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Sex Offender Gets New Hearing After Hearing Officer Rants Against Arial Font

ericgoldman writes "People often feel passionately about fonts, but government decisions shouldn't depend on what font people choose for their written submissions. In Massachusetts, a sex offender overturned the decision of a hearing officer after it was determined that (among other possible biases) the hearing officer posted to Facebook that he 'can't trust someone who drafts a letter in arial font!' and 'I might be biased. I think arial is inappropriate for most things.' This is just the latest example of how social media rants by government workers are causing problems for the workers — and the people they deal with."

12 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. Huh by Ultra64 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "a sex offender overturned the decision of a hearing officer"

    I'm not sure it's a good idea to let the defendant be in charge of the judicial process.

  2. Ranting against Arial is just insane... by QilessQi · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...now if it were Comic Sans, I would TOTALLY agree.

  3. Cool Story Bro Time by CB-in-Tokyo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Back in the 90s, I had a job teaching MS Office to people. One class I was hired for was to teach a bunch of local judges how to use Word.

    While discussing how to change fonts, one of the judges says, "Huh! Anal font, what the hell is an ANAL font!"

    Maybe it is the same judge!

    1. Re:Cool Story Bro Time by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am really interested in learning details of an ANAL FONT.

      The Details of an ANAL FONT

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  4. Re:I have to agree by tag · · Score: 3, Funny

    | | All [...] documents should be in a fixed-width font. Anything else is just crazy.
    |
    | Fixed that for you.

    FTFY

  5. Should shut up and be glad.... by TheCarp · · Score: 3, Funny

    I just this past week had the opportunity to read some legal filings in the case between a friend of mine and his former wife over custody. Since he can't afford a lawyer, he fills out forms the court gives him and does it.... BY HAND.

    Give me some arial any day of the week.

    --
    "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
  6. Re:Comic Sans, on the other hand by hawguy · · Score: 4, Funny

    That should be a shooting offence. I recall working for a company who had a new director of marketing. She did everything -- everything -- in PPT, even memos. Her preferred font was Comic Sans and the concept of a colour space for documents was basically science fiction to her.

    Yeah, the company went under. How did you guess?

    I guessed it went under because if the company went on to be wildly successful, then this anecdote wouldn't confirm your belief that the marketing director's memo style was a sign that the company was doomed to fail so you wouldn't have told it.

  7. Re:Priorities much? by nctritech · · Score: 5, Funny

    You should get the opinion of the county serif. *snork*

  8. Re:Priorities much? by Antipater · · Score: 5, Funny

    How can humans be prevented from having power over other humans if there aren't any humans with power over other humans to prevent the humans from having power over other humans?

    Replace the humans with turtles.

    --
    Everything is better with chainsaws.
  9. Re:stupid coments, but.... by Tanktalus · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Legible" may be sufficient at Podunk University/College/Pub, but in the Ivy League, you better have everything perfectly pristine using ink made of virgin's blood on 30lb paper stock with a brightness rating of no less than 110.

    Personally, my professors were fine with chicken scratch, and bonus points for chicken blood, too.

  10. Re:Priorities much? by foobar+bazbot · · Score: 4, Funny

    By having computers having power over humans, and making them perfect.

    This won't work, because some hammy starship captain will show up and talk the computer to death (likely death of a mildly explosive nature). Happens. Every. Time.

    So long as starship captains, or the possibility of a starship captain, exists, computers cannot have power over humans.

  11. Re:Priorities much? by reve_etrange · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes, all the way down.

    --
    .: Semper Absurda :.