this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
95 points (100.0% liked)

Asklemmy

1452 readers
54 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 167 points 11 months ago (3 children)

For years there was the "Phantom", a notorious criminal, haunting all of Europe. DNA testing revealed that it was a female and her crimes ranging from petty theft to murder were seemingly unrelated to each other. That each of them were done in different countries didn't make solving the case any easier.

But eventually they did solve it. They found the woman working in a cotton swab factory. Turned out many police departments were using the wrong type of swabs. So there seem to be more than one way to incorrectly use cotton swabs.

[–] hallettj 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 7 points 11 months ago

Now that's some serious incompetence there, and it's sad that it took so many cases to figure it out.

[–] Songar87@eviltoast.org 3 points 11 months ago

That makes me think the based an episode of CSI:NY after this. An almost identical plot.

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 43 points 11 months ago (5 children)

I swear every time my spouse tries to use wd40 I have a stroke. We have several kinds of specific lubes for different situations ffs, all in the same easy to access bin, stop trying to use wd40 as a catch all super lube that's not how it works.

People don't send letters much anymore but please don't lick the envelopes. Just dip a finger in water. Just as easy, less germy, and doesn't cause a lingering chemical taste.

Nobody seems to understand how to use dental dams. Look it up, stay safe people.

[–] rufus@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Greetings from my wife. She wanted me to send you this picture:

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Having grown up with Red Green I'm team duct tape 100% but I'll die on my WD40 hill

[–] rufus@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 11 months ago

Hehe. Sometimes it's just the way it is. We all have boundaries and our personal limits. πŸ˜†

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] cosmic_skillet@lemmy.ml 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

But those envelopes are tasty...

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's so sad stamps don't need to be licked anymore.

Nothing beats a licked envelope followed by a stamp chaser.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I guess I could see them being tasty if you've got the palette of an 80 year old smoker who grew up eating poverty suspended in aspic.

[–] cosmic_skillet@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago

Lol, that's me!

[–] sxan@midwest.social 14 points 11 months ago

Casually suggest using WD40 as lube for the next sexy time. When they say "what," you can say "why not? You use it for everything else." Maybe it'll click.

Of course, this advice may negatively impact this, and possibly several future potential sexy times, but it's a small sacrifice if it keeps people from using god damned WD40 as a fucking lube.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 8 points 11 months ago

Dental dams.

I know what it is yet never found it selling.

Licking envelopes.

There was a time when the glue was somewhat sweet. I grew out of it quick enough - wasn't willing to stick paper in my mouth - but not quick enough to not build that memory.

WD40

It has a very wide range of uses but there is a limit for it.

[–] Applejuicy@feddit.nl 6 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I had to look up dental dams, TIL.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] memfree@lemmy.ml 38 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You're telling me not to clean my ears with swabs???? I'm sorry, but I will swear forever that they are intended for the ears. The only issue is that the makers don't want to get sued if anyone hurts themselves. I mean, c'mon, the Japanese use both ends of these in their ears! You want me to start doing that?

mimikaki

more | info

[–] JoeCoT@kbin.social 43 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They were specifically created for cleaning ears. First line of the wikipedia history.. The reason Q-Tip says not to use them in ears is plausible deniability. They know they mostly get used to cleaning ears. But it's incredibly easy to puncture your eardrum doing that. In order to stop people from suing them for using their product in its main use case and hurting themselves, they simply specifically instruct against using it that way. While that is a wholly ridiculous falsehood, without it they'd have probably been sued so much that no one would make them. And then I wouldn't be able to clean my ears.

[–] Crotaro 18 points 11 months ago (4 children)

This seems to be largely an American phenomenon, that people sue the maker of a product for themselves failing to use the product correctly, no? Or at least I can't remember a single instance outside America where either someone sued the producer for using a product incorrectly or the producer pre-emtpively puts warnings on for ridiculous stuff to not get sued if people try these things.

Either way, good to know that cotton swabs were primarily made indeed to clean ears. I don't use them for that, but it always weirded me out when they came in those pastelle color packages with openings like tissues, perfect for a bathroom, but someone said "Yo, don't use them for your ears! They were made for swabbing grease off motor chains."

[–] JoeCoT@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not a lot of products have to do that. The one people bandy about is McDonalds adding "Caution: Coffee Is Hot" to their stuff, but the actual coffee spill lawsuit was over coffee hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns. Few things need cautions against their intended use.

Q-Tips / cotton swabs are an almost uniquely bad tool. It's incredibly easy to rupture your ear drums. There's no actual health benefit to swabbing your ears -- it just feels good your ears get itchy. A safer tool could be made, but it'd be more expensive, more involved to use, and there's probably several but I can't be bothered to find out, and neither can you. They make a product that they know is inherently dangerous to use and has no specific benefit. So it has a warning against doing it. Same as cigarette packs have a warning that they cause cancer, even though everyone buying them knows that and smokes them anyway.

[–] littlecolt@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago (11 children)

Better ear cleaning tools exist. They are little plastic scoops. I used to use a bent paperclip. Basically anything you can put into the ear canal and then pull/scoop/scrape earwax out is far better than a qtip, which only compacts wax into clumps. The one good use case for the qtip is drying. They can absorb water well inside the ear canal and belly button. I personally use them on my navel after showering since I have an "innie"

load more comments (11 replies)

Yep, somehow America wound up doing thing that way, where instead of regulating preemptively, lawsuits are expected to do a lot of what regulatory bodies do in other countries. It's an awful system and rarely benefits those that have been caused harm, especially when there are limits on punitive damages that are supposed to encourage corporations to not be shitbags. Individuals don't have the resources to sue companies, either, so at best one occasionally gets a check for $2.14 for being part of a class that won a class action lawsuit.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Travelator@thelemmy.club 25 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Screwdrivers are not actually pry bars.

[–] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands!

[–] DirigibleProtein@aussie.zone 4 points 11 months ago

β€œYour offer is accepted!”

[–] kboy101222@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Extrasvhx9he@lemmy.today 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The ceiling fan: it changes directions with a switch, clockwise for winter, counterclockwise for everything else. Also opening those glass DoΓ±a MarΓ­a mole sauce jars: gotta flip it upside down on a paper towel and pry where the lid indicates, then flip it rightside up and twist

Edit here's a vid that I learned from for the mole sauce. pipedbot do your thing pls

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They aren't being used wrong. It's just that no one will say it's OK to use them that way for liability purposes for when someone inevitably screws it up or already has too much wax. It also depends on what type of wax your ears make (people have different kinds. Wet, dry, or somewhere in between)

I've used them for decades "the wrong way" and checked my ear canal with a little bluetooth camera thing made for ears. My canal and eardrums are immaculate, so it happens to work great for me.

Cotton swabs were invented in the 1920s for the purpose of ear cleaning. They were marketed as such until around 1980 when the market became worried about lawsuits from people stabbing their ear drums or people with lots of wet wax built up already in their ears compacting it towards the ear drum instead of it getting cleaned out.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] oxjox@lemmy.ml 17 points 11 months ago (2 children)
[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If a company can successfully desig, build and sell heavy machinery while at the same time manufacturing personal care items, let them be.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 15 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I never use them to clean my earsz I use them to masturbate my ears. Nothing so good as a good ear scratching

[–] tiago 6 points 11 months ago
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Passwords. We assume a hard to guess and everchanging password will be hard to crack, but the whole point of machines is that it can be pinpointed with utmost accuracy, and everytime someone tells you to use special phrases in passwords, they're also inadvertently saying "hey thieves, here is what to look out for, happy guessing". They're supposed to be more like speakeasies.

I remember long ago, when I was active as Dabran2 on Neopets, there was a vault with nine dropdown menus that you had to guess the combination to on the moon Kreludor. It was simpler and far more effective. To this day, I couldn't tell you what's on the other side (or I'd have to annihilate you and feed your remains to the turmaculus, assuming you believe I made it to the other side).

[–] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Passwords, as in user chosen secrets used to prove identity, are a really bad idea in general. Turns out, people are crappy at coming up with stuff that is hard to guess. They are also crappy at remembering things that are hard to guess. That’s why every website these days wants to SMS you a code or makes you use an Authenticator.

Thankfully people are catching on, and secure passwordless sign in is gaining ground rapidly.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Extrasvhx9he@lemmy.today 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Yeah knew a guy that used to work at a place where they had him change his password every 2 months or so kinda stupid. Entropy is really all you need to check. Also by special phrases do you mean ~~salting~~ peppering your passwords?

[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] Extrasvhx9he@lemmy.today 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The peppering passwords? That's where you add a special word or phrase in all of your passwords but not in your password manager. It's usually done in case your password manager becomes compromised thats why I got a bit confused with your statement, haha

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Nemo@midwest.social 10 points 11 months ago

No, I clean my ears with warm water. I dry them with cotton swabs.

[–] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Doctor Mike says not to do it, but I have been for years. This started when I got a wax ball that impacted against my eardrum and made me functionally deaf on one side until I could get into an urgent doctor's appointment. The very next day, the same thing happened on the other side. I knew what was up for the second time and was able to get something from the pharmacy to handle it myself.

As best I can tell, there are two dangers:

  1. Mechanical damage, perhaps caused by accidental means
  2. Leaving bits of cotton behind that can then become infected

For me, I am fine taking this risk and plan to continue doing so daily.

[–] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Mechanical damage would require a major freak accident or you to be an idiot about it.

The real issue (according to my doctor, who has a lot more patience than most doctors and actually educated my stubborn ass on this) isn't just the cotton residue you mentioned (though that is very much a factor) but also the fact that for every [small unit of measurement] of wax the QTip pulls OUT, it is also pushing IN about [small unit of measurement] of it.

This can mean infections, as you mentioned. As you push foreign content AND the wax (which is itself full of trapped bacteria) closer to your sensitive bits. It can also accelerate blockages depending on the consistency of your wax. If you have that issue that your ears get wax blockage periodically, q-tips ensure it happens even faster.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next β€Ί