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by socceroos 4400 days ago
My thoughts exactly. Poor fella.

I've seen worse though. A newish officer spilled his morning coffee into the circuitry of a device worth over 10 zeros. Immediately short circuited.

9 comments

Wow. Did this gold-plated B-2 bomber still fly after the coffee incident?
You know you could build five space shuttles with ten zeros, right? Are we talking dollars or Yen?
Must be counting the two after the decimal point. =)
Why are you using a throwaway account? Ohh, I just saw the "dollars or Yen" remark. TIL we use throwaway accounts for the times we feel like being assholes, so the non-elites can't track it back to our physical neuroprocessors.
I'm not sure why I'm dignifying this Reddit drivel with a response, but my karma and account age should be your hint that you're barking up the wrong tree.
"check my previous responses and my credit score for how you should treat me" ohh what an old-man response. It's too bad the Imgur "downvote everything they ever posted" script doesn't work here on HN, now isn't it?

My account's karma and history exceed your account's on this site, and even worse, this individual comment bears more value than yours! Ooh burn!

Haha, this is a pretty spectacular amount of cognitive dissonance you're demonstrating here.

Let's post-mortem this lunacy:

1) You misinterpret jsmthrowaway's initial comment as vaguely racist (or something), notice the word "throwaway" in his user name and get really excited that you can stand on your high horse and call him out for hiding behind the shield of internet anonymity when he wants to be a (you think) racist idiot. Even though his comment is a legitimate currency conversion remark. See: https://www.google.com/search?q=1+usd+in+yen

2) He explains that clearly you're mistaken (which, really, seriously, what a kneejerk response from someone who just wanted to show how clever they were, calling out an "asshole") and further explains his account isn't even a "throwaway" in the traditional, trolly sense of the word, citing his account age and the fact that he regularly actively posts to the account.

3) You, caught perhaps in a moment of clarity, though I think I give you too much credit here, realize you were too eager to pounce on the "asshole" for his "Yen" remark, and perhaps you misread it. Your latent erection fading, you counter by explaining that your history and karma are even _more_ impressive, somehow completely avoiding taking responsibility for a completely nonsensical leap in logic and accusation of wrongdoing, while doubling down on your cognitive dissonance.

4) The Aristocrats!

It seems he has a bit of misplaced sensitivity when it comes to the Japanese: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7555232
I was wildly drunk when posting this. I didn't remember doing so until I checked HN just now.
Uh, you just called him out for using a throwaway account, now age and experience means nothing? Go away, troll!
if something worth over 10 zeroes can be destroyed with a coffee spill, i would say it had it coming
As a one-time newish officer who used to be in charge of things with many zeroes, I'd be inclined to agree.
How many non-zero integers were in the price of the device, though? My computer is also worth more than 10 zeros.
Please keep in mind that "price" means "how many dollars other humans are willing to trade for it right now"; not necessarily any concrete evaluation of the device's functionality compared to a human competitor or human operator...
DOWNVOTE FOR TRUTH
...then there was the new server room that was built with one of the 'big red buttons' conveniently placed behind the pull cord for the lights.

Why, yes...a couple of times...before a perspex arch was less-than-hastily fixed over the button..

Seems like not allowing food or drink near a device worth over 10 zeroes would be a no-brainer, but hindsight is tricky like that.
That sounds so awful. I can't imagine living the rest of my life knowing that I had been a net negative in the world. All of my life's earnings would just be a partial restitution of that one second of destruction.
If you have an EXTREMELY reductive point of view, that equates revenue with human worth.
supposedly 0.0000000001 billions of $

shit happens, design for the worst.

"If you reach for a star, and come up with a handful of mud..."
really? what can cost that much ?
The USS Gerald Ford cost 12.8 billion to construct + 4.7 billion in R&D ... I think we would have heard if it had been destroyed by a cup of coffee.
... And be utterly destroyed by a single cup of coffee?
A quantum computer.