looking at a 900MHz phone of their own. The sales person approached him and started talking about how the 2.4GHz phone was much better than the one he was looking at. He then asked: "how better?" And the salesperson: "I really don't know, but it has A LOT more MHz than the other one!"

One day I was at an auto show and was looking at a booth that installed leather in car seats. When I asked why leather was better, the person said: "I don't really know, but I think leather concentrates the body energy and gives you a much better feeling - yes, that's it! It improves your well being..."

[VK3DRB]

The guys math is off by a factor of 200, but its still a rediculous number,

its a circumference of 37.6cm,
a 52x read speed (max) was 10400RPM

so 0.376 * 10400 * 60 minutes in an hour / 1000 meters in a kilometer,

the edge of the disk is moving at ~235 Km/hr

That number is crazy sounding to me now that i have done the math, no wonder those drives got hot, the air drag on the edge of the disk, and the motor power to fight it would have set in stone that max speed more so than the risk of disks exploding.

According to this https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/LawrenceFung.shtml the speed would be about 4.7 kph for a music CD. I must say even 50,000 kph would be not be fast enough to chew through the Justin Bieber Christmas Album.

Another thing I overheard a salesman tell an elderly couple that if they did not buy his $100 power line filter, his new Sony LDC TV will likely blow up, causing a house fire. And that smart people use good power line filters on their TV sets. I told them it is a waste of money, but they bought it anyway.

Just today I bought a new Panasonic microwave oven. I did my research and got a great deal on a quality product. The saleswoman and salesman tried to gouge on an extended warranty a few times, saying that for an extra $58 I will get peace of mind for a 4 extra years. I then explained the bathtub curve, and they left it alone. Extended warranties on electronics is pretty much a waste of money, and they know it.

[james_s]

Of course they know it, many of these stores earn the majority of their profit on the extended warranties. If it was a good deal for the consumer it wouldn't make money and they wouldn't offer it.

I so rarely buy anything brand new that I hardly know what a warranty is anyway, and usually it's less hassle to repair something myself even if it's under warranty than jump through the hoops to have them fix it.

[HalFET]

The only thing sleazier than those stores are those mobile phone contract salesmen in malls. They always do this weird calculation on a piece of scrap paper, and it never checks out. They just expect people not to be able to do quick addition and multiplication in their head.

[IanMacdonald]

"This store runs on 100% renewable energy" signs. 

[VK3DRB]

"This store runs on 100% renewable energy" signs. 

I love Dave's review on the Dyson vacuum cleaners, "No carbon brushes means zero carbon emissions!" As Dave said, "Ya gotta be s**tting me!"

We get a lot more BS from unscrupulous German car manufacturers like Volkswagen who conned people the world over with their slick marketing and false advertising while they were secretly gassing people with nitrous oxide. Most of us would not have had the reason, test equipment, resources or education to disprove their BS, but someone fortunately smelled a rat. I guess most of us electronics people are more resistant to BS, but we are not bullet proof.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

"This store runs on 100% renewable energy" signs. 

How do the green/renewables electric utilities do that? Do they put filters in the power supply lines that only let pass the green electrons or what?

[dmills]

Well, coal is clearly renewable energy?

I mean trees consume the CO2 and piss out oxygen (Too much of which is toxic), then the trees die and eventually turn into coal, which we burn with the waste oxygen from the start of the cycle to put the CO2 back....

I can make a similar argument for oil, just insert the dinos into the loop at the appropriate place, and dinosaur conservation is one of humanities few conservation success stories, there are the same number now as when humanity first walked the earth!

Ultimately both are solar (and thus Nuclear) power.

You sometimes get really dirty looks for explaining that perspective!

Regards, Dan.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

You sometimes get really dirty looks for explaining that perspective!

No wonder 

[imidis]

I think a good rule of thumb is to not trust people trying to get money from you. 

I think it's all pretty common and too often people don't question things.

Had one that would drive me nuts telling people all kinds of crap so when I got on site to install they would say, so this is all wireless right? 

[Cyberdragon]

More recently I walked into a vaccuum cleaner store. He did not sell Dyson, but sold Chinese brands instead. I asked why and he said the Dysons are rubbish - they break easily - that is why he does not sell them. We went out of business soon after.

He's not wrong, besides the portables which are actually decent, Dyson vacuums are shit.

[james_s]

We get a lot more BS from unscrupulous German car manufacturers like Volkswagen who conned people the world over with their slick marketing and false advertising while they were secretly gassing people with nitrous oxide. Most of us would not have had the reason, test equipment, resources or education to disprove their BS, but someone fortunately smelled a rat. I guess most of us electronics people are more resistant to BS, but we are not bullet proof.

I was disappointed that they got caught actually. VW found a way to get around the draconian anti-diesel emissions laws we have in the US. Not to say that I think there shouldn't be emissions laws but ours are heavily biased against specific types of emissions produced by diesel engines. It ignores the fact that the higher fuel economy means less total emissions. Not to mention the latest crop of gasoline direct injection engines produce relatively high NOX levels but our regulations focus on particulates.

[Zero999]

The guys math is off by a factor of 200, but its still a rediculous number,

its a circumference of 37.6cm,
a 52x read speed (max) was 10400RPM

so 0.376 * 10400 * 60 minutes in an hour / 1000 meters in a kilometer,

the edge of the disk is moving at ~235 Km/hr

That number is crazy sounding to me now that i have done the math, no wonder those drives got hot, the air drag on the edge of the disk, and the motor power to fight it would have set in stone that max speed more so than the risk of disks exploding.

But 52x speed wasn't available back then, in 1983. There was no need for it.

At 1x speed, the disc will be at maximum speed, when the laser is in the middle, which is 500rpm according to Wikipedia. The diameter of the disc is 120mm, giving a circumference of 0.377m. The maximum speed of the outer disc is 0.377×500 = 188.5m/minute×60 = 11.31km/h.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-ROM#Transfer_rates

Well, coal is clearly renewable energy?

I mean trees consume the CO2 and piss out oxygen (Too much of which is toxic), then the trees die and eventually turn into coal, which we burn with the waste oxygen from the start of the cycle to put the CO2 back....

I can make a similar argument for oil, just insert the dinos into the loop at the appropriate place, and dinosaur conservation is one of humanities few conservation success stories, there are the same number now as when humanity first walked the earth!

Ultimately both are solar (and thus Nuclear) power.

You sometimes get really dirty looks for explaining that perspective!

Regards, Dan.

If I remember rightly, coal forms from peat, rather than trees.

Peat is considered to be renewable energy by some, but that's bullshit, since it's being used, faster than it's forming. A resource is only renewable, if it's used sustainably or it can't be depleted.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

If we converted into electricity a high % of the sun's light, wouldn't that cool down the earth?

[Gyro]

If we converted into electricity a high % of the suns' light, wouldn't that cool down the earth?

No, you're just intercepting the incident energy landing on the ground. Anything electrical will eventually dissipate its energy as heat. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

That should be our ultimate goal for a green planet, 100% solar.


EDIT: I'm not sure about tidal energy. Theoretically it might draw additional energy from the Moon by decaying it's orbit slightly faster. I don't know if that would count as net addition of heat versus normal tidal friction.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

The plants grow and an elevator lifts you up, thus not all work is transformed into heat.

[Gyro]

The plants also die*... and the building the elevator lifted you up in eventually falls down, just a matter of time.

EDIT:  *... and get converted into fossil fuel, that you hopefully don't burn this time! So true, that one stays locked up.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

And if I travel in a Tesla from NYC to LA and never come back?

[Gyro]

And if I travel in a Tesla from NYC to LA and never come back?

You'll have a more miserable life?   

Surely the Tesla will dissipate it's energy as friction (=heat) on the way. I think the altitudes are about the same.

[helius]

We get a lot more BS from unscrupulous German car manufacturers like Volkswagen who conned people the world over with their slick marketing and false advertising while they were secretly gassing people with nitrous oxide.

If that was what they were doing, VW dealers would be painted paisley just like head shops!

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

And if I point a 100 gigawatt laser to the space and turn it on?

[Gyro]

Hmm, don't know. Some possibilities are...

1. You'll annoy the neighbors
2. You'll waste Terra watts of energy as heat.
3. ? ? ?

But yes, you might rather inefficiently dump some heat .... but what if you point it at the Sun?


P.S. Did you just suddenly relocate from Antarctica to Poland? 

[Mr. Scram]

Around 1983, I walked into electrical store in Randwick in Sydney after being attracted by a big sign says "The Compact Disc is Here!" I walked in and the salesmen told me the CD players spin the discs around at 50,000 kilometres per hour." 

More recently I walked into a vaccuum cleaner store. He did not sell Dyson, but sold Chinese brands instead. I asked why and he said the Dysons are rubbish - they break easily - that is why he does not sell them. We went out of business soon after.

I am interested know know other fairy stories told by salesmen over the years to those of us who are not easily fooled, especially when it comes to electronics. I have many more experiences, but these two stood out in my memory.

I have to admit AvE's reviews of Dyson equipment doesn't instill a lot of confidence. There's a nice bit here and there, but a lot of chancy cheap choices too.