Scientific Truth in Product Warning Labels
(Stolen Without Permission from Journal of anillegiblycopiedtitle)*
WARNING: This product warps space and time in its vicinity.
WARNING: This product attracts every other piece of matter in the Universe, including the products of other manufacturers, with a force proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the** distance between them.
CAUTION: The mass of this product contains the energy equivalent of 85 million tons of TNT per net ounce of weight.
HEALTH WARNING: Care should be taken when lifting this product, since its mass, and thus its weight, is dependent on its velocity relative to the user.
ADVISORY: There is an extremely small but nonzero chance that, through a process known as “tunneling,” this product may spontaneously disappear from its present location and reappear at any random place in the universe, including your neighbor’s domicile. The manufacturer will not be responsible for any damages or inconvenience that may result.
COMPONENT EQUIVALENCY NOTICE: The subatomic particles (electrons, protons, etc.) comprising this product are exactly the same in every measurable respect as those used in the products of other manufacturers, and no claim to the contrary may legitimately be expressed or implied.
CONSUMER NOTICE: Because of the “Uncertainty Principle,” it is impossible for the consumer to find out at the same time both precisely where this product is and how fast it is moving.
NOTE: The most fundamental particles in this product are held together by a “gluing” force about which little is currently known and whose adhesive power cannot therefore be permanently guaranteed.
ATTENTION: Despite any other listing of product contents found hereon, the consumer is advised that, in actuality, this produce consists of 99.999999999999% empty space.
HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE: This product contains minute electrically charged particles moving at velocities in excess of five hundred million miles per hour.
READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE: According to certain suggested versions of a grand unified theory, the primary particles constituting this product may decay to nothingness within the next four hundred million years.
PUBLIC NOTICE AS REQUIRED BY LAW: Any use of this product, in any manner whatsoever, will increase the amount of disorder in the universe. Although no liability is implied herein, the consumer is warned that this process will ultimately lead to the heat death of the universe.
NEW GRAND UNIFIED THEORY DISCLAIMER: The manufacturer may technically be entitled to claim that this product is ten-dimensional^ legal rights above and beyond those applicable to three-dimensional objects, since the seven new dimensions are “rolled up” into such a small area that they cannot be detected.
IMPORTANT NOTICE TO PURCHASERS: The entire physical universe, including this product, may one day collapse back into an infinitesimally small space. Should another universe subsequently re-emerge, the existence of this product in that universe cannot be guaranteed.
PLEASE NOTE: Some quantum physics theories suggest that when the consumer is not directly observing this product, it may cease to exist or will exist only in a vague and undetermined state.
THIS IS A 100% MATTER PRODUCT: In the unlikely event that this merchandise should contact antimatter in any form, a catastrophic explosion will result.
* As if you couldn’t guess, I got this verbatim from somewhere else on the net. The Illegibly copied title wasn’t even in my handwriting, even though my handwriting is defined by its illegibility. Isn’t this great! I’ve put my own disclaimer on my disclaimer page regarding my disclaimer! Please don’t hit me!
**Also, thanks to Renald Loignon for pointing out the (perhaps typographical) error: It is proportional to the square of the distance, not simply the distance. All they did was copy and paste, now coming on ten years ago.
Thanks, slashdot, for putting this on the map (local copy)! We got over a quarter of a million hits within a week — not too bad for a vanity domain, eh?
Most of you folks might also be interested in our strong anti-spam stance.
As for this page, yes, we know it is old, but they would like to
thank you for your help tracking down which journal the left-hand side came from.
Apparently, it is from (Thanks, Malcolm!):
They appeared in message id Sc39.6228@clarinet.com of rec.humour.funy.reruns with
subject “More Scientific Truth in Product Labels” beginning:
A Call for More Scientific Truth in Product Warning Labels
by Susan Hewitt and Edward Subitzky
with an attribution of:
(The above is from Volume 36, Number 1 of The Journal of Irreproducible
Results. Copyright 1991 Blackwell Scientific Publications Inc. 3
Cambridge Center, Cambridge MA 02141 Individual US Subscriptions $12.00
Reproduced with permission.)
However, They do not have explicit permission. If anyone has contact info for Susan Hewitt and/or Edward Subitzky, they will gladly ask for permission. BTW, for the Anonymous Cowards out there, they don’t actually have a product, unless you count vanity. That fact is what makes it funny, see?
The World’s Most Powerful Meta-Disclaimer
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More specific disclaimers…
They found a list of more specific disclaimers.
In Summary
If you’ve read all these, you’ll probably also enjoy this page. And this one. Dave Barry, a very cool and gracious and funny guy (hey, I’ve met him, and all three are true, dammit!) wrote an entire column about disclaimers — it is on this site. SNL also got it right with Happy Fun Ball.