6 ms·

It's almost like the author of the above comment (zaroth) didn't read the parent comment. Put another way, bricking is in the eye of the beholder.

by slyrus 7y ago

michaelmrose 7y ago
Technical terms have meaning defined by actual technical usage regardless of common misuse by the less informed. Your entire tower isn't a cpu, a user recoverable device isn't bricked and if tomorrow most people start calling kidneys livers they will still be kidneys. Reducing bricked to a subjective statement about the users ability to use their device robs the term of all utility in the same way as calling a computer a cpu. The author didn't fail to read your words, you are in fact wrong and repeating yourself doesn't make you more correct.
- barbecue_sauce 7y ago
  "Bricked" isn't a technical term; its basically just slang.
  - creato 7y ago
    And from what I've seen, the common usage already includes cases "less bricked" than this bug.
- slyrus 7y ago
  They weren't my words, so I'm not repeating myself. Just agreeing with the point that the term "brick" is subjective. Requiring one to go to heroic measures to render their device useful would make me consider the device "bricked" for all intents and purposes. Folks more technically skilled than I might be able to recover my device, but if I can't get it back, it's all bricked to me. But this is a silly argument.
- scarface74 7y ago
  I bet you also chime in anytime “Serverless” is brought up. See prescriptivist vs descriptivist.
- dang 7y ago
  Please edit acerbic swipes out of your comments here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    I don't think I CAN edit it at this point but I will revisit the guidelines. Do you feel that just the sentence that was problematic then?
    - dang 7y ago
      Yes, I was responding to the one sentence.
      - michaelmrose 7y ago
        Thanks
zaroth 7y ago
“Difficult [for someone] to recover” should not be a partially overlapping state as “bricked”. I had a EdgeMax Lite router which has a propensity for the flash storage to get corrupted at which point it fails to boot. The fix is to buy a particular model of USB flash drive, and image it with a specific .img file. Open the case and replace the flash stick, then boot holding the reset button. It was a somewhat difficult repair, but in the end just a matter of following step-by-step instructions with readily available tools. I would not consider the device to have been bricked. No more than your computer is bricked when your hard drive dies. I did brick an Xbox once, trying to solder on an early gen mod chip that was well beyond my soldering abilities! In this case it’s not even a question of hardware damage. The fix is to reset to factory, upgrade, and restore. This is the happy path recovery process which has done millions of times over on iPhones. I had to do it just a couple weeks ago when my son changed the PIN on an iPhone we use to play music on, and then promptly forgot the new PIN. (He’s 7) With the proposed meaning, everything is a brick to the technologically illiterate. Better to admit the headline is simply sensationalizing / clickbait.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Not a brick if you have to replace a storage device. Is it a brick if you have to replace a motherboard? Would replacing a motherboard not have fixed your xbox? (Surely the commercial availability of a part isn't the deciding factor in whether something is a brick, right?)
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Commercial availability of a part is absolutely a factor in deciding whether something is a brick! I.e. some large expensive machine is bricked because the manufacturer refuses to sell you a small proprietary part without which the machine is entirely non-functional. It’s a fairly frequent pattern where an IoT device becomes a brick because an API shuts down. Similarly, if you can’t replace a crucial part because the manufacturer won’t sell it to you, that would brick a device. If the device is cheaper to replace than to repair, then it is bricked (the Xbox). A brick must be entirely non-functional and simply not worth repairing. It’s supposed to be a less vulgar version of FUBAR. There are rare stories of extraordinary lengths that a maker will go to (such as fabbing your own custom parts, or standing up a private version of an API and DNS hijacking requests from the device in order to make it function again) in order to “un-brick” a device. The defining trait of these stories is that something new is invented in order to make the device function again.
dang 7y ago
Please don't comment on whether someone read a comment. That's informationless point-scoring, and the site guidelines explicitly ask you not to do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's almost like the author of the above comment (zaroth) didn't read the parent comment. Put another way, bricking is in the eye of the beholder.

by slyrus 7y ago

It's almost like the author of the above comment (zaroth) didn't read the parent comment. Put another way, bricking is in the eye of the beholder.

michaelmrose 7y ago

Technical terms have meaning defined by actual technical usage regardless of common misuse by the less informed. Your entire tower isn't a cpu, a user recoverable device isn't bricked and if tomorrow most people start calling kidneys livers they will still be kidneys. Reducing bricked to a subjective statement about the users ability to use their device robs the term of all utility in the same way as calling a computer a cpu. The author didn't fail to read your words, you are in fact wrong and repeating yourself doesn't make you more correct.

barbecue_sauce 7y ago
"Bricked" isn't a technical term; its basically just slang.
- creato 7y ago
  And from what I've seen, the common usage already includes cases "less bricked" than this bug.
slyrus 7y ago
They weren't my words, so I'm not repeating myself. Just agreeing with the point that the term "brick" is subjective. Requiring one to go to heroic measures to render their device useful would make me consider the device "bricked" for all intents and purposes. Folks more technically skilled than I might be able to recover my device, but if I can't get it back, it's all bricked to me. But this is a silly argument.
scarface74 7y ago
I bet you also chime in anytime “Serverless” is brought up. See prescriptivist vs descriptivist.
dang 7y ago
Please edit acerbic swipes out of your comments here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  I don't think I CAN edit it at this point but I will revisit the guidelines. Do you feel that just the sentence that was problematic then?
  - dang 7y ago
    Yes, I was responding to the one sentence.
    - michaelmrose 7y ago
      Thanks

zaroth 7y ago

“Difficult [for someone] to recover” should not be a partially overlapping state as “bricked”. I had a EdgeMax Lite router which has a propensity for the flash storage to get corrupted at which point it fails to boot. The fix is to buy a particular model of USB flash drive, and image it with a specific .img file. Open the case and replace the flash stick, then boot holding the reset button. It was a somewhat difficult repair, but in the end just a matter of following step-by-step instructions with readily available tools. I would not consider the device to have been bricked. No more than your computer is bricked when your hard drive dies. I did brick an Xbox once, trying to solder on an early gen mod chip that was well beyond my soldering abilities! In this case it’s not even a question of hardware damage. The fix is to reset to factory, upgrade, and restore. This is the happy path recovery process which has done millions of times over on iPhones. I had to do it just a couple weeks ago when my son changed the PIN on an iPhone we use to play music on, and then promptly forgot the new PIN. (He’s 7) With the proposed meaning, everything is a brick to the technologically illiterate. Better to admit the headline is simply sensationalizing / clickbait.

Dylan16807 7y ago
Not a brick if you have to replace a storage device. Is it a brick if you have to replace a motherboard? Would replacing a motherboard not have fixed your xbox? (Surely the commercial availability of a part isn't the deciding factor in whether something is a brick, right?)
- zaroth 7y ago
  Commercial availability of a part is absolutely a factor in deciding whether something is a brick! I.e. some large expensive machine is bricked because the manufacturer refuses to sell you a small proprietary part without which the machine is entirely non-functional. It’s a fairly frequent pattern where an IoT device becomes a brick because an API shuts down. Similarly, if you can’t replace a crucial part because the manufacturer won’t sell it to you, that would brick a device. If the device is cheaper to replace than to repair, then it is bricked (the Xbox). A brick must be entirely non-functional and simply not worth repairing. It’s supposed to be a less vulgar version of FUBAR. There are rare stories of extraordinary lengths that a maker will go to (such as fabbing your own custom parts, or standing up a private version of an API and DNS hijacking requests from the device in order to make it function again) in order to “un-brick” a device. The defining trait of these stories is that something new is invented in order to make the device function again.

dang 7y ago

Please don't comment on whether someone read a comment. That's informationless point-scoring, and the site guidelines explicitly ask you not to do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html