On Tue, Jan 02, 2007 at 08:22:21AM -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote: > On Tue, 2 Jan 2007, Theodore Tso wrote: > > > I can very easily believe it. The US patent system and "justice" > > system in the US is completely and totally insane, and companies > > often feel they have to act accordingly. Remember this is the > > country that has issued multi-million dollar awards to people who > > spill hot coffee in their lap ... > > MASSIVELY OFF TOPIC: can we please stop using this "hot coffee in > lap" story as an example of the idiocy of the justice system? i'm > guessing there's more to this story than most folks are aware of, and > you're welcome to read the details here: > > http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm > > as you can see, there are two salient points that change the > complexion of this story thoroughly: > > 1) mcdonald's was not merely serving their coffee "hot," but > *scalding* hot (180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit), a temperature that > will produce third-degree burns almost immediately, and
That's less than 90°C. Water boils at 100°C. How the hell do people expect coffee to be made without boiling water? Magic? > 2) there had, for a decade prior, been some *700* cases where people > had burned themselves with mcdonald's coffee, so it's not as if > mcdonald's was unaware of the danger, yet continued to ignore it. No, the customers continued to prove to be total morons by total ignorance of the fact that coffee *is* hot when fresh. If they cannot handle hot coffee, they can order ice coffee or ask for a refill of their cola. [snip] Regards: David -- /) David Weinehall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> /) Northern lights wander (\ // Maintainer of the v2.0 kernel // Dance across the winter sky // \) http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/ (/ Full colour fire (/ - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
