drinks down:
Jim Wright I was installing some software. In a fit of idle curiosity, I actually read the EULA in total. All pretty standard legal mumbo jumbo, then you get to this part: "6.4 Hazardous Environments. You agree that the Software is not designed or licensed for use in hazardous environments, including without limitation operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation systems, aircraft communication systems, air traffic control, life support or weapons systems and any other environment in which bodily injury or death could result from failure of or inability to use the Software... Wait, what? Nuclear facilities. Air traffic control systems. Weapons systems... Um, OK. Sure. I totally agree not to use your software to control my airborne atomic death ray of death. But, seriously? Either this actually happened, which is pretty goddamned frightening to think about, or it's entirely possible that the legal department just might be infested with an overabundance of lawyers. John the Lawyer: ... and so the party of the first part blah blah jargon jargon etcetera and so on and so forth yadda yadda and we're not responsible for anything and the customer has absolutely no rights whatsoever." The standard stuff. How's that sound? Richard the Lawyer: I like it, but, uh... John the Lawyer: But what, Dickhead? We're trying to make a 10AM Tee time. Richard the Lawyer: What about badgers? John the Lawyer: Oh, damn, right. Totally forgot the badgers. Ok, let's add in "...is not responsible for damage caused by badgers, wolverines, LOLcats, Nazis, Justin Bieber, or other toothy mammals as might unexpectedly occur in computer systems. Because that could totally happen." Allison the Lawyer: What about duck-billed platypuses? Fred the Lawyer: What about them? Steve the Lawyer: Allison the Lawyer is right, we said "mammals." The Platypus is oviparous not a placental. Plus, it can totally spit poison like a cobra from its beak! Allison the Lawyer: Exactly. What if a platypus got into a nuclear reactor controlled by Windows Vista that also happened to have our Morf Your Face Into A Funny Demotivational Poster App installed on it? We could totally be responsible for the end of the world! John the Lawyer: Damn. Well we'd better add a "No weird-ass egg-laying fur-bearing aquatic-rodent" clause then. Steve the Lawyer: Hang on a minute. Platypi only grow in Australia, right? Wendy the Lawyer: I think so, why? Steve the Lawyer: We could just add Australia to the banned countries of terrorism list. Syria, Iran, North Korea, Alabama, and Australia. See? John the Lawyer: Ok, that's good. Now let's add in some terrible sounding penalties for using the software in any fashion whatsoever. I'm thinking anal warts, but I'm open to suggestions... Ted the Lawyer: Anal warts! That's some good lawyering right there! Allison the Lawyer: Nobody lawyers like us! Steve the Lawyer: Wait, what about nuclear death beams of death... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "StrataList-OT" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/stratalist-ot. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
