Discredit them and run with plausible deniability. Ask/research the failure rate on the moisture sensors, such as when exposed to humidity of normal weather patterns. Catch them in a lie, or instill enough doubt to help your case. Point out a lack of residues left from liquid exposure, and harp on the lack of relation between the error that occurred and failures due to water damage. Get a third party to diagnose the board and verify that the damage is not from a liquid induced short. Subpoena all of their return records and find whatever flaw (there will be at least human error if not downright negligence) that builds your case.
Of course, if you want to prevent spending a small fortune, don't go to court. I have found that, upon needing something that a large company is not willing to give, explaining to them that - my willingness to be a nuissance is 1) easier for me and 2) more expensive for them than if they just ignore their policy and issue me a refund - that tends to do the trick.
Taking an iPod from somebody deprives that person of an iPod. Having an extra copy of a book does not take anything from anyone. Purchasing unauthorised copies is neither equivalent to nor even similar to stealing.
I'm sorry, but you are wrong. The reason why we have copyright law in the first place is because owning or producing a "copy" DOES take something away from the original producer. Copyright law exists because it provides financial incentive for research and development. No one would dare dump millions of dollars into researching drugs or technology if the next schmuck who came after could copy their work and publish it without and R&D costs. Without those laws, the original producer would lose all of those future cash flows (which ARE substantial and very real). Copyright law, as it was introduced as an intermediary between producer and consumer rights, is a good thing. The way it's been extended to entirely forsake consumer rights is what's criminal and wrong, NOT copyright law itself. Your argument is a reductio ad absurdum./Dons the "Score -1: Disagree" suit
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing"
- Edmund Burke
Seemingly, that would include you, some Iranians, and perhaps people who modded you insightful. This is not as one-sided as you would portray it. The nature of dictatorships is that the few can control the many through lies, deception, intimidation, and violence. It probably is not far to say that a "large percentage of the population supports the brutal government."
Having shadowed at a few labels and being enrolled at a music business school, I would disagree about the loudness trend except in cases of crappy mix-downs by interning college students, but that's really neither here nor there. How about beer then? Though I admit the allusion isn't perfect because higher "quality" beers come from microbrewers, it is my favorite topic. Drinking a Bud Light or a Coors is a "watered down" beer with little flavor or taste compared to something like a Dogfish Head Theobroma or Flying Dog Tripel. The microbrews are universally considered by beer enthusiasts to be a better beer, though many many more people drink Budweiser or Coors or Natty because it's more "drinkable." Because it's more bland, it's easier on the palette. I wonder if this indicates a trend that Americans as a whole like bland things. (Budweiser, Starbucks, American cheese... the list goes on)
My friends all listen to 96-128k mp3s. My parents' siblings and friends listen to tape casettes. My grandparents listen to records. Generationally speaking this makes sense, but these are all lossy (aka watered down) formats of music. Am I "hardcore" for listening to lossless? We wouldn't expect labels to optimize music for the eight track, so why are we calling game publishers lazy and whining for developing for the most powerful system? I agree that the Wii has a unique market, but its not a result of design but of marketing. Xbox and PS haven't tried to tap that market because of its infrequent buying power. Yet every friend and family member, grandparents included, who played and enjoyed the Wii enjoyed the more powerful consoles more when they took the time to learn the controls and found a good, audience-appropriate game to play. The Wii is absolutely watered down. The question is whether or not that should be considered a "feature" or taking unfair advantage of an ignorant market, or more realistically something in between.
- swnt frim my pslm pre. Suppoet verticsl keyboarf slidwrs!
You mean the Pirate Intention of Raping America Through Electronic Subversion Asserts Redistribution of Equity to Enterprises Void of Intellectual Liability?
I think/. is missing the point. They are claiming that using a proxy implies sophistication. There's truth to that, as sophistication is a neutral term in a neutral environment. But 25% more of 0 time spent in jail is still 0. Don't do illegal sh** on your proxy and you'll be fine. If you do illegal sh** on your proxy, don't get caught, and you'll also be fine. But if you're using a proxy to prevent detection of your illegal activity, that is rationally a sign of sophistication and justifiably warrants increased jail-time.
Gold farmers -rarely- just straight up farm gold off of monsters. They use auction houses, they don't just take advantage of people not knowing how much something should cost, but they also have a tendency to inflate prices.
Mostly not true. Auction houses are volatile and, though generally predictable, don't deliver a guaranteed quantity. While this myth is perpetuated based on the axiom that it's easier to make gold when you have gold (e.g. buying up all of an auction house item then reselling at a premium), this method isn't actually what happens. Gold farmers are generally despised by developers not necessarily for their irritating spams but more for their effect on the inflation of a game's economy. This inflation occurs because gold is an infinitely farmable resource - more money is introduced into an economy than there is being drained out through various effects like repair bills, auction taxes, and gold sinks. If gold farmers were farming gold through an auction house, they would not be contributing to economy inflation because their profit comes from other players and not the NPCs, meaning that the player-side net gain is 0. Furthermore, gold farmers would be suffering from that same lack-of-scarcity; assuming a gold farmer bought all of item X and resold it at, say, twice its value, there would be no way for the gold farmer to maintain a monopoly over product X because product X is (at least statistically) available to go farm and then be resold at normal value. While gold farmers can attempt to monopolize at the source by strip-farming NPCs, there is no guarantee that a farmer will be able to do this successfully.
The vast majority of gold farming gold nowadays comes not from in-game exploitation but through hacked accounts. World of Warcraft, for example, has seen a number of phishing e-mail scams that prompt a user for their login information. The only purpose of those phishing scams is to strip a player of all items and gold, which can then be turned over and sold to a gold-buyer. The gold farmers have become much more efficient and ellicit in the wake of increased pressure from developers.
Last post on the matter. If no right is absolute, then do you support the death penalty, because the right to life has limits as ordained by the government? You might; I'm just asking. Any academic debate over the right to bear arms forsakes 1) the history of the United States and its continual support of personal gun rights up until the mid-20th century, and 2) the supreme court ruling that a government ban on weapons is illegal and unconstitutional, so I do not, in fact, see anything awkwardly worded or debateable.
Rights are not absolute to the degree that they infringe upon another person's rights. The endangerment example as put forth by Holmes Jr.'s commentary upon Schenck v. United States, 1919 does not pertain to this issue. Of course falsely shouting "fire!" is considered endangerment because it creates a life-threatening scenario based on false pretenses. The action directly leads to a scenario that is life-threatening to others. No matter how much you may want to skip a few degrees, my possession of assault weapons, be they automatic, semi-automatic, or nerf, does not present a life-threatening scenario and doesn ot infringe on anyone else's rights. If I were to use a weapon against another human being, then my rights to possession and use would be constrained based on the law, tried by a jury of peers. Until then, the possession of firearms does not abridge or threaten anybody else's right.
I don't think Obama would call for an national ban on handguns. The man's not stupid - he knew how to get himself elected into office. Rather, I suspect - and my suspicions are supported by his voting history on the issue - that he will simply legislate guns into becoming so difficult to obtain they are effectively unpurchaseable in legal markets. It highly concerns me that you think assault weapons bans are looking better given a surge in mass killings. Assault weapons constitute so little a percentage of violent crimes in the U.S. The number of legally owned assault rifles that are used in violent crime is absolutely miniscule. The act of an assault weapons ban is a purely symbolic gesture, one that I happen to know is absolutely moronic and unsafe. Just because you don't see a need for something doesn't mean you have the right to take it away from the people who do see a need.
You know, before you start slinging the party mud and calling someone's comment "idiotic", you might want to remember that actions speak louder than words. The constitution states (and the supreme court supports) that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Period. And yet Obama is quoted as saying, "just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right...." For example, you may have a right to free speech but, according to Obama's logic, perhaps the government can constrain the use of that right in, say, all public forums. Furthermore, he endorsed the Illinois handgun ban, allows for local gun bans, cosponsored a bill to severely limit handgun purchases, and wants to ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons. All of this is strictly unconstitutional.
I guess that makes sense if your mom got tired of the moans and banging coming from her basement. It's not like any/.ers actually own their own bedroom, right?
Ok, so playing violent video games makes you a serial killer, and improves your eyesight thus making you superhuman?
Just wait until they add laser beams on top of gamers heads!!!
We are effing doomed!
I for one welcome our eagle-eyed laser-beam-headed overl...bzzzzzzzzzapp! *head explodes*
It's really depressing that so many people are this stupid. Every argument against voting third party eventually boils down to "third parties can't win" which completely misses the point.
If you're voting against what you really want just so you can brag that you voted for the winner, then you're doing it wrong. Do us all a favor and stay home next election day.
Try this one on for size:
A bipartisan system is absolutely necessary to ensure that the government elected into office is the government that represents the majority of the people (electoral vs. popular vote notwithstanding). Introducing more parties reduces "majority" vote to a fraction beneath 50%+1, meaning that an elected official would no longer represent the wishes of the majority. You might say that this is the price of having more flexibility in representation, but allow me to present a well-cited case study - ever wonder how an Australian government can try so hard to pass a national internet blacklist despite overwhelming popular disapproval? The current elect was elected into office by a well-intentioned minority group that just so happened to be the hegemon. Australia's government is based on the English system of parliament, which is the government that the United States tried to evolve past; it is why our government works more efficiently and better represents the people, because parties are elected by simple majority and not hegemonic representation.
If you want to reduce the effect of corruption in government, fix the corruption in the parties, don't just introduce a new one that's supposedly branded corruption-free. I'm all for voting on principle, I really am, but introducing reality into consideration is not "stupid", and your saying such is nothing but trolling. The reality is that slashdotters represent a very very tiny minority of the American people (those that are American). Yes, everyone here may support Ron Paul, but the nation's not going to. You want to get your issues out there? Run a candidate on the republican or democrat ticket that supports our initiatives and concerns, because as well-intentioned as Ron Paul may be, our nation's not going to support the legalization of marijuana or the switching of our economy to the gold system.
So you're saying it's completely obvious for people who already knew about it or knew to look for it? Wow, you're a genius!
I guarantee you the average iTunes user has no idea their account information is imbedded in the tracks they listen to. I also guarantee you that a significant contingent of those who may or may not have known about those tags would have (reasonably) suspected that DRM-Free music would not contain such restrictions, since there's no need for account authentication by Apple. In my pretty extensive use of iTunes and in my brief read of the EULA, nowhere did I see any admission that account information was linked to my music.
And/.ers are rarely surprised that some whack-job out there is blaming video games for violence; our surprise has more to do with how seemingly credible these whack-jobs are in the eyes of the masses.
Actually, the quotation by Benjamin Franklin is, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The idea is whether or not the "liberty" lost by surrendering fingerprints and the like create a temporary or a more permanent safety. Generally speaking, I, too, ascribe to the Franklinian motto. Yet there are a certain degree of sacrifices individuals must make to preserve government. That's the nature of government - centralized authority removes authority from the individual, but a degree of that surrendering is necessary to ensure equality. The trick is simply starving your government enough to keep it dependent upon the people it serves, and not the other way around. "Big L" Libertarians might claim that things like teachers' licenses, gun licenses, fingerprinting, and other security measures are a massive violation of personal privacy and freedoms. There's also a reason why Big L Libertarians represent less than 2% of the vote tally.
Decentralizing federal authority back to states and local government? Great. I'm all for it. Drop fingerprinting practices and securities that every American has to undergo as a citizen of the United States? That's rediculous. If you don't like it, if you have that much to lose by having a government agency file the little skin swirls on your finger tips, stay home and don't touch anything when you go out. Fingerprinting is a consolation a lot of countries make for the purpose of national and individual security. I won't disagree with RenHoek that post 9/11 security measures became draconian in nature. However, there's been a significant backlash against the futility of such measures that only afford temporary or illusory safety, and many of those measures have disappeared or diminished. There's still some distance to go, but I don't think it's out of ANY country's authority to give fewer rights to foreigners than to citizens. That's why citizenship is so important.
You're assuming that the keygen downloader does not have the authority (i.e. ownership) of the program in question. Apparently you've never accidentally tossed or misplaced a CD-key.
So really it's more like the guy you were trying to buy medical marijuana from turned out to be the naggy guy behind the Above the Influence campaign.
And thus is your paradigm argument for today's music industry. The RIAA (ASCAP / BMI) claims that the proliferation of unprotected Mp3s will result in the demise of the music industry, since no one would purchase music if it were available for free, and no one would join a band to become famous if they couldn't get rich doing it, and no one would be able to find music if the publishers weren't there to find (read:"tell") us what we like to hear. Then at the same time they move against publishers of online guitar tablature, which is, of the greatest irony, a digital and numeric representation to indicate placement, order, and timing of strokes played on a guitar, completely functionally identical to the player piano roll.
While families who could own a player piano (they were not cheap) more than likely learned piano, the biggest use for these instruments was in bars, restaurants, or other places of entertainment, where the player piano was more financially feasible than hiring a professional pianist night after day. The argument that the publishers have always used is that cheapening is always bad: cheap meaning "paltry" or "indicating financial loss for the publishers", depending on which side of the fence you fall.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd say it was more likely a red herring.
Or This
Of course, if you want to prevent spending a small fortune, don't go to court. I have found that, upon needing something that a large company is not willing to give, explaining to them that - my willingness to be a nuissance is 1) easier for me and 2) more expensive for them than if they just ignore their policy and issue me a refund - that tends to do the trick.
Anyone else find it exceedingly ironic that the slashdot summary was lifted word-for-word from Anon-a-blog?
We don't mind you feeding the troll. Just make sure you feed him organic.
Taking an iPod from somebody deprives that person of an iPod. Having an extra copy of a book does not take anything from anyone. Purchasing unauthorised copies is neither equivalent to nor even similar to stealing.
I'm sorry, but you are wrong. The reason why we have copyright law in the first place is because owning or producing a "copy" DOES take something away from the original producer. Copyright law exists because it provides financial incentive for research and development. No one would dare dump millions of dollars into researching drugs or technology if the next schmuck who came after could copy their work and publish it without and R&D costs. Without those laws, the original producer would lose all of those future cash flows (which ARE substantial and very real). Copyright law, as it was introduced as an intermediary between producer and consumer rights, is a good thing. The way it's been extended to entirely forsake consumer rights is what's criminal and wrong, NOT copyright law itself. Your argument is a reductio ad absurdum. /Dons the "Score -1: Disagree" suit
- Edmund Burke
Seemingly, that would include you, some Iranians, and perhaps people who modded you insightful. This is not as one-sided as you would portray it. The nature of dictatorships is that the few can control the many through lies, deception, intimidation, and violence. It probably is not far to say that a "large percentage of the population supports the brutal government."
Having shadowed at a few labels and being enrolled at a music business school, I would disagree about the loudness trend except in cases of crappy mix-downs by interning college students, but that's really neither here nor there. How about beer then? Though I admit the allusion isn't perfect because higher "quality" beers come from microbrewers, it is my favorite topic. Drinking a Bud Light or a Coors is a "watered down" beer with little flavor or taste compared to something like a Dogfish Head Theobroma or Flying Dog Tripel. The microbrews are universally considered by beer enthusiasts to be a better beer, though many many more people drink Budweiser or Coors or Natty because it's more "drinkable." Because it's more bland, it's easier on the palette. I wonder if this indicates a trend that Americans as a whole like bland things. (Budweiser, Starbucks, American cheese... the list goes on)
My friends all listen to 96-128k mp3s. My parents' siblings and friends listen to tape casettes. My grandparents listen to records. Generationally speaking this makes sense, but these are all lossy (aka watered down) formats of music. Am I "hardcore" for listening to lossless? We wouldn't expect labels to optimize music for the eight track, so why are we calling game publishers lazy and whining for developing for the most powerful system? I agree that the Wii has a unique market, but its not a result of design but of marketing. Xbox and PS haven't tried to tap that market because of its infrequent buying power. Yet every friend and family member, grandparents included, who played and enjoyed the Wii enjoyed the more powerful consoles more when they took the time to learn the controls and found a good, audience-appropriate game to play. The Wii is absolutely watered down. The question is whether or not that should be considered a "feature" or taking unfair advantage of an ignorant market, or more realistically something in between. - swnt frim my pslm pre. Suppoet verticsl keyboarf slidwrs!
The first rule about Palm Corp. is you do not talk about Palm Corp.
You're right, that is fun! Where do I sign up?
I think /. is missing the point. They are claiming that using a proxy implies sophistication. There's truth to that, as sophistication is a neutral term in a neutral environment. But 25% more of 0 time spent in jail is still 0. Don't do illegal sh** on your proxy and you'll be fine. If you do illegal sh** on your proxy, don't get caught, and you'll also be fine. But if you're using a proxy to prevent detection of your illegal activity, that is rationally a sign of sophistication and justifiably warrants increased jail-time.
how do you describe people who 'do HTML' ...?
... A sixth grader?
Gold farmers -rarely- just straight up farm gold off of monsters. They use auction houses, they don't just take advantage of people not knowing how much something should cost, but they also have a tendency to inflate prices.
Mostly not true. Auction houses are volatile and, though generally predictable, don't deliver a guaranteed quantity. While this myth is perpetuated based on the axiom that it's easier to make gold when you have gold (e.g. buying up all of an auction house item then reselling at a premium), this method isn't actually what happens. Gold farmers are generally despised by developers not necessarily for their irritating spams but more for their effect on the inflation of a game's economy. This inflation occurs because gold is an infinitely farmable resource - more money is introduced into an economy than there is being drained out through various effects like repair bills, auction taxes, and gold sinks. If gold farmers were farming gold through an auction house, they would not be contributing to economy inflation because their profit comes from other players and not the NPCs, meaning that the player-side net gain is 0. Furthermore, gold farmers would be suffering from that same lack-of-scarcity; assuming a gold farmer bought all of item X and resold it at, say, twice its value, there would be no way for the gold farmer to maintain a monopoly over product X because product X is (at least statistically) available to go farm and then be resold at normal value. While gold farmers can attempt to monopolize at the source by strip-farming NPCs, there is no guarantee that a farmer will be able to do this successfully.
The vast majority of gold farming gold nowadays comes not from in-game exploitation but through hacked accounts. World of Warcraft, for example, has seen a number of phishing e-mail scams that prompt a user for their login information. The only purpose of those phishing scams is to strip a player of all items and gold, which can then be turned over and sold to a gold-buyer. The gold farmers have become much more efficient and ellicit in the wake of increased pressure from developers.
Last post on the matter. If no right is absolute, then do you support the death penalty, because the right to life has limits as ordained by the government? You might; I'm just asking. Any academic debate over the right to bear arms forsakes 1) the history of the United States and its continual support of personal gun rights up until the mid-20th century, and 2) the supreme court ruling that a government ban on weapons is illegal and unconstitutional, so I do not, in fact, see anything awkwardly worded or debateable. Rights are not absolute to the degree that they infringe upon another person's rights. The endangerment example as put forth by Holmes Jr.'s commentary upon Schenck v. United States, 1919 does not pertain to this issue. Of course falsely shouting "fire!" is considered endangerment because it creates a life-threatening scenario based on false pretenses. The action directly leads to a scenario that is life-threatening to others. No matter how much you may want to skip a few degrees, my possession of assault weapons, be they automatic, semi-automatic, or nerf, does not present a life-threatening scenario and doesn ot infringe on anyone else's rights. If I were to use a weapon against another human being, then my rights to possession and use would be constrained based on the law, tried by a jury of peers. Until then, the possession of firearms does not abridge or threaten anybody else's right.
I don't think Obama would call for an national ban on handguns. The man's not stupid - he knew how to get himself elected into office. Rather, I suspect - and my suspicions are supported by his voting history on the issue - that he will simply legislate guns into becoming so difficult to obtain they are effectively unpurchaseable in legal markets. It highly concerns me that you think assault weapons bans are looking better given a surge in mass killings. Assault weapons constitute so little a percentage of violent crimes in the U.S. The number of legally owned assault rifles that are used in violent crime is absolutely miniscule. The act of an assault weapons ban is a purely symbolic gesture, one that I happen to know is absolutely moronic and unsafe. Just because you don't see a need for something doesn't mean you have the right to take it away from the people who do see a need.
You know, before you start slinging the party mud and calling someone's comment "idiotic", you might want to remember that actions speak louder than words. The constitution states (and the supreme court supports) that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Period. And yet Obama is quoted as saying, "just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right...." For example, you may have a right to free speech but, according to Obama's logic, perhaps the government can constrain the use of that right in, say, all public forums. Furthermore, he endorsed the Illinois handgun ban, allows for local gun bans, cosponsored a bill to severely limit handgun purchases, and wants to ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons. All of this is strictly unconstitutional.
I guess that makes sense if your mom got tired of the moans and banging coming from her basement. It's not like any /.ers actually own their own bedroom, right?
Ok, so playing violent video games makes you a serial killer, and improves your eyesight thus making you superhuman? Just wait until they add laser beams on top of gamers heads!!! We are effing doomed!
I for one welcome our eagle-eyed laser-beam-headed overl...bzzzzzzzzzapp! *head explodes*
It's really depressing that so many people are this stupid. Every argument against voting third party eventually boils down to "third parties can't win" which completely misses the point. If you're voting against what you really want just so you can brag that you voted for the winner, then you're doing it wrong. Do us all a favor and stay home next election day.
Try this one on for size:
A bipartisan system is absolutely necessary to ensure that the government elected into office is the government that represents the majority of the people (electoral vs. popular vote notwithstanding). Introducing more parties reduces "majority" vote to a fraction beneath 50%+1, meaning that an elected official would no longer represent the wishes of the majority. You might say that this is the price of having more flexibility in representation, but allow me to present a well-cited case study - ever wonder how an Australian government can try so hard to pass a national internet blacklist despite overwhelming popular disapproval? The current elect was elected into office by a well-intentioned minority group that just so happened to be the hegemon. Australia's government is based on the English system of parliament, which is the government that the United States tried to evolve past; it is why our government works more efficiently and better represents the people, because parties are elected by simple majority and not hegemonic representation.
If you want to reduce the effect of corruption in government, fix the corruption in the parties, don't just introduce a new one that's supposedly branded corruption-free. I'm all for voting on principle, I really am, but introducing reality into consideration is not "stupid", and your saying such is nothing but trolling. The reality is that slashdotters represent a very very tiny minority of the American people (those that are American). Yes, everyone here may support Ron Paul, but the nation's not going to. You want to get your issues out there? Run a candidate on the republican or democrat ticket that supports our initiatives and concerns, because as well-intentioned as Ron Paul may be, our nation's not going to support the legalization of marijuana or the switching of our economy to the gold system.
So you're saying it's completely obvious for people who already knew about it or knew to look for it? Wow, you're a genius!
/.ers are rarely surprised that some whack-job out there is blaming video games for violence; our surprise has more to do with how seemingly credible these whack-jobs are in the eyes of the masses.
I guarantee you the average iTunes user has no idea their account information is imbedded in the tracks they listen to. I also guarantee you that a significant contingent of those who may or may not have known about those tags would have (reasonably) suspected that DRM-Free music would not contain such restrictions, since there's no need for account authentication by Apple. In my pretty extensive use of iTunes and in my brief read of the EULA, nowhere did I see any admission that account information was linked to my music.
And
The idea is whether or not the "liberty" lost by surrendering fingerprints and the like create a temporary or a more permanent safety. Generally speaking, I, too, ascribe to the Franklinian motto. Yet there are a certain degree of sacrifices individuals must make to preserve government. That's the nature of government - centralized authority removes authority from the individual, but a degree of that surrendering is necessary to ensure equality. The trick is simply starving your government enough to keep it dependent upon the people it serves, and not the other way around. "Big L" Libertarians might claim that things like teachers' licenses, gun licenses, fingerprinting, and other security measures are a massive violation of personal privacy and freedoms. There's also a reason why Big L Libertarians represent less than 2% of the vote tally.
Decentralizing federal authority back to states and local government? Great. I'm all for it. Drop fingerprinting practices and securities that every American has to undergo as a citizen of the United States? That's rediculous. If you don't like it, if you have that much to lose by having a government agency file the little skin swirls on your finger tips, stay home and don't touch anything when you go out. Fingerprinting is a consolation a lot of countries make for the purpose of national and individual security. I won't disagree with RenHoek that post 9/11 security measures became draconian in nature. However, there's been a significant backlash against the futility of such measures that only afford temporary or illusory safety, and many of those measures have disappeared or diminished. There's still some distance to go, but I don't think it's out of ANY country's authority to give fewer rights to foreigners than to citizens. That's why citizenship is so important.
So really it's more like the guy you were trying to buy medical marijuana from turned out to be the naggy guy behind the Above the Influence campaign.
Dave? Dave? What are you doing, Dave? Dave, my clutch is slipping... I can feel it. I can feel it.
While families who could own a player piano (they were not cheap) more than likely learned piano, the biggest use for these instruments was in bars, restaurants, or other places of entertainment, where the player piano was more financially feasible than hiring a professional pianist night after day. The argument that the publishers have always used is that cheapening is always bad: cheap meaning "paltry" or "indicating financial loss for the publishers", depending on which side of the fence you fall.