The Notification Appliance Circuit (NAC) or Signaling Line Circuit (SLC) that powers fire alarm AV appliances is the only power source to the device itself. There are no batteries in the appliances themselves. The main fire alarm control unit (or a NAC extender panel if you needed one) has batteries to provide alternate power. The standard requires 24 hours of “quiescent” power, just standby load, followed by 5 minutes of alarm (15 minutes if you have a voice alarm).
Fire alarm AV appliances are required to have the strobes synchronized when a person can see more than two (so three or more) from any spot. Seizures are triggered by fire alarm strobes due to the overall flash rate, not by being synced. If you have multiple strobes that are not synchronized, you end up with multiple flash patterns which trigger seizures. Synchronized strobes reduce the number of flashes to one to two 20ms flashes per second. Synchronizing strobes is a pain, and most fire alarm techs hate having to do it. Newer fire alarm panels have logic that can help automatically sync the strobes, old non-addressable systems were nightmares.
A couple of weeks ago I watched the first episode of “Quincy, M.E.” and spotted a guy who looked a lot like Randolph Mantooth - and sure enough it was his brother Don Mantooth
Or the guy who tried to use his cherry-picker to lift a piece of heavy machinery. When the chain connecting them snapped, the picker became a catapult, throwing him in a fatal arc.
Did you ever see thd one about the guy who dropped the pull tab into his beer can and then drank from it (as many folks did back in the day) - that scene stuck in my memory like a pull tab in the throat.
Anyway, I once knew a woman also born in the 1920s, and her name was Jennifer. From about 1970 on, she was regularly asked if she was Jennifer’s mother.
In this case, we’re not talking about stuff that some people find offensive. This is about something that could cause a possibly fatal medical emergency in a significant portion of the population. (We have a Doper who died from her seizure disorder.) I don’t think most jurors would consider such a suit to be frivolous.
I would honestly have expected whoever was selling the show to have edited or removed the offending episode. There’s just too much of a liability problem. And it’s not like it’s unusual to remove or edit episodes from syndication–even for things that are just “offensive.”
I suspect that a call from Beck to the company just letting them know would scare them into trying to deal with it. At minimum, if they’re going to possibly air shows like this, they should invest in those filters that can kick in and blur the screen when they notice the lights. Those already run on consoles.
And, conversely, perhaps there’s some sort of consumer version that Beck could use to protect herself. If those were common, then you could more easily argue it’s not the network’s responsibility.
I would not even consider calling the programmer about this.
I think it must’ve been safe enough. It’s not like this station is unheard of, tho’ it is small and aimed at an older audience (from the ads it shows).
If it really was a problem I suspect we’d know about it. Some one would’ve called and reported it.
I did not nearly, almost in any kind of way have a siezure for real. I was just shocked, mostly.
(I see if I can find out the episode number and year and you brave ones can look it up)
ETA it’s Season 3 episode 12. The last rescue on the show is where the strobe lights are.
Out of curiosity, how much of a danger is there from what the OP described? (And is it different on modern TVs than on old, smaller CRT TVs like everyone had back when the show originally aired?)
Here in town there was an actual case of a homeless man dying under a semi. It was parked overnight in an unused strip mall parking lot. He sheltered under it, there had been heavy rain. He was still asleep when the driver came back and started the vehicle, running him over.
I have several metal lunch boxes. I deliberately didn’t want the popular shows and characters.
I have a plaid one. One that appears to be made of blue jeans. A Barbie pink one. No Barbie picture.
And a peace symbol one. I’ve been looking for a Smiley face vintage one for years.
I have the metal lunch boxes my brother and I used in elementary school. One is Welcome Back Kotter and the other is Woody Wood Pecker. I don’t remember which one was mine.
A while back, I wanted to dial up an L.A. Law episode that deals with date rape. Whatever streaming service carries L.A. Law does not have that episode! Probably too controversial. Which is dumb, because it’s the best I’ve ever seen that topic handled in media. Heck, it could be shown in school health classes, allowing for the fact that the victim and the rapist are both of age. But hey, we don’t want people to learn anything, right? Not if they’re made uncomfortable in the process.
I’ve noticed that Vision TV edits out anything that might be considered “sacrilegious” in its scripted shows. Things like “Oh, God!” and “Damn!” are simply cut out.
