from what i understand of the definition of "customer", a "customer" means "someone who is paying for a service". here, there's no payment involved, therefore there is no contract of sale.

The correct legal term for payment is, "consideration." The user's relationship with Gmail does involve payment in the form of consideration, and they are customers.

As a counter-example; if you download Free Software, or Open Source Software, and use it without making any promises to the developer, you are not a customer. Possibly if Gmail had no ToS or AUP, they could argue that their users gave no consideration. I'd be interested to see that argued.

While I get what you are saying as far as "research" it's kind of like saying; "We can't know how to treat Agent Orange damage if we don't keep spraying Agent Orange -- there won't be enough data."

While I get what you are saying, I think you are using a charged metaphor. We know how bad Agent Orange is. We genuinely do not know how dangerous fracking is. Try replacing Agent Orange with, for example, "the search for the Higgs Boson", or "artificial intelligence", or some other thing that has unknown potential to be disastrous.

Fracking is a transition tech -- it's getting the last bits of natural gas and that's fine. But if we spent more money pushing the alternative energy -- which WILL EVENTUALLY be cheaper, we speed the day and time when it's more viable.

I agree, completely, though I think that's not a problem with fracking. I think the right place for that is a tax on fossil fuels to generate some friction on fossil fuel use. If you want, the collected revenue could be targeted to stimulate alternatives, but I tend to want to keep governments hands off the stimulus side (since they're so good at handing the money to their friends instead of the most promising technology) -- though I'd be more OK with the money going to government funded research, particularly if the results were put in the public domain -- like maybe cellulosic fiber biofuel research... but I digress. :)

The environment and mankind will be better off on alternative energy so why are we dragging our feet on that while making excuses for the BAD STUFF somehow getting better? It makes no sense and that's not being "entrenched" on a point of view. Solar and Wind are the future -- there is no good excuse to wait.

I agree with where your sentiment is coming from, and I think it's a good place. But I'm not sure I completely agree that we, as a society, are entrenched and waiting. We have fossil fuel taxes in place, and we are doing stimulus of solar and wind. And it's going really well -- have you seen the prices of PV panels lately? They've dropped a lot -- when I first started looking in 2008, a 250 watt panel was about $1,000. Now you can get them for under $300.

And I'm not 100% against fracking -- I just recognize it as a stop gap measure.

Very agreed.

You'll notice that your "market failure" argument is completely based on a non-market "government chill-factor" driver?

No, I will not. The same short-term-orientation market failure would occur in a pure laissez-faire system. In that case, the failure to account for long-term risk combined with limited liability, bankruptcy, and shell corporations would result in the same public risk / private profit that is the primary economic failure with fracking now.

I will grant that it is exacerbated by the current government stance of "no regulation now, unknown-and-probably-stricter regulation in the future." Solving that hastening of the public risk, however, only requires that regulation remain approximately the same or become less strict over time. Combined with the fact that some level of regulation to offset public risk exposure (negative externality) is the GDP maximizing solution, starting with zero regulation is necessarily incorrect.

But what if doing the fracking causes irreversible damage? Maybe we need to make the mistake to realize it's one, but then it might be too late. Some countries apply the "Principle of precaution", that is, "if you're not sure of the effects of what you're doing, don't fucking do it."

Well played. :)

Here, let me do the iconic example of the other side:

'We can't have government jumping in and killing off entire industries just because the sky might be falling. There have been no major catastrophes as a direct result of fracking, and even the few relatively minor events that have been recorded turned out not to be caused by fracking, but by improper deep-well injection of effluent.'

do the associated environmental risks of new "tight oil" extraction techniques outweigh the benefits to these depressed economic regions?

That is an excellent question. What we need is an excellent answer. Unfortunately, right now, we only have some rather crude guesses, mostly made by people with entrenched preconceptions (on both sides of the issue). We don't know what the probable environmental cost of an additional $100m of fracking production is.

There are two reasons to continue fracking, while going easy on the rate of production; 1) the oil will still be there, it will probably continue to climb in value, and we are learning -- by doing -- more cost effective and safer approaches to extraction, and 2) because we need more data to improve the risk assessment model.

Not doing fracking won't get us the data we need, and would prevent us from developing the technology to get this stuff out cheaper and safer. Doing fracking as fast as we can will waste money and create additional damage by using current early-stage extraction processes, and it exposes us to poorly quantified risk.

The biggest problem right now is that the oil companies, in fear of regulation-to-come, are extracting as fast as they can to try to get the money out of the ground before the axe falls. That is pretty much the worst possible answer: It minimizes the profit margin on a finite resource while maximizing the risk. It is a textbook example of short-term orientation market failure.

See Freedom of the press in the United States.

That entry starts with a long exposition on the fact that corporations do not have more freedom of the press than citizens. I do not disagree with that. I think corporations should be treated more skeptically regarding their invocation of freedom of the press than should individual citizens.

All rights are inherent to individuals and when individuals organize, as in the formation of the LA Times, these rights are not lost.

No, the individuals do not lose their rights. But whether the corporation is allowed to engage in trade is a very different question. Paying people to write opinions which are pleasing to the corporation is very different than those people freely engaging in that activity. The entire point of the Declaration of Independence is that individuals can be trusted more than collectives, so The People must remain the sole sovereigns.

Citizens United was wrong. Paid speech is not free speech. Paid press is not free press. Corporations are not citizens.

What?!? I don't know which constitution you're referring to, but the Constitution of the United States of America certainly doesn't specify duties or obligations for citizens.

The LA Times is not a citizen. You can tell because it doesn't have nipples. It is the press. See the first amendment to the Constitution. For more info on why that specific industry gets special constitutional treatment, see fourth estate.

Let me see if I get your argument:

Their business model is failing, so it's understandable that they are shirking their Constitutionally specified duty, despite the legal privileges they enjoy in furtherance of that obligation.

I mean, I see what you're saying -- a dying animal bites its master -- but that's when you get out the dart gun full of tranquilizer and address the problem. You don't just shake your head and tsk-tsk, wrap your bloody arm in a t-shirt, and go get a rabies shot.

11:25 "Don't bring any proprietary software to this class." So which cell phone running free software should students be putting in their bags instead?

Depends what your primary objective is. If your primary objective is to have a cell phone with you, you sacrifice freedom. If your primary objective is to give no comfort to those who are harmful to that end, you sacrifice carrying a cell phone.

Me? I'm pretty serious about Free Software, but being connected is also important to me. So I have a CyanogenMod phone, and I'll keep going more Free as it becomes practical and as my budget allows.

12:48 "So how to help? Well you can write free software." So how would you go about feeding yourself while you write a free video game?

Depends what your higher priority is. If financial responsibility, to your lifestyle or to support your family, is most important to you, write proprietary video games. If freedom is most important, you can sell your games through Humble Bundle, have embedded ads and ask people not to disable them, ask for voluntary payments, use one of the crowdfunding systems, live a modest lifestyle and work some other job to pay the bills, or whatever you want; there's lots of ways to make a living while writing Free Software.

Me? I work a pay-the-bills job consulting, working less than full time, live a modest lifestyle, and work on pro-social projects the rest of the time (not Free Software for me at the moment, but with similar goals).

He's not telling you that you must always blindly obey the principles that lead to freedom. He's telling you what principles must be satisfied to be free. He says very clearly, early in the presentation, that being free requires sacrifices. Whether you choose freedom or convenience in any particular choice you make in life is up to you. Just make it with your eyes open; be aware of your personal opportunity cost and the cost to society.

Almost all adult "open world" style games feature prostitutes, for example. Okay, they exist in real life so they are just being realistic, right? ... War movies could show realistic violence and the effects of weapons, but that would give half the audience PTSD so despite it being an easy way to make them real and edgy they tone it down. It's about using the medium responsibly.

I think you've got a non-sequitur there. The prostitution that I have seen in games is toned down far more than the war violence in movies or games. War violence typically shows at least some blood and the person dying, with some critically acclaimed movies like Saving Private Ryan going way more real. Video game prostitution often doesn't even show the participants during the event, and if it does, what is shown is usually PG-13, and only R in a very few cases.

Misogyny exists and it is bad and we need to continue to improve. But when you misrepresent the case, it makes people skeptical of the entire message. Backlash is harmful to our cause. So unless you are trying to stir up antagonism, get a grip on your anger and make sure you are creating an accurate portrayal of the situation before you hit "Submit".

This is especially important for you, specifically, because you are well spoken and I've seen your posts on this topic hit +5 before. You are one of the big voices in this community. That voice can be used to build consensus or to drive a wedge. The latter will not help further the cause of equality.

It gets even better. Marketing that panders to girls is no less misogynistic. It's actually even WORSE. Marketing for women is all about making women feel like sh*t, especially about their bodies.

And have you seen the tough-guy themed marketing for automotive products that pander to men? It's all about making men feel inadequate if they're not manly enough. (not to mention hair club, boner pills, beer, cologne, and just about every other male-targeted product)

Making potentially defamatory claims without evidence is not just lazy, but possibly also illegal depending on where you live. Show your work.

There is a fair bit of editorializing here, but also a lot of evidence: Quinnspiracy on KnowYourMeme

At a quick perusal, it seems like; a) she has been subject to some abuse by misogynists, b) she has been engaged in some conflict of interest regarding reviews of her games, and c) she has both benefitted from and promulgated the misogyny aspect of her story.

The misogyny part is obviously bad. But if Zoe is taking advantage of -- and thereby harming -- the movement to advance the equality of women in gaming and technology, then she is bad too. If that is the case, then we who seek equality should reject her as an icon. Backlash is a perilous thing to progressive movements.

Then and now when the geek speaks about women, I can't escape the feeling that I have been teleported back to the high school locker rooms of 1964. The only pandering on this site is to the geek's own adolescent sense of manhood,

I am a geek, and I am not a misogynist. It is wrong for you to engage in prejudicial stereotyping.

1. There are far more than 4 cellular companies in the Phoenix area

"far more"? I don't think that phrase means what you think it means.

2. There are hundreds of independent stores in the Phoenix area

I was testing to see if his hypothesis was within the realm of possibility. As such, I operated on the assumption that only the carrier stores would be covered. There are a number of ways this could be true; if you engage your thinking machine for a moment, I'm sure you can come up with one.

3. It would take at least 100 locations just within the Phoenix area to put the entire population within 20 minutes of a location

Phoenix is only a hair over an hour wide, so I used 15. I think your estimate of 100 is wildly excessive, unless you are counting different carriers having duplicate coverage (which I covered with the 4 multiplier).

Verizon currently shows 34 different smartphones available for sale, most of those come in multiple colors and memory sizes. They also have 8 basic phones. Total variations, not including color, is over 50 I would wager that across providers and phones sold in the past 3 years you could come up with at least 400 phone models.

I used 160 as my figure, you're claiming 400. That's well inside an order of magnitude on the most wild-assed-guess figure in the estimate, and again, I'm trying to test whether it is within the bounds of reality, not writing pro forma financials.

You would also need to stock more than 1 of each model.

No you wouldn't. You might need to stock more than 1 of some models, but you could probably get away with not carrying others (some of the out of production ones, most likely) based on covered customers in each area, and the regulation could, in theory, only require one handset of each model per store. It could also not require carrying all colors, and they might choose to not carry the smallest memory sizes, opting instead to upgrade. They might also not carry superseded models.

Or, said differently, (obviously the math is more complicated, but there are additional factors in both directions) -- like I said in my OP.

Sounds like a major mess when a simple solution already exists: 1) Don't buy insurance 2) Replace your phone if you break or lose your current phone

Well, of course. I completely agree. That's why I don't have insurance on my phone. Like you, I am neither a sucker nor a person who can't live without Angry Birds for 24 hours. But we're not considering whether the solution makes sense for more Spartan users, we're considering whether self-indulgent twits who can't go twelve minutes without checking their Facebook status would consider such a policy to be cost effective.

I can't believe I just wasted five minutes of my life on this. You're not supposed to see if there is any conceivable way to poke little holes in my post so you can continue in your comfortable preconception. You're supposed to consider whether it is in the realm of possibility, so you can let go of your hate-on.