> They were bog standard D batteries:

I'm well aware. How is a bomb squad member supposed to know this, while looking at it stuck to the side of a bridge I-beam, wrapped in layers of black plastic? Bombs are often designed to blow up when disturbed, in hopes of injuring or killing a member of the bomb squad.

I'd like to see you work a bomb squad and see how brave you are when you come across a package with some long cylinders wrapped in black plastic and wires sticking out, and how you feel when some smarmy programmer tells you "HAHA YOU'RE SO STUPID IT WAS JUST BATTERIES" after the fact.

> This has literally nothing to do with anything.

Yeah, it does. It shows that Boston police thinking the city might be a target of bombers wasn't so absurd and paranoid after all, and that appearance (the bombs were in cooking pots) means nothing.