Re:Obvious Question: Who read the EULA?
on
EULA In Games
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· Score: 1
The concept of all caps being rude may date back to Usenet days, but the concept of all caps being much harder to read beyond a few words dates back to the beginning of publishing (book publishing, not desktop publishing). Pick up any style guide, and if using all caps is even mentioned, it will be in the context of "Don't do it. Ever. I mean it. Never, never, never. Don't even think about it."
Many, many studies have been published about how much harder all caps text is to read than normal mixed case text.
This leads me to one of three conclusions: (1)Lawyers are not human. (2)Lawyers have no sense of style. (3)Lawyers intentionally make it hard to read.
I don't expect cars to be safe. I wish cars were safe. If cars were safe, theirs bumpers would all be at the same height to minimize damage from collisions. If cars were safe, the rate of acceleration would be lower and the maximum speed would be only slightly above the highest speed limit. Cars are unsafe. The actions of the drivers have the potential to keep them safe.
In the same vein, I don't expect software to be safe (bug-free). I wish software were safe. I have learned through experience to save often when working on anything. I have learned to check figures if I have even the slightest feeling they are not correct. Software not only can make its own mistakes (has bugs), but it allows you to make your own mistakes. Without any indication of a problem, it will allow you to enter anything you want, correct or not, as long as it thinks the input is valid.
The problem is not so much that the cars are unsafe or that the software is buggy. The problem is responsibility and liability for it. The fuss about Firestone was not so much that the tires were unsafe but that the company tried to hide that fact. The fuss about the Timberline software was not so much that it was buggy but that the company knew about the bug and did nothing about it.
The problem with UCITA is that it strengthens the position that it was okay for Timberline to get away with neither informing its customers about known bugs nor correcting those bugs. Firestone never had a chance one the information was in the public eye. With UCITA, a case such as Mortenson v. Timberline probably would never even have made it to trial.
Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsoleteness.
It sure seems to me that DVDs are no longer protected by this, then. After all, now that DeCSS is out, isn't the DVD access control obsolete? What exactly determines "obsoleteness" anyway?
Edward Burr
Re:Getting Past the Censorware with Long Ip's
on
Mandated Mediocrity
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· Score: 1
Or, it may be easier to calculate:
(207 * 2^24) + (99 * 2^16) + (30 * 2^8) + 230
I agree with most of your points, and certainly understand the insurance company's point of view on it.
In your scenario, other factors being the same, Customer B appears to have been the victim of bad luck. So, the insurance company raises B's rates, even though B's run of bad luck may have ended. How is that at all fair if it was just random chance that led to B being victimized instead of A?
I understand the insurance companies are not required to sell me insurance. What bothers me is that I am required to get the insurance: to drive a car, to get a mortgage, etc. If I were not required to get the insurance, I would not feel so bad about the rates going up for something that occurred with no way for me to influence it; I could drop the insurance for a while, and shop around or even go without until I found something reasonable. As it is, they raise the rates, and there is nothing I can do about it. Even while shopping around, I still have to pay the higher rates.
If the incident was caused by my own action, neglicence, incompetence, or even intention, I would have no dispute that a rate increase, or possibly even a policy cancellation, would be reasonable.
All the no-claims discount is is a way for them to automatically, drastically, and uncontestably raise your rates the first time anything happens to you no matter whose fault it was.
Yes. This is ridiculous: Someone hits me, and my insurance premiums go up because a claim was filed. Your insurance rates should never be increased because of something that was beyond your control.
Last year, someone drove through my back yard trying to evade the police. After just a little checking, we determined suing the guy for the cost of replacing the fence sections wasn't worth our time or the cost of a lawyer because he didn't have any money to take. we tried to get our insurance company to fix it, since it is covered. The agent told us we could file the $200 claim if we wanted, but our "no claims" discount would be gone, which would increase our premium by $300 a year.
If I had plowed through the fence, I could understand that. But the person who did it was tresspassing and did not have my knowledge or consent to do so.
How many claims should I have to pay out of my own pocket despite having insurance because it is cheaper to do so than to file the claim, even though the damage was completely beyond my control? So, yes. I truly feel that no-claims discounts should be prohibited.
All insurance is just legalized (and sometimes mandatory) gambling. Who in their right mind is going to willingly place a bet every month that something will happen to him? If nothing happens, you lose the bet. If something happens, you win the bet, have to fight to obtain your winnings, and suffered some misery or damage as the cause of the winning.
Am I missing something, or am I being ripped off? I seem to remember that things cost more to send internationally.
What's happening here is that you are paying the post office of each country your letter has to go through. Your country's part of the postage is probably the same flat rate, but that only gets you to the border. Then the next country's post office has to deliver it from there, and they're not going to do it for free.
The pdf of the last 100 pages was probably done for cost reasons, but before you judge the situation, let's get some facts on what is contained in the pdfs.
Without breaking the seal, thereby voiding your rights, how do you get this information? From the sound of it, the only information provided was "Book Continued on Companion CD-ROM."
I notice the top end of the "standard" operating conditions is 104 degrees F. The "optional upgrade" will raise that to 120 degrees F. Here in Texas, we just ended a two month stretch of routinely breaking 100, and often breaking 105. The optional upgrade wouldn't be optional down here. Even 120 is a very low limit, unless this thing is located so it will never be in direct sunlight. Of course, further north this won't be an issue at all, except maybe a few days of the year.
They didn't make me give any info. I just wandered around waiting for the line at the cash register to die down some. A salesperson wandered up and asked if he could help me. When I asked for the scanner, he went behind the desk, picked one up, and handed it to me. He then asked if I would like a catalog to go with it and handed me one. At no time did he scane any codes from the cat or catalog, nor did he ever ask my name or any other info. The closest they'll be able to track my cat is to that store.
Not everyone just wants a simple wordprocessor. If that's all you need, Notepad works rather well (or vi on a freeer system).
Those are not word processors. Those are text editors. Now, WordPad is a very limited, relatively simple word processor. Text editors let you edit the text. Word Processors let you format the text.
I see in the MPAA's letter that they state that "The information in this notification is accurate" and they declare "under penalty of perjury, that the Motion Picture Association is authorized to act on behalf of the owner[s] of exclusive rights described above."
It sounds like they are not willing to risk declaring under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate. So, how accurate is it?
It may be accurate, but it applies only to providing DeCSS. The one place it mentions linking is to state that the court granted an injunction against linking. Whether for providing or linking, I wonder what the jurisdiction of this court is. New York? NorthEast USA? All of USA? The American continents? The world? Good luck enforcing it.
The cop pulled me over for not having registered my vehicle. I have a 2000 sticker, so the only way he could have known was to run it through the database.... suspicion of guilt that is placed on every person driving a car because a small number of people might abuse the responsibility of driving.
So, you're upset because the cop caught on that you are one of those people who are abusing the responsibility of driving?
If you want to drive on the road, pay the appropriate fees/taxes. Unlike allowing you to continue to read the ebook you purchased, continued use of your car on public roadways necessitates regular maintenance of those highways.
Taking care of children used to be a social priority shared by all members of a society... if we as a society are going to choose to work so hard for such little gain, then we as a society need to share the burden of child rearing somehow.
Apart from your reasons why this is no longer true, another reason is fear of litigation or other reprisal. It's gotten to the point where parents are scared to discipline their child in public for fear of being charged with child abuse. Someone in public can't chastize a child for inappropriate behavior without fear of being verbally (and sometimes physically) assaulted for their effort by the child's parents.
It's not so much that it is easy to just ignore it and walk away. The problem is that it can be too dangerous to attempt to do anything about it. Maybe if we all started taking a little more risk...
Censorware is not the answer, but stopping all the marketing to our kids...
Isn't that just another form of censorware, but at a legal level rather than a software level? However, I would greatly prefer it if a business/corporation/whatever had as little or less right to agressively attempt to get me to buy something as you (the individual) have the capability to do.
After all, all a link to a site with DeCSS does is provide you with an address. The actual getting you there is done by your web browser, your ISP, your backbone provider, etc.
What is a link, anyway? My server provides you with a string of text, no different than any other string of text on the page. It's all ASCII text. It is the browser, not my server, that chooses to interpret a certain string of text as a link. So, why is it that a string of plain ASCII text on my page causes me to get in trouble, when it is really your browser that shows it to you as a link?
Now, don't tell me that my plain text forced your browser to show it as a link. I can't force your browser to do anything. In fact, I don't even know anything about your browser. I can't even determine if you are reading my text with a web browser. After all, I can telnet to port 80 of my server and get the raw text of my page without all this fancy graphical interpretation a browser might do. Why is it my (or my server's) fault that you saw my text as a link?
Argh! I meant UCITA. Even though I know what all the letters in both acronyms stand for, I still can't use the correct one when I'm using just the acronym.
How about breaking it up in a set, each piece sold separately. One section of the code on the shirt, another section on the pants, a few subroutines on each sock, etc. Individually, each piece is worthless (and so they shouldn't have anything to prosecute on). However, wear it all at once, and...
No, the evil part is not the hacking of the game (or OS). The evil part is the using the hack to gain and use an unfair advantage over the other players in the game.
Also, most of the "security through obscurity" that was mentioned dealt not with hiding how something was done, but with making it hard enough to locate data during any single session that the usefulness of that data is gone by the time it is found. Even if the game were completely "Open Source", every suggestion made is relevant; the author essentially acknowledges that the software will be so thoroughly analyzed by some people that they might as well have the source code.
They just don't get it, do they? Their idea is "to catch the ear of young men during a quiet, relaxed and attention-grabbing moment." I get few enough quiet relaxed moments already, and they want to annoy me then?
This is also how TV works (you can get free TV with ads, or premium/rental services without).
Not quite. You can get a few channels of free TV with ads and static, you can get a lot of channels of pay TV with ads, or you can get a few premium channels of high-pay TV without ads, but you still have to buy the pay TV with ads, also. (i.e broadcast, cable, and premium (which requires cable))
Slashdot Mirror
This leads me to one of three conclusions: (1)Lawyers are not human. (2)Lawyers have no sense of style. (3)Lawyers intentionally make it hard to read.
Edward Burr
In the same vein, I don't expect software to be safe (bug-free). I wish software were safe. I have learned through experience to save often when working on anything. I have learned to check figures if I have even the slightest feeling they are not correct. Software not only can make its own mistakes (has bugs), but it allows you to make your own mistakes. Without any indication of a problem, it will allow you to enter anything you want, correct or not, as long as it thinks the input is valid.
The problem is not so much that the cars are unsafe or that the software is buggy. The problem is responsibility and liability for it. The fuss about Firestone was not so much that the tires were unsafe but that the company tried to hide that fact. The fuss about the Timberline software was not so much that it was buggy but that the company knew about the bug and did nothing about it.
The problem with UCITA is that it strengthens the position that it was okay for Timberline to get away with neither informing its customers about known bugs nor correcting those bugs. Firestone never had a chance one the information was in the public eye. With UCITA, a case such as Mortenson v. Timberline probably would never even have made it to trial.
Edward Burr
It sure seems to me that DVDs are no longer protected by this, then. After all, now that DeCSS is out, isn't the DVD access control obsolete? What exactly determines "obsoleteness" anyway?
Edward Burr
(207 * 2^24) + (99 * 2^16) + (30 * 2^8) + 230
Or, maybe even easier:
(207 * 16777216) + (99 * 65536) + (30 * 256) + 230
Edward Burr
In your scenario, other factors being the same, Customer B appears to have been the victim of bad luck. So, the insurance company raises B's rates, even though B's run of bad luck may have ended. How is that at all fair if it was just random chance that led to B being victimized instead of A?
I understand the insurance companies are not required to sell me insurance. What bothers me is that I am required to get the insurance: to drive a car, to get a mortgage, etc. If I were not required to get the insurance, I would not feel so bad about the rates going up for something that occurred with no way for me to influence it; I could drop the insurance for a while, and shop around or even go without until I found something reasonable. As it is, they raise the rates, and there is nothing I can do about it. Even while shopping around, I still have to pay the higher rates.
If the incident was caused by my own action, neglicence, incompetence, or even intention, I would have no dispute that a rate increase, or possibly even a policy cancellation, would be reasonable.
All the no-claims discount is is a way for them to automatically, drastically, and uncontestably raise your rates the first time anything happens to you no matter whose fault it was.
Edward Burr
Yes. This is ridiculous: Someone hits me, and my insurance premiums go up because a claim was filed. Your insurance rates should never be increased because of something that was beyond your control.
Last year, someone drove through my back yard trying to evade the police. After just a little checking, we determined suing the guy for the cost of replacing the fence sections wasn't worth our time or the cost of a lawyer because he didn't have any money to take. we tried to get our insurance company to fix it, since it is covered. The agent told us we could file the $200 claim if we wanted, but our "no claims" discount would be gone, which would increase our premium by $300 a year.
If I had plowed through the fence, I could understand that. But the person who did it was tresspassing and did not have my knowledge or consent to do so.
How many claims should I have to pay out of my own pocket despite having insurance because it is cheaper to do so than to file the claim, even though the damage was completely beyond my control? So, yes. I truly feel that no-claims discounts should be prohibited.
All insurance is just legalized (and sometimes mandatory) gambling. Who in their right mind is going to willingly place a bet every month that something will happen to him? If nothing happens, you lose the bet. If something happens, you win the bet, have to fight to obtain your winnings, and suffered some misery or damage as the cause of the winning.
Edward Burr
So, are we going to start requiring toilet menufacturers to start printing expiration dates on our toilets?
Edward Burr
What's happening here is that you are paying the post office of each country your letter has to go through. Your country's part of the postage is probably the same flat rate, but that only gets you to the border. Then the next country's post office has to deliver it from there, and they're not going to do it for free.
Edward Burr
Without breaking the seal, thereby voiding your rights, how do you get this information? From the sound of it, the only information provided was "Book Continued on Companion CD-ROM."
Edward Burr
I notice the top end of the "standard" operating conditions is 104 degrees F. The "optional upgrade" will raise that to 120 degrees F. Here in Texas, we just ended a two month stretch of routinely breaking 100, and often breaking 105. The optional upgrade wouldn't be optional down here. Even 120 is a very low limit, unless this thing is located so it will never be in direct sunlight. Of course, further north this won't be an issue at all, except maybe a few days of the year.
Edward Burr
What I would like to know is if they have a model for lefties. That dial wouldn't be nearly as easy to use when the watch is worn on the right arm.
Edward Burr
It sure is nice of them to officially release this to the public domain a whole two weeks before it would have automatically gone there anyway.
Edward Burr
They didn't make me give any info. I just wandered around waiting for the line at the cash register to die down some. A salesperson wandered up and asked if he could help me. When I asked for the scanner, he went behind the desk, picked one up, and handed it to me. He then asked if I would like a catalog to go with it and handed me one. At no time did he scane any codes from the cat or catalog, nor did he ever ask my name or any other info. The closest they'll be able to track my cat is to that store.
Edward Burr
Those are not word processors. Those are text editors. Now, WordPad is a very limited, relatively simple word processor. Text editors let you edit the text. Word Processors let you format the text.
Edward Burr
It sounds like they are not willing to risk declaring under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate. So, how accurate is it?
It may be accurate, but it applies only to providing DeCSS. The one place it mentions linking is to state that the court granted an injunction against linking. Whether for providing or linking, I wonder what the jurisdiction of this court is. New York? NorthEast USA? All of USA? The American continents? The world? Good luck enforcing it.
Edward Burr
Yes, that is one of the responsibilities associated with driving. Safety is another one.
Edward Burr
So, you're upset because the cop caught on that you are one of those people who are abusing the responsibility of driving?
If you want to drive on the road, pay the appropriate fees/taxes. Unlike allowing you to continue to read the ebook you purchased, continued use of your car on public roadways necessitates regular maintenance of those highways.
Edward Burr
Apart from your reasons why this is no longer true, another reason is fear of litigation or other reprisal. It's gotten to the point where parents are scared to discipline their child in public for fear of being charged with child abuse. Someone in public can't chastize a child for inappropriate behavior without fear of being verbally (and sometimes physically) assaulted for their effort by the child's parents.
It's not so much that it is easy to just ignore it and walk away. The problem is that it can be too dangerous to attempt to do anything about it. Maybe if we all started taking a little more risk...
Censorware is not the answer, but stopping all the marketing to our kids...
Isn't that just another form of censorware, but at a legal level rather than a software level? However, I would greatly prefer it if a business/corporation/whatever had as little or less right to agressively attempt to get me to buy something as you (the individual) have the capability to do.
Edward Burr
What is a link, anyway? My server provides you with a string of text, no different than any other string of text on the page. It's all ASCII text. It is the browser, not my server, that chooses to interpret a certain string of text as a link. So, why is it that a string of plain ASCII text on my page causes me to get in trouble, when it is really your browser that shows it to you as a link?
Now, don't tell me that my plain text forced your browser to show it as a link. I can't force your browser to do anything. In fact, I don't even know anything about your browser. I can't even determine if you are reading my text with a web browser. After all, I can telnet to port 80 of my server and get the raw text of my page without all this fancy graphical interpretation a browser might do. Why is it my (or my server's) fault that you saw my text as a link?
Edward Burr
Argh! I meant UCITA. Even though I know what all the letters in both acronyms stand for, I still can't use the correct one when I'm using just the acronym.
Edward Burr
Sure we do. We call it a review usually.
Didn't the DMCA take away our right to do such reviews without the reviewee's consent?
Edward Burr
How about breaking it up in a set, each piece sold separately. One section of the code on the shirt, another section on the pants, a few subroutines on each sock, etc. Individually, each piece is worthless (and so they shouldn't have anything to prosecute on). However, wear it all at once, and...
Edward Burr
Also, most of the "security through obscurity" that was mentioned dealt not with hiding how something was done, but with making it hard enough to locate data during any single session that the usefulness of that data is gone by the time it is found. Even if the game were completely "Open Source", every suggestion made is relevant; the author essentially acknowledges that the software will be so thoroughly analyzed by some people that they might as well have the source code.
Edward Burr
They just don't get it, do they? Their idea is "to catch the ear of young men during a quiet, relaxed and attention-grabbing moment." I get few enough quiet relaxed moments already, and they want to annoy me then?
Edward Burr
Not quite. You can get a few channels of free TV with ads and static, you can get a lot of channels of pay TV with ads, or you can get a few premium channels of high-pay TV without ads, but you still have to buy the pay TV with ads, also. (i.e broadcast, cable, and premium (which requires cable))
Edward Burr