Improving Balls

How can balls be improve.Balls have been around for a long time, and they haven't been changed. They're round,and except for football, they roll. I am positive there is room for improvement, but I can't think of one.

 

Make them from brass?

 

A vasectomy is a decided improvement for some...it relieves a lot of anxiety for all concerned, and minimises future drains on the public purse.

 

A discussion of balls is incomplete without Pete Schweddy

 

hard to improve upon an Uzi's balls

 

I hear, keeping them well polished helps....

 

The "nanny state" would like to have Bucky Balls banned . . . thus, cheating kids out of new horizons. Way to go nanny state!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/business/maker-of-buckyballs-says-it-will-stop-selling-them.html?_r=0

Safety Worry Leads to End of a Popular Toy Magnet


By ANDREW MARTIN


Published: December 17, 2012



The maker of the magnetic toys called Buckyballs announced on Monday that it would stop selling them this week because of a legal and public relations dispute with federal regulators.

In a statement, the company, Maxfield & Oberton Holdings, said the decision was caused by a “long-running and costly legal dispute” with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which said that Buckyballs and similar products made from rare-earth magnets were dangerous because children have been severely injured after swallowing them.
In July, the safety commission took the relatively rare step of filing an administrative complaint against Maxfield & Oberton, demanding that the company stop making the product, warn consumers that Buckyballs are dangerous and offer them a refund. Eleven other manufacturers voluntarily recalled their products and halted production.
“Given the precedent-setting legal case before us and the continued badgering by the C.P.S.C., Buckyballs will go the way of Crystal Pepsi and the DeLorean,” Craig Zucker, the company’s chief executive and founder, said in a statement.
Buckyballs’ Web site has a clock ticking off the seconds until the time sales are shut down on Thursday, an event called the Buckypocalypse.
Buckyballs’ problems are not confined to federal regulators. The estate of the inventor Buckminster Fuller, for whom the toys are named, has filed a lawsuit against the company in California federal court for misappropriating his name.
On Nov. 5, Maxfield & Oberton was dealt a setback when the judge in the case, Lucy H. Koh, denied its motion to dismiss the case. The attorney for Mr. Fuller’s estate could not be reached for comment.
In an interview, Mr. Zucker described the Fuller lawsuit as frivolous but said that it nonetheless was another challenge for his small company. The company had seven employees and 150 sales representatives in the summer; by the end of the week, it will have just one employee, he said.
The decision to stop sales ends what had been a story of entrepreneurial success by two friends from Brooklyn, who came up with the idea of marketing rare-earth magnets as Buckyballs in 2009. The magnets, which come in a variety of sizes, can be linked into a seemingly endless number of shapes and designs; they were an instant hit.
But the safety commission said children were swallowing the powerful magnets, which can attract each other in the intestines and cause blockages or tears. The commission estimated that there were 1,700 instances a year over the last three years in which rare-earth magnets had been swallowed and had prompted an emergency room visit.
Mr. Zucker maintained that Buckyballs had been marketed to adults and that the packaging had been covered with safety warnings. But in deciding to file an administrative complaint, the commission said the warnings simply had not been enough to prevent children from swallowing the magnets.
Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the safety commission, said the complaint against Maxfield & Oberton continued because the company had not yet agreed to recall its products and refund its customers.
The agency is also pursuing similar claims against two other companies, Zen Magnets of Denver and Star Networks USA of Fairfield, N.J., which sells Magnicube Magnet Balls and Magnet Cubes. Star Networks had agreed to stop selling its products but reversed its decision, Mr. Wolfson said.
Company officials could not be reached for comment.
Shihan Qu, founder of Zen Magnets, said the company was considering selling the magnets individually, rather than in packs of a few dozen, as a possible way to avoid a clampdown by federal regulators.
“Banning magnets is ridiculous,” he said in an e-mail. “Magnets work exactly as they should, and are only dangerous if misused.”

 

So, are you French? Or, is that le crosse?

Cricket balls are round.

 

le crosse is american indian.

 

yet, not a cock either.