Originally published at: A hilarious commercial for the questionable "Billy Mays' Safety Beep" | Boing Boing
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I don’t get it. Seems like a cool product. Not sure how it might work, though. Do I have to add a transponder to my gearbox?
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Looks like it’s a light sensor that’s activated by the car’s backup lights when shifted into reverse. Probably why it needs to applied to the light itself.
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Ah, yess. Simple and brilliant. Thanks.
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It detects the white light from your reversing lamps: Automotive lighting - Wikipedia
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That’s pretty much what Billy shouts at roughly 18 seconds in
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I do like the implicit confidence that people who don’t pay attention to their crowded driveway full of kids playing basketball while backing up also have functioning reverse light bulbs.
Wonder how long the batteries lasted on a Safety Beep?
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Gotta be honest, this is kind of a clever idea.
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They’ll last all the way up to the next car wash when this thing is knocked off by the brushes forcing you to buy another one.
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Well, there are companies that make retrofit kits that replace one of the backup lights with a light and a beeper module, although reviews are all over the place with them as far as how well they work.
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I do not think the Safety Beep was one of Billy Mays best offers. Billy Mays was amazing, however.
Which ends up making the Safety Beep pretty good, at least.
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Mythbusters (I think) did an experiment on beepers vs. white noise maker but I can’t find any trace of it on YouTube.
It involved people throwing stuff at Tory Belecci and the result of the experiment was very clearly in favour of white noise.
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Possibly this netflix programme, though I’m not subscribed to netflix and can’t check.
Hosts Kari Byron, Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara appeared on “MythBusters,” which was nominated for eight Emmy Awards.
Tech We Love to Hate
49m
Kari, Tory and Grant brave the world of irritating gadgets, from poorly timed traffic lights to things that go beep in the night.
I think backup beepers are infuriatingly irritating. I wish Tom Scotts vision of the less irritating present somehow extended into the United States.
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I was confused at first when the Billy Mays video wasn’t from Jaboody Dubs.
I have a soft spot for TV infomercials (or maybe my brain just developed a soft spot from watching them stoned late at night) so I sure loved watching Ron Popeil cook in his countertop rotisserie grill in front of a live audience (god help me), but I always wanted to tell Billy Mays to stop yelling.
Did SNL ever do a skit with him at home? “HI KIDS, HI HONEY, I HAD A GREAT DAY AT WORK, HEY DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE HENDERSONS DOWN THE STREET? THEIR DOG HAD PUPPIES!”
(family all puts in earplugs as soon as he walks in.)
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My favorite late-night infomercial was Joseph Cossman’s get-rich course. Cossman told stories about his days pushing Spud Guns and Ant Farms. Once upon as time I heard several of the tapes from his series and enjoyed the heck out of them. Cossman didn’t come across as a cynical huckster (though maybe he was, I don’t know). He seemed more of a true believer in the old “work hard, work smart, get rich” ethic. His system was basically old-fashioned promote-promote-promote, with emphasis on trade shows (don’t forget the babes to demonstrate the product!). Most of the mechanisms he championed are obsolete now, but “promote-promote-promote” lives on in the digital age. Usually without the burden of fairness and a certain sense of duty that Cossman suggested in his talks.
Good ol’ Billy Mays. Rest in OxyClean™.
