Nice appeal to the authority. Care to tell my why I'm wrong?
It's pretty simple: you don't know the law. You can be excused for it, of course, because it's not your job (YANAL, I assume).
A monopoly means there is no choice. We have choice. Hence, no monopoly in my book.
No, "monopoly" under the legal or economic definition does not mean there is no choice. You just proved your ignorance of the law.
As the parent pointed out, the economic definition of monopoly has to do with the power to set prices unaffected by the usual free market pressures.
You can think of it roughly this way: what would happen if a company doubled their prices overnight? If they're not a monopoly (gas stations, WalMart, long distance providers), they would lose their business, because people would go somewhere else. If they are a monopoly (local power company, local phone company, MS), people would suck it up and pay because they (more-or-less) have to. That's the basic distinction.
People should expect/overlook spelling errors in something as ephemeral as a/. post. My point is, that something as important as a credit card info page by AOL would undoubtedly be proofread at least once, and thefact that it's rife with errors should have tipped them off that it was a scam.
You're right, it should tip them off that it's a scam. However, most people have atrocious spelling skills, and so would miss some of these errors (esp. asterisk). Second, once you get used to reading over spelling errors (i.e. over IM, in email, on/.), it becomes easier to read over spelling errors all the time. I don't think that people have contextual spelling error detection (tm). Rather, I think people have one "mode" of reading, and that their tolerance for spelling errors is growing as they read more unedited material. So ultimately, I don't think that people even saw the spelling errors, thus it didn't tip them off.
Honestly, is (sic) amazes me that people fall for crap like this. It always reads like someone in bulgaria wrote it with with an English/Bulgarian dictionary.
So does your post. You're the second guy to respond to the parent saying "how come people don't pick up on the spelling/grammar errors?", and both of you had spelling errors in your posts! Not that most people know how to spell 'asterisk' anyway...
Chaos theory was in part defined following studies of populations of just TWO animals, the arctic hare and the the Canadian lynx. This was around 1989.
Chaos theory was well established by 1989. The term "chaos" was coined in 1975 (Li & Yorke), and Lorenz' original paper was in 1963.
Because it only costs $5 less than all 3 and if one goes out you've just lost all 3 devices.
By the same logic, you shouldn't use a single wallet, you should keep your credit cards, cash, ATM cards, and grocery store Shoppers Club cards in separate wallets. After all, if everything's in a single wallet and you lose it or it gets stolen, you're screwed.
They have to know that everything they do can and will be cracked by pirates and that the cracks will be publicly available and easily accessible.
Is this just another case of managerial idiocy--the programmer grunts can't explain to the bosses that it is a futile misguided effort?
It may be misguided, but it's not futile. Sure, their scheme gets cracked, and these cracks are easily accessible, to someone with enough knowledge to find and use them. But most people don't/can't/won't take the time to search them out and figure out how to use them. The main goal of all of these types of schemes (product activation, access control, etc.) are to stop casual piracy, which is a much bigger threat to their bottom line.
Why can't these big wigs in marketing just realize people want individual products that do their job well.
Because that's not what people want... people want convenience generally above all else. Why carry around a PDA, digital camera and a cell phone when you can get a cell phone that doubles (triples?) as a PDA and a camera?
Not to stick up for DMCA, but didn't it say they were fleeing the EU? When the US is wrong it's wrong, but why doesn't anyone ever regonize when the EU or Oz or any other nation makes a gaff?
You're kidding, right? From what I've heard from the Eurosnobs here and at K5, it's because Europe is a utopia, with all of the benefits of living in the US, and none of the problems. You see, the DMCA laws that are sweeping the EU aren't their fault, it's the US' fault.
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It's pretty simple: you don't know the law. You can be excused for it, of course, because it's not your job (YANAL, I assume).
A monopoly means there is no choice. We have choice. Hence, no monopoly in my book.
No, "monopoly" under the legal or economic definition does not mean there is no choice. You just proved your ignorance of the law.
As the parent pointed out, the economic definition of monopoly has to do with the power to set prices unaffected by the usual free market pressures. You can think of it roughly this way: what would happen if a company doubled their prices overnight? If they're not a monopoly (gas stations, WalMart, long distance providers), they would lose their business, because people would go somewhere else. If they are a monopoly (local power company, local phone company, MS), people would suck it up and pay because they (more-or-less) have to. That's the basic distinction.
Before correcting someone's spelling, you should check that they're actually wrong, Dan...
From http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=phase:
You're right, it should tip them off that it's a scam. However, most people have atrocious spelling skills, and so would miss some of these errors (esp. asterisk). Second, once you get used to reading over spelling errors (i.e. over IM, in email, on /.), it becomes easier to read over spelling errors all the time. I don't think that people have contextual spelling error detection (tm). Rather, I think people have one "mode" of reading, and that their tolerance for spelling errors is growing as they read more unedited material. So ultimately, I don't think that people even saw the spelling errors, thus it didn't tip them off.
"Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)"
Phase Phase, v. t. Cf. Feeze.
To disturb the composure of; to disconcert; to nonplus.
Colloq.
So fuckin' bite me, asswipe.
So does your post. You're the second guy to respond to the parent saying "how come people don't pick up on the spelling/grammar errors?", and both of you had spelling errors in your posts! Not that most people know how to spell 'asterisk' anyway...
No, poeple don't. They're probably very used to seeing spelling errors on the Internet, so it doesn't phase them.
Chaos theory was well established by 1989. The term "chaos" was coined in 1975 (Li & Yorke), and Lorenz' original paper was in 1963.
By the same logic, you shouldn't use a single wallet, you should keep your credit cards, cash, ATM cards, and grocery store Shoppers Club cards in separate wallets. After all, if everything's in a single wallet and you lose it or it gets stolen, you're screwed.
Is this just another case of managerial idiocy--the programmer grunts can't explain to the bosses that it is a futile misguided effort?
It may be misguided, but it's not futile. Sure, their scheme gets cracked, and these cracks are easily accessible, to someone with enough knowledge to find and use them. But most people don't/can't/won't take the time to search them out and figure out how to use them. The main goal of all of these types of schemes (product activation, access control, etc.) are to stop casual piracy, which is a much bigger threat to their bottom line.
Because that's not what people want... people want convenience generally above all else. Why carry around a PDA, digital camera and a cell phone when you can get a cell phone that doubles (triples?) as a PDA and a camera?
Well, as the saying goes: born-again christians just need to grow up again.
You're kidding, right? From what I've heard from the Eurosnobs here and at K5, it's because Europe is a utopia, with all of the benefits of living in the US, and none of the problems. You see, the DMCA laws that are sweeping the EU aren't their fault, it's the US' fault.