I see these things everywhere, but especially packed inside electronic components. They’re silica gel, used as a desiccant to keep things dry. Every one of them I’ve ever seen has “DO NOT EAT” printed on them.
Now, I have to ask: why? Is this really a problem? Are there really people who say,
“Look, Buford, those nice people at newegg.com packed a little snack in with each of those 500G byte Western Digital disk drives we bought for the home theater PC build! I’m a little hungry, so I believe I’m going to have one. You want one, too? I’ve got plenty …”
Probably not.
I’m sure the warning exists because of one of my favorite rules in life: “If you see something that doesn’t make any sense at all, there was probably a lawyer involved.” Someone, somewhere ate one of these, got sick, sued someone else, and won a lot of money. So now we have “DO NOT EAT” printed on all of them.
Oddly enough, my point is not that there are too many lawyers in America (that’s a whole ‘nother topic), but that there are people dumb enough to eat this stuff when it’s obviously not intended as food. Maybe a lot of them. Question: should people for whom this is a real temptation be allowed to vote?