Slashdot Mirror
Reiser Murder Case Gets Stranger
Fahrvergnuugen writes "Wired is running a story about how an ex-lover of the missing wife of accused spouse killer Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case. While Reiser will still stand trial for the murder, this development will undoubtedly complicate things."
Does this mean I don't have to reformat after all?
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
I tend to think that the ex-lover who confessed to killing eight people should be investigated with respect to the disappearance of Han Reiser's wife. As I understand it, there is no evidence at this time tying Reiser to his wife's disappearance except for speculation.
When I saw this story, I skimmed the first line, then got to the second, which read: "Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case." It was a bit of a jolt. Then I went back and realized that it was referring to his wife's ex-lover, not to Reiser himself.
This is why you don't put a giant 10-word prepositional phrase between a subject and verb, especially if that phrase ends with something that could plausibly by a subject.
in case you mis-read the summary like I did at first: it was not Hans Reiser who confessed, but Sean Sturgeon, someone his wife previously dated. It is also unclear from TFA when they say "a one-time friend of Reiser's" whether they are talking about Hans or his wife.
Irrespective of whether Hans is really guilty, if this isn't enough to show a reasonable doubt I don't know what is. In light of this, it would seem quite plausible that he was framed.
Interesting tidbit at the end of TFA:According to testimony in preliminary hearings in the case, Nina Reiser had once dated Sturgeon, but broke off their relationship in January 2006 because she was unhappy with his lifestyle and taste for sadomasochism.
Sounds like they're all a bunch of real whackos!
If your wife's ex-lover is a confessed serial killer, the evidence against you has to be pretty damning for you not to create reasonable doubt. Like if he was videotaped by a policeman while committing a murder and later signed a statement that he is a person on the video. It's not a big stretch of imagination that someone who killed 8 times and didn't get caught is capable of some creativity when planting evidence.
I was like "Holy sh*t!" But then I read the whole thing. However, if this guy confesses to killing 8 (maybe 9 people, he's not sure), why wouldn't he confess to her death if he did it? What, they're going to kill him an extra time? Make him serve an extra life sentence?
The Wired piece is very light on details. It doesn't say who the Sturgeon person is supposed to have murdered, or where, or when, or whether or not any of them have any relationship to the Reiser case. Also it doesn't suggest whether or not investigators have correlated Sturgeon's confessions with any known facts about any missing people or unsolved murders. Or maybe this Sturgeon guy had already been charged in a bunch of murders and finally confessed. Who knows, the story is so light on details.
Does anyone know any more about this Sturgeon guy and his confessions?
So Hans Reiser is a full-blown sociopath? Goddamn. Looks like he may have killed ReiserFS, too.
If you can't even RTFA at least read the summary!
"ex-lover of the missing wife of accused spouse killer Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case."
It is not Hans Reiser confessing to eight other killings, it is an EX LOVER of the wife who is confessing to eight other killings.
As far as ReiserFS, I don't really care if that dies since I don't use it myself. I am sure it will still be around a while though no matter what happens.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
I am shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that the creepy S&M guy who was into "death yoga" and has now admitted to other murders, is suspected of Nina's murder. I mean, that's just silly. I saw the ELER cartoon, and he wasn't in it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
So Reiser is friends with Darth Helmet?
My girlfriend's sister was one of her Nina's best friends, they studied together in a medical university in St. Pitersburgh. She says Nina's parents are devasted, she was the only child.
Of-course his guilt is not proven yet. Judging from the B.S. that was happening in that house this was not a happy marriage.
You can't handle the truth.
Wouldn't he have released the evidence and plans of the act under the GPL publicly? :)
"Look law, no Hans."
Best Windows Freeware
Change the wording of the article! Yes, it's from the original article. But it's very clearly misleading and needs to be changed.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
from: http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_256204954.h tml
Apparently Sturgeon was sleeping with Reiser's wife before they finalized the divorce. Also, Reiser accused Sturgeon of trying to steal money from him, and of threatening him. So there's totally motive here for Sturgeon to frame Reiser for the murder.
Motherfucker
Ok, all the other stuff you mentioned is totally relevent. But sleeping with the wife "before the divorce was finalized"? Once they're separated, who cares? At that point the divorce is just a legal technicality. If anything wouldn't it be more that Reiser would have a motive (jealousy) to frame the other guy?
The Farewell Tour II
It's unclear when Sturgeon made the confession -- he would say only, "I have cooperated since day one." Asked why he had confessed at all, he responded with this question: "In a murder case, if somebody has killed, who is a witness, is it relevant? Yes or no?"
When this reporter responded that it was relevant, Sturgeon said, "Then you have the answer to your question."
Sturgeon added that confessing was one of the most difficult decisions of his life. He also regrets being a source of distraction in the case, joking that he is not so much a red herring as a "red Sturgeon."
Yep... a regular old Hannibal Lechter. Do you think he might have had some sort of grudge against Reiser? Spurned love, and then his friend gets the girl... yathink? Maybe he set it up so that not only does Reiser lose his wife... but then has to defend a murder case for killing her.
From what's been in the press, it seems that all the evidence is circumstantial. A criminal case can be proven by circumstantial evidence, but only when it's enough to exclude all other reasonable conclusions based on the evidence. Looks like this shoots the prosecution right out of the water.
On the other hand, if the prosecution had this confession a long time ago and they are still moving forward, it's possible they have some other evidence that we don't know about yet.
And the important question on Jack Thompson's mind?
"How can I tie this to video games?"
Hans was friends with this guy Sturgeon...
Sturgeon was allegedly molested as a child which directly motivated the killing of the other eight people AND the development of extreme sado-masochistic sexual tendencies... Which is a purported reason that Hans's woman both began and ended her affair with him.
The missing link is how Hans became friends with this guy and a gossipy answer at this point is that BOTH of them were involved in some very dark sexual practices & became close friends because of this.
Please note: I hope Hans is innocent, but this development does not appear to help him at all. If anything it may cause Hans's character to be called further into question based upon investigations into this other side of his life that was previously undisclosed.
"Wired is running a story about how Sean Sturgeon, an ex-lover of Hans Reiser's missing wife, has confessed to having killed 8 people. Hans is currently standing trial for the murder of his wife. Though the confessed murders are unrelated to the current case, this new information is sure to complicate things."
This post is heavy on speculation, but this new turn of events totally gives motive to Sturgeon. If he killed 8 people, he's almost certainly a sociopath. How does a sociopath get revenge for an unpaid loan? Easy... sleep with his wife, kill her and then frame the debtor.
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
Finally the court will put it to rest. Did Hans shoot first, or was it the other guy?
Oh, wait... wrong movie.
Note to self: get a sig.
Jebus, don't you realize? It was the ALIENS, man! The ALIENS!
HAND.
the sudden cratering of ResierFS demonstrates the huge Bus Factor of Open source software. Takeout one guy and major part of an operating system can suddenly become unsupported. This is a non-trivial thing. If you are a big bussiness do you want to commit your operations center to some Database or some communication protocol (say Samba) and filesystem (say ReiserFS) to open source solutions if suddenly overnight and with no warning it could become unsupported?
If linus got hit by a Bus tommorrow, Linux would no doubt survive but there would be a giant glitch in the force and depending on how things got restored Linux might very well start to lose it's focus.
It's a big opportunity for the Microsofts, IBMs, Oracles, SAPs and Novell's to point out that for bussiness operations continuity you should only buy software, open source or private, backed by a commercial vendor.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
He probably muttered "kill -9" and the cops thought it was a confession.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I'm tagging this article "horriblyworded" because of the intense confusion the summary seems to be generating about who was doing the confessing. Will others do so too?
I always wondered where they got some of the crazy idea's for Soap Opera's, I don't wonder anymore. I really feel sorry for poor Hans, assuming he is innocent. This is a nightmare of unimaginable proportions. Even if he "wins", he will probably be bankrupt from paying the attorneys.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
If Hans Reiser is guilty, that means Nina Reiser went from dating one killer to another killer... What are the odds of someone just happening to date two murderers?
a dislike to Hans Reiser...
HAND.
...the names of every project lead/author of every Linux project, from the Wikipedia article:
"Hans Thomas Reiser (born December 1963) is an American computer programmer famous for his contributions to the free software community in the field of file systems. In particular he is deeply involved in the Linux kernel development with his widespread ReiserFS journaling file system and its successor Reiser4. In 1997 Reiser founded and has since headed Namesys Inc., a software company specialized in operating systems and in developing and providing support for his file systems. He is currently residing in Oakland, California. Since October 10, 2006, he is charged with the murder of his missing estranged wife, Nina Reiser, and is currently being held on remand."
Seriously, it should be no real burden for submitters or even editors to add a one-phrase or -sentence bio for players not all of us may be familiar with, so that Linux laypeople here (myself included) know why this would even be construed as "news for nerds" at all.
By confessing to something really horrible you aquire a curious kind of trust in people: if he says that he didn't kill Nina then who would doubt him now that he so flippantly admitted to the killing of 8 others?
This of course can be a strategy in itself, it's a card he's earnt by confessing and can play against Reiser, someone he clearly wants to see lose everything (re 2004 case for attempted seizure of Reiser's business, Namesys Inc.).
Ok, but the headline did say what this was about. If you're not interested in the case, there's no reason you have to read it. I only read articles I'm interested in, that way, I don't waste time reading or complaining about the ones I'm not.
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
in the ReiserFS code...could yield interesting stuff?
Probably not...but worth a shot to see what comes up =p
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
"ex-lover of the missing wife of accused spouse killer Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case."
It is not Hans Reiser confessing to eight other killings, it is an EX LOVER of the wife who is confessing to eight other killings. Problem is that the summary is written so poorly, I was confused too. I thought they were saying the ex-lover accused Hans of killing eight people and he confessed. Ultimately after some flowcharting, I figured it out, but it's not at all clear from the summary.
Ok, but to get this discussion onto something more sensible and away from "kill -9" jokes, what does this mean? Will Reiser be released? I mean, even a blind person without a dog can sense that there's more than just "reasonable doubt" that he's the culprit when a serial murderer is involved.
The hit the ReiserFS took from this is already quite noticable. Yes, it's OSS, so anyone could pick it up. Did you ever LOOK at that source? At the sheer amount of it? Who do you think can pick that up easily? Especially with ext3 getting more and more gadgets and support, and being for some already the superior system?
Please no discussion 'bout ext3 and reiserFS. It's about as meaningful as discussions about emacs and vi.
What matters about those 2 systems is simply that one has a maintainer (group) currently and one hasn't, or at the very least has lost a key developer due to this. Does it make sense to stick with reiserFS or should one start looking around for alternatives is the question. Actually, has been since the arrest of Reiser.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Comment of the month :)
~= scwizard =~
In which case you should tend to lean towards the proven crazy person rather than the other guy who has no proven insanity...course that's probably politically incorrect or something and so we have to come down on the other guy since he might have done something and just not revealed it!
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
Reiser Murder Case Gets Stranger
Was the stranger one of the eight?
Have you read my journal today?
There aren't many people actually capable of comitting a murder, so the fact that Nina Reiser's ex-lover is a self-confessed serial killer strikes me as a far too remarkable coincidence.
... it's the right thing to do. There a lot of people in the United States that don't understand that anymore, don't accept that human life is valuable but not infinitely so, and that some are worth more than others. We may all have been created equal, but sadly not all end up that way.
It depends upon the motivation, the stakes. I wouldn't kill someone for money. I wouldn't kill them for revenge. I wouldn't kill them because they angered me. On the other hand, say you tried to kill my fiancee: I'd murder you in a heartbeat without batting an eye. Now, even if I escaped official punishment I would pay a high price for that act. Most of us would, but we're all capable of murder, at some level. We have to be, because sometimes
You're right in that by far the majority of us won't kill for trivial reasons, although one has to wonder how much of that reluctance is due to the sanctions imposed by society against such behavior, or some intrinsic aversion to killing. Sociopathy, to varying degrees, is more common than one might want to believe, so maybe all that's keeping murder in check is the fear of consequences. I mean, all societies feel the need to impose severe punishment for murder, which leads me to believe that, at the core, we aren't quite as civilized as we think we are.
Besides, O.J. Simpson killed two people in cold blood, and in spite of substantially more incriminating evidence, O.J. managed to get off scott free. O.J. had mountains of money to spend on his Dream Team though.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm going to bed.
"Apple did go on without Jobs," ...almost into bankruptcy, until they hired him again, and he turned the company into NeXT 2.0.
...into the latest, most expensive, least-desirable version of Windows yet, a product that makes ME look enchanting by comparison.
"MS is going on without Gates at the helm..."
"And HP is getting along fine without Carly." my point; WITH her, they were not getting along so well.
I think i will just wait for the Law and Order episode.
It's interesting that this news should come out only 3 days before his Trial is set to start back up.
Ah, but you did get stuck reading and commenting on his complaint. And now, you might waste more time reading this reply (sorry about that). So there's still a good chance that Slashdot qualifies as a waste of time.
Otherwise, getting away with murder would be pretty easy. Just destroy the body. Imagine if someone could commit murder on camera and get away with it simply because they burned the body later on.
Murder without a body is much harder to prove, but still doable. It is a circumstantial case, but those can be made. The prosecutors always prefer to have direct, physical evidence but that doesn't mean they won't go to trial without it.
it just confirms that reiserfs is truly a killer filesystem.
pHansReiser->pMissingWife->pExLover->Confess();
Since you claim to be a C++ programmer, the above might help.
Someone might have considered writing that headline in such a manner
as to not make Hans Reiser appear as a confessed serial killer...
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
Clearly Newton's work is important enough to call for exemption, but I for one wouldn't read OJ's book (had it come to fruition) and that would have had nothing to do with what its literary quality was. I guess this case here would fall somewhere between the two, but I don't think its unreasonable for people to find using the product of a murderer distasteful, and then seeking to recreate a "clean" version if the amount of work involved is reasonable.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
I wouldn't hold Fiorina up as a shining example of leadership. She pretty much singlehandedly gave HP the biggest case of corporate indigestion since AOHell/Time-Warner with Compaq, drove off a good share of the company talent pool with drama queen theatrics, and was finally thrown out of office by the board of directors...
Not something I'd care to be known for...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
you're going to OJ for your next FS?
There are plenty of filesystems for Linux that do include reliability as a priority, is all I'm saying.
Quote from wikipedia:
:)
It was also revealed that Nina Reiser obtained Russian citizenship for her daughter 2 years before and surreptitiously obtained Russian citizenship for her son two months before she disappeared.
Now how likely would it be that she is somewhere is big Russia
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
Judging from this new revealation and lack of evidence of death, I believe Reiser should be given a benifit of doubt. While sparing the guilty could be a crime, punishing the innocent is an even greater crime, IMO.
Wow, how delightfully shallow! If we found out that Newton murdered someone we should all drop newtonian physics!
We already have dropped Newtonian physics. It's Einstein and Schroedinger we have to worry about now...although rumour has it that Schroedinger may have killed his cat.
All these jokes about Hans... I don't know, have you given any thought that Hans might be NOT GUILTY? Is this how you treat prominent (and talented) hackers - with presumption of guilt instead of innocence? If he's released, why would he ever write any code for people who laugh about the possibility of him riding the lightning (or whatever they do to kill people in that state)?
Seriously, jokes about Hans are disgusting. Please show some dignity and respect.
So does this mean you're going to rip out all the ICs on your motherboard because the guy who co-invented the Semiconductor (Shockley) was a racist dick?
- He had a couple of books on murders and in them was how to hide the evidence.
- His front seat from his car was missing, but I do not recall hearing that somebody said that he did have a seat in there normally.
- In his usual way, he pissed off everyone connected with this.
OTH, Sean was so nice and put up billboards looking for nina. In addition, he cooperated nicely with the cops. So, now, we have a sociopath who has been more than happy to cooperate with the cops including even offering to allow a lie detection. Considering that a lie detection machine counts on the person reacting negatively to lying and ok to telling the truth, I suspect that this guy could totally lie about anything and flat line.IOW, this is a TOTAL wash to guess who is telling the truth if any.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I feel more dumberer for having read that.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This isn't to say I agree with such tactics, but double jeopardy means that they have to get their cases right the first time. They can't produce a version 2. This is true of both Sturgeon and Reiser. The margin for error is zero, the risks are extreme. That limits the authorities to having to play it as cool as they can.
This all assumes they're smart, of course. They could just be be stupid, too. The easy way to find out is to see if Sturgeon is arrested a month or two after Reiser is convicted or freed, and/or if he is able to kill again. If the authorities are smart, Sturgeon will be under 24-hour watch by people in a position to prevent him killing someone. If Sturgeon succeeds, or even gets close to succeeding, then the authorities are out of their tiny little minds. Alternatively, if Sturgeon is really delusional, those same authorities should have him in a secure ward the first moment they have enough evidence to prove it.
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)
From here on, Reiser is erased.
Yeah, but he's still recoverable even though you improperly shut him down.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
that this story was about Paul Reiser. I could only assume his victim was comedy.
I think I will erect a sign here now before it happens:
"The smoking crater you see before you is what remains of Cius' user account after an ill-advised venomous attack on a man who should be considered innocent until proven guilty."
p.s. fuck you cowboyneal, your sloppy editing might be excusable on non-important matters but this is about some guys murder trial ok, have a bit more respect for the gravity of the situation, clean the cheetos residue off your fingers and do a proper job for once.
Phoenix Wright. He would solve the whole case in just three days, no matter how strange it ends up getting, or else whoever he's defending automatically gets executed.
Gamertag: WyleType
at this time i would like to discuss with you the benefits of using reiserFS file system out of sheer spite for you and your idiocy.
I don't know where your "here" is. The Soviet Russia from your signature? But in Germany you won't get "very strange looks". It may not be a word everyone uses every day, but it is used. Run it through a search engine of your choice and you'll get a lot of German language pages containing it.
Reiser is a smart guy. Couldn't he just write an unMurder tool anyway?
I, for one, am amused. I was not familiar with the ex-lover before: EIGHT MURDERS? And he's not really sure about number nine, because y'know, it was just another murder and he doesn't pay much attention to these things?
If Reiser really is the killer after this miracle, it will be the funniest murder ever(not that they're funny, but just saying). Bitch cheats on husband with a serial killer/psychopath. Leaves psycho but geek husband finds out anyway, geek husband reads TFM on homicide and kills wife before psycho gets to her, psycho infuriated to the degree of staunchly defending himself on this one murder (out of he doesn't know how many) in order to get back at husband for killing the woman first.
...barely. I doubt it would have lasted to this point if he hadn't come back.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Oh, come on, this is Slashdot - the tech tabloid. Headlines that are misleading if you only casually glance at them but not incorrect if you actually READ them pull in readers, so they're not going to get fixed.
butter the donkey
Some people confuse the standard with beyond any doubt. That's not what you have to prove since there can ALWAYS be doubt. You just have to prove that there's no reasonable way to doubt it, and you can get a conviction that'll hold. The basis of it is you present a case that shows that the person had the means, motive and opportunity to commit the murder.
It isn't perfect, and it isn't the kind of case they like to make, but it is done.
This is the most poorly worded article and headline I have ever read. Nina Reiser boinked a psycho killer by the name of Sean Sturgeon who has confessed to 8 murders. Nina broke it off with him in January 2006, she disappeared in September. Hans Reiser has been charged with her disappearance.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Reiser didn't confess to killing eight people. His wife's ex-lover confessed to killing eight people.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Humor is actually one of the most common responses to tragedies and horrible situations in which you are not personally invovled in - and often when you are. It's a defense mechanism. It is not common to see/hear humor in eulogies. I even used a "joke" regarding my grandfather in his eulogy - and everyone there laughed alongside me.
Laughter is good even in cases like this (no pun intended) - it helps us to cope and to remember that life is full of more than misery and death. Now if only the cable news networks would ealize this.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
I'm so sick of gravity.
Do we really need to know the rate of change? duh, its changin or its not.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
"then seeking to recreate a "clean" version if the amount of work involved is reasonable."
No, it isn't. In fact, it has nothing to do with reason at all, and you yourself indicated as much; it's about an emotional reaction based on a feeling of distastfulness about the action of a person and projecting that feeling to cover the (non-murderous and neutral) code he created.
Logic or ratio has nothing to do with it.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Eight total!?!
Does this mean we're stuck with short file names again?!?
Dammit! There's only so many file names possible using eight total!!!
My pr0n collection is in danger!!!!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
"Accused Spouse Killer Hans Reiser Has Confessed to Killing Eight People Unrelated to The Case! Read all about it!"
I have met a few people, that have said things like.. they would like to know what it felt like to kill someone, and I do beleive there are many people only stopped by "the consequeces". There are some real nuts in the world, most are reasonably harmless, but there are some scary people too. I really don't know if it's just my bad luck, me getting older, or what.. but it sure seems like there are A LOT more mentaly ill people that I meet these days. It seems to have gradually increased in the las 10-15 years, in my opinion. Some of it is self induced (meth is evil shit), but not all of it's drugs.. I think there are other causes, but it would all be speculation to even try and guess what's going on.
(I'll stop here before I am diagnosed with paranoia)
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Ermm...you DO realise all your analogies are bogus and unvalid, right? Since I think no-one is that daft, I think it's done deliberatly, but I'll spell it out anyway:
1)In all your examples, the actions that were taken by the 'culprits' had an effect on, and were relevant to, the unethical behaviour. It is ridiculous to take irrelevant matters into consideration when adressing unethical behaviour of a company or country. For instance, say in south-Africa, during the apartheid, the electricity-network worked perfectly. Is it reasonable to ask for the removal of that network because it was created by a south-african government who segregated blacks and whites? Can you not support a good working electricity-net without supporting apartheid? That sounds like a... black and white mentality.
2)I doubt the code Reiser wrote has any relevance to his (suspected) murder, and the continuing support of it (or not) will not change anything in that regard. Code is neutral. It doesn't have any ethical implications on itself, and it doesn't have any value in deterring Reiser from (not) commiting murder, and that would have been true even before he murdered his wife (if he has).
3)If works - nomatter what intrinsic value it may have - of people are disregarded because of the actions of their creators - even when it's irrelevant to their behaviour anymore, then there is no end in sight. Plato and a whole plethoria of ancient greek and roman writers (and probably even Leonardo da Vinci and Shakespeare) did it with -18 year-old boys; should we all throw away their work and remove it completely, and all references made to those works? (Or shouldn't we have at least done so when homosexuality was deemed illegal - which was the case even hardly 60 years ago?) Should we throw away all works of people who are responsible for killing people (even mass murder)? Then there goes Karl Marx and Mein Kampf and hundreds of other books. One can only hope Newton or Darwin or Einstein never turn up to have done something ethically repulsive... And what about countries who commited crimes, say, in Iraq? Am I or you supporting their behaviour by drinking Coke? Can you even find a country which didn't do something wrong in their history to spend your tourist-money in? When consequently applied, and the relevance to the actions do not matter, you can't do squad anymore, not even use the internet...which you aparently do.
Your biggest mistake in all this (and people thinking like you) is this: you think because you are using something that is made by people who've done something wrong (which varies in time anyway), that you are supportive of their wrongful actions. This, however, is not true, and is based on irrational knee-jerk feelings, not on rational thoughts and logical consistency.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Some day, this will be a movie, featuring us discussing this.
Congrats you just confessed that your reading skills really suck...
I assume that the parent was modded "funny" as a piss-take. Maybe it was meant that way, maybe it's conspiratorial ramblings, but the OP's scepticism is not entirely baseless if this British case is anything to go by. (More here and here). For those willing to dismiss analysis of that case as fringe ramblings, note that it was reported across the world and the subject of several documentaries.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Has anyone else noticed that the way Slashdot links replies is misleading? It makes you think that my parent is replying to my great-grandparent, while it's actually my grandparent, which is not displayed anywhere. Many replies don't make sense this way. Is this a bug?
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
First, buy knife/gun/assorted weaponary..
...
It all goes downhill from there
BOO
It's thinking like that that makes certain evidence inadmissible. People tend to think crimes are committed by "bad people", so if there's a "bad person" in the vicinity of a crime, they must be guilty.
I'm not saying Reiser did it, and I'm not saying he didn't. I'm just saying "what are the odds" isn't much of an argument. For all you know, Reiser said to himself "hey I can get away with this because they'll blame it on her mass-murdering lover". Let's let the justice system do its job.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm starting the "Free Hans Reiser" movement.. I'll put up a page this week. email at shardz4217@gmail.com I'd rather have a skilled coder who killed his wife writing my FS instead of anyone else. Besides, I don't plan on being his wife.
You know, I guess all of us are happy that you're almost a relative of someone who's a friend of Nina's.. But... uhm.. check this out:
[you] - [gf] - [gf.sis] - [Nina]
There are two nodes between you and Nina, both those nodes are females, and their primary source of information is Nina.
Do you really expect to receive any kind of info that places Nina in a bad light? Marriages fail for different reasons, and it's not always the husband's fault.
Let me help you with that: "Judging from the B.S. that _I was told_ was happening in that house this was not a happy marriage."
The saddest poem
I read it that the person who confessed was Hans' ex-lover, so I assumed it was a woman. Then I reread it and saw it was the wife's ex-lover - but I still had it in my head it was a woman - and it was a little more interesting to think there was a lesbian serial killer out there. The reality doesn't seem very strange at all.
First off, as many say, Hans has pointed the finger at this guy since the beginning.
Second, if you have followed Hans and his interviews, you would know that Nina's dissapearance (as reported) is very unlike Hans. He is a person obsessed with little details, having everything planned out and checking out all scenarios no matter how implausable. If he were to commit a murder while still mentally sound, there should be NO circumstactual evidence.
He would not have bought the book AFTER murdering. He would not have left traces of blood (if he did murder, I think these are fabricated, as he would not have left them).
... you're really kinky?
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
I agree with just about everything you're saying but...
:)
maybe all that's keeping murder in check is the fear of consequences
I don't think that's the case at all. I think external consequences are important to stop a very small subset of people who are borderline, but the vast, vast majority of people don't kill anyone because they just don't want to: there is little motivation, and it would be a painful and haunting process for them with no lasting benfit. Then there are a tiny handful who will commit murder even with consequences.
In WWII some amazing number of soldiers refused to fire on the enemy even when their own life was in danger. The military later used dehumanization techniques to break through that tendancy, and as a side effect increased some of the sad abuses we've seen our soldiers commit in Vietnam and Iraq.
In the animal kingdom there are very rarely any consequences, but most species rarely kill their own. I don't think humans are that much worse than animals.
Anyways, just trying to defend the existence of what might be called common decency
I don't think that's the case at all. I think external consequences are important to stop a very small subset of people who are borderline
I hope you're right, but then again it only takes a small increase in the size of that borderline subset to cause significant damage. I think we're seeing that increase right now.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
God posts to slashdot, but didn't even register an account?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
... to which Sturgeon then confessed ... ?!?
Ok, ok, that's a rational one, and i guess there are other examples. Now explain the RATIONAL reason for the fake jobbenet ramsey confession. Wanting some publicity at the cost of incarceration and/or execution isn't rational.
There are also fear-induced forms of false confession, not coerced by the police. Unshielded witnesses in mafia trials in Italy have an... interesting propensity to go crazy, claim they're God, or whatever. Even in cases where no actual threat even existed, I'd be willing to bet that stress and anxiety created enough pressure to destroy the person's ability to think rationally.
At this point, I think the legal system needs to invest heavily in understanding the overlap between neurology and psychology, so that better testing is possible and the experts are less likely to merely repeat the views of whoever is paying them. It must be easier to identify the insane and easier to identify those who are a threat by being insane and those who are NOT because they're insane.
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)
xxxxxxxx.xxx - eight killings? he forgot the 3 others behind the dot
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
"On Monday, Superior Court Judge Don Clay issued a gag order barring attorneys on both sides from discussing Sturgeon."
How can they gag that? That seems highly relevant to the case, considering that Sturgeon clearly had a grudge against Reiser.
Most of the other posters seem to assume that the case will be dropped because of this, but if the jury is *never allowed to hear about it* how can the come to the pretty reasonable conclusion that the highly circumstantial evidence against Reiser doesn't amount to much when the victim had dated (and dumped) a known serial killer with a grudge against the defendant?
If the prosecution knew about this, why'd they even bring it to trial?
As you get older life is more precious, and you dwell more on the fragility of it. When you are young you are full of bravado and more nonchalant about death. Anyways, that's my experience.
What are the chances that she would date a murderer... and then marry another one? Math dudes, help us out, lets see some clever combinations and permutations on this one... and don't forget the "a woman has a 1 in x chance of dating a murderer, but a 1 in y chance of marrying another after dating the first..."
The Admin and the Engineer
Dammit! Forgot extensions...been a while since my DOS days.
But that does ease the mind now that ya' mention it.
Oh yeah,where was I?...Oh...aahh....Hey you kids, get off my lawn!!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
In my time people used to cut their lawns using PUNCHCARDS when ninja's were trying to kill you with 20mb harddrives!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..