Ask Slashdot: How Do You "Unwrap" e-Gifts? 86
theodp writes "With all of the content that can be delivered electronically — e-books, music, apps, movies, e-gift cards, tickets — the percentage of Christmas gift giving that's digital is growing each year. However, the e-gift unwrapping user experience on Christmas morning leaves much to be desired. In addition to providing old-school mail delivery of gift cards, Amazon offers a variety of other options, including e-mailing a gift card on a specific day with or without a suggested gift, posting it on someone's Facebook Wall, or allowing you to print one for personal delivery. Another suggestion — using USB drives — harkens back to the days of burning CDs with custom playlists for last-minute gifts, but you'll be thwarted by DRM issues for lots of content. So, until Facebook introduces The Tree to save our e-gifts under until they're 'unwrapped' on Christmas morning with the other physical gifts, how do you plan on handling e-gift giving and getting?"
Put it in a card and envelope. (Score:2, Informative)
Your victim will never suspect that the envelope does not contain cold hard cash.
One answer (Score:3, Informative)
E-gifts (Score:5, Insightful)
, how do you plan on handling e-gift giving and getting?"
I pirate. Most of what's "e-gifted" is just supporting the entertainment industry; and I'm loathe to support them until they clean up their act with all the DRM crap, manipulating the market prices, and throwing people in jail for trivial crap, as well as co-opting our entire legal system and feeling entitled to profits. So... I just give people cash or socks. Because holy shit, adults love socks. And cash. Everyone does, actually.
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Merry Christmas,
The Grammar Grinch
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And, you'd better watch out, you better not pout, 'cause Grammar Nazi will soon point YOU out!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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It is trivially easy to call a plumber and then refuse to pay him for his time and labor. His business model requires laws prohibiting people from that behavior. I guess his business model is shit.
Or maybe we have laws in place to ensure that people are justly rewarded for their time and labor. I don't know why you think content creation should have less protection under the law than other industries.
You could argue (and I would agree) that the rewards are often not "just" and often not going to the creator
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As time goes by I'm increasingly nauseated by the "I pirate because... well... fuck you your business model sucks". It's just a really lame excuse to download things for free under the guise of slacktivism. It was pretty lame when we were younger and it was our excuse, and it's even worse now.
Buy a thing or don't. But don't bullshit us... we've been around for a while.
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I'm increasingly nauseated by the people who can't seem to understand that in certain circumstances piracy is a victimless crime and then trying to force their morality on others.
If an individual would under no circumstances purchase the product in question, and the rights holder loses no resources in their making a digital copy, where exactly is the damage to anyone occurring here?
There is no mythical lost sale, there is no loss of bits and bytes. Some hurt feelings, but their attempts to manhandle various
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Why not? That is how the entertainment industry presents theirs.
1 download = 1 lost sale as far as they're concerned, despite the fact that they cannot prove that. They couldn't even prove that 1 million downloads = 1 lost sale.
My proof is in the absence of proof from the other side. I made no blanket statement that every single incident of piracy was victimless.
I said:
Those being the case where the person never would have bought the item in the first p
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There isn't though. The only value is in that, to them, it's free. Any other price and they wouldn't download it.
For them the product is worth no monetary compensation. if they can't
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Nauseated? Glad to hear it. Hey - did you ever notice that the average working stiff has to get up, go to work every morning, bust his ass for hours, then on payday, he gets a little less than he really needs to make ends meet?
Content creators. You make something once, and you expect to be paid for it for the rest of your lives? You expect that your children, your grand children, even your great grand children should get royalties derived from your genius?
You sniveling twats - go get a real job. And, s
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Actually, quality artistic renderings are in short supply. The MPAA certainly isn't supplying any. The RIAA affiliates supply very little. Quality art comes from independents and little-know or unknown artists. These are people who tend to agree with my feelings. They don't expect to live fat off the hog for the rest of their lives, after doing a few dozen performances. They stay hungry, just like John and Jane Doe, so they keep working to improve.
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So it is primarily those who agree with you who produce quality art. Huh.
I'm a little-known artist. People who know love my work. I'm all for copyright. Without it, why am I bothering? Yeah, I would probably do this for free, but the number of people who I would allow to see it I could count on one hand. It's only because I expect I can do this for a living that I publish. Take that away and fuck it. I don't want to create something once and rest on my laurels for the rest of my life. I see that (or similar
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It was an ugly baby anyway. http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/The_cde6eb_2496453.jpeg [fjcdn.com] That bathtub should have been dumped long ago.
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Oh? Intresting point (Score:2)
However, you pretty much condemned ALL business plans from the sex industry, to renting, to selling.
Laws HAVE been introduced that gave us the right to our own bodies and the right to own land and property. Without such laws, selling and renting are pointless as the "customer" can just take what he wants.
Ah, you mean only those laws YOU are against are shit, not the laws that protect YOU! Gotcha!
All laws are artificial constructs created by man to protect something.
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Despite what you think, the mere fact that you created something does NOT mean that you are "entitled" to profits.
I hope this "You" does not refer to me. I'm a pirate; I'm the last person you'd expect to give a damn about profit.
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So... why pirate? Why not ignore it and enjoy something else?
You do realize that you're just encouraging the problem, right? Because they create something you want, and instead of giving the
uh, what was that line again? (Score:2)
"...you'll be thwarted by DRM issues for lots of content."
this IS slashdot, right? and you really typed that???
Handle as spam (Score:1)
Any incoming e-anything goes to the spam bin. If it has any executable content, the odds are it's hostile code.
Bah! Humbug!
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If sociology is any indicator... (Score:3)
Sociology usually isn't any indicator to anything, but in this case it has interesting things to say: Mauss and follow-ups suggest that the exchange and the unwrapping of the gift is just as important, as a social event, if not more, than the gift itself.
Digital subscription (Score:2)
Got an email notification that I received a gift digital subscription to a magazine the other day. I'm waiting until Christmas day to redeem it so it feels more Christmassy.
It's a new technology (Score:1)
Personally, I prefer to relocate the element of surprise such that it falls after the delivery of gift.
The wife looks briefly away from the screen to profusely thank me for the e-gift voucher. A couple of clicks, and... WHAM! Goatse! [goatse.info]
Received? (Score:2)
Related question: If you have something like an Amazon e-gift card emailed to someone, how do you know it was received and not simply eaten by a spam filter?
Re:Received? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ask them.
That's a little hard to do without rubbing in their faces the fact that they (perhaps) weren't grateful enough to thank you for the gift.
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Related question: If you have something like an Amazon e-gift card emailed to someone, how do you know it was received and not simply eaten by a spam filter?
Specific to an Amazon e-gift card. Amazon sends you an e-mail when the recipient redeems the card.
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I have never received anything from Amazon about an e-gift card being redeemed, and I've been giving them out to contractors that work for me for years.
My favorite! (Score:2)
Very carefully. .. it always got laughs and mean looks)
(A good joke in proof based math classes, "how do we prove this theorem, class?"
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Not always.
There are many people that no longer want physical 'media' items such as books and CDs/DVDs but still like to get a 'book' as a gift.
But yes, for 'children' getting a small 'related' gift then shoving in a card isn't a bad idea. For adults, its a waste of money.
print and download (Score:3, Informative)
bought some games for the kids on steam. printing a letter from santa for them and downloading the stuff when they are sleeping. then we all pretend the elves did it. of course if steam crashes tonight i will still pretend the elves did it but left the download instructions.
Obviously... (Score:2)
e-gifs (Score:2)
No thanks, i want to actual hold the stuff in my grubby little hands.
The closest id get to an e-gift is a visa type gift card ( wont get a store card, they are too restrictive ). But cash is still better, and there is no fee.
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That's the right answer.
I want gifts to be something that I care about, given to someone I care about.
The kind of equivalency-gifting that goes on with most people here in the US is anathema to me and my family and friends. We give personal gifts to the people who are closest to us, and we secret-santa everyone else. Gift cards and e-cards are considered a failure of the imagination. And if someone needs money, we don't make them wait
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Actually...
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I maintain an Amazon wishlist for things I would like as gifts...and I don't put any digital items on it. I enjoy getting a physical item; there's just something more meaningful about receiving an actual book than an incomprehensible string of 25 alphanumeric characters.
Encryption (Score:2)
Wrapping (Score:5, Funny)
gift.zip.ace.7z.tar.bz2.iso.apk.pea.dmg.cab.r0002
gift.zip.ace.7z.tar.bz2.iso.apk.pea.dmg.cab.r0003
gift.zip.ace.7z.tar.bz2.iso.apk.pea.dmg.cab.r0004
gift.zip.ace.7z.tar.bz2.iso.apk.pea.dmg.cab.r8999
gift.zip.ace.7z.tar.bz2.iso.apk.pea.dmg.cab.r9000
gift.zip.ace.7z.tar.bz2.iso.apk.pea.dmg.cab.r9001
Have fun! Hope you enjoy it!
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That was funny, but you completely missed out on adding some entirely antiquated formats such as:
LHA, ARC, PAK, SIT, LZW...
Urk. Yes, SIT too was a huge problem for a long time on Macs, let alone the poor PC users who sometimes needed to receive that format... receiving large compressed files from PC users was a pain, but even "native" mac formats was excruciating. Archives also got transmitted in HQX and SEA containers that small and large programmers alike loved. One of the things IE4+ for the Mac did nicely was offering some transparent, Mac-only expansion support of those two. It would have been nice if it could have handled
wrap a printout in a gag box (Score:3)
Find a spare box (limited only by the available amount of wrapping paper, big boxes with obsurd labels ("beauty care" for a dude, "Windows 8" for a Linux advocate, or perhaps "Extreme Chores [thinkgeek.com]"). Print out your gift or some ad for your gift, maybe use a card or something, put it in the box. Extra points for lots of packing ~peanuts. Wrap box, label, etc.
I once did this. I asked the clerk at Best Buy if I could have one of the empty Windows Vista display boxes. I got it. Real gift went inside. The receipient knew how adamantly against Vista I was, so it definitely turned her head.
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isn't it obvious... (Score:2)
you use ehands and epull the epaper epart.
Special circumstances only (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me old school, but the whole point of Christmas is to be together with loved ones. The idea that everyone is sitting around the tree in their pajamas, and suddenly whip out their iPhones 'n whatnot to check their email to see what presents they got, just seems.... tacky.
Unless the product in question could *only* be delivered via email, or if you were sending a gift to someone very far away and it's just more realistic to do it that way, then virtual presents just feels wrong. If you don't want to give someone a physical for some reason, then make a donation to a charity in their name or something.
Humans are naturally physical and a huge amount of our interaction with the world revolves around touch. It's already been well established, for example, that people value software far less when it's not delivered in a box than when it is. Not only will people who recieve a virtual gift be virtually guaranteed of cherishing it less, but people will be thinking (subconsciously or consciously) that the giver was somehow cheap, in some vague unidentifiable way.
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I'll tell you how *I* unwrap an "e-gift"...
Usually it requires a $25 or $50 credit card payment....
And I get to keep the video...
Rip! Tear! Shred! (Score:2)
Laziness pays off now (Score:2)
This year I went online, found things the people who live in other states will probably like, and put their name in the shipping information.
One has worked out quite well, except that she didn't exactly know it was from me. Email fixed that.
Still waiting to see if the others got their parcels..
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Don't look an e-Gift horse in the mouth... (Score:2)
Or something like that. Although online, it's probably more like "don't look a goatse in the..."
Well, you get the picture.
Late? (Score:2)
Give a real gift (Score:2)