"But this helped before..." (was Re: EMERGENCY PROBLEM: Starting filePro)

[Brian K. White]

On 3/1/2011 1:10 PM, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> On 3/1/2011 12:48 PM, Brian K. White wrote:
>> Never ever use any kind of eraser on electrical contacts!
>>
>> Bad advice is worse than no advice.
>>
>> "I'm just trying to help" is absolutely no argument or excuse.
>> It may sound virtuous and therefore undeserving of a harsh reaction like
>> this, but "I'm just trying to help" reduce the number of people who not
>> only unwittingly damage their own things, but go on to forward the
>> recommendation to yet more people to damage their things.
>
> On the other hand, it can be amusing at times.
>
> The kids have several Nintendo DSi's, with built-in WiFi. Apparently,
> some time ago, one of them was having trouble connecting to our router.
> I don't know if it was a real problem (the house was built in the
> 1800's, apparently without WiFi in mind), or if it was just taking its
> time to sync, but whoever it was started to wave the DSi around in the
> air, at which time it successfully connected. Now, whenever it doesn't
> connect right away, the kids all start waving it around in the air (like
> trying to get a better picture by moving the rabbit ears around) until
> it connects.
>
> And, of course, the positive feedback loop says "doing this works".
>

hehe Like the old days, everyone I knew always blew on the 
atari/nintendo/sega cartridges when the connection was glitchy.
Probably one time in a million there actually was any dust in there and 
blowing on it made any difference. The rest of the times the carts are 
used so often no dust accumulates, and merely re-seating, or even barely 
wiggling the cart, or even merely power-cycling it, is the only thing 
that's having any effect. (And it was probably NO accident that the 
carts for all those game systems were designed such that you couldn't 
get a pencil eraser in there to destroy the contacts with.)

I was going to add some stuff about the effects being removed from the 
cause, and exemplify that with "but gee, using the cocain worked, I felt 
much better..." but decided for once to keep it shorter, but then, 
simply saying "do/don't do this" without saying why is essentially 
pointless, then you're just anoth schmuk with an opinion on the internet 
so why listen to that over your own "experience" ?

-- 
bkw