I'm not sure about Microsoft giving you your money back if you reject their EULA. If it's the case, I can understand it. They probably figure the number of people who would do this is quite small, so the money they'd loose would be insignificant. Meanwhile these types of people would try this tend to be quite vocal, and a source of bad PR. Many other companies probably don't have this same policy, though.
As for putting the contract outside the box, I can't speak to other locations besides the United States, but there does seem to be a quite similar law that's been on the books since the 1970s that is just as "impractical" (paraphrasing your words) as providing EULAs prior to sale.
The Magnuson-Moss Act of 1975 defines certain protections that manufacturers and retailers must provide to consumers for most products.
Among the provisions of the act, there is a clause that states (for retailers) "If you sell directly to consumers who come to your place of business to buy, you must make written warranties available at the point of sale. You must do this with all written warranties on the products you sell warranties from manufacturers, as well as any written warranties you extend."
While warranties are not EULAs, they are often lengthy contracts. So this is something of a prior precedent. There is ZERO reason a retailer couldn't provide EULAs in a file for each SKU it carries. They already do this with physical products. You'll note that under the act, the method of providing the warranty is not specified. Showing the customer the warranty on the manufacturer's web site is even acceptable. As long as it's made available upon request.
Best Buy (whom I once worked for) kept warranty info for most of it's products on it's internal intranet. For the few products that slipped through the cracks and weren't on the intranet, it was policy to first check the manufacturer's web site, then failing that, simply open one of the products off the shelf, and let the customer inspect the printed warranty provided by the manufacturer. Again, there is nothing that would make a law or regulation providing similar protection to EULAs any less practical than this existing law. I suspect it might even be possible simply to amend this act to include this rule.
It's been a few years since I re-posted this, so here goes:
Actually, it doesn't work like that at all.
In most places, there are basically two types of written contracts that the law recognizes:
Negotiated - What you're thinking about, where you and another party have the ability to negotiate, haggle, and come to a consensus.
Contracts of Adhesion - These include EULAs, the contract between you and your electric company, the contract you agree to when you buy an airline ticket, etc. These are a non-negotiable, "take it or leave it" proposition.
Seems unfair, doesn't it? There is a bright side. Contracts of Adhesion are generally held to a higher standard than Negotiable contracts. If there's ambiguous wording, or a typo, or whatever, it doesn't matter, the law will err on the side of taking that literally, and the company or entity that wrote the contract is held responsible. Basically, if in doubt, with a Contract of Adhesion, the law will side with the party that had no choice.
We use these contracts every day. No major, large scale provider of services would be able to do business without them. Public utilities, airlines, software vendors, schools, telcos, ISPs all use these types of contracts.
IANAL, but I have some experience with contract law. Of course laws will vary from location to location, but in much of the western world, the picture I describe is fairly accurate.
That said, I do agree with you that it's unfair to be unable to read an EULA prior to purchasing and opening the product. I've never really looked into this, but have long suspected it to be unenforceable.
I was born in 79, and while I think the article is exaggerated a bit, I'd say it's basically accurate from my experience.
I suspect that you're doing something people do all too often: seeing others through the lens other your own worldview, and being unable to imagine otherwise.
As others have pointed out; your very presence here on Slashdot proves you're not the norm for your, or any generation. People here use alternative OSes, (and know what an OS is, for that matter), terminal services, were on BBSes when they came out, and are generally more "wired" and comfortable with technology in general than the general populace.
Yes, lots of people are on Facebook. That doesn't prove anything. Facebook is just the new "cool" communication medium that everyone jumped on (last cycle it was MySpace).
I will cay this, though - While I think the author's data is basically correct, I'm not sure all of the conclusions they draw from their data are correct. For instance, the Pwe study he cites mentions a marked decrease in usage of IMs between teens and 20-somethings. Well, I'm 30. And I know I used IM constantly in high school, and through my early 20s. As I grew older, I used it less and less. Likewise, all my friends who I used to IM with are in the same boat. For us, it wasn't a correlation of generation, but of simple age, and where we are in our lives.
Teens go to more concerts and play more sports than their 20-something counterparts too. This isn't a function of "generations", but of simple age.
I actually suspect that if a formal study was done, following folks usage patterns across generations for a long period of time, that you'd see my generation at 20 used IM more than the current crop of 20-year-olds. We didn't have Facebook and Twitter, or even text messages. IM, email, and the phone were basically it for us. So we used IM quite extensively. The average kid today lives much more by his or her cell phone than their PC compared to how my "generation" did.
To be fair, the reasons we are lagging behind now *did* give us connectivity half a century before most of the rest of the world.
We didn't spend bajillions of dollars through the 1900s to set up a nation wide telco infrastructure just so we could avoid setting up a 12G cell network in the early 2000s.
Relax.
The U.S. is slightly behind the rest of the world, because we were so far ahead for so long that now that they are investing in infrastructure, they're getting new *all* and shiny, because they had nothing prior. We need to be content with piecemeal upgrades because we've got a LOT to replace and it's not feasible to do so quickly and economically.
This doesn't address the pricing concerns you cite, of course.
Look, I'm not defending this plan as some kind of good idea. I don't see how the threat of being tweeted about is going to change one fucking mind, when the thing at issue could already cause death, dismemberment, or jail time...
And I'm sorry I'm singling you out, but this thread is full of people saying "WHAT HAPPENED TO INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY!? HURR!"
If you get arrested, I can report that you were arrested. I can report the facts of said arrest, and as much as is known about the circumstances of said arrest.
Yes, there are idiots like the Nancy Graces of the world who will try and convict people in the court of public opinion for the purposes of sensationalist journalism, and it's okay as long as they use the word "alleged" every ten minutes or so. Yes, that's within their rights, and the rules of the system, and if you would call that abusing the system, I'd agree.
But seriously, this is more akin to the police blotter in the paper. Only some bureaucrat thinks that since Twitter is the next big thing, that it will revolutionize this kind of thing and OMG SAVE ALL THESE LIVES.
A 28 year old man from Gluttony, TX was arrested by Rangers on Dec 17 while driving on Highway 1 through Sloth, TX. Rangers charged him with DUI after failing a field sobriety test. The man identified as John Smith was released pending a municipal court appearance.
It's factual. John Smith was pulled over. John Smith was given a field sobriety test. In the judgment of the officer, he failed it. He was not convicted, nor does it say he was. In fact, it says his day in court is pending.
The above is of course made up, but here's some I just pulled up by googling "NJ police blotter"
This happens all the time, and I don't see it as a violation of any kind of civil liberties. It's just reporting the facts of charges pending. Those charges may or may not stick.
If there are plenty of you playing, what makes you think that the publishers and marketers are doing anything wrong?
In other words, it seems to me there are two assumptions.
1) That girls don't game, because games are aimed at guys. 2) That girls don't game, because the marketing for those games is aimed at guys.
If the first assumption is false - that girls like games with swords and guns and stuff that's outside the horrible "girl gamer" stereotype of Cooking Mama and The Sims - then why must the second assumption be true? If girls accept the games, won't the accept the marketing for those games in the same way? And in fact, isn't their use of these games proof of the same?
What you say is sprinkled with grains of truth, but many of your conclusions are just wrong.
I have two perspectives on this to tell. One, as someone who worked in the adult industry for a few years, and two as someone who dated a stripper,
First, the stripper I dated fell into the "working mom busting her ass to support herself and her kid" category. So yes, they exist. I'd say they all exist, and the fact that many of the girls lie about being paying their way through school doesn't mean there aren't plenty of those girls. Dating a stripper kind of gave me an insight into the clubs. I don't like them, and dating my ex probably has a lot to do with that.
Secondly, I think you're confused about "feature dancers" and what the other poster was talking about. The other poster was (from what I understand) talking about the girls that get really into it, or have been in the business so long that they are like athletes on the pole. These girls are impressive. They often get people in the door, and get people ordering drinks. They are *NOT* the same as feature dancers.
Feature dancers usually are celebrities, usually porn stars, or occasionally some tabloid figure. Girls who's name you can put on a marque or trade magazine, and get people in the door, collect a cover, and get drinks out of guys all night long. Particularly at a mega-club. These girls usually aren't even pro strippers, but they can make a lot more money than pro strippers, because they have a contract with the club or promoter.
The business model on a typical night for a typical club is this (many of you know this, but you'd be surprised how many people have no idea...):
The club "hires" girls, but in most places, they just work for tips.
The girls all have to work a rotation taking turns on stage. Usually there's more than one girl on stage at a time, but it's still a rotation, and usually only one is "center stage" at a time. There are of course variations on this theme, such as "multi girl sex show" theme nights or other gimmicks. Regardless of the details of the system, none of the girls want to be on stage, because being on stage means you're not making money.
When not on stage, the girls work the crowd, and try to sell lap dances, or private dances. This is where they make their money.
Most clubs keep about half of the per dance fee for private dances (this can vary as well, of course). So that $20 for a 3 minute dance, the girl keeps $10 of. She gets to keep all of her actual tips though.
At the end of the night, the girls have to tip out. Usually this means that the club looks at it's receipts, and figures out what it thinks the girls each brought in on average that night in tips. This figure may be high, low, or correct, it doesn't matter. Then, from that number, the girls have to tip the bartender, bouncers, and DJ. Sometimes others as well, (makeup artists, "house mom", etc.) depending on the club. Tip outs can be a flat rate, or a percentage depending on the club. Usually tipping out is "optional" but you're basically not going to make any money if you don't.
No, you're right. Most of these girls are NOT making $2500 a night. And the ones that do are going to take home like a quarter of what actually goes into the garter each night. The rest goes to the club, or their co-workers.
That said, there's not a lot of legal jobs where a 21 year old without a degree can easily pocket $200 - $300 per day (or more).
the necessity of using search as a service is obvious. But why do so many people (or at least people who are knowledgeable about technology and / or concerned about privacy) insist on using webmail services like hotmail or gmail?
I've run my own server for over a decade now. I happen to be on a virtual host now, but if I was so inclined, I could go through the trouble of setting up everything in my basement. Either way seems like a better (in both terms of privacy, which I'm not concerned with, and experience, which I am) than webmail alternatives.
Not for nothing, but if I were in your shoes, and I thought Google's business practices were so distasteful that I'd jump through all those hoops, I'd probably just discontinuing using their services.
If they're so bad, why keep using the services? You find them useful, clearly. Decide if the "cost" is too high. If it's not, and you can live with the minor privacy breach, and the threat of possibly some day, if the winds shift wrong, of some more serious privacy breaches, then use the service.
If you can't live with that, isn't the best thing to do discontinuing use of the service? I mean, clearly you're not doing anything illegal, or anything, but it does feel kind of morally dubious to me that you'd want to jump through hoops to circumvent their business model for a service that you find useful.
You're right, I did misunderstand. I thought this was a technology that would allow Facebook partner companies to parse what you posted on Facebook, not a technology to allow partner companies to identify your ID on Facebook, then phone home auto-magically and tell Facebook "post this".
That is icky. Also, counter-intuitive. I'm not sure under what scenario this would bea useful feature to have.
'PyroMosh purchased the Deluxe 12" Ass-Ramming Dildo from Anal Enterprises'
Have you been reading my facebook? I have to remember to set that to private.
Seriously, though I gravely misunderstood what this beacon was. I thought it was just some API hooks that would let advertisers run queries against facebook posts presumably to deliver targeted ads or some other such nonsense. I had no idea it was what it was.
That said, from what I understand, it uses a cookie to identify one's ID. Since the cookie only contains user ID data, and logging in is not necessary, would it not have been possible (even trivial) to forge activity history for any arbitrary facebook user? As long as you know their ID, you can have them purchase the 'Deluxe 12" Ass-Ramming Dildo from Anal Enterprises' as many times as you please.
I don't use myspace, facebook, etc. but perhaps someone can enlighten me. Why do people who publish info in the internet about themselves somehow feel entitled to some sense of privacy in doing so? It's counter-intuitive on it's face, at best.
The fact that it's Facebook that was providing hooks through an API to push info out to third parties is just a matter of efficiency. If the data's there, either you have it walled off for your eyes only, (in which case, why "publish" at all?) or it's open through some method to third parties anyway.
Why would one go publishing info about themselves that they didn't want out there?
This strikes me as panic for panic's sake. What am I missing?
I'm actually a Windows Mobile fan, but if I had to pick between Android and iPhone, my clear choice would be Android.
That said, I call bullshit on what you said. Yes, Android has only been out for a year. But it only took Apple a year to overtake the number of applications that have been written for Windows Mobile in the past 10 years.
Android has only a tiny fraction of the support that Apple had at the end of it's first year.
Android is neat. And I like that it's more of an "open" platform than iPhone. I also think Objective C is miserable.
But Apple's the "right" that apple is doing on the user end is more than making up for the pain they're causing developers.
I used to think that despite all the ridiculous childishness of how he said it, that Steve Balmer was right when he said "Developers, developers, developers".
Apple has more or less proven that you can trump that with "Users, users, users."
In other words, WinMo and Android may be easier / more pleasant to develop for, but for the great preponderance of users, the iPhone is easier / more pleasant to use. Because of this, the preponderance of developers will grit their teeth and go where the users are. Even free app developers.
You're right. They shouldn't be able to tell you what to do with the product after the fact.
And they're not. They're just saying that you may only access the service they provide with an unaltered product.
Alter the product to your heart's content. But the service says you have to have a unaltered product to utilize the service.
It may be your product, but it's their service.
If I want to make certain modifications to my car, nobody stops me. I can burn nitrous, I can put in an aggressive cam, I can run racing slicks. Nobody stops me. Operating it on the road with others is another matter. XBox Live is like the road.
This has been your Bad Slashdot Car Analogy of the Day.
I've thought about that too. But there have only been major partisan news networks for the last two administrations. Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Reagan only had to deal with CNN. Prior to Reagan, there wasn't even CNN. There was no 24 hour news, just networks and papers, basically.
MSNBC and Fox News only came about in the late Clinton years, or the early Bush years, and took a couple years to get their respective formats set.
George W. Bush's administration is the only other presidential administration that even had an opportunity to single out a network with an agenda. That they didn't should not be surprising, as they almost always went out of their way to portray themselves as above dialog or debate. They often would not even acknowledge criticism.
Also, Fox News is now going beyond "news". They are actively organizing rallies and marches against the sitting administration. This is all perfectly fine, and within their rights to do as American citizens. However, it certainly removes them from the category of "journalists", and the White House is simply acknowledging this.
So no, I don't think it's odd at all.
Also, to pick on your assertion that the networks don't pick on the Obama administration... 1) That's *all* Fox News does. To the point that they've lost what little pretense of credibility they may have had. 2) CNN... I can't say. I don't really watch them, because they're more interested in whatever new toy their visual effects department has dreamed up, or borrowed from Google, than they are actually reporting anything. Watching them is painful for me, but you may be right about them not being critical of the current administration. 3) MSNBC, the network you'd expect to be the head cheerleaders for the Obama administration criticizes him quite regularly. Rachael Maddow in particular is fond of calling him out for (so far) doing *nothing* for gay rights, despite campaigning as a "Fierce advocate". She and Keith Olberman are both fond of criticizing him for not using the Bully Pulpit more to influence health care reform, instead leaving it entirely up to congress. They are the only news source I know of that went out of their way to defend his Nobel prize though.
From what I can tell, CNN is the only network that could conceivably deserve the moniker "Fair and Balanced", however they also suck.
Would you say that designing a font is more, or less work than the following examples:
Designing and programming a graphics editing application
Designing and programming a web browser and it's associated rendering engine(s) and interpreter(s)
Designing and programming a graphics library for programming and presentation of 2d and 2d computer graphics
Designing and programming an FTP client
Designing and programming a file archiver to work with standards such as zip, rar, or 7z format
Designing and programming an operating system Kernel
Because if you'd say that font designing is "too hard for open source" then those must all be easier, since open source has successfully done all of them.
That said, I'm not so sure how much we *need* another font format. Especially given that OpenType is an ISO standard, and has been for years. Just because it was developed by Microsoft and Adobe, doesn't mean it's not worth considering.
This is to say nothing of momentum. Look at MP3 vs OOG. Look at raster graphics formats. You basically have GIF (antiquated) JPEG for photos and other applications where some compression lossyness is acceptable, and TIFF and PNG fragmenting the lossless raster market depending on application. Better formats are available. But the entrenched nature of the popular formats makes the up side vs the down side of using other formats a loosing proposition. Yes, you can design apps that will let a user choose between MP3 *or* OOG. or OpenType *or* WOFF But what's the incentive for content producers, really?
If there were a format that solves the raster graphics problem, and offered a unified solution that had the best of all worlds: The detail of TIFF, alpha channel support of PNG, was lossless like PNG and TIFF, compressed as small or smaller than JPEG, and had the animation support of GIF... I doubt it would be used much. Because those other formats dominate the market and it's very, very tough to "steer the Titanic" so to speak.
This new font format doesn't seem to set the world on fire with what it brings to the table. It will be relegated to the same place that OOG is: purists who will only use The Best(TM), and the open source faithful who use open source tools out of dogmatic devotion, regardless of quality.
This is just a tiny bit more bloat to add to the next upgrade cycle on all the major browsers.
It's not universally true, but it is more or less an accepted fact.
Fertility rates are inversely proportional to income.
In the modern world there are a lot of reasons for this. The rich tend to have access to better education. therefore, they tend to try to start a career before a family (illustrated in comedic fashion by the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy). Then with their career dominating their lives, they usually only have a couple kids at the most.
More wealthy folks have better access to birth control. Again, better education plays into this. On the extreme end of the spectrum, you have folks who have superstitious beliefs. That doesn't help keep their fertility rates down any...
Economists and demographers have known about this correlation for centuries. And it's interesting because it goes across religions, across nationalities, race, and other factors. Poor Americans are just as likely to have a higher fertility rate as poor French, or Japanese. Poor Nigerians or Indians are even more likely because a poor American is fairly well off by Nigerian standards.
Side Rant: The Israelis in particular are worried about this effect because Israel is a democracy. And the Israeli Palestinians have a fertility rate several times that of Israeli Jews. Again, the average Israeli Palestinian is much poorer than the average Israeli Jew.
The Israelis are concerned because with the higher fertility rates of the Palestinian Israeli citizens, the Palestinians may become a majority in the "Jewish State" in a couple generations. This brings up all kinds of moral dilemmas for the Israeli government, who must try to balance it's commitment to a homeland for the Jews to it's commitment to democracy for all it's citizens.
Also, I have no idea why you brought Rush Limbaugh into this. I'm about as progressive a character as you're likely to meet. I don't know anyone that disputes this data.
Cause is another matter. Progressives would tend to contend that the reason is education, the nature of pre-industrialized societies, higher mortality rates among poor nations, the tempo of life in wealthy nations and classes.
And Rush would say they all want their welfare checks or something.
You're right about the lack of heredity for short-fatness though. It is environmental / cultural, not genetic.
I'm probably picking nits here, but George H.W. Bush was a fighter jock. He volunteered to go to war at 18, rather than college despite being the wealthy son of a Wall Street banker (who would later become a U.S. Senator).
After returning home, he went to Yale, and was captain of the basketball team there.
The man is now so old that he has trouble walking but still gets his ass up into a plane to go skydiving every year on his birthday.
Regardless of what else you, I, or anyone may think of the man, I'd say he qualifies as "jock".
I won't belabor the point, but I do agree with your assessment of the younger Bush though.
It's happened in the U.S., and was once wide spread. This is one of the strongest reasons most strong democracies have a secret ballot now. If I remember my history right, it was a major issue in West Virginia during reconstruction.
It's happened in Mexico in modern times, and it's one of the big criticisms of the recent election in Afghanistan.
I don't have citations at the moment as I'm not home, but I'll be happy to provide them tonight when I'm home if you're interested. Of course intimidation happens as well, but vote buying has, and will continue to happen. The best we can hope for is to make it inconvenient enough to not matter on any kind of large scale. But people are creative. I remember a report in which vote buyers were asking for cellphone pictures as proof of Mexicans' votes, but I can't find the article now. Read up on this however.
I agree 100% that intimidation is a larger problem. But to dismiss vote buying as a problem that "has almost never been done under any system anywhere" is incredibly short sited, and naive.
Vote receipts are a bad idea that most voting systems stay away from because of the potential for vote buying.
The simple example is that someone with a lot of money to throw around goes into a poor area and offers to pay individuals for every receipt they bring him proving they voted for Candidate A. People go out, vote for Candidate A, bring the receipt back to prove it, and get paid off. It's not hard at all to imagine something like that happening in a place like Afghanistan. And just because it's hard to imagine in the West, doesn't mean it couldn't happen here too.
It's not that there aren't other ways to abuse the system without receipts, but receipts are just begging for abuse.
I have seen receipt based systems in the U.S., but they were "under glass" systems. In other words, you could verify that your vote was tallied correctly by seeing the receipt print out in a little window. Then when you opened the door to the booth, it would cut the tape, and your receipt would fall into the bin below to keep your vote secret from the next voter. This was an older system though that probably isn't in use any more. I'm 30 now, and I was in grade school when I saw this. I saw it explained, but never saw it in action, since I was obviously too young to vote myself at the time.
When Hyundai, or Ford, or Toyota run a car ad, they will often cite reviews from Motor Trend, Car and Driver, Edmund, and other publications. News flash: They cherry pick the best reviews. When Motor Trend says "the fit and finish of the interior surfaces is sub-par for it's class", they don't use that in the ad. This is not illgal, and I've not come across anyone who's suggested that it should be.
Likewise, with one Exception (Glenn Beck), I've never read a negative review on a book's dust jacket. Authors and publishers are generally more savvy than that, and they are certainly under no obligation to put someone's scatrhing review of their book / movie / car / NAS / whatever on the site.
This is not illegal marketing. There are only two differences from the examples I cited above. 1) My examples use publishers / manufacturers, not online retailers. 2) My examples use professional reviews, not user submissions on an online retailer's web site.
But think about these differences. Are they relevant (legally)? For that to be the case, there would need to be laws or regulations on the books that would apply to one or more of these differences. I'm not aware of any laws that single out user reviews and require that they be treated differently from professional reviews, nor any that single out online merchants, and regulate how they market differently from others.
I agree that it's shady, and that it would be better if the retailer(s) in question posted all reviews to instill confidence in customers' buying decisions on their sites. But unless you can point to a specific law, or regulation that disproves my previous paragraph, it's most certainly not illegal, just a bit sleazy.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure about Microsoft giving you your money back if you reject their EULA. If it's the case, I can understand it. They probably figure the number of people who would do this is quite small, so the money they'd loose would be insignificant. Meanwhile these types of people would try this tend to be quite vocal, and a source of bad PR. Many other companies probably don't have this same policy, though.
As for putting the contract outside the box, I can't speak to other locations besides the United States, but there does seem to be a quite similar law that's been on the books since the 1970s that is just as "impractical" (paraphrasing your words) as providing EULAs prior to sale.
The Magnuson-Moss Act of 1975 defines certain protections that manufacturers and retailers must provide to consumers for most products.
Among the provisions of the act, there is a clause that states (for retailers) "If you sell directly to consumers who come to your place of business to buy, you must make written warranties available at the point of sale. You must do this with all written warranties on the products you sell warranties from manufacturers, as well as any written warranties you extend."
For a bit more detail (it provides many other consumer protections as well):
The FTC's summary of the Magnuson-Moss Act.
While warranties are not EULAs, they are often lengthy contracts. So this is something of a prior precedent. There is ZERO reason a retailer couldn't provide EULAs in a file for each SKU it carries. They already do this with physical products. You'll note that under the act, the method of providing the warranty is not specified. Showing the customer the warranty on the manufacturer's web site is even acceptable. As long as it's made available upon request.
Best Buy (whom I once worked for) kept warranty info for most of it's products on it's internal intranet. For the few products that slipped through the cracks and weren't on the intranet, it was policy to first check the manufacturer's web site, then failing that, simply open one of the products off the shelf, and let the customer inspect the printed warranty provided by the manufacturer. Again, there is nothing that would make a law or regulation providing similar protection to EULAs any less practical than this existing law. I suspect it might even be possible simply to amend this act to include this rule.
It's been a few years since I re-posted this, so here goes:
Actually, it doesn't work like that at all.
In most places, there are basically two types of written contracts that the law recognizes:
Seems unfair, doesn't it? There is a bright side. Contracts of Adhesion are generally held to a higher standard than Negotiable contracts. If there's ambiguous wording, or a typo, or whatever, it doesn't matter, the law will err on the side of taking that literally, and the company or entity that wrote the contract is held responsible. Basically, if in doubt, with a Contract of Adhesion, the law will side with the party that had no choice.
We use these contracts every day. No major, large scale provider of services would be able to do business without them. Public utilities, airlines, software vendors, schools, telcos, ISPs all use these types of contracts.
IANAL, but I have some experience with contract law. Of course laws will vary from location to location, but in much of the western world, the picture I describe is fairly accurate.
That said, I do agree with you that it's unfair to be unable to read an EULA prior to purchasing and opening the product. I've never really looked into this, but have long suspected it to be unenforceable.
The theoretical buyer will dissolve Valve's most lucrative strategic property. Duh.
I was born in 79, and while I think the article is exaggerated a bit, I'd say it's basically accurate from my experience.
I suspect that you're doing something people do all too often: seeing others through the lens other your own worldview, and being unable to imagine otherwise.
As others have pointed out; your very presence here on Slashdot proves you're not the norm for your, or any generation. People here use alternative OSes, (and know what an OS is, for that matter), terminal services, were on BBSes when they came out, and are generally more "wired" and comfortable with technology in general than the general populace.
Yes, lots of people are on Facebook. That doesn't prove anything. Facebook is just the new "cool" communication medium that everyone jumped on (last cycle it was MySpace).
I will cay this, though - While I think the author's data is basically correct, I'm not sure all of the conclusions they draw from their data are correct. For instance, the Pwe study he cites mentions a marked decrease in usage of IMs between teens and 20-somethings. Well, I'm 30. And I know I used IM constantly in high school, and through my early 20s. As I grew older, I used it less and less. Likewise, all my friends who I used to IM with are in the same boat. For us, it wasn't a correlation of generation, but of simple age, and where we are in our lives.
Teens go to more concerts and play more sports than their 20-something counterparts too. This isn't a function of "generations", but of simple age.
I actually suspect that if a formal study was done, following folks usage patterns across generations for a long period of time, that you'd see my generation at 20 used IM more than the current crop of 20-year-olds. We didn't have Facebook and Twitter, or even text messages. IM, email, and the phone were basically it for us. So we used IM quite extensively. The average kid today lives much more by his or her cell phone than their PC compared to how my "generation" did.
To be fair, the reasons we are lagging behind now *did* give us connectivity half a century before most of the rest of the world.
We didn't spend bajillions of dollars through the 1900s to set up a nation wide telco infrastructure just so we could avoid setting up a 12G cell network in the early 2000s.
Relax.
The U.S. is slightly behind the rest of the world, because we were so far ahead for so long that now that they are investing in infrastructure, they're getting new *all* and shiny, because they had nothing prior. We need to be content with piecemeal upgrades because we've got a LOT to replace and it's not feasible to do so quickly and economically.
This doesn't address the pricing concerns you cite, of course.
Look, I'm not defending this plan as some kind of good idea. I don't see how the threat of being tweeted about is going to change one fucking mind, when the thing at issue could already cause death, dismemberment, or jail time...
And I'm sorry I'm singling you out, but this thread is full of people saying "WHAT HAPPENED TO INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY!? HURR!"
If you get arrested, I can report that you were arrested. I can report the facts of said arrest, and as much as is known about the circumstances of said arrest.
Yes, there are idiots like the Nancy Graces of the world who will try and convict people in the court of public opinion for the purposes of sensationalist journalism, and it's okay as long as they use the word "alleged" every ten minutes or so. Yes, that's within their rights, and the rules of the system, and if you would call that abusing the system, I'd agree.
But seriously, this is more akin to the police blotter in the paper. Only some bureaucrat thinks that since Twitter is the next big thing, that it will revolutionize this kind of thing and OMG SAVE ALL THESE LIVES.
It's factual. John Smith was pulled over. John Smith was given a field sobriety test. In the judgment of the officer, he failed it. He was not convicted, nor does it say he was. In fact, it says his day in court is pending.
The above is of course made up, but here's some I just pulled up by googling "NJ police blotter"
The Daily Record Police Blotter
This happens all the time, and I don't see it as a violation of any kind of civil liberties. It's just reporting the facts of charges pending. Those charges may or may not stick.
If there are plenty of you playing, what makes you think that the publishers and marketers are doing anything wrong?
In other words, it seems to me there are two assumptions.
1) That girls don't game, because games are aimed at guys.
2) That girls don't game, because the marketing for those games is aimed at guys.
If the first assumption is false - that girls like games with swords and guns and stuff that's outside the horrible "girl gamer" stereotype of Cooking Mama and The Sims - then why must the second assumption be true? If girls accept the games, won't the accept the marketing for those games in the same way? And in fact, isn't their use of these games proof of the same?
What you say is sprinkled with grains of truth, but many of your conclusions are just wrong.
I have two perspectives on this to tell. One, as someone who worked in the adult industry for a few years, and two as someone who dated a stripper,
First, the stripper I dated fell into the "working mom busting her ass to support herself and her kid" category. So yes, they exist. I'd say they all exist, and the fact that many of the girls lie about being paying their way through school doesn't mean there aren't plenty of those girls. Dating a stripper kind of gave me an insight into the clubs. I don't like them, and dating my ex probably has a lot to do with that.
Secondly, I think you're confused about "feature dancers" and what the other poster was talking about. The other poster was (from what I understand) talking about the girls that get really into it, or have been in the business so long that they are like athletes on the pole. These girls are impressive. They often get people in the door, and get people ordering drinks. They are *NOT* the same as feature dancers.
Feature dancers usually are celebrities, usually porn stars, or occasionally some tabloid figure. Girls who's name you can put on a marque or trade magazine, and get people in the door, collect a cover, and get drinks out of guys all night long. Particularly at a mega-club. These girls usually aren't even pro strippers, but they can make a lot more money than pro strippers, because they have a contract with the club or promoter.
The business model on a typical night for a typical club is this (many of you know this, but you'd be surprised how many people have no idea...):
No, you're right. Most of these girls are NOT making $2500 a night. And the ones that do are going to take home like a quarter of what actually goes into the garter each night. The rest goes to the club, or their co-workers.
That said, there's not a lot of legal jobs where a 21 year old without a degree can easily pocket $200 - $300 per day (or more).
Just curious:
the necessity of using search as a service is obvious. But why do so many people (or at least people who are knowledgeable about technology and / or concerned about privacy) insist on using webmail services like hotmail or gmail?
I've run my own server for over a decade now. I happen to be on a virtual host now, but if I was so inclined, I could go through the trouble of setting up everything in my basement. Either way seems like a better (in both terms of privacy, which I'm not concerned with, and experience, which I am) than webmail alternatives.
Not for nothing, but if I were in your shoes, and I thought Google's business practices were so distasteful that I'd jump through all those hoops, I'd probably just discontinuing using their services.
If they're so bad, why keep using the services? You find them useful, clearly. Decide if the "cost" is too high. If it's not, and you can live with the minor privacy breach, and the threat of possibly some day, if the winds shift wrong, of some more serious privacy breaches, then use the service.
If you can't live with that, isn't the best thing to do discontinuing use of the service? I mean, clearly you're not doing anything illegal, or anything, but it does feel kind of morally dubious to me that you'd want to jump through hoops to circumvent their business model for a service that you find useful.
An outright boycott, I can respect. But not this.
You're right, I did misunderstand. I thought this was a technology that would allow Facebook partner companies to parse what you posted on Facebook, not a technology to allow partner companies to identify your ID on Facebook, then phone home auto-magically and tell Facebook "post this".
That is icky. Also, counter-intuitive. I'm not sure under what scenario this would bea useful feature to have.
Have you been reading my facebook? I have to remember to set that to private.
Seriously, though I gravely misunderstood what this beacon was. I thought it was just some API hooks that would let advertisers run queries against facebook posts presumably to deliver targeted ads or some other such nonsense. I had no idea it was what it was.
That said, from what I understand, it uses a cookie to identify one's ID. Since the cookie only contains user ID data, and logging in is not necessary, would it not have been possible (even trivial) to forge activity history for any arbitrary facebook user? As long as you know their ID, you can have them purchase the 'Deluxe 12" Ass-Ramming Dildo from Anal Enterprises' as many times as you please.
Too bad this beacon thing isn't around any more.
I don't use myspace, facebook, etc. but perhaps someone can enlighten me. Why do people who publish info in the internet about themselves somehow feel entitled to some sense of privacy in doing so? It's counter-intuitive on it's face, at best.
The fact that it's Facebook that was providing hooks through an API to push info out to third parties is just a matter of efficiency. If the data's there, either you have it walled off for your eyes only, (in which case, why "publish" at all?) or it's open through some method to third parties anyway.
Why would one go publishing info about themselves that they didn't want out there?
This strikes me as panic for panic's sake. What am I missing?
I'm actually a Windows Mobile fan, but if I had to pick between Android and iPhone, my clear choice would be Android.
That said, I call bullshit on what you said. Yes, Android has only been out for a year. But it only took Apple a year to overtake the number of applications that have been written for Windows Mobile in the past 10 years.
Android has only a tiny fraction of the support that Apple had at the end of it's first year.
Android is neat. And I like that it's more of an "open" platform than iPhone. I also think Objective C is miserable.
But Apple's the "right" that apple is doing on the user end is more than making up for the pain they're causing developers.
I used to think that despite all the ridiculous childishness of how he said it, that Steve Balmer was right when he said "Developers, developers, developers".
Apple has more or less proven that you can trump that with "Users, users, users."
In other words, WinMo and Android may be easier / more pleasant to develop for, but for the great preponderance of users, the iPhone is easier / more pleasant to use. Because of this, the preponderance of developers will grit their teeth and go where the users are. Even free app developers.
You're right. They shouldn't be able to tell you what to do with the product after the fact.
And they're not. They're just saying that you may only access the service they provide with an unaltered product.
Alter the product to your heart's content. But the service says you have to have a unaltered product to utilize the service.
It may be your product, but it's their service.
If I want to make certain modifications to my car, nobody stops me. I can burn nitrous, I can put in an aggressive cam, I can run racing slicks. Nobody stops me. Operating it on the road with others is another matter. XBox Live is like the road.
This has been your Bad Slashdot Car Analogy of the Day.
O RLY?
(not even a little bit work safe)
I've thought about that too. But there have only been major partisan news networks for the last two administrations. Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Reagan only had to deal with CNN. Prior to Reagan, there wasn't even CNN. There was no 24 hour news, just networks and papers, basically.
MSNBC and Fox News only came about in the late Clinton years, or the early Bush years, and took a couple years to get their respective formats set.
George W. Bush's administration is the only other presidential administration that even had an opportunity to single out a network with an agenda. That they didn't should not be surprising, as they almost always went out of their way to portray themselves as above dialog or debate. They often would not even acknowledge criticism.
Also, Fox News is now going beyond "news". They are actively organizing rallies and marches against the sitting administration. This is all perfectly fine, and within their rights to do as American citizens. However, it certainly removes them from the category of "journalists", and the White House is simply acknowledging this.
So no, I don't think it's odd at all.
Also, to pick on your assertion that the networks don't pick on the Obama administration...
1) That's *all* Fox News does. To the point that they've lost what little pretense of credibility they may have had.
2) CNN... I can't say. I don't really watch them, because they're more interested in whatever new toy their visual effects department has dreamed up, or borrowed from Google, than they are actually reporting anything. Watching them is painful for me, but you may be right about them not being critical of the current administration.
3) MSNBC, the network you'd expect to be the head cheerleaders for the Obama administration criticizes him quite regularly. Rachael Maddow in particular is fond of calling him out for (so far) doing *nothing* for gay rights, despite campaigning as a "Fierce advocate". She and Keith Olberman are both fond of criticizing him for not using the Bully Pulpit more to influence health care reform, instead leaving it entirely up to congress. They are the only news source I know of that went out of their way to defend his Nobel prize though.
From what I can tell, CNN is the only network that could conceivably deserve the moniker "Fair and Balanced", however they also suck.
Would you say that designing a font is more, or less work than the following examples:
Because if you'd say that font designing is "too hard for open source" then those must all be easier, since open source has successfully done all of them.
That said, I'm not so sure how much we *need* another font format. Especially given that OpenType is an ISO standard, and has been for years. Just because it was developed by Microsoft and Adobe, doesn't mean it's not worth considering.
This is to say nothing of momentum. Look at MP3 vs OOG. Look at raster graphics formats. You basically have GIF (antiquated) JPEG for photos and other applications where some compression lossyness is acceptable, and TIFF and PNG fragmenting the lossless raster market depending on application. Better formats are available. But the entrenched nature of the popular formats makes the up side vs the down side of using other formats a loosing proposition. Yes, you can design apps that will let a user choose between MP3 *or* OOG. or OpenType *or* WOFF But what's the incentive for content producers, really?
If there were a format that solves the raster graphics problem, and offered a unified solution that had the best of all worlds: The detail of TIFF, alpha channel support of PNG, was lossless like PNG and TIFF, compressed as small or smaller than JPEG, and had the animation support of GIF... I doubt it would be used much. Because those other formats dominate the market and it's very, very tough to "steer the Titanic" so to speak.
This new font format doesn't seem to set the world on fire with what it brings to the table. It will be relegated to the same place that OOG is: purists who will only use The Best(TM), and the open source faithful who use open source tools out of dogmatic devotion, regardless of quality.
This is just a tiny bit more bloat to add to the next upgrade cycle on all the major browsers.
There's no need to bring Rush Limbaugh into this.
It's not universally true, but it is more or less an accepted fact.
Fertility rates are inversely proportional to income.
In the modern world there are a lot of reasons for this. The rich tend to have access to better education. therefore, they tend to try to start a career before a family (illustrated in comedic fashion by the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy). Then with their career dominating their lives, they usually only have a couple kids at the most.
More wealthy folks have better access to birth control. Again, better education plays into this. On the extreme end of the spectrum, you have folks who have superstitious beliefs. That doesn't help keep their fertility rates down any...
Economists and demographers have known about this correlation for centuries. And it's interesting because it goes across religions, across nationalities, race, and other factors. Poor Americans are just as likely to have a higher fertility rate as poor French, or Japanese. Poor Nigerians or Indians are even more likely because a poor American is fairly well off by Nigerian standards.
Side Rant: The Israelis in particular are worried about this effect because Israel is a democracy. And the Israeli Palestinians have a fertility rate several times that of Israeli Jews. Again, the average Israeli Palestinian is much poorer than the average Israeli Jew.
The Israelis are concerned because with the higher fertility rates of the Palestinian Israeli citizens, the Palestinians may become a majority in the "Jewish State" in a couple generations. This brings up all kinds of moral dilemmas for the Israeli government, who must try to balance it's commitment to a homeland for the Jews to it's commitment to democracy for all it's citizens.
A few minutes of on the Google came up with these:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14744915
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14164483
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/177/8/846/F19
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/correlation.aspx?v1=67&v2=31&y=2004
Also, I have no idea why you brought Rush Limbaugh into this. I'm about as progressive a character as you're likely to meet. I don't know anyone that disputes this data.
Cause is another matter. Progressives would tend to contend that the reason is education, the nature of pre-industrialized societies, higher mortality rates among poor nations, the tempo of life in wealthy nations and classes.
And Rush would say they all want their welfare checks or something.
You're right about the lack of heredity for short-fatness though. It is environmental / cultural, not genetic.
I'm probably picking nits here, but George H.W. Bush was a fighter jock. He volunteered to go to war at 18, rather than college despite being the wealthy son of a Wall Street banker (who would later become a U.S. Senator).
After returning home, he went to Yale, and was captain of the basketball team there.
The man is now so old that he has trouble walking but still gets his ass up into a plane to go skydiving every year on his birthday.
Regardless of what else you, I, or anyone may think of the man, I'd say he qualifies as "jock".
I won't belabor the point, but I do agree with your assessment of the younger Bush though.
It's happened in the U.S., and was once wide spread. This is one of the strongest reasons most strong democracies have a secret ballot now. If I remember my history right, it was a major issue in West Virginia during reconstruction.
It's happened in Mexico in modern times, and it's one of the big criticisms of the recent election in Afghanistan.
I don't have citations at the moment as I'm not home, but I'll be happy to provide them tonight when I'm home if you're interested. Of course intimidation happens as well, but vote buying has, and will continue to happen. The best we can hope for is to make it inconvenient enough to not matter on any kind of large scale. But people are creative. I remember a report in which vote buyers were asking for cellphone pictures as proof of Mexicans' votes, but I can't find the article now. Read up on this however.
I agree 100% that intimidation is a larger problem. But to dismiss vote buying as a problem that "has almost never been done under any system anywhere" is incredibly short sited, and naive.
You misunderstood what I said. Re-read it. You'll find that what you wrote is agreeing with what I wrote.
I'm saying that although it's less likely (or perhaps just less overt), it could happen he west as well.
Vote receipts are a bad idea that most voting systems stay away from because of the potential for vote buying.
The simple example is that someone with a lot of money to throw around goes into a poor area and offers to pay individuals for every receipt they bring him proving they voted for Candidate A. People go out, vote for Candidate A, bring the receipt back to prove it, and get paid off. It's not hard at all to imagine something like that happening in a place like Afghanistan. And just because it's hard to imagine in the West, doesn't mean it couldn't happen here too.
It's not that there aren't other ways to abuse the system without receipts, but receipts are just begging for abuse.
I have seen receipt based systems in the U.S., but they were "under glass" systems. In other words, you could verify that your vote was tallied correctly by seeing the receipt print out in a little window. Then when you opened the door to the booth, it would cut the tape, and your receipt would fall into the bin below to keep your vote secret from the next voter. This was an older system though that probably isn't in use any more. I'm 30 now, and I was in grade school when I saw this. I saw it explained, but never saw it in action, since I was obviously too young to vote myself at the time.
I too was rather irked at that. But there are lots of gamepad to keyboard emulators out there.
For instance, Xpadder. That one doesn't even require any kind of install. Just run it, configure it the way you like, and play.
No.
When Hyundai, or Ford, or Toyota run a car ad, they will often cite reviews from Motor Trend, Car and Driver, Edmund, and other publications. News flash: They cherry pick the best reviews. When Motor Trend says "the fit and finish of the interior surfaces is sub-par for it's class", they don't use that in the ad. This is not illgal, and I've not come across anyone who's suggested that it should be.
Likewise, with one Exception (Glenn Beck), I've never read a negative review on a book's dust jacket. Authors and publishers are generally more savvy than that, and they are certainly under no obligation to put someone's scatrhing review of their book / movie / car / NAS / whatever on the site.
This is not illegal marketing. There are only two differences from the examples I cited above.
1) My examples use publishers / manufacturers, not online retailers.
2) My examples use professional reviews, not user submissions on an online retailer's web site.
But think about these differences. Are they relevant (legally)? For that to be the case, there would need to be laws or regulations on the books that would apply to one or more of these differences. I'm not aware of any laws that single out user reviews and require that they be treated differently from professional reviews, nor any that single out online merchants, and regulate how they market differently from others.
I agree that it's shady, and that it would be better if the retailer(s) in question posted all reviews to instill confidence in customers' buying decisions on their sites. But unless you can point to a specific law, or regulation that disproves my previous paragraph, it's most certainly not illegal, just a bit sleazy.