Fair use is a tricker concept than you give it credit for. While your understanding is generally accepted in the US, it's not ironclad, and my recollection (no, I don't have any cites) is that there are certain European countries where this is explicitly not fair use, so that you need a license in order to legally use computer software.
Note that I never said this theory was particularly good, but it's a theory that is sometimes held.
I believe you mean a caveat. A cravat is a sort of primordial necktie.
In any case, I must disagree with your stance that it would be acceptable to be bound by an EULA printed on the exterior of a box. This kind of automatic contract acceptance opens the door to far too much abuse. The acceptance of a contract needs to be a fairly obvious and heavyweight process so that both parties know, or at least have the obvious opportunity to know, exactly what they're getting into.
Contract law is pretty specific on this. For example, you can't have a valid contract without consideration, that is without both sides getting some sort of value out of the deal. You can't just unilaterally state "by doing X you hereby agree to Y" and then have Y be legally enforced.
For a more specific example, consider contract negotiations. Let's say we sit down with a contract and I disagree with a clause. I can cross it out or reword it on the spot and initial it. If you agree to the change, you can also initial it and then the modification becomes part of the binding contract. Now let's do this with a hypothetical back-of-the-box EULA. Before I purchase, I get out my pen and cross out all the clauses I dislike, and initial the changes. The software company has no representatives there, so they can't agree to the changes. What should happen here, if this were a real contract, is that I would no longer be allowed to purchase the product. What will actually happen is that the store will take my money and I will depart with my product in hand. Then what happens? The "contract" will either be null and void, or the software company will be bound to a contract they never saw and never agreed to.
You will notice that when software companies actually care about their customers following the terms of a contract, such as limits on the number of seats in a site-licensing deal or limitations on use in exchange for volume discounts, or other such things, they actually sit down with the customer and make out a real contract.
Your comparison with software development packages is interesting but faulty. These packages often produce code which incorporates some of the manufacturer's software, such as runtime libraries, thus they get to have a say in how you distribute the results. Handheld devices are even worse, as they frequently require distributed code to be signed by the manufacturer and thus they are free to put any terms they feel like on the signing. None of this applies to "normal" software, where the user does not distribute derivative works of that software.
With the exception of military enlistments, which tend to be binding no matter what, my understanding is that it's perfectly legal to enter into a contract with a minor, but the contract is not binding upon the minor in any way. So it's kind of a dumb thing to do, since it still binds you, but it's not illegal.
Sure, that's fine. If the software company wants to make these licenses into actual contracts then they can do that and I'll start respecting them. In order to do this, all they need to do is have the contract printed out so that I can read it in the store before I buy the program. Then they need to run through it with me and accept or reject any proposed changes I have. Then once we come to an agreement about the content of the contract, I'll hand over the money and we'll each get a copy of the contract signed by both parties.
They don't do it this way, though. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to sell their software as if it were a regular product, and also attach restrictions to how it's used. Well guess what, you don't get to do that. This kind of after the fact "by opening this box you agree to X" license is not actually legally enforceable. The license is not a right to use, you got that right to use when you purchased the product. The license pretends to be a right to use, with a whole bunch of restrictions, but the fact is that you don't need a license to legally use the program and you can't just implicitly agree to its terms simply by starting to use the program.
Notice that the third word in EULA is license, and there's no mention of a contract. There's a reason for this.
EULAs don't make a lot of sense as contracts. You never sign anything, opening a box or clicking a button in lieu of a signature is pretty flimsy, and to make matters worse you don't generally get to see them until after you've already paid the money. Worse, there is generally no consideration (the exchange of value takes place beforehand) and no possible opening for negotiation.
There's an alternate theory of EULAs which tries to get around this. It holds that while you own the copy that you purchased, you don't have the right to make any copies of the work, and it's impossible to use it without making copies to your hard drive, in RAM, etc. Therefore you need to a license to legally use the software. Without a license, you're infringing on their copyright every time you install or run the software. The EULA therefore isn't a contract but a license to copy the software in limited ways so that you can use it.
This one is also fairly bogus, but it's not quite as easy to separate this question from copyright law as you might think.
Not to mention that most 32-bit CPUs are perfectly capable of moving data around in 64-bit chunks. 64-bit CPUs running in 32-bit mode doubly so. Grandparent poster clearly does not actually know what he's talking about.
If you don't want to let the other guy in, don't buy the property. Period. It's not like these provisions were some kind of surprise. They were all made very plain to all involved up front. Verizon made their bid knowing full well exactly what restrictions were entailed. If they then try to get around those restrictions, it means that they made their bid in bad faith. At the very least they should be forced into compliance. Quite possibly they should be forced to forfeit their acquisition in addition to a hefty fine. If they aren't willing to honor the restrictions on this spectrum then they shouldn't have bid on it.
Ironically you've just shown that English does, in fact, have second person plural. The Queen's English may not, but English as it is actually spoken generally does. There is of course "you all", commonly shortened as "y'all", as you mentioned. There's also "you guys", "yous", "you people", etc. It tends to be regional and non-standardized but it definitely exists.
On the contrary, they obviously do care what the world thinks of them. Otherwise why would they make such a big deal about the Olympics and put so much effort into getting approval for hosting them, and then into completely changing the city during the games?
And don't give me a line about helping the economy. Their costs are going to far outweigh their benefits in this area. Shutting down factories, severely restricting private transportation, weather control, they're causing far more economic damage and costs than they can possibly hope to gain.
The problem, of course, is that what China cares about in the world's opinion and what the rest of us care about aren't the same thing. China wants the world to take them seriously, to think that they're a major power with world-class cities that anyone should be envious of. This is essentially unrelated to human rights and not only could they not care less about them, but they also couldn't care less about what the world thinks in that respect. If the post-games world view of China is that of a powerful country with great cities and a unified people which happens to have a terrible human rights record, then the Chinese will have done exactly what they want to accomplish.
The thing is, a lot of organizations, as well as individual users, actually do look at the options available to them and actually determine that the Microsoft offering is the best for their needs. Of course, for certain places, Microsoft's offerings are the best available. But your fallacy comes from assuming that they're the best because they're good. In reality, they're the best merely because everything else is worse. And the only reason for that is because Microsoft completely destroyed almost all reasonable competition.
Look at the available competition. You have Apple, which survives and prospers because they target basically a single niche. You have Linux, which survives and prospers because it's free. (Linux is good, but it never would have gotten this far if it had been commercial.) And that's it! There are various really minor players but they're either dying or emulating one of these two.
Now flash back to the early/mid 80s. Lots of viable systems out there. Where did they all go? Microsoft killed them with superior marketing, anti-competitive tactics, and just plain evil.
So while it may not be correct to state that the only reason people use Microsoft products today is because of better marketing, it is pretty much correct that the only reason they're on top today is because of marketing and underhandedness in the past.
I sure hope he doesn't discover the Brocade SAN switch we use runs Linux. Or our ESX servers. Maybe you should actually tell him about these things. The ignorant won't stop being ignorant unless you make some effort to educate them.
To be honest, when I saw this story I was shocked it had shown up. I thought that using BitTorrent to repair mostly-whole files was obvious for this crowd. It's like "Using Water to Nourish Your Plants" showing up on a horticulturist site. If you know anything about how BitTorrent works then you should immediately realize that it will fix up mostly-good files for you.
The subsequent discussion has revealed that a large chunk of the slashdot population not only doesn't understand how BitTorrent works but doesn't even know about classic open source tools like rsync.
My numbers were not meant to be accurate, merely illustrate the point. I did no research on them, so it's no surprise that they aren't quite right.
In any case, your report on conditions there confirms the overall principle. Anything produced domestically by poor people gets cheaper, but not as fast as wages fall. For anything produced internationally, the people in richer nations are of course at a great advantage for purchasing them.
Is this a serious question? What gives them the right is that they were there first, they have lots of nuclear weapons and powerful conventional armies.
This may not be the most moral stance, but morality has never had any particular link to international relations.
Things are cheaper when people are poor. A lot of the cost you pay is labor. If a tomato takes an average of 15 minutes of a farmer's time to create and that farmer earns $10/hour then that tomato is going to cost $2.50. On the other hand, if that tomato is grown by dirt-poor Cuban farmers who earn $10/day then that tomato is going to cost a whole lot less.
One of the unfortunate consequences of living in a rich society is that stuff costs more. Fortunately the incomes go up more than the costs so we're still a lot better off.
DEAR AMERICANO - I HAVE BEEN LIVING CUBA SINCE 1951. MY FATHER HAS STASHED AWAY 500 MILLION BILION CUBAN PESSOS IN BASEMENT HERE IN HABANNNNA. I dunno, that's a lot of risk to take for $23.
Actually, most of my friends and family will send an "arrived safe" txt back to their point of departure after a long journey, just for peace of mind. It's not a necessity thing, just a courtesy. Sure, some people do it before some particularly long or dangerous trips, but the vast majority of people don't do this for the vast majority of their driving.
I see what you mean about flying being about freedom, though. It all comes down to priorities, and I'd argue that if he's flying a light plane as a recreational activity then he places more value in freedom than in safety in the first place. I totally agree. Every so often a pilot will say something like, "The most dangerous part about flying is the drive to the airport!" While this would be true if he were flying an airliner, any pilot of small aircraft who thinks this is true is deluding himself.
Light aircraft are several times more dangerous than cars, and cars are already pretty dangerous. If you fly light planes for fun then you must clearly think that the fun is more important. Of course this is hardly the only dangerous thing that people do for fun.
In general, people who place safety as their #1 priority above all other things either don't understand the true levels of risk in the world or are very frightened, boring people.
Nobody ever prepares 100% for anything. There is always something more you can do. If you wait until you have done everything before you go, then you will never leave.
I never file a flight plan when I fly. The reason for this is because I never know where I'm going until I start out. One of the best things about flying is the freedom, and filing a flight plan every single time would destroy that. It's great to have that option, but it's not some horrible failure if you don't do it.
People routine drive through tough conditions and you don't see them filing "drive plans" before they set out. It is not necessary to leave an out with your fellow humans, although it can certainly help your chances if something goes wrong.
Fossett may have been found if he had filed a flight plan, or he may not have been, but I'll grant that his chances would have been better if he had. However, not having done so is not indicative of anything even remotely approaching a "death wish". It may indicate that he values adventure and freedom over safety, and in that case I would have to agree with him completely.
If safety is your top priority, don't fly small planes.
Do you file a plan every time you drive somewhere? Filing a flight plan in this situation is effectively the same, in that it's not legally required nor is it particularly routine for local pleasure flights.
The media loves to make a big deal of the "no flight plan" thing, but I've never heard a single pilot criticize it, and I hang out with a lot of pilots.
Every FAA-registered aircraft does have one. This is not true. I fly FAA-registered aircraft all the time and none of them have one. The FAA has a general requirement for small aircraft to carry one, but they also have a huge list of exceptions, including exceptions for training aircraft, aircraft which can only carry one person, experimental aircraft, cropdusters, and a bunch of others. Also note that in FAA-speak the word "airplane" refers only to powered fixed-wing aircraft, so that regulation doesn't even apply to helicopters, gliders, and the like.
This guy Steve Fossett seemed to have a death wish with no flight plan, no beacon, no emergency calling... What was he thinking? This changes when you know more about the situation and about flying.
Not filing a flight plan is completely standard. The media makes a big deal of it because, well, they're the media and they're full of idiots and it sounds good on television. There's no legal requirement to file a flight plan for this sort of flight, and it's common not to when on a local pleasure flight. It is of course better to file one when you can because then people have an idea of where to look for you if you don't show up, but he did nothing unusual or wrong by not filing one.
He had an ELT (emergency locator transmitter). It was never heard, presumably because it never activated or was disabled in the crash. ELTs are notoriously unreliable. This should be no surprise when you consider that we're talking about a piece of electronics that needs to transmit a signal dozens or hundreds of miles after the vehicle that contains it has experienced a violent accident. Something as simple as shearing the antenna off will silence it. The accelerometers which allow it to detect a crash are also notoriously unreliable. I was once told about an aircraft with an ELT which crashed and the ELT never activated. In time, the wreckage was moved back into the owning club's hangar while they decided what to do with it. About a year later the club was having their Christmas party in this hangar. A couple of guys were talking about something next to it, and one of them smacked the wreck with his hand to emphasize his point. The wreck's ELT immediately started transmitting.
As for emergency calling... with what? The reason he wasn't found is because the whole area is sparsely inhabited, trackless desert. It is not the kind of terrain in which you'd expect to get a cell signal in. His radios were probably destroyed in the crash, if he was even in good enough shape to use them afterwards. He very well may not have had time to make calls before the crash, assuming he was even aware of a problem beforehand. Or maybe I misunderstand what you're getting at here.
I've flown a small aircraft over the same area where Fossett disappeared. It is beautiful, stark, scary, and enormous terrain. It comes as no surprise to me that the guy was never found. He didn't really do anything wrong and you certainly can't conclude from his actions that he had a "death wish". He just ran out of luck and we'll probably never know exactly how his luck ran out.
Fair enough, but the point is that the mechanism itself must be unexpected from the point of view of the story. The ending of Ender's Game (anyone who doesn't want to be spoiled, jump out now!) does not qualify at all, because the idea that his "simulations" were actually commanding real military units is entirely sensible and draws perfectly well from the earlier parts of the story. If you see a crappy ending coming because the writing sucks, that's fine, but if you see a plot twist coming from far away because the twist isn't very twisty, that pretty much defines the twist as not being a deus ex machina.
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Damn, their authentication servers are down! I guess that means I'm now forced to download a cracked version just to play it... woohoo!
Fair use is a tricker concept than you give it credit for. While your understanding is generally accepted in the US, it's not ironclad, and my recollection (no, I don't have any cites) is that there are certain European countries where this is explicitly not fair use, so that you need a license in order to legally use computer software.
Note that I never said this theory was particularly good, but it's a theory that is sometimes held.
I believe you mean a caveat. A cravat is a sort of primordial necktie.
In any case, I must disagree with your stance that it would be acceptable to be bound by an EULA printed on the exterior of a box. This kind of automatic contract acceptance opens the door to far too much abuse. The acceptance of a contract needs to be a fairly obvious and heavyweight process so that both parties know, or at least have the obvious opportunity to know, exactly what they're getting into.
Contract law is pretty specific on this. For example, you can't have a valid contract without consideration, that is without both sides getting some sort of value out of the deal. You can't just unilaterally state "by doing X you hereby agree to Y" and then have Y be legally enforced.
For a more specific example, consider contract negotiations. Let's say we sit down with a contract and I disagree with a clause. I can cross it out or reword it on the spot and initial it. If you agree to the change, you can also initial it and then the modification becomes part of the binding contract. Now let's do this with a hypothetical back-of-the-box EULA. Before I purchase, I get out my pen and cross out all the clauses I dislike, and initial the changes. The software company has no representatives there, so they can't agree to the changes. What should happen here, if this were a real contract, is that I would no longer be allowed to purchase the product. What will actually happen is that the store will take my money and I will depart with my product in hand. Then what happens? The "contract" will either be null and void, or the software company will be bound to a contract they never saw and never agreed to.
You will notice that when software companies actually care about their customers following the terms of a contract, such as limits on the number of seats in a site-licensing deal or limitations on use in exchange for volume discounts, or other such things, they actually sit down with the customer and make out a real contract.
Your comparison with software development packages is interesting but faulty. These packages often produce code which incorporates some of the manufacturer's software, such as runtime libraries, thus they get to have a say in how you distribute the results. Handheld devices are even worse, as they frequently require distributed code to be signed by the manufacturer and thus they are free to put any terms they feel like on the signing. None of this applies to "normal" software, where the user does not distribute derivative works of that software.
With the exception of military enlistments, which tend to be binding no matter what, my understanding is that it's perfectly legal to enter into a contract with a minor, but the contract is not binding upon the minor in any way. So it's kind of a dumb thing to do, since it still binds you, but it's not illegal.
Sure, that's fine. If the software company wants to make these licenses into actual contracts then they can do that and I'll start respecting them. In order to do this, all they need to do is have the contract printed out so that I can read it in the store before I buy the program. Then they need to run through it with me and accept or reject any proposed changes I have. Then once we come to an agreement about the content of the contract, I'll hand over the money and we'll each get a copy of the contract signed by both parties.
They don't do it this way, though. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to sell their software as if it were a regular product, and also attach restrictions to how it's used. Well guess what, you don't get to do that. This kind of after the fact "by opening this box you agree to X" license is not actually legally enforceable. The license is not a right to use, you got that right to use when you purchased the product. The license pretends to be a right to use, with a whole bunch of restrictions, but the fact is that you don't need a license to legally use the program and you can't just implicitly agree to its terms simply by starting to use the program.
Notice that the third word in EULA is license, and there's no mention of a contract. There's a reason for this.
EULAs don't make a lot of sense as contracts. You never sign anything, opening a box or clicking a button in lieu of a signature is pretty flimsy, and to make matters worse you don't generally get to see them until after you've already paid the money. Worse, there is generally no consideration (the exchange of value takes place beforehand) and no possible opening for negotiation.
There's an alternate theory of EULAs which tries to get around this. It holds that while you own the copy that you purchased, you don't have the right to make any copies of the work, and it's impossible to use it without making copies to your hard drive, in RAM, etc. Therefore you need to a license to legally use the software. Without a license, you're infringing on their copyright every time you install or run the software. The EULA therefore isn't a contract but a license to copy the software in limited ways so that you can use it.
This one is also fairly bogus, but it's not quite as easy to separate this question from copyright law as you might think.
Smart people come from all over. I've heard plenty of them say "y'all".
As for the popular conception of a smart person, they don't say "y'all", but a lot of them do say "you guys".
Not to mention that most 32-bit CPUs are perfectly capable of moving data around in 64-bit chunks. 64-bit CPUs running in 32-bit mode doubly so. Grandparent poster clearly does not actually know what he's talking about.
If you don't want to let the other guy in, don't buy the property. Period. It's not like these provisions were some kind of surprise. They were all made very plain to all involved up front. Verizon made their bid knowing full well exactly what restrictions were entailed. If they then try to get around those restrictions, it means that they made their bid in bad faith. At the very least they should be forced into compliance. Quite possibly they should be forced to forfeit their acquisition in addition to a hefty fine. If they aren't willing to honor the restrictions on this spectrum then they shouldn't have bid on it.
Ironically you've just shown that English does, in fact, have second person plural. The Queen's English may not, but English as it is actually spoken generally does. There is of course "you all", commonly shortened as "y'all", as you mentioned. There's also "you guys", "yous", "you people", etc. It tends to be regional and non-standardized but it definitely exists.
On the contrary, they obviously do care what the world thinks of them. Otherwise why would they make such a big deal about the Olympics and put so much effort into getting approval for hosting them, and then into completely changing the city during the games?
And don't give me a line about helping the economy. Their costs are going to far outweigh their benefits in this area. Shutting down factories, severely restricting private transportation, weather control, they're causing far more economic damage and costs than they can possibly hope to gain.
The problem, of course, is that what China cares about in the world's opinion and what the rest of us care about aren't the same thing. China wants the world to take them seriously, to think that they're a major power with world-class cities that anyone should be envious of. This is essentially unrelated to human rights and not only could they not care less about them, but they also couldn't care less about what the world thinks in that respect. If the post-games world view of China is that of a powerful country with great cities and a unified people which happens to have a terrible human rights record, then the Chinese will have done exactly what they want to accomplish.
Look at the available competition. You have Apple, which survives and prospers because they target basically a single niche. You have Linux, which survives and prospers because it's free. (Linux is good, but it never would have gotten this far if it had been commercial.) And that's it! There are various really minor players but they're either dying or emulating one of these two.
Now flash back to the early/mid 80s. Lots of viable systems out there. Where did they all go? Microsoft killed them with superior marketing, anti-competitive tactics, and just plain evil.
So while it may not be correct to state that the only reason people use Microsoft products today is because of better marketing, it is pretty much correct that the only reason they're on top today is because of marketing and underhandedness in the past.
To be honest, when I saw this story I was shocked it had shown up. I thought that using BitTorrent to repair mostly-whole files was obvious for this crowd. It's like "Using Water to Nourish Your Plants" showing up on a horticulturist site. If you know anything about how BitTorrent works then you should immediately realize that it will fix up mostly-good files for you.
The subsequent discussion has revealed that a large chunk of the slashdot population not only doesn't understand how BitTorrent works but doesn't even know about classic open source tools like rsync.
My numbers were not meant to be accurate, merely illustrate the point. I did no research on them, so it's no surprise that they aren't quite right.
In any case, your report on conditions there confirms the overall principle. Anything produced domestically by poor people gets cheaper, but not as fast as wages fall. For anything produced internationally, the people in richer nations are of course at a great advantage for purchasing them.
Thanks for the information.
Is this a serious question? What gives them the right is that they were there first, they have lots of nuclear weapons and powerful conventional armies.
This may not be the most moral stance, but morality has never had any particular link to international relations.
Things are cheaper when people are poor. A lot of the cost you pay is labor. If a tomato takes an average of 15 minutes of a farmer's time to create and that farmer earns $10/hour then that tomato is going to cost $2.50. On the other hand, if that tomato is grown by dirt-poor Cuban farmers who earn $10/day then that tomato is going to cost a whole lot less.
One of the unfortunate consequences of living in a rich society is that stuff costs more. Fortunately the incomes go up more than the costs so we're still a lot better off.
While this is true, I have no idea what the relevance is to my post or why you posted it as a reply to mine.
Light aircraft are several times more dangerous than cars, and cars are already pretty dangerous. If you fly light planes for fun then you must clearly think that the fun is more important. Of course this is hardly the only dangerous thing that people do for fun.
In general, people who place safety as their #1 priority above all other things either don't understand the true levels of risk in the world or are very frightened, boring people.
Nobody ever prepares 100% for anything. There is always something more you can do. If you wait until you have done everything before you go, then you will never leave.
I never file a flight plan when I fly. The reason for this is because I never know where I'm going until I start out. One of the best things about flying is the freedom, and filing a flight plan every single time would destroy that. It's great to have that option, but it's not some horrible failure if you don't do it.
People routine drive through tough conditions and you don't see them filing "drive plans" before they set out. It is not necessary to leave an out with your fellow humans, although it can certainly help your chances if something goes wrong.
Fossett may have been found if he had filed a flight plan, or he may not have been, but I'll grant that his chances would have been better if he had. However, not having done so is not indicative of anything even remotely approaching a "death wish". It may indicate that he values adventure and freedom over safety, and in that case I would have to agree with him completely.
If safety is your top priority, don't fly small planes.
Do you file a plan every time you drive somewhere? Filing a flight plan in this situation is effectively the same, in that it's not legally required nor is it particularly routine for local pleasure flights.
The media loves to make a big deal of the "no flight plan" thing, but I've never heard a single pilot criticize it, and I hang out with a lot of pilots.
Not filing a flight plan is completely standard. The media makes a big deal of it because, well, they're the media and they're full of idiots and it sounds good on television. There's no legal requirement to file a flight plan for this sort of flight, and it's common not to when on a local pleasure flight. It is of course better to file one when you can because then people have an idea of where to look for you if you don't show up, but he did nothing unusual or wrong by not filing one.
He had an ELT (emergency locator transmitter). It was never heard, presumably because it never activated or was disabled in the crash. ELTs are notoriously unreliable. This should be no surprise when you consider that we're talking about a piece of electronics that needs to transmit a signal dozens or hundreds of miles after the vehicle that contains it has experienced a violent accident. Something as simple as shearing the antenna off will silence it. The accelerometers which allow it to detect a crash are also notoriously unreliable. I was once told about an aircraft with an ELT which crashed and the ELT never activated. In time, the wreckage was moved back into the owning club's hangar while they decided what to do with it. About a year later the club was having their Christmas party in this hangar. A couple of guys were talking about something next to it, and one of them smacked the wreck with his hand to emphasize his point. The wreck's ELT immediately started transmitting.
As for emergency calling... with what? The reason he wasn't found is because the whole area is sparsely inhabited, trackless desert. It is not the kind of terrain in which you'd expect to get a cell signal in. His radios were probably destroyed in the crash, if he was even in good enough shape to use them afterwards. He very well may not have had time to make calls before the crash, assuming he was even aware of a problem beforehand. Or maybe I misunderstand what you're getting at here.
I've flown a small aircraft over the same area where Fossett disappeared. It is beautiful, stark, scary, and enormous terrain. It comes as no surprise to me that the guy was never found. He didn't really do anything wrong and you certainly can't conclude from his actions that he had a "death wish". He just ran out of luck and we'll probably never know exactly how his luck ran out.
Fair enough, but the point is that the mechanism itself must be unexpected from the point of view of the story. The ending of Ender's Game (anyone who doesn't want to be spoiled, jump out now!) does not qualify at all, because the idea that his "simulations" were actually commanding real military units is entirely sensible and draws perfectly well from the earlier parts of the story. If you see a crappy ending coming because the writing sucks, that's fine, but if you see a plot twist coming from far away because the twist isn't very twisty, that pretty much defines the twist as not being a deus ex machina.