Imagine that being wildly successful in your career meant that you failed 95% of the time. A baseball player getting called out 19 out of every 20 trips to the plate. Yet, in the world of direct (snail) mail, that's considered a successful campaign. So, if you mailed out 1,000,000 letters to 950,000 who threw it away, you'd think you were a direct marketing stud.
Online advertising is even worse, yet rather than realizing that people are probably not interested in your product (they would have clicked the banner ad), you figure you'll pop up extra windows. It's like reading a magazine and throwing out the first 8 magazine subscription cards but then seeing the 9th and saying "hmm, if they're willing to go through that much effort maybe I should subscribe."
And the best part is that people who figure out new surface area to plaster with ads consider themselves to be "creative." Bullsh-t. You are a hack. You'd be more creative if you were in a boy band or producing a reality TV show...
Bill Hicks said it best, "If you're in marketing, kill yourself."
Despite what you may be thinking, marketing people are not insects. Technically, they are arachnids.
Why do people keep thinking that the truth will set them free? The fact is, a smart person -- even if they are entirely in the right, ethically, morally, and probably legally -- will likely get fscked over by the legal system if they represent themself.
Yeah, it would be great if life were like movies, where you could simply plead your case, making sense, convincing a judge/jury that you are right. Unfortunately, lawyers are highly paid for a reason. THEY KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GAME. Lawyers go through specialized training, they pass tests, they have other lawyers to confer with, they understand the rules of the game.
My god, even lawyers usually know enough to not try to defend themselves (something about having a fool for a client).
So, typically what we see is a guy defending himself and then getting outraged that he got screwed by the judge because he missed a deadline, or didn't file a brief correctly.
This guy may lose the money he'd make from the invention, $300,000 for the company's legal fees, his house, etc... Yet in his "What's new" page on his web site he states Again, the courts violated my rights to due process. Come on, you almost never hear people who've been defended by good lawyers claim that their due process rights have been repeatedly violated.
Maybe he should have contacted the EFF. No matter what, he should have gotten a snake^H^H^H^H^H lawyer to defend him.
Oh, and I hate people who write their web sites in the third person...
What does it say about me that after viewing the 'newly abandoned' list on deleteddomains.com I thought "wouldn't it be cool to register 4bud.com and 4weed.com" even if I have no relevant content....
I believe that many of your points reflect the way the country should work, rather than how it does work.
The fact is, that once a misrepresentation is released into the popular consciousness, it is going to persist (to some extent) regardless of how or when it is corrected. As an example, take your favorite political party and consider how they've been wronged by another party that repeats debunked charges.
Politicians are not rewarded for being even handed or factual, they are rewarded for getting people motivated -- this means that presenting things in the most favorable fashion is encouraged. Sometimes this means presenting an economic plan using best/worst case projections, sometimes it means disregarding truthful corrections (You can truthfully state that source X stated Y, even if the following day they issued correction Z, thus negating Y. -- its misleading and dishonest, but may be technically truthful)
The late california congressman and champion of government funded science, George E. Brown Jr. was asked in an interview with the NY Times:
Q. How skilled are scientists and researchers at presenting their case to
Congress?
A. Very unskilled.
They, generally speaking, have too great a faith in the power of common
sense and reason.
That's not what drives most political figures, who are concerned about
emotions and the way a certain event will affect their constituency. If
you're going to work in a political environment, you have to know the
reasoning of the people you're dealing with. You have to talk to them
realistically. It does very little good to appeal to high principle,
although I would not say that's insignificant. The vast majority of
politicians think they are functioning on high principle.
(Emphasis mine)
So, even if Clarke clarifies and reclarifies his position, someone with the proper motivation will allege that he's encouraging hackers to break software.
The same thing holds for software companies. The fact is, with few exceptions (e.g., slashdotters) most computer users will think that a product that has had its flaws reported in the news (even if they've been patched) is less reliable than one that hasn't had its flaws reported (perhaps as a result of threatening researchers with DMCA suits).
In this sense, threatening researchers with lawsuits is less embarrassing than having vulnerabilities reported. Of course, if you're marketing to slashdotters this may not be true, but to J.Q. Sixpack it holds.
Companies care about profit. Selling more units typically increases profit (however, cf. Amazon.com). If reports of vulnerabilities lower sales, then the company is motivated to reduce vulnerability reports.
If this comment gets a decent amount of attention, I have no doubt the whitehouse will issue a statement condemning hackers.
This reminds me of when Clinton's former surgeon general suggested that students be educated about masturbation (as, among other things, an alternative to unprotected sex). She was attacked for saying something that offended the sensibilities of many -- even if her motives were sound.
So, if the press starts hyping this as "Bush appointee encourages computer hacking" (assuming that this will lead many TV pundits looking for something to rail against to miss the hacker/cracker distinction), we'll see the whitehouse backpeddle in order to look tough on those damn terrorist hackers...
Some things are just too taboo to middle america. If a soundbyte scares the uninformed, it will be condemned by those pandering to the uninformed.
His response to question #2 pegs the fundamental problem with the CS discipline as an undergraduate or graduate field of study, and maybe the sciences in general.
Too bad it was in response to (my) question #3. It appears that his responses to #2 and #3 were switched.
Historically, AI has done poorly managing public expectations. People expected thinking, understanding computers, while researchers had trouble getting computers to successfully disambiguate simple sentences. This is not good PR. Do you think the field has learned from this? If so, what should the public expect, and how do we excite them about it?
Just for fun, I asked slashwallace a shortened version of the question, do you think your response would differ?
Human: Historically AI has done poorly managing the public's expectations, do you think this will continue? SlashWallace: Where did he get it?
Of course, I wonder if it would have the same effect if you simply used the BCC: line and wrote it so they thought they were the only person receiving.
The study in the article did just that. Some of the people received an email that looked like it was just to them, others saw many names in the to: field. They found that people who thought they were singled out were more likely to be helpful.
The relevant psychological phenomena are called bystander apathy and diffusion of responsibility. In each, the more people in a group, the less likely each individual is to help/work.
This is nothing particularly new, it just says that people behave consistently in person or when contacted by email. It has nothing to do with commercial SPAM, only with requests for information/help to others.
A better solution would be somewhere online that warchalkers could upload locations (GPS maybe) and then you could easily find the access point nearest you.
They already have that. Now, imagine you're walking down the street and you need to find an open system. You can't check the web to find one because you need to find one to check the web. This is supposed to be a solution to the problem. (although netstumber/ministumbler would be fine too)...
I'm usually a bit wary whenever someone claims that a study (at a named university or not) "proves" anything. The scientific method doesn't prove things, it is used to test to see if things aren't likely.
Let me provide a preemptive response to the inevitable post that will disagree with the parent post:
Whenever someone claims that the Dvorak layout is superior, there is usually a response that relies on the article The Fable of the Keys by Liebowitz and Margolis.
The Fable is written by two economists. They rebut the claim that the failure of the Dvorak keyboard to replace the QWERTY layout represents a market failure. Essentially, they say that Dvorak isn't much better than QWERTY so there was no real advantage to it, and it added costs.
I have no doubt that Liebowitz and Margolis are first rate economists, and that they know all sorts of things about nework effects and market externalities. What I do strongly oppose is their misreading of the cognitive psychology literature, and their unsubstantiated and overblown attacks on August Dvorak.
I am a cognitive psychologist. I've read the literature. I understand my field, and it is apparent that the bias that Liebowitz and Margolis bring to their evaluation of the literature taints their paper. I make no claims about their economic arguments, but they have done their readers a great disservice by unfairly treating their subject (whether out of malice, bias, or incompetance).
For a decent layman's response to The Fable, check out this page
</rant>
The bottom line is that Dvorak is about 10% faster than QWERTY, given the same training. This is substantial, but one must consider that most of the time it takes to compose a document is not typing time, but rather content generation (e.g., thinking about what to say). Therefore, someone like a transcriptionist would benefit from a superior layout more than a typical knowledge worker. In addition, there's pretty good evidence that Dvorak error rates are significantly lower than QWERTY rates. This isn't as much an issue with computers as it was with old typewriters (it takes more time use use whiteout than it does to hit the Backspace key). There have been claims that Dvorak layouts reduce the likelihood of RSIs. There haven't been any really good studies, and it is unlikely that there will be (given the small number of Dvorak users)
I use a Dvorak layout, and I enjoy it for a number of reasons:
* I type a bit faster, but it is probably due to the fact that I engaged in dedicated practice when I learned to type Dvorak. * People don't ask to use my computer * I gained a lot of insight about the process of skill acquisition when I learned the new layout.
Oh, and I can still type pretty decently on QWERTY keyboards.
banning probably wouldn't work. When ArtificialLipManipulation is outlawed, only outlaws will have ArtificialLipManipulation.
One futuristic countermeasure I can imagine would be for concerned citizens (e.g., politicians, dissidents) to have some type of device that cryptographically signs some aspect of their speech along with a trusted indicator of time. This thing would have to transmit a signal that would be embedded in any recorded media. Thus, verification of the digital signature of the audio and time hash would indicate whether the original recording was fabricated or tampered with. Doesn't really get around this technology (i.e., they only make it look like you're mouthing the audio, they don't deal with the audio), but it would prevent others from splicing or generating fake audio to accompany these phony video clips...
Of course, there's only like, 50 zillion reasons this would be difficult/impossible to implement. But hey, I'm just the idea man...
Of course, if they could extend this work beyond the lips and face, imagine what the porn industry could do...
or, those who received yahoo's email didn't realize what it meant. Go back and take a look at the message (you can scroll down on this page). Yahoo never tells users what they've done in the email.
The message they sent to their users just says things like "We value your privacy," and "you may want to update your settings." It doesn't say anything about them changing users' settings against their will.
This is equivalent to Ford sending a letter to car owners saying "We hope you're happy with your car, you may want to get gas for it. We have a special web page you can visit if you care about gas." and using that to justify selling all their pertinent info to third parties -- that is, unless they went to the special "gas" page to click the "no, I appreciate the opportunity to be taken advantage of, but I'm gonna have to say no this time" button.
So, to summarize:
1. Email customers. Don't mention that you're screwing them.
2. Point to fact that customers didn't figure out that you screwed them as rationalization for screwing them.
I'm not sure about NBA, but the kick-ass free Lahman MLB database is available at baseball1.com. It's got stats going back to 1871...
Free Library Databases - and a protocol
on
Internet Book Database?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Most large university libraries have free (beer) databases that typically contain huge numbers of books (many that are not held by the library).
For example, see mirlyn.web.lib.umich.edu and sign in as a guest and you can do all sorts of searches.
These libraries typically use the Z39.50 standard to connect. Z39.50 is a pretty decent standard, and it is widely used, standardized, and allows you to connect to many many databases.
Sounds like this could be what you're looking for.
Sort of... MGM and New Line joined a club (MPAA). One of the rules of the club is that you can sort out disagreements within the club.
MGM convinced the club to rule against New Line. However, MGM also said that wouldn't have a problem with New Line if New Line would do MGM some favors.
At any point, New Line could've said "Screw you, these are our rights. You're not the boss of me." and refused to abide by the MPAAs initial ruling. At that point, MGM could have sued New Line (And probably lost), wasting valuable $$, raising anamosity within the industry, and possibly establishing a(nother) precedent that could come back and bite New Line on the ass when someone else tried to use a New Line-like title for their film. Instead, New Line (probably) agreed to show some MGM trailers before the film, and MGM agreed to let them use the title.
On one hand we have an industry group making the Wrong Decision (TM) initially in supporting MGM's petition against New Line. That's bad.
But on the other hand, we have an industry group policing itself -- not relying on the legal system to resolve disputes. That's not that bad.
Keep in mind that this is not a decision that involved the legal system. The original decision was made by the MPAA, which both studios are members of. Essentially, the industry is policing itself, and both groups agreed to be bound by those decisions.
They could sue each other if they wanted, but they've settled in this way.
Just because AOL is a content provider, doesn't mean they shouldn't be protected when they act as an ISP.
Yes, the DMCA sucks huge amounts of ass. Yes, the DMCA was designed to protect big content providers and not copyright holders. Yes, AOL is a big (evil?) corporation.
BUT, one of the few sane aspects of the DMCA is that it doesn't hold ISPs liable if they remove infringing material. This allows ISPs to react to claims in a reasonable manner (note, that doesn't guarantee they will, it only enables them to). If ISPs could be held liable for everything their users did, how long before AOL and others began enforcing even more draconian restrictions preempting their users' behaviors...
The DMCA sucks, is evil, etc... But this provision isn't the reason.
didn't know he had any implants- does anyone have any more information?
Despite the claims in the slashdot blurb, Mann does not have any implants. The NYTimes story mentions that electrodes were removed from his skin. These are the same as those sticky things they attach when someone gets an EKG or polygraph test, and are presumably used by Mann to measure physiological things like heart rate or skin conductance. Mann claims that when they were removed he bled -- kind of like ripping off a really sticky band-aid...
If someone could develop a copy protection technique that didn't infringe on my fair use rights, I'd be willing to consider it. But, because of their enthusiastic attempts to prevent file trading, my legally protected rights to be able to listen to products I purchased, when, where, and how I'd like are being infringed.
IANARE (I am not a record executive), but it doesn't seem to be a smart decision to treat your customers like criminals...
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine that being wildly successful in your career meant that you failed 95% of the time. A baseball player getting called out 19 out of every 20 trips to the plate. Yet, in the world of direct (snail) mail, that's considered a successful campaign. So, if you mailed out 1,000,000 letters to 950,000 who threw it away, you'd think you were a direct marketing stud.
Online advertising is even worse, yet rather than realizing that people are probably not interested in your product (they would have clicked the banner ad), you figure you'll pop up extra windows. It's like reading a magazine and throwing out the first 8 magazine subscription cards but then seeing the 9th and saying "hmm, if they're willing to go through that much effort maybe I should subscribe."
And the best part is that people who figure out new surface area to plaster with ads consider themselves to be "creative." Bullsh-t. You are a hack. You'd be more creative if you were in a boy band or producing a reality TV show...
Bill Hicks said it best, "If you're in marketing, kill yourself."
Despite what you may be thinking, marketing people are not insects. Technically, they are arachnids.
Why do people keep thinking that the truth will set them free? The fact is, a smart person -- even if they are entirely in the right, ethically, morally, and probably legally -- will likely get fscked over by the legal system if they represent themself.
Yeah, it would be great if life were like movies, where you could simply plead your case, making sense, convincing a judge/jury that you are right. Unfortunately, lawyers are highly paid for a reason. THEY KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GAME. Lawyers go through specialized training, they pass tests, they have other lawyers to confer with, they understand the rules of the game.
My god, even lawyers usually know enough to not try to defend themselves (something about having a fool for a client).
So, typically what we see is a guy defending himself and then getting outraged that he got screwed by the judge because he missed a deadline, or didn't file a brief correctly.
This guy may lose the money he'd make from the invention, $300,000 for the company's legal fees, his house, etc... Yet in his "What's new" page on his web site he states Again, the courts violated my rights to due process. Come on, you almost never hear people who've been defended by good lawyers claim that their due process rights have been repeatedly violated.
Maybe he should have contacted the EFF. No matter what, he should have gotten a snake^H^H^H^H^H lawyer to defend him.
Oh, and I hate people who write their web sites in the third person...
What does it say about me that after viewing the 'newly abandoned' list on deleteddomains.com I thought "wouldn't it be cool to register 4bud.com and 4weed.com" even if I have no relevant content....
Bad late-dot-commer-wannabe. Bad.
Ineverlearnmylessonuntilitstoolate.info
The fact is, that once a misrepresentation is released into the popular consciousness, it is going to persist (to some extent) regardless of how or when it is corrected. As an example, take your favorite political party and consider how they've been wronged by another party that repeats debunked charges.
Politicians are not rewarded for being even handed or factual, they are rewarded for getting people motivated -- this means that presenting things in the most favorable fashion is encouraged. Sometimes this means presenting an economic plan using best/worst case projections, sometimes it means disregarding truthful corrections (You can truthfully state that source X stated Y, even if the following day they issued correction Z, thus negating Y. -- its misleading and dishonest, but may be technically truthful)
The late california congressman and champion of government funded science, George E. Brown Jr. was asked in an interview with the NY Times:
So, even if Clarke clarifies and reclarifies his position, someone with the proper motivation will allege that he's encouraging hackers to break software.
The same thing holds for software companies. The fact is, with few exceptions (e.g., slashdotters) most computer users will think that a product that has had its flaws reported in the news (even if they've been patched) is less reliable than one that hasn't had its flaws reported (perhaps as a result of threatening researchers with DMCA suits).
In this sense, threatening researchers with lawsuits is less embarrassing than having vulnerabilities reported. Of course, if you're marketing to slashdotters this may not be true, but to J.Q. Sixpack it holds.
Companies care about profit. Selling more units typically increases profit (however, cf. Amazon.com). If reports of vulnerabilities lower sales, then the company is motivated to reduce vulnerability reports.
If this comment gets a decent amount of attention, I have no doubt the whitehouse will issue a statement condemning hackers.
This reminds me of when Clinton's former surgeon general suggested that students be educated about masturbation (as, among other things, an alternative to unprotected sex). She was attacked for saying something that offended the sensibilities of many -- even if her motives were sound.
So, if the press starts hyping this as "Bush appointee encourages computer hacking" (assuming that this will lead many TV pundits looking for something to rail against to miss the hacker/cracker distinction), we'll see the whitehouse backpeddle in order to look tough on those damn terrorist hackers...
Some things are just too taboo to middle america. If a soundbyte scares the uninformed, it will be condemned by those pandering to the uninformed.
Imagine swatting a beowulf cluster of those things...
Too bad it was in response to (my) question #3. It appears that his responses to #2 and #3 were switched.
Just for fun, I asked slashwallace a shortened version of the question, do you think your response would differ?
Human: Historically AI has done poorly managing the public's expectations, do you think this will continue?
SlashWallace: Where did he get it?
The study in the article did just that. Some of the people received an email that looked like it was just to them, others saw many names in the to: field. They found that people who thought they were singled out were more likely to be helpful.
The relevant psychological phenomena are called bystander apathy and diffusion of responsibility. In each, the more people in a group, the less likely each individual is to help/work.
This is nothing particularly new, it just says that people behave consistently in person or when contacted by email. It has nothing to do with commercial SPAM, only with requests for information/help to others.
Would they call it CLIMAX?
They already have that. Now, imagine you're walking down the street and you need to find an open system. You can't check the web to find one because you need to find one to check the web. This is supposed to be a solution to the problem. (although netstumber/ministumbler would be fine too)...
It was Cornell. Certainly not Podunk College.
I'm usually a bit wary whenever someone claims that a study (at a named university or not) "proves" anything. The scientific method doesn't prove things, it is used to test to see if things aren't likely.
Marketing people should be tortured.
which is Reidar Djupedal (the guy who owned the collection)'s last name spelled backward.
Not quite "password" but not a particularly secure pw...
How is [a weblog] different from an online journal?
Weblogs do not contain little graphics at the end of each entry telling you that the author is "feeling bummed."
nice job.
I was in the process of sneakernetting the files over to my old non-networked 386 for the extraction process...
Did you take a look at the data files?
Let me provide a preemptive response to the inevitable post that will disagree with the parent post:
Whenever someone claims that the Dvorak layout is superior, there is usually a response that relies on the article The Fable of the Keys by Liebowitz and Margolis.
The Fable is written by two economists. They rebut the claim that the failure of the Dvorak keyboard to replace the QWERTY layout represents a market failure. Essentially, they say that Dvorak isn't much better than QWERTY so there was no real advantage to it, and it added costs.
I have no doubt that Liebowitz and Margolis are first rate economists, and that they know all sorts of things about nework effects and market externalities. What I do strongly oppose is their misreading of the cognitive psychology literature, and their unsubstantiated and overblown attacks on August Dvorak.
I am a cognitive psychologist. I've read the literature. I understand my field, and it is apparent that the bias that Liebowitz and Margolis bring to their evaluation of the literature taints their paper. I make no claims about their economic arguments, but they have done their readers a great disservice by unfairly treating their subject (whether out of malice, bias, or incompetance).
For a decent layman's response to The Fable, check out this page
</rant>
The bottom line is that Dvorak is about 10% faster than QWERTY, given the same training. This is substantial, but one must consider that most of the time it takes to compose a document is not typing time, but rather content generation (e.g., thinking about what to say). Therefore, someone like a transcriptionist would benefit from a superior layout more than a typical knowledge worker. In addition, there's pretty good evidence that Dvorak error rates are significantly lower than QWERTY rates. This isn't as much an issue with computers as it was with old typewriters (it takes more time use use whiteout than it does to hit the Backspace key). There have been claims that Dvorak layouts reduce the likelihood of RSIs. There haven't been any really good studies, and it is unlikely that there will be (given the small number of Dvorak users)
I use a Dvorak layout, and I enjoy it for a number of reasons:
* I type a bit faster, but it is probably due to the fact that I engaged in dedicated practice when I learned to type Dvorak.
* People don't ask to use my computer
* I gained a lot of insight about the process of skill acquisition when I learned the new layout.
Oh, and I can still type pretty decently on QWERTY keyboards.
banning probably wouldn't work. When ArtificialLipManipulation is outlawed, only outlaws will have ArtificialLipManipulation.
One futuristic countermeasure I can imagine would be for concerned citizens (e.g., politicians, dissidents) to have some type of device that cryptographically signs some aspect of their speech along with a trusted indicator of time. This thing would have to transmit a signal that would be embedded in any recorded media. Thus, verification of the digital signature of the audio and time hash would indicate whether the original recording was fabricated or tampered with. Doesn't really get around this technology (i.e., they only make it look like you're mouthing the audio, they don't deal with the audio), but it would prevent others from splicing or generating fake audio to accompany these phony video clips...
Of course, there's only like, 50 zillion reasons this would be difficult/impossible to implement. But hey, I'm just the idea man...
Of course, if they could extend this work beyond the lips and face, imagine what the porn industry could do...
The message they sent to their users just says things like "We value your privacy," and "you may want to update your settings." It doesn't say anything about them changing users' settings against their will.
This is equivalent to Ford sending a letter to car owners saying "We hope you're happy with your car, you may want to get gas for it. We have a special web page you can visit if you care about gas." and using that to justify selling all their pertinent info to third parties -- that is, unless they went to the special "gas" page to click the "no, I appreciate the opportunity to be taken advantage of, but I'm gonna have to say no this time" button.
So, to summarize:
1. Email customers. Don't mention that you're screwing them.
2. Point to fact that customers didn't figure out that you screwed them as rationalization for screwing them.
Dicks.
I'm not sure about NBA, but the kick-ass free Lahman MLB database is available at baseball1.com. It's got stats going back to 1871...
Most large university libraries have free (beer) databases that typically contain huge numbers of books (many that are not held by the library).
For example, see mirlyn.web.lib.umich.edu and sign in as a guest and you can do all sorts of searches.
These libraries typically use the Z39.50 standard to connect. Z39.50 is a pretty decent standard, and it is widely used, standardized, and allows you to connect to many many databases.
Sounds like this could be what you're looking for.
Sort of... MGM and New Line joined a club (MPAA). One of the rules of the club is that you can sort out disagreements within the club.
MGM convinced the club to rule against New Line. However, MGM also said that wouldn't have a problem with New Line if New Line would do MGM some favors.
At any point, New Line could've said "Screw you, these are our rights. You're not the boss of me." and refused to abide by the MPAAs initial ruling. At that point, MGM could have sued New Line (And probably lost), wasting valuable $$, raising anamosity within the industry, and possibly establishing a(nother) precedent that could come back and bite New Line on the ass when someone else tried to use a New Line-like title for their film. Instead, New Line (probably) agreed to show some MGM trailers before the film, and MGM agreed to let them use the title.
On one hand we have an industry group making the Wrong Decision (TM) initially in supporting MGM's petition against New Line. That's bad.
But on the other hand, we have an industry group policing itself -- not relying on the legal system to resolve disputes. That's not that bad.
Keep in mind that this is not a decision that involved the legal system. The original decision was made by the MPAA, which both studios are members of. Essentially, the industry is policing itself, and both groups agreed to be bound by those decisions.
They could sue each other if they wanted, but they've settled in this way.
Just because AOL is a content provider, doesn't mean they shouldn't be protected when they act as an ISP.
Yes, the DMCA sucks huge amounts of ass. Yes, the DMCA was designed to protect big content providers and not copyright holders. Yes, AOL is a big (evil?) corporation.
BUT, one of the few sane aspects of the DMCA is that it doesn't hold ISPs liable if they remove infringing material. This allows ISPs to react to claims in a reasonable manner (note, that doesn't guarantee they will, it only enables them to). If ISPs could be held liable for everything their users did, how long before AOL and others began enforcing even more draconian restrictions preempting their users' behaviors...
The DMCA sucks, is evil, etc... But this provision isn't the reason.
Despite the claims in the slashdot blurb, Mann does not have any implants. The NYTimes story mentions that electrodes were removed from his skin. These are the same as those sticky things they attach when someone gets an EKG or polygraph test, and are presumably used by Mann to measure physiological things like heart rate or skin conductance. Mann claims that when they were removed he bled -- kind of like ripping off a really sticky band-aid...
IANARE (I am not a record executive), but it doesn't seem to be a smart decision to treat your customers like criminals...