"It's described as voluntary. As in, you can pay X to the companies which join the scheme, and then get carte blanche to download music. Or you can just not bother, and continue to buy music from the specific artists you prefer. If it was mandatory, then it'd be pretty dubious."
Riiight. My guess is that it will be "voluntary" like expanded basic cable is "voluntary" - you don't *have* to buy it, but it is almost impossible to get basic cable at the super low rates. It's not listed on the web site, the CSR's don't know about it, and you must go up the chain to get it.
So expect the ISP's to tout "Now includes unlimited music downloads!", and then 3 months later your bill goes up 5 bucks. 99% of the folks will just view it as a bump in cable rates and go on with life. Few will know that you can call up the cable company and go back to the original rate - the CSR's won't know what you are talking about, and it won't be on the website. You didn't throw away that insert that comes with the bill, did you?
Alternately, it will be "voluntary" for ISP's to subscribe to it, but the end user doesn't get a choice. Don't like it? Get another ISP. And ALL the ISP's will subscribe to it.
"Good engineering accommodates the errors and omissions of users. Bad engineering relies on laws and conventions to overcome inherent systemic flaws. Laws and conventions are, therefore, indicative of bad engineering."
Good engineering accommodates errors and omissions INSOFAR as it is practical/cost effective. Your solutions all require significantly more capital investment than the ones in existence now.
There is also a similar hazard in that relying on engineering to make something idiot proof allows the idiots to have a false sense of security, inevitably leading them to strive to newer, previously unimaginable heights of stupidity that the engineers hadn't even thought possible.
"I for one welcome our rocket chair creating overlords. "
In fairness, the picture is wholly unrelated to the story - unless they have started making Barcalounger shaped office chairs and 8 hp piston engines that shoot gigantic flames out the back. Both of which would be AWESOME!!
"just for a few dollars more, they are not only killing an industry, but an ART."
I actually think they are saving music as art. If the labels go away and we revert back to the previous system of patronage and pay-for-performance, a lot of the shitty "I wanna be a rock star for the groupies and blow" folks will go away. This will leave the people who simply MUST sing (or paint, or write) beacause it is something they are driven to do. Under teh influence of ACTUAL human creativity, I think the arts will enjoy a resurgence.
You are using the word "album", but what you really mean is "music". And in the natural order of things there is simply no way to "sell" music - once it's sung once, anyone with a good memory can sing it again. Sure, you can charge for performances, and you can charge for the physical media, but the idea that you can charge for what is essentially a thought or an idea is a wholly artificial construct.
Copyright law was supposed to be an enormous social contract - the people, in the form of the Government, promised not to copy an artists work for a limited period of time, after which the work reverts back to it's natural state - which is to say, free of all legal encumbrance.
IP companies have perverted this process, starting with the Berne convention (I'm looking at you, Europe) to where creative works NEVER enter the public domain. They did this by legal encumbrances of the physical media involved. But now throw in a new wrinkle - it is possible to transmit the idea or though as information itself, with no media. So teh IP companies now are trying to regulate disembodied information, which is proving to be impossible.
I especially love your #3: "Record labels distribute and advertise your music so that you can make a living off of it." Are you serious? They distribute your music so THEY can make a living, not the artist. Prior to the advent of copyright, artists made their living for thousands of years in the same way - pay for performance. - Ogg is a particularly good cave painter. Ugh just finished a legendary hunt. So Ogg paints the tale on the wall, and Ugh gives him some food. END OF TRANSACTION.
- The Pope wants a mural on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michaelangelo paints it, and gets paid. END OF TRANSACTION.
- A balladeer sings his songs in a tavern. The tavern keeper comps his room, because people come to hear the music. The drunks throw change in his hat. END OF TRANSACTION.
Is file sharing illegal? I believe it is. Are most file sharers doing it because they are cheap and not out of civil disobedience? Absolutely.
But neither of those facts takes away from the reality that copyright, as we know it, is dying.
"Now Ms. Barker's attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory, as well as her other defenses -- including unclean hands based on MediaSentry's illegal behavior, the RIAA's inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement -- will not be adjudicated, and it will fall on the shoulders of other defendants to carry the day on those issues."
Perhaps it will be the case that, now that the arguments are spelled out, the RIAA will give up because their position it is so patently a loser?
I'm thinking of the explanation as to why the GPL has never been "tested" in court - it is so straightforward and so strong that any lawyer who actually passed the bar won't take the case, because it's a sure loss.
My wife says that the real purpose of McDonalds is to provide a clean place to go potty (if you have kids, the lingo sort of sticks) within 10 minutes on any highway in America. And if anyone here remembers the condition of highway rest stops in the past, you will understand why she is so appreciative.
"Or give a bed to every homeless person, and use police force to move them to that bed (taking care of the mentally insane). That proves that you reasoning is wrong to start with."
Actually, no, you can't do that. It's called false imprisonment - using police to arbitrarily limit your freedom of movement in unconstitutional. So, one can arrest the homeless for vagrancy, one can transport them to a bed, but the government CANNOT keep them from leaving without a court order.
You actually hit on the real problem when you mention mental illness - some studies have shown that the vast majority of the chronically homeless are mentally ill. The problem is that, if they are not a danger to themselves or others, the law says they can't be detained. So you can give them a bed, meds, food, and shelter, but if they walk away, there isn't a thing you can do about it.
When I said "trouble with school loans", I wasn't referring to you, but to the impression that Barack and Michelle Obama are trying to give. So he paid off his loans - bfd. So did I, but I didn't have a $300k salary to play with.
You say "Obama is a hell of a lot closer to the average person than John McCain", but the average family: - does not make over $300k/year - isn't headed by 2 lawyers - doesn't have a background of travelling the world as a youth
I would argue that McCain is closer to "the average person" than Obama, simply because there's a shipload more veterans around than constitutional lawyers. But it's really more a matter of perception - Obama comes off as elitist, and McCain does not, regardless of the "objective" merits of the charge.
"Obama just finished paying off his school loans a couple of years ago, "
I've heard that before, and I also heard Michelle Obama talk about how she is afraid of losing touch with her roots (I believe she actually said "common people", but I could be wrong)it wasn't so long ago that she was worrying about paying bills, etc.
Then I heard a story on NPR about her career, and how a few years ago her salary jumped from just over $100k to over $300k, and "almost 200% increase".
And I ask myself, "Trouble paying school loans, and paying bills, on over $100k (for 1 salary alone)? $300k? I call bullshit"
Obama plays the populist, but he is not, nor has he ever been, one of the people he is playing to.
WTF are you talking about? "Appeasement" is a reference to the policys of England prior to WWII, where Chamberlain basically sacrificed part another country to Hitler in the hopes that he would then leave England alone. It didn't work out like he wanted.
Likewise, the French authorities decided to sacrifice other people's property to avoid a larger, bloodier conflict. Can you guess where I'm going with this?
For that matter, look at the "ceasefire" negotiated by the current French president between Russia and Georgia. The Russians agree to pull out in 6 months (!), and they can "increase security in that time? The French, and by extension Europe (France has the rotating presidency currently), is going to allow Russia to annex parts of Georgia to avoid having their gas supply cut off. Do you really believe that Putin will be satisfied? The Germans may have marched through Paris, but by the time this is over the European heads of state will be lining up to suck Putin's dick, and smiling all the way.
As for race, it seems to be foremost on *your* mind, not mine. The racial problems the French are having are totally home grown. The US has their own racial problems, but we've been dealing with ours for hundreds of years - wars, riots, political upheavals. Do you really believe that France is so culturally evolved that a few car burnings are the end of that?
"Germany is a federal state, comprised of multiple independent states with their own governments. According to TFA, this only counts for prosecutors from the Nort-Rhine Westphalia.
Come on. Learn a little something about the rest of the world."
Why? Almost every foreign poster on this site refers to the US Government as if it were monolithic and parliamentarian in form, totally missing the federal form of government and the independence of the executive and the legislature.
How many times have we heard that the US system of voting is so fucked up, and why can't we just use a piece of paper like everyone else. Perhaps because we elect executive, legislature, and sometimes even judicial at the federal, state, county, and city/township level, not to mention ballot initiatives, bond measures, and the like.
Oh, I forgot - in the US we not only do things different, it is always inferior to however [insert European country] does it.
Rant off - I need to get back to rigging elections and waterboarding pot dealers.
"In other news, German prosecutors annnounced today that they will only be prosecuting auto thefts when more than 200 are committed, and car break-ins when 3000 are committed. "Our goal is to prevent organized crime", said their spokesperson, "we don't care about the occasional junkie or joy-rider."
Perhaps not in Germany, but I have wondered about the status of all the cars burned in the south of France during the riots a few years ago. It seemed that French policy was that, as long as no one got seriously hurt, property destruction would be overlooked. While the policy seemed to "work" in that everything seemed to go back to normal with not dead French citizens, I can't help but ask what will happen during the *next* riots? How will the authorities react when houses start getting torched, or cars with people in them get burned?
Don't think it will happen? Look up "appeasement" in the encyclopedia.
Because in the PR war, "disabled" is a more powerful weapon than "poor".
Wrap your heads around this, geeks - rationality has NOTHING to do with PR, and is only marginally related to politics. If we keep demanding playbook that is strictly rational, we are going to lose. Period.
It counts because her disability severely limited her economic means, and the RIAA tried to use this fact to bulldoze her into a settlement.
It also counts because this is a war on 3 fronts - legal, political, and PR. Her disability has little to do with the legal case (except as mentioned above), but is hugely relevant to the PR war and possibly to the political war - picture this woman in front of a congressional committee, and even the Senator from Disney will be groveling to show how much he sympathizes with her.
And if you don't believe it's a PR war too, why is this a favorite Slashdot topic.
Why the Air Force? It seems like such a reach outside their normal scope. I would think that the Army would be the proper place for such a command.
Of course, the Air Force should never have been split off from the Army to begin with; they should have told Curtiss LeMay to go get bent when they still had the chance.
Gas perms really are one of those "just tough it out" things. You CAN'T just put them in and it's all over. When I first started wearing them, I was on a schedule to acclimate my eyes - 1/2 hr in, 2 hours out for a day, then 1 hour in and 1 out, etc. Yeah, they were uncomfortable, but you just get used to it
Part of teh discomfort is the fact that they WILL reshape your cornea, flattening it out. In my case, this was the point - I was losing visual acuity so rapidly that my optometrist prescribed them when I was 12 to try to limit the decay. And I think it worked.
Other docs have suggested I move to soft, but I'm sticking with what I know.
"The ensuing investigation involved a state hazardous materials team, fire and police officials, health officials, environmental officials and code enforcement officials."
I'm reminded of a fireworks shoot I worked 2 years ago. It was raining on and off all day, but the sponsor insisted, despite the contract, that we go on. The fire marshal agreed with us that the situation was unsafe, but he wasn't willing to pull the plug because he didn't want to piss off the county supervisor.
So we shoot, and there is stuff bursting right over our heads because the charges got wet, and going up in the tubes, and blowing up on the ground. But we finish the show in the pouring rain, and then we need to clean up - also in the pouring rain. And we're finding all sorts of unexploded pyro on the ground, but it's dark as 6' up a well diggers ass, so we try our best. We get done at 6:00 AM and then drive back to the magazine to drop off all of the crap that just didn't go off.
Then my boss gets a call from the fire marshal - it seems we missed a 3" ball and a few stars, and he is DEMANDING that we come back and retrieve them (remember, this is the guy who KNEW this was going to happen but didn't have the balls to do his job). Our boss tells him to fuck off and call back when we get some sleep. 2 hours later he calls back - he's called out the BOMB SQUAD to handle it, and that's the last show we'll ever do in this town, blah, blah, blah. Response? "What makes you think we want to come back to your pissant town, you little shit?"
Fast forward to this year - we get the call to do the show again, because last year's went so well! And before the boss could hang up, they say "BTW, everyone involved with last year's fiasco has been fired".
I didn't shoot the show, but I heard it went well.
"Modern contact lenses are soft and conform to your eye's shape. They are designed to be wet and to retain water like the rest of your eye."
HA! Pansy! I've been wearing semi-rigid lenses for over 25 years. Newfangled soft lenses - feh!
That being said, you just get used to poking around in your eye. Drug addicts and diabetics get used to sticking needles in themselves, and gays get used to having other things stuck in them. Never underestimate the human capacity for tolerating short term discomfort for long term gain.
Slashdot Mirror
"It's described as voluntary. As in, you can pay X to the companies which join the scheme, and then get carte blanche to download music. Or you can just not bother, and continue to buy music from the specific artists you prefer. If it was mandatory, then it'd be pretty dubious."
Riiight. My guess is that it will be "voluntary" like expanded basic cable is "voluntary" - you don't *have* to buy it, but it is almost impossible to get basic cable at the super low rates. It's not listed on the web site, the CSR's don't know about it, and you must go up the chain to get it.
So expect the ISP's to tout "Now includes unlimited music downloads!", and then 3 months later your bill goes up 5 bucks. 99% of the folks will just view it as a bump in cable rates and go on with life. Few will know that you can call up the cable company and go back to the original rate - the CSR's won't know what you are talking about, and it won't be on the website. You didn't throw away that insert that comes with the bill, did you?
Alternately, it will be "voluntary" for ISP's to subscribe to it, but the end user doesn't get a choice. Don't like it? Get another ISP. And ALL the ISP's will subscribe to it.
"Good engineering accommodates the errors and omissions of users. Bad engineering relies on laws and conventions to overcome inherent systemic flaws. Laws and conventions are, therefore, indicative of bad engineering."
Good engineering accommodates errors and omissions INSOFAR as it is practical/cost effective. Your solutions all require significantly more capital investment than the ones in existence now.
There is also a similar hazard in that relying on engineering to make something idiot proof allows the idiots to have a false sense of security, inevitably leading them to strive to newer, previously unimaginable heights of stupidity that the engineers hadn't even thought possible.
"And I wouldn't call a lawnmower-engine powered office chair "useful". Interesting, and amusing, but not useful."
The fact that it amuses IS it's utility.
"I for one welcome our rocket chair creating overlords. "
In fairness, the picture is wholly unrelated to the story - unless they have started making Barcalounger shaped office chairs and 8 hp piston engines that shoot gigantic flames out the back. Both of which would be AWESOME!!
Isn't this the country that banned potato guns?
"just for a few dollars more, they are not only killing an industry, but an ART."
I actually think they are saving music as art. If the labels go away and we revert back to the previous system of patronage and pay-for-performance, a lot of the shitty "I wanna be a rock star for the groupies and blow" folks will go away. This will leave the people who simply MUST sing (or paint, or write) beacause it is something they are driven to do. Under teh influence of ACTUAL human creativity, I think the arts will enjoy a resurgence.
Bzzzzt - wrong answer.
You are using the word "album", but what you really mean is "music". And in the natural order of things there is simply no way to "sell" music - once it's sung once, anyone with a good memory can sing it again. Sure, you can charge for performances, and you can charge for the physical media, but the idea that you can charge for what is essentially a thought or an idea is a wholly artificial construct.
Copyright law was supposed to be an enormous social contract - the people, in the form of the Government, promised not to copy an artists work for a limited period of time, after which the work reverts back to it's natural state - which is to say, free of all legal encumbrance.
IP companies have perverted this process, starting with the Berne convention (I'm looking at you, Europe) to where creative works NEVER enter the public domain. They did this by legal encumbrances of the physical media involved. But now throw in a new wrinkle - it is possible to transmit the idea or though as information itself, with no media. So teh IP companies now are trying to regulate disembodied information, which is proving to be impossible.
I especially love your #3: "Record labels distribute and advertise your music so that you can make a living off of it." Are you serious? They distribute your music so THEY can make a living, not the artist. Prior to the advent of copyright, artists made their living for thousands of years in the same way - pay for performance.
- Ogg is a particularly good cave painter. Ugh just finished a legendary hunt. So Ogg paints the tale on the wall, and Ugh gives him some food. END OF TRANSACTION.
- The Pope wants a mural on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michaelangelo paints it, and gets paid. END OF TRANSACTION.
- A balladeer sings his songs in a tavern. The tavern keeper comps his room, because people come to hear the music. The drunks throw change in his hat. END OF TRANSACTION.
Is file sharing illegal? I believe it is.
Are most file sharers doing it because they are cheap and not out of civil disobedience? Absolutely.
But neither of those facts takes away from the reality that copyright, as we know it, is dying.
"Now Ms. Barker's attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory, as well as her other defenses -- including unclean hands based on MediaSentry's illegal behavior, the RIAA's inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement -- will not be adjudicated, and it will fall on the shoulders of other defendants to carry the day on those issues."
Perhaps it will be the case that, now that the arguments are spelled out, the RIAA will give up because their position it is so patently a loser?
I'm thinking of the explanation as to why the GPL has never been "tested" in court - it is so straightforward and so strong that any lawyer who actually passed the bar won't take the case, because it's a sure loss.
Then again, this is the RIAA...
My wife says that the real purpose of McDonalds is to provide a clean place to go potty (if you have kids, the lingo sort of sticks) within 10 minutes on any highway in America. And if anyone here remembers the condition of highway rest stops in the past, you will understand why she is so appreciative.
"Or give a bed to every homeless person, and use police force to move them to that bed (taking care of the mentally insane). That proves that you reasoning is wrong to start with."
Actually, no, you can't do that. It's called false imprisonment - using police to arbitrarily limit your freedom of movement in unconstitutional. So, one can arrest the homeless for vagrancy, one can transport them to a bed, but the government CANNOT keep them from leaving without a court order.
You actually hit on the real problem when you mention mental illness - some studies have shown that the vast majority of the chronically homeless are mentally ill. The problem is that, if they are not a danger to themselves or others, the law says they can't be detained. So you can give them a bed, meds, food, and shelter, but if they walk away, there isn't a thing you can do about it.
When I said "trouble with school loans", I wasn't referring to you, but to the impression that Barack and Michelle Obama are trying to give. So he paid off his loans - bfd. So did I, but I didn't have a $300k salary to play with.
You say "Obama is a hell of a lot closer to the average person than John McCain", but the average family:
- does not make over $300k/year
- isn't headed by 2 lawyers
- doesn't have a background of travelling the world as a youth
I would argue that McCain is closer to "the average person" than Obama, simply because there's a shipload more veterans around than constitutional lawyers. But it's really more a matter of perception - Obama comes off as elitist, and McCain does not, regardless of the "objective" merits of the charge.
"Obama just finished paying off his school loans a couple of years ago, "
I've heard that before, and I also heard Michelle Obama talk about how she is afraid of losing touch with her roots (I believe she actually said "common people", but I could be wrong)it wasn't so long ago that she was worrying about paying bills, etc.
Then I heard a story on NPR about her career, and how a few years ago her salary jumped from just over $100k to over $300k, and "almost 200% increase".
And I ask myself, "Trouble paying school loans, and paying bills, on over $100k (for 1 salary alone)? $300k? I call bullshit"
Obama plays the populist, but he is not, nor has he ever been, one of the people he is playing to.
WTF are you talking about? "Appeasement" is a reference to the policys of England prior to WWII, where Chamberlain basically sacrificed part another country to Hitler in the hopes that he would then leave England alone. It didn't work out like he wanted.
Likewise, the French authorities decided to sacrifice other people's property to avoid a larger, bloodier conflict. Can you guess where I'm going with this?
For that matter, look at the "ceasefire" negotiated by the current French president between Russia and Georgia. The Russians agree to pull out in 6 months (!), and they can "increase security in that time? The French, and by extension Europe (France has the rotating presidency currently), is going to allow Russia to annex parts of Georgia to avoid having their gas supply cut off. Do you really believe that Putin will be satisfied? The Germans may have marched through Paris, but by the time this is over the European heads of state will be lining up to suck Putin's dick, and smiling all the way.
As for race, it seems to be foremost on *your* mind, not mine. The racial problems the French are having are totally home grown. The US has their own racial problems, but we've been dealing with ours for hundreds of years - wars, riots, political upheavals. Do you really believe that France is so culturally evolved that a few car burnings are the end of that?
And to those who think the EU has eliminated the relevance of that comment, why hasn't France cut down all the trees on the Champs Elysees?
"Germany is a federal state, comprised of multiple independent states with their own governments. According to TFA, this only counts for prosecutors from the Nort-Rhine Westphalia.
Come on. Learn a little something about the rest of the world."
Why? Almost every foreign poster on this site refers to the US Government as if it were monolithic and parliamentarian in form, totally missing the federal form of government and the independence of the executive and the legislature.
How many times have we heard that the US system of voting is so fucked up, and why can't we just use a piece of paper like everyone else. Perhaps because we elect executive, legislature, and sometimes even judicial at the federal, state, county, and city/township level, not to mention ballot initiatives, bond measures, and the like.
Oh, I forgot - in the US we not only do things different, it is always inferior to however [insert European country] does it.
Rant off - I need to get back to rigging elections and waterboarding pot dealers.
"In other news, German prosecutors annnounced today that they will only be prosecuting auto thefts when more than 200 are committed, and car break-ins when 3000 are committed. "Our goal is to prevent organized crime", said their spokesperson, "we don't care about the occasional junkie or joy-rider."
Perhaps not in Germany, but I have wondered about the status of all the cars burned in the south of France during the riots a few years ago. It seemed that French policy was that, as long as no one got seriously hurt, property destruction would be overlooked. While the policy seemed to "work" in that everything seemed to go back to normal with not dead French citizens, I can't help but ask what will happen during the *next* riots? How will the authorities react when houses start getting torched, or cars with people in them get burned?
Don't think it will happen? Look up "appeasement" in the encyclopedia.
Because in the PR war, "disabled" is a more powerful weapon than "poor".
Wrap your heads around this, geeks - rationality has NOTHING to do with PR, and is only marginally related to politics. If we keep demanding playbook that is strictly rational, we are going to lose. Period.
It counts because her disability severely limited her economic means, and the RIAA tried to use this fact to bulldoze her into a settlement.
It also counts because this is a war on 3 fronts - legal, political, and PR. Her disability has little to do with the legal case (except as mentioned above), but is hugely relevant to the PR war and possibly to the political war - picture this woman in front of a congressional committee, and even the Senator from Disney will be groveling to show how much he sympathizes with her.
And if you don't believe it's a PR war too, why is this a favorite Slashdot topic.
I was thinking this one: http://xkcd.com/451/
Only substitute "psychiatrist" for "critic"
Why the Air Force? It seems like such a reach outside their normal scope. I would think that the Army would be the proper place for such a command.
Of course, the Air Force should never have been split off from the Army to begin with; they should have told Curtiss LeMay to go get bent when they still had the chance.
Gas perms really are one of those "just tough it out" things. You CAN'T just put them in and it's all over. When I first started wearing them, I was on a schedule to acclimate my eyes - 1/2 hr in, 2 hours out for a day, then 1 hour in and 1 out, etc. Yeah, they were uncomfortable, but you just get used to it
Part of teh discomfort is the fact that they WILL reshape your cornea, flattening it out. In my case, this was the point - I was losing visual acuity so rapidly that my optometrist prescribed them when I was 12 to try to limit the decay. And I think it worked.
Other docs have suggested I move to soft, but I'm sticking with what I know.
"The ensuing investigation involved a state hazardous materials team, fire and police officials, health officials, environmental officials and code enforcement officials."
I'm reminded of a fireworks shoot I worked 2 years ago. It was raining on and off all day, but the sponsor insisted, despite the contract, that we go on. The fire marshal agreed with us that the situation was unsafe, but he wasn't willing to pull the plug because he didn't want to piss off the county supervisor.
So we shoot, and there is stuff bursting right over our heads because the charges got wet, and going up in the tubes, and blowing up on the ground. But we finish the show in the pouring rain, and then we need to clean up - also in the pouring rain. And we're finding all sorts of unexploded pyro on the ground, but it's dark as 6' up a well diggers ass, so we try our best. We get done at 6:00 AM and then drive back to the magazine to drop off all of the crap that just didn't go off.
Then my boss gets a call from the fire marshal - it seems we missed a 3" ball and a few stars, and he is DEMANDING that we come back and retrieve them (remember, this is the guy who KNEW this was going to happen but didn't have the balls to do his job). Our boss tells him to fuck off and call back when we get some sleep. 2 hours later he calls back - he's called out the BOMB SQUAD to handle it, and that's the last show we'll ever do in this town, blah, blah, blah. Response? "What makes you think we want to come back to your pissant town, you little shit?"
Fast forward to this year - we get the call to do the show again, because last year's went so well! And before the boss could hang up, they say "BTW, everyone involved with last year's fiasco has been fired".
I didn't shoot the show, but I heard it went well.
Tie sensors to memory plastic, allowing the lens to deform on command and grant the wearer telescopic vision?
Hey, Steve Austin - bionic THIS!
Given the fact that it makes her look under 5 years old, "creepy" is an understatement.
"Modern contact lenses are soft and conform to your eye's shape. They are designed to be wet and to retain water like the rest of your eye."
HA! Pansy! I've been wearing semi-rigid lenses for over 25 years. Newfangled soft lenses - feh!
That being said, you just get used to poking around in your eye. Drug addicts and diabetics get used to sticking needles in themselves, and gays get used to having other things stuck in them. Never underestimate the human capacity for tolerating short term discomfort for long term gain.