this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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Amazon could soon be on the hook for safety of third-party products it sells and ships — Government order could classify it as a distributor, potentially exposing it to more legal claims::undefined

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[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 127 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, how is it not a distributor? Honest question, all those trucks sure do look like they are distributing products.

[–] Shadow@lemmy.ca 57 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Typically a distributor deals to stores that deal to end users.

Amazon call themselves a store, but at their scale and volume they're pretty much a distributor.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not even pretty much, they really are a distributor

They have many different businesses all selling on their shelves and then Amazon ships you the product

[–] watson387@sopuli.xyz 17 points 1 year ago

Amazon is the American Aliexpress.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 1 year ago

So section 802(?) but for e-commerce not social media.

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Maybe then they'll stop selling male to male extension cords

[–] Xavier@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What‽ Why would such a thing exist ??? 🤔

Testing your electrical panel? and how fast the firefighters are to get to your house?

[–] ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ob it's far stupider and more deadly: hooking up your personal little generator so you can backfeed electricity to your house during a power outage.

It's even more stupid and deadly than it sounds.

[–] variants@possumpat.io 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Don't you need one of those to use your tesla as a house generator

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 1 year ago

There's a specific process and kind of panel you need to back feed power into your home

Basically your panel needs to have it setup so that it can either be powered by the generator or the grid. 1 or the other but never both at the same time.

[–] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Um, no. Normally you would use a regular male to female extension cable for that. Your electrical panel would have a male plug on the wall which is specifically wired up to safely provide power to your home.

[–] Ferris 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

teslas specifically don't generate electricity

what is going on in this thread?

[–] fkn@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"As a" implies knowledge that it is not a generator but can effectively be used as one.

[–] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Or adapters to plug a 30A device into a 15A receptacle

[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I've seen these used in low income homes where the basement electricity is paid by the landlord for coin operated washers. Then someone gets their electricity cut (lack of payment) so they use these cables to jump the outlets and steal electricity from the landlord.

The dude just went to a hardware store and bought an extension cable and a replacement plug head. Snipped the female end and added the male in like 5 minutes.

The only practical usage of those things is jumping a generator to a house during a blackout.

Edit: yes please bring on the down votes for me sharing a story about how the poor use these scary cables. Real nice.

[–] fkn@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And that "practical use" kills linemen.

[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think the correct way to jump is to flip your main so you're disconnected. I'm probably talking out of my ass tho.

I don't own a generator nor have the need. Just basing this on what I've seen in the wild.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The more correct way is to install a switch that does that, so you can be connected to the grid or to the generator, not both. It's basically what you said, but it doesn't trust users to remember to do it correctly

[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 1 points 1 year ago

It does, there's even automatic ones so you can have the generator kick in after a second or two without power and shut off when the grid comes back up

I watched a video on it a week or two ago, I think the general term would be an interlock

[–] fkn@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, in theory that would work. But they actually make main disconnect switches for this in the event that the main breaker fails. It's a mandatory install in all grid tie electrical generator systems (including solar).

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

I keep hearing this as the "Reason" but never backed by anything that makes sense. I've never needed to jump my generator to my house, and don't particularly care to even in the event of "disaster" so don't attack me like I'm doing this...

If you successfully suicide jumper your generator to the grid. Wouldn't the collective load of all your neighbors stuff kill the generator? (eg bog it down to the point that it turns off? [if it has no breaker]) Also wouldn't the load of literally your whole neighborhood trip off the breaker in the generator(or in the panel)? Doesn't this leave it as the only "risk" is if you happen to turn on the generator as the lineman themselves are specifically holding a live wire with an active connection to a ground/neutral before the previous stuff can happen? Or only if they happen to isolate you and then you turn on the genny after? Wouldn't you agree that this last thing would be an incredibly rare?

And I can never find an article where a cable was determined to be the cause of an electrocution...

Now because the internet is the internet... I'm not advocating for using suicide cables... There's much easier reasons why this is a terrible idea (exposed live contacts being literally the primary one). But I just never understood the "lineman" argument with all the stuff that would have to go specifically "right" in order to do that kind of harm to a lineman.

[–] ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Look into it more. It's incredibly common, and the voltage from a small generator in your yard, yes in theory, could leak to neighbors. However electricity follows the shortest path to ground. So if your home is drawing it, you will basically prevent that leakage. If you do fire it up, but use nothing, you may partially leak current to your neighbors (and potentially be liable for damages if your little backyard Honda or generac has a power spike at some point)

And the danger to to the linemen doing repair isn't the voltage necessarily (house current of 120v is not remotely high enough amperage to cause instant death. You can stick a fork in an outlet and try it) it is that you may suddenly electrify lines they are working on while suspended. If you charge the line, maybe you shock them and they have an accident. Or worse, your charged line creates enough of a charge differential that during the repair the much higher voltage electricity they have not isolated yet may bridge the air gap because you've energized the "dead" side prematurely.

In reality, most electricians and linemen are careful of this because of this exact reason. But it did harm a few people before moron's use of these things became common knowledge. Prior to these kinds of cables being commonly marketed for this, a lineman could hop up and reconnect you faster because there was an assumption they had full control of the current pathways. Now that's a toss up. This isn't a recent thing either, but it's becoming more common.

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[–] _sideffect@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hahaha good, fuck bezos and fuck amazon.

When they first started, Amazon really did have great products, but now it's just overpriced reverse engineered low QA crap.

[–] Masamune@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Hey, low QA crap isn't a fair assessment. I recently bought something that had absolutely NO QA behind it.

[–] breakingcups@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

About fucking time. They've known about the massive problems for years and haven't acted.

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How in the name of God are they not a distributor?

[–] grayman@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Well all they do is take in bulk shipments of, categorize, store, individually package, ship, and deliver products. I just really don't see how you could call that "distributing" goods. /s

[–] blackfire@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think distributor normally sends to other business rather than gen pop. I might be wrong though.

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

They do VAT receipts in my country, that's B2B

[–] AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago

Finally. They sell ship loads of dangerous and faulty wares

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 21 points 1 year ago

Good.

If you're taking a whacking great percentage of everything you sell, you need to be held accountable for the fraudulent, fake and outright dangerous shit that you can buy from it. It's literally just AliExpress with better delivery times.

Like, I know that 2TB USB stick for £21 is fake, but the poor grandma backing up all her photos to it doesn't until it goes over the amount of storage that's actually in it and the whole thing corrupts.

[–] alphacyberranger@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Rossman would be pleased.

[–] Mango@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Louis Rossmann will be happy to hear this.

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Relevant; Louis Rossman on Amazon product quality/safety:

(pt1) https://youtu.be/y83BS_mK9GE

(pt2) https://youtu.be/B90_SNNbcoU

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