Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Justice Stevens reads the fine print

matthewbutterick.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 230 posts

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#191

Post by massysett »

RugnirViking wrote: post #120
vmception wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to be skeptical of that idea, courts consider many forms of consent contractual as long as they can be accepted as proof of consent. Periodically, a jurisdiction may explicitly specify that a certain form of consent is necessary, presumably to unbog their court system. Secondly, a lot of fine print benefits you. missed out on crazy compensation during a minor inconvenience just because you skipped locking in pro…

> a lot of fine print benefits you I'd love it if you could give examples, preferably more than one. Because most people's view of "fine print" is that it is invariably out to screw you over as hard as possible.

It allows Carnival Cruise Lines to operate cheaply. Cruises depend on cheap labor and low costs. This brings affordable cruise vacations to the masses, as well as employment opportunities in the industry.

There are vacation alternatives, such as land-based resorts. But they tend to be more expensive.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#192

Post by denton-scratch »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #145
denton-scratch wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, she got me off. I was acquitted. The copper that was standing duty as the prosecutor wasn't briefed. He had an afternoon's-worth of cases to present, and he wasn't qualified to argue a case. And either I couldn't be re-charged because double-jeopardy, or it just wasn't worth the effort. Just as icing on the cake, my advocate was a stunningly beautiful redhead.

> Just as icing on the cake, my advocate was a stunningly beautiful redhead. relevance?

Only that I had a lucky day in more ways than one.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#193

Post by djrogers »

michaelt wrote: post #87
sandos wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a "smart" lock, even with BT/wifi/GPS based automatic unlocking which seems to freak my fiancee out. I see it as stealing my phone is not different from stealing my key. The more sinister ability is to unlock remotely via the "cloud" which I am still a bit shocked that it just seems to work, and no complaints AFAIK from insurance companies. I just happen to know that locks aren't really a deterrent if you reall…

> On the other hand, in reality I am not going to be targeted by competent hackers (who would own me at once), but rather a crude gang of misfits roaming around for an easily burglarised home. The threat isn't a competent hacker targeting you directly. The threat is a competent hacker targeting the lock's vendor, getting their whole database, then selling address, entry code and occupancy times for $20 per home on th…

> then selling address, entry code and occupancy times

What locks are you referring to where locally configured entry codes are stored in a cloud DB? That's not the case for any of the ones I've installed.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#194

Post by mbostleman »

runnerup wrote: post #15
paxys wrote: post #5

Related to the opening of this article – it is interesting to see how one can get completely soured on certain products or experiences because, by virtue of their profession, they see the dirty underbelly of how things in that industry actually work. Someone who has read cruise contracts in detail will never want to go on one. Cooks with experience in commercial kitchens never want to eat at a restaurant again. Someo…

Most people who work in restaurant kitchens eat far more from restaurant kitchens, not less. I did for quite a few years and I’m still very happy to eat at any diner, drive through, or Michelin star restaurant.

Agreed. I was going to say that I bet this a myth that endures only because it is repeated endlessly. I've never seen data to prove it and my anecdotal experience is the opposite.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#195

Post by djrogers »

michaelt wrote: post #186
rootusrootus wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schlage doesn't know where I live, though, nor do they get any status updates from my home assistant. It isn't software that is the problem you're referring to, it's involving a third party unnecessarily.

Maybe for your smart lock - but sandos has "GPS based automatic unlocking" so his lock vendor probably knows exactly where he lives.

That doesn't require your lock vendor to know anything about your location. Homekit for example can do this with your bridge doing the work, and any cloud-required data being e2e encrypted.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#196

Post by mbostleman »

lordnacho wrote: post #43

Someone needs to do something about the legal-industrial complex. It's a complete fiction that normal people read pages and pages of contracts, EULAs, and that type of stuff. It's basically impossible to read the docs for all the services you buy, and even if you did you wouldn't know what it meant in terms of law. Yet we have lawyers talking through the technical minutiae as if they are source code. There's a huge d…

It is frustrating. It's easy to villainize the producers and their lawyers. But on the other hand, it would be nice if consumers weren't so lazy and would instead stand up for themselves and fight back. But then that becomes hard if there isn't sufficient competition and choices in the market. At the end of the day, I think that the occurrence of consumers losing on actual lawsuits (much less even being involved in one) is sufficiently rare that it wouldn't justify the increased cost of goods if the risk were more balanced.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#197

Post by rayiner »

paxys wrote: post #5

Related to the opening of this article – it is interesting to see how one can get completely soured on certain products or experiences because, by virtue of their profession, they see the dirty underbelly of how things in that industry actually work. Someone who has read cruise contracts in detail will never want to go on one. Cooks with experience in commercial kitchens never want to eat at a restaurant again. Someo…

I don’t know if I agree with this. My experience working for a federal judge made me much more confident in the criminal justice system. In the media we only see the situations where the justice system got something wrong—which is inevitable in a country of 330 million people. Looking behind the scenes made me understand that for every case where there is a conviction on shaky evidence, there are dozens of cases where a conviction or guilty plea is supported by a mountain of electronic evidence.

For example, my wife handled a murder trial where the government prosecutors not only had closed circuit video of the defendant shooting the victim, but of him getting in his car and driving home through town back to his house. They just cut from one closed circuit camera to the next and the next showing the entire journey.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#198

Post by andjd »

dalbasal wrote: post #80
pjc50 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least here in the UK, the court system does not have enough capacity Yeah, that's a political decision; the government is so anti-public service that it's cut it to disastrous levels. In many cases the cuts to legal aid are politically targeted at situations where the government was losing too many cases.

Political/funding decisions are part of the mix, but I don't think the daylight between highly funded and underfunded amounts to fundamental difference. Courts are extremely costly and/or low throughput. The vast majority of legal resolutions happen outside of courts, whether or not they even touch a court along the way. It just is not designed for efficiency. Court systems are designed to embody legal ideals (and im…

> We basically can't have a decent court system unless appealing to it is extremely rare.

This is a defeatist attitude, and one that allows bad actors to thrive. Landlord-Tenant law is a particularly relevant example here because most jurisdictions have substantial regulations that put substantial obligations and limitations on landlords -- far more than most other areas of contract law. However, many landlords can ignore these regulations because their tenants don't have access to courts to enforce them.

I would also argue that family law is an area that is a counter-example to your statement. In cases of divorce, especially with children involved, the courts are almost always involved, even when the parties come to an amicable separation agreement. You'll also note that the processes, personnel, and facilities of family court tend to be a lot more economical than a prototypical court of general jurisdiction. They stand as an example that if we want to make access to courts more widely available and economical, we can.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#199

Post by dkarl »

rootusrootus wrote: post #166
grujicd wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer, I was shocked when at a friend's house saw that Alexa not only operated lights, but door locks and blinds. Or when another friend takes hands off the steering wheel to test lane keep assist. I don't think I can trust any software at that level.

The biggest tech enthusiasts I know are tech workers, though. It's the normies in my life that couldn't care less about this stuff. I've been a developer for 30 years and I love my home automation toys. But I do make sure that all of it fails gracefully to 'normal' when something interrupts HA. My software can (and does, every day) lock the door. But the deadlock still has a key on the outside and a standard twist kn…

> But I do make sure that all of it fails gracefully to 'normal' when something interrupts HA.

This is why interest and trust don't have to go together. Sometimes the people who are most adventurous are simply the ones who are comfortable with a lower level of trust, because they can manage their risk.

I'm comfortable playing with new or niche technology because I'm able to keep it low stakes. My most tech-phobic family members, on the other hand, act like they have complete faith in the software they use even when they say they have zero faith. They don't have the savoir-faire to do things that limit their risk, like withholding sensitive data and backing up important data in different places, so they resent technology as chronically treacherous and agonize over whether they can "trust" individual pieces of tech in an absolute yes/no way.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#200

Post by denton-scratch »

lordnacho wrote: post #147
denton-scratch wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's "technical minutiae"; I was charged with an offence that I didn't commit. My advocate just took the trouble to read the Act that I was charged under. Given that the court knew I hadn't committed the offence I was charged with, it would certainly have been a miscarriage of justice to go on and convict me anyway, and I could have got it overturned on appeal.

You said you were speeding, right? But somehow the judge can't just say "ah right, looks like it's the wrong traffic statute that's been filed. Here's a fine for whatever it was that you actually did, you can just settle it here or we do a proper trial if you disagree". I mean of course we don't want people to be convicted of things they didn't do, but how is it ok for someone to get away with something they did do,…

I don't think judges should be able to go off-piste like that. In this country, charges are laid by the CPS, and adjudicated by courts, and not vice-versa. In the US, I believe (based on TV courtroom dramas!) that judges have more latitude.

In fact my "judge" was a panel of lay magistrates. They must consult the Clerk of the Court (a trained lawyer) if they have any doubt about their decisions.

I like this system; I'm not keen on the idea of a judge being able to change the charges on me at trial. I think the prosecution were given the opportunity to go away and get the charge altered; but they gave up (it was 30 years ago, memory falters).

Look, I deserved to be penalised; I would have simply put my hands up, but I had to go to court to make a mitigation plea, because I risked losing my licence.

My point was just that a really good advocate is head-and-shoulders above the crowd.

Post reply on HN