Author Topic: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones  (Read 7176 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline sokoloff

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1799
  • Country: us
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #75 on: June 21, 2023, 01:31:44 am »
That's due to Prop 65, which was a law created on good intentions but extremely poorly implemented. As the law is written, there is no threshold under which something is declared safe, so even the most minuscule quantity of some substance gets it flagged as being there. The list of substances is absolutely huge and covers a wide range of stuff, much of which is not really even known to be harmful. On top of that, you can be penalized for not applying the label to a product that contains some substance on the list but there is no penalty for applying the label to products that do not, so generally the safest approach is just slap the warning on absolutely everything just in case. A warning that is on everything tells you nothing, it is completely useless.
Related in poor outcomes from an incompletely thought-through policy is the new FDA policy in 2023 requiring extensive cleaning to avoid cross-contamination of allergens between products. Compliance is expensive and fraught with peril so companies elected instead to make the allergen an intentionally-added ingredient, thus allowing them to list it on the label and avoid the cleaning and risk of accidental cross-contamination.

So now a policy ostensibly intended to protect consumers from an allergen is causing them to have a harder time avoiding that allergen and still feeding their family.
 

Online Monkeh

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 8135
  • Country: gb
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #76 on: June 21, 2023, 02:25:21 am »
But stop signs are most often used where a lightly trafficked street intersects a much more heavily trafficked street, you don't want to make everyone on the busy street have to slow down and yield at every intersection

That doesn't need a stop sign, and the through road doesn't need to slow down to yield when they aren't the ones with the yield sign.

Quote
Usually there is not sufficient visibility, that's the issue.

In my admittedly relatively limited (and yet apparently somehow more comprehensive) personal experience on US roads, I've yet to see a single stop sign which made sense as a stop sign. Many of them I can tell if it's clear or not a good five or six seconds before arriving, to such a degree I could entirely avoid slowing down if it weren't for the unnecessary obsession with stop signs.

By the way, when you ask questions like "how could you drive safely without those", you might want to look at the relative safety of, uhm.. every other developed western nation. Yes, your roads are a real bug bear of mine.
 

Offline james_s

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 21611
  • Country: us
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #77 on: June 21, 2023, 09:15:39 pm »
But stop signs are most often used where a lightly trafficked street intersects a much more heavily trafficked street, you don't want to make everyone on the busy street have to slow down and yield at every intersection

That doesn't need a stop sign, and the through road doesn't need to slow down to yield when they aren't the ones with the yield sign.

Quote
Usually there is not sufficient visibility, that's the issue.

In my admittedly relatively limited (and yet apparently somehow more comprehensive) personal experience on US roads, I've yet to see a single stop sign which made sense as a stop sign. Many of them I can tell if it's clear or not a good five or six seconds before arriving, to such a degree I could entirely avoid slowing down if it weren't for the unnecessary obsession with stop signs.

By the way, when you ask questions like "how could you drive safely without those", you might want to look at the relative safety of, uhm.. every other developed western nation. Yes, your roads are a real bug bear of mine.

No, the yield sign is on the lightly trafficked side street, drivers on the busy street have a right of way and can just blast through.

I didn't know it was an obsession, everywhere I have ever driven in the US and Canada have stop signs, but if you think you can do better, maybe you should move here and show us all how it's done.
 

Online Monkeh

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 8135
  • Country: gb
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #78 on: June 21, 2023, 09:51:46 pm »
No, the yield sign is on the lightly trafficked side street, drivers on the busy street have a right of way and can just blast through.

*sigh*

Quote
you don't want to make everyone on the busy street have to slow down and yield at every intersection

Make up your mind.

Quote
everywhere I have ever driven in the US and Canada have stop signs, but if you think you can do better, maybe you should move here and show us all how it's done.

Well there's a grand total of one stop sign I know of in my town. I have to think hard to think of examples of stop signs, because they're only needed in very specific places.
 

Offline TimFox

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 9003
  • Country: us
  • Retired, now restoring antique test equipment
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #79 on: June 21, 2023, 10:00:11 pm »
In Chicago, approximatey 3,000,000 population, a flat area with a very Cartesian street grid, stop signs are ubiquitous.
The scale factor for the grid is 100 = 1 furlong (800 = 1 mile).
In normal areas of the city, every 400 units is a "through street" that normally are controlled with traffic lights.
The other "side streets" normally have a stop sign when they encounter a through street, and often when they encounter another side street.
A good design change was eliminating "3-way stop" or "4-way stop" signs under the octagon, substituting "all way".
The property density would not allow roundabouts at side-street to side-street junctions, and would be difficult at through-street to through-street junctions.
I once did some work in Telford (Shropshire), which many British subjects told me had too many roundabouts for their taste.
 

Offline ebastler

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7375
  • Country: de
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #80 on: June 22, 2023, 05:57:44 am »
I didn't know it was an obsession, everywhere I have ever driven in the US and Canada have stop signs, but if you think you can do better, maybe you should move here and show us all how it's done.

Well, it does seem that Stop signs are often used in the US where a Yield sign would do in Europe. I believe the rules for traffic signage in the US also state that Stop should only be used when needed for safety, but the threshold for that seems lower in practice.

And then there are the "four-way stop" intersections, which we don't have at all in Europe. Over here, we would either rely on the default "priority to the right", without any traffic signs; or have a sign-posted priority road intersecting a road which has to yield (but typically not stop). Of course I am biased since that's what I am used to, but I do consider that the better approach: Minimize signage clutter by default, and define a clear priority where the default rule does not work well.
 

Offline james_s

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 21611
  • Country: us
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #81 on: June 22, 2023, 08:44:41 pm »
Four way stop intersections are typically used where two heavily trafficked roads intersect, often in the vicinity of other intersections where only the less trafficked side street has stop signs and in the other direction cars can just blast through without slowing down. There's not really any perfect solution, but I don't see what we have as being particularly problematic, it's one of those things where it's always been done this way and if you try to change it now it's going to be a disaster because people have already learned that if there's no stop or yield sign they can just blow through without looking. We have started getting some roundabouts around here in the last decade or so and they do work pretty well but as was mentioned there are space constraints that make them impractical as a retrofit in many places. The signs are cheap and unobtrusive and they've been around for a century or so and everyone just expects them to be there. There are uncontrolled intersections that have no signs but that's typically low traffic low speed residential streets in the suburbs and you do occasionally have problems with people mistakenly believing they have the right of way and blowing through, causing an accident.

I don't have a particularly strong feeling over which system is "better" but it does annoy me when random twits in other places imply that we're all a bunch of idiots for not using the system they use. I guess it's just a subtle form of nationalism.
 

Online Monkeh

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 8135
  • Country: gb
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #82 on: June 22, 2023, 09:23:04 pm »
if you try to change it now it's going to be a disaster because people have already learned that if there's no stop or yield sign they can just blow through without looking.

...

There are uncontrolled intersections that have no signs but that's typically low traffic low speed residential streets in the suburbs and you do occasionally have problems with people mistakenly believing they have the right of way and blowing through, causing an accident.

And nobody but you is talking about uncontrolled intersections. And you can't just blow through anything without looking.

Quote
it does annoy me when random twits in other places imply that we're all a bunch of idiots for not using the system they use.

Let me just quote you again:

Stop signs on intersections too, how could you drive safely without those?

It does annoy me when random twits in other places imply we're all a bunch of idiots for not using the system they use.

Here's an example of a four way stop which need not be a stop of any type: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@35.7299002,-78.3515073,3a,90y,190.73h,87.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sEeU7zX7bJ4pstVlYt-LEsw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
And nearby, here's a two way stop which need not be a stop of any type: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@35.7236995,-78.3480657,3a,90y,233.28h,97.8t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1seTxyY_cdm-8lnhTjpO7Nsw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu

This is before dealing with the absolute madness which is stop signs every few hundred feet in grid layout cities and even modern suburbs. You simply can't keep a car moving no matter how little traffic there is on the roads.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2023, 09:49:13 pm by Monkeh »
 

Offline coppice

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 10035
  • Country: gb
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #83 on: June 22, 2023, 09:31:09 pm »
That's due to Prop 65, which was a law created on good intentions but extremely poorly implemented. As the law is written, there is no threshold under which something is declared safe, so even the most minuscule quantity of some substance gets it flagged as being there.
Most regulations related to food content define specific allowable amounts of a huge range of weird things. People are grossed out by these regulations. "You're allowed to have fly wings in food products!". Well, its not encouraged, but zero is not something one can test weekly in a lab for compliance.
 

Offline TimFox

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 9003
  • Country: us
  • Retired, now restoring antique test equipment
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #84 on: June 22, 2023, 11:08:03 pm »
That's due to Prop 65, which was a law created on good intentions but extremely poorly implemented. As the law is written, there is no threshold under which something is declared safe, so even the most minuscule quantity of some substance gets it flagged as being there.
Most regulations related to food content define specific allowable amounts of a huge range of weird things. People are grossed out by these regulations. "You're allowed to have fly wings in food products!". Well, its not encouraged, but zero is not something one can test weekly in a lab for compliance.

I once had to correct a co-worker who wanted to put a spec of "0" on an electronic parameter.
I said that was not a valid spec (like +/- 0.1% or +/- 0.1 mV), but a "pious wish".
 

Offline coppice

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 10035
  • Country: gb
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #85 on: June 22, 2023, 11:20:22 pm »
That's due to Prop 65, which was a law created on good intentions but extremely poorly implemented. As the law is written, there is no threshold under which something is declared safe, so even the most minuscule quantity of some substance gets it flagged as being there.
Most regulations related to food content define specific allowable amounts of a huge range of weird things. People are grossed out by these regulations. "You're allowed to have fly wings in food products!". Well, its not encouraged, but zero is not something one can test weekly in a lab for compliance.

I once had to correct a co-worker who wanted to put a spec of "0" on an electronic parameter.
I said that was not a valid spec (like +/- 0.1% or +/- 0.1 mV), but a "pious wish".
So, he specified 0 +/-0.1%?
 

Offline SiliconWizard

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 15800
  • Country: fr
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #86 on: June 22, 2023, 11:28:06 pm »
That's due to Prop 65, which was a law created on good intentions but extremely poorly implemented. As the law is written, there is no threshold under which something is declared safe, so even the most minuscule quantity of some substance gets it flagged as being there.
Most regulations related to food content define specific allowable amounts of a huge range of weird things. People are grossed out by these regulations. "You're allowed to have fly wings in food products!". Well, its not encouraged, but zero is not something one can test weekly in a lab for compliance.

That's quite right, but not what james was talking about exactly.

He was precisely pointing out that no threshold at all was defined, and as I take it, expressing that the result was to flag absolutely anything detectable. Which in turn is arguably counter-productive as the inability to determine what's a problem and what isn't that comes with it makes it pretty much useless.

I would just reply to james with the following: 1. For many susbtances, we actually don't have a clue what the safe level is. If regulation states that some given level is safe, and it turns out that it isn't, then it has misled people, potentially with very bad consequences, 2. Although a minority, there are some people with very weird allergies that can get triggered even from just traces of some substance. If a company fails to mention its presence, even in insignificant amounts, while it provably has the ability to detect it, then affected people can sue for not having been informed.

So as to the "zero", that's a slightly different matter.
While there is no "zero" in the physical world indeed and having zero as a target for some known value is absurd, here we are talkiing about the presence or absence of some substances inside a product.
That's related, but a bit different: obviously current, state-of-the-art lab equipment can't detect given substances under a certain concentration, and not detecting them doesn't mean there isn't any.
So to be completely rigorous, we should list all possible known substances in the universe (or at least on Earth) and put a '< xxx' (with xxx the limit of detectability with current equipment) rather than omitting them altogether, but obviously it would not be practical.

So when a given substance is not listed, it should just be assumed that it means "below the threshold of detectability with current equipment", if a higher acceptable threshoid has not been defined.
All obvious, but just to say that from a regulatory POV, as long as a minimum safe threshold hasn't been defined, you either list the substance if it's detectable (with the currently used equipment with performance defined by said regulation), or omit listing it altogether.
 

Offline coppice

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 10035
  • Country: gb
Re: EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones
« Reply #87 on: June 22, 2023, 11:33:59 pm »
That's due to Prop 65, which was a law created on good intentions but extremely poorly implemented. As the law is written, there is no threshold under which something is declared safe, so even the most minuscule quantity of some substance gets it flagged as being there.
Most regulations related to food content define specific allowable amounts of a huge range of weird things. People are grossed out by these regulations. "You're allowed to have fly wings in food products!". Well, its not encouraged, but zero is not something one can test weekly in a lab for compliance.

That's quite right, but not what james was talking about exactly.

He was precisely pointing out that no threshold at all was defined, and as I take it, expressing that the result was to flag absolutely anything detectable. Which in turn is arguably counter-productive as the inability to determine what's a problem and what isn't that comes with it makes it pretty much useless.

I would just reply to james with the following: 1. For many susbtances, we actually don't have a clue what the safe level is. If regulation states that some given level is safe, and it turns out that it isn't, then it has misled people, potentially with very bad consequences, 2. Although a minority, there are some people with very weird allergies that can get triggered even from just traces of some substance. If a company fails to mention its presence, even in insignificant amounts, while it provably has the ability to detect it, then affected people can sue for not having been informed.

So as to the "zero", that's a slightly different matter.
While there is no "zero" in the physical world indeed and having zero as a target for some known value is absurd, here we are talkiing about the presence or absence of some substances inside a product.
That's related, but a bit different: obviously current, state-of-the-art lab equipment can't detect given substances under a certain concentration, and not detecting them doesn't mean there isn't any.
So to be completely rigorous, we should list all possible known substances in the universe (or at least on Earth) and put a '< xxx' (with xxx the limit of detectability with current equipment) rather than omitting them altogether, but obviously it would not be practical.

So when a given substance is not listed, it should just be assumed that it means "below the threshold of detectability with current equipment", if a higher acceptable threshoid has not been defined.
All obvious, but just to say that from a regulatory POV, as long as a minimum safe threshold hasn't been defined, you either list the substance if it's detectable (with the currently used equipment with performance defined by said regulation), or omit listing it altogether.
What I said is exactly what James is talking about. You can't have compliance with meaningless goals. Sane regulations have to set goals. If they turn out not to be as tight as is needed, they can be amended, but you can't comply with zero, or something unstated. You can only devise a workaround, like listing pollutants as ingredients, or withdraw from the market.
 
The following users thanked this post: james_s


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf