Thermometer rant.

[Kit-Ginevra]

....
just keep the oral and rectal ones WELL apart. That is all
....

[Sapphire Silk]

I looked for a regular mercury one, but could only find the long ones for using in beakers. Maybe I'll go to my doctor's office. I looked at the store but couldn't find one. Maybe the drug store.

True mercury thermometers are no longer commercially available. That's because mercury is toxic, and it can absorb into the blood stream through a break in the skin if the glass breaks.

However, "faux" mercury thermometers are readily available everywhere. Wally World or any corner drugstore chain should have them. They're cheap, too.

I was/am so frustrated at the conflicting reviews. I mean, one has thousands of reviews and sits at four starts. Yet some of the recent reviews have titles like "Wildly inaccurate!" and "Beware, scam do not waste your money!" I don't normally read too many reviews, just enough to get a general idea. I couldn't nail these down. They yo-yo wildly between Amazing and Terrible. And these are the $40 ones, not the $5-$10 ones, either. I think there should be a completely separate review section for people who received the product free, and keep the star rating separate as well. That was a surprise, to see how many people were given the product as a promotion.

Agreed reviews are often not useful. If it says "scam" then it's got to have some really detailed discussion of the problems for me to believe it. Otherwise it's just some dumb nitwit who either overpaid or didn't understand how to use it.

[EricKei]

Kinda like how recipe reviews online will have low ratings because the end product came out nothing like described...when the reviewer made random substitutions for half of the ingredients and didn't really follow directions (e.g., "Flour will work just as well as baking soda" or "Add X after the water is boiling? I don't have time for that! (*plops everything in a once*)"

[wolfie]

True mercury thermometers are no longer commercially available. That's because mercury is toxic, and it can absorb into the blood stream through a break in the skin if the glass breaks.

However, "faux" mercury thermometers are readily available everywhere. Wally World or any corner drugstore chain should have them. They're cheap, too.

What liquid is used in "faux" mercury thermometers? It would have to be pretty dense to be able to be shaken past the "expand only" restriction that lets it hold the temperature reading.

[Kogarashi]

Kinda like how recipe reviews online will have low ratings because the end product came out nothing like described...when the reviewer made random substitutions for half of the ingredients and didn't really follow directions

Just as annoying are the ones that give a recipe five stars, with the commentary "This was great! I made all these substitutions to make the recipe better because the original is kind of bland!" Yeah, that's also not honestly rating the original recipe.

[Sapphire Silk]

What liquid is used in "faux" mercury thermometers? It would have to be pretty dense to be able to be shaken past the "expand only" restriction that lets it hold the temperature reading.

I'm actually not sure. It usually has a red or green coloring though.

[wolfie]

Probably alcohol. Didn't think that was dense enough for a shake-down. Do the readings hold until the thermometer is shaken, or do the readings start to drop when you take it out?

[Sapphire Silk]

Probably alcohol. Didn't think that was dense enough for a shake-down. Do the readings hold until the thermometer is shaken, or do the readings start to drop when you take it out?

I think they hold. Not sure. I actually own a mercury thermometer.