: odbcad32.... was the first thing that sprang to my mind when you mentioned ODBC configuration.
same with cliconfg, c:\ (to get to explorer), notepad, hypertrm, etc... which makes me wonder why I always use the run menu to access programs...?
I think it's because I'm faster at typing than navigating with the mouse... anyone want to psycho-analyse that?
Oh, and I can't stand the default 'lite' interface on Windows XP. I can see the reason for making the control panel lighter and easier but things like 'hide file extensions for known types'... that's just bad news for any user I'm sure... The number of times I've had to assist users who've downloaded a zip file and saved it as.xls or something...?!
rant rant rant...:) Despite these little things I believe XP *is* the best incarnation of the MS OS so far.
Apart from the bluetooth support... no... stop... I'm ranting again...
I've started putting indicators (ie 'Ron Slashdot Jeremy' etc...) into sign up details so I can trace where spam/marketing emails come from - it's definitely an insight and gives you the ability to hold companies accountable for what information they pass on...
I would argue against that slightly. There's a distinct difference in approach to digital cameras, mp3-players and flash RAM, mainly because these devices are all portable and people feel safer knowing that they have our files safely ensconsed on the PC at home. People don't consider these portable devices as being failsafe, primarily because they're easy to lose but also because they're so small people wrongly associate this with being fragile.
The fear of portable media devices being prone to data loss over a long period of time is an irrelevance to the user as they regard the whole portability issue as a general risk. If you were to tout this within the PC hardware and didn't mention the risk of data loss the users would be bringing lawsuits for 'emotional damage of losing pictures of litle Johnny's birthday', and if you DID mention the data loss issue then the average customer would not accept it - "My old PC didn't lose data after x months! and this is meant to be _new_ technology?!"
Sadly a large percentage of PC users are still stuck trusting the hardware to store their precious possessions with no questions asked, but that's a whole other thread...
"In order to safeguard your identity please send the payment to me and I will then send it on to the destination"
oh, and these are pretty standard - sorry, I did hear a funny one from my brother who was warned that one of the execs in his company were going after him because 'Microsoft Word asked him if he wanted to save a document and he said no but then changed his mind and it should have saved a copy anyway just in case'. You have to wonder how some people reach those kinds of career heights....
Y'see this is true. I'm in the UK so maybe the 'spying' isn't so bad over here yet... certainly I've never been prevented from buying anything or had to provide ID... I think if it really started to get in the way of me doing simple things then I could understand your frustration but it hasn't, yet, but...
my activities are probably tracked.. my credit card purchases, shopping habits, internet activity, money expenditure... and you know what? I don't really care.
I get called by my credit card company if they see unusual purchases on my account, in the interests of fraud protection. I don't mind, it's a brief call to just confirm the purchase and it's not like they block the payment - just make sure that I know it was made.
Shopping habits? As said above.. if they want to send me targeted advertising then a) good luck to them and b) it's probably fairly relevant (if I always by fruit shoot for my kids there's no harm in having them tell me that there's 50% off next week).
Internet activity. I don't look at illegal material, or groom small children - so if they want to browse through my visits to/. or even www.babeswiththeirknockersout.com then I hope they enjoy it.
Money expenditure. Ok, so I have a gripe about banks but that's more to do with the money grabbing attitude than 'spying'...
So here's the rub - I'm not doing anything that anyone would really care about... if people want to 'spy' on what I'm doing then as far as I'm concerned it's the same as having your nosey neighbour peeking through the curtains. It really doesn't matter to me.
I always get warning lights flash up whenever I hear people talking about their activities being traced... are they paranoid or are they doing things that they want to hide? I'm sure if you discovered that some mental asshole was grooming your eight year old girl you'd expect him to be traced and if you're the one doing the grooming then believe me you should expect to be traced. That's life - deal with it. Oh - and I have two young children so this is especially pertinant to me.
Also, on the original point - equating this tracking habit with 1984... have you even read the book? Come on - I think we're a long way from being unable to talk freely in the street and I don't recall having a dedicated TV screen & camera in my house to continously film me. A bit of perspective on this maybe?
I've been amazed for a long time that you can walk into a newsagents and see magazines displaying women in their full glory with *tiny* spots over the nipples to fall in line with censorship law (in the UK). The same with television adverts and non 'porno' magazines. There is a very strange attitude to the human body amongst censors where you are entitled to see everything except a 1/4 inch square patch.
Anyway how this fits into the hot coffee scandal is that there is a very big divide enforced between 'strong sexual content' and 'graphic sexual content' when the end result, that they're trying to protect against, is pretty much the same. Take the actual context of the game.
strong sexual content => hearing moaning sounds, watching a car rocking back and forward graphic sexual content => seeing a guy with his pants on dry humping a topless (or nude - can't remember..?!) woman
I don't know about you but in this case I can see worse 'graphic sexual content' turning the TV on after 9pm. More to the point - both are capable of promoting sexual interest and arousal so where the 'young 'uns' are concerned you're still feeding their little imaginations with sexual thoughts. Unless of course they live in a staunch Christian TV free house - in which case how come they're playing a violent game anyway?
So that's my two cents. Really the problem is that the 'adults only' really rating doesn't give any more warning to the buyer than the mature rating. In the UK we have an 18 rating which pretty much covers everything - note that this scandal only manifested itself in the US. The UK ratings already covered any 'extras'. Of course there's the 'R18' rating but that tends to just be for crap porno videos (but even then - restricted 18? Like an eighteen year old is going to pick up a movie called 'bang sluts of sinsville' and put it back hastily - "Oh, 'restricted' 18 - better not go near that then".
"As for increased sales due this, L.O.L indeed - rockstar get an obscene (note the pun) amount of sales with or without some shitty little porn section of the game."
Have you never heard of the phrase 'any publicity is good publicity'?
It's an ancient well known fact in the marketing industry that scandal provides better, cheaper (free!) advertising on a massive scale. While I'm not making any statement as to whether they intentionally let this happen it's foolish to suggest that they didn't reap the rewards.
As a small, insigificant example - you just had to look on ebay the next day to see the flurry of activity - 'buy this game now for £100 before it gets banned' etc...
That product became the most talked about game in the country (certainly in the UK) for a short period - are you telling me that everyone was tutting and denouncing it, and that nobody thought 'hmmm, I might buy this to have a look'?
I have to agree. Angels and Demons has everything that DaVinci code doesn't and would make a more exciting film. I don't even want to talk about digital fortress because it was just embarrassing to read. Decption point was good and sits happily in the middle.
I do think that the mass of publicity hype that surrounded the DaVinci code did propel it forcefully into the domain of masterpieces. Sure he's a competant writer but I don't think these book have the same hook as those from the likes of Tokien, JK Rowling, Roald Dahl etc...
Could someone tell me where in the 'evolution' of this book's fame the internet based challenge site came into it? I do wonder if this had a contributing factor to its success.
The two articles linked are both interesting. In the case of McCarthy the reason he was stung was not because of finding the exploit but because he had six student records on his PC. Regardless of his intentions he still made copies of protected information which is a schoolboy error really.
Regarding the case of Cuthbert, who was fined for attempting to '...exceed the normal user levels of access...by typing../../../'. This seems to me to be more evidence of the police exploiting the easy targets to '...send a reassuring message to the general public...' instead of focusing on those who are causing genuine public concern.
I would be interested to know what an appeal or a visit to the court of human rights would have to say about this ruling as it seems very fragile to me. Of course, the appeal would no doubt cost more than the fine... justice is good like that, funny eh?
The phone could use location based services... to display a frikken target radar
I love this idea... Prof. Farnsworth's patent whoopie detection java client V1.0...and the nerds will inherit the earth... or at least stop at nothing for a bit of rumpy
You message him and ask him to pick one up for you.
and then you look further down and realise all your friends except you are already going... and your mate doesn't want you to because he's going with your ex-girlfriend...
hmmm.... you can know too much about your friends...
On the one hand, yes. People have learned to type extremely fast on standard nine digit pads (SMS). On the flip side, and more damning, is that while learning to type fast most people need to see the keys and symbols. Most people would become infuriated before they became competant.
I remember when I was very young and at a school fair. While walking past the 'tombola' stand a photographer grabbed me and thrust a bottle of apple juice into my hands and took my photo. He took my name and put the bottle back on the stand and walked off. In the local paper that week was a picture of me 'winning on the tombola'.
As a young boy it was my first lesson that the media will architect anything to create the news story they want (although trivial in this case). Hence I'm the cynic I am today, and can't stand the modern press either (but that's another story...)
I'm interested to see that no conversations on this subject mention the potential psychological effects of this show. It's very easy to state that you would under no circumstances believe that you were in space but, for most people I've challenged when saying this, they have some knowledge of physics or technology. The selection process here deliberately weedled out those with this kind of knowledge.
Take a look at hoax emails, viruses, worms - these are all propogated by naivety, you don't have to be dumb to be affected by it. It's easy to have a lapse in your vigorous checking and fall foul.
Ok, now extend that to a three week subterfuge. Sustaining an illusion for a length of time this long can only amplify and cement it further. By throwing enough false information, concealment and illusion at a person you can muffle any potential questions. By deliberately selecting those who have a tendancy to translate their own feelings into those which fall in with their peers you can ensure there is no potential for personal conviction getting in the way.
Adding it all up: technologically this format is flawed but psychologically it's got it right.
That's just nuts. You're disallowing people to demonstrate proof of concepts on the basis that it's not a marketable product? Not only that, but they *have* made a product, albeit a non-commercial one.
There are more reasons to demonstrate this than 'we can sell it'. By doing this they are not only getting feedback from potential customers and hardware developers but also cementing themselves as being one the pioneers of the technology.
If a company designed a new type of PC memory I would imagine they would build a prototype motherboard to demonstrate it to the professional motherboard manufacturers. They may not concern themselves with building the commercial motherboard as it's not in their expertise, rather develop business relations with motherboard manufacturers to allow them to embed it.
Actually my company run a full voip service which breaks out to PSTN.
I do have to say that the benefits are negligable though. Until there are carrier agreements in place between all these providers and the breakouts are available at locations closer to the target there's no economic sense to it.
Consider using broadband to call your next-door neighbour in Birmingham. Your VOIP provider is based in Manchester with a switch in London. When the provider pushes the call onto the PSTN network they either route it to a switch in Manchester or London and then have to foot the bill for a call to be placed using national rates.
Of course this doesn't start addressing the problem of one person on Skype and the other on ours (no I'm not advertising...!) and the call will still break out onto PSTN to route from one switch to the other. Illogical if you have to explain to a potential customer, hence the need for carrier contracts between the companies.
*thirdly* VOIP solutions which breakout onto PSTN require all voice traffic to route through the switch which removes all the benefits of peer to peer VOIP a-la Google Talk, MSN etc...
Of course, we could all just use BT... and adhere to the standard monopoly of service route *sigh*
I wouldn't say it's patently useless (from article above a bit):
The Xbox Live Marketplace will provide a one-stop shop for consumers to download new game trailers, demos, and episodic content, along with new game levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, "skins," and other types of new content on demand. The Xbox Live Marketplace is accessible to everyone who connects their Xbox 360 console to a broadband connection and creates an Xbox Live account.
You're getting updates, demos, extras... all pretty much as you'd expect. There's more to being online than multiplayer gaming. For once (and this is rare) I think they're pitching it about right *as long* as they spend the profit on decent multiplayer servers.
I agree, and I believe releasing to DVD and cinema simultaneously would completely destroy cinema, the question is, does anyone care if cinema is destroyed, really?
The flip side: I'm sure everyone knows someone who has a movie rental account and are doing the 'Rent, Rip and Return'. We have a huge choice of online rental sites in the UK and many people have production lines of movies which they'll probably never watch, with all the trailer crap taken out. The publishers will never allow that level of piracy to take place until they have a watertight copy protection mechanism (which will never happen).
arrogance: Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
I think it's 'potentially' fair to label MS as arrogant but I don't think Google really demonstrate this.
Google appear to demonstrate a desire to produce useful products simply. Coming from a telecoms background I can say that the most profitable venture for our business was a 'no-frills' service. People don't want the yahooism style 'mess' of choice or 'subscribe to stuff' sign-up processes.
Google have proved this works by keeping their search front page the same since the day it started. Their approach to existing and new products and services can hardly be classed as 'arrogant'. Expecting a user to sign up for a million and one subscriber lists (yes, Real Networks I'm talking about you) is arrogant.
As for the P10 thing? Definitely a publicity stunt, for all the reasons detailed above...
Slashdot Mirror
: odbcad32 .... was the first thing that sprang to my mind when you mentioned ODBC configuration.
.xls or something...?!
:) Despite these little things I believe XP *is* the best incarnation of the MS OS so far.
same with cliconfg, c:\ (to get to explorer), notepad, hypertrm, etc... which makes me wonder why I always use the run menu to access programs...?
I think it's because I'm faster at typing than navigating with the mouse... anyone want to psycho-analyse that?
Oh, and I can't stand the default 'lite' interface on Windows XP. I can see the reason for making the control panel lighter and easier but things like 'hide file extensions for known types'... that's just bad news for any user I'm sure... The number of times I've had to assist users who've downloaded a zip file and saved it as
rant rant rant...
Apart from the bluetooth support... no... stop... I'm ranting again...
I've started putting indicators (ie 'Ron Slashdot Jeremy' etc...) into sign up details so I can trace where spam/marketing emails come from - it's definitely an insight and gives you the ability to hold companies accountable for what information they pass on...
In the context of what they are discussing, yes. It doesn't mean it's not important, just of no relevance to the current topic.
:)
Much like the slashdot 'cloud'... which is why we get given filters...
I would argue against that slightly. There's a distinct difference in approach to digital cameras, mp3-players and flash RAM, mainly because these devices are all portable and people feel safer knowing that they have our files safely ensconsed on the PC at home. People don't consider these portable devices as being failsafe, primarily because they're easy to lose but also because they're so small people wrongly associate this with being fragile.
The fear of portable media devices being prone to data loss over a long period of time is an irrelevance to the user as they regard the whole portability issue as a general risk. If you were to tout this within the PC hardware and didn't mention the risk of data loss the users would be bringing lawsuits for 'emotional damage of losing pictures of litle Johnny's birthday', and if you DID mention the data loss issue then the average customer would not accept it - "My old PC didn't lose data after x months! and this is meant to be _new_ technology?!"
Sadly a large percentage of PC users are still stuck trusting the hardware to store their precious possessions with no questions asked, but that's a whole other thread...
classic: Funny and insightful... we need a new mod system for this single post...
and also, I want my toilet to work without needing a UPS during a powercut... maybe it's just me but sometimes when you gotta go, you gotta go...
probably better:
"In order to safeguard your identity please send the payment to me and I will then send it on to the destination"
oh, and these are pretty standard - sorry, I did hear a funny one from my brother who was warned that one of the execs in his company were going after him because 'Microsoft Word asked him if he wanted to save a document and he said no but then changed his mind and it should have saved a copy anyway just in case'. You have to wonder how some people reach those kinds of career heights....
Y'see this is true. I'm in the UK so maybe the 'spying' isn't so bad over here yet... certainly I've never been prevented from buying anything or had to provide ID... I think if it really started to get in the way of me doing simple things then I could understand your frustration but it hasn't, yet, but...
/. or even www.babeswiththeirknockersout.com then I hope they enjoy it.
my activities are probably tracked.. my credit card purchases, shopping habits, internet activity, money expenditure... and you know what? I don't really care.
I get called by my credit card company if they see unusual purchases on my account, in the interests of fraud protection. I don't mind, it's a brief call to just confirm the purchase and it's not like they block the payment - just make sure that I know it was made.
Shopping habits? As said above.. if they want to send me targeted advertising then a) good luck to them and b) it's probably fairly relevant (if I always by fruit shoot for my kids there's no harm in having them tell me that there's 50% off next week).
Internet activity. I don't look at illegal material, or groom small children - so if they want to browse through my visits to
Money expenditure. Ok, so I have a gripe about banks but that's more to do with the money grabbing attitude than 'spying'...
So here's the rub - I'm not doing anything that anyone would really care about... if people want to 'spy' on what I'm doing then as far as I'm concerned it's the same as having your nosey neighbour peeking through the curtains. It really doesn't matter to me.
I always get warning lights flash up whenever I hear people talking about their activities being traced... are they paranoid or are they doing things that they want to hide? I'm sure if you discovered that some mental asshole was grooming your eight year old girl you'd expect him to be traced and if you're the one doing the grooming then believe me you should expect to be traced. That's life - deal with it. Oh - and I have two young children so this is especially pertinant to me.
Also, on the original point - equating this tracking habit with 1984... have you even read the book? Come on - I think we're a long way from being unable to talk freely in the street and I don't recall having a dedicated TV screen & camera in my house to continously film me. A bit of perspective on this maybe?
it's a good point.
I've been amazed for a long time that you can walk into a newsagents and see magazines displaying women in their full glory with *tiny* spots over the nipples to fall in line with censorship law (in the UK). The same with television adverts and non 'porno' magazines. There is a very strange attitude to the human body amongst censors where you are entitled to see everything except a 1/4 inch square patch.
Anyway how this fits into the hot coffee scandal is that there is a very big divide enforced between 'strong sexual content' and 'graphic sexual content' when the end result, that they're trying to protect against, is pretty much the same. Take the actual context of the game.
strong sexual content => hearing moaning sounds, watching a car rocking back and forward
graphic sexual content => seeing a guy with his pants on dry humping a topless (or nude - can't remember..?!) woman
I don't know about you but in this case I can see worse 'graphic sexual content' turning the TV on after 9pm. More to the point - both are capable of promoting sexual interest and arousal so where the 'young 'uns' are concerned you're still feeding their little imaginations with sexual thoughts. Unless of course they live in a staunch Christian TV free house - in which case how come they're playing a violent game anyway?
So that's my two cents. Really the problem is that the 'adults only' really rating doesn't give any more warning to the buyer than the mature rating. In the UK we have an 18 rating which pretty much covers everything - note that this scandal only manifested itself in the US. The UK ratings already covered any 'extras'. Of course there's the 'R18' rating but that tends to just be for crap porno videos (but even then - restricted 18? Like an eighteen year old is going to pick up a movie called 'bang sluts of sinsville' and put it back hastily - "Oh, 'restricted' 18 - better not go near that then".
"As for increased sales due this, L.O.L indeed - rockstar get an obscene (note the pun) amount of sales with or without some shitty little porn section of the game."
Have you never heard of the phrase 'any publicity is good publicity'?
It's an ancient well known fact in the marketing industry that scandal provides better, cheaper (free!) advertising on a massive scale. While I'm not making any statement as to whether they intentionally let this happen it's foolish to suggest that they didn't reap the rewards.
As a small, insigificant example - you just had to look on ebay the next day to see the flurry of activity - 'buy this game now for £100 before it gets banned' etc...
That product became the most talked about game in the country (certainly in the UK) for a short period - are you telling me that everyone was tutting and denouncing it, and that nobody thought 'hmmm, I might buy this to have a look'?
I have to agree. Angels and Demons has everything that DaVinci code doesn't and would make a more exciting film. I don't even want to talk about digital fortress because it was just embarrassing to read. Decption point was good and sits happily in the middle.
I do think that the mass of publicity hype that surrounded the DaVinci code did propel it forcefully into the domain of masterpieces. Sure he's a competant writer but I don't think these book have the same hook as those from the likes of Tokien, JK Rowling, Roald Dahl etc...
Could someone tell me where in the 'evolution' of this book's fame the internet based challenge site came into it? I do wonder if this had a contributing factor to its success.
The two articles linked are both interesting. In the case of McCarthy the reason he was stung was not because of finding the exploit but because he had six student records on his PC. Regardless of his intentions he still made copies of protected information which is a schoolboy error really.
../../../'. This seems to me to be more evidence of the police exploiting the easy targets to '...send a reassuring message to the general public...' instead of focusing on those who are causing genuine public concern.
Regarding the case of Cuthbert, who was fined for attempting to '...exceed the normal user levels of access...by typing
I would be interested to know what an appeal or a visit to the court of human rights would have to say about this ruling as it seems very fragile to me. Of course, the appeal would no doubt cost more than the fine... justice is good like that, funny eh?
On the one hand, yes. People have learned to type extremely fast on standard nine digit pads (SMS). On the flip side, and more damning, is that while learning to type fast most people need to see the keys and symbols. Most people would become infuriated before they became competant.
I remember when I was very young and at a school fair. While walking past the 'tombola' stand a photographer grabbed me and thrust a bottle of apple juice into my hands and took my photo. He took my name and put the bottle back on the stand and walked off. In the local paper that week was a picture of me 'winning on the tombola'. As a young boy it was my first lesson that the media will architect anything to create the news story they want (although trivial in this case). Hence I'm the cynic I am today, and can't stand the modern press either (but that's another story...)
I'm interested to see that no conversations on this subject mention the potential psychological effects of this show. It's very easy to state that you would under no circumstances believe that you were in space but, for most people I've challenged when saying this, they have some knowledge of physics or technology. The selection process here deliberately weedled out those with this kind of knowledge.
Take a look at hoax emails, viruses, worms - these are all propogated by naivety, you don't have to be dumb to be affected by it. It's easy to have a lapse in your vigorous checking and fall foul.
Ok, now extend that to a three week subterfuge. Sustaining an illusion for a length of time this long can only amplify and cement it further. By throwing enough false information, concealment and illusion at a person you can muffle any potential questions. By deliberately selecting those who have a tendancy to translate their own feelings into those which fall in with their peers you can ensure there is no potential for personal conviction getting in the way.
Adding it all up: technologically this format is flawed but psychologically it's got it right.
That's just nuts. You're disallowing people to demonstrate proof of concepts on the basis that it's not a marketable product? Not only that, but they *have* made a product, albeit a non-commercial one.
There are more reasons to demonstrate this than 'we can sell it'. By doing this they are not only getting feedback from potential customers and hardware developers but also cementing themselves as being one the pioneers of the technology.
If a company designed a new type of PC memory I would imagine they would build a prototype motherboard to demonstrate it to the professional motherboard manufacturers. They may not concern themselves with building the commercial motherboard as it's not in their expertise, rather develop business relations with motherboard manufacturers to allow them to embed it.
Am I the only one who thinks Vista looks damn ugly... like the designers spent the afternoon in Fisher Price for inspiration?
IADs have been around for a while. Simply connect to your router and configure http://www.mediatrix.com/products_devices.php?prod id=14
Actually my company run a full voip service which breaks out to PSTN.
I do have to say that the benefits are negligable though. Until there are carrier agreements in place between all these providers and the breakouts are available at locations closer to the target there's no economic sense to it.
Consider using broadband to call your next-door neighbour in Birmingham. Your VOIP provider is based in Manchester with a switch in London. When the provider pushes the call onto the PSTN network they either route it to a switch in Manchester or London and then have to foot the bill for a call to be placed using national rates.
Of course this doesn't start addressing the problem of one person on Skype and the other on ours (no I'm not advertising...!) and the call will still break out onto PSTN to route from one switch to the other. Illogical if you have to explain to a potential customer, hence the need for carrier contracts between the companies.
*thirdly* VOIP solutions which breakout onto PSTN require all voice traffic to route through the switch which removes all the benefits of peer to peer VOIP a-la Google Talk, MSN etc...
Of course, we could all just use BT... and adhere to the standard monopoly of service route *sigh*
I wouldn't say it's patently useless (from article above a bit):
You're getting updates, demos, extras... all pretty much as you'd expect. There's more to being online than multiplayer gaming. For once (and this is rare) I think they're pitching it about right *as long* as they spend the profit on decent multiplayer servers.
I agree, and I believe releasing to DVD and cinema simultaneously would completely destroy cinema, the question is, does anyone care if cinema is destroyed, really?
The flip side: I'm sure everyone knows someone who has a movie rental account and are doing the 'Rent, Rip and Return'. We have a huge choice of online rental sites in the UK and many people have production lines of movies which they'll probably never watch, with all the trailer crap taken out. The publishers will never allow that level of piracy to take place until they have a watertight copy protection mechanism (which will never happen).
So if I was, say, a criminal mastermind who wanted to kill James Bond... or...someone...
I could chain his arms to the core and leg to the earth proper and tear him apart?
Just for information you understand...
arrogance: Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
I think it's 'potentially' fair to label MS as arrogant but I don't think Google really demonstrate this.
Google appear to demonstrate a desire to produce useful products simply. Coming from a telecoms background I can say that the most profitable venture for our business was a 'no-frills' service. People don't want the yahooism style 'mess' of choice or 'subscribe to stuff' sign-up processes.
Google have proved this works by keeping their search front page the same since the day it started. Their approach to existing and new products and services can hardly be classed as 'arrogant'. Expecting a user to sign up for a million and one subscriber lists (yes, Real Networks I'm talking about you) is arrogant.
As for the P10 thing? Definitely a publicity stunt, for all the reasons detailed above...