Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. 

 What just might be a mildly fun toy to you and me is, for the people who make them, their livelihood. The perhaps overzealous efforts of a government agency to protect consumers might strike you as distasteful, but for those who make the toys, it's not only a war on their profession, it's a war on “Warnings and Consent, Democracy,” and, in this case, “beautiful spherical magnets.” 
 
 Such is the manifesto of the last remaining maker of what are popularly known as Buckyballs. Posted today, months after the Buckyballs brand gave up the ghost and the day after Magnicubes did the same, Zen Magnets has now proclaimed its intentions to fight for the right to make and sell tiny spherical magnets “until the end.” The founder of the Denver-based company, Shihan Qu, posted a strongly worded letter, wherein he vowed “to continue this legal, awareness, and lobbying battle, until our very last drop of cash-flow blood.” 
 
 For a brief moment starting in 2009, the Buckminster Fuller-inspired magnet sets were THE museum gift shop gift. Shapes, chains, and (my specialty) a wad of magnets, could all be built with the sets. They were pretty frustrating, gotta line up those polarities just so, but very futuristic and cool. There was an almost therapeutic quality to playing with them—the sound, the shine, the attention. 
 
 But then the Consumer Product Safety Commission came in to grab Americans by their magnetic sphere sets. Citing dozens of cases of multiple magnetic balls being swallowed and pinching people right in the guts, the CPSC called for a ball recall, leading to the Buckyball company being dissolved in the fall 2012, and a website was set up to facilitate refunds for all. 
 
 Appalled, Zen Magnets tapped its resolve, and yesterday called for this problem to be solved in court in December. Their statement is dramatically worded, no doubt, but reading it, I came to see their point of view. 
 
 Image: Rod Herrea/Flickr 
 
 Their argument is basically: Buckyballs aren't inherently dangerous—not that being inherently dangerous makes a product unsellable. They can be misused, which is why the manufacturer is willing to put warnings on them, but the educational and aesthetic merits of the magnets more than justify the risk, given that, there really isn't one. 
 
 They have a point. There are plenty of things sold that children shouldn't put in their mouths. The CPSC itself has pointed out how personal and home cleaning products poison millions each year, but hasn't called for a ban on them. And Zen Magnets is the first company to get an administrative complaint from the CPSC without any recorded injuries. Why are Buckyballs getting singled out—and why Zen Magnets? 
 
 “There is absolutely no replacement or substitute for magnet spheres, nothing has the same dynamic tactile abilities that magnet spheres do,” the manifesto states. “We can sleep without regret, knowing that as the last company standing, Zen Magnets fought for what was right.” 
 
 It's a principled stand, alright. Do they have a stake in not letting magnets be banned? Well, sure. But is the CPSC acting out of line? That's what the hearing will decide. 
 
 One thing's for sure. “We will combat the CPSC’s magnet prohibition until triumph, or until a glorious death of insolvency on the legal battlefield. At the very least, we’ll have one more holiday season of availability.” 
 
 The letter ends with the popular saying “Magnets must be respected but need not be feared.” The same, it seems, shouldn't be said for the heads of magnet companies. 

 Annaka Chaffin died last August after swallowing seven tiny magnetic balls from a necklace her brothers brought home from school. (Photo: Family photo) 
 
 Federal regulators said for the first time Wednesday that a child died last year and about 7,700 children have visited emergency rooms after swallowing small, high-powered magnets like those found in popular desk toys. 
 
 The Consumer Product Safety Commission's staff announced the deaths and ingestions in a proposed final rule it sent to the full commission. It would ban the type of high-powered magnets made popular by Buckyballs, which were recalled in July. The full commission is expected to vote on the rule later this month. 
 
 Magnets would be allowed only if they were large enough to not fit through a cylinder used to test choking hazards. Buckyballs founder Craig Zucker, who dissolved the Buckyballs company in December 2012, has a new company called United We Ball, which is believed to have the only magnetic product that would be allowed under the rule. 
 
 Zucker declined to comment. 
 
 Annaka Chaffin was 19 months old last August when she swallowed seven small magnetic balls from a necklace her brothers brought home from school. Her mother, Amber Chaffin, said in an interview that she doesn't know what brand the product was. 
 
 According to the final rule, Annaka was found unresponsive with blood coming from her mouth and nose. She was pronounced dead at the same children's hospital where she had been treated and released the previous day. Doctors said she most likely had a virus. 
 
 An autopsy revealed magnets in the small intestine of the child. The cause of death was determined to be "ischemic bowel." The magnets became attached to one another, which perforated her bowel and caused it to become septic, Chaffin says. 
 
 "This case illustrates how difficult it is to diagnose the injuries associated with ingested magnets: the symptoms seemed to indicate a common stomach ailment or poisoning," says the CPSC staff report. 
 
 Chaffin says she hopes parents will make sure any small magnets are nowhere where small children could reach them, as she says watching your children is not enough. She is still not sure how her daughter got ahold of them. 
 
 "My biggest fear when I lost her is that it happened for nothing," says Chaffin. "I hope when they see them now they'll think of my daughter." 
 
 For more information on magnet safety go to cpsc.gov. If you have Buckyballs or Magnicubes, to request refunds go to Buckyballsrecall.com or Magnicube.com. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1rNgNHd
– The small rare-earth magnets best known as "Buckyballs" are too dangerous to young children to remain on the market, staff at the Consumer Product Safety Commission have decided. Regulators—who vote on a recommendation to ban the desk-toy magnets later this month unless they're large enough to not be considered a choking hazard—have revealed that some 7,700 emergency room visits have been caused by children swallowing the powerful magnets, and they caused the horrific death of a 19-month-old girl last year, USA Today reports. Annaka Chaffin swallowed seven magnets from a necklace and died when they attached to each other inside her, perforating her bowel. Doctors first believed a virus was making Annaka unwell, but she died the day after a hospital visit after being found with blood coming from her nose and mouth. An autopsy found the magnets. "This case illustrates how difficult it is to diagnose the injuries associated with ingested magnets: The symptoms seemed to indicate a common stomach ailment or poisoning," the CPSC says. The founder of Buckyballs dissolved the company in 2012—after slamming a recall as "government gone absurd"—and now sells larger "Liberty Balls" that regulators consider less dangerous. According to Vice, the founder of Zen Magnets, which still sells the smaller magnets, said last month that he plans to battle "the CPSC's magnet prohibition until triumph, or until a glorious death of insolvency on the legal battlefield." (The deaths of two kids recently prompted a massive bean bag chair recall.)