On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Phillip Partipilo <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Yikes. Be *very* careful, here. You can only look at a laser twice.
>
> They can't possibly be very powerful.. Are they?
It depends. The lasers used for single-mode LX fiber can blind you.
Multimode, I'm not sure. I wouldn't take the risk.
> Or maybe just a class II laser ...
Class II lasers can still cause eye damage if you override your
blink reflex -- for example, by staring into the end of a fiber cable.
It's not like it's gonna make your eyeball explode. This isn't
Hollywood. But it can still damage your vision. You probably won't
even feel a thing.
In high school, I damaged my skin just by holding one of those
"light pens" used in a library barcoding system against the back of my
hand for a few seconds. I got a rather scary looking
brown-black-purple blemish that lasted for several weeks. Now imagine
if that was your retina.
Those yellow warning labels aren't there for show.
-- Ben
~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
