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Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

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Re: Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

#151

Post by pjbrunet »

jmadsen wrote: post #14
pjbrunet wrote: post #12

I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand contract law, delivering something "close enough" is all that's required to satisfy a contract. Let's pretend everything's perfect except for one brown M&M. I'm sure a lawyer can explain it better, but if everything else is in order, I think Van Halen would have to perform their end of the deal.

You really, really, really missed the point of the M & M's thing.

That's why I said let's pretend. I'm not talking about the article, I'm talking about contract law. You "really" missed my point.

Before I took a business law class, I figured everything in the contract had to be satisfied exactly. But that's not always how the law works.

I'm talking about U.S. contracts. How would the brown M&M play out in Japan?

Re: Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

#152

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #118
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused why you think him saying "I only want Pepsi" is in any way clearer than my saying "I only want Pepsi". EDIT: Make it clearer by saying "Pepsi (absolutely not Coke or any other brand)" by all means but the person buying the drink wants to make sure you get what you want and then get on with their lives, they're really not interested in the why. It feels to me that Stallman wants to use this - as with most…

While semantically your suggestion may seem equivalent to his, there's a big difference between saying "My cola of choice is Pepsi" and "I equate Coca Cola with murder".

There is. My point is that so long as you're clear that substitutes are not available, the person buying the cola doesn't care.

Re: Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

#153

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

gambiting wrote: post #136
newaccountfool wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would work, can do 7 glasses a min. That means means 420 glasses an hour, which would be 840 glasses in the two hours. The question was about hundreds of guests and not thousands so your operating at the top range of that. Definitely possible!

Even if it was about thousands of guests, you can buy more than one machine. The only question is, how much is the client willing to pay?

Large commercial hotel. It's not impossible they don't have this sort of equipment already.

The problem with checks like this is that you need to be intimately aware of the capabilities of an organisation to know whether it's reasonable or not. As people who work with technology know, things that seem impossible to the uninitiated can be remarkably trivial. We should probably assume that others have similarly impressive capabilities in areas we don't understand.

The advantage of the Van Halen test over this is that it's simple for everyone. This seems needlessly "clever" and is as a result wrong...

Re: Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

#154

Post by orblivion »

cbr wrote: post #127
orblivion wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a friendly FYI: "electrocuted" implies a fatality. (I learned this similarly on an internet forum I posted the word to years ago.)

Really? https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aelectrocute injure or kill someone by electric shock

I doublechecked with a google search before posting, I missed that one. Thanks for the re-correction, though I wonder what Google's source is. MW for one does not cite injury: http://www.merriam-webster.com/concise/electrocution

Re: Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

#155

Post by watwut »

Monkeyget wrote: post #67

It reminds me of the orange juice test. You organize an annual convention for hundreds of people. You tell the banquet manager of the hotel you are considering that the morning breakfast must include a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice for everyone of the attendees. It must be squeezed no more than two hours before the breakfast. It is not possible to do so. Squeezing that much orange in much a short amoun…

It is perfectly possible. One hotel I have been in had machine that produced freshly squeezed orange juice. Breakfast were available for few hours and anyone could take as much as he wanted. It never run out.

Re: Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

#156

Post by u124556 »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #152
TallGuyShort wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While semantically your suggestion may seem equivalent to his, there's a big difference between saying "My cola of choice is Pepsi" and "I equate Coca Cola with murder".

There is. My point is that so long as you're clear that substitutes are not available, the person buying the cola doesn't care.

He wants them to care.

Re: Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

#157

Post by mehwoot »

bjourne wrote: post #100
mehwoot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume independence between the color of the marbles. This is highly unlikely. Promoters probably don't read the terms randomly and completely randomly fulfill them. Likely whether one of the marbles is black or white tells you a lot about whether the other ones are black or white, especially if it's a marble that you selected before hand in a way that will often change depending on how the marbles are colored.

But you are assuming there exists a positive correlation between absence of brown M&M:s and whether the other demands are also filled or not. I don't think you can show that since the M&M demand was singled out. Had they instead randomly inspected once piece of equipment and found an error that would have been totally different.

But you are assuming there exists a positive correlation between absence of brown M&M:s and whether the other demands are also filled or not. I don't think you can show that since the M&M demand was singled out.

Yes, that is the assumption. Many mathematical models make assumptions like that. It seems much more likely than the opposite assumption which is that they are independent.

Since you're attempting to model human behavior you are going to have to make assumptions that are ultimately incorrect. That's how humans process information. We join the dots and infer things in countless ways that mean we could be incorrect, but which none-the-less are better than wildly guessing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases). It would be probably better, if you are trying to model this, to think of it as a machine learning classifier. Brown M&Ms existing would be a prominent feature, not proof.

Re: Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

#158

Post by omilu »

olalonde wrote: post #83
netcan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fantastic read! If you have previously done streaming using some streaming service and you can't immediately name the format it uses, chances are it is unacceptable and I won't let you use it for my speech. ..This might seem unfair--if a ticket is lost, it could be my fault. But my income is not large, and I cannot afford to assume this risk myself if the event offers me no income. The frustration I feel wh…

Please don't be surprised if I pull out my computer at dinner and begin handling some of my email. I have difficulty hearing when there is noise; at dinner, when people are speaking to each other, I usually cannot hear their words. Rather than feel bored, or impose on everyone by asking them to speak slowly at me, I do some work. Wow, I would find that really weird. I hope everyone at his dinners get to read that not…

Please don't be astonished if I pick at my toe fungus and eat some of it.

Re: Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

#159

Post by bjourne »

mehwoot wrote: post #157
bjourne wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you are assuming there exists a positive correlation between absence of brown M&M:s and whether the other demands are also filled or not. I don't think you can show that since the M&M demand was singled out. Had they instead randomly inspected once piece of equipment and found an error that would have been totally different.

But you are assuming there exists a positive correlation between absence of brown M&M:s and whether the other demands are also filled or not. I don't think you can show that since the M&M demand was singled out. Yes, that is the assumption. Many mathematical models make assumptions like that. It seems much more likely than the opposite assumption which is that they are independent. Since you're attempting to model hu…

First of, now we know from another commentor that that the M&M-test didn't work at all since catering was handled by a completely different crew than those setting up the stage equipment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7754636).

Second, let's imagine that M&M:s and safety is handled by the same people. Then brown M&M:s could easily be negatively correlated with equipment errors because a competent technician would spend more time double-checking equipment than full-filling bullshit demands.

Re: Why Van Halen's tour contract had a "no brown M&M's" clause

#160

Post by cbr »

syncsynchalt wrote: post #135
cbr wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aelectrocute injure or kill someone by electric shock

It's a portmanteau of electric + execution. It's been misused so often that the non-fatal meaning is becoming a separate line item in the definition, but the parent comment is correct.

By that argument "electrocution" for "accidental death by electric shock" is also misuse, as the initial definition was "execution via electricity".
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