The quality of kernels is of minor concern, major concern is time to market and freshness. Keep your unpopped corn in a sealed container to maintain humidity level and keep it fron drying out. Microwave popcorns aren't all going to be equal, either, as the oil/salt compositions will vary which affect the hulls of kernels. I've found microwave popcorn has a very short shelflife compared to plain kernel corn. Freshly opened popcorn has fewer 'widows and orphans' than older corn, especially corn which has been left exposed to air.
I use an air popper. It takes almost exactly the same amount of time as microwave popcorn.
As mentioned, plain kernel corn lasts quite a while on the shelf, if properly stored. With an air popper, I usually get about 3-4 bad-popped kernels, but even they usually have opened up a little. I use the cheapest brand kernels I can buy.
The best part is the cost. The microwave popcorn with 6 3.5oz bags in it costs the same as a 4lb bag of plain kernels. Also, I can spend my money on better-tasting butters specially designed for popcorn.
So with an air popper, I get fewer bad kernels, just over three times the amount of corn, and I can control the salt and butter amounts.
I don't understand why people use microwaves rather than a cheap air popper.
HOw can any such provisions really be ok and acceptable in a contract, especially in a consumer retaled situation?
Standard "IANAL but I work with them" disclaimers apply.
First, this is a policy and not a contract. If it were in a contract, they would have to include a way for the customer to escape. Probably in the form of: "We'll send an email to the address on file, which you agree to keep current. If you keep using the service after that date, we'll assume you agree. If you don't get the email message for whatever reason, it's not our fault, we sent it."
It does *NOT* mean, as you suggested, "we can change the entire meaning of this thing on a whim, do whatever we want, and there's nothing you can do about it."
It is normal legal boilerplate with a fairly simple meaning.
Generally speaking, that boilerplate lets them make small wording changes and minor meaning changes that don't change the overall spirit of the document.
To say they will "revise from time to time" is simply a standard legal expression saying they don't know how frequently they will update it. It is generally interpreted to mean a relatively long while, and as a stable thing. It also normally means that it will only be minor revisions. Revising their policy to do be the exact opposite of what it used to be is not really a revision, more of a replacement.
To say that they won't be notifying custmers is also a standard legal expression so they don't have to notify every customer, and possibly get acceptance from every customer, any time they modified their policies. Even if it was as simple as changing a typo, they'd have to notify their entire customer base, possibly through a paper mailing.
Major changes, or things that do affect the overall spirit of the document, will still generally need to be sent out to the customers unless they want to be sued.
After all, if what you say is true, we have far greater problems than who's producing the ads...I've seen the ads, they say very little as to what the canditate intends to do.
Yes, we have far greater problems than who's producing the ads.
Land where about 1/3 of those who go vote haven't decided who to vote for until they enter the booth.
Land where most normal voters get into the booth and think something like this:
President? I'm voting for the RepubliCrat Party.
Federal Congressional reps? Again, my favorite RepubliCrat Party.
Governer? I am a RepubliCrat, so I'll take this one.
State Auditor? Never heard of any of them, I guess I'll pick this one.
State AG? This one has a nice looking name.
State Treasurer? We have a treasurer?
State legislature? I think I saw this sign on my street corner...
City council members? I think this name was on a sign, too.
Judges? Sure, we need judges, I guess I'll vote for some...
School board? I never heard any of these names before. I'll just pick a few at random.
Public issues? I remember the slogan "Vote No on No 2"... Or was it "No 3"? I'll just put no on both, to be safe.
Land where some people think that NOT voting will somehow make things better.
Land where some people hate all politicans so they just don't vote
Land where most people don't understand the role of government in daily life.
If you had a public that didn't decide who to vote for based on how many TV and radio ads they hear, or cared about the election and didn't feel disenfranchised about the whole thing, then this type of thing would be less of a problem.
None of the major party likes how much of the vote just comes down to these random thoughts, so they want to at least make sure that they know what the others are doing.
Also, it helps those who actually care when they want to track down the ads. It helps to know: "This ad paid for by Multinational Organizations Against Public Thought."
and that's why women are leaving an industry that was nearly 50% women at one point.
I don't ever remember the IT industry being nearly 50% women. As I described in another post: Show me the numbers.
frob
Poor choice of dates, and show me the numbers.
on
Women Leaving I.T.
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· Score: 4, Insightful
That article is very poor journalism, even by the low standards of today.
Start with the two years the mention: 1996 and 2002. 1996 was the start of the dot-com boom. And 2002, a slump after dot-bombs are clearing away.
Where's the numbers in the middle? Did it drop in 1997-1999, in the boom? Did it stay the same until 1999, then drop? Has it been a continuous rate change? Where's the support that it really is a "downward spiral"?
Second, lacking from TFA are actual numbers and places.
Is this the IT market globally, including countries like India, China, Russia, and others? Or is this the IT market in the US? Or perhaps just the San Jose area? Or just Arkansas where the school that ran the survey is at? How many women? Has there been an increase in the number, just less of an increase relative to men? Or has the total number stayed about the same, or dropped? What are the women doing? Are they including women employed as secretaries and managerial operations within the IT business? How about men similarly working in IT companies, but not doing IT? What about the people not in the IT business but doing the work for small companies?
Given the (lack of) data we are shown, their conclusions are not really warranted.
I've trained several interns, and have gone to all three local universities to confront instructors about this problem. I've talked with deans, and even seen one teacher called in and get a repremand for this problem.
Whatever else you do, FOLLOW THE LANGUAGE STANDARD!
If you don't want to follow the language standards, please don't teach langauges that the industry uses. Teach them in languages like SmallTalk, or perhaps lesser-used languages like Scheme and Eiffel.
JavaScript has a standard. It is ECMA-262, or ISO/IEC 16262. It doesn't matter if you choose a book, or web sites, but one thing is critical: Make sure what you teach follows the standards. Since you will also using HTML, follow the HTML 4.1 standard, or XHTML 1.0. Don't use XHTML 1.1 yet, since nearly every server is misconfigured for it. Both standards are available at no cost.
In C, there are too many textbooks that teach things like void main(), encourage the use of scanf and gets, include examples that violate the standard and show undefined behavior, and have generally bad code. If your department teaches C, have your department verify that the books follow the standard. It's available for $18.
In C++, there are too many textbooks that don't follow the C++ standard. They often teach pre-standard C++ or mingle it with standard C++, pretend the language is just C with classes, fail to teach large portions of the language such as templates or the container and algorithm libraries, include examples that violate the standard and show undefined behavior, and have generally bad code. Again, if you teach C++ at the school, make sure your books follow that standard. It's also available for $18.
Doing this will save your students between 6 months to 1 year of correcting your school's bad teaching.
whereas enough people are still new to MMOGs that they don't get the single-use authentication key thing yet.
Just like the kids being brought up to think that RFID tracking is acceptable, you've bought the argument that a single-use key is acceptable.
There shouldn't be such a thing as a single-use authentication key. If Blizzard says you can sell it and the new owner gets all the rights, then they need the right to use the authentication key as well.
Imagine if all the old games had a single-use key: You just bought an Atari 2600 game from eBay? Or a used PS2 game from GameStop? Or you swapped games with a friend? Too bad, you can't play it. You want to rent a game from Blockbuster? Too bad, somebody else played it first, and it's locked. You just bought a brand new copy, but Steam^H^H^H^H^H the account server is broken? Oh well, your loss, buyer beware.
Single-use authentication and online activation are both Bad Things (tm), no matter how you slice it.
Yes, they found a way to break the hash function. But as the parent said, it does not mean it's suddenly invalid. Sure, the group found a way to break the algorithim, but look at
According to TFA a collision can be found in about 2**69 hash operations. That's 590295810358705651712 attempts before they can find a match, as opposed to the 2**80 (1208925819614629174706176) that was expected before the paper.
While the paper means it is orders of magnitude less work, it still means a lot of work for the attacker.
Lets look at two relevant examples: disc images and passwords.
Lets say I have an ISO disk image. I hack it, and want to modify some of the 'junk' bits using their algorithm. I'd still need to perform 590295810358705651712 hash operations on that image. Computing the hash of a disc is a slow operation. That's not something I could do in a day, week, or even a few months. Perhaps if I had a massivly parallel computer available, I could do it, but not as an individual.
For a password, hopefully your system would lock the account long before there are that many failed login attempts.
However, if your attacker has that kind of resources, you can assume it is feasable for them to find a hash collision. That's really only significant for governments, multi-national organizations, and other major enterprises, but not for most people.
The problem with saying what is and what is not AI, is that the mark is always moving.
When a multi-level perceptron came out, they said, "That's not AI, just creative use of statistcs and sigmoid functions." With expert systems: "Those aren't AI, just a bunch of rules you figured out from statistics." Backprop networks: "It's just building a map of the problem, not AI."
'AI' is the magical thing that does whatever we don't understand. When we understand it, and it isn't magical any more, we say "That's not AI, just a set of algorithms."
The mappings you described sure sound an awful lot like a form of RBF network, one of many artificial nerual network types. It comes up with a probabliity that something is something, or is not something.
The computer used some input to build it's model, then used the model it generated to determine the classification of something it has never encountered. That exactly fits one classic definition of AI.
Do a search on the original poster's name- he admitted in the discussion that the contract was indeed international, and did indeed deal with India.
I say again, this is a simple contract dispute issue. The company hired a contractor, and they have a problem with the final work. The contract should specify a course of action. Even if it doesn't, there are procedures in place for that in every nation.
But there aren't, at least, not for international contracts.
Then it falls under the first half of my post above. I said: This is just a simple contract dispute issue. The manager botched it, either through having a bad contract, or not properly following the terms of the contract, or not following up on remedies given in the contract.
It would appear, then, that the manager botched it, and dug his own hole by signing a contract without understanding the risks and issues involved.
Did he include a jurisdiction clause requiring the foreign contractor to submit to U.S. (or whatever country he's in) jurisdiction? Did he ensure that the company could be held to it? Did he specify the choice of law in the contract? Finally, did he ensure that the goods were of the required quality before issuing payement, or releasing payment from escrow? Since the answer appears to be 'no' on all of these, it's his own fault, and he doesn't have much recourse.
So it is the same thing, a simple contract dispute issuse. He made several mistakes, any of them could keep him from getting what he wants in the end. He made a mistake by not researching all the issues and risks of the contract. He made a mistake by (probably) either not having a competent lawyer reveiw the contract, or not taking the advice. He made it much harder for himself by paying them before inspecting the goods. Even so, there are international groups like CIRDA that will, for a relativly small fee on large disputes, help with international mediation or arbitration. Finally, if he didn't include a clause about arbitration or mediation, he shot himself in the foot when he signed the contract, not after.
*Big* difference here- contracts are simply unenforceable internationally- so even if there's a section about resolving disputes, if you contract overseas there isn't word one you can do to actually enforce that contract.
Not at all. The Story does not say it was international. It was only outsourced, which is to say, contracted to a third party. The poster said nothing about offshore/international outsourcing. Too many people hear "outsource" and immediatly think of India or China.
It is no different than hiring a contractor to build my house, or hiring a contractor to manage the company payroll, hiring a contractor to transcribe my dictations, or hiring a contractor to take pictures at my wedding. Each of these is outsourcing, and happen all over the world, thousands of times every day.
Even if the parties are international, it is still just a contract. There are procedures for enforcing contracts, such as the jurisdiction. That is all stated in the contract, or should have been. If it wasn't in the contract, then it is their own fault -- something so expensive and critical to the company should have been reviewed by a lawyer.
I say again, this is a simple contract dispute issue. The company hired a contractor, and they have a problem with the final work. The contract should specify a course of action. Even if it doesn't, there are procedures in place for that in every nation.
When we hire contract programmers, we set the damn terms. Term 1 is "we get full source code". Term 2 is "you get the last payment when we're sure it works". If the outsource won't agree, don't hire them. Doing otherwise is a big fat casino gamble.
The poster's project manager has failed at his job
Exactly.
This is just a simple contract dispute issue. The manager botched it, either through having a bad contract, or not properly following the terms of the contract, or not following up on remedies given in the contract.
If the contract doesn't have a section about what to do in resolving disputes, then the manager (or whoever hired them) only has themselves to blame. If it does, you simply follow the steps in the agreement.
It a shame there is all the knee-jerk reaction of "India and China are teh evil". Globalization is not the same as outsourcing. Pretty much every big project, from software to home building, involves outsourcing (contracting) of something. It's a fact of life: deal with it people.
Please someone tell me why Hollywood is allowed to put a Ferrari into a movie (even though the driver is the villain), but you can't put a Ferrari into a video game if you're not EA.
Easy enough: COPYRIGHT CLEARANCE AND OTHER GENERAL RELEASES. There, you've been told.
In my career as a software developer, and helping out a nonprofit group with filming of events, I've helped get clearance on various objects, songs, images, and sounds. It sounds weird, but in today's sue-everybody society, you have to get releases or permission for everything.
The movie companies get copyright clearance for permission to use the images of the car. I imagine they have standing agreements with all the major vehicle manufacturers. They get copyright clearance for using props. They get copyright clearnace for using identifiable furniture, artwork, and clothing brands. I read a while back that Warner Brothers has records of copyright clearance for over a billion objects. I don't have a link or know how accurate it is, but it sounds likely.
You might want to get a book like
Clearance And Copyright: Everything the Independent Filmmaker Needs to Know and read more about that.
I have read and heard of many times where a studio couldn't find all the descendants of the maker of a thing (since the orignal person had died) and had to re-shoot the scene without it. In one case, it was a chair used in a critical scene, and they didn't discover they lacked clearance until post-production. They had to do a lot of work to reconstruct the scene, bring the actors back, and reshoot without the chair.
Check out these 21 times and places one law group recommends checking for clearance (or find similar lists using your favorite search engine) on everything including names of characters, locations, photos and posters in the scene, and any recognisable objects and clothing. Failure to document it, they say, could result in a loss of E&O insurance protection (that is a big thing).
That list also includes several recent legal cases, not specifically related to the Ferrari, but close enough:
2002: The owners of the building at 2 Times Square filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court alleging that in the film Spider-Man, Columbia Pictures digitally replaced a Samsung advertisement on the side of their building with an advertisement for USA Today which appears three times in the film. See Spider-Man Caught in Legal Web, available at http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20020411/D7IR0NN03.html (April 11, 2002).
2001: USA Films paid an undisclosed sum to a private school in Ohio for the unauthorized use of the school's name in the motion picture Traffic and agreed not to use the school's name in any re-release of the film. No lawsuit was filed. See Makers of Hit Movie 'Traffic' Pay Out to School, available at http://news.findlaw.com/entertainment/s/20010427/f ilmtrafficdc.html (May 2, 2001).
1997: Warner Brothers was sued by a sculptor and the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia on copyright, Lanham Act, antidilution, and federal moral rights grounds over a religious sculpture, Ex Nihilo, a copy of which appeared in the film The Devil's Advocate. See Fredrick Hart and The Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia v. Warner Brothers, Inc. and Time Warner, Inc., Civ. No. 971956A (D.C. E.D., Va. 1997).
Video game companies probably could use Ferrari, or other brands (I seem to remember Broderbund used them in a few games like Stunts 15 years ago or so). They just need to obtain proper permission and releases, which might cost more than the company is willing to spend.
Damn near every house hold cleaner can kill you if you eat/drink it. So can batteries, OTC drugs, most automobile oils/fluids, food in glass jars and almost all toys are potentially harmful to kids.
Perhaps you need to rethink what you are saying as your lack of thinking things out makes you a dangerous person.
Lots of cleaners and household things are regulated.
How about spray paint? Broad-tipped markers? Spray paint nozzles? Or even toilet paper? In many cities, you can't sell them to minors because they are considered a vandalism tool. We had a young-looking coworker get ID'd when buying a case of markers.
How about ammunition, or even pellets or BB's? I mean, you certainly would have had to have an adult's permission to buy the weapon, so why shouldn't the 12-year-old be able to buy the ammo? It's the same argument; the potential harm is too great.
Of course, some chemicals like alchohol or tobacco are regulated, since they are harmful.
When I was a teen, one of the big things was to buy almond extract or other high-alchohol flavorings from the grocery store (some have up to 90% alchohol content); the county has made those illegal for minors to purchase.
Some cleaners can be concentrated and inhaled. I have heard that as they became more popular at rave parties, our local government restricted sales of certain cleaners from minors.
You mention that toys that are potentially harmful to kids aren't really regulated. That's untrue. There are hundreds of toy recall notices every month, and occasionally class-action lawsuits for shoddy toys.
So, I'll quote you and say, "Perhaps you need to rethink what you are saying as your lack of thinking things out makes you a dangerous person." It is good advice.
No, each of those are regulated. Movies are a bit of an exception since it isn't government regulation, but they are still regulated.
Movies are self-regulated, but only after repeated threats from government that it either self-regulate or be regulated by government. This has happened many times, with major events in 1909-1915 (several states wanting to regulate), 1950-1965 (more threatened regulations), and 1983-1991 (introduction of more ratings and more threatened regulations). They are regulated, just self-regulated with threats of governmental regulations. The same thing recently happened with music: they were told either to put together their own regulation system or have one forced on them.
Cars are regulated. You can't just build your own car and drive it on the roads without having it pass various legal requirements. The car must be registered and pass roadworthy requirements, or have a waiver of the requirements. Minors either cannot hold drivers licenses, have graduated restrictions, or are otherwise regulated for minors.
Sex. This is actually heavily regulated. Rape and statutory rape, molestation, prostitution, and many other sexual acts are all legislated. A few studies have found most teenage pregnancies are due to underage girls with adult males. Those are all covered under statutory rape and/or prostitution laws. In most US states, children under age 16 cannot legally have consentual sex, basically for the same reason they can't sign contracts (as you mentioned in your post). After age 16, things get a bit tricky, but as you can see, it *IS* regulated.
liquor and tobacco, obviously regulated by the ATF in the US.
marriage. Many states have legal definitions of marraige, requirements on who can get married, what constitutes a commonlaw marraige. For example, some people seem to think of Utah as a home of polygamists, but one requirement Congress made for Utah's statehood was to have and enforce laws preventing polygamy. After 110 years, they are still enforced, and sometimes make national news. That's all regulation.
In the 80s, practically every action flick was rated R. Nowadays, however, action flicks are rated PG-13. Not because our tastes have changed; compare Terminator to Terminator 3 as to how much gets blown up, destroyed, etc etc etc. But because people are more likely to see a movie rated PG-13 than they are one rated R.
Which gets right back to what iocat said in the grandparent post, which is that the ratings should more accuratly reflect the content: "it would be to see more use of the AO rating, to signify games that are really explicit -- I'm thinking of the difference between a Resident Evil game and maybe Vice City here."
What you describe is a valid problem. Lots of movies that are rated PG-13 really ought to be a solid 'R', some that are PG really ought to be PG-13. Games are doing the same thing already.
Just as one example from last spring, the game "Sacred" turned down their gore levels for the US to have a Teen ESRB rating. Lots of US people complained about it. The UK box shows a character with lots of cleavage since they can do that there. The EU version has a very tame cover, but includes the in-game gore. Some translations of the game have some swearing, others don't. All that because they want to get the most sales, and that's what it takes in each market.
That isn't just a problem that the retailers face (only stock the stuff with the least problems), but one that the entertainment industry as a whole faces. Movies, Games, Music, and even some books, all face the issue of how much they can put in and still maximize sales. The problem is that the ratings systems (RIAA, MPAA, ESRB) are becoming more lenient as their clients push the limits of each rating.
But as for the specific law, that says that stores need to verify the age for M and AO titles, I feel that it's a good thing. The fact that some stores won't stock it doesn't bother me at all. The fact that it affects their profit is irrelevant.
If I wanted to buy adult videos or magazines, I wouldn't expect to find them in the mall, Toys R Us, or WalMart. Similarly, if I want to buy M or AO games, I will go to a game store that sells them. There will still be a market for games like Vice City, Singles, and BMX-XXX, just as there is still a market for porn and ultra-violent movies. But they won't be sold to minors as easily, and the companies that want to push the limit can continue to do so.
frob professional game developer and parent of kids who enjoy games.
Game Sales, not Game Industry.
on
The Law as a Parent
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The article deals with sales of games, not what the game industry is doing. I have watched young kids buy M-rated games before. With no incentive (or punishment) for making sure the ratings are followed, stores will be guided by The Almighty Buck, and sell to anybody.
The videogame industry does a better job than *ANY OTHER INDUSTRY* at labeling its content.
Yes, they do. But the stores generally don't care. That's why the law is needed.
At some point, parents have to step up and take some responsibility for what they let their children access.
But by the same token, the retailers shouldn't just sell to anybody. For example, what good is it to rate a movie R or even NC-17 if the theater would sell a ticket to any 10-year-old with cash? The same holds true for kids, except that the 10-year-old is more likely to buy that cool M-rated game than to try to sneak into an ultra-violent movie without their parents.
you'll never see a preview or ad for an M game in an E game box, for instance, and that didn't used to be case.
Yes, the INDUSTRY is doing great. Many STORES are not. It isn't uncommon in my area to see M-rated ads all over the walls of game stores, or to even see an m-rated FPS on the big screen at one local store.
Overall, the rating system has been great for games, because its enabled creators like Rockstar to create games that fulfill their vision without worrying that kids will inadvertantly be exposed to inappropriate material. But it takes two to tango. The responsibility cannot fully be just on the game industry, otherwise we'd be forced to only make E games, and we'd be letting down the adult portion of our audience who want to see more mature content.
Agreed, and that's a good thing. But that's not what the issue is. The law isn't to restrict the games industry, it's to make the stores follow those ratings.
Parents must take responsibility for the media their minor children consume, from videogames to movies to TV. The game industry is definitely doing its part.
Exactly. The GAME INDUSTRY is doing it's part. The STORES ARE NOT. That's why the state is getting the law, to help parents by helping prevent kids from sneaking behind their backs to get adult games.
How can you not notice all these??? If you let the date slip by after all these, then you don't care baout the domain very much, or are a moron. Or both.
Or you changed email addresses, or you registered with fake data (in spite of the requirement that you don't), or you created a temporary mail account on something like hotmail to register the domain on, or your spam filter deletes it, or the person getting the email has been fired from the company, or....
Someone explain to me how this is open to interpretation.
I'll try. Standard non-lawyer disclaimers apply. I am a little more knowledgeable than the average slashdotter in that I've had some classes in law, but I'm no expert.
The issues that need to be resolved are:
Is it a sale or a license contract? Some courts have ruled one way, some the other.
Does the EULA apply? Again, courts have ruled both ways.
Assuming the EULA applies, at what point does it move from a simple sale to an EULA-bound agreement?
I'll try to give a coherent example based on the court case I cited above; It's got almost all the elements covered.
You stated:
Once you make the purchase, any and all strings attached to the product from a seller's standpoint ceases to exist. Once you open to box and install the software, any pop-up EULA are moot as the transaction has already been completed at the cashier, which upon sale is the only point that the copyright holder has the right to set limits on the usage. The EULA comes after the sale, hence not binding. Hell, this is one of the core reasons we have copyright laws to begin with!
The problem comes from the fact that software companies like the idea of a license. The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) has several liability and remedies available to consumers in normal sales. Visit cornell's or some other place to read Article 2 of the UCC, for reference. There are a lot of liability issues with software. Moving it away from a sale and into contract law gives the opportunity to get around the liability.
Anyway, that is an issue that various courts have decided both ways. The 9th Circut (covering CA, WA, and several other states) gave their decision, so all the federal courts (where UCC issues are resolved) in those states should parallel that decision. If you read the case that I referenced in the grandparent post, they state that under most circumstances, software is sold and not licenced, regardless of the presence of an EULA. That is not under ALL circumstances, even though they list a few specific elements that cover almost all normal software purchses as sales. Specifically:
"The Court agrees that a single payment for a perpetual
transfer of possession is, in reality, a sale of personal property
and therefore transfers ownership of that property, the copy of the
software."
So within those states (at least), if you make a single payment for a perpetual transfer of possession, you own that copy of the software. Period.
You can do anything with that copy that is allowed by normal copyright law.
On the topic of EULA's in general, the court said:
Whether contracts such as Adobe's EULA, often referred to as
"shrinkwrap" licenses, are valid is a much-disputed question. A
number of courts that have addressed the validity of the shrinkwrap
license have found them to be invalid, characterizing them as
contracts of adhesion, unconscionable, and/or unacceptable pursuant
to the Uniform Commercial Code. [references omited] These
courts have refused to recognize a bargain in shrinkwrap license
that is not signed by the party against whom it is enforced. In
Step-Saver, the
Third Circuit found that the terms of a contract
were formed when the parties shipped, received and paid for the
product. Therefore, the software shrinkwrap agreement constituted
additional terms to the contract, and under Uniform Commercial Code
2-207 (governing commercial counter-offers), these terms were
invalid without express assent by the purchaser. In contrast,
other courts have determined that the shrinkwrap license is valid
and enforceable.
The Court finds it unnecessary to reach the question of the
general validity of shrinkwrap licenses at this stage because the
Court has determined that SoftMan is not bound by the EULA because
there was no assent to its terms.
At any rate, the case still doesn't apply to breaking a license agreement, because the decision of the court was that Softman had never assented to the agreement by installing or using the software.
That is part of the case, yes. But that wasn't all that was decided.
Look at pages 10 through 15. They list that this type of transaction is a sale, not a license:
A number of courts have held that the sale of software is the sale of a good within the meaning of the Uniform Commercial Code. [references] It is well-settled that in determining whether a transaction is a sale, a lease, or a license, courts look to the economic realities of the exchange. [...] The Court finds that the circumstances surrounding the transaction strongly suggests that the transaction is in fact a sale rather than a license. For example, the purchaser commonly obtains a single copy of the software, with documentation, for a single price, which the purchaser pays at the time of the transaction, and which constitutes the entire payment for the "license." The license runs for an indefinite term without provisions for renewal.
That's what I do when I buy software. The license I buy is for a single copy of the software and documentation, for a single one-time price at the time of the transaction constituting the entire payment. There is an indefinite term (usually something like 'it can be revoked if the software gets pirated) that is usually considered permanent.
That's what you do with HL2. You go to the store, you buy a copy of the software, and you use it. According to the very straitforward definition given by the Circuit Court, that is a sale.
So, since it is a sale, there are several potential problems here. It could be considered a "Failure to Deliver" or "Improper Delivery", entitling the people to any of several remedies. Valve is simply telling these (few) people, "Sorry, you're out of luck." That could be a violation of federal law.
OR, they could claim "No Arrival, No Sale", giving them similar remedies. Valve's denial of those remedies could be a violation of the federal law.
OR, they could claim it is a violation of implied warranty. The game was designed for a particular purpse: to be a playable computer game. If the seller (Valve) clearly knew when they released the game that that was the purpose of the game, and they also clearly knew that they intended to deny legitimate purchasers of the software from their usage of the software, then they violated the implied warranty of fitness, which is a federal violoation.
OR, they could be in trouble for improper notice of termination, since Valve agreed to "successive performances" of access through Steam, but terminated the service without notification.
OR, it is possible (although unlikely) that it could be established as fraud, if they could show that Valve intended to defraud some small subset of legitimate customers.
Anyway...
Assuming the transaction is a sale (which I believe it is) then there are quite a few violations of the UCC Article 2 that Valve could be in trouble with.
For what it's worth, (I'm an game developer, not a lawyer) I've had chats about this sort of thing with lawyers and other developers. When I heard about Valve requiring online verification, there was a bit of noise in the commuinity. There are many other issues about if sofware is sold, such as: What happens when the servers go down? What happens if the domain is hijacked? What happens at product EOL?
I personally believe software is sold, just like a book. It is clear: One copy of the software is sold. The software is copyright (C) year by the company. The company retains those copy rights, including the right to distribute copies of the work. If they find people distributing the software, they should prosecute those people for copyright infringement. If they find software that was distributed illegally, then should disable access to that software. But the moment they prevent a legitimate customer from accessing the system, and refuse to give them any remedy as specified in the law, they are in trouble.
Slashdot Mirror
As mentioned, plain kernel corn lasts quite a while on the shelf, if properly stored. With an air popper, I usually get about 3-4 bad-popped kernels, but even they usually have opened up a little. I use the cheapest brand kernels I can buy.
The best part is the cost. The microwave popcorn with 6 3.5oz bags in it costs the same as a 4lb bag of plain kernels. Also, I can spend my money on better-tasting butters specially designed for popcorn.
So with an air popper, I get fewer bad kernels, just over three times the amount of corn, and I can control the salt and butter amounts.
I don't understand why people use microwaves rather than a cheap air popper.
frob
Standard "IANAL but I work with them" disclaimers apply.
First, this is a policy and not a contract. If it were in a contract, they would have to include a way for the customer to escape. Probably in the form of: "We'll send an email to the address on file, which you agree to keep current. If you keep using the service after that date, we'll assume you agree. If you don't get the email message for whatever reason, it's not our fault, we sent it."
It does *NOT* mean, as you suggested, "we can change the entire meaning of this thing on a whim, do whatever we want, and there's nothing you can do about it."
It is normal legal boilerplate with a fairly simple meaning.
Generally speaking, that boilerplate lets them make small wording changes and minor meaning changes that don't change the overall spirit of the document.
To say they will "revise from time to time" is simply a standard legal expression saying they don't know how frequently they will update it. It is generally interpreted to mean a relatively long while, and as a stable thing. It also normally means that it will only be minor revisions. Revising their policy to do be the exact opposite of what it used to be is not really a revision, more of a replacement.
To say that they won't be notifying custmers is also a standard legal expression so they don't have to notify every customer, and possibly get acceptance from every customer, any time they modified their policies. Even if it was as simple as changing a typo, they'd have to notify their entire customer base, possibly through a paper mailing.
Major changes, or things that do affect the overall spirit of the document, will still generally need to be sent out to the customers unless they want to be sued.
frob
One of the bigger ones is called "public apathy".
Most people are too stupid/lazy to actually check things out.
We're talking about AMERICA.
If you had a public that didn't decide who to vote for based on how many TV and radio ads they hear, or cared about the election and didn't feel disenfranchised about the whole thing, then this type of thing would be less of a problem.
None of the major party likes how much of the vote just comes down to these random thoughts, so they want to at least make sure that they know what the others are doing.
Also, it helps those who actually care when they want to track down the ads. It helps to know: "This ad paid for by Multinational Organizations Against Public Thought."
Hope that explains it a little for you.
frob
Start with the two years the mention: 1996 and 2002. 1996 was the start of the dot-com boom. And 2002, a slump after dot-bombs are clearing away.
Where's the numbers in the middle? Did it drop in 1997-1999, in the boom? Did it stay the same until 1999, then drop? Has it been a continuous rate change? Where's the support that it really is a "downward spiral"?
Second, lacking from TFA are actual numbers and places.
Is this the IT market globally, including countries like India, China, Russia, and others? Or is this the IT market in the US? Or perhaps just the San Jose area? Or just Arkansas where the school that ran the survey is at? How many women? Has there been an increase in the number, just less of an increase relative to men? Or has the total number stayed about the same, or dropped? What are the women doing? Are they including women employed as secretaries and managerial operations within the IT business? How about men similarly working in IT companies, but not doing IT? What about the people not in the IT business but doing the work for small companies?
Given the (lack of) data we are shown, their conclusions are not really warranted.
frob
Whatever else you do, FOLLOW THE LANGUAGE STANDARD!
If you don't want to follow the language standards, please don't teach langauges that the industry uses. Teach them in languages like SmallTalk, or perhaps lesser-used languages like Scheme and Eiffel.
JavaScript has a standard. It is ECMA-262, or ISO/IEC 16262. It doesn't matter if you choose a book, or web sites, but one thing is critical: Make sure what you teach follows the standards. Since you will also using HTML, follow the HTML 4.1 standard, or XHTML 1.0. Don't use XHTML 1.1 yet, since nearly every server is misconfigured for it. Both standards are available at no cost.
In C, there are too many textbooks that teach things like void main(), encourage the use of scanf and gets, include examples that violate the standard and show undefined behavior, and have generally bad code. If your department teaches C, have your department verify that the books follow the standard. It's available for $18.
In C++, there are too many textbooks that don't follow the C++ standard. They often teach pre-standard C++ or mingle it with standard C++, pretend the language is just C with classes, fail to teach large portions of the language such as templates or the container and algorithm libraries, include examples that violate the standard and show undefined behavior, and have generally bad code. Again, if you teach C++ at the school, make sure your books follow that standard. It's also available for $18.
Doing this will save your students between 6 months to 1 year of correcting your school's bad teaching.
Thank you.
Just like the kids being brought up to think that RFID tracking is acceptable, you've bought the argument that a single-use key is acceptable.
There shouldn't be such a thing as a single-use authentication key. If Blizzard says you can sell it and the new owner gets all the rights, then they need the right to use the authentication key as well.
Imagine if all the old games had a single-use key: You just bought an Atari 2600 game from eBay? Or a used PS2 game from GameStop? Or you swapped games with a friend? Too bad, you can't play it. You want to rent a game from Blockbuster? Too bad, somebody else played it first, and it's locked. You just bought a brand new copy, but Steam^H^H^H^H^H the account server is broken? Oh well, your loss, buyer beware.
Single-use authentication and online activation are both Bad Things (tm), no matter how you slice it.
Yes, they found a way to break the hash function. But as the parent said, it does not mean it's suddenly invalid. Sure, the group found a way to break the algorithim, but look at According to TFA a collision can be found in about 2**69 hash operations. That's 590295810358705651712 attempts before they can find a match, as opposed to the 2**80 (1208925819614629174706176) that was expected before the paper. While the paper means it is orders of magnitude less work, it still means a lot of work for the attacker. Lets look at two relevant examples: disc images and passwords. Lets say I have an ISO disk image. I hack it, and want to modify some of the 'junk' bits using their algorithm. I'd still need to perform 590295810358705651712 hash operations on that image. Computing the hash of a disc is a slow operation. That's not something I could do in a day, week, or even a few months. Perhaps if I had a massivly parallel computer available, I could do it, but not as an individual. For a password, hopefully your system would lock the account long before there are that many failed login attempts. However, if your attacker has that kind of resources, you can assume it is feasable for them to find a hash collision. That's really only significant for governments, multi-national organizations, and other major enterprises, but not for most people.
When a multi-level perceptron came out, they said, "That's not AI, just creative use of statistcs and sigmoid functions." With expert systems: "Those aren't AI, just a bunch of rules you figured out from statistics." Backprop networks: "It's just building a map of the problem, not AI."
'AI' is the magical thing that does whatever we don't understand. When we understand it, and it isn't magical any more, we say "That's not AI, just a set of algorithms."
The mappings you described sure sound an awful lot like a form of RBF network, one of many artificial nerual network types. It comes up with a probabliity that something is something, or is not something.
The computer used some input to build it's model, then used the model it generated to determine the classification of something it has never encountered. That exactly fits one classic definition of AI.
It would appear, then, that the manager botched it, and dug his own hole by signing a contract without understanding the risks and issues involved.
Did he include a jurisdiction clause requiring the foreign contractor to submit to U.S. (or whatever country he's in) jurisdiction? Did he ensure that the company could be held to it? Did he specify the choice of law in the contract? Finally, did he ensure that the goods were of the required quality before issuing payement, or releasing payment from escrow? Since the answer appears to be 'no' on all of these, it's his own fault, and he doesn't have much recourse.
So it is the same thing, a simple contract dispute issuse. He made several mistakes, any of them could keep him from getting what he wants in the end. He made a mistake by not researching all the issues and risks of the contract. He made a mistake by (probably) either not having a competent lawyer reveiw the contract, or not taking the advice. He made it much harder for himself by paying them before inspecting the goods. Even so, there are international groups like CIRDA that will, for a relativly small fee on large disputes, help with international mediation or arbitration. Finally, if he didn't include a clause about arbitration or mediation, he shot himself in the foot when he signed the contract, not after.
frob
Not at all. The Story does not say it was international. It was only outsourced, which is to say, contracted to a third party. The poster said nothing about offshore/international outsourcing. Too many people hear "outsource" and immediatly think of India or China.
It is no different than hiring a contractor to build my house, or hiring a contractor to manage the company payroll, hiring a contractor to transcribe my dictations, or hiring a contractor to take pictures at my wedding. Each of these is outsourcing, and happen all over the world, thousands of times every day.
Even if the parties are international, it is still just a contract. There are procedures for enforcing contracts, such as the jurisdiction. That is all stated in the contract, or should have been. If it wasn't in the contract, then it is their own fault -- something so expensive and critical to the company should have been reviewed by a lawyer.
I say again, this is a simple contract dispute issue. The company hired a contractor, and they have a problem with the final work. The contract should specify a course of action. Even if it doesn't, there are procedures in place for that in every nation.
It certainly isn't worthy of a /. home page entry.
frob
This is just a simple contract dispute issue. The manager botched it, either through having a bad contract, or not properly following the terms of the contract, or not following up on remedies given in the contract.
If the contract doesn't have a section about what to do in resolving disputes, then the manager (or whoever hired them) only has themselves to blame. If it does, you simply follow the steps in the agreement.
It a shame there is all the knee-jerk reaction of "India and China are teh evil". Globalization is not the same as outsourcing. Pretty much every big project, from software to home building, involves outsourcing (contracting) of something. It's a fact of life: deal with it people.
frob
In my career as a software developer, and helping out a nonprofit group with filming of events, I've helped get clearance on various objects, songs, images, and sounds. It sounds weird, but in today's sue-everybody society, you have to get releases or permission for everything.
The movie companies get copyright clearance for permission to use the images of the car. I imagine they have standing agreements with all the major vehicle manufacturers. They get copyright clearance for using props. They get copyright clearnace for using identifiable furniture, artwork, and clothing brands. I read a while back that Warner Brothers has records of copyright clearance for over a billion objects. I don't have a link or know how accurate it is, but it sounds likely.
You might want to get a book like Clearance And Copyright: Everything the Independent Filmmaker Needs to Know and read more about that. I have read and heard of many times where a studio couldn't find all the descendants of the maker of a thing (since the orignal person had died) and had to re-shoot the scene without it. In one case, it was a chair used in a critical scene, and they didn't discover they lacked clearance until post-production. They had to do a lot of work to reconstruct the scene, bring the actors back, and reshoot without the chair.
Check out these 21 times and places one law group recommends checking for clearance (or find similar lists using your favorite search engine) on everything including names of characters, locations, photos and posters in the scene, and any recognisable objects and clothing. Failure to document it, they say, could result in a loss of E&O insurance protection (that is a big thing).
That list also includes several recent legal cases, not specifically related to the Ferrari, but close enough:
- 2002: The owners of the building at 2 Times Square filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court alleging that in the film Spider-Man, Columbia Pictures digitally replaced a Samsung advertisement on the side of their building with an advertisement for USA Today which appears three times in the film. See Spider-Man Caught in Legal Web, available at http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20020411/D7IR0NN0
3 .html (April 11, 2002).
- 2001: USA Films paid an undisclosed sum to a private school in Ohio for the unauthorized use of the school's name in the motion picture Traffic and agreed not to use the school's name in any re-release of the film. No lawsuit was filed. See Makers of Hit Movie 'Traffic' Pay Out to School, available at http://news.findlaw.com/entertainment/s/20010427/
f ilmtrafficdc.html (May 2, 2001).
- 1997: Warner Brothers was sued by a sculptor and the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia on copyright, Lanham Act, antidilution, and federal moral rights grounds over a religious sculpture, Ex Nihilo, a copy of which appeared in the film The Devil's Advocate. See Fredrick Hart and The Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia v. Warner Brothers, Inc. and Time Warner, Inc., Civ. No. 971956A (D.C. E.D., Va. 1997).
Video game companies probably could use Ferrari, or other brands (I seem to remember Broderbund used them in a few games like Stunts 15 years ago or so). They just need to obtain proper permission and releases, which might cost more than the company is willing to spend.frob
How about spray paint? Broad-tipped markers? Spray paint nozzles? Or even toilet paper? In many cities, you can't sell them to minors because they are considered a vandalism tool. We had a young-looking coworker get ID'd when buying a case of markers.
How about ammunition, or even pellets or BB's? I mean, you certainly would have had to have an adult's permission to buy the weapon, so why shouldn't the 12-year-old be able to buy the ammo? It's the same argument; the potential harm is too great.
Of course, some chemicals like alchohol or tobacco are regulated, since they are harmful.
When I was a teen, one of the big things was to buy almond extract or other high-alchohol flavorings from the grocery store (some have up to 90% alchohol content); the county has made those illegal for minors to purchase.
Some cleaners can be concentrated and inhaled. I have heard that as they became more popular at rave parties, our local government restricted sales of certain cleaners from minors.
You mention that toys that are potentially harmful to kids aren't really regulated. That's untrue. There are hundreds of toy recall notices every month, and occasionally class-action lawsuits for shoddy toys.
So, I'll quote you and say, "Perhaps you need to rethink what you are saying as your lack of thinking things out makes you a dangerous person." It is good advice.
Movies are self-regulated, but only after repeated threats from government that it either self-regulate or be regulated by government. This has happened many times, with major events in 1909-1915 (several states wanting to regulate), 1950-1965 (more threatened regulations), and 1983-1991 (introduction of more ratings and more threatened regulations). They are regulated, just self-regulated with threats of governmental regulations. The same thing recently happened with music: they were told either to put together their own regulation system or have one forced on them.
Cars are regulated. You can't just build your own car and drive it on the roads without having it pass various legal requirements. The car must be registered and pass roadworthy requirements, or have a waiver of the requirements. Minors either cannot hold drivers licenses, have graduated restrictions, or are otherwise regulated for minors.
Sex. This is actually heavily regulated. Rape and statutory rape, molestation, prostitution, and many other sexual acts are all legislated. A few studies have found most teenage pregnancies are due to underage girls with adult males. Those are all covered under statutory rape and/or prostitution laws. In most US states, children under age 16 cannot legally have consentual sex, basically for the same reason they can't sign contracts (as you mentioned in your post). After age 16, things get a bit tricky, but as you can see, it *IS* regulated.
liquor and tobacco, obviously regulated by the ATF in the US.
marriage. Many states have legal definitions of marraige, requirements on who can get married, what constitutes a commonlaw marraige. For example, some people seem to think of Utah as a home of polygamists, but one requirement Congress made for Utah's statehood was to have and enforce laws preventing polygamy. After 110 years, they are still enforced, and sometimes make national news. That's all regulation.
Looks like 6/6 to me.
frob
What you describe is a valid problem. Lots of movies that are rated PG-13 really ought to be a solid 'R', some that are PG really ought to be PG-13. Games are doing the same thing already.
Just as one example from last spring, the game "Sacred" turned down their gore levels for the US to have a Teen ESRB rating. Lots of US people complained about it. The UK box shows a character with lots of cleavage since they can do that there. The EU version has a very tame cover, but includes the in-game gore. Some translations of the game have some swearing, others don't. All that because they want to get the most sales, and that's what it takes in each market.
That isn't just a problem that the retailers face (only stock the stuff with the least problems), but one that the entertainment industry as a whole faces. Movies, Games, Music, and even some books, all face the issue of how much they can put in and still maximize sales. The problem is that the ratings systems (RIAA, MPAA, ESRB) are becoming more lenient as their clients push the limits of each rating.
But as for the specific law, that says that stores need to verify the age for M and AO titles, I feel that it's a good thing. The fact that some stores won't stock it doesn't bother me at all. The fact that it affects their profit is irrelevant.
If I wanted to buy adult videos or magazines, I wouldn't expect to find them in the mall, Toys R Us, or WalMart. Similarly, if I want to buy M or AO games, I will go to a game store that sells them. There will still be a market for games like Vice City, Singles, and BMX-XXX, just as there is still a market for porn and ultra-violent movies. But they won't be sold to minors as easily, and the companies that want to push the limit can continue to do so.
frob professional game developer and parent of kids who enjoy games.
frob, professional game developer and parent.
Or, you can store anywhere from 1.4 to 9.4 gigabyes on a DVD (commonly 4.7), which is about the same weight as a compact disk.
Or, you can store anywhere from 1.4 to 9.4 gigabyes on a DVD (commonly 4.7), which is about the same weight as a compact disk.
That's why the courts that say it's a sale have consistantly said the EULA is invalid.
That's also why courts that say it's a license or contract have sided with the EULA.
Two of the circuit courts have come down on the side of it being a sale, and I'm hopeful that those decisions will be the prevailing ones.
frob
I'll try. Standard non-lawyer disclaimers apply. I am a little more knowledgeable than the average slashdotter in that I've had some classes in law, but I'm no expert.
The issues that need to be resolved are:
I'll try to give a coherent example based on the court case I cited above; It's got almost all the elements covered.
The problem comes from the fact that software companies like the idea of a license. The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) has several liability and remedies available to consumers in normal sales. Visit cornell's or some other place to read Article 2 of the UCC, for reference. There are a lot of liability issues with software. Moving it away from a sale and into contract law gives the opportunity to get around the liability.
Anyway, that is an issue that various courts have decided both ways. The 9th Circut (covering CA, WA, and several other states) gave their decision, so all the federal courts (where UCC issues are resolved) in those states should parallel that decision. If you read the case that I referenced in the grandparent post, they state that under most circumstances, software is sold and not licenced, regardless of the presence of an EULA. That is not under ALL circumstances, even though they list a few specific elements that cover almost all normal software purchses as sales. Specifically:
So within those states (at least), if you make a single payment for a perpetual transfer of possession, you own that copy of the software. Period.
You can do anything with that copy that is allowed by normal copyright law.
On the topic of EULA's in general, the court said:
Look at pages 10 through 15. They list that this type of transaction is a sale, not a license:
That's what I do when I buy software. The license I buy is for a single copy of the software and documentation, for a single one-time price at the time of the transaction constituting the entire payment. There is an indefinite term (usually something like 'it can be revoked if the software gets pirated) that is usually considered permanent.
That's what you do with HL2. You go to the store, you buy a copy of the software, and you use it. According to the very straitforward definition given by the Circuit Court, that is a sale.
So, since it is a sale, there are several potential problems here. It could be considered a "Failure to Deliver" or "Improper Delivery", entitling the people to any of several remedies. Valve is simply telling these (few) people, "Sorry, you're out of luck." That could be a violation of federal law.
OR, they could claim "No Arrival, No Sale", giving them similar remedies. Valve's denial of those remedies could be a violation of the federal law.
OR, they could claim it is a violation of implied warranty. The game was designed for a particular purpse: to be a playable computer game. If the seller (Valve) clearly knew when they released the game that that was the purpose of the game, and they also clearly knew that they intended to deny legitimate purchasers of the software from their usage of the software, then they violated the implied warranty of fitness, which is a federal violoation.
OR, they could be in trouble for improper notice of termination, since Valve agreed to "successive performances" of access through Steam, but terminated the service without notification.
OR, it is possible (although unlikely) that it could be established as fraud, if they could show that Valve intended to defraud some small subset of legitimate customers.
Anyway...
Assuming the transaction is a sale (which I believe it is) then there are quite a few violations of the UCC Article 2 that Valve could be in trouble with.
For what it's worth, (I'm an game developer, not a lawyer) I've had chats about this sort of thing with lawyers and other developers. When I heard about Valve requiring online verification, there was a bit of noise in the commuinity. There are many other issues about if sofware is sold, such as: What happens when the servers go down? What happens if the domain is hijacked? What happens at product EOL?
I personally believe software is sold, just like a book. It is clear: One copy of the software is sold. The software is copyright (C) year by the company. The company retains those copy rights, including the right to distribute copies of the work. If they find people distributing the software, they should prosecute those people for copyright infringement. If they find software that was distributed illegally, then should disable access to that software. But the moment they prevent a legitimate customer from accessing the system, and refuse to give them any remedy as specified in the law, they are in trouble.
frob.