I don't want to start a holy war here but what is the deal with this eight-year-old Mac troll? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig browsing slashdot when I should be working for about twenty minutes while it attempts to to make me laugh 17 times. At home, while looking at the *BSD troll, which by all standards should be a lot less funny than the Mac troll, I'd be giggling in two minutes, if that.... From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Mac troll is a superior troll. 8-year-old Mac troll addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use the Mac troll over other faster, funnier, more reliable trolls.
They're much more honest these days; if they say global warming isn't happening, we should believe them.
I hear they're also teaming up with the fast food industry on a new study we should be paying attention to; their team of crack scientists found that a diet high in salt and animal fat and low in vegetable fiber is actually quite nutritious!
The worst thing about this artist is people think that is the proper way to spell ludicrous. I've had two students turn in papers where they spelled out "ludacris" when they meant "ludicrous." I'm sorry, but that's just ludicrous!
Oh come on. If nanotechnology was unsafe, it never would have passed the stringent review of the Ancient Egyptian Food and Drug Administration (AEFDA). Clearly this article is proof positive that we should immediately deploy nanotechnology everywhere without worrying about safety.
If you could prove she downloaded a copy on such and such a date, or made it available and it was downloaded by others, certainly a case could be established. Look at another example - Scooter Libby was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Not for leaking the CIA agent's name. The fact (according to the prosecutor, at least) that he obstructed the case is not being argued for as guilt on the other charge. Instead the prosecutor is going after him on the obstruction charge.
I don't dispute that, given other evidence, a default judgement may be acceptable. However, in this case, the evidence destruction was taken as prima facie evidence of guilt. At least, no other evidence seems to be discussed in the case. The court simply said, destroying evidence is bad! To punish you, we find you guilty of something else, and we accept the plaintiff's statements of fact on their face, and we deny you any opportunity to contest those statements. I don't think that's ok, especially when the court has other options -- criminal sanctions -- and the record company could still pursue its case based on whatever other evidence that they have.
By "plaintiff" I meant the record companies, not the defendant. They're the ones suing. And "sanctions" are sanctions, not a finding of guilt in another matter. The question is, is there any evidence of her guilt besides the destruction of evidence? If so, why doesn't the court take a look at it and evaluate it? If they want to sanction her for tampering with evidence, they should! There are perfectly acceptable criminal sanctions available for such action.
Do we say to the RIAA (or anyone for that matter) "Good news and bad news. The bad news is that you don't get your compensation, since the defendant destroyed the evidence, but the good news is that justice is still served with a nice healthy week-long jail term!"?
Good question. What was it they said to the people who got screwed by Enron again?
But evidence destruction is not itself prima facie evidence of guilt. There could be a million reasons why you might have destroyed the evidence, and if one of those reasons is plausible would likely constitute reasonable doubt in a criminal case unless there was other evidence that you actually committed a crime. In a civil case the burden is usually "a preponderence of evidence"; I don't think the evidence that you destroyed evidence would be enough to cut it. Presumably, the record lawyers will claim they have additional evidence but now it doesn't come up - the judgement defaulted to them. In addition, this wasn't the reason given by the court, at least in the article -- the court just said they wanted to punish her for "contempt of court" and obstruction of justice. Those charges do not seem to have been filed against her at all. The article said they wanted to "make an example" of her.
The court rendered default judgement because it determined that the plaintiff acted in bad faith, showing "blatant contempt" for the court and a "fundamental disregard for the judicial process." This makes no sense. Charge her with contempt of court and obstruction of justice, fine. The article claims the court wanted to deter her from doing it again and set an example by punishing her -- I'm sorry, but a week in the can will do that trick just fine. Contempt and obstruction are serious criminal offenses. But rendering default judgement here is tantamount to saying that the lack of evidence here is evidence in itself. On top of it, the court implicitly endorses whatever the hell value the plaintiffs decide to attribute to the allegedly "stolen" songs (and the court's decision can be cited in future cases as evidence that said value is reasonable). I realize the judge wants to "set an example" that evidence-tampering is wrong, but you do that by using the criminal sanctions that are already available for evidence tampering. I'm not ANAL, and I'm not a lawyer either, but this is a strange governmental endorsement and protectionism of a corporation's interests in a supposedly free market, no?
getting no attention until I used some of Tufte's principles in presentation of data and the third year I had several hundred of the worlds scientists in vision research gasping, oooohing and aaaahing. It was awesome. Of course Keynote and a cool animation of a degenerating retina helped, but still......
So let me get this straight... Your dissertation got no attention until you included the principles of design explained by the world's foremost critic of powerpoint-style presentation software, but only because you presented those ideas using powerpoint-style presentation software.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't want to start a holy war here but what is the deal with this eight-year-old Mac troll? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig browsing slashdot when I should be working for about twenty minutes while it attempts to to make me laugh 17 times. At home, while looking at the *BSD troll, which by all standards should be a lot less funny than the Mac troll, I'd be giggling in two minutes, if that.... From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Mac troll is a superior troll. 8-year-old Mac troll addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use the Mac troll over other faster, funnier, more reliable trolls.
They're much more honest these days; if they say global warming isn't happening, we should believe them.
I hear they're also teaming up with the fast food industry on a new study we should be paying attention to; their team of crack scientists found that a diet high in salt and animal fat and low in vegetable fiber is actually quite nutritious!
Actually these lasers go on mobo chips
The worst thing about this artist is people think that is the proper way to spell ludicrous. I've had two students turn in papers where they spelled out "ludacris" when they meant "ludicrous." I'm sorry, but that's just ludicrous!
"Pretexting" is just a pretext?
Oh come on. If nanotechnology was unsafe, it never would have passed the stringent review of the Ancient Egyptian Food and Drug Administration (AEFDA). Clearly this article is proof positive that we should immediately deploy nanotechnology everywhere without worrying about safety.
he's got a gun.
contempt of court and obstruction of justice are criminal charges.
If you could prove she downloaded a copy on such and such a date, or made it available and it was downloaded by others, certainly a case could be established. Look at another example - Scooter Libby was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Not for leaking the CIA agent's name. The fact (according to the prosecutor, at least) that he obstructed the case is not being argued for as guilt on the other charge. Instead the prosecutor is going after him on the obstruction charge.
I don't dispute that, given other evidence, a default judgement may be acceptable. However, in this case, the evidence destruction was taken as prima facie evidence of guilt. At least, no other evidence seems to be discussed in the case. The court simply said, destroying evidence is bad! To punish you, we find you guilty of something else, and we accept the plaintiff's statements of fact on their face, and we deny you any opportunity to contest those statements. I don't think that's ok, especially when the court has other options -- criminal sanctions -- and the record company could still pursue its case based on whatever other evidence that they have.
By "plaintiff" I meant the record companies, not the defendant. They're the ones suing. And "sanctions" are sanctions, not a finding of guilt in another matter. The question is, is there any evidence of her guilt besides the destruction of evidence? If so, why doesn't the court take a look at it and evaluate it? If they want to sanction her for tampering with evidence, they should! There are perfectly acceptable criminal sanctions available for such action.
I was very gentle. I clicked the link as lightly as possible.
But evidence destruction is not itself prima facie evidence of guilt. There could be a million reasons why you might have destroyed the evidence, and if one of those reasons is plausible would likely constitute reasonable doubt in a criminal case unless there was other evidence that you actually committed a crime. In a civil case the burden is usually "a preponderence of evidence"; I don't think the evidence that you destroyed evidence would be enough to cut it. Presumably, the record lawyers will claim they have additional evidence but now it doesn't come up - the judgement defaulted to them. In addition, this wasn't the reason given by the court, at least in the article -- the court just said they wanted to punish her for "contempt of court" and obstruction of justice. Those charges do not seem to have been filed against her at all. The article said they wanted to "make an example" of her.
"About" had a stroke? Didn't Atkins himself actually have one?
Why is that a good thing? The cruelty's where all the flavor comes from!
The court rendered default judgement because it determined that the plaintiff acted in bad faith, showing "blatant contempt" for the court and a "fundamental disregard for the judicial process." This makes no sense. Charge her with contempt of court and obstruction of justice, fine. The article claims the court wanted to deter her from doing it again and set an example by punishing her -- I'm sorry, but a week in the can will do that trick just fine. Contempt and obstruction are serious criminal offenses. But rendering default judgement here is tantamount to saying that the lack of evidence here is evidence in itself. On top of it, the court implicitly endorses whatever the hell value the plaintiffs decide to attribute to the allegedly "stolen" songs (and the court's decision can be cited in future cases as evidence that said value is reasonable). I realize the judge wants to "set an example" that evidence-tampering is wrong, but you do that by using the criminal sanctions that are already available for evidence tampering. I'm not ANAL, and I'm not a lawyer either, but this is a strange governmental endorsement and protectionism of a corporation's interests in a supposedly free market, no?
(Come to think of it, that's a pretty good explanation of how Nazism arose in the first place...)
erm, I said what? oh shit...
I eat a lot of imitation tofu. I'm personally opposed to cruelty to soybeans. So I eat tofu substitutes made from chicken, beef, pork...
Yeah. It got thrown out.
And I am the Jackson Pollack of data! They don't let me near the spreadsheets much anymore though....
I think most of us here are only familiar with girls dancing when there is a pole involved.