And perhaps just as importantly, what the penalties should be for companies who fail to respect those rights. I'm not sure we can seriously expect the same kind of penalties to apply internationally for crimes like "leaking SSNs" when SSNs don't even exist outside of the US.
I guess what I am wondering is whether we find their vigilante attitude towards stopping downloads more or less distasteful than the RIAA's more typical sue-and-destroy strategy.
I don't think you guys are giving the parent enough credit. Verizon may follow the letter of the agreement, but they certainly wouldn't follow the spirit.
But the RIAA is not interested in teaching people the difference between wrong and right, they are interested in using the legal system to extract far more money than they deserve from them.
And that too is wrong. No one has the moral high ground here, but I think the RIAA is standing on lower ground, personally.
When a manufacturer decides they want to offer a rebate, they almost always come to some agreement with a third party (like Rebate-zone) who prints up forms, handles submissions, and mails out checks. Typically I think this agreement involves a lump-sum payment based on the number of rebates that could potentially be redeemed (but less than [number of rebates] * [rebate value] because a significant number will never be mailed in).
Surely you see the conflict of interest here. The rebate operation has no business with you, the customer, except that they have to mail you part of their lump sum if you mail in your goodies. They don't really care if they make you angry, because you are not their customer. They are "Rebate Operation Inc.", and "Sony" or "Toshiba" or whoever the heck you actually bought your product from is who gives them their dough. Since they couldn't care less if they inconvenience you, the guy who is trying to steal a chunk of their change, it is exceedingly common that you will get a rebate denial with some bogus explanation like "No UPC included" or "Receipt illegible" or the world-famous "Postmark date incorrect" even if you've followed the directions perfectly and submitted well before the deadline.
These headaches, combined with the possibility of the postal service losing your check, make it largely worthwhile to ignore any product with a mail-in rebate unless you are willing to pay the full price.
Thanks for your well-reasoned response.
I'm a bit annoyed by everyone on here who goes "But my rights are..." without thinking of the consequences they will face for testing whether the legal system will acknowledge those rights or not.
Regardless of what you believe in, you have to pick your battles in life and fight where it will do the most good.
Would geothermal plants cause environmental problems if huge numbers were built? Almost definitely. Probably the best way to reduce overall impact from any one type of power plant is to always a mix of all the different types (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc)--at least that way if one kind causes damage that we don't yet understand, the damage is more limited than if we used that method for 100% of our power generation.
Mod parent up. My university has gone to all-wireless too, and it's completely retarded because it's so unreliable. **A MICROWAVE OVEN IN THE KITCHEN KNOCKS EVERYONE OFF THE NETWORK**, for christ's sake, and that's to say nothing of intentional disruption.
Some guy signing a docket on his deathbed is strange behavior that needs explaining, certainly, but the best explanation may well not be that there actually were aliens.
Perhaps the CIA was testing LSD or an experimental new drug at that site at that time to see what it would do to young army officers. In fact that seems a lot more likely to me than aliens crashing in a desert.
I think the point was that by starting with the idea "educational software" and trying to turn it into a game, you're more likely to get crap because people underestimate how difficult it is to make a fun game.
On the other hand once you already know you have something fun, it's pretty easy to add a few educational elements to it.
I realize that this approach is probably not the correct one, but do try to understand the position online banks are in. They have to have some way of safeguarding customer information when the customer may well have keyloggers and all sorts of nasties on their machine.
What is a bank supposed to do in this situation? Many have moved to distributing hash key devices and requiring passwords be entered using onscreen keyboards, but it's not an easy problem to solve.
Money has to come from somewhere. If developers can earn money by selling advertising, it means they will be able to spend more time polishing up their projects at the end of the development cycle instead of having to push the product out the door early to start getting money from sales.
Overall, that means fewer rushed titles, late patches, and incomplete games. Will some publishers abuse advertising for quick profit? Of course. But don't come out with something like BOYCOTT ALL GAMES WITH ADVERTISING KEKEKEKEKEKEKE because you don't understand that developers need money in order to do what they love.
Of course, Moledina countered, there's a competing licensing theory that you can sell games just based on the brand, to which Alexander agreed: "That's true in the worst ways ever..." I give the guy credit for acknowledging this serious problem and not just playing it off. In my opinion, the biggest barrier to valuable interaction between games and other media is the fallout that crappy spinoffs cause. They make people assume that ANY movie/tv-to-game tie in must be bad and ultimately erode consumer confidence.
So, did they pull because they had a problem with the demos at the last minute, or is there a more sinister conspiracy-type explanation for this retraction?
It takes a lot of energy to buck trends and you don't get any reward for it. I don't think you can really blame anyone for taking the path of least resistance. Our society may be doomed to run itself into the ground but it's an emergent behavior of the system "society" and it's not really any individual's fault.
I agree with you; If it's installed like the "Buy Ringtones!" stuff is on my latest phone such that it's impossible to remove then it will be very annoying.
I can see the value in being able to view account balances and such at any time, but with most people having multiple accounts at multiple banks it might not be all that valuable unless there is a centralized way to view everything at once.
The review seems only to be touting the health benefits of using the mouse, but if it really reduced stress on key parts of your wrist and arm I expect it would be a lot more comfortable, too. The only problem I can forsee is that it wouldn't fit on those roll-out trays that a lot of desks have for your keyboard and mouse, and that's a pretty serious drawback.
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And perhaps just as importantly, what the penalties should be for companies who fail to respect those rights. I'm not sure we can seriously expect the same kind of penalties to apply internationally for crimes like "leaking SSNs" when SSNs don't even exist outside of the US.
I guess what I am wondering is whether we find their vigilante attitude towards stopping downloads more or less distasteful than the RIAA's more typical sue-and-destroy strategy.
I don't think you guys are giving the parent enough credit. Verizon may follow the letter of the agreement, but they certainly wouldn't follow the spirit.
It is wrong, that's true.
But the RIAA is not interested in teaching people the difference between wrong and right, they are interested in using the legal system to extract far more money than they deserve from them.
And that too is wrong. No one has the moral high ground here, but I think the RIAA is standing on lower ground, personally.
When a manufacturer decides they want to offer a rebate, they almost always come to some agreement with a third party (like Rebate-zone) who prints up forms, handles submissions, and mails out checks. Typically I think this agreement involves a lump-sum payment based on the number of rebates that could potentially be redeemed (but less than [number of rebates] * [rebate value] because a significant number will never be mailed in).
Surely you see the conflict of interest here. The rebate operation has no business with you, the customer, except that they have to mail you part of their lump sum if you mail in your goodies. They don't really care if they make you angry, because you are not their customer. They are "Rebate Operation Inc.", and "Sony" or "Toshiba" or whoever the heck you actually bought your product from is who gives them their dough. Since they couldn't care less if they inconvenience you, the guy who is trying to steal a chunk of their change, it is exceedingly common that you will get a rebate denial with some bogus explanation like "No UPC included" or "Receipt illegible" or the world-famous "Postmark date incorrect" even if you've followed the directions perfectly and submitted well before the deadline.
These headaches, combined with the possibility of the postal service losing your check, make it largely worthwhile to ignore any product with a mail-in rebate unless you are willing to pay the full price.
Thanks for your well-reasoned response. I'm a bit annoyed by everyone on here who goes "But my rights are..." without thinking of the consequences they will face for testing whether the legal system will acknowledge those rights or not. Regardless of what you believe in, you have to pick your battles in life and fight where it will do the most good.
When the demand exceeds available resources by a huge amount, it is perfectly reasonable to refer to it as "infinite."
Not to mention cooler in the core.
Would geothermal plants cause environmental problems if huge numbers were built? Almost definitely. Probably the best way to reduce overall impact from any one type of power plant is to always a mix of all the different types (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc)--at least that way if one kind causes damage that we don't yet understand, the damage is more limited than if we used that method for 100% of our power generation.
Mod parent up. My university has gone to all-wireless too, and it's completely retarded because it's so unreliable. **A MICROWAVE OVEN IN THE KITCHEN KNOCKS EVERYONE OFF THE NETWORK**, for christ's sake, and that's to say nothing of intentional disruption.
Thank you, come again.
I couldn't agree more.
Some guy signing a docket on his deathbed is strange behavior that needs explaining, certainly, but the best explanation may well not be that there actually were aliens.
Perhaps the CIA was testing LSD or an experimental new drug at that site at that time to see what it would do to young army officers. In fact that seems a lot more likely to me than aliens crashing in a desert.
I agree, it's a fantastic feature.
Personally I plan to use it to find alternate routes to work so I can have some variety in my commutes. Thanks Google!
I think the point was that by starting with the idea "educational software" and trying to turn it into a game, you're more likely to get crap because people underestimate how difficult it is to make a fun game.
On the other hand once you already know you have something fun, it's pretty easy to add a few educational elements to it.
I realize that this approach is probably not the correct one, but do try to understand the position online banks are in. They have to have some way of safeguarding customer information when the customer may well have keyloggers and all sorts of nasties on their machine.
What is a bank supposed to do in this situation? Many have moved to distributing hash key devices and requiring passwords be entered using onscreen keyboards, but it's not an easy problem to solve.
Money has to come from somewhere. If developers can earn money by selling advertising, it means they will be able to spend more time polishing up their projects at the end of the development cycle instead of having to push the product out the door early to start getting money from sales.
Overall, that means fewer rushed titles, late patches, and incomplete games. Will some publishers abuse advertising for quick profit? Of course. But don't come out with something like BOYCOTT ALL GAMES WITH ADVERTISING KEKEKEKEKEKEKE because you don't understand that developers need money in order to do what they love.
So, did they pull because they had a problem with the demos at the last minute, or is there a more sinister conspiracy-type explanation for this retraction?
But 640kbps ought to be enough for anyone?
It takes a lot of energy to buck trends and you don't get any reward for it. I don't think you can really blame anyone for taking the path of least resistance. Our society may be doomed to run itself into the ground but it's an emergent behavior of the system "society" and it's not really any individual's fault.
Wait, is this a clever troll?
"even being able to destroy all the cells infected with the virus is worth something though it may often prove fatal to the host"
You're suggesting it's worth it to kill people if we get the virus in the process?
I agree with you; If it's installed like the "Buy Ringtones!" stuff is on my latest phone such that it's impossible to remove then it will be very annoying. I can see the value in being able to view account balances and such at any time, but with most people having multiple accounts at multiple banks it might not be all that valuable unless there is a centralized way to view everything at once.
Are there automatic bots that do this? I've seen it on a lot of articles. Maybe we need an anti-repaste system here...
I read the first part of the article and it sounds like a pretty complex process. I don't think the summary is bad, just technical.
So what are you waiting for exactly? You could fix them today and then prove the author wrong. Oh wait, maybe you couldn't...
The review seems only to be touting the health benefits of using the mouse, but if it really reduced stress on key parts of your wrist and arm I expect it would be a lot more comfortable, too. The only problem I can forsee is that it wouldn't fit on those roll-out trays that a lot of desks have for your keyboard and mouse, and that's a pretty serious drawback.