That an offer exists is pretty clear to me; I don't really understand your argument there.
Acceptance can by implied by your use of the product, even if you didn't click the button, and even if there wasn't any statement that use would constitute acceptance.
As far as consideration, you are giving up some rights that you have as part of the agreement, so that's satisfied.
license, n. 1. A permission, usu. revocable, to commit some act that would otherwise be unlawful; esp., an agreement (not amounting to a lease or profit à prendre) that it is lawful for the licensee to enter the licensor's land to do some act that would otherwise be illegal, such as hunting game.
Well, if they're charging people in Europe more for the same product, then really it's helping to keep prices (lower?) here in the U.S. Do I really want to complain to them? It's kind of like the U.S. drug reimportation problem, minus the government imposed price limits. I don't think Canadians are complaining that U.S. prescription drug buyers are subsidizing their healthcare.
The stores might mark up each box $5, if that. The margin on video games, dvds, and cds is negligible; they're simply ploys to get you into the store to buy higher margin products.
Perhaps the issue isn't the number of boxes that sold, but the amount of time the average player is wanting to play. The game is good enough that even those who might have thought they would be "casual" players are logging considerable more hours than might have been expected.
So if they targeted their loads for 1,000,000 users, with the average user playing 15 hours a week, and instead they've got 1,000,000 users with the average user playing 30 hours a week, you can imagine the problem.
I know I've played a lot more than I intended. I think my total playing time is over 10-12 days.
Meanwhile, players are still beta testing, but for 15$/month.
Name one computer software product that did not require some form of patch or update within one year of being released due to the discovery of bugs by users?
They probably figured: "We can let our employees slack off 20% of the time, or pretend like we're 'encouraging' their independent works while at the same time eliminating that slack time."
So you've made your employees happier which makes them more productive, and you've taken something wasted (slack time) and turned into something useful (creative/moral boosting time).
There isn't a study that I am aware of that tracks whether or not students chose subjects they had strengths in, or because they were "encouraged or discouraged" to do so.
My point exactly; it's just always been assumed it was "nature," but we've never had any proof.
The point is, that people keep hearing this, and so those women who have the opportunity to achieve great things in math and science, are turned away by the time they reach college. Not because they're innately bad at math, but because someone along the way assumed they were and they weren't helped along the path that might have been more appropriate for them.
Statements like this only end up hurting those "anomalies" which for all we know could be a good 20-25% or even more. Why? Because everything around them is telling them they're not supposed to be good at math, and are supposed to be doing something else. If you say something over and over again, "Women are bad at math," eventually you will believe it is true, even if it's not.
So, since we have been saying these things for thousands of years "women should do this, men should do this," we've come to accept it as being innate, when there isn't all that much evidence either way, aside from statistics regarding professions, educational performance, etc. All these statistics show is that for some reason, in practice, women, on average, are performing worse in certain fields, but it doesn't give us the reason why.
So, aside from his remarks being somewhat crass, Mr. Summers is correct that we need to study this more to determine the why. We know the result of the why, we just don't know the why.
Glad to know that I'm not the only one that hates how television commercials have made all men out to be blubbering idiots that can't tie their own shoes or do anything for themselves except drink beer.
Maybe it's just revenge for all the ads from 10-20 years ago that suggested the only thing women were good for was cleaning house and cooking dinner? (Granted, the ads still do that).
How do explain societies that have existed independent of others where the traditional male and female roles are reversed? (I can't recall where, but they exist, and have for quite a long time).
Just because it's the way things have always been (for the most part), doesn't mean that it is something that is innate.
Considering the number of entirely open networks out there, I expect most people will just drive onto the next one unless they know you have something valuable on your network that they really want. For the average home user, WEP + MAC Address filtering is enough security to make the wardriver go to the next house. If you're a business with your name on the outside of the building though, you might have people that will be willing to try a little more to get access to your network.
(I did this when I first moved into my apartment, since I wasn't going to have cable hooked up for 3 weeks, I just took my laptop and walked around until I found a few open networks and used them for Internet access.)
I've had cable from Comcast and Time Warner at a total of 6 different locations, and each time have been able to utilize the full 3 Mbps down at any time of day. All 6 of these locations where in densely populated areas, so that might have been part of the reason why.
Most of the people I know with cable no longer have the problems that were complained about 5-6 years ago.
Expanding on this a little; assuming my interpretation is correct, Gates' analogy fits a little better. With most open source projects, the creators of the source code are not the ones that profit; it the users of the source code that profit; or in the case of many distributions, those that take that source code and repackage it for others.
If you allow the musicians to retain control over his work, then the person who wrote it will be the one who controls who profits from it.
It is my understanding that prior to market reform, any music that was produced was (in most cases) handed over to the government, which rehashed it in some way and then it was given to all of the public to use as it saw fit. (A musician could keep it to himself if he desired).
Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that the creators of the music were not compensated for their work; however, performers may have been.
(This is based on a very short historical review of Chinese music and could be way off base, but at least I tried).
Slashdot Mirror
That an offer exists is pretty clear to me; I don't really understand your argument there.
Acceptance can by implied by your use of the product, even if you didn't click the button, and even if there wasn't any statement that use would constitute acceptance.
As far as consideration, you are giving up some rights that you have as part of the agreement, so that's satisfied.
From Black's Law Dictionary:
license, n. 1. A permission, usu. revocable, to commit some act that would otherwise be unlawful; esp., an agreement (not amounting to a lease or profit à prendre) that it is lawful for the licensee to enter the licensor's land to do some act that would otherwise be illegal, such as hunting game.
How much clearer can you get?
A license is revocable at the will of the licensor and therefore is not a contract.
He just posted the content of the story and did a poor job of attributing it to the author.
Well, if they're charging people in Europe more for the same product, then really it's helping to keep prices (lower?) here in the U.S. Do I really want to complain to them? It's kind of like the U.S. drug reimportation problem, minus the government imposed price limits. I don't think Canadians are complaining that U.S. prescription drug buyers are subsidizing their healthcare.
Those who steal copyrighted material will be caught
Maybe he just means the kid that rips off CDs from Best Buy? That would be stealing copyrighted material right? =]
# of subscribers != # of concurrent users online.
I'm willing to bet that WoW has more than twice the number of people logged in and playing at any one time than FFXI.
To add to my other comment; the monthly fee goes directly to Blizzard, there is no middle man, so your comment makes no sense.
The stores might mark up each box $5, if that. The margin on video games, dvds, and cds is negligible; they're simply ploys to get you into the store to buy higher margin products.
Perhaps the issue isn't the number of boxes that sold, but the amount of time the average player is wanting to play. The game is good enough that even those who might have thought they would be "casual" players are logging considerable more hours than might have been expected.
So if they targeted their loads for 1,000,000 users, with the average user playing 15 hours a week, and instead they've got 1,000,000 users with the average user playing 30 hours a week, you can imagine the problem.
I know I've played a lot more than I intended. I think my total playing time is over 10-12 days.
Meanwhile, players are still beta testing, but for 15$/month.
Name one computer software product that did not require some form of patch or update within one year of being released due to the discovery of bugs by users?
They probably figured: "We can let our employees slack off 20% of the time, or pretend like we're 'encouraging' their independent works while at the same time eliminating that slack time."
So you've made your employees happier which makes them more productive, and you've taken something wasted (slack time) and turned into something useful (creative/moral boosting time).
The "food problem" is a political problem, not a resource problem.
You know, he was on one of the episodes and was even holding a device that looked quite a bit like Ziggy.
There isn't a study that I am aware of that tracks whether or not students chose subjects they had strengths in, or because they were "encouraged or discouraged" to do so.
My point exactly; it's just always been assumed it was "nature," but we've never had any proof.
Someone on Slashdot has to have studied anthropology enough to be able to back me up here, come on!
Probably this one.
The point is, that people keep hearing this, and so those women who have the opportunity to achieve great things in math and science, are turned away by the time they reach college. Not because they're innately bad at math, but because someone along the way assumed they were and they weren't helped along the path that might have been more appropriate for them.
Statements like this only end up hurting those "anomalies" which for all we know could be a good 20-25% or even more. Why? Because everything around them is telling them they're not supposed to be good at math, and are supposed to be doing something else. If you say something over and over again, "Women are bad at math," eventually you will believe it is true, even if it's not.
So, since we have been saying these things for thousands of years "women should do this, men should do this," we've come to accept it as being innate, when there isn't all that much evidence either way, aside from statistics regarding professions, educational performance, etc. All these statistics show is that for some reason, in practice, women, on average, are performing worse in certain fields, but it doesn't give us the reason why.
So, aside from his remarks being somewhat crass, Mr. Summers is correct that we need to study this more to determine the why. We know the result of the why, we just don't know the why.
Glad to know that I'm not the only one that hates how television commercials have made all men out to be blubbering idiots that can't tie their own shoes or do anything for themselves except drink beer.
Maybe it's just revenge for all the ads from 10-20 years ago that suggested the only thing women were good for was cleaning house and cooking dinner? (Granted, the ads still do that).
How do explain societies that have existed independent of others where the traditional male and female roles are reversed? (I can't recall where, but they exist, and have for quite a long time).
Just because it's the way things have always been (for the most part), doesn't mean that it is something that is innate.
And I bet that everytime you tell someone about a story you read on Slashdot you tell them that's where you found it.
Taking content from a blog, who didn't really come up with it themselves either, isn't all that big of a deal.
Anyway, the blog linked to in the article took it from the real article linked above, and they didn't attribute it properly either.
I don't care if people don't bother citing blogs, but at least cite the original article when possible.
Considering the number of entirely open networks out there, I expect most people will just drive onto the next one unless they know you have something valuable on your network that they really want. For the average home user, WEP + MAC Address filtering is enough security to make the wardriver go to the next house. If you're a business with your name on the outside of the building though, you might have people that will be willing to try a little more to get access to your network.
(I did this when I first moved into my apartment, since I wasn't going to have cable hooked up for 3 weeks, I just took my laptop and walked around until I found a few open networks and used them for Internet access.)
I've had cable from Comcast and Time Warner at a total of 6 different locations, and each time have been able to utilize the full 3 Mbps down at any time of day. All 6 of these locations where in densely populated areas, so that might have been part of the reason why.
Most of the people I know with cable no longer have the problems that were complained about 5-6 years ago.
Expanding on this a little; assuming my interpretation is correct, Gates' analogy fits a little better. With most open source projects, the creators of the source code are not the ones that profit; it the users of the source code that profit; or in the case of many distributions, those that take that source code and repackage it for others.
If you allow the musicians to retain control over his work, then the person who wrote it will be the one who controls who profits from it.
(See parent comment for general disclaimer).
It is my understanding that prior to market reform, any music that was produced was (in most cases) handed over to the government, which rehashed it in some way and then it was given to all of the public to use as it saw fit. (A musician could keep it to himself if he desired).
Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that the creators of the music were not compensated for their work; however, performers may have been.
(This is based on a very short historical review of Chinese music and could be way off base, but at least I tried).