Kevin b said:
I get the feeling that if Festool was to fart at a dinner party that some of you would feel blessed to be in the presence of it's gas. We are so lucky that bouquet does not release some of it's most useful tools to the US market because of it's CYA policy.
Why yes, I would feel blessed. I hear it has a pleasant bouquet.
I think what we run into is the "Pikachu" problem. Several years ago, children with photo-sensitivity were getting seizures from staring at the flashing Pikachu from the Poke'mon cartoons. Pikachu was displayed at a certain flash frequency, which induced these seizures. There are engineering design guidelines stating that any type of flash frequency should be no greater than 2-3 Hz to avoid triggering seizures in those who are photo-sensitive. While I make many vain attempts at humor, I'm not making this one up. (Deke can back me up on this one).
So we've all been waiting for the Carvex which has this cool gimmick of the strobe light. It may be a gimmick, it may not be. Needless to say, its appealing. Well in order for the strobe to be effective, it must flash at a cycle rate equivalent to the cycle rate of the blade, which is greater than 2-3 Hz. Now let's say your Pikachu watching child is grown now, and is working in a chemical plant cutting some angle iron near some vats of acid. Pikachu watcher sees the strobe light, becomes mesmerized, has a seizure, and then falls into a vat of acid. The acid then decomposes his body, and he is suddenly missing. Now that he is missing, his spouse is concerned that something very bad happened to him. She doesn't think he has run off. She thinks he's dissolved in the vat of acid. So she hires an Analytical Chemist to analyze the calcium and phosphorus levels in the acid vats, and they determine that the levels are abnormal. The man did fall into the vat and dissolve.
An analytical chemistry textbook producer learns of this story, and provides this example as an analytical chemistry exercise. A college chemistry professor then assigns this problem set to his students as homework. To be cheeky, the professor asks on the final exam "Did the man fall into the vat". The answer is yes, but some smart-alecky student who didn't do the homework answers "No, he was pushed." (I didn't make this part up, either).
Meanwhile, we forget about the poor widow who has asked the question "Why did the man fall into the vat?" They trace it back to the photo-sensitive seizure, what caused the seizure, engineering guidelines, and Festool due diligence. The widow now owns the company and decides to go for broke and release the CMS into North America, regardless of UL approval.
