Wednesday, June 14, 2006

May be hazardous to your health

Warning labels about the hazards of smoking slapped on the side of cigarette packs are nothing new.** But while we all know by now that smoking is bad for you, apparently there are other health hazards lurking out there of which the general public should now be made aware.

For example, you better duck and take cover when your mobile rings. When I tried to adjust the volume on my new Sony Ericsson J210i, I was greeted by the following digital message:

WARNING: Loud ringtones could damage your hearing

Right. I'm planning on cranking up the volume on my mobile phone to 90 decibels. And if it damages my hearing, I'm going to sue you. Oh wait, I can't sue you, because you had the proper legal disclaimer.

One the other hand, one of my co-workers did suggest a more appropriate warning message, which Sony may just want to program into its phones.

WARNING: Loud ringtones could annoy your colleagues

I would also like to propose a caution of my own.

WARNING: Annoying warning labels could result in annoyed blog posts

**For those of you who like to stock up on random historical facts for your next round of Trivial Pursuit, a bit of Google research has revealed that the U.S. Surgeon General has required warning labels on cigarettes since 1965. The EU has had a similar directive in place since 1989.

3 Comments:

Blogger eff said...

WARNING: The Crazy Frog ringtone may lead to sudden and brutal death.

3:15 PM  
Blogger Curiosa said...

You should add [due to being beaten with a fermented herring].

3:46 PM  
Blogger eff said...

Fermented herrings, fists, lawn chairs, small buildings, guns, balloons, rocks, whatever is handy, really.

An obnoxious* ringtone is a capital punishment offense.

(* Meaning one that I don't like.)

12:18 AM  

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