Buyer Beware
Bad design can be not just unattractive but unhealthy. Steer clear of this trio of second-rate offerings.
Under $100
Torchiere halogen lamps
Introduced in 1982, torchiere halogen lamps were an inexpensive and potentially energy-saving alternative to incandescent lamps. By the mid-1990s, 40 million had been sold in the United States as the lamps became the default accessory in college dorm rooms nationwide. That is, right before they started killing people. The flaw is in the tungsten metal filaments of halogen bulbs, which consume significantly less electricity (good) yet burn at over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit to do so (bad). By 1997, the lamps were responsible for 189 fires and 11 deaths. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the halogen lamp industry cooperatively called for a recall of over 40 million of these lamps.
While many of their functions are admirable (they’re inexpensive and conserved energy), torchieres broke the prime directive of product design: They were dangerous (not to mention ugly). Today, hundreds of millions of pounds of torchiere lamps sit alongside head-cracking lawn darts, bottles of unused fen-phen, and explosion-prone fuel tanks of Ford Pintos in landfills nationwide as examples of lethally bad product design.
Over $100
Maple baseball bats
In Babe Ruth’s era, ballplayers used bats made from hickory, a solid, heavy wood that rarely breaks. But hickory’s weight led many players to switch to lighter white ash-wood bats. Though ash tends to flake or crack, it seldom shatters into large pieces, and these bats have been in heavy rotation for over 50 years with few incidents of injury-causing breakage.
In the late 1990s, however, maple bats gained popularity as Barry Bonds’s tool of choice in his record-breaking home-run streak. Today, half of all professional players use maple bats. Though lighter than hickory and ash, maple breaks in a more dangerous way, with a tendency to explode upon impact, sending large, jagged shards hundreds of feet into the air.
In 2008 alone, Pittsburgh Pirates hitting coach Don Long suffered nerve damage when his cheek was sliced open by one of these shards, fan Susan Rhodes’s jaw was cut in two places while sitting four rows back in Dodger stadium, and umpire Brian O’Nora left a game bleeding profusely from the shrapnel of a shattered maple bat. After review in 2008, a Major League Baseball safety committee decided to allow their continued use.
Over $1000
French bulldogs
I am not trying to make you hundreds of thousands of French bulldog owners mad. You are beautiful people. I adore your loving pets and admire your beautiful shoes. In fact, a friend’s French bulldog is at my feet now. (This is true.) Damn, it’s cute. But please, for a moment, consider the following.
French bulldogs are bad design. Their production is costly, environmentally damaging, and, worse, inhumane. Most Frenchies cannot be naturally birthed and require Caesarean-section deliveries, which are expensive and can permanently damage the mother. As a pure breed, French bulldogs are not cost-efficient and are not user-friendly. Centuries of inbreeding have made them genetically inferior in nature and susceptible to many congenital conditions, including severe breathing impairment, eye infections, irregularly sized digestive systems that make them vomit, impaired thyroid function, eye proptosis (i.e., eyes popping out of their heads), and a laundry list of other cruel and costly ailments.
If Frenchies were store-bought products the EPA, FDA, and UN would ban them. These dogs are a real dog.
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So, what do you suggest we do with all the Frenchies---euthanize them? What a ridiculous cruel and insensitive little article. I adore my Frenchie for his devotion and uncanny ability to sense my every emotion---I adore his determined little spirit, his fierce loyalty and his devotion to me and to my family. He is a little French clown who has brought so much laughter and joy into our lives. We have four Frenchies in our family. Some have been rescued from the French Bulldog Rescue Network. Others were paid for---over 800 dollars each---less than a wonderful value---this is not about being smug and making fun of people who spend money on their pets and, for that matter, on their shoes. Word you should know---jamesnesterisclueless.
Very hypocritical... wait until you have one of your own, then recommend nobody else get one. Im with the last person. I love my frenchie, her love and devotion. I'll always favor these dogs when ever I am in the market for a dog and I will forever love and cherish the one that I own.
Eye-Roll, obviously the author of this article is being cut-and-dry about product design. She is not insulting the intuitiveness, devotion, or sheer adorableness of your beloved pooch. She is simply pointing out some very serious setbacks with the breed as a product. Your little family member only being debased as being a "product" as to the fact that they were in-fact bred [manufactured], purchased by a consumer [you], and have many aliments [defects] due to many poor decisions made by breeders [manufactures] in the past, i.e. inbreeding, which has harmed this breed as a whole. She is not suggesting your dogs be put down. However, if these animals struggle to even to give birth to their young with out surgical intervention there must be some consideration on on how humane it is to force these dogs to continue to breed to produce young that will have a lifetime of medical problems. Perhaps if she had used the example of Pugs, Bulldogs, or Burmese Mountain Dogs (all of which have serious medical issues) you might have understood the general example of commonly inbred breeds as a poor product design?
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