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Lawyers Ordered to Play RPS to Settle Dispute
Rent-to-Pwn writes "After the lawyers involved couldn't settle even the most basic disputes without court intervention, a federal judge ordered the two lawyers to play one (1) game of rock, paper, scissors to settle the dispute. Being a federal case, in theory, it could become precedent for similar, unimportant decisions. Of course, there's no mention of what the two lawyers are supposed to do in case of a tie ..."
I can't wait to see what Groklaw has to say about this precedent. Or who owns the game...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Since there seems to be a great deal of chance in any legal proceeding, it makes just as much sense, if not more.
...nothing beats rock.
Damn, and just when my faith in our justice system had been fully restored...
Those who anthropomorphize science and/or nature already believe in an intelligent designer.
... if they're allowed to summon expert witnesses.
I see one of several possibilities:
i. One lawyer feints rock, plays scissors late
ii. One lawyer pokes another in the eye
iii. They keep saying it was unfairly played when they lose
Sue for unsportsmanlike conduct. Or something.
I use my +9 Rock of Justice!
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
OK, so it's funny... but, how did this make "Your rights online"?
Funny story, but... 'News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters'?
Don't get me wrong, I got as much of a chuckle out of this as anyone, but the game settled a dispute about the location of a deposition in an insurance trial, not a copyright or patent suit, or anything else relating to technology for that matter.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
PBF said it best: There's only one way to settle this.
I'd recommend The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide.
You know they'll spend at least 2 hours arguing over on what count to shoot, what hand gestures constitute "scissor", "paper" and "rock", how to dispute ties, etc., etc.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
In case any of you slashdotters are in need of legal representation
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Well son, you've gone and got yourself in for a battle.
/ theofficiaroc-20
p er&Itemid=53, and dont bother bringing that rolex, it will slow you down
s sors
Heres what you gotta do:
study up http://www.worldrps.com/ and get this http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743267516
You may want to get some fancy RPS gear, http://www.worldrps.com/index.php?option=com_wrap
Also, we knoe those who ignore history are doomed to repeat its mistakes, so why dont you read up on the history of the game too, could come in handy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock%2C_paper%2C_sci
Can't we all just get along
Echo's of "QUAD DAMAGE" and "J00 CAMPING SOB" in the Halls of Justice.
I just can't be bothered.
They shoulda played FPS
God spoke to me.
they have to play it in the Denny's parking lot.
third level attorneys can throw "the bomb"!
it was either this or Atari Combat.
...perhaps a duel would be more appropriate.
"We are appaled by this decision. Including Rock and Paper in a decidedly Scissors arena is yet another tactic by activist judges trying to legislate from the bench. They keep pushing this kind of alternate agenda down our throats. Alternate Dispute Settlement indeed! Keep your Rock and Paper away from my Scissors. We don't need that kinda stuff here!"
Will one of them throw their one time per lifetime FIRE?
and totally redeem itself!!!
And the scary thing is, I misread the headline and thought they might have to play Warcraft III for the decision.
Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard
"If either party disputes the outcome of this engagement, an appeal may be filed and a hearing will be held at 8:30 A.M. on Friday, July 7, 2006 before the undersigned in Courtroom 3, George C. Young United States Courthouse and Federal Building, 80 North Hughey Avenue, Orlando, Florida 32801."
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
From now on, Alex Kidd will be used in law schools.
Circumcision is child abuse.
"We're about to your honor... one.. two.. three.."
RPS is exactly what I think of when I read "due process of the law"!
Wasn't a duel to the death a common resolution between two lawyers in the colonial days?
I can see it now....
(Digging for Arrowheads)
Pip: OOH! OOH! I think I found one!!
(Cartman has hold of the other end.)
Cartman: No, I found it!
(Cartman and Pip hold the large arrowhead by opposite ends.)
Pip: Oh, I do believe I found it first.
Cartman: No, I did!
Pip: Oh, dear...
Cartman: Well, guess we'll have to Roshambo for it.
Pip: What do you mean?
Cartman: Well, first I kick you in the nuts as hard as I can. Then you kick ME in the nuts as hard as YOU can. And we keep going back and forth until somebody falls. Last one standing gets the arrowhead.
Pip: Oh, my. Well, I suppose if I must...
Cartman: Okay, ready? I'll go first.
(Cartman takes a step and hauls off, kicking Pip square in the balls. Pip immediately turns blue and falls to the ground coughing. Cartman looks pleased. After Pip stops coughing, he finally manages to speak.)
Pip: Well, I guess you win.
Cartman: Oh, I don't care, you can have the stupid arrowhead. I don't want it.
(Cartman tosses the arrowhead down to Pip, who is still lying painfully in the dirt.)
--
That would make court dramas interesting!
Coderz 4 Life
If the judge had ordered them to roshambo to settle the dispute.
-Laxitive
June 7 (Las Vegas) -- Bookies in Las Vegas have already begun accepting bets. 1.2 to 1 odds are that the winning lawyer will pick Paper over Rock.
Just add {In Space!} to anything.
thats not true, there is a certain amount of skill involved, when i was younger i knew a couple of kids who studied NLP who learned how to tell if you were going to repeat your last move or choose a diferent move.
this of course only works in best two outa three etc but it was suprisingly effective.
they always won in best two out of three, so this became thier favorite methode of deciding trivial matters. well exept with eachother.
It makes me sad to learn about a judge who chicken out insted of telling those in question to grow up. Is it all down to fear of offending someones feelings...
I mean, sometimes officials can state with a fair bit of certainty that 1) it very important to make a choice... you can split the baby in half, and 2) with statistical certainty, that either outcome is equally prefered. In this case, such a procedure is appropriate even in law or elections.
Fortunately, games cannot be owned, under current US IP law.
Yes they can, but only if they are new and non-obvious and even then only for 20 years. Game materials, such as designs on a game board or computer programs implementing the game rules, can also be copyrighted (effectively perpetual), and their names can be registered as trademarks (also perpetual).
you're going to have to try harder to make it to the troll hall of fame than that. At least get a name like "FuckYourCSSBullShit" or "FuckTheNewLayout" or "FuckYouSlashdotImOut". Take your pick.
This information comes from www.overlawyered.com.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
...without Rock, Paper, Saddam. :)
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
but you forgot one thing. Rock - Crushes - Scissors! -- But, Paper covers Rock, and Scissors cuts Paper! Kiff, we have a conundrum! Search them for Paper, and, bring me a Rock.
Play a game of speed Mario.
Gee - it's no fun when you spill the punchline.... Subtle references are best left unexposed so the inner sanctum can continue to feel superior to and laugh at all those unknowing fools who have yet to master the intricacies of modern cartoons.
So, why don't you just bite my shiny metal ass? Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder.
...there is no way to misread it as LARP. In the Spirit of Adventure system, the monsters used dye-soaked foam weapons. Made it easy to see the damage taken - usually even after three or four good long hand-washes later. (The sneaky monsters used extra dye, in the hopes that a really good hit would score double due to refs counting the splash-marks.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...except paper...
But scissors beats paper! Kif, we have a conundrum!
The rochambeau contest here was set to settle a dispute between the lawyers over what day to hold a particular event. This won't determine the outcome of the case, it will just determine which of the lawyers gets to pick the date (out of a very narrow window that the judge specified for them).
:P
Then again, I didn't RTFA - I read the judge's actual order about 15 hours ago when I received a PDF of it from my boss in the morning.
(*) There are of course many perfectly valid reasons why deps might be held elsewhere than the office of the party who called the deposition.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
His ruling was a bit more than "go away kids, you bother me". I'm sure the judge knew this would receive national coverage and completely humiliate both parties.
cat
See, Saddam did it - he was way ahead of his time!
ordered them to duel. That way we can start solving another problem.
F
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
At 4 PM on June 30, the parties will convene at a neutral site.
If they can't agree on a neutral site, they use the courthouse.
Each lawyer is entitled to bring one paralegal.
At that time and place, one game will be played.
So it's a done deal. They will be playing rock-paper-scissors
at 4 PM on June 30. The only question is location: courthouse
steps or elsewhere?
...can you play it on linux?
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Rock-paper-scissors was used in this case to determine which lawyer could choose the location for the deposition. A minor aspect of a minor part of the trial.
On the other hand, in New York City courts determine which judge is assigned to the case (a CONSIERABLY more important question) are by spinning a wooden wheel with all the judges' names on it. (I'm sorry I don't have a citation)
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I swear that when I saw the headline I was thinking "Real Person Shooter" !!!
R typically stands for real in these cases, and not being familiar with rock as a choice, I figured they were going to duel. I like that we can sometimes take the justice system back a few hundred years every now and then. Maybe they should just tie up both parties and throw them into a body of water - whoever lives obviously is wrong!
Get your Unix fortune now!
The judge basically is saying you are acting like kids so settle it like kids.
"I understand that scissors can beat paper and I get how rock can beat scissors. But there's no fucking way paper can beat rock. Paper is supposed to magically wrap around rock leaving it immobile? Why the hell can't paper do this to scissors? Screw scissors, why can't paper do this to people? Why aren't sheets of college-ruled notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they attempt to take notes in class? I'll tell you why, because paper can't beat anybody, a rock would tear that shit up in two seconds. When I play rock/paper/scissors I always choose rock. Then when somebody claims to have beaten me with their paper I can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say "OH SHIT I'M SORRY, I THOUGHT PAPER WOULD PROTECT YOU, ASSHOLE."
Dear USian friends- how did your legal system get the way it is? in my country (UK) the US legal system and more precisely its half shark half mule lawyers, are laughed at because of their obstinancy and desire to turn the most trivial situations into a legal hoo-haa. I guess the losing lawyer in this case will sue the other one... We're always hearing about some US citizen sueing somebody or something for the most trivial piece of stupidity. How did it get this way? Genuine question! - how did the legal culture become so significant in the US?
man what an asshole I hope AIDS gets you before you make someone so mad they totally flip out all over y=ur ass.
Previously, I believe the RPS game with the most on the line has been the world championship with a prize of US$10,000. I could imagine the combined legal costs for this upcoming game exceeding that.
Judge : " The jury will now be excused to deliberate on a verdict" ** 15 minutes later ** Judge : "Has the jury reached a verdict?" Foreman : "Yes your honor, after a serious round of RPS, we the jury find the defendant Guilty on all charges" Judge : "The Jury is excused."
..that you actually had to explain that.
Now, grandparent poster: turn in your nerd card.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
... real men play rock, scissors and paper roulette, of course, to settle things once and for all.
Well, who won?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
He did the right thing. It wasn't about the case itself, it was about a minor, completely unimportant issue that was simply an immature dick-waving contest between the lawyers, not much different from the usual schoolyard "I want to be right!" bickering.
His solution was quite appropriate to the situation presented. And it just might have shown the lawyers how silly the dispute was.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I recall this happened in two seats in this year's local elections (where the number of electors is small and the turnout is even smaller).
One of the losers was interviewed on the radio and seemed quite cool about it - "fair enough", he said.
rt
When you first read the headline, did you think it was a typo that should have read "FPS" or "RTS"?
It's like Isaac Newtons "Unionized" versus "Un-ionized" test, only for gamers.
This is pretty funny, but I've recently seen an even funnier judge's decision from a Federal court.
t =9316&page=1&pp=10
I hang out on another web site a bit (Tucker Max) and he was sued by a guy that was being made fun of in a few of the threads.
The guy's lawyer was BEYOND a hack, and the judge's verdict from the site made me laugh out loud.
Thread is here: http://messageboard.tuckermax.com/showthread.php?
I'm no lawyer by any means, but I can tell that the judge had FUN belittling the guy. And, he actually had sentences using phrases with "fisted by a gorilla" and "jerkoff".
More importantly, this was a pretty serious precedent that was set, in that the operator of the board was not held to be responsible for the comments made by the members.
It's definitely worth a read if you have 10 or 15 minutes.
$0.02 (CDN)
...the game theory and probability enters the curriculum of law schools, ...
"Objection, Your Honour! Proposed game chances are biased against the defence."
Well come on now, before you start saying that determining something by using the all-important game Rock, Paper, Scissors is ridiculous, think back a few years...
to when you were a child...
and the most important things in your life (such as who would get the largest cookie, who could run through the sprinkler first, and who had to take the pet rock home for the night) were determined by a quick, non-disputable game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. It wasn't ridiculous back then! (Though now, rather oddly, I feel quite ridiculous for having defended the integrity of RPS!)
It might be hacky, but I wrote it not you so g++ away
http://libra.sfsu.edu/~peb/rps.cpp
Take off every 'scissors' !!
You know what you doing.
Move 'scissors'.
For great justice.
The Judge could've been feeling particularly spiteful and forced them to "Roshambo" for it.
http://www.rockpapersaddam.com/one.html
Some sort of penalty for wasting the courts time (probably financial, although I'd happily consider capital punishment as an option in this particular case), would seem a not inappropriate form of compulsion to apply to get this resolved.
Though I expect the lawyers concerned would just pass this on to their clients, and carry on arguing.
It's never so bad that it can't get worse.
It's been made public and will take place on the courthouse stairs. If anything, this is the harsh version of telling them to grow up by exposing their childishness for all to see.
It would be "Rochambeau", and while Wikipedia offers your alternative as legitimate, this is one of those cases where I believe Wikipedia has been overtaken by rude, uncultured philistines bent on destroying all meaningful cultural reference and offering bland Americanized bastardizations in the place of perfectly good imported words.
And just for the mods, who occasionally can't figure this part out, 'I'm Kidding!(tm)'.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
And here, it is only 7:30 in the morning. Golly, I wish some other folks around here would embrace a less narrow view of what is and is not part of geekdom.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
BUT . . . this type of stuff isn't entirely unheard of, and is even written into law in some locales:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Nov-0
It's over now. That, or it's go time. One of the two. acts of gord
Life is a LARP
do they go with avalanche (rock, rock, rock) or book (paper, paper, paper) or edwards (scissors, scissors, scissors)? do they mix it up and go with their gut?
MORTAR COMBAT!
This is just one more step in turning our Universe into the Alex Kidd universe.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
By telling them straight out, he'd have given them a chance to argue back, and he might have ended up embroiled in their childish arguments as well. Instead, he's told them to go make fools of themselves in front of everybody, and not even show up again until they've decided to start making sense--thus cleverly robbing them of any chance to talk back. I think it's perfect, and I wish I could be there to see it.
I wonder how long it will be before a law school (probably also in Florida) adds this to its book list.
No sig for now.
...at least he didn't ask them to play FMK.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I think the judge should have ordered a battle to the death. That would have solved so many problems...
For those not familiar with Rock,Paper,Scissors or as we called it when I was a kid in Hawaii "Junk ina Po", there are no ties. Rock loses to paper and beats scissors, paper loses to scissors (of course) and finally scissors loses to rock.
The players pump a closed fist in front of themselves three times together showing rock (fist), paper (hand flat fingers extended) or scissors (fist with index and second finger extended) on the third pump. We also chanted "Junk ina Po" as a pump count.
It's a fun game and actually has strategy and a world championship event. See http://www.rpschamps.com/.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
there's no mention of what the two lawyers are supposed to do in case of a tie ...
File an appeal?
-- dR.fuZZo
Two lawyers enter!
One lawyer leaves!
MASTER BLASTER RULES BARTERTOWN!!!
*cough*
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
always survives nuclear missile (which kills fist... which kills mutated cockroach).
or something like that. (70's show I think?)
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
TIGER HAND! ...
Come on! You Know!
You don't know Tiger Hand?
Tiger Hand beats paper. Like totally beats paper. Always.
http://www.rockpapersaddam.com/one.html
For those not familiar with Rock,Paper,Scissors or as we called it when I was a kid in Hawaii "Junk ina Po", there are no ties. Rock loses to paper and beats scissors, paper loses to scissors (of course) and finally scissors loses to rock.
Who wins when both parties choose the same hand?I originaly parsed this as "With RTS" and I thought, now there is a way to settle law cases, whip out some Starcraft.
At least 2 hours, all of which is billable to their respective clients.
What an idiot. That was so obvious he should have thought of it before submitting his post. Parent, you rule for totally calling him on it.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
My thoughts exactly.
Bart is right. Nothing beats rock. Fuck paper.
Been there, done that. Everyone knows that pen missle beats RPS. Heck, even tiger hand owns paper any day.
Want proof of legal precedence? see here: htt p://www.rockpapersaddam.com/one.html
"one, two three.."
Crichton throws paper, Dargo throws rock.
D'Argo: Again I win.
Crichton: No, I win. Paper wraps rock.
D'Argo: No, paper cannot possibly beat rock.
Crichton: It does. Paper beats rock.
D'Argo: Rock rips through paper.
Crichton: D'Argo, that's not how it works. Paper beats rocks.
D'Argo: That's unrealistic.
Crichton: Well, it's the rules. And it's not supposed to be realistic, it's supposed to be entertaining.
D'Argo: My coma was more entertaining.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Pinnacle Peak is a restraunt chain throughout California, and perhaps neighboring states, that has a rule of "no ties allowed." Anyone caught wearing a tie incur it being cut-off and hung from the ceiling.
Whichever lawyer can convince the scissor-weilding clerk/restraunt-servant that they are wearing a lynch-knott or somthing else, not a tie, wins.
without prejudice
The lawyers should pay all court costs associated with judge's order if there are any.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
If only issues such as games and violence could be solved the same way....