I'd sick the FTC and the FCC on them... If they try and bill you for it, I'd take them to small claims court. The judge isn't going to like their answer, I bet. You need to account for all bytes in and ouf, in all packets. Or, you could tell them you are going to dump them for comcast, or sonic or who ever can complete against them.
Every time I've said I'm about to leave a company for some horrid thing they're doing, regardless of whether I'm a low-paying or high-paying customer, is "Sorry to see you go."
I'll leave the "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" personal feeling out of what they said.:)
The only one exception was Sprint (bought a Galaxy tab 7" with Sprint service attached). Sprint had wretched blotchy service areas in the non-metropolitan areas around here, and has next to -110db where I live. The speed, needless to say, SUCKED. It's 3G, so I want FULL speed ahead on that bastard or no service at all. Their solution: "We will send you a wireless booster for free!" This is the day after purchase, mind ya, so they're obviously in keep-new-customer-and-get-no-bad-ratings-or-feedback mode.
Here's the kicker (and I was dumb to this because I've never had this issue or question before): I asked, "If [it was] a wireless repeater, how was it going to boost a signal if it's so low already? Do I get a high gain antenna that I mount external to the house I'm in, or.... how does it work?"
The answer: "Oh, it connects to your home Internet broadband router by a network cable. You have to have home internet."
My jaw dropped (even though they couldn't see me on a phone call, obviously).
I said: "You... want... me.... to.... pay you $59+fees for service every month, where my primary point of use is home, secondary is work (where the signal is also at -95 to -110db), and only give me a device that fixes the situation at home? I have wireless at work and at home, and I don't use the device while I'm driving, which does not matter because the signal just plain sucks in the geographical area I'm in overall; you know, hills and stuff."
Their response: "Yes. You will have excellent Sprint service with this device, and you can use your wireless connection at work if they allow it to have excellent coverage in the places you go."
My retort: "Why don't I just, you know, not pay Sprint for service and just use WiFi on the device at all times?"
Theirs: "You don't get the excellent Sprint services that are included with the device."
Mine: "Like the stuff that basically shows me my bills and pops up "new apps I can buy" all of the time?"
Theirs: "It is an excellent value. Where should we send the network booster?"
Mine: "I want to cancel my plan and keep the device, which I already purchased at full price. I'll just use my own WiFi. Cancel it now."
Theirs: "You signed a Sprint contract so we can't really cancel your service; we are here to help you resolve this problem."
Mine: "The 'Contract' says I have 30 days with with to cancel with a complete refund of any fees charged."
Theirs: "We are so sorry to see you go. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on...."
Well, the first sentence is true. Anyhow, I took the device to WiFi only (turned off the Sprint 3G network), rooted it, removed their apps with Titanium Backup, and still use the damn thing to this day (even though I don't use it).
Sorry for the rambling, but I thought someone here, somewhere, might enjoy reading something similar to what they went through with some company, somewhere.:)
Lets face it, once they have the infrastructure in place, they dont need to charge extra for it.
Sure bandwidth costs may increase as usage increases, but so what.. they are charging for it.
Why is everyone so complacent about this crap?
An analogy would go sort of like this:
I'm pissed that Company A is chopping off my leg, so I'll leave this God forsaken company and go to Company B, which says they don't chop off legs.
- time passes -
Well, I paid $300 to get away from Company A and now I'm pissed at Company B because they gnaw on my leg, but don't chop it off. They also saw my jugular vein once a month. I'm leaving them for Company C who says they don't saw, gnaw, or harm in any way.
- time passes -
$250 dollars to get away from B, and now I'm *SO* pissed at Company C!!! They didn't gnaw or saw, but they freaking drain my blood slowly. It doesn't harm me, but I feel weak and tired all day. Oh, and at billing time they fart in my face. I'm leaving this stupid company and going back to Company A because they have a special where they will not chop, gnaw, saw, drain, pierce, or harm in any way, shape or form.
- one week passes -
$550 to get away from C!!!!!!!!!!! Now, FUCKING COMPANY A!!! It didn't even show up in the fine print, but somewhere in my original contract it dictated that if I ever left, no future deals would apply to my account, but that I waive my right to sue for anything, and arbitration is required for all customers unless you knock on the door at the fifth layer of the Earth's mantle and ask for Golum to notarize a statement that you refuse arbitration, but prefer to admit Company A is innocent under any circumstances.
- two days pass -
I can't find a provider to switch to. Fuck it, I'll just stay with Company A and point at every stupid little thing I find that they engage in.
---------------
Now, this is a verbose analogy but the message is clear...
Sure, you can leave a company whenever you want to and switch to another. The new one will bite your ass in a different way and you'll have to pay termination fees if you signed up for a contractual deal with AwesomeSavings(tm).
You're damned if you do, damned if you don't, and get to pay a nice chunk of change to move from "do" to "don't" if you feel harmed.
No one is defending the practice. We're so used to being screwed in one way or another that thought doesn't even get directed toward upheaval anymore. It's just "yep, I saw that coming". We look at the path of least resistance and least harm and can only point out the flaws in each system to others as we go.
One article claims 2 users have reported this. The linked thread mentions three. I'm sure that they're may be more, but three reports of problems doesn't seem like a reason to declare a universal flaw yet.
This comment you're reading adds another 174,389 to the numbers. There. Now can we go back to bashing poorly tested and hardware with a bad choice of parts vendors, please?
I agree. As a busy, young, professional, and I kept finding that my Android and Apple devices were holding back my potential to synergize my cloud potential at work, but it also got in the way of my X-treme lifestyle when I'm not. After a few days of using my new Microsoft® Surface, it magically unleashed my creativity and X-tremeness and earning potential with it's radical Microsoft® Windows® technology, and I was offered the job of CEO. The styling and unique VaporMg (patent pending) casing caught the eye of a few supermodels today, while I was doing some Xtreme mountainbike-hang-gliding-surfing-rock-climbing-base-jumping, which is a new sport made possible only by thoughtful design and precision craftsmanship that make Surface a joy to behold. They were aroused by the split touch cover, and told me they'd be my harem as long as I never to get it changed.
I love how you're promoting X. That enables users to add SupaDupaMiles®-sky-jumping to their Xtreme mountainbike-hang-gliding-surfing-rock-climbing-base-jumping LifeStyle®! "Rock" on!
Whenever you buy a hardware device that relies on online services to perform vital functions YOU must take into consideration what will happen when those services dissapear. It's childish to assume a company will just provide this kind of services to old customers from whom it collects no payments anymore or towards whom it made no written promises.
Non-thinkers (the masses, at least in the US) are people who are in a "want" phase, and don't think of the future and the repercussions of their decisions.
That gives me an idea... Build up a huge company selling some "best device ever" piece of crap right before the holidays (hell, add unlimited support), offshore the money, launder it....... *silence*
Sure, and after 5-10 years of legal battles, your DVR just might work again!
In 5-10 years, The rule of Accelerating Change states that there will be nothing that DVR can inter-operate with, which makes your comment +2 Funny.:-)
This is why proprietary software is a bad thing and we should avoid products like this.
Ah, no worries. They're about to release a model that's 10x+ more expensive that will have another provider's data stream in it. With a different UI! Buy, buy buy.
Yes. It keeps track of what you're doing. You know this because you can see the data it captures.
And yes, if you share what you're doing with someone else, they might notice you aren't doing what you're supposed to be doing.
I don't understand the constant alarmism.
<half-humor, half-true>
It's totally an attempt to get free circumvention / failure testing.
Release a statement that something is scandalously related indirectly to your device, getting geeks and ones in fear of falling prey to the same failure to try and circumvent the technology or find a solution. Free testing and development.
My present laptop is a Toshiba. Now I know to avoid them when buying my next. There's such a big selection these days, I love it when a company makes my life easier!
You know, I have been so *for* them since I got my first of two Toshiba laptops a few years ago. Now this? What I would like from Toshiba is a very simple statement, and one that is an official public one in answer to this question:
Why do you give a shit about your manuals being re-posted elsewhere online? It saves you bandwidth, lowers your tech support questions asking for where the manual is, and helps people...
Ahhh. That must be it. They charge for tech support questions. "Where is the manual" is one that they can get several minutes of tech support money from.
I take my question back and make a statement with an RFC attached. Anyone else see a logical reason for Toshiba to do this?
It should be relatively easy to bust the myth: what are the capacities of the USB drives? If they are all >4Gb I don't buy that they are from 3 years ago. Drive make and model would also give you a fairly firm point for the earliest point in time at which they could have been purchased.
Better yet, why would you store your child porn in those locations, anyway? Wouldn't you have them on your person or in an attempted safe location (locked desk, etc)?
Why would someone go "Hey, I'm a big-wig at this company so I'm gonna go and download child porn at work, put it on a thumb drive, then store it in two locations where it can possibly be found, one of them being my office.
That's total B.S. The authorities should know that (if they don't already).
You hired this employee. Chances are you started off with a relationship of mis-trust:
- You did a criminal check on the hire
- You did a drug check.
- You did a credit check.
- You did personality test.
- You used Shockley style brain-teasers to see if they could do things other than what their jobs entail because you don't know how to measure skill, intelligence, or talent.
- You interviewed in a style of hazing akin to a gang-bang... And you still were too stupid to figure out whether or not you had someone who could do the job right.
Sorry, but the tone of the summary makes you look like an asshole, and you deserve whatever you get. This is your wake-up call.
Yeah, because people can NEVER change (for the worse or better).
How about a verbal deal that gets around the problem that a lot of "fired" employees are dealing with nowadays?
"We will show your position as terminated due to 'lack of work' so that you can get full unemployment benefits, as well as a wonderful job reference where we tell potential employers how great you are as a person and as a worker if you agree not to leave anything dangerous or possibly harming in place. If you choose not to comply, we will extend every power we have to ensure you are terminated for reasonable cause with no chance of unemployment OR job reference. We will also find any future employer you end up with and inform them of the dangers they face, unofficially, quietly, and without your knowledge of how we do it. You will have to watch your back professionally for the rest of your living years."
I know, I know. No one would do that. But hey.....
Beats me. I will mention, IMHO, that if someone is gutsy enough to connect to the high voltage line with the proper communication equipment to accomplish disconnects of service equipment, they would need to know the IDs of the meters to activate, the protocol to initiate a disconnect, and a lot of time to monitor the line to find the above (unless you want to just iterate starting at the lowest number and kick off all meters one-by-one). Who has the equipment and interface knowledge other than an employee?
If you're that brave with high voltage and and that have much time on your hands....... Why not just go do a physical cut on the low voltage side to a specific house you're targeting. Do a double-cut so the lines have to be completely rerun. If not rerun, hours of time out plus splice time, plus the customer's going to have to pay for the repair cost. Yes, Duke makes you pay unless the one who performed the cut is a known party and can be targeted via a police report.
It's just a non-issue... Unless you're a terrorist party, then hey... Game. On.
The wireless stuff is for bored kids or pissed adults with way too much money and time on their hands.
If it's an employee that's wanting to screw around with third-party equipment for the connect and mayhem activity, I'd say they have a damn good chance of accomplishing most anything they know how to. Would Duke take the risk? Would they encrypt it to prevent pissed (or ex) employees from doing this?
I get the feeling that many of the comments here are from people who are 30-50, with just a very few exceptions. (I am somewhere in the middle of that range too in fact). Slashdot users are getting older? Where do the 20-somethings hang out?
In person, but they don't talk much these days. They sit 5 feet or less from each other and text their communication unless some sort of attention-grabbing noise is required for a quick "hey, look at that hot person over there" maneuver.
You know, I'm not joking. Go to the mall, coffee shop, parks, anywhere that people generally "hang" and look closely. Percentage of people engaging in this increases as age decreases. Mileage may vary. Location may have an impact on statistics. But hey, go look!
If it's over 40 years and has started to wrinkle, you'll only have a couple of years left before it starts to mold. You may want to throw it out and get a tight-skinned new one. They're cheaper these days.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, you are over the limit. Goodbye!
And, legend says, they say that without even knowing who you are yet. It applies to ALL! ;)
I'd sick the FTC and the FCC on them... If they try and bill you for it, I'd take them to small claims court. The judge isn't going to like their answer, I bet. You need to account for all bytes in and ouf, in all packets. Or, you could tell them you are going to dump them for comcast, or sonic or who ever can complete against them.
Every time I've said I'm about to leave a company for some horrid thing they're doing, regardless of whether I'm a low-paying or high-paying customer, is "Sorry to see you go."
I'll leave the "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" personal feeling out of what they said. :)
The only one exception was Sprint (bought a Galaxy tab 7" with Sprint service attached). Sprint had wretched blotchy service areas in the non-metropolitan areas around here, and has next to -110db where I live. The speed, needless to say, SUCKED. It's 3G, so I want FULL speed ahead on that bastard or no service at all. Their solution: "We will send you a wireless booster for free!" This is the day after purchase, mind ya, so they're obviously in keep-new-customer-and-get-no-bad-ratings-or-feedback mode.
Here's the kicker (and I was dumb to this because I've never had this issue or question before): I asked, "If [it was] a wireless repeater, how was it going to boost a signal if it's so low already? Do I get a high gain antenna that I mount external to the house I'm in, or.... how does it work?"
The answer: "Oh, it connects to your home Internet broadband router by a network cable. You have to have home internet."
My jaw dropped (even though they couldn't see me on a phone call, obviously).
I said: "You... want... me.... to.... pay you $59+fees for service every month, where my primary point of use is home, secondary is work (where the signal is also at -95 to -110db), and only give me a device that fixes the situation at home? I have wireless at work and at home, and I don't use the device while I'm driving, which does not matter because the signal just plain sucks in the geographical area I'm in overall; you know, hills and stuff."
Their response: "Yes. You will have excellent Sprint service with this device, and you can use your wireless connection at work if they allow it to have excellent coverage in the places you go."
My retort: "Why don't I just, you know, not pay Sprint for service and just use WiFi on the device at all times?"
Theirs: "You don't get the excellent Sprint services that are included with the device."
Mine: "Like the stuff that basically shows me my bills and pops up "new apps I can buy" all of the time?"
Theirs: "It is an excellent value. Where should we send the network booster?"
Mine: "I want to cancel my plan and keep the device, which I already purchased at full price. I'll just use my own WiFi. Cancel it now."
Theirs: "You signed a Sprint contract so we can't really cancel your service; we are here to help you resolve this problem."
Mine: "The 'Contract' says I have 30 days with with to cancel with a complete refund of any fees charged."
Theirs: "We are so sorry to see you go. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on...."
Well, the first sentence is true. Anyhow, I took the device to WiFi only (turned off the Sprint 3G network), rooted it, removed their apps with Titanium Backup, and still use the damn thing to this day (even though I don't use it).
Sorry for the rambling, but I thought someone here, somewhere, might enjoy reading something similar to what they went through with some company, somewhere. :)
Why are you defending this practice?
Lets face it, once they have the infrastructure in place, they dont need to charge extra for it.
Sure bandwidth costs may increase as usage increases, but so what.. they are charging for it.
Why is everyone so complacent about this crap?
An analogy would go sort of like this:
I'm pissed that Company A is chopping off my leg, so I'll leave this God forsaken company and go to Company B, which says they don't chop off legs.
- time passes -
Well, I paid $300 to get away from Company A and now I'm pissed at Company B because they gnaw on my leg, but don't chop it off. They also saw my jugular vein once a month. I'm leaving them for Company C who says they don't saw, gnaw, or harm in any way.
- time passes -
$250 dollars to get away from B, and now I'm *SO* pissed at Company C!!! They didn't gnaw or saw, but they freaking drain my blood slowly. It doesn't harm me, but I feel weak and tired all day. Oh, and at billing time they fart in my face. I'm leaving this stupid company and going back to Company A because they have a special where they will not chop, gnaw, saw, drain, pierce, or harm in any way, shape or form.
- one week passes -
$550 to get away from C!!!!!!!!!!! Now, FUCKING COMPANY A!!! It didn't even show up in the fine print, but somewhere in my original contract it dictated that if I ever left, no future deals would apply to my account, but that I waive my right to sue for anything, and arbitration is required for all customers unless you knock on the door at the fifth layer of the Earth's mantle and ask for Golum to notarize a statement that you refuse arbitration, but prefer to admit Company A is innocent under any circumstances.
- two days pass -
I can't find a provider to switch to. Fuck it, I'll just stay with Company A and point at every stupid little thing I find that they engage in.
---------------
Now, this is a verbose analogy but the message is clear...
Sure, you can leave a company whenever you want to and switch to another. The new one will bite your ass in a different way and you'll have to pay termination fees if you signed up for a contractual deal with AwesomeSavings(tm).
You're damned if you do, damned if you don't, and get to pay a nice chunk of change to move from "do" to "don't" if you feel harmed.
No one is defending the practice. We're so used to being screwed in one way or another that thought doesn't even get directed toward upheaval anymore. It's just "yep, I saw that coming". We look at the path of least resistance and least harm and can only point out the flaws in each system to others as we go.
... and start unemployment benefit slavery.
They have unemployment over there?
This is Microsoft. They are testing it as we speak. What did you think users were for?
Aw, snap!
I'd mod this up if I didn't comment already.
One article claims 2 users have reported this. The linked thread mentions three. I'm sure that they're may be more, but three reports of problems doesn't seem like a reason to declare a universal flaw yet.
This comment you're reading adds another 174,389 to the numbers. There. Now can we go back to bashing poorly tested and hardware with a bad choice of parts vendors, please?
They're just holding it wrong!
What's that, they're just beholding it wrong?
I agree. As a busy, young, professional, and I kept finding that my Android and Apple devices were holding back my potential to synergize my cloud potential at work, but it also got in the way of my X-treme lifestyle when I'm not. After a few days of using my new Microsoft® Surface, it magically unleashed my creativity and X-tremeness and earning potential with it's radical Microsoft® Windows® technology, and I was offered the job of CEO. The styling and unique VaporMg (patent pending) casing caught the eye of a few supermodels today, while I was doing some Xtreme mountainbike-hang-gliding-surfing-rock-climbing-base-jumping, which is a new sport made possible only by thoughtful design and precision craftsmanship that make Surface a joy to behold. They were aroused by the split touch cover, and told me they'd be my harem as long as I never to get it changed.
I love how you're promoting X. That enables users to add SupaDupaMiles®-sky-jumping to their Xtreme mountainbike-hang-gliding-surfing-rock-climbing-base-jumping LifeStyle®! "Rock" on!
:-)
Whenever you buy a hardware device that relies on online services to perform vital functions YOU must take into consideration what will happen when those services dissapear. It's childish to assume a company will just provide this kind of services to old customers from whom it collects no payments anymore or towards whom it made no written promises.
Non-thinkers (the masses, at least in the US) are people who are in a "want" phase, and don't think of the future and the repercussions of their decisions.
That gives me an idea... Build up a huge company selling some "best device ever" piece of crap right before the holidays (hell, add unlimited support), offshore the money, launder it....... *silence*
:-)
Sure, and after 5-10 years of legal battles, your DVR just might work again!
In 5-10 years, The rule of Accelerating Change states that there will be nothing that DVR can inter-operate with, which makes your comment +2 Funny. :-)
This is why proprietary software is a bad thing and we should avoid products like this.
Ah, no worries. They're about to release a model that's 10x+ more expensive that will have another provider's data stream in it. With a different UI! Buy, buy buy.
Signed, Humorously Jaded Comsumer.
If you look at the images in the article...
I wonder if this activity fell under the "Best Day," "Longest Streak," and "Weekday Bests" categories?
pedometer
o.0 That's disgusting!
So *THAT* is what this "cheating" story is about!
facepalm.
It should have been "Ask Slashdot: What do I tell my girlfriend when...".
Damn solar flares screwing with that device's memory. Grumble grumble. :)
For being a techno-iHipster? Seriously, who needs a $149 motion tracking wristband?
Really, he wanted his wife to find out but couldn't bring himself to tell her directly. $149 was a price he was willing to pay to reveal his secret.
/humor
Yes. It keeps track of what you're doing. You know this because you can see the data it captures.
And yes, if you share what you're doing with someone else, they might notice you aren't doing what you're supposed to be doing.
I don't understand the constant alarmism.
<half-humor, half-true>
It's totally an attempt to get free circumvention / failure testing.
Release a statement that something is scandalously related indirectly to your device, getting geeks and ones in fear of falling prey to the same failure to try and circumvent the technology or find a solution. Free testing and development.
</half-humor, half-true>
My present laptop is a Toshiba. Now I know to avoid them when buying my next. There's such a big selection these days, I love it when a company makes my life easier!
You know, I have been so *for* them since I got my first of two Toshiba laptops a few years ago. Now this? What I would like from Toshiba is a very simple statement, and one that is an official public one in answer to this question:
Why do you give a shit about your manuals being re-posted elsewhere online? It saves you bandwidth, lowers your tech support questions asking for where the manual is, and helps people...
Ahhh. That must be it. They charge for tech support questions. "Where is the manual" is one that they can get several minutes of tech support money from.
I take my question back and make a statement with an RFC attached. Anyone else see a logical reason for Toshiba to do this?
It should be relatively easy to bust the myth: what are the capacities of the USB drives? If they are all >4Gb I don't buy that they are from 3 years ago. Drive make and model would also give you a fairly firm point for the earliest point in time at which they could have been purchased.
Better yet, why would you store your child porn in those locations, anyway? Wouldn't you have them on your person or in an attempted safe location (locked desk, etc)?
Why would someone go "Hey, I'm a big-wig at this company so I'm gonna go and download child porn at work, put it on a thumb drive, then store it in two locations where it can possibly be found, one of them being my office.
That's total B.S. The authorities should know that (if they don't already).
Give me a gazillions boxes and I will fix everything.
How is that different than asking for "Grant money?" :-)
You hired this employee. Chances are you started off with a relationship of mis-trust:
- You did a criminal check on the hire
- You did a drug check.
- You did a credit check.
- You did personality test.
- You used Shockley style brain-teasers to see if they could do things other than what their jobs entail because you don't know how to measure skill, intelligence, or talent.
- You interviewed in a style of hazing akin to a gang-bang. .. And you still were too stupid to figure out whether or not you had someone who could do the job right.
Sorry, but the tone of the summary makes you look like an asshole, and you deserve whatever you get. This is your wake-up call.
Yeah, because people can NEVER change (for the worse or better).
How about a verbal deal that gets around the problem that a lot of "fired" employees are dealing with nowadays?
"We will show your position as terminated due to 'lack of work' so that you can get full unemployment benefits, as well as a wonderful job reference where we tell potential employers how great you are as a person and as a worker if you agree not to leave anything dangerous or possibly harming in place. If you choose not to comply, we will extend every power we have to ensure you are terminated for reasonable cause with no chance of unemployment OR job reference. We will also find any future employer you end up with and inform them of the dangers they face, unofficially, quietly, and without your knowledge of how we do it. You will have to watch your back professionally for the rest of your living years."
I know, I know. No one would do that. But hey.....
You could just encrypt your photos client-side (i.e. before you put them in Google Drive).
Google Drive:
Identifiable file type: likely dangerous software (malware or virus). Please purchase an antivirus software program and try again.
Beats me. I will mention, IMHO, that if someone is gutsy enough to connect to the high voltage line with the proper communication equipment to accomplish disconnects of service equipment, they would need to know the IDs of the meters to activate, the protocol to initiate a disconnect, and a lot of time to monitor the line to find the above (unless you want to just iterate starting at the lowest number and kick off all meters one-by-one). Who has the equipment and interface knowledge other than an employee?
If you're that brave with high voltage and and that have much time on your hands....... Why not just go do a physical cut on the low voltage side to a specific house you're targeting. Do a double-cut so the lines have to be completely rerun. If not rerun, hours of time out plus splice time, plus the customer's going to have to pay for the repair cost. Yes, Duke makes you pay unless the one who performed the cut is a known party and can be targeted via a police report.
It's just a non-issue... Unless you're a terrorist party, then hey... Game. On.
The wireless stuff is for bored kids or pissed adults with way too much money and time on their hands.
If it's an employee that's wanting to screw around with third-party equipment for the connect and mayhem activity, I'd say they have a damn good chance of accomplishing most anything they know how to. Would Duke take the risk? Would they encrypt it to prevent pissed (or ex) employees from doing this?
Interesting one, indeed.
I get the feeling that many of the comments here are from people who are 30-50, with just a very few exceptions. (I am somewhere in the middle of that range too in fact). Slashdot users are getting older? Where do the 20-somethings hang out?
In person, but they don't talk much these days. They sit 5 feet or less from each other and text their communication unless some sort of attention-grabbing noise is required for a quick "hey, look at that hot person over there" maneuver.
You know, I'm not joking. Go to the mall, coffee shop, parks, anywhere that people generally "hang" and look closely. Percentage of people engaging in this increases as age decreases. Mileage may vary. Location may have an impact on statistics. But hey, go look!
If it's over 40 years and has started to wrinkle, you'll only have a couple of years left before it starts to mold. You may want to throw it out and get a tight-skinned new one. They're cheaper these days.
"Shelf Life." LOL.
/humor