Nanny Society: Banning Buckyball Magnets Is Statistically Ridiculous

I own so many more than 1 set.  But otherwise, the math seems OK...  :-)

Eliyahu Federman: Banning Buckyball Magnets Is Statistically Ridiculous:

Banning Buckyball Magnets Is Statistically Ridiculous

Posted: 07/31/2012 6:31 pm

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The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) filed a lawsuit to halt the production and sale of Buckyball magnets, citing several injuries to children that swallowed the magnet pellets.

These magnets are marketed exclusively for adults. They are plastered with conspicuous labelswarning of their danger to children:

Our e-tailer, 1SaleADay.com, decided to remove a slated listing of Buckyball magnets from our daily deal site until further notice. This measure was largely taken to avoid legal issues, not because these magnets are any more dangerous than common household products, bicycles, sports or even dogs. Other e-tailers such as Amazon.com and Brookstone.com have also decided to halt sales of Buckyballs as a result of the CPSC lawsuit.

Instead of sensationalizing individual injury cases, let's do the math on how dangerous these magnets really are when compared to other consumer products and activities.

CPSC indicates that approximately 22 children were injured from Buckyball magnets since their release in 2009. Not a single fatality was reported. There are approximately 2.2 million Buckyball magnet sets in circulation, and as each set has 216 magnets, there is a grand total of 475.2 million individual magnet pieces. This equals to approximately 1 injury per 100,000 Buckyball sets and less than 1 injury per 21.5 million individual magnet pieces.

Dogs are statistically over 120 times more dangerous than Buckyball magnet sets. According to the CDC, out of a population of 100,000 there were 129.3 dog bite related injuries treated in emergency hospital rooms.

Tennis injuries are estimated to be 1,228 per a population of 100,000 making Tennis an astonishing 1,228 times more dangerous than Buckyballs. Soccer, Cheerleading, poisoning through common household chemicals are all over 1,000 times more dangerous than Buckyballs. Skateboarding is 890 times more dangerous.

Here is my crude graph showing the estimated numbers compiled from the CDC and other sources (the graph assumes Buckyball owners generally own one set):

Certainly pools, cars, kitchen knives, firearms, and even balloons are all statistically more dangerous than Buckyball magnets.

Ingesting multiple Buckyballs can cause peculiar stomach-turning injuries. The magnets can attract one another through the stomach and intestinal walls, causing punctures in the stomach and intestinal walls. This may also cause misdiagnoses by medical professionals who are under the impression that the magnets will exit from the digestive system.

The sensational and widespread media coverage of the peculiar type of stomach injury caused by ingesting multiple magnets may be part of what's driving CPSC to selectively ban Buckyballs.

In order to get a sense of how average consumers felt about the attempt to ban Buckyballs, we posted the question on our Facebook fan page:

QUESTION: Do you think ball magnets should be banned because they are a hazard for children?

The dozens of comments were all unanimously opposed to the ban. Here is a representative comment from Kelsey Bowden, one of our 373,000+ Facebook followers:

Virtually all of the other comments echoed Kelsey's sentiment that plenty of other legal products are just as dangerous if not more dangerous, and that it is the responsibility of parents to safeguard their children.

Eleven years ago, CPSC sued Daisy Manufacturing Co., demanding that they recall 7.3 million BB guns. In the end Daisy settled with CPSC by agreeing to put more prominent safety warnings on their product. Perhaps a similar compromise is the answer with Buckyballs.

The CPSC's role in establishing mandatory consumer product safety standards serves a vital function in saving lives, preventing injuries and spreading awareness of consumer product risks. However, in their attempt to ban Buckyballs the CPSC is perhaps applying its standards unfairly and encroaching on what should be parental responsibility.

The author graduated law school in New York where he served as executive editor of law review. He is the senior vice president at 1SaleADay.com, the largest independently owned deal-a-day e-tailer. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent those of his current, prior, or future employer(s)

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DVClub-Graph Based Verification in a UVM Environment.mp4 - YouTube

DVClub-Graph Based Verification in a UVM Environment.mp4 - YouTube:
Looks interesting; didn't know DVClub posted their presentations as videos on YouTube.  Enjoy!

DVClub-Graph Based Verification in a UVM Environment.mp4

 

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Published on Jul 4, 2012 by Mike Bartley

Staffan Berg, Mentor Graphics
Graph-Based Verification in a UVM Environment

Abstract:
Graph-or Rule-based verification methods is gaining credibility within the verification community that it can provide significantly shorter time-to-coverage than traditional Constrained Random techniques. However, adoption of new methods requires both an understanding of the respective technology and the implications of injecting it into an existing process and infrastructure.

Examples will be presented to illustrate how to write the sets of rules and constraints which Graph-Based verification relies on to define the stimulus space and coverage goals. Coupled with the examples will be assessments of the impact on the resulting number of required simulation cycles.

The second part of the presentation will explain how graph based methods can be introduced to an existing UVM based testbench infrastructure in a non-intrusive way.

Category:

Science & Technology

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• +Hardware-Verification

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Functional Verification: Cadence Technical Webinars

Some amount of marketing is inevitable, but I bet there will still be some good stuff here...  :-)

From: Cadence Design Systems <corpmark2@cadence.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 5:46 PM
Subject: Advance Your Functional Verification Skills with Cadence Technical Webinars

Advance Your Functional Verification Skills with Cadence Technical Webinars Join Cadence® verification experts for a series of technical webinars on the most relevant topics in functional verification. We'll introduce you to the latest techniques, best practices, methodologies, and support services you need for developing and verifying your silicon designs—productively and profitably! In these concise 1-hour sessions, we'll address hot topics including: SystemVerilog-based debug Better verification performance Power shutoff (PSO) verification Best practices for UVM sequences Implementing multi-language UVM Formal apps to automate verification Combining a metric-driven verification (MDV) flow with an ISO26262 flow TLM 2.0 communication mechanisms and how they are replicated in e Assertion-based verification (ABV) techniques for your ARM®ACE™ implementation You'll get the answers you need to adopt new approaches. You can also follow up with our technical experts, who will set you up with our Incisive® Verification Kit to hone your skills. These webinars are designed to be methodology- and application-based, not a marketing pitch. Plus, you don't need to travel—you can view these presentations and demonstrations from the comfort of your home or office! For more information, or to register: https://www.secure-register.net/cadence/fv_webinars_2h_2012 Application-Specific Webinars (all times below are 9:00 am PT) August 8: Formal Apps to Automate Mainstream Verification Challenges This webinar will show how technology and methodology can be packaged into "apps" that focus on high-value problems that are more efficiently solved using formal-based methods, and can be automated such that very little knowledge of formal or assertion-based verification (ABV) is required… August 21: Why Debug at the Signal Level When SystemVerilog Class-Based Debug is So Simple? This webinar will walk users through the advantages of using the debug power of SimVision within a complex class-based SystemVerilog environment for both interactive and post-process debug... September 11: No More Wrappers – New Interface Between e and SystemC TLM 2.0 Transaction-level models (TLMs) can be used in a number of ways to speed up the design and verification effort for SoCs and their software layers. The last several years has seen strong adoption of SystemC TLM 2.0 for high-level modeling; it has become the de-facto standard for such models… September 18: Is SystemVerilog the Future of Analog Modeling? A significant speed-up in simulation performance can be achieved by replacing the analog portions of a design with functionally equivalent real-number models using real/wreal functionality in Verilog-AMS and/or SystemVerilog to achieve a 100–500x performance boost for top-level SoC verification… September 25: Combining the Best of Both in an MDV Flow – Simulation and Formal There exist many benefits to simulation technology within a metric-driven verification (MDV) flow, and an equal number of benefits using formal technology. Now users can combine these metrics together to take advantage of the best in each… October 16: 5 Steps to Your First Power Shutoff (PSO) Verification Making the leap to your first PSO circuit can be daunting. Do the isolation cells properly insulate the shutoff domain? Do the retention registers enable the SoC to return to full-power properly? Have enough tests been run to cover the power control module?...  October 25: UVM SystemVerilog in a Multi-Language SoC World: UVM-ML While the Accellera Systems Initiative UVM standard is defined for SystemVerilog, its architecture can support multi-language verification environments. Every SoC has some mix of models coded to IEEE and ANSI language standards… November 6: Integrating Chip Verification into an ISO26262 Traceability Flow This webinar will show how to combine a metric-driven verification flow typically used in functional verification with an ISO26262 requirements management flow. The solution entails electronically transferring requirements into the verification flow… November 13: UVM Sequences:  Best Practices for Efficiency and Reuse One of the primary goals of the UVM is to reduce the cost and burden of writing tests. This is accomplished by providing an abstract test definition interface in the form of sequences. Subsequently, much of the complexity involved with driving and monitoring the DUT is absorbed in UVM verification components (UVCs). November 27: SimVision Simplifies UVM SystemVerilog Macro Debug This webinar will introduce the user to the latest in macro debug capabilities offered within the SimVision debug solution. Users of UVM-based environments, where macros are heavily utilized, will find this webinar particularly useful…  December 4: Better Verification Performance – The Ideal Holiday Gift We fight the performance battle all year and growing designs, tests, and test suites constantly make it more difficult. Luckily, Cadence is also constantly developing new capabilities to improve verification performance…  December 11: ACE Assertion-Based Dynamic, Formal, and Metric-Driven Verification Techniques with "ABVIP" To achieve first-pass success, the sophistication of ARM ACE-based designs must be matched by a comprehensive verification approach. This webinar will show how formal and assertion-based verification techniques, combined with assertion-based verification IP (ABVIP), can be used in concert with popular UVM testbench VIP… For more information, or to register: https://www.secure-register.net/cadence/fv_webinars_2h_2012

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Using awk --non-decimal-data for hex calculations... - Stack Overflow

Converting hex to decimal in awk or sed - Stack Overflow:

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I have a list of numbers, comma-separated: 123711184642,02,3583090366663629,639f02012437d4 123715942138,01,3538710295145500,639f02afd6c643 123711616258,02,3548370476972758,639f0200485732 I need to split the 3rd column into three as below: 123711184642,02,3583090366663629,639f02,0124,37d4 123715942138,01,3538710295145500,639f02,afd6,c643123711616258,02,3548370476972758,639f02,0048,5732 And convert the digits in the last two columns into decimal: 123711184642,02,3583090366663629,639f02,292,14292 123715942138,01,3538710295145500,639f02,45014,50755 123711616258,02,3548370476972758,639f02,72,22322 sed awk decimal hex share|edit edited Jan 6 '11 at 14:26 Jonathan Leffler 158k14128295 asked Jan 6 '11 at 12:13 bernie 6219 53% accept rate

1 To the close-voter: this is a valid question about shell PROGRAMMING. – Jonathan Leffler Jan 6 '11 at 14:27 feedback

2 Answers

activeoldestvotes

up vote2down voteaccepted

Here's a variation on Jonathan's answer: awk $([[ $(awk --version) = GNU* ]] && echo --non-decimal-data) -F, '     BEGIN {OFS = FS}     {         $6 = sprintf("%d", "0x" substr($4, 11, 4))         $5 = sprintf("%d", "0x" substr($4,  7, 4))         $4 = substr($4,  1, 6)         print     }' I included a rather contorted way of adding the --non-decimal-data option if it's needed.

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