Monday, October 20, 2008

Frivolous Lawsuits & Silly Legal Disclaimers Part II

So we went to Target to pick up a few things.

Walking through the home decorations, I happened upon this cute little globe...


Ask ANY submarine officer (and probably ANY naval officer) what legal disclaimer they would expect to see on ANY geographic product, and I bet you 99% of them will give you the same answer. Come on guys, say it together with me now:

"Not to be used for navigation."

Well, as I slowly turned this cute little globe around in my hand, I came upon a very startling legal disclaimer, and considering how recently I wrote about frivolous lawsuits and the resultant ridiculous legal disclaimers, I burst out laughing.

The Disclaimer:
NOT FOR EDUCATIONAL USE
ONLY FOR DECORATIVE PURPOSE

Oddly enough, this little globe could actually serve as an educational device to demonstrate the challenges of cartography and trying to print a representation of a three dimensional surface on a two-dimensional piece of paper. In this case, those challenges are highlighted by the attempt to cut and fold said piece of paper onto a spherical object to make it look like a globe.

Look!!! The polar ice caps melted and
swallowed Alaska and half of Greenland!

But alas, I can't use it for education.

In order to file a complaint with the manufacturer over their product, I thought I would visit their office in India. Since they didn't say I couldn't use the globe for Navigation, I figured I'd use this handy-dandy globe as my guide to seek out their office...

...but alas, those clever guys at the factory managed to HIDE their home office in Mumbai.

Okay, so as far as get-rich-quick schemes go, I can't really sue the manufacturer since they're in India.

But surely I sue the company that imported the globes, can't I?

6 comments:

King of New York Hacks said...

Sue their ass!! Swallowing Alaska and half of Greenland just a'int right damn it !!! Thank God for GPS !

Hilary said...

That's a serious case of global deforming...

Nereus said...

Hmmmm,
"Not to be used for navigation."
or "For Educational Use"

Neither good for work or training. Must be a paper weight. Supply would order 100 as the lowest price substitute for what ever you wanted to actually do your job.

Good to see you and your family made the move and you are in your new diggs.

Nereus

reddog said...

I was the PO in charge of pub and chart updates/correction. Considering that. It probably would have been better to go with the globe.

Anonymous said...

"COMMON" guys????

I can't take your blog seriously anymore if you don't know the difference between common and come on.

sheesh.....

blunoz said...

Cubanbach - good catch, thanks for your feedback.

I'm perplexed though. "Anymore" implies you've been reading my blog for a while, but this post you just commented on is several months old.