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

http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp

by magsafe • 12 years ago

246 158 12 years ago

Nanzikambe2• 12 years ago

A contract "poison pill" or litmus test. Pretty ingenious, is that sort of thing common practice in contracts?

0x0539• 12 years ago

Yes its quite common now. Working in my high schools theater which was the largest in the town we'd get these types of requests so I imagine in they would be even more common for something that mattered

Nanzikambe2• 12 years ago

Care to give an example of the sort of thing you encountered? Purely to satisfy a curious mind :)

Cthulhu_2• 12 years ago

Maybe something like this should appear in the legal stuff everyone always just clicks I agree -> next on. Instead of an 'I agree', you are to send a picture of a jar of M&M's with a certain color missing. Cleverly hidden somewhere deep in legalese.

peteretep• 12 years ago

I heard a rumour of technical specification including some of the jokier RFCs to check that people were really reading them...

http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt

tragic• 12 years ago

Don't laugh too quickly. Given a slow enough connection and a big enough file, the pigeon (with flash drive strapped to leg) will win.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers#Other_av...

rmc2• 12 years ago

That was published on 1st of April. It's an april fool's joke. There are loads of April Fool's RFCs. It's not a litmus test for reading, it's a community having fun.

BTW: A group tried the IP over Avian Carrier: http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/ The ping times were unimpressive.

herghost2• 12 years ago

That's something that I've done with data processing and security contracts for the last 4 or 5 years. It's an addendum to the main commercial contract and is deliberately long. Almost all of it is non-exceptional "just do it right" kind of stuff, but there are a handful of clauses I've put in that absolutely no company could reasonably agree to. If they agree to it without challenging those clauses, I then know that I am going to need to grill them on the detail of everything that they do. It's proved very effective for me.

edit: I actually refer to them as my "Brown M&M Clauses" too!

btown• 12 years ago

What are some examples of these clauses, if you don't mind sharing them? Presumably you don't actually ask for brown M&Ms, but rather for something technical and infeasible.

alain94040• 12 years ago

Same thing with software outsourcing contracts to China (for instance). On purpose, send the half-finished specs. You know there are huge gaps in the specs, they can't be implemented without asking clarifying questions. What does the outsourcing vendor say? We read the specs, we understand them very well, no problem, we'll do it. Fire vendor.

borplk• 12 years ago

If you install the software I distribute and "agree" to the terms of conditions I own your life.

JonnieCache2• 12 years ago

This seems like a good opportunity to post RMS' rider again:

https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developer...

Fabulous stuff. I wonder how often he has/gets to hang out with random parrots since this document became widely known. In my mind he is surrounded constantly by sandal-wearing acolytes wielding exotic birds of every variety.

rimantas• 12 years ago

This was interesting but disturbing nonetheless…

netcan4• 12 years ago

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 when I suffer such a loss is excruciating. It is better for me to decline to travel to a certain place than to take such a risk.

..DON'T make a hotel reservation until we have fully explored other options. If there is anyone who wants to offer a spare couch, I would much rather stay there than in a hotel (provided I have a door I can close, in order to have some privacy)... ... If you have found a person for me to stay with, please forward this section and the two following sections to that person.

..find out what temperature it can actually lower a room to, during the relevant dates ..I like cats if they are friendly. ..Dogs that bark angrily and/or jump up on me frighten me .. .. find a host for me that has a friendly parrot.. ..DON'T buy a parrot figuring that it will be a fun surprise for me. To acquire a parrot is a major decision: it is likely to outlive you. If you don't know how to treat the parrot, it could be emotionally scarred and spend many decades feeling..

I do NOT use browsers, I use the SSH protocol.. .. If a hotel says "We have internet access.. .. What parameters does the user need to specify in order to talk with it?… … Don't rely on information from such a person--talk to someone who knows! .. their phone switchboard may not recognize the tones produced by modems..

When you need to tell me about a problem in a plan, please do not start with a long apology. That is unbearably boring. …If I am typing on my computer and it is time to do something else, please tell me. Don't wait for me to "finish working" first, because you would wait forever. I have to squeeze in answering mail at every possible opportunity, which includes whenever I have to wait. I wait by working. If instead of telling me there is no more need for me to wait, you wait for me to stop waiting for you, we will both wait forever -- or until I figure out what's happening. … Please don't try to pressure me to "relax" instead, and fall behind on my work

I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about ..what I will do breakfast. ..Please just do not bring it up .. If there is a chance to see folk dancing… … If you want to give me data about airplane tickets, please send that info as plain ASCII text

What a beautiful crazy person RMS is.

arrrg4• 12 years ago

You know, I just read this again. I first read it in a ridiculing context (“Parrots? Really?”) and didn’t think much to put it out of that context, but looking at it now I have to say my view on it has changed.

I think it’s pretty alright, actually.

Some of his demands have to do with his strong ethical views on software, and while I don’t agree completely with him on this, I certainly can respect him for being uncompromising on that.

He frequently emphasises the need to communicate. Decisions that affect both him and the host have to be decided together. He also shows quite some willingness to find alternate solutions if his preferred solution is somehow not possible, but emphasises the need to communicate about those changes.

All the rest may be slightly quirky, but it’s all not especially hard to do with some care and attention. Hey, he doesn’t even want super-accomodating hospitality.

(Also, hotel internet is the worst. Good on him for insisting that be properly checked. He needs it to work, after all.)

netcan4• 12 years ago

I just realized what this is. He wrote a manual for operating himself.

yitchelle• 12 years ago

It would be interesting to read the stories or incidents that caused all these clauses to be added. Imagine the parrot clause, what tripped this off to be added?

hedwall2• 12 years ago

I've said it before and will say it again, this is not a crazy rider. I've been organizing fairly large bands and their riders have been similar in "craziness" if you will.

gonzo• 12 years ago

Do not, under any circumstance, allow rms to stay at the home of a friend, or anyone you respect or admire.

"I burned the sheets." is the result in two instances with which I am familiar.

ProblemFactory• 12 years ago

These don't seem crazy at all in the context of someone with particular tastes arranging their life in their own home.

RMS has been travelling and giving talks for decades, and is most likely thoroughly fed up with it. If he's making the effort to travel to give an unpaid talk, he wants the organisers to make sure the experience is not much more frustrating than just staying at home.

olalonde• 12 years ago

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 notice beforehand.

davedx• 12 years ago

"A supply of tea with milk and sugar would be nice. If it is tea I really like, I like it without milk and sugar. With milk and sugar, any kind of tea is fine. I always bring tea bags with me, so if we use my tea bags, I will certainly like that tea without milk or sugar.

If I am quite sleepy, I would like two cans or small bottles of non-diet Pepsi. (I dislike the taste of coke, and of all diet soda; also, there is an international boycott of the Coca Cola company for killing union organizers in Colombia and Guatemala; see killercoke.org.) However, if I am not very sleepy, I won't want Pepsi, because it is better if I don't drink so much sugar."

Eccentric.

arrrg4• 12 years ago

Tea and Pepsi is eccentric?

mcv3• 12 years ago

So you have to buy him pepsi but might be stuck with some undrunk pepsi afterward. Also, does he really want cans or small bottles over the more economical large bottle and a glass?

(Yes, I'm currently imagining wat it'd be like to have him over. I think we'd get along fine on the tea thing, but I hate unnecessary waste.)

Tyrannosaurs7• 12 years ago

This isn't eccentric, it's poor communications though.

It could basically be summarised as:

"Please provide tea making facilities: tea bags, milk, sugar and hot water. If possible a couple of cans of Pepsi (not diet or other brands please) would be appreciated."

Really, the person organising the speech doesn't really care how someone takes their tea or why they don't like Pepsi or what the conditions (which are totally out of their hands) are which will mean you do or don't choose to drink one drink over another. Given that he says he carries his own tea bags (and if he's using them he wouldn't want milk or sugar) the request could be: "Hot water and a cup for making tea - don't worry about providing tea bags, milk or sugar."

It's all quite sweet but really, the excess guff and explanations make it more likely someone will miss something.

qq66• 12 years ago

Well, you know that the admonition about buying a parrot is in there because it happened at least once. Nobody thinks up that case in advance.

Overall the rider seems pretty reasonable for someone who travels so much and asks so little for doing so.

mystral2• 12 years ago

Either that or he had just recently learnt about parrots and felt strongly enough to put it in.

Cyph0n• 12 years ago

Wow. He goes into so much detail - nothing is left to chance. I wish I was as good at him at covering every possible scenario.

TazeTSchnitzel• 12 years ago

I suspect it comes from experience. He wouldn't have mentioned many of these things had he not had trouble with them, I bet.

poolpool• 12 years ago

The RMS rider is full of lecturing and childish demands. I'm amazed people are applauding him for it.

TallGuyShort2• 12 years ago

I think it's more brutal honesty, than anything. As an engineer and a disliker-of-politicians, I appreciate it, even though I agree it can easily be seen as egotistical or eccentric. When I have hosted guests, I have really wished I had such a clear "opeating manual" (as others in this thread have called it) for them, so I know how I can make them feel comfortable and make their trip most effective.

danielweber2• 12 years ago

I'm hardly a fan of RMS, but if you want him to speak, it's on you to meet these rules. It's what I call "autistic-friendly": print up this list, check off each and every item, and you don't have to worry about anything else.

He has codified his behavior expectations. If someone didn't know RMS was particular, they weren't paying attention.

dspillett• 12 years ago

The RMS rider is full of lecturing and childish demands.

They are no more demands than a request for him to speak somewhere is a demand.

Someone asks if he is willing to travel and speak to their audience, he says "yes though only if these conditions are met", and the someone then has a free choice of whether to continue or not.

A childish demand would be "we can't agree to X, but we expect you to come and talk anyway".

gadders• 12 years ago

That rider is like aspergers distilled.

thearn4• 12 years ago

Oh my.. I need need a cup of coffee to get all the way through this one

danielweber2• 12 years ago

He is not willing to use the bus or the train if it requires using his real name. But he seems very willing to fly. What's the disconnect there?

dllthomas• 12 years ago

The gist, as best I recall, is that there's really no alternative to air travel. Even with ideological stances, there's a cost vs. benefit question.

rhizome2• 12 years ago

Contrary to Snopes' last-updated, this is at least 10 years old.

Summary/spoiler: It was to ensure the contract was read thoroughly.

Yuioup• 12 years ago

The website is running on ASP Classic (.asp)

stan_rogers• 12 years ago

The .asp extension actually tells you nothing other than that the .asp extension was used. On the balance of probabilities, it's likely the case that the site runs on ASP classic on a Windows server, but it could as easily have been moved to, say, the LAMP stack configured (using httpd.conf or .htaccess) to invoke PHP when files bearing the .asp extension are requested. It's not a common thing to do, but it can be the easiest way to solve the link rot problem.

gscott• 12 years ago

and should be in a list of articles submitted most often

saurik• 12 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2839581

andreif• 12 years ago

inception :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=743860

pjbrunet2• 12 years ago

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.

Cthulhu_2• 12 years ago

Yeah, I severely doubt Van Halen were such primadonnas, and that clause was just a sanity check. I'm somehow sure more modern pop artists took cases like this as an excuse to make exorbitant demands and throw a fit if they weren't met though.

jmadsen2• 12 years ago

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

pjbrunet2• 12 years ago

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?

icegreentea• 12 years ago

In general, you go with 'what would a reasonable person say'. Now, for a rock concert, the color a backstage M&Ms in isolation is probably not enough to convince a judge that it was a good reason to break the contract.

But the M&Ms aren't used in isolation. They're used as a flag, where their presence suggests that the venue did not follow through on their technical demands. Once you know that, then you just look for problems (probably the demands immediately around the M&M line first). Once you found an actual problem, well then, there you go.

jmadsen2• 12 years ago

I think it's more likely that they used it as a flag to go double-check the safety measures.

They made huge money from the concerts, nevermind the fans. They weren't looking for out-clauses

exDM69• 12 years ago

I recall reading that the "no brown M&M's" clause was added after a near-fatal accident on stage where a member of the Van Halen band got electrocuted because of bad wiring on the stage.

orblivion2• 12 years ago

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

logfromblammo• 12 years ago

Lesser severity of unintentional contact with a live conductor could be described as "shocked" (or "electroshocked" if there is potential ambiguity with the emotional state) or "electrotetanized", with the latter reserved for currents strong enough to cause complete muscle seizure (as occurs with a stun gun, for instance).

"Electrocution" is a portmanteau of "electrical execution", which not only implies that the person died, but that it was intentional and sanctioned. Lack of a better word has expanded usage to any death caused by electrical current.

cbr2• 12 years ago

Really? https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aelectrocute

    injure or kill someone by electric shock

spingsprong2• 12 years ago

An episode of the TRC podcast covered this, and came to a different conclusion than snopes.

http://www.trcpodcast.com/trc-219-can-men-and-women-be-frien...

StavrosK• 12 years ago

What was the conclusion, for those of us who can't listen?

spingsprong2• 12 years ago

Technical requests are usually handled by different people than catering and hospitality requests.

The people in charge catering and hospitality would not be expected to read the technical requests to do with electronic and sound systems, and vice versa.

The guy at the TRC podcast actually searched out their contracts, and the brown M&M clause isn't in the middle of technical requirements, but is in the hospitality section among requests of meals, beverages and dressing room requirements, and there's no mention that the concert would be cancelled if brown M&Ms were found.

So seems unlikely to be true, and just be the guy from Van Halen telling a fun story.

Roonerelli• 12 years ago

I’ve heard similar stories regarding developers and IT Services

Where the devs weren’t allowed access to the Production environment so would have to leave written instructions on how to deploy the software they’ve written. And convinced that IT Services weren’t reading their instructions they would write something really offensive in there and see if they complained

Possibly just a myth, but amusing all the same

lmm• 12 years ago

Link for the interested: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Classic-WTF-Symbolic-Install...

brc2• 12 years ago

I remember having to do this. And if you left out one single instruction, the whole thing had to be done again from scratch. The power-trippers would say 'it doesn't say here to click on the 'finish' button. You must re-do the entire document and go through QA again.

Ugh. Thankfully we live in a world where multiple deployments per day is considered OK.

moron4hire• 12 years ago

well, I've done such a thing, so not a myth.

bjourne3• 12 years ago

Maybe a mathematician can explain whether this "trick" works or not? Intuitively, I can't see that knowing whether the M&M demand was filled makes it more probable that the other demands are filled.

Say you have a pile with five black or white marbles. You want them all to be black. So you check that the first marble in the pile is black (ie no brown m&m:s). Is it now more probable that the other four marbles also are black?

Because you are just checking one specific marble instead of sampling a number of randomly chosen marbles (which of course would increase the probability), I don't see how it can work.

collint• 12 years ago

Because it's not like marbles. It's not a math thing.

It's more like a canary in the coal mine. If the canary dies, you should check on the air quality. If they went through the trouble of removing the brown m&ms you have a fairly strong indicator they actually read the document in the first place. And a strong indicator they have a good attention to detail.

masklinn• 12 years ago

Exactly, a concept also known as a "litmus test", if you pass the test you may still fail the actual, but if you fail the litmus test there's more or less no way you'll pass.

bcohen5055• 12 years ago

I'm all about data being presented with confidence bounds but if even 1 canary is dead I'm getting the hell out of there!

mehwoot2• 12 years ago

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.

bjourne3• 12 years ago

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.

lifeisstillgood• 12 years ago

Its not that they expect to see a bowl of brown M+Ms - its that they expect to see someone come back to them during negotiations with - "M+M's - seriously?"

If no-one comes back they know they need to give that venue more attention.

obsurveyor• 12 years ago

Yeah, the quote on that page mentions an even better litmus test for this: "Provide us with 15A outlets that give 19A of electricity." This should be an immediate red flag for any facilities manager reviewing the contract before it's signed.

gnyman• 12 years ago

There are quite a few applications that do something similar, they leave a "disabled=1" or similar in the config to make sure people look at the config before trying to run the software. I remember the eggdrop IRC bot doing it (http://cvs.eggheads.org/viewvc/eggdrop1.6/eggdrop.conf?view=... , look for the lines starting with die) this and I'm sure there are more.

edwintorok• 12 years ago

The ClamAV daemon also ship with a config file containing a line 'Example'. As long as the line is there it'll refuse to start.

Monkeyget• 12 years ago

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 amount of time would be prohibitively expensive.

If the manager says yes he is either lying or incompetent and you'd better find someone else who will tell you it's not possible.

majc2• 12 years ago

I first heard this in "The secrets of consulting" by Gerald Weinberg. The fuller version is that the manger is only allowed to say 'yes' if they tell you there is a cost associated with it (i.e. it isn't free).

raverbashing• 12 years ago

http://www.amazon.com/Commercial-Orange-Squeezer-Machine-rep...

ryanburk• 12 years ago

if you go with an amazon solution, it should absolutely be mechanical turk!

https://aws.amazon.com/mturk/

newaccountfool• 12 years ago

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!

delinka• 12 years ago

It is possible to do. He just needs to hire enough people. And presumably he should pass along the cost.

watwut• 12 years ago

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.

bane• 12 years ago

One of the interesting things about tech work is that it's almost all "brown M&Ms". It's amazing how important attention to detail is in this field and how quickly something will simply not work if the details aren't sweated.

We see it time and again when things go into production where the "brown M&Ms" haven't been looked into and we end up with things like enterprise class websites that cost millions of dollars to produce crumbling under the load of a dozen simultaneous users.

HERRbPUNKT• 12 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwHO2HnwfnA

Interview with Eddy Van Halen, telling the story first hand. :)

breakall• 12 years ago

Cheers for the link! (But that is Diamond Dave telling the story!)

JunkDNA• 12 years ago

See previous HN discussion (360 points, 1,744 days ago) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=743860

supergeek133• 12 years ago

Instantly thought of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_7kg5ZzDZo

circa2• 12 years ago

me too! i'm surprised there isn't more mention of it.

emiliobumachar• 12 years ago

Engineer's version: Write-only memory

" Out of frustration with the long and seemingly useless chain of approvals required of component specifications during which no actual checking seemed to occur, an engineer at Signetics once created a specification for a write-only memory and included it with a bunch of other specifications to be approved. This inclusion came to the attention of Signetics management only when regular customers started calling and asking for pricing information. Signetics published a corrected edition of the data book and requested the return of the 'erroneous' literature."

bttf• 12 years ago

This reminds me of some IRCd configurations, in which the server will not function properly unless you've thoroughly read through the conf file and found the single commented line which disables the entire process.

circa2• 12 years ago

How is there no mention of Wayne's World in these comments?

yp_all• 12 years ago

Maybe a more interesting question is whether they ever exercised their right to terminate for brown M&M's.

Is there any notion of material breach, major vs minor breach, etc. in "tour contracts"?

dvanduzer2• 12 years ago

You can listen to Ira Glass and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants talk about it in the prologue: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/386/f...

"there's 30 people the promoter's going to hire on our behalf ... but in only half of them did we require that they be sober"

harryb• 12 years ago

Interesting lesson about getting confidence by adding bugs. This was mentioned at a recent tech talk about Java Mutation Testing and PIT http://pitest.org/ - video here http://vimeo.com/89083982

YesThatTom2• 12 years ago

Once I buried a crazy request in a list of "you need to agree on these points or the book won't make the deadline" email to my publisher. My editor flat out agreed to them all.

That's how I knew she was lying about having read them and I had to escalate to the production editor.

It saved the book.

quotha• 12 years ago

You have to remember, it was the 80s!

salehenrahman2• 12 years ago

I'm stealing this tactic when interviewing a QA guy, if I ever do end up looking to hire QA guys, that is.

Me: "So here are a set of instructions are programmers were asked to follow. Can you see anything wrong"

QA candidate: "Why yes. They forgot to remove the brown M&M's"

Me: "You start tomorrow."

ctdonath• 12 years ago

I've read thru a bunch of other nit-picky riders. Strikes me that an under-discussed factor is that these high-value stars (contracts running into the $millions) are under extreme pressure, which is severely aggravated by so much change on a daily/hourly basis; something as "trivial" as wrong-temperature or brand drinks (I dislike Poland Spring water, and prefer Mt Dew in cans not bottles), uncomfortable seats, or even brown M&Ms (hey, everyone has a pet peeve) can be an unnerving "last straw". Having a few "perfect" arrangements everywhere gives them something to center on for mental stability.

ETA: I realize this is a tangent. Methinks it's relevant.

salehenrahman2• 12 years ago

I'm curious; have you read the linked article?

Because unlike what you stated, the removal of brown M&Ms doesn't have much to do with comforting the high-value stars, but more like a "flag" that Van Halen looks for in order to determine whether or not the stage crew has read the contract properly. If they did read the contract, the crew would have removed the brown M&Ms. If not, then there is a high likelihood that they have not read the contract, and not only did they not remove then brown M&Ms, but they also probably omitted crucial elements in the set-up, possibly to a point it can be life threatening if omitted.

sgdread• 12 years ago

I've seen same kind of tests on one of the fire ranges. You have to read safety rules. One of the points was to put x mark on the 2nd page if you read that.

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

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