TinkerX

Great new panel over at XKCD:

XKCD comic: Faust 2.0

We’ve all been annoyed (at least) and possibly troubled by the reams of legal text that accompany any software installation, along with a little box that says, “I agree.” I’ve often wondered whether or not any enterprising and/or disgruntled legal hack may have inserted fantastically oddball text into the 172nd line of a 302 line agreement. Something along the lines of, “The purchaser of this software understands that he/she is a figment of the One Programmer’s imagination and, as such, has no rights other than those of evasion and escape during the Time of Cleansing.”

Be that as it may… there are, of course, legitimate copyright and use concerns about EULAs. On the other hand, there are legitimate concerns about protecting the rights and survivability of software companies. If it were legal to copy and sell other people’s intellectual property without bearing the costs of development, it would be very hard to, well… bear the costs of development.

There are, of course, wonderful Open Source and freeware programs out there. But, as we move more of our life into the infomediasphere, I think that we’ll be ever more confronted with these issues. We don’t understand what goes into our tools, how they work at a base level, and so can be legitimately confused about their operation… but yet, we won’t stop using them.

My current car is the first I’ve ever owned with anti-lock brakes. These are (I am told) a wonderful safety improvement. The guy who sold me the car reminded me, when I told him that I hadn’t driven an ABS equipped car before, “Don’t pump the brakes. Just brake. The ABS does the pumping.”

But, of course, the first time I got into an icy, skiddy situation… I pumped the brakes. Even when I remembered what I was supposed to do — I consciously though, “Don’t pump the brakes, idiot!” — I still pumped them. I’ve been driving since 1983, and 25 years of brake pumping on New England and New York roads is ingrained in my left shin.

I was not killed. I didn’t spin out or anything bad. And, over the past three years, I’ve gotten better at remembering (and being able) to not pump the brakes.

But what if I had gotten into an accident because of it? Could I claim that I hadn’t been adequately educated or trained by the dealer or manufacturer? That I should have had an option to turn off the ABS since I have a near-hypnogogic need to pump the brakes? What if the salesman hadn’t told me anything? What if i thought “ABS” stood for “Accurate Balanced Steering?”

In short, what if I was dumber or unluckier than I am/was?

There is a fine line between the responsibility of manufacturers and that assumed by consumers. Obviously, if a product fails to do what it’s meant to do, and the maker knows it, there is lots of room for real anger and legal recompense.

And, on the other side, we all scoff at the tales of people who sue the maker of a butane lighter because it caused something to catch fire. Right. Because normally you buy a lighter just to make that cool, “scrrttch” noise when you roll the wheel. The fire thing is a side effect…

But that middle area is pretty wide, isn’t it? In one of the cases linked to from the Wikipedia article on EULA, a judge ruled that a software manufacturer wasn’t liable for damages when a customer used the software to create a contracting bid that was, ultimately, way too low. The software (according to the buyer) malfunctioned, and the bid recommendation it provided ended up $1.95 million less than it should have been. The EULA stated (as usual) that the software maker was not liable for damages beyond the purchase price of the software; in effect, the software is not warranted to be accurate or without flaw. It is up to the user to, essentially, check his/her work.

I was most interested in the comment from the judge in the case who said: 

… if this case had arisen in 1985 rather than 1997, I might have a different ruling’ but ‘the facts in this case are such that even construing them against the moving party, the Court finds as a matter of law that the licensing agreements and limitations pertaining thereto were conspicuous and controlling and, accordingly, the remedies that are available to the plaintiff in this case are the remedies that were set forth in the licensing agreement . . . 

As stated repeatedly, I’m not a lawyer. But it’s fascinating (to me) that part of what the judge was judging was the reasonableness of the plaintiff’s case based on how long we’ve been using software with licenses. It amounts to saying, “Come on… if you don’t know by now that the use of the software is your responsibility, you’re just not paying attention.”

I’m supposed to know (by now) not to pump the ABS brakes. We’re supposed to know that software comes with limited liability. We’re supposed to know that, unless otherwise specified, you’re not allowed to copy and/or resell intellectual property that’s not yours.

I like the XKCD comic that started this chain of thought for me. It is, as they usually are, funny and poignant. On the other hand, if you think the devil will actually be bound by a EULA, you’re in for a nasty surprise.

Most of the stuff in many EULAs I’ve actually read is meant to remind the user of the applicable law. In some cases, they overreach and attempt to create contract requirements where existing legal (usually copyright) issues are vague or don’t favor the publisher. Most users, however (including me), don’t understand all the nuances. We just want to download, install and run our new software as quickly as possible. Yes, yes, yes… I agree. Blah, blah, blah. Fine. Click.

I do think we need clearer laws about copyright. And I do think that some of what goes into EULAs is a stretch and, probably, overreaching. On the other hand, as someone who believes in personal responsibility… I know that if I want to use a product, I should either know what I’m getting into… or accept the consequences of my ignorance.

The problem with the XKCD comic is that it’s probably at least as dangerous to own the devil’s soul as it is to negotiate with him for yours. We can remain vigilant. We can accept responsibility for what we do. Or we can become the devil.

I’d rather just have the brakes work well.

John McCain is turning Barack Obama’s, “Spread the wealth around” statement to the omnipresent Joe the Plumber into a scary tale of socialism on the prowl.

Socialism! The ads for McCain cry. Obama’s a socialist! He wants to take money away from you (good American people who work hard) and give it to them you know the… er… other Americans who… uhh… do other stuff. In this ad, the folks all repeat, “I’m Joe the Plumber.”

News flash: we’are already socialist. We take money from people who don’t have kids and use it to fund public schools. We take money from people who will never get sick or old and fund Medicare and Medicaid. We take money from all kinds of people and spend it on lots of different kinds of people. The money is called “taxes” and the benefits are socialist in nature.

Meh.

The Tax Foundation has a “Taxes paid vs. spending received by state” analysis. If you match that data up against a red-state-blue-state map, you’ll find that of the top 10 states for taxes paid vs. spent are Colorado, New York, California, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Nevada and New Jersey. Eight blues, one red and one fence sitter. The top 10 states on the spending side are: New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, South Dakota, Kentucky and Virginia. One blue, six red, three middling.

To put that in narrative terms, Alaska (Palin) spends $1.84 of federal tax money for every dollar they take in. Arizona (McCain) spends $1.19. Illinois (Obama) gets only $.75 of federal spending for every dollar it provides. And Delaware (Biden) gets $.77. That’s right: if you’re from Illinois, 25-cents of every federal tax dollar you pay goes to help the fine people of Alaska and Arizona… Who apparently resent you for helping them out.

I’m not Joe the Plumber. I’m the guy subsidizing his socialist public works and proud to do so.

[PS: I know that Ohio, where I live now, is in the "spend more" column. I'm identifying in a political, philosophical sense with blue states, like Massachusetts, where I grew up, and New York, where my family is from and I went to school.]

It’s been a long time. But I just don’t have anything to say. Which is about the least interesting way to start a blog post I can think of.

I mean… I have things I *could* say, certainly…

1) I’m currently more than annoyed with people who read/write text messages during movies. Noise is bad, yes… so we turn off our phone ringers and don’t take calls during the show. Right? Right. We’ve had that down since about 1998. Now people are doing the IM or email or texting thing during movies, and the bluish-white glow of their iPhones and Pocket PCs is just as friggin’ annoying as hearing a phone ring. If you have to haul out your dang device during the film, hold it in your lap so that the rest of the theater can’t see it. And if you get a message that you must respond to… leave. It’s only about an hour-and-a-half. Give us a breat and get out of your own ego-space long enough to enjoy the film.  I mean, geez. I saw a teenage girl read and reply six times during one show last month. And every time, she held the phone up at eye level, so that everyone behind her could be distracted. I finally asked her to stop, as it was totally pissing me off. She didn’t, and so I beat her to death with my shoe.

2) I think that Time Warner, our cable company, must be training their field repair folks in commiseration skills. We’ve had our DVR break twice in the last month, both times requiring a guy to come out. And both times, when we complained about various elements of the service, the techs joined right in. “Yeah… the new software isn’t as good as the old stuff. We hear that all the time. I use the service, and it makes me crazy, too.” And… “No, these boxes aren’t great. They’re going to upgrade to new hardware sometime next year, and I can’t wait. We get so many problems with these.” Etc. One of the first things they teach you in customer care training is the power of the words, “I understand.” Upset customers, before anything else, want you to admit that they are not crazy, and that there might be a reason why you feel the way you do. They do *not* want to be questioned, harangued or taught a lesson. So, “I understand [fill in the blank]” is a great way to move things forward. These guys have taken this technique to a new level, though. They’ve gone beyond understanding, to joining in. It’s as if they’ve aligned themselves with us — all us folks being put out — against the Big Bad Company. The one that they work for. They aren’t representatives of Time Warner any more, but some kind of moles. They are our spies in the Big House. I got to say… it works. They were nice guys, did what they could, and I felt like they were on “our side.” Weird.

3) Waiting for Spore. Been waiting for four years. They say it’s gone gold, and will truly be in stores by 9/8/08. We’ll see…

4) Not thrilled with the animated “Clone Wars” movie. It was OK for an animated sci-fi movie… but I expect more from Star Wars. Not sure why. Episode One made me doubt the existence of a benevolent God.

5) Have an idea for a YA fantasy series. Don’t want to talk about it here. Oops. Just did. My bad. If you want to help me get it out of my head and on paper, let me know. I find that I need at least one person to talk about this stuff with or I just let it stew for… well… forever (see: three previous attempts at novel writing, all stuck between 70 and 130 pages).

6) Overheard three “nice old ladies” talking politics at Bob Evans last night while eating with the boy. At one point, one of them said that they wouldn’t vote for Obama because he was going to “take away everyone’s guns.” A friend of hers had told her that part of Obama’s presidential platform involved the revocation of fifth ammendment (I assume she meant second). The current president already having played loose and free with the fifth, I can see why she might be worried about the second. I can’t find anything on line, even on the crazy-right sites, indicating that Obama has any dread plans for our right to bear arms. On conversations such as this, in states like Ohio, hangs the fate of nations.

7) Got a new chair for the home office. Nice.

That’s it. Like I said…

So I downloaded the free trial of “Spore: Creature Creator.” I’ve been drooling in anticipation of the full game of “Spore” now for… I don’t know, Will… how long? 3 years? 5? Something like that.

Anyway… played this little mini-preview game-y thing where you create creatures using one of the engines that will be in the final game. It’s fun. And my son really enjoyed it. I registered the trial online so that I could see other folks’ creations, get updates, etc. Registration, as per normal, requires an email address (cue ominous music… why would he point out an obvious bit o’ stuff like that? hmmmmm….)

The free trial of “Creature Creator” only gives you access to like 1/8th of all the pieces-parts. And my boy liked it enough that I decided to upgrade to the full version (never mind that I think this is essentially a marketing tease for the full game, now slated to come out in September, and that, IMHO, the “full version” of this little mini game should be free).

Clicking the “upgrade” button from within the game takes you to the purchase site for EA. OK…. Not exactly what I expected, as I’d already downloaded the large install file. Will they make me go through that again? I’d assumed I’d just pay and get an unlock code. A trick that 3rd-rate shareware peddlers have had perfected for years. We’ll see…

So I add the full version of the program to my cart, fill in all my info for checking out…

And get an error.

“That email address is already in use.”

Bwa? BWAAAA? The email address I gave EA as part of the registration process for a piece of trial software is already in use… Well, DUH! It’s in use by me, who registered earlier today. And now I want to upgrade… but you won’t let me, because my email address is already in use by you.

Mad stupid. Mad-5 stupid. I expected more from EA and Spore and Will and Maxis. This does not bode well…

I had an interesting epiphany a day or two ago, based on a couple notions:

1. I blog more when I get comments. Which makes perfect sense, and the writing might either be in reference to a comment, or just make me feel good that somebody is reading my stuff.
2. Content aggregators like BoingBoing.net (which I love, btw), live by directing attention to the postings of others’ blogs/sites.
3. Almost every BoingBoing post I’ve read has waaaaay more comments on it about a piece than there are on the originating site

Epiphany: content aggregators should encourage people to post some of their comments on the originating sites.

I mean… take this post from BoingBoing on a creepy slacks ad from 1970. It has (at this moment) 58 comments.  The original post has four. That seems, to me, to be about the norm; 10/15X the comments at BB as at the originating post. In some cases, you’ll have a post where the BB readers start a full-on discussion, and the original post has no comments.

It’s entirely fair for BoingBoing to bring content together from an incredible array of sources, and to serve it up to a whole horde of us Websters. It’s not just fair, it’s helpful and cool and fun.  And BoingBoing makes money off’n their ads. Again; cool. And getting a post BoingBoinged is huge a traffic boost for the originator. Sometimes so much so that small blogs end up crashing from the number of hits. A friend of mine once called that BBDOS — BoingBoing Denial of Service.

But if readers want to respond to a post, shouldn’t they do it on the original writer’s blog/site? At least some of the time? 54 comments is more than I generally get in a year. I’d love to have that many readers having a discussion over something I wrote. And I guess I’d be glad to see that discussion happen at BoingBoing… but it would be cooler, still, if they’d come on ta my house and yap around the table that served the bloggy goodness.

Not a big deal. It just happened inside my head and I wanted to share the thought.