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The Voice of Groklaw
Random BedHead Ed writes "LinuxPlanet has an interesting interview with Pamela Jones, the paralegal and blogger who created Groklaw. Groklaw has become an indespensible site for geeks who need even more SCO updates than even /. provides - and if the site's inclusion in the footnotes of one of IBM's court documents is any indication, it's been handy for people involved in the case as well. No wonder the site won Best News Site in O'Reilly's OSDir.com Editor's Choice Awards for 2003. It shows how useful and influental a well-run collaborative website can be."
It shows how useful and influental a well-run collaborative website can be.
Yes, unlike Slashdot.
That's one way to get revenge for /. not being chosen news site of 2003!
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Slashdot has a crush on Groklaw. Cowboy Neal, Pamela Jones, it could work.
If I got agitated every time about this like you do then, well, I wouldn't posting this message. (Unless someone writes an astral interconnect module for Perl.)
Someone making ridiculous claims and wanting a huge heaps of money isn't actually news. Much more people do this for a living than you might guess.
Over 90 years and counting !
I like the artistic touch in the top right... it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...
/. should get a new layout (or a choice of layouts)...
I suspect that the site's relevance and appeal will dim considerably when the court starts handing down some harsh rulings in SCO's favor as its discovered that IBM engineers improperly released code into the Linux development stream.
The only way such rulings can happen is if the judges are corrupt, since the facts are not on SCO's side. Groklaw will become more and more relevant once judges step outside the line and harass people like this.
Do more reasearch before you start trolling. Mickey D's was serving coffee within 10 degrees F of the temperature at which meat packing plants boil the skin off pigs. McDonalds was doing this for the express purpose of saving a few bucks a week on coffee, as they knew that hotter coffee obscures the bitter flavor from the hours-old pot of coffee left over from the last meal rush in the store. Further, the woman in question required multiple skin grafts and was hospitalized for ten days. Trial evidence demonstrated that most fast food places did NOT serve coffee that hot and that had she spilled coffee from such a place, she would not have been burned nearly as severely (no skin grafts or hospitalization would have been necessary). The damages awarded by the jury were ONE DAYS' profits (not gross receipts) from McDonalds' world-wide coffee sales alone. The trial judge suggested a remittiture of half that (that means he told the plaintiff that if she didn't accept his suggestion, he'd order a new trial), which is what I understand was actually paid. Now, knowing the facts, flame away.
Groklaw is the best thing, so far, to come out of the case.
There is an ever increasing need for common ground between the legal and geek communities, and Groklaw appears to be it. Neither techs or lawyers understand each other's worlds, this goes a long way, to bridging the gap.
A hearty "atta boy" to Pam, and a nomination for whatever annual award there is on the web.
I don't buy it. The author of Grok Law is a paralegal, not a real laywer.
Which is her strength, she does research for a living. Many of the people who post on Groklaw are people who have worked on Linux for years. They know where the bodies are buried. If there was a smoking gun we would have seen it long ago. She runs a professional, well thought out site. She will be arround for a long time after Darl and Co. bite the dust.
Save a Life. Donate Blood. Please.
Fact one the coffee is no where near the boiling point, it was at 130 F almost hundred degrees cooler than boiling.
The cups are labeled HOT coffee for a reason.
An Appeals court overturned most if not all of the award. For some odd reason someone in the Appeals court thought it was dumb to stick a cup of known hot liquid in your crotch and blame someone else when it spilled.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Fact one the coffee is no where near the boiling point, it was at 130 F almost hundred degrees cooler than boiling.
The coffee in the lawsuit was 180 degrees, not 130 degrees. That is still well short of the boiling point, however (and within or below recommended serving temperature for coffee)
For some odd reason someone in the Appeals court thought it was dumb to stick a cup of known hot liquid in your crotch and blame someone else when it spilled.
And, for some odd reason, people here try to get us to forget this most important fact by trying to snow the issue with lies from ambulance-chaser web sites like Vanfirm.com
Having a graduate degree in a funky fusion of computer science and law, I know all to well about the challenges involved in getting the geeks, lawyers, and everyone else, involved or not involved, to understand one another. It is a challenge to write and explain things in a way with a goal of getting as many people as possible to understand what is written and where the fewest people feel like they are being patronized, belittled, hearing "old news," etc. From what I can see (maybe others think differently), Jones does a good job in meeting that challenge.
I hope to see other cases on Groklaw, in addition to all the SCO stuff, both from the US and the rest of the world. I'll be more than willing to contribute stuff. Just keep the site going!
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Was this written by MarkovBlogger?
Posted with Mozilla
If the legal department of IBM ever doubted Open Source and that model of cooperation, I expect Groklaw has convinced them of the success you can achieve by free discussion. If I were an IBM lawyer I would check Groklaw several times every day and keep notes. I really believe Pamela Jones has made a difference that will work in favor of Linux. Thanks, PJ!!
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
cat
They stole our award! Let's DoS them into oblivion..
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
The silly thing is that saying that McDonalds was unfairly treated. McDonalds believes in using and abusing the courts. The case cited is an prime example of such abuse. Another good example of this was when they sued private individuals in England for claiming that the food was not good. It was a waste of the courts time and an abuse of the laws of England.
A few big lawsuits are publicized to make the public believe that the suits are costing significant amounts of profits. Most of these are a result of the companies attempt to abuse the courts to hound customers into submission. Anyway, we now know that what is costing profits is the embezzlement by top managers and other such corruption. Of course, a key defense to such corruption is shareholder lawsuits, which are becoming increasingly difficult for anyone but the biggest players.
Might i suggest that the lameness filter be modified to disallow the word McDonalds and lawsuit to be used in the same post.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I'm sure an AC like you can use the search facilities on the site and find out for yourself. In case you don't manage to find the prominent "Search" link to the upper left, I'll even hand it out for you : Search
"The coffee was perfectly safe..."
As long as you didn't accidentally spill it on yourself, in which case you required skin grafts and 10 days hospitalization.
Sorry, dude, but you must be using a different dictionary for the phrase "perfectly safe" than the one I use.
"She spilled the coffee, McDonald's did not."
McDonald's heated it to over 180 degrees, possibly much higher, given the pressure it was kept under. Not the customer.
And I'm not sure what universe you live in where 180 degrees is "well short of the boiling point", maybe one where Vonnegut's Ice-9 is commonplace, but here on Planet Earth the boiling point is 212 degrees at sea level, and lower at higher altitudes, so I'd say 180 degrees is pretty close to boiling.
To protect her against the fanatical army of pro-SCO terrorists.
(And every time groklaw gets
The only problem with this is that everybody knows what few techies they have left are probably too stupid to even know how to carry out such an attack.
My rights don't need management.
She was in the passenger seat. I'm pretty sure that people in the passenger seat aren't considered to be "driving" the car. The car was at a complete stop when the incident occured.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
She was in the passenger seat. I'm pretty sure that people in the passenger seat aren't considered to be "driving" the car
That makes her case look even worse. She was so incompetant that she was able to endeavor to dump hot coffee into her lap when there was no other motion in the environment. I wonder if this lady ever heard of an amazing invention....cup holders!
"Optimum coffee serving temperature: 185 to 200 degrees F (source. Coast Coffee)"
That's bonkers. 185-200 might be a good temperature to *prepare* the coffee, so it doesn't get scalded, but that's *way* too hot for drinking.
I urge you to test this for yourself. Please take photographs, so we can all fall off our chairs laughing at your self-inflicted third degree mouth burns.
140 degrees, give or take 10 according to taste and tolerance, is about the best temperature to serve coffee.
"Might i suggest that the lameness filter be modified to disallow the word McDonalds and lawsuit to be used in the same post."
Seconded!
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
It's not right. Pamela lives somewhere in the Northeast, not in Minnesota.
There are no pictures of PJ on the Internet, as far as I know. She likes to guard her privacy as much as is possible under the circumstances.
Strange. The victim had third degree burns. 130 F isn't hot enough to cause third degree burns. How can you explain this?
OTOH, a paralegal will try to discover what things are true and what things aren't. It is important to know the all the facts, even if all those facts are not presented in court. This is so the lawyer does not ask a question that might lead to unwanted introdcution of evidence. The skill of a paralegal is discovery of such facts. The only thing one can say is that the second skill of the paralegal may be the highlighting of wanted facts at the expense of unwanted facts.
What is amazing is that the busiest person in most law offices is the paralegal. Long after the lawyers have left for a game of golf, the paralegals are winning the case.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"It's 5th grade science. Look up the boiling point. Do the math. You are talking a difference of 32 degrees. Hot, but no where near boiling."
212 (boiling point) - 32 (freezing point) = 180
180 (range of temperature in degrees farenheit)
-32 (degrees below boiling point)
---
148
148/180 ~ 82% of the distance between freezing and boiling
Yep, 82%. Still looks pretty close to boiling to me.
Not to mention that the number of customers complaining of burn incidents will most likely be a small fraction of customers experiencing burn incidents.
Nor that the number of cups of coffee sold is likely a worldwide figure, where the complaint count is likely a US figure.
And to maintain the freshness of steak, store it in a freezer or hold it at about 40 degrees farenheit if planning to prepare that day.
But I wouldn't want it served that way, unless I was going for the steak tartare.
Hey, you're the one who brought up the tired and recycled "McDonald's Coffee Lawsuit Shows Stupidity of American Juries" motif. At least I think it was you, kinda hard to tell you AC's apart. You all look alike to me.
What? You weren't expecting a response?
Right.
Strange. The victim had third degree burns. 130 F isn't hot enough to cause third degree burns. How can you explain this?
/elitist asshole, today at least
lol, he was working at mcdonalds at the time, that should tell you enough. . .
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Last time I checked the way to make coffee was to use boiling water.
There are no pictures of PJ on the Internet, as far as I know. She likes to guard her privacy as much as is possible under the circumstances
Maybe to avoid the affections of countless socially-isolated, dateless nerds???
Nah.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Depends. If you're preparing it in one of those French-style coffee pots where you let the coffee seep in hot water and press the grounds out of it, which is how I prefer my coffee, then you boil the water first and wait a minute or two for it to cool down below boiling. Then you pour it over the coffee grinds and wait several minutes for it to seep and cool down further before drinking it.
Try it, it tastes *much* better that way.
Do you own a house with a hot water heater?
If so, note that the heater's thermostat probably doesn't even go up to 180F. Try setting your heater to as close to that temperature as you can achieve. Then the next day turn on the hot water on full blast in the shower and get in. Note the nice lobster-like complexion of your skin. That sensation that feels like you were immersed in boiling oil is just what it feels like... I recommend having called 911 10 minutes before getting in to ensure that the paramedics are already near to your home.
180F may very well be a good temperature for preparing or storing coffee. But it isn't a good temperature for drinking it, and it isn't a good temperature for handing it to somebody who is sitting down in a car where they are prone to drop things...
Jones is a savvy user, and her ideas for what needs improvement would be valuable, provided we listen and react to input such as hers. The props are nice, but don't help identify what we need to improve as much as good, honest feedback does.
On the whole, though, a pretty good interview...
I'm 31. Does that mean I'm too old to own a PS2? Shit, better take it back then...
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
Items above a certain temperature are dangerous. We learn this as children, and conduct our lives accordingly. That a grown woman was foolish enough to put cup of coffe between her legs (knowing that it was hot both from years of experience, and from having purchased McDonald's coffee many times over the years), that she was then foolish enough to squeeze the cup tightly enough to cause it's contents to spill over her thighs and genitals says absolutely nothing about the relative safety of McDonald's coffe. It highlights only her unfortunate foolishness in choosing to handle the product in an unsafe manner.
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
>OTOH, a paralegal will try to discover what
... Advocacy (when acting as barrister in court).
>things are true and what things aren't. It is
>important to know the all the facts, even if all
>those facts are not presented in court. This is
>so the lawyer does not ask a question that might
>lead to unwanted introdcution of evidence.
What is the role of a lawyer?
They are the in the guise of hired guns. But the paralegal is manufacturing/loading the bullets (facts). In the modern-day trial by litigation (adversial approach as compared with European inquisitional), shootouts require both the {issue, question} of {facts, law}. IP is particularly complex in that you also toss in contracts/licensing and sometimes anti-competition/pro-business policy. Given that you're trying to convince intelligent but not necessarily expert people/judges, attempting to do a snow job on the facts to obfuscate the real questions can backfire. If people were persuaded by the clarity of arguments rather than the legal procedures, I suspect there would be less litigation. A good paralegal can supply pertinent background that can help experienced lawyers guage the likelihood of success and thus advise their clients accordingly.
LL
Sure.
212 F = 100 C
180 F = 82.2 C
140 F = 57.67 C
In other words, "Tort Reformer AC" is arguing that 85 - 95 C is the proper temperature at which to serve coffee (185-200F), whereas everyone with common sense is telling him that's nuts, and that 50 - 60 C is probably a better temperature at which to serve coffee, although even that's a little too hot to drink. But we all prefer it a little on the hot side, cince it will cool down before you finish it.
Actually, once you put it all into degrees Celsius, it becomes even more obvious how clueless "Tort Reformer AC"'s arguement is.
Whoops. Math error.
140 F = 60 C
Not sure how I screwed that up. Anyway, it's a pretty small error and doesn't change much; the 50-60 C cited above is still the best serving range (131-140 C).
131-140 F, not C.
OK, I'm a typo-ridden doofus.
Items above a certain temperature are dangerous. We learn this as children, and conduct our lives accordingly.
I really don't understand this way of thinking. Do you just not understand the concept of degrees of risk?
I mean, by your logic, it doesn't matter how hot McD's makes the coffee, because coffee is supposed to be hot. 200, 300, a million degrees, they should never take responsibility. If you believe this then your mind works in a very strange way.
If on the other hand, you admit that at some point McD's takes responsibility, then the question is where. Personally I think the temperature it was at was sufficiently hot enough that they should be held accountable. You're right, people are expected to take reasonable care with hot items. But how on earth could she or anyone else know the insane temperature they sold her the coffee at? Coffee hot enough to cause that kind of damage is NOT what we expect in our daily life. If I knew coffee that hot was being sold to me I'd refuse it. If, on the other hand, I'd assumed it was a regular cup of coffee, at a reasonable temperature, I'd take it, knowing that if I spilled it I'd suffer some temporary pain, but nothing I couldn't live with. It's called risk analysis, and McD's misled her by introducing a variable which a reasonable person WOULDN'T expect.
The SCO case is to wannabes what the Condit case was to trailer trash.
Well, the interview does at least demonstrate that she's a real person. GrokLaw is so comprehensive that I assumed PJ was a pseudonym for an entire law firm.
She knew this because, as a previous poster (and I) pointed out, she'd bought McDonald's coffee many times on previous occasions. She was therefore quite familiar with the product, and the temperature at which the product was sold. To then place herself at risk by handling said product in such an obviously unsafe manner reflects poorly on her judgement, not on McDonalds coffee. As another poster has pointed out (but which I am not able to verify), McDonald's coffee was served at 180 degress -- 5 degrees *lower* than the recommended minimum serving temperature. Coffee is hot. Treat it carefully, or accept the consequences of your own foolish behavior.
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
Slashdot was (not at the expense of _is_) extremely influential in the beginning of widespread Open Source adoption among technologists and future-technologists -- Slashdot helped the up-coming generation of developers, admins and destined tech-management types to understand and appreciate Open Source. When I was in my late teens (early/mid 80's) Microsoft was cool, Apple was a religion and IBM was the "Big Brother" Monopoly. Since, oh, the late 90's the tide changed so that Microsoft is the "Big [DRM] Brother" Monoploy, IBM is cool and Apple is a religion (some things don't change). Slashdot was pivotal for this generational mindshift. Face it, the real victory with Open Source/Linux isn't measured by server installations or stock market capitalization alone; the compelling trend is the number of developers adopting the Free platform. Stunning, because a major component of business technology decisions is available talent pool. This is one reason VB/ASP, inherently brain-damaged, were so popularly implemented; better technology existed but there was no end of available developers (hence, Balmer's love of developers).
Groklaw provides a different purpose. FOSS is no longer in its infancy or adolescense. Proprietary software can not reasonably claim that FOSS is insecure, under-performing, amatuerish, or unproven. Proprietary software is on the defensive on those fronts; the technological hurdles have been jumped. Proprietary software has shifted to fight for its survival and relevancy based on fears of litigation and regulation. IP infringement worries, singled out in 2002's Halloween document (IIRC), was the biggest concern on business leaders' minds so we have SCO vs. IBM (which is a legal case primarily to give pretext to SCO slandering Linux and its developers in public). Not a coincidence. To counter this broadside, as proprietary software vendors must have hoped, the loosely banded FOSS community would have to pay for serious legal representation which it had no structure to begin to afford; akin to Walmart suing Joe And Betty's Corner Mart and Bovine Rendering Plant -- no contest.
What happened was two-fold, and I bet proprietary software antagonists behind SCO vs IBM were caught off-guard. First, IBM didn't do the less expensive alternative and settle with or buy out SCO, but chose to fight this fight. Also, Redhat didn't sit this one out in order to protect its necessary profit margins, choosing instead to answer SCO's slander and FUD with its own suit. Businesses don't like to litigate when it is cheaper to settle, thus the surprise.
Second, the community didn't just flock to Slashdot and bitch about how SCO sux, nor did it mount DDoS attacks against SCO (which would have brought the wrath of public condemnation against it, as SCO must have hoped, since they obviously had prepared Press Releases for such an occasion; the DDoS attacks SCO did experience were not community based, and, in fact, the community worked to stave off such attacks). Nor did the community just rely upon RMS (notably silent, BTW), ESR, Bruce Perens and many other FOSS heavy weights to answer SCO's charges (though their input is important). What happened was unexpected and in the truest spirit of Open Source: a beneficiary of Open Source development offered her special skills to solve a threat against the community which earned her appreciation. Groklaw was born: Open Source, community-based legal research and analysis, lead by Pamela Jones. She has donated her expert skills, time, sweat, and resources. Moreover, others who appreciate FOSS have donated their expertise, time, resources, as well bring clarity to the fuzzy fog of FUD from SCO and others who would destroy Free and Open Source Software. The community has accepted her as the maintainer of this project, much as it accepts the maintainers of technical projects. As a result the legal briefs and backgrounds along with the quotes from all parties in the press and media are available for public scrutiny. Indeed, this resource
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I think most people already have.
Clark and Dean is the contest for the Caorlinas.
I hope it is not decided before the Carolinas
primary. A lively debate would do some good.
mike
Groklaw has become an indespensible site for geeks who need even more SCO updates than even /. provides
/. come from Groklaw?
Don't most SCO updates on
Hope both sites keep up the good work in 2004 and both post the headline "SCO case thrown out of court" soon.
Mod parent up!
Here's a statement from the American Trial Lawyer's network; while certainly not an unbiased source (can anyone recommend one?), this at least cites several facts regarding the incident, evidence at trial, and the actual outcome.
i er 3/press_room/FACTS/frivolous/McdonaldsCoffeecase.a spx
http://www.atlanet.org/ConsumerMediaResources/T
Regarding the whole "how hot is hot?" debate, noone's seriously debating the "temperature of brewing"; heck, Starbuck's website recommends 185-195 F.
However, it is the temperature at which the brewed coffee is maintained and served is the sticking point, and (as stated above) it was demonstrated at trial that McD's maintained their brewed coffee at a higher temperature than other outlets (135 to 140 (F) according to the above source).
Furthermore, Medical testimony showed "exponentially less" chance of burning as the service temperature decreased from 185 (F) (where serious burns upon spillage are likely), with minimal chance of serious burns at temps and that McD's was aware of these facts.
From there it's pretty much a no-brainer to see that McD's was aware of the risks involved with their coffee-serving process (and recall that in a franchising business such as McD's, the whole business comes down to defining processes and products for use by the franchise owners), and made a conscious decision to put profit above risk in that process. A jury saw this decision as irresponsible, and thus punished the company with a fine.
So you're going to sue slashdot to get their IP logs and track down this feller to sue him?
Wow! That's gonna really help you build your cred in this community.
A Good Intro to NetBS
'Profit' is one of those 'liberal code words' for 'money that we sure hope some Robin Hood type character will show up to take away.'
It's eeeeevile!
A Good Intro to NetBS
Did you know that a high % of the cost of a ladder has to do with payouts and insurance because a few oafs climb high and lean out and fall off?
That must be why stepladders are plastered with so many warning labels and 'stupid stickers' that they are more stickered up than the average NASCAR race car.
I peeled all the stickers off on my stepladder. In case anybody here is 'working' their way through law school, come on over and fall off it. It's right out there in the back yard. The fact that I removed the stickers probably means some scum is entitled to boat payments from suing me.
A Good Intro to NetBS
Oh, brother. Oh, sister, as well. This is a huge amount of FUD and misrepresentation of facts. Should be modded as either -1, troll or +5, funny.
Don't you feel shame for lying like that?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
You copied that from blurb text of the brochure you got in the mail when you sent in the 'Find a Career In The Legal Profession' matchbook cover, didn't you?
Reminds me of the old 'Get Rich Doing TV Repair' back cover ads on Popular Mechanics magazine.
A Good Intro to NetBS
No, you're not PJ. If there is one thing I know about PJ, it's that she wouldn't post something here as an anonymous coward.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Let me see if I can help in the current situation.
You know, Hitler once sued McDonald's.
Godwin who?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Methinks you are just feeling a bit too cynical at the moment, possibly due to lack of coffee, possibly due to being around slash dot too long.
I'm going to be 40 next month. Would you recommend an Xbox or a game cube in lieu of a PS2? Oh, wait. I never had enough ambition to be a dot-bomber, although I miss the days when my dot-bomber friends could afford to take me to lunch.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Since, oh, the late 90's the tide changed so that Microsoft is the "Big [DRM] Brother" Monoploy, IBM is cool and Apple is a religion (some things don't change). Slashdot was pivotal for this generational mindshift.
Essentially, what you are admitting to here is the massive, biased groupthink that goes on. Have people already so easily forgotten IBM's past sins? Oh, they've adopted Linux, so let's welcome them into our arms with praise on Slashdot! It's sheep-like.
Second, the community didn't just flock to Slashdot and bitch about how SCO sux, nor did it mount DDoS attacks against SCO (which would have brought the wrath of public condemnation against it, as SCO must have hoped, since they obviously had prepared Press Releases for such an occasion; the DDoS attacks SCO did experience were not community based, and, in fact, the community worked to stave off such attacks).
I guess you missed all the posts endlessly bitching about SCO or linking to some page on their website and saying "Click here, and be sure to refresh it several times to make sure you're up to date," modded up as Funny, of course.
Pay It Forward is not just a cute ideal, its' the underlying concept of the FOSS community -- enjoy the fruits of my labor and in return benefit others.
Much like communism--and I say this with no intent to troll, because communism in itself is not bad, but the implementations of it in the past have been--it has very positive and workable ideas that are good ideas, but it is bogged with politics and, well, human faults that hinder its progress. I fully expect Linux users in 5-10 years to be still be trudging along with X and KDE and proclaiming the benefits of 20 or so windowing libraries and ways to do things. There is a fear of consolidation that I disagree with, because it has spread a lot of energy thin which could have been concentrated into lesser but much more effective projects.
I really hope that changes this decade.
"Sufferin' succotash."
In other words, it doesn't work with humans. Sounds about right.
Some might say the same about American Democracy. You take the good with the bad and try to work with what you get.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Impeccable spelling and grammer?
Active sex lives?
Proper literary quotes, instead of HHGG and the Simpsons?
Fit bodies and sound personal hygeine?
The brain reels at the mere thought...
(Oh! ... and no obscure Firesign Theatre sig lines, either!)
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
"Take the time machine back 15 or so years..."
Umm, sorry, but I think my sugestion is a little more realistically achievable than yours.
You know, the funny thing is, if you check out facts on this case, as presented in court, even McDonalds admitted that coffee at 180 degrees was too hot to drink and would cause 3rd degree burns. They didn't want to change the holding temperature, not because it was drinkable at 180 degrees (they admitted it wasn't), but because they felt most of their customers weren't drinking it until they got to work.
She knew this because, as a previous poster (and I) pointed out, she'd bought McDonald's coffee many times on previous occasions. She was therefore quite familiar with the product, and the temperature at which the product was sold.
That's just ridiculous. Is she some sort of tactile savant, able to precisely measure the temperature of liquids? And, she wasn't trying to drink it, she was trying to open the cup.
To then place herself at risk by handling said product in such an obviously unsafe manner reflects poorly on her judgement, not on McDonalds coffee.
Oh god, what insane way did she try to open it? In a parked car while sitting down. Where's the fault in judgement? How should she have tried to open it?
As another poster has pointed out (but which I am not able to verify), McDonald's coffee was served at 180 degress -- 5 degrees *lower* than the recommended minimum serving temperature.
No, you wouldn't be able to verify it, as it is completely untrue. Coffee is typically served at 130-140 degrees fahrenheit. 180 is insanely high.
Treat it carefully, or accept the consequences of your own foolish behavior.
Once again, where is this supposed "foolish" behavior. She tried opening a cup, it spilled. Where is the failure in intelligence? How should she have opened it?
McD's executives testified during the trial that they knew the risk, but had decided the money they saved was worth paying out settlements and workmen's comp.
Before you give your opinion on something, you might want to do some research.
"This is why coffee pots exist. If you could make coffee with hot tap water, you would not need them."
Have you ever seen the inside of a hot water heater, after it's been in use a couple of years? It's disgusting.
Trust me, you don't want drink hot water from the tap.
Actually, it was established that 135-140 was the optimal safe temperature. It was also established at the trial that most local vendors (this was in New Mexico) were serving coffee at 150 to 165. Still too hot, but it would give someone who accidentally spilled the coffee on themselves 30 - 60 seconds to clean up before it would cause 3rd degree burns, as opposed to the 3-5 seconds at 180.
On the last page, though, Sun get thrown in with MS again, for being "the other licensee".
This is not a particularly clear-thinking view:
- Sun, as a Unix developer (unlike MS) have a legitimate reason for licensing UNIX from the current holders, and making sure they've got everything they need for their future plans.
- Those plans, as claimed by Sun, is to improve Solaris on the x86 platform and beyond (yes, even getting to SCO's level of support for some hardware would be an improvement
:( and for a big corp it's quicker to buy it than to write it). With big development around Opteron, wasting time working on a 3COM 3c5x9 driver would be stupidity. Buy the thing and be done with it. Given Sun's other (Linux) plans, this was not a smart move politically with the slashdot crowd, but this seems like a purely corporate move, without moving far enough down the ladder to check it out with techies first. Such decisions tend to be made by management, not techies. Then again, Sun's Linux strategy is currently aimed more at CEOs than geeks, too. They're the ones who make the big (500k desktop) type decisions which Linux needs.
- Sun have made the biggest move of anyone out there (especially including IBM, who make money selling MS software) to kill Microsoft Windows - planning to reduce the software business from $20b to $3b, by actually pushing a Linux-based desktop out there to genuine enterprises and governments.
I'm not at all convinced that saying "MS and Sun licensed UNIX from SCO recently" leads to "MS and Sun have even remotely similar views on the industry".Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Anyone else get these two sites confused?
If you're not going to drink hot tap water (which, considering it has left deposits in your water heater, is probably cleaner than cold), you should stop drinking cold tap water also.
Just something to think about.
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Fine. We have established that you have no concept of taking responsibility for your own actions, preferring instead to blame others for life's misfortunes.
It has already been established that:
1) The same woman had purshased coffee at the same McDonald's on numerous prior occasions with no complaints. She knew what she was getting. If it was so *insanely hot*, why the hell did she keep buying the stuff?
2) Despite purchasing this same product from the same shop over an extended period of time, presumably becoming familiar with it's characteristics, she *chose* to put the coffee cup in a sensitive area, and, accidentally or otherwise, to apply enough force with her legs as to cause the cup's contents to be expelled over her thighs and genitals.
3) She did this despite the fact that there was an empty cupholder well within reach, which would have allowed her to open the product to add sugar, milk, or what have you, while imposing no risk to herself.
I'm sorry, but in my book that's negligence -- hers -- not McDonalds.
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
>Well, the interview does at least demonstrate that she's a real person. GrokLaw is so comprehensive that I assumed PJ was a pseudonym for an entire law firm<
I'll bite:
It has to be said.
How about a bewoulf cluster of PJ's....
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
OK, stupid, lets take this slowly. 185F is the recommended SERVING temperature, i.e. for the coffee to come out of the coffee machine, or to store the coffee so it keeps best up to the point of SERVING. SERVE != DRINK. Drinking temperature is considerably less, unless your name happens to be de Sade and you get your rocks off on 3rd degree burns.
:-) No, for real, I did exactly the same thing once (with a REAL coffee, mind you, not that McD's crap), but did I sue??? No, I accepted that I was a moron and got on with my life...
I'd like to see your scull a whole fresh-poured cup of 185F coffee. Like you already said earlier, people sip until it passes the tounge temperature test. The thing about a sip is that it is a small amount, and will cause a minimum of damage before cooling to an acceptable temperature, minimising the risk. Any med student will tell you that pouring 185F liquid onto human skin has a 100% burn risk factor.
You, in fact, are using one of the favourite tactics of those scum-bag lawyers you say you so detest, keep repeating a single fact that happens to be true ad-nasuem no matter that IT DOESN'T APPLY HERE!!!
Go away.
P.S. Not that I have any sympathy with the woman concerned, what kind of moron sits a hot cup of coffee in a dodgy styrofoam cup between their legs... Oh, yeah, that would be me
...Second, the community didn't just flock to Slashdot and bitch about how SCO sux, ...
/. and Groklaw have little to do with either Marx's ideas of collectivism or his ideas about economics. These effects reach far beyond anything Marx could have imagined. We see the barest outline of an unanticipated property made possible through the ability of people to communicate and organize through the internet.
The operative word there is "just." The implication is that the community did MORE than just complain. Concerning "communism" the effects we see in
SCO attempted to use the "big lie" approach to achieve its intents. What the present owners of the TSG and their backers (represented by commentators such as Yankee Groups DiDio) did not anticipate was that interested parties could counter their "big lies" so effectively and quickly with "big facts." The internet makes available historical information about the development of unix, Linux, and the legal histories of SCO, Caldera, TSG, IBM, Novel and other movers and shakers that would be impossible to fully access, let alone properly employ in any vision of the future Marx had, or for that matter, the owners of SCO and the Canopy Group.
Groklaw reflects the crystalization of a group of interested researchers, users and legally knowledgeable individuals around an issue that really falls within the realm of law rather than software. It reflects serious effort to collect, analyze and interpret relevant information and advocate a legal position. It redefines the idea of amicus curia(e??). PJ provides that critical property around which the effort could crystallize.
If you are interested in social phenomena, the potential of Groklaw is, to put it mildly, fascinating. While the immediate point of interest is the SCO-IBM lawsuit, there is absolutely no reason to think that such legal effects will be limited to opensource vs. proprietary software legal issues, regardless of the success or failure of the various parties in the present suit. The relevant fact is that Groklaw is about law not software. You are watching a potential change in legal affairs that could easily be more important in the years to come than any particular computer system, or even the internet it self. We have always argued that "many eyes" makes for better software. Could "many eyes" lead to better law?
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
What you appear to be missing is that, unlike voluntary assumption of risk (of which this case is not an example), contributory negligence, at least by Australian standards (and most likely U.S. standards too, since both are Common Law countries), is not an absolute and complete defence.
Now, I do not have all the facts of this case, but the common procedure would be to award damages for the tort of negligence and then assessing the claimant's degree of contributory negligence to establish an appropriate apportionment.
While the alleged facts you put forth are certainly likely to have contributed to the damages sustained by the plaintiff, those damages would not have been as severe but for the breach of duty of care that the defendant committed.
To strike the down the case, you must prove, on the balance of probabilities, that there was no duty of care owed (i.e. the coffee could have been literally boiling or contain acid); or that that duty of care was not breached (i.e. a sensible person would not reasonably foresee the plausibility of someone getting burned by near-boiling coffee under any circumstances); or that the plaintiff voluntarily waived her rights to complaint upon purchase of the coffee (something that courts are reluctant to take into account even with proper waiver-forms at hand).
There is more to it, but you should get the point by now. If not, take an introductory law course. They are usually surprisingly interesting!
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
Now, I do not have all the facts of this case, but the common procedure would be to award damages for the tort of negligence and then assessing the claimant's degree of contributory negligence to establish an appropriate apportionment.
Yes, it's quite common to see rulings where negligence is determined to the percentage point, and damages set accordingly.
There is more to it, but you should get the point by now. If not, take an introductory law course. They are usually surprisingly interesting!
I agree, such a course would do the average slashdot reader a world of good. Unfortunately in the US it's not really an option, due to the nature of our law school system. There are "legal studies" programs at the undergraduate level, but I have no idea how close they are to real law courses.
It is a bit of a misnomer to compare the FOSS effort with communism. It is probably more productive to think of it in terms of something like barn-raising by the Amish (in these days and times) or countless other similar collective efforts throughout human history.
A community forms around a common objective, for the good of that community or as payment for past/future assistance by that same community when they were/are needed. hmmm - does that make sense? Your statement regarding consolidation is quite correct, however I think it is both positive and negative; +'ve because FOSS never rests on it's laurals and is thus always seeking better ways to do things, -'ve for exactly the reason you state - resources are spread thin and energy wasted. Overall though I believe the positives outweigh the negatives. But that is just MHO