This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Thousands of walkie-talkies suspected of being used by Hezbollah members have just exploded across Lebanon. These devices use a different supply chain than the pagers that detonated in yesterday’s attack. It appears these walkie-talkies, being larger, carry a significantly larger payload. Hundreds reported wounded. Edit: some early indications iPhones are detonating as well
Wtf. Assumed this was a joke in the friday fun thread or something. It actually happened.
Can't believe they didn't check inside their other equipment after the pagers thing.
What would you check for? I’m pretty electronics literate (simple PCB designs, simple circuit designs, lots of IC use) and I’d have no idea what I was even looking for.
If it is true that the explosives were inside the batteries, then there is nothing to see. It would look normal inside.
You could cut apart the battery and compare it to similar batteries. Or blow it up with a sympathetic explosion to see if it has explosives.
Is the theory that batteries were augmented with explosive or are these explosions from thermal runaway of regular lithium batteries? Even a regular lithium fire can be quite explosive if triggered in an enclosed vessel.
In either case shouldn't there be some trace in the battery management system firmware?
In the case where the batteries are internationally being sent into thermal runaway, this must be commanded by the device or BMS firmware. Shouldn't you be able to dump the firmware out and check it's hash against an uncompromised version?
In the other case that the batteries have been augmented with additional explosives, shouldn't the BMS see that the battery has always been under rated capacity. Or in the case where the BMS was set to miss-report capacity, that you should be able to detect it as in the first case.
100% this was explosive charges in batteries. Funny they didn't notice the batteries had a low capacity somehow.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link