On Tue, 05 Aug 2003 07:24:11 -0500,
wrote:

On Tue, 05 Aug 2003 11:27:08 GMT, Impmon wrote:

On Mon, 04 Aug 2003 13:12:13 -0500,
typed:

player became cracked during the fall to the floor, emitting the fatal
radiation which killed the entire family of seven.
[snip]

I'm having a hard time with that. Granted the laser inside the DVD
player is harmful but unless you looked directly at the laster, you
won't be harmed by a cracked case. I've had the case off of my DVD
player for a few days when I was trying to get the spindle working and
I'm doing fine.

There is no way the radiation from the player can killthe whole family.

Being a physics teacher, let me explain something.

A laser can go through the smallest hole, and if the disk is rotating
inside, the laser beams can be reflected at millions of different
angles, and many thousand times per second. Thus the laser beams
could spew out of that crack like bullets coming out of a machine gun.
Anyone in the path of these beams are instantly history. So, yes it
can kill a whole family and even a whole stadium full of people in
seconds. Lasers are dangerous and if one gets out of control, like
apparently this one did, there is no telling who or what will be
killed or destroyed.

What a load of crap!
I've worked with military grade lasers, ones that CAN really kill you.
There is no way the laser in a dvd player can emit enough energy to
kill anyone directly.
And as far as the radiation goes you'd have to practically stick it in
your eye to get enough to do any harm.
We have this thing called the Underwriters Labaratory that tests all
household appliances.
I doubt that they'd approve any houshold device that could emit even a
near lethal dose of rads without adequate shileding.
You're more likely to get cancer from your microwave.