If Microsoft’s EULA Applied To Books

by Richard Dooling on December 10, 2008

RAPTURE FOR THE GEEKS: (RETAIL)
END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT (EULA)

Paperback Release: November 24th, 2009.

1. GRANT OF LICENSE. Richard Dooling grants you the following rights provided that you comply with all terms and conditions of this EULA:

2. INSTALLATIONS AND USE. You may install, use, access, display and read ONE COPY OF THIS BOOK on a SINGLE PERSON, such as an adult, man, woman, teenager, or other human person. This book may NOT be read by more than one person.

3. MANDATORY ACTIVATION. The license rights granted under this EULA are limited to the first thirty (30) minutes after you install the book by opening it, unless you supply information required to activate your licensed copy of the book in the manner described on this page. You may also need to reactivate the book if you modify yourself or alter your personality. For instance if you grow older and more mature, develop a mental illness, change your diet, or receive any artificial limbs or joints, pacemakers, implants, or organ transplants, then you may need to reactivate your license before you will be allowed to reaccess the book.

4. UNLICENSED USE. This book contains technological measures designed to prevent unlicensed use of the book. For instance, an embedded microchip allows the publisher to scan your retinas from time to time and make sure that it’s really YOU and ONLY YOU reading this book and not some random book pirate. Rest assured that Richard Dooling will not collect any personally identifiable information from you during this process, just blood, tissue, and bone marrow samples, which may be taken (forcefully if necessary) to determine DNA. If you are not using a licensed copy of the book, you are not allowed to read the book or read subsequent updates to the book.

5. BOOK TRANSFER. You may make a one-time permanent transfer of the book to another end-user. But after the transfer you must completely remove all knowledge about the book from the brain of the former person who read the book. If the book was so memorable that knowledge cannot be completely removed from the former person, then execute the former person using the most humane measures listed in Appendix A and mail the enclosed proof-of-execution and a notarized certificate of death (with a raised seal) to Richard Dooling at the address below.

6. TERMINATION. Without prejudice to any other rights, Richard Dooling may terminate this EULA if you fail to comply with the terms and conditions of this EULA. In such event, you must destroy all copies of the book and all of its component parts, destroy any notes you made about the book, and forget any parts of the book that you may be tempted to remember. If you find the book simply unforgettable then decapitate yourself and mail your head to Richard Dooling for a $50.00 rebate. Be sure to enclose your original sales receipt (no copies!), the bar code from the book jacket, and the enclosed rebate form, which you should take care to complete before detaching and mailing your head.

7. PROTECT YOURSELF! Read only genuine books purchased from an authorized reseller. Do not download pirated books! Anytime you read counterfeit books, you are at serious risk. In a recent study, an organization hired by Richard Dooling found that 25% of the websites offering pirated copies of books also attempted to install spyware and trojan horse programs that can compromise your operating system and make it impossible for you to properly view pornography on your computer.

Make sure your copy of Rapture For The Geeks is GENUINE! Ensure that you have easy access to book updates, sequels, second and third editions, book downloads, technical support, and special offers. Validate your copy of Rapture For The Geeks NOW with Richard Dooling’s Genuine Advantage!

Okay, now if you are sure that you have a GENUINE copy of Rapture For The Geeks, it’s probably safe to proceed.

Excerpted from Rapture For The Geeks: When AI Outsmarts IQ, by Richard Dooling.

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Rapture For The Geeks

by Richard Dooling on August 26, 2008

Survival Of The Smartest: Will Geeks Inherit The Earth?

Purchase From Amazon.

Media Coverage of Rapture For The Geeks:

Your User Profile

(Excerpted from Rapture For The Geeks, by Richard Dooling.)

User, noun. The word computer professionals use when they mean “idiot.” –Dave Barry

There are only two industries that refer to their customers as “users.” –Edward Tufte

It’s time to launch the web browser of your imagination and surf the undiscovered future of technology, but first a few questions to assist you in formulating your user profile.

Are you addicted to your computer? To the Internet? To e-mail? To your Treo, iPhone, or CrackBerry? To computer gaming? Or maybe to computer programming? Perhaps you’re not addicted (and you don’t overeat or drink too much or take drugs), maybe you just like to configure and personalize your favorite software, until it does just what you want it to do, just the way you want it done. Do you tweak the options and widgets and custom codes on your Blogspot or your WordPress weblog for hours on end, until your little corner of the Internet is “clean” and well-designed? Have you logged onto the MySpace at 2 A.M. asking, “Help! I can’t get my marquee scroll generator to work! How can I make my table backgrounds transparent, the border invisible, my photos appear to hover, and my hyperlinks underlined and 12-point Garamond?” Are you the type who customizes menus, macros, and toolbars for hours at a time, sometimes for more hours than you’ll ever spend actually doing the task you had in mind when you started the program?

Here’s the big question: Do you ever feel that you once used computers and computer programs as tools to get a specific job done, but lately you wonder if Dave Barry was onto something when he wrote: “I am not the only person who uses his computer mainly for the purpose of diddling with his computer.”
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Mothers Against World Of Warcraft

by Richard Dooling on August 25, 2008

Mothers Against World of Warcraft
graphics by kevin ryan (kryan at dday dot com)

Mothers Against World of Warcraft

(Excerpted from Rapture For The Geeks, by Richard Dooling.)

Let’s say that the Singularity is really coming, and let’s say it’s powered by Moore’s Law and Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns. Call the Technological Singularity a cardinal virtue or a fatal flaw: Our reach will always exceed our grasp, and we’ll keep inventing and experimenting, until we invent our way into doom and extinction, or paradise, whichever comes first. Suppose we really are a race of technology addicts on autopilot. Assume the Singularity has all of the going for it. Suppose it’s truly an irresistible force. Are there any immovable objects in its path? Answer: What happens if Moms don’t like the Singularity?

Your lovely wife (may I pretend her name is Wilma?) is your soul mate, mother of your children, keeper of the eternal family flame, sun at the center of the domestic solar system. God couldn’t be everywhere, so He made her. It is her name on the lips and in the hearts of your children. She is the holiest creature in God’s creation. She is the one who can take the place of all others, but whose place no one else can take. “All love begins and ends here,” said Thomas Jefferson, “the keystone in the arch of matrimonial happiness.”

Wilma has but a single flaw: She has no feeling for the Singularity, nor does she care to hear a single Singularitarian word about it. Technology for Wilma means e-mail two or three times a week, exchanging photos of family and friends, a little online shopping, and a little online banking. She has no taste for machine building, conquering World of Warcraft empires, or power programming.

You and Wilma have a 13-year-old son, Will, who deeply resents his mother’s failure to appreciate his vocation in life. To Wilma, son Will is an above average student at Middlebury Middle School, associate editor of the Middlebury Mail student newspaper and member of the chess club (because Wilma forced him to select at least two extracurricular activities other than playing Magic: The Gathering after school). Wilma does not want to hear about her son’s higher calling and how he leads a double life: At the tender age of 13, Will is also a Level 60 Shaman in a World of Warcraft guild named “The League of Pain.”

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Christian Slater Is Jimmy Dolan

by Richard Dooling on August 25, 2008

Dolan's Cadillac Cast

Principal photography commenced on Dolan’s Cadillac in Regina, Saskatchewan on May 26th and finished in Las Vegas in mid-July. Shooting took place in Regina and Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and Las Vegas, Nevada.

Currently, Dolan’s is in post-production in Regina, Saskatchewan and Toronto. Nice summary here.

Anyone familiar with the Stephen King novella, Dolan’s Cadillac (from Mr King’s Nightmares And Dreamscapes collection), knows that the story belongs on the silver screen.

We are lucky to have Christian Slater, Wes Bentley, and Emmanuelle Vaugier playing the major roles. Jeff Beesley is a hot new Canadian director, working with Gerald Packer as director of photography. Screenplay by Richard Dooling, adapting Stephen King’s story.

Produced by Film Bridge International and Mind’s Eye Entertainment.

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Connected and Hermetically Sealed

by Richard Dooling on August 24, 2008

Connected and Hermetically SealedWriting in his Everybody’s Business column for the New York Times, Ben Stein wonders whether “connectedness” is even worse than just overrated:

WHAT would we do if cellphones and P.D.A.’s disappeared? We would be forced to think again. We would have to confront reality. My own life is spent mostly with men and women of business. I have been at this for a long time now, and what I have seen of the loss of solitude and dignity is terrifying among those who travel and work, or even who stay still and work. They are slaves to connectedness. Their work has become their indentured servitude. Their children and families are bound to the same devices, too . . . [more]

More of Ben Stein’s Everybody’s Business columns.

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