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Sheet metal screws would be better than bolts at hanging drywall. They still wouldn't be good at it because that's not what they're for, but they at least have

by imgabe 10y ago

Sheet metal screws would be better than bolts at hanging drywall. They still wouldn't be good at it because that's not what they're for, but they at least have a pointed tip that can dig into the drywall and penetrate it compared to a bolt with a flat tip that is going nowhere without a pre-drilled hole. Personal taste and dialect are all well and good, but when Screwco sues the US government to say they shouldn't have to pay the screw tariff, because they're actually importing bolts not screws, the government lawyer can't stand in court and say "Well, your honor, we think it's our personal taste to call these things screws and those things bolts because that's just what we think and it's common sense, everyone knows it." The government has a much stronger argument if they can say "See we published this document which specifically defines what we consider a screw and what we consider a bolt and as you can see this object has the physical characteristics of what we call a screw, so Mr. Screwco does in fact have to pay the screw tariff." Personal taste is not generally a legally defensible position, which is what I'm assuming the purpose of this document is, not a philosophical treatise on the existential nature of screws vs. bolts.

mindslight 10y ago
Actually I just walked over to my drawers and the first sheet metal screws I found would be decent drywall screws (flat heads and everything), except for the presumed increased cost. For machine bolts, I was picturing long 4-40 ones, hammered into the stud to get started. This seems like it would work as well, just even less efficient cost wise for a longer body to compensate for the shallower thread. But anyway back to the argument There apparently was this case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12341278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12341278 . But the items described sound like canonical bolts! Apparently the company turning their head when installing them legally changes that. So now we've got a legal definition that is abruptly different from how most anybody actually skilled in the art would classify them if actually forced to choose exclusively between the terms "screw" and "bolt". My point is that perhaps if terms are so close to be generally interchangeable in common usage, then perhaps the legal system shouldn't be trying to differentiate between them at all! It's a code smell of being at the limit of understanding. The government should only be creating general rules that are straightforwardly interpretable by the average person, not attempting to catalog and dictate every minute domain aspect top-down.

by imgabe 10y ago

mindslight 10y ago

Actually I just walked over to my drawers and the first sheet metal screws I found would be decent drywall screws (flat heads and everything), except for the presumed increased cost. For machine bolts, I was picturing long 4-40 ones, hammered into the stud to get started. This seems like it would work as well, just even less efficient cost wise for a longer body to compensate for the shallower thread. But anyway back to the argument There apparently was this case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12341278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12341278 . But the items described sound like canonical bolts! Apparently the company turning their head when installing them legally changes that. So now we've got a legal definition that is abruptly different from how most anybody actually skilled in the art would classify them if actually forced to choose exclusively between the terms "screw" and "bolt". My point is that perhaps if terms are so close to be generally interchangeable in common usage, then perhaps the legal system shouldn't be trying to differentiate between them at all! It's a code smell of being at the limit of understanding. The government should only be creating general rules that are straightforwardly interpretable by the average person, not attempting to catalog and dictate every minute domain aspect top-down.