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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stallmsn didn't say it was 3000 pages long.
He did, in relating 'the story' on his website, which is why I phrased it that way.
why does this have anything to do with hacknews?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Additionally, what about the fact that if the woman knew the Privacy Policy was 3000 pages and in a binder (which she claimed to be aware of) and knowingly accepts a statement she strongly believes to be untrue? Is this enough to invalidate the "contract" because it is blatantly known that full disclosure and meeting of the minds has not been met? This also comes to mind during mortgages and car loans. Often the clos…
I the first time I closed on a house, realizing ten minutes in that either I was going to be signing contracts without reading them, or everyone was going to be sitting around watching me read for three hours. There's a lot of pressure in a situation like that, even though I try never to sign anything without reading it.
They said I was the first person to ever ask. :/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I the first time I closed on a house, realizing ten minutes in that either I was going to be signing contracts without reading them, or everyone was going to be sitting around watching me read for three hours. There's a lot of pressure in a situation like that, even though I try never to sign anything without reading it.
Did you have a lawyer to represent you? That's their job... to make sure that the contract you're signing is OK. Actually reading a contract without knowledge of the law, case history, and background can get you into just as much trouble as not reading it at all. That's why you have lawyers review important contracts.
I am not a lawyer. Suppose a rental car matter ended up court. I would rather not have to say to the judge, "I spent 10 minutes thoughtfully reading and evaluating the contract, and after careful consideration decided to accept the agreement." I would rather be able to say, "Gee, it was printed in gray ink in tiny type on the back of the paper, and they told me to just sign here on the front to get the car. I needed the car, so I did what they told me."
I never accept the "standard contract" when it comes to employment or consulting gigs - then I always read carefully, propose alterations, and often talk to my lawyer. But if it really is a "standard contract" signed by millions (including, presumably, lots of lawyers, too) then I am inclined to balance the risks and benefits and opt for ignorance over informed consent.
Offtopic: I liked how minimalistic the site looks, so I looked at the source - just a bunch of with a h1 on top. The head was also really clean - a title, encoding, favicon and This a 404, but if you try to open /stallman.css you get http://www.stallman.org/stallman.css Again, pretty minimal just a few rules and comments... and then this: /* This causes the entire page to be red when you click anywhere so I do not wa…
What's really the problem with this situation is that it's really hard to point a finger to a single culprit in the system thereby pointing to a way to solve the problem. That's why it's a wicked problem ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem ) * The doctors cannot be blamed because they want to protect themselves (e.g. see the insane amounts of insurance required to practice medicine in the US to guard agains…
Mostly agree. Except, the politicians ARE to blame! We need spined, "sensical" statesmen leading our government to workable solutions, not self-fish, egotistical wimps working towards "getting the meanest/loudest 'animal(s)' off our backs and getting re-elected". Tort reform is where I would start if I was working towards a solution. Tort reform is often not done because 90% (pulled from the air based on recollection…
And desiring simple laws that people can read and understand is like desiring simple code that people can read and understand. Sure, there's lots of code out there written with bad practices, acquiring years of cruft and in need of some refactoring, but there's also massive amounts of code that simply cannot be reduced to a 'simple' state. Some problems are complex and navigating them requires precise attention to numerous details.
So it is with law. Some things can certainly be simplified. But the process of simplifying does not guarantee a simple result.
[1] and a heavily politicized one, at that. What many advocate when they say 'tort reform' isn't a shift toward simplicity and fairness but a shift past perverse incentives to litigate and to a perverse disincentive to even pursue litigation. That is: instead of protecting, say, doctors from frivolous claims, it makes it increasingly difficult to sue doctors with even valid claims. And that's no better a situation from the neutral point of view.
Blaming the doctor for Government mandated privacy policies due to HIPAA is not going to fix the problem. You have your wonderful legislators and the president to thank for this mess. If you have a problem with the law complain to your representatives to change the law. Every doctor office I have been to has shown me their privacy policy and none are 3000 pages long.
She clearly blamed me for wasting her time, since other patients obviously sign the form and get on with it. I actually think the problem here was that the form was too short, and so I felt that I could actually reasonably go through it, as opposed to a lengthy legalistic form that I couldn't possibly be held to in court if it turned out to be unfair.