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Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

Granted there's no formal definition of "bricked" it usually means a hardware requirement to restore functionality.

I'd like to keep it this way even to the general lay person. Because if you need hardware the barrier to entry goes up significantly.

Agreed that 'bricked' is not the right term here.

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I consider bricked to be anything you need specialized tools for. So JTAG-fiddly-stuff-required would be bricked, but if I can get the thing working by moving some jumpers or entering some advanced recovery mode while reading about it on the internet, that's not bricked. It's also bricked if you have to replace hardware, like if you have to replace a chip or a board.

I agree. From the modding days bricked always ment hardware hack was required.. I have the same gripe about how the word is used now. Glad to see it’s not just me

The informal definition I’ve always seen is, it’s about as useful as a brick until you physically open up the case and fix it one way or another.

A good definition of bricked is "software update rendered the computer unusable for the user".

Indeed. Or two be even more precise, renders the computer functionally equivalent to a brick.

I think the caused-by-software part is key.

The Sonos "recycle mode" bricks the device. If same effect is produced by a bad capacitor (rather than a deliberately-blown efuse), it's just broken.

> Granted there's no formal definition of "bricked" it usually means a hardware requirement to restore functionality.

From Dictionary.app that comes standard with the Mac: "a smartphone or other electronic device that has completely ceased to function"

Dictionary definitions are not formal definitions, they are attempts to capture usage. And they are almost invariably approximations except when explicitly specifying otherwise, and outside of the the more lavish of the unabridged dictionaries are also almost in invariably simplified, both in the number of definitions of any term presented and often the individual definitions, for brevity at the expense of accuracy.

> Dictionary definitions are not formal definitions, they are attempts to capture usage.

But because they're "captured usage", they're generally what people would understand by the term.

Yes, but to use a term in a technically relevant way, it needs to be tied to reality; if not, it's just marketing jargon or pseudo-tech speak. The best technical definition for this case is not by how it is most commonly understood, but how it most commonly applies. Dragonwriter makes a compelling case in that it is most commonly true that a user won't have access to the specialized hardware required to "unbrick" the device.

Case in point: "literally" meaning both literally and metaphorically

Soon, we'll only be able to communicate with "likes" and "upvotes" because words will have lost all meaning.

I disagree with that analysis, incidentally.

"Literally" is often used when the subject is metaphorical, but that's not the same thing as it meaning "metaphorically". If you took the "literally" away, it would still be understood to be metaphorical - the "literally" is intended to strengthen. It's the normal sense of literally, used hyperbolically.

In the same way, when someone says "you left me waiting for days" we don't say that "days" sometimes means tens of minutes.

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