So you anger the majority of your customers by catering to a tiny majority who are in turn causing others huge problems? I'd say a response of "We do not do that as it is causing problems for our other paying users" would have been appropriate here, along with a page on your website about why you do not and will not knowingly pass spam along.
Since it's a Java app it works on any device that can run the appropriate Java VM, and there is one for the Treo 650. I do not use it on my 650, but it is there.
I found it boring as hell and actually quit watching during that time because it was boring to always know who would win. I found a report of when Jennings would finally lose and just kept wiping it off my Tivo, without ever watching, before that day.
It also says that they don't expect problems if you don't use IE but like all idiot corporations these days (or most of them?) they "recommend" it. But I plan to use my Mac, running Firefox, anyway (I registered yesterday).
Actually, I did once accidentally drop my wallet and it was returned and even still had the cash in it, and the credit cards were not moved AT ALL so no one even pulled them out to look at them. The campus shuttle driver who found it only needed to open it up briefly to see my driver's license which is visible, no digging in the cards required. She left it with campus security, who tracked me down through the campus directory and called me to tell me where I could pick it up. I have numerous other anecdotes that support my assertion that yes, aside from idiot drivers who are unable to realize that their actions put other people at risk because they see being in a car as an excuse to do whatever they want, people do have an inherent sense of honesty, especially when they can see the people they are dealing with. Of course there are exceptions; I did say "in general". There's exceptions to everything.
But don't you think that "things cost too much sometimes" is a valid reason to say "the system needs to be revised"? There are indeed times when things do indeed cost too much and when they have far outlived the time during which many believe an ethical argument can be made for causing problems to others, again thinking in part of Eyes on the Prize. There are things which were created a long time ago that the original creators have no interest in anymore, but which some middleman still demands money for. There are many people who feel that one should only be allowed to profit for so long (and for less time than is the case now) and then you should be forced to turn your work over to the public good. That's been argued repeatedly, and repeated examples have been aired, if one does a little looking into the matter, of how a vibrant pool of public resources, actually strengthens a society, rather than weakening it as is happening now.
Does that mean that all of those people are automatically cheats and liars? No, of course it doesn't. It means that they believe that the current system is wrong. Does it mean they want something for nothing? Not in the way you think. Does it make them bad people? Only if you automatically assume for whatever reason that anyone who disagrees with you must be evil.
And by the way, you can't use a single online forum as your sample. It's very distorted. You can point to it and say that "here are a few examples of people who have this particular motive" but you can also point to it and say "here are some examples of people who have entirely different, and perfectly fair, motives for believing the system is wrong".
Get your face out of your monitor and look around and talk to people who have different opinions on the system, from a variety of perspectives. And I don't just mean forum posters. I mean in the real world. People who are legitimately (as in they're NOT trying to run a disk-stamping plant or fileshare) harmed by the system, and people who are not.
Whoops, didn't see that. But... I can't see it happening because that would be totally against contract law and you'd have to change contract law to do that, because a software license is a kind of contract. The only kind of contract that can be cancelled (or should be able to be cancelled), if there is no termination procedure described in it, is one which is already illegal or one which could harm another person. An example would be a hit man's contract which states that you would get paid if you were to kill someone. That's criminal, so the contract is automatically void.
It doesn't matter whether money is involved or not. You're still an inhuman, uncaring, cold sadistic monster. If you really think it's acceptable to shoot someone, here goes.
ha ha ha, where did I say anything about money? You assumed it, becuase you condone pirate behaviour for the simple reason of not paying for the provided service.
No, it doesn't even have to be about money for me to shoot someone, who infringes on my copyrights, all they have to do is fail to abide by the rules of the license.
Reproduced without permission. C'mon. Shoot me. I'll see to it charges are filed.
So let me get this straight. You want to kill someone, as in take their life away, permanently, and ruin the lives of their friends and family, just because you didn't get some poitential money that you might have gotten, if they had chosen to pay you for whatever you are selling, which is not a given? You value money, and your own greed, above someone else's life?
People like you tend to be rightly portrayed as "coldhearted, unfeeling, animals" who don't belong in our society.
Get the fuck over yourself. I would have no qualms about voting to have you executed if I were ever on the jury that was hearing your murder case and found that you committed the crime because you were whining that you were owed some imaginary income that your inflated ego somehow wrongly believed you deserved.
Then there's the old "put up or shut up". Prove that "9 out of 10" people who believe the current system is wrong. If you're going to paint such a broad swath of people with such a negative brush, you're going to need proof of such an accusation. People tend to be overall honest and have a strong sense of what's fair and what's not, and so that makes the burden on YOU.
Except that copyright infringement is a civil problem, and does not cause harm to anyone. Murder is a violent crime and deserves to be dealt with harshly. If you shoot someone despite the fact that they signed an agreement that says "You may shoot me if I don't abide by these terms", and they didn't abide by the terms, you are still guilty of first-degree murder and you will be put in jail for the rest of your life, or quite possibly executed.
3 is bullshit. So now you're saying that all the people who are trying to improve the situation so that society as a whole won't be held hostage by arbitrary BS that helps no one but hurts everyone... are crooks? The people who want to, say, prevent situations like the one that is keeping Eyes on the Prize from being distributed? Like outrageous situations where a major TV network demanded $10,000 in royalties from a documentary filmmaker who happened to capture a TV showing a network-produced program in the background in a scene in his work? (The documentary was cut, by the way, even though the creator of the video clip in question did grant permission). What about all that old stuff from the 30s that's long forgotten by anyone except those who want to use it, to the point where no one even cared to put their name on it when they published it, but which still can't be used for fear of some jerk suing for millions?
Ah, so in other words, you think everyone who doesn't agree with the money-grubbing media companies (RIAA/MPAA, mostly) is a liar and a thief?
Wow, you really are delusional. Either that or you're incapable of reason. Think a little and you could come up with dozens of valid reasons why there is a large "the system needs to be changed" movement!
If you signed a contract that doesn't specify that it terminates at a particular time, then you can't just arbitrarily cancel it because you realize you should have asked for more money. You will find yourself paying damages as a result of lost profit, damaged reputation, things like that -- and maybe a hefty punitive fine that equates to "We're charging you all this money as a lesson to not do that again".
I point out here that the Libertarian candidate won't ever have a chance of being elected if people like you excuse not voting for them by saying "Well, they can't possibly win, so I'll vote for someone else."
That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you really want them to win, vote for them. They never will if you don't.
Or are you just trying to feel good about yourself by being all talk and no action?
Yes, it stings to hear the truth, doesn't it, crybaby? The fact is that you are double-dipping: getting the costs back in the extended forced service term AND making it difficult for people to go to another provider when they realize how badly they're being treated. If you are so damn sure that your service is worthy, then what the fuck (I can swear as well as you can) are you doing unfairly restricting customer choice?
I don't give a flying fuck or a rat's ass, and we have a lot of rat's asses where I work, about what you think of me or how much you can show your supposed tough-guy attitude by responding to the truth with profanity. You're scum, and you can deal with it.
I work for Cingular, and we DON'T give out unlock codes, ever, no matter who the customer is or what they say.
Outright false. As in, you are talking out of your ass, whether you know it or not. I don't use a GSM phone due to problems with a past hearing aid not being GSM compatible (I have a Sprint Treo 650, and I'm also way past my 2-year contract so I'm going to stay monthly, thank you) but there's lots of Treo 650 users who have successfully unlocked their Cingular Treos.
There's lots more threads about how much of an asshole you (as a cingular support rep collective) are, though, and I'm never going to use your shitty service because of your rude treatment of customers who just want to be able to do what they want with something THEY PAID FOR. They bought the phone, they're paying you back by guaranteeing you X years of service. Stop being such a bunch of whiny crybabies when people figure out your game and decide they're not going to put up with your fake restrictions.
I don't care if there are ads in it or not. I pay for the magazine, and thus yes, I am a customer. That means I should not be pissed off if they want to stay in business. Who, after all, is going to buy the ads if all the readers have been driven off because the staff is a bunch of idiots?
If you are a staff writer or editor for a national magazine, you need to either be a trained journalist or act like one. I will not apologize for being angry and dropping my paid subscription, which I had had for several years, over the unprofessional lack of respect. Think professionalism isn't required and think people will take it? Think again. By being in the profession, yes, you are expected to behave appropriately.
Oh, I get it. You are a smug bastard who thinks everyone who does something perfectly reasonable and gets treated like shit should just bend over and take it. Who's the asshole here?
Congratulations. You have just missed the fact that I paid for that magazine, which means I am the customer. Or did you think they send me magazines for free? Or did you think they pay me to read them? Yeah, I wish. And as long as I pay to receive a good or service from a company, that fact isn't going to change.
And I dropped my subscription to that magazine, despite the fact that they kept badgering me to resubscribe. Those fucktards didn't deserve a penny more of my money.
I wouldn't call either of them "better". I would call them symptoms of journalists who have forgotten the basic lessons they should have learned in journalism school or from other, respected journalists:
Respect your readers.
And yeah, I'm kinda leery due to the repeated instances of BS in the responses to the article. Having run into the BS personally doesn't help.
It's simple: I take pride in writing well when I write something that is intended for an audience outside family and friends -- I had several English professors tell me that I wrote very well and would do well if I wanted to write for a magazine or a newspaper -- and I believe that an editor of a publication, no matter what its type, has an obligation to be respectful of its readers -- even when it comes to taking criticism. If someone points out a mistake, does it politely, and even goes so far as to cite reliable sources to show the mistake in question, you do not belittle them. You admit that you or your fact checkers made a mistake, and you thank the reader.
If I am treated like dirt for doing what a responsible reader of a nationwide (or international even) publication should do, why should I ever have any respect for that publication again?
Slashdot Mirror
So you anger the majority of your customers by catering to a tiny majority who are in turn causing others huge problems? I'd say a response of "We do not do that as it is causing problems for our other paying users" would have been appropriate here, along with a page on your website about why you do not and will not knowingly pass spam along.
Opera Mini on Treo (30 Days to becoming an Opera8 Lover)
Since it's a Java app it works on any device that can run the appropriate Java VM, and there is one for the Treo 650. I do not use it on my 650, but it is there.
You did, of course, fund the purchases from a credit card so that you could have your bank issue chargebacks?
I found it boring as hell and actually quit watching during that time because it was boring to always know who would win. I found a report of when Jennings would finally lose and just kept wiping it off my Tivo, without ever watching, before that day.
It also says that they don't expect problems if you don't use IE but like all idiot corporations these days (or most of them?) they "recommend" it. But I plan to use my Mac, running Firefox, anyway (I registered yesterday).
Actually, I did once accidentally drop my wallet and it was returned and even still had the cash in it, and the credit cards were not moved AT ALL so no one even pulled them out to look at them. The campus shuttle driver who found it only needed to open it up briefly to see my driver's license which is visible, no digging in the cards required. She left it with campus security, who tracked me down through the campus directory and called me to tell me where I could pick it up. I have numerous other anecdotes that support my assertion that yes, aside from idiot drivers who are unable to realize that their actions put other people at risk because they see being in a car as an excuse to do whatever they want, people do have an inherent sense of honesty, especially when they can see the people they are dealing with. Of course there are exceptions; I did say "in general". There's exceptions to everything.
But don't you think that "things cost too much sometimes" is a valid reason to say "the system needs to be revised"? There are indeed times when things do indeed cost too much and when they have far outlived the time during which many believe an ethical argument can be made for causing problems to others, again thinking in part of Eyes on the Prize. There are things which were created a long time ago that the original creators have no interest in anymore, but which some middleman still demands money for. There are many people who feel that one should only be allowed to profit for so long (and for less time than is the case now) and then you should be forced to turn your work over to the public good. That's been argued repeatedly, and repeated examples have been aired, if one does a little looking into the matter, of how a vibrant pool of public resources, actually strengthens a society, rather than weakening it as is happening now.
Does that mean that all of those people are automatically cheats and liars? No, of course it doesn't. It means that they believe that the current system is wrong. Does it mean they want something for nothing? Not in the way you think. Does it make them bad people? Only if you automatically assume for whatever reason that anyone who disagrees with you must be evil.
And by the way, you can't use a single online forum as your sample. It's very distorted. You can point to it and say that "here are a few examples of people who have this particular motive" but you can also point to it and say "here are some examples of people who have entirely different, and perfectly fair, motives for believing the system is wrong".
Get your face out of your monitor and look around and talk to people who have different opinions on the system, from a variety of perspectives. And I don't just mean forum posters. I mean in the real world. People who are legitimately (as in they're NOT trying to run a disk-stamping plant or fileshare) harmed by the system, and people who are not.
Whoops, didn't see that. But ... I can't see it happening because that would be totally against contract law and you'd have to change contract law to do that, because a software license is a kind of contract. The only kind of contract that can be cancelled (or should be able to be cancelled), if there is no termination procedure described in it, is one which is already illegal or one which could harm another person. An example would be a hit man's contract which states that you would get paid if you were to kill someone. That's criminal, so the contract is automatically void.
It doesn't matter whether money is involved or not. You're still an inhuman, uncaring, cold sadistic monster. If you really think it's acceptable to shoot someone, here goes.
ha ha ha, where did I say anything about money? You assumed it, becuase you condone pirate behaviour for the simple reason of not paying for the provided service.
No, it doesn't even have to be about money for me to shoot someone, who infringes on my copyrights, all they have to do is fail to abide by the rules of the license.
Reproduced without permission. C'mon. Shoot me. I'll see to it charges are filed.
So let me get this straight. You want to kill someone, as in take their life away, permanently, and ruin the lives of their friends and family, just because you didn't get some poitential money that you might have gotten, if they had chosen to pay you for whatever you are selling, which is not a given? You value money, and your own greed, above someone else's life?
People like you tend to be rightly portrayed as "coldhearted, unfeeling, animals" who don't belong in our society.
Get the fuck over yourself. I would have no qualms about voting to have you executed if I were ever on the jury that was hearing your murder case and found that you committed the crime because you were whining that you were owed some imaginary income that your inflated ego somehow wrongly believed you deserved.
Then there's the old "put up or shut up". Prove that "9 out of 10" people who believe the current system is wrong. If you're going to paint such a broad swath of people with such a negative brush, you're going to need proof of such an accusation. People tend to be overall honest and have a strong sense of what's fair and what's not, and so that makes the burden on YOU.
Start explaining.
Except that copyright infringement is a civil problem, and does not cause harm to anyone. Murder is a violent crime and deserves to be dealt with harshly. If you shoot someone despite the fact that they signed an agreement that says "You may shoot me if I don't abide by these terms", and they didn't abide by the terms, you are still guilty of first-degree murder and you will be put in jail for the rest of your life, or quite possibly executed.
3 is bullshit. So now you're saying that all the people who are trying to improve the situation so that society as a whole won't be held hostage by arbitrary BS that helps no one but hurts everyone ... are crooks? The people who want to, say, prevent situations like the one that is keeping Eyes on the Prize from being distributed? Like outrageous situations where a major TV network demanded $10,000 in royalties from a documentary filmmaker who happened to capture a TV showing a network-produced program in the background in a scene in his work? (The documentary was cut, by the way, even though the creator of the video clip in question did grant permission). What about all that old stuff from the 30s that's long forgotten by anyone except those who want to use it, to the point where no one even cared to put their name on it when they published it, but which still can't be used for fear of some jerk suing for millions?
Ah, so in other words, you think everyone who doesn't agree with the money-grubbing media companies (RIAA/MPAA, mostly) is a liar and a thief?
Wow, you really are delusional. Either that or you're incapable of reason. Think a little and you could come up with dozens of valid reasons why there is a large "the system needs to be changed" movement!
"Breach Of Contract".
If you signed a contract that doesn't specify that it terminates at a particular time, then you can't just arbitrarily cancel it because you realize you should have asked for more money. You will find yourself paying damages as a result of lost profit, damaged reputation, things like that -- and maybe a hefty punitive fine that equates to "We're charging you all this money as a lesson to not do that again".
I point out here that the Libertarian candidate won't ever have a chance of being elected if people like you excuse not voting for them by saying "Well, they can't possibly win, so I'll vote for someone else."
That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you really want them to win, vote for them. They never will if you don't.
Or are you just trying to feel good about yourself by being all talk and no action?
Yes, it stings to hear the truth, doesn't it, crybaby? The fact is that you are double-dipping: getting the costs back in the extended forced service term AND making it difficult for people to go to another provider when they realize how badly they're being treated. If you are so damn sure that your service is worthy, then what the fuck (I can swear as well as you can) are you doing unfairly restricting customer choice?
I don't give a flying fuck or a rat's ass, and we have a lot of rat's asses where I work, about what you think of me or how much you can show your supposed tough-guy attitude by responding to the truth with profanity. You're scum, and you can deal with it.
I work for Cingular, and we DON'T give out unlock codes, ever, no matter who the customer is or what they say.
Outright false. As in, you are talking out of your ass, whether you know it or not. I don't use a GSM phone due to problems with a past hearing aid not being GSM compatible (I have a Sprint Treo 650, and I'm also way past my 2-year contract so I'm going to stay monthly, thank you) but there's lots of Treo 650 users who have successfully unlocked their Cingular Treos.
TreoCentral.com - Getting unlock code from Cingular (pretty painless)
TreoCentral.com - Unlocking your Cingular GSM Treo 650MEN...my Cing Treo 650 is now unlocked
There's lots more threads about how much of an asshole you (as a cingular support rep collective) are, though, and I'm never going to use your shitty service because of your rude treatment of customers who just want to be able to do what they want with something THEY PAID FOR. They bought the phone, they're paying you back by guaranteeing you X years of service. Stop being such a bunch of whiny crybabies when people figure out your game and decide they're not going to put up with your fake restrictions.
They can't afford it. They blew the money on the stupid war that no one wants.
I don't care if there are ads in it or not. I pay for the magazine, and thus yes, I am a customer. That means I should not be pissed off if they want to stay in business. Who, after all, is going to buy the ads if all the readers have been driven off because the staff is a bunch of idiots?
Apparently, you missed that fact too.
If you are a staff writer or editor for a national magazine, you need to either be a trained journalist or act like one. I will not apologize for being angry and dropping my paid subscription, which I had had for several years, over the unprofessional lack of respect. Think professionalism isn't required and think people will take it? Think again. By being in the profession, yes, you are expected to behave appropriately.
No.
Oh, I get it. You are a smug bastard who thinks everyone who does something perfectly reasonable and gets treated like shit should just bend over and take it. Who's the asshole here?
Congratulations. You have just missed the fact that I paid for that magazine, which means I am the customer. Or did you think they send me magazines for free? Or did you think they pay me to read them? Yeah, I wish. And as long as I pay to receive a good or service from a company, that fact isn't going to change.
And I dropped my subscription to that magazine, despite the fact that they kept badgering me to resubscribe. Those fucktards didn't deserve a penny more of my money.
I have no clue who it was, as I stick with documentaries when I watch TV. I don't particularly care, either.
I wouldn't call either of them "better". I would call them symptoms of journalists who have forgotten the basic lessons they should have learned in journalism school or from other, respected journalists:
Respect your readers.
And yeah, I'm kinda leery due to the repeated instances of BS in the responses to the article. Having run into the BS personally doesn't help.
It's simple: I take pride in writing well when I write something that is intended for an audience outside family and friends -- I had several English professors tell me that I wrote very well and would do well if I wanted to write for a magazine or a newspaper -- and I believe that an editor of a publication, no matter what its type, has an obligation to be respectful of its readers -- even when it comes to taking criticism. If someone points out a mistake, does it politely, and even goes so far as to cite reliable sources to show the mistake in question, you do not belittle them. You admit that you or your fact checkers made a mistake, and you thank the reader.
If I am treated like dirt for doing what a responsible reader of a nationwide (or international even) publication should do, why should I ever have any respect for that publication again?