1. Hyper-Sensitive Smoke Detectors
The smoke detector in our kitchen is so sensitive, it goes off when we’re preheating the oven, or whenever we pan fry anything. Guess how I respond? I take it down from the ceiling and remove the battery. I try to remember to replace it after dinner, but that doesn’t always happen right away. Firex, I’m sure your heart’s in the right place, but my family would be safer if you’d dial the smoke sensitivity back a bit.
2. Overly Strict Password Policies
IT admins, this one’s for you: If you make me change my password every 30 days, and I can’t repeat passwords, you know what you’re doing? You’re making me come up with a password I don’t use anywhere else, which means there’s a good chance I’ll forget it, which means I’m going to write it on a Post-It note. And that kind of defeats the purpose of your password policies, now, doesn’t it?
Currently my smoke detector is sitting – sans battery – on my dining table (it literally goes off when you boil water), and all of my passwords are written down. I understand that there are many, many morons in America today, but the majority of us are, in fact, capable of survival without the need for an assembled body to think of ways to make us “safer.” It’s the kind of mentality that makes a hero out of this woman and her “cause:”
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/15/fea.crib.deaths/index.html?hpt=C1
While I deeply sympathize with anyone who loses a child, I don’t think “improving” safety standards in cribs because 36 children have died in 2 1/2 years (out of the 4+ million births per each of those years) from crib-related accidents is something upon which Americans should be focusing their time and attention. 36 deaths over 2 1/2 years is ~14.4 deaths per year, meaning these crib deaths are responsible for (roughly) 0.052% of the US infant mortality rate of 6.7/1000. We should be trying to lower the national infant death rate and minimizing the gross disparity in rates amongst races. We should NOT be boosting crib sales (though I am not implying that is what this woman is trying to do). As the article points out, these “safe guards” will probably result in putting children at greater risk as people who cannot afford to purchase new cribs, but are required by law to provide up-to-standard cribs, may do away with them entirely (much like we disable our smoke detectors).