Re: Long names are doom ?

[Eric The Read <emschwar@rmi.net>]

"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes:
> When I was in kindergarden, the teacher gave us these sage words of advice:
> "Hot things burn. Sharp things cut." You *expect* coffee to be hot - that's
> the point. If it was cold, you would complain. Through your own
> carelessness, a thing expected to be what it is is actually what it is and
> it does you harm. That is the fault of McDonalds?

I don't know why I expect computer professionals to be more informed
about this sort of thing than the average person (more web-literacy,
maybe?  I don't know...) but you might wish to educate yourself a bit
more on the actual facts of the case.

* McDonald's had paid more than 700 claims of exactly that type at the
  point Ms. Leibeck sued them.  They knew the nature and severity of the
  injuries their coffee had caused.

* Ms Leibeck suffered full-thickness (or third-degree) burns over 6
  percent of her body, and was hospitalized for 8 days, undergoing
  (rather painful, I might editorialize here) skin grafts and debridement 
  treatments.

* McDonald's served their coffee 40 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than
  the industry norm.  The consultant who advocated this to them admitted
  he'd never done any safety analysis of that temperature.

* McDonald's QA manager admitted that company policy required coffee to
  be served at 185 degrees, +/- 5 degrees, and that burning hazards
  existed at temperatures above 140.  He further testified that
  McDonald's knew there was a risk of burns, but wasn't going to do
  anything about it.

* At the temperatures the coffee was served, a full thickness burn of
  human skin will only take about 2 to 7 seconds.  If it had been served
  even at 155 degrees, likely Ms. Liebeck would not have been seriously
  injured.  (A survey of Alberquerque McDonalds' afterward found coffee
  served at an average of 158 degrees.)

* The car Liebeck was in was stopped when she spilled the coffee, and she 
  was not in the driver's seat.

* Leibeck originally sued for only $20,000, roughly her hospital costs.
  The jury awarded her $160k, plus $2.7M for punitive damages, which
  latter award the judge later reduced to a mere $480k (three times
  compensatory damages).

Source: <URL:http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm>

> OTOH, One *expects*
> software to work just like one expects their car to work or their TV to
> work. (O.K. We all know better, but why do we stand for it?) When it doesn't
> do what it is expected to do, we let the manufacturer off the hook - even
> when there are proven methods for making software more reliable and they are
> not followed?

That's the real problem, and the main obstacle, I think, is that nobody
has seriously tried to sue a software manufacturer for providing useless, 
buggy, crap.  At least, not that I'm aware of (corrections welcome).
Until we see consumers start caring about quality, feature creep will win 
the day, I fear.

Followups set to 'poster' for OT content; if you want to reply to the
last para, feel free.

-=Eric
-- 
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
		-- Albert Einstein