Disturbing image hidden in a toy purchased at dollar store

I think I saw another article where someone bought about a dozen and got a bunch of different weird pictures inside. The cutting-demon-chick was the weirdest, though.

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No, thanks for the story and the pics. As Mark didn’t provide the video link in the article, and the embed wouldn’t play at original speed in my mobile browser, I am really happy and thankful for your comment.

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You beat me to it.

That badge could have been yours!

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In all fairness to the chain stores – and I can’t believe I’m coming to their defense – this happened at an independent one-off dollar store. In my experience, the independents have unbelievably crappier crap than the chain stores. I have to believe that the chains’ corporate layer might have prevented this sort of fuck-up. And I say this as someone who fuckin’ hates the Dollar Tree. Yet I keep being sent on errands there.

I have a niece and nephew who used to watch Dragon Tales. A lot. That was about 15 years ago but the theme song stuck in my head. Recently, it has morphed into the following little ditty, which I loudly sing whenever my better half dispatches me on an errand to the Dollar Tree:

♬ Dollar Tree, Dollar Tree ♬
♬ Drink my pee at Dollar Tree ♬
♬ If you wish to drink my pee you will find me at Dollar Tree ♬

♬ Dollar Trap, Dollar Trap ♬
♬ Imported crap at Dollar Trap ♬
etc.

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And all of the customers will be Goths . . .

the proper term is ‘Sister Woman’ . . .

Myself, I blame the Chinese sense of humor.

Why is everyone so anti Dollar Tree, etc.? I often go to Dollar Tree stores in the Raleigh area when I am on business in the US because they are the cheapest place to get USB cables, USB chargers, clips to close bags of crisps, etc. I don’t feel compelled to buy stuff that isn’t worth buying though; like any other shop they sell some things that are worth buying and some that are not. If it doesn’t suit you then just don’t go there.

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I’ve never seen these things at my local store(s).

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Really? I get all my Abble gear form the local dollar store. People complain about Apple’s markup all the time, but the real profiteers are the UL gangsters

If all you care about is cosmetics, sure, pay the markup. But whenever I see this, I’m reminded of how much money I saved. It’s a real mark of distinction

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I’ve purchased charging/usb cables from my local dollar store (Dollarama) as well, but I’ve noticed the quality dropping quite a bit lately. Cables falling apart with very gentle usage after only a month or two. And for lightning cables, in particular, they can be really hit or miss. And of course, there’s also this:

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I maintain the office cookie jar. I go to Dollar Tree every month or so to stock up on the wide variety of cookies my co-workers have come to expect.

Also good for cheap tableware, greeting cards, and the like. I recently picked up a set of cake / pie servers (for group birthday cakes), because the ones in the break room drawer keep disappearing.

That said, it is still great fun to mock the over-the-top cheesy items you find in their toy aisles.

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Quality was never their strong point …cheap and quantity is what they are after

What part of EVIL STICK did you not understand?

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From their article;
“Inside the wall adapter for your device is a 170 volt charge”.
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the American grid 110 volts?
Also;
“lack of voltage filtering”
Now on the counterfeit I can see the bridge-rectifier diodes (I presume what he’s referring to as flyback transformers), high and low frequency capacitors and a regulator at the top. All the prerequisites for ‘voltage filtering’.
I’m not saying it’s not a crappy product, just that the nebulous article is pointless as a critique, as it has no actual specifics other than a noiseprint.

Doh! I WAS READING IT SDRAWKCAB!

The 110V is the RMS value. The 170V is the peak value that’s usually what’s on the filtering capacitor after the input rectifiers. (Okay, it is 155V for 110V or 162 for 115, but let’s say 170 is in the ballpark.)

Make it “insufficient voltage filtering” then. The filtering uses too small capacitors and has other compromises, and the control loop that should keep the output voltage constant within the power consumption range is not working as well as it should be, whether in reaction speed (which ties to the small output caps that make it yet worse) or in response to higher loads.

There are more detailed articles of the same kind, I may look up the one I remember sometime later if you ask.
Edit: And I stumbled over it, so here it is!

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That’s the sort of article that should have been written, unlike the half-assed one I was referring to.

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