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Instructions on a smoke grenade: Don't be a dick

Cory Doctorow at 6:14 am Fri, Apr 6, 2012

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An unnamed brand of smoke grenade includes "Don't be a dick with our products" in its instructions. Apparently this is Canadian (judging from the bilingual instructions).

Smoke grenade instructions.. (imgur.com) (via Lowering the Bar)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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  • chupsahey

    You know,  it looks like they didn’t translate that bit into French.

    • http://thebird-feeder.com/ Ben Carlsen

      Obviously, it means that bit of advice doesn’t apply to French speakers.

      • Emojk

        Yup, we have a constitutional right to be dicks. See our president, for instance.

        • Mïk Watson

           Not this president, the one a couple back. And don’ say W had one…he had to have the VP carry it for him.

  • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

    This so much better than say, ‘not to be taken orally’ or some other incredibly obvious bit of pointless idiocy…

  • Andrew Singleton

    Do not post?

    • Felton / Moderator

      Too late.  It ignited the second Cory posted this.

      • travtastic

        What a dick!

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KEXDNVTUU7PP6DLKLTQRHH2LDE TIMOTHY

      Don’t send it through the mail

  • suburbanhick

    Always a good policy!

  • planettom

    Yeah, what does DO NOT POST mean?    Don’t video the results of using this smoke grenade and post it to social media?

    maybe it means Do Not Enhance The Effects Of This Smoke Grenade With CGI In Post-Production Of Your Video.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=1118134806 Doc_S

      “Do not post” = “Don’t mail, jackass.”

  • http://twitter.com/neilt0 Neil T

    Clearly photoshopped — there’s no gap between the French and English on the left and there is on the right. The gap on the left has been filled with the joke text.

    • GuyInMilwaukee

       ding ding ding… we have a winner.

      • Calton Bolick

        Why? Surely formatting depends on how much room they had for the text of the first column?

    • corydodt

      No. Why would someone bother to do a glare/focus gradient on such a silly joke? Notice that the text is clearer as you move to the right.

      Not a shop.

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

    I’d really like to see the same warning on a vibrator. 

  • Felton / Moderator

    Hint:  Post Office.

  • http://www.facebook.com/pascalforget Pascal Forget

    I would have been really curious to see the translation of “Don’t be a dick”  in French. Slang insults are always tricky to translate. Maybe « Ne faites pas le con? »

    • Paul Renault

      The French text is ‘CF’ not ‘FR’.  So that’d be « Fais pas le niaiseux, câlisse! »

      • http://www.facebook.com/pascalforget Pascal Forget

        Pensée pour Jessica Paré et son magnifique câlisse dans Mad Men.   ;)

        • Sparg

           ”Zou bisou bisou!”

    • Calton Bolick

      You’re wondering what I’m wondering. I could ask a French friend of mine, but I don’t she’s like that.

      I really really want to see what the product-maker translated it as.

  • Kilteddad

    I had no idea Wil Wheaton had broken out of media into incendiary devices…

  • PhosPhorious

    I’m having a little trouble thinking of non-dick uses for a smoke bomb.

    • swasoir

      Agree.  Unless you’re on a SWAT team what do you need a smoke grenade for?

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Dolores Umbridge?

      • suburbanhick

        We use them all the time for our firefighter training. They aren’t really grenades in the “pull-the-ring-out-and-go-boom” sense. In fact, they don’t explode at all, but just generate a lot of dense black smoke for about 5 minutes. There are machines that do the same thing with an aerosol can of fuel, but they’re expensive and can be fussy to use. The grenades are way cheaper and easier to use, even with bulky firefighter’s gloves on.

      • http://www.facebook.com/aschesiegen Ashwin Raj

        Its used in Paintball 

  • Tyler Riddle

    In the US it’s a violation of Federal law to use that product in a manner inconsistent with it’s labeling. 

  • Navin_Johnson

    Canadian?  Or in French for ex-colonial state’s cops/military to easily understand?

  • http://twitter.com/dargaud Guillaume Dargaud

    I have a story! And it relates to a french smoke grenade too!
    There was a bar where a bunch of workerd had left a box with a label marked “Property of [their group] – Don’t open”, which was OK since people often left extra bags of peanuts or somesuch with their name on it. But they came only about once a week, so after a while people got curious. Finally someone opened the box and triggered the rigged smoke grenade inside, the kind that also makes a big cloud of bright yellow dust… It was in a bar in Antarctica.

    • noah django

       sounds like the pranksters were using that smoke grenade in a manner inconsistent with it’s labeling (see:  “dick” clause.)

  • acidrain69

    They should adopt this label on pepper spray in the US.