But isn't it safe to say that a trial jury isn't supposed to be concerned with questions of law and procedure, but rather the facts of the case? Questions of law and procedure are usually reserved for the appellate courts, right?
I think I see the gap here -- recall that there's a jury and a judge. Q's of law always go to the judge, always. The judge rulings in turn are reviewed by the appellate court, but that judge always gets first crack at it (saving the appellate court some research labor, BTW:).
The jury's decisions, meanwhile, are not really reviewable except when their conclusions are essentially irrational, or there's some sign of jury tampering, and some other misc. I'd have to look up. This can be kind of ugly, such as when juries acquitted people of murder because they didn't like federal antilynching laws. Unreviewable.
Jury nullification is not part of the law, and it is hotly contested whether it was originally intended or is even a good idea (I doubt both). It is reversible error, for example, for a lawyer to explicitly or implicitly ask a jury to nullify. The power to nullify is more a byproduct of the unreviewability of most acquittals. because the jury is effectively a black box.
Your example is a good one. But a few Q's: Do you have expertise in the field, that you can interpret raw data correctly? Could I do it, too? Could any reasonably intelligent person do it and come to the correct conclusion? (One nice thing about science is that there is absolute truth. Not so law. I have some background in both fields.)
Laws also require expertise to interpret, and law school is tough for a reason. The discussions about statutory interpretation in the courts and in the academy are positively endless, and the correct approach is probably one of the most prominent topics in the law. (Judge Posner of the 7th Circuit has written some of the most accessible articles on this.) Laws often do not speak for themselves, and the result of 12 people on a jury coming each to a different private understanding of the law would be chaotic. I think allowing the jury to second-guess the lawyers and the judge -- who are more likely right -- "simply introduces an extra unnecessary point of error into the process" with no compensatory gain.
Whether the DMCA is valid, incidentally, depends not on whether it is a wise or just or efficient or necessary law. The only question is whether it's valid and constitutional, period. The people who haggle about wisdom and justice and efficiency and necessity are called legislators. As for its interpretation, in the present case it's pretty simple unless I haven't followed the case closely enough.
Regardless of expertise, and perhaps more compelling, there is a basic procedural rationale. Judges have to explain their analysis of the law on the record when denying challenges, and approve jury instructions. These things are on the record and available for review. The private judgments of a juror are not. The record is this huge bound paper thing that anyone can see, and which goes up on appeal.
I've actually been involved (as an advisor, not the decisionmaker!) in this process of judging the validity of a law, and it can be tough. You're welcome to read the decision: United States v. Kenney. It was some of my most challenging work, and the decision was widely followed by courts in other circuits so I guess the logic wasn't too bad. BTW, while Kenney may appear to be a gun control case, it's really not; the topic is the generic power of Congress to enact laws under the Commerce Clause.
If "I" the judge am wrong I will have exposed my reasoning for all to ridicule, and exposed myself to reversal by the Supreme Court (which, believe it or not, happened once -- the judges there ignored my advice, although I concede I was right partly by luck:).
I don't have time to review their entire website, but they're clearly stating an aspiration, not the current law. So when they talk of the jury having a right, they're not referring to anything in existing law. From their "about" page: "In particular, FIJA seeks to restore the traditional trial by jury, and protect it from further incursions."
So they want to "restore the traditional trial by jury" and to prevent "further incursions." In other words, they're activists and would like to promote legislation -- they even have a guide on how to organize your own local reform effort.
As for whether they're right on the substance, I'll keep my mouth shut. I am after all a member of the conspiracy to deprive juries of their powers.;-) FIJA is basically right about the checks and balances thing, juries do account for some of the Framers' concerns about the state abusing its powers; however, checks and balances have their limits. Too much power in anyone's hands is bad thing, and a jury is merely a small unaccountable sample of the citiczenry, not their representative. We elect our representatives, but not our juries.
Also, we already grant juries much more power than many countries, including the British from whom we adopted the system; the jury is a very significant element in the judicial system. I should be careful to point out that the jury right belongs to the defendant, not the jury per se. So more jury power against the state really means more protection to the defendant. A defendant can also choose to waive trial by jury.
Last, believe me that the constitutionality of laws in taken very seriously by the judiciary. Although the courts are or course not perfect, they are independent and do not act as rubber stamps for the legislature. Again in the UK, courts generally can't question the propriety of a law at all -- there is no so-called judicial review IIRC.
I think it remarkable that anyone could call natural the act of putting human DNA into a silk worm, but I do understand your point.
Good point. So... was Frankenstein natural? I guess the parts were all technically human, but don't forget the swapped brain and revive-from-the-dead part.
I think of rDNA used in this way as just inventing a new yoke for the oxen. With developing new lifeforms, well, then you tread the line between... Man and God [lightning flashes in background; maniacal laughter echoes in the darkness].:)
The nanobots did look a bit like electron micrographs I've seen of virus particles, as well as their grasp-and-inject motion. Making them out of metal? Who knows?
Facts are for the jury and law is for the judge; the judges are right about the rule (one would hope!); a constitutional right to invalidate laws does not exist for the jury. FIJA or whoever may disagree and may want to change and perhaps can, but it's not the law. What they propose is a reform, or that current law is wrong, which is their right but a fringe view. (I'm citing federal practice; individual states do have varying practice, as is their right according to their constitutions to evaluate state laws.)
There is no insult in trying this case here. The basis rule is that if you violate the law of another country within their jurisdiction, they've got you. It is a potentially frightening aspect of the internet, but is merely an outgrowth of the law if you murder someone on foreign soil -- you could be prosecuted there even if that country's law were repugnant to American values.
ElcomSoft was knowkingly doing business in the states, in willful violation of the law. End of (jurisdictional) story.
IAAL, and your explanation snaps me back from my befuddlement at this story. I couldn't figure out what was going on until I remembered "jury instructions". Yes, of course, jury instructions are prepared with the input of both parties, in what is supposed to be plain english, and are subject to appeal. From working on an appellate court, believe be these instructions are gone over with a fine-tooth comb. If the DMCA is improperly representaed, or its content changes because of the result in an intervening case, the verdict (guilty -- innocence doesn't typically get appealed) was be vacated and remanded for retrial.
Translating the law into jury instructions is routine. I'd probably appreciate it if I were a juror! It's not that statutes can't be understood by the layperson, it's that their meaning depends on carefully chosen terms of art (like "willfully" as a specific and perhaps surprising legal meaning that would be spelled out for the jury) and precedent from this or related statutes. Thus a statute usually must be researched and interpreted to apply it, and interpretion is not normally the province of the jury.
In short, if anyone things this is a DMCA conspiracy it's not, and if they thinks it's unfair to the people, it's not. Folks the ACLU would otherwise be apeshit (to use the technical legal term).
I disagree on "Deciding whether the law is okay or not is for another court." -- trial courts declare statutes invalid as easily as any other court. Their decisions are reviewed by the appellate court de novo, which means the trial judge gets no deference, the theory being that any judge can evaluate the law regardless of whether they were present at the trial. Questions of fact may well require deference to the trial judge, who saw the witnesses testify. On the other hand, the trial court is bound by precedent, the rulings of higher courts. Once the upper court decides something, lower courts do not get to second-guess it.
Lastly, there is one way jurors do pass on the valdity or even sense of a law or a particular prosecution, called jury nullification. Nullification is where the jury basically acquits where it should have convicted. This "power" (it is not technically legitimate) has been used for good and ill, and has no lasting impact on the law. But once a valid acquittal is entered, retrial is normally (not always) barred by double jeopardy. (Notice how I have to ut siclaimers all over the place -- the law is complicated, and not just a matrix of arcane rules. Rigid, easy to understand rules often sacrifice justice in the name of clarity. Notice also that I have trouble stopping writing once I begin.:)
Remarkable how we humans struggle to achieve artificial materials and processes, yet periodically return to strictly natural ones for their superiority. I'm not promoting the naturalistic fallacy -- that natural = better -- but it strikes me as a reminder of the power of evolution to produce sophisticated and even elegant processes.
Notice how cotton and wool have never quite been displaced as clothing. I was explaining the inferiority of polyester to my son at Target today... I wondered why all the kids sleepwear was poly. They're treated for fire-resistance on the one hand, yet melt into your skin on the other.
I'm also reminded of our discovery of ways to hijack bacterial cellular machinery to produce insulin (Humulin) about 20 years ago. (I don't understand the article's reference to insulin produced from "mammalian cells grown in expensive bioreactors" -- it's plain old E. Coli which, although ubiquitous in humans (coli = colon), has a career of its own. The author may be thinking of conventional porcine insulin, a slaughterhouse byproduct, but that's not "grown in expensive bioreactors." Maybe I misunderstand.)
We have a while until we develop Start Trek-level nanobots, and are stuck asking nature for a hand with selected problems.
Patriotism simply gets in the way of the truth sometimes.
Doesn't this cut equally against the New Zealanders? No one mentions that. The Kiwis are proud of their country, too.
I know the popular int'l image of Americans is jingoists blinded by misguided patriotism, but I would add that there are an awful lot of us very concerned with "getting it right." We've done some really good stuff and some really ungood stuff; let's get it all out on the table.
The frequent repetition of the Pearce story is of no weight; it means the proponents are persistent, not right. The lack of documentation is a big deal not because the event needed some gold seal of approval; rather, it is very unclear what happened -- even to the Pearce proponents.
I find compelling the lack of contemporary evidence, and Pearce's nonpursuit of the first flight crown; indeed IIRC he conceded it was not a controlled flight. The flight most often described ended in a crash after the pilot lost control in midflight, and as a flight instructor I can tell you that is not considered a successful flight. (Although there is a pilot joke that any landing you walk away from is a good landing.) Later flights have been described even less convincingly.
Reality check: Ultimately it does not matter a whit who is right. It's an error of patriotism to be overly proud of the achievements of long-dead people who happened to be of the same nationality. The NZ Pearce boosters share this flaw with the reflexive U.S. Wright defenders. Personally I don't care if it was us or the Kiwis or the Martians. Far more interesting is the contributions made by various individuals to the progress of flight, such as aerodynamic models, ailerons, propellor design, etc. -- not stunts. What is the legacy of Pearce, and of the Wrights (who worked hard to promote aviation; a older guy at my field had his first license signed by a Wright brother). The Americans actually fell behind the Europeans on aircraft development after Kitty Hawk (think Red Baron), a development many times as important to history as the romance of first flight.
(An odd blast from the past is renewed interest in Wright-style wing-warping as method to control fighter aircraft.)
Just to clear things up, I am a guy. Heterosexual, for what it matters.
As to your Q "why" -- are you kidding? Homophobia. Straight men are totally afraid, and the rest are wary of setting off those who are.
Meanwhile, many of the same pigs who can't deal with homosexuality find lesbian situations provocative (ever notice the prevalence in male-oriented porn? fellatio, too...). Never mind that one woman complimenting another is usually not sexual; men tend to miss on that, too, and their emotionally stunted relationships with women show it. (Note that my opinions are at an embryonic phase here.;-)
Now, in my manliest voice, George Clooney looks like the lobotomy was botched. It's the same with Kevin Costner, there's nobody home. I know many women mind them attractive, as well as a fair number of men (wink), but we guys all know women have terrible taste in (other) men.
I think it's pretty stupid, and don't like the overwhelming emphasis on looks for either gender (obviously I'm no George Clooney). O pit gorgeous in parentheses to downplay it a tad, becuse although she is gorgeous she is a whole lot more. (Disclaimer: my wife is black.:)
Trivia: I think Nichols and Roddenberry may have been involved when she got the job, so was sex/beauty/schtupping the overriding factor? I think she deserved it on merit regardless. I mentioned elsewhere that she nearly quit the show after two years because she wasn't getting anything better than, "Hailing frequencies open, sir," but was talked out of it by Dr. King of all people, who said ST was about the only television he would let his kids watch because it had a black person as an officer doing respectable work, not a criminal or pimp or prostitute or slave or so on.
FWIW, I happy to say that Harrison Ford is cool (no, I don't "want" him) (grunt), Clint Eastwood (in an, ahem, rough-hewn way) (grunt), Sean Connery (the older version, without the attitude) (grunt), Cary Grant (grunt)... They're all good actors, the quality I really respect them for. Now if any of these guys is actually gay, I take it back!:) As for Cary, that does sound kind of like a chick name but, well, he's dead. (grunt) Note that the bestial grunts reaffirm that I'm straight, or that's the CW.
The preceding has been largely tongue-in-cheek. We don't seem to have an obnoxious smiley for that, or do we?
Insufficient cyncism! Here, the left wing can give the right a drubbing:
I'm not sure at what point workers started feeling that they were "entitled" to this gift.
The calculating view: Nothing your employer never gives you is a gift. It is compensation for services rendered or incentive cultivation of good will. Either way, the employer deducts it and the employee is taxed on it, with certain minor exceptions for gifts worth less than $25 and the like. According to the IRS, employer-to-employee gifts simply don't happen, and I don't think we should be any less stoic.
As for bonuses being per se gratuitous, that's not so perhaps because the popular understanding of bonus bridges over into year-end compensation. An incentive bonus between employers and employees as an express or implied part of the work relationship can not be withheld on caprice -- it's merely delayed compensation. Entitlement to a future bonus may be valid even post-termination: employers sometimes illegally fire employees to avoid paying benefits.
In short, in some cases the expectation of bonus is morally justified; in more severe cases it may be a legally actionable entitlement. In rare cases the discriminatory or abritrary administration of a bonus system may also be illegal (racist, sexist, and so on).
But I digress because of the compulsion to be thorough. My philosophical advice: Remember, it's not a gift, it's compensation.
Your comment is a reflection of the unfortunate and legally inaccurate attitude that employers are doing you a favor by giving you a job, bonuses, and so on -- while also acting as though employment contracts were negotiated among equals. Which is it?
And, readers, if you're relying on it to support your finances around Christmas time, harsh as this may sound, you deserve whatever's coming.
Sure, and you may also deserve that bonus coming. And I don't mean a fuck-you bobbing doll of your wealthy CEO, fit only for target practice. (OK, perhaps that was the writer's due reward; I'm being charitable.) What the writer apparently feels is a moral betrayal. It's hard to judge reasonableness without knowing enough details, but the decision could go either way. If it looks likely this crap will continue regardless of work performance, I'd recommend updating the resume.
Hmm, am I going too far afield here if I imagine we're supposed to pick good guys and bad guys here?
The geeks here sounds like creative types who still live with their parents and maybe have a nice car; the suits genderless soulless drones with 401(k)'s and more likely have a nice car.
If anything this article illustrates the uselessness of stereotypes. As soon as the writer concedes the existence of hybird strains, the binary distinction loses value. Better to talk about these different qualities and identify people who have interesting mixes. Someone else here mentions race; I wouldn't be so melodramatic, but yes it's analogous. Geek and suit are superimposed social abstractions that, as individuals, we should reject.
Now I feel like I'm working a little hard to make something interesting of a humdrum article that reads like something written on a deadline and a hangover. How come they never take my submissions?;-)
Other places? Yes, but here it is on-topic. Bitching makes very little sense without the issue right in front of you. Complaining is also my little way of telling the anonymous modders to get bent.
I mentioned karma to point out that was not my point, though of course my pride is terribly wounded, not. Also, the complaint bubbles the victimized comment back out so that others like you will actually see it and read it. This one was a bit long, and if it gets modded into oblivion it might as well not have been written.
Actually in many way I feel there is safety in numbers. If they were only monitoring a we few people I would be nervous, but when the amount of data being collected we are people just numbers in a statisitc somewhere. Just another brick in the wall.
Yes, but people get screwed one-by-one.
An example of the effect of these databases is what happens to victims of identity theft. I suppose at some point you might cease to exist.
There is one area that is sacrosanct -- your video rental records. Although presumably they may be subpoenaed, they may not otherwise me disclosed to anyone because of a federal statute on point, which arose from conservatives irritated about something that popped up in the Bork hearings. Note that hearsay video preferences (Long Dong Silver) popped up in the Justice Thomas hearings, and reading selections (Vox) in Lewinsky scandal.
So, privacy invasion comes up again and again, and it offends people, I hope to the point that more safe harbors like the relatively frivolous video rental law will be passed. It is bizarre, for example, that it has taken so long to protect medical records with the force of law... sadly our system requires us to wait for sensational abuses before anything changes.
Perhaps you know how to disable most of these tracking systems, do you really want these big corporations watching the every move of your grandmother - who unlike you, doesnt know any better?
Yeah, my grandmother listens to a lot of gangsta rap. (I care about her oo much to let her use a PC anyway. It's good to be unpopular when spyware first chooses the popular.)
As an aside, it only occurred to me recently that a simple credit card report could provide a wealth of information on not just purchases, and physical movements. Even without compiling multiple sources a significant detective trail can emerge, as we see on Law & Order each week and accept because it's being used against bad guys (note that the L&O intro presumes suspects guilty:).
I've started using more cash... just in case. Just b/c I'm paranoid...
It would have been an A+ had you included some gratuitous footnotes or hyperlinks... The appearance of scholarship is as important as its fact.
Also, this Yakov shtick was dead a long, long time ago. I thought we'd deported Yakov to Russia in exchange for dismantling some nukes. But if you look at his personal site, it looks as though he is actually nailing some gigs.
I understand that you're being facetious about my rejection of my faith. It is a possibility, although I regard it as a very unlikely one.
Facetious -- not really, not with the negative connotation. Just pointing out that I might not be on the defensive about my beliefs any more than you. As for my future change, I agree with your second sentence. The future can always bring change, but our beliefs are not necessarily up for grabs. And most of us would not endorse coercion one direction or the other; these are things we're supposed to figure out for ourselves (my wife and I just a long car ride conversation about the interaction of gov't and religion, prayer in schools, etc. -- and no, we don't agree about everything; and our child will be baptised this coming weekend).
Within and among religions there is such tremendous variation, perhaps the churchgoer chooses one more to be affirmed than changed. I sat next to a Methodist minister on a flight once who commented on his religion's political liberality, and the concern of some of the clergy that too many younger people were joining "for the wrong reasons" -- shared secular values rather than the God part. I do not personally accept that joining a church is a necessary step.
I think the framework of Christianity -- the open, loving version -- is beautiful. Some people's readings of certain parts of the Bible are deeply disturbing to me, and many just depend on what you believe -- kind of like some parts of the Constitution. What to believe, I don't know, and I don't think the world is holding its breath. I do enjoy thinking about it, which suggests I do listen, and my notion of God is that there's some patience. (I can't imagine tolerating mankind without patience.)
They talk about this somewhere in the FAQ that a simple link check often does work. So we get dupes even where the links are identical?
The sanity check could compare the language of the cited articles for overlap, or a preponderance of keywords. I know the slashdot software is under continuous development, who knows what is in the works.
But here, I think a pretty quick check for the spammer's name or the link would have done the trick. I don't know whether it was attempted, but if not that small time savings for the editor consumes many times the time of the posters.
Might be a good time to think about the term troll. My comment was sincere and weighted to provoke thoughtful debate. I don't see these issues aired at all often (I assume the first half of the comment offended). I also won't drop the remark and run; the comment is not there to inflame.
I don't give a damn about losing a point of karma. I do dislike some anonymous twerp doing the equivalent of yelling "shut up." That's the real troll.
I know everyone hates statistics, but that's not really the issue here -- it's basic arithmetic. I mean, they can't add and multiply properly, either by accident or design, but as soon as they're caught at it they undermine their already limited credibility.
This reminds me of virtually any tax debate in Congress, excpet there it is at least partly statistics -- trying to extrapolate from known values and economic relationships to determine future revenue. WIth the RIAA, at least in the present example, we see simple nonsense. Of course, this sould be the work of the PR people, a group not known for math skills.:)
As for "the idea of increased sales through increased exposure" that's a matter for speculation, and a decision I feel that is wholly up to sellers to determine, not the consumer. I imagine the relationship of publicity (earned at the sacrifice of some profits) to ultimate profits (the number they really care about -- not sales) is a curve of some sort, with diminishing returns beyond a certain point of giveaway music. More efficient piracy will not advance the game, rather it may give the beneficiaries an added sense of entitlement, and reduced obligation to pay the big bad record labels for anything. This is not so much civil disobedience as yielding to temptation while feeling justified for just desserts or educating the greedbags.
On the publicity point, recall that Napster and P2P are pull not push mechanisms; you have to request what you want, thus you already know something about it and probably like it. This is less likely to spur sales than push, where the studios would promote music that is not yet established, and which they believe need promotion.
Someone MUST have done a decent study of this question... anyone have a cite? The biggest problem is estimating the returns from schemes that have never been tried. In other words -- statistics and, worse, speculation.
As an ethical matter marketing should be left to the sellers, with input from consumers but not pressure in the form of piracy. They have a right to be stupid; we do not have a right to coerce. If I were the seller, losing music to piracy would not immediately dispose me to start giving "samples" away for free -- I might go the RIAA route, even if it were illogical. Psychologically, it has to be a decision they feel they made on their own, or that upstarts demonstrate to be viable. Also, if the sellers can make more money not giving out free music, I can't blame them for a second.
(1) Against those silly people who spend $$$ on silly movies;
(2) Against those silly people who pirate silly movies while insisting how silly they are.
At least group 1 is honest about what they like and how they acquire it.
And if the franchise is making "too much money," and deserves to be knocked down a notch by piracy, then let's not forget those productions that make "too little money," who deserve our subsidies. That seems symmetrical, and thus queerly moral, though few of us are going to send checks to money-losing moviemakers.
At least we could help people who can't afford these movies to see them. the folks complaining that the studios are making too much money or that the products are too exapensive are often those who can afford them. Either way, science fiction isn't really a nutritional need up there with the four food groups. If I was going to steal something, it would be food first. If you just have to have a Picard figurine and insist on stealing it, well you have issues..... most of use scrape by without a Picard figurine, or personal copies of the movies for that matter.
Outside of the US, esp. the developing world, the DVD prices must seem outrageous. (I have no ideas as to the foreign prices of figurines, lunchboxes, "fake" phasers, and so on.) Perhaps the industry will work out a multitier price scheme as do the drug companies. That was the whole point of regional DVD's?
Of course most of these arguments are just a bit silly, as are all of the rationalizations for Robin Hood piracy of this fluff. Sobriety first.
The Star Trek series would have ended earlier if its profits has been just a bit thinner. Ok, maybe it should have ended earlier, but I like many see value in some of the later work -- and we pay our way. True, the grosses are grosser than many realize! But are they out of proportion to the success and likability of the series? Hell, they hit the jackpot over and over (every other film maybe) and deserve it, it's not coming out of anyone else's pocket who didn't ask to see it.
On Trek -- I love the bald slant in MSNBC Nemesis review subtitle: "It's good enough for Trekkers but not for rest of us." What are Trekkers, a brainwashed subspecies? (well, maybe.) Should I trust a review by someone who confesses bias as "the rest of us"? (Just an editorial thing.)
I really really really want to see a bold successor to Trek that develops a whole 'nuther universe without cheats like transporters and phasers and Spock. I thought I was seeing that emerge in the bio-universe of Farscape, one of the first non-derivative space operas in a long time. Oh well, I may have to wait for Farscape: The Next Generation.
Slashdot Mirror
But isn't it safe to say that a trial jury isn't supposed to be concerned with questions of law and procedure, but rather the facts of the case? Questions of law and procedure are usually reserved for the appellate courts, right?
:).
I think I see the gap here -- recall that there's a jury and a judge. Q's of law always go to the judge, always. The judge rulings in turn are reviewed by the appellate court, but that judge always gets first crack at it (saving the appellate court some research labor, BTW
The jury's decisions, meanwhile, are not really reviewable except when their conclusions are essentially irrational, or there's some sign of jury tampering, and some other misc. I'd have to look up. This can be kind of ugly, such as when juries acquitted people of murder because they didn't like federal antilynching laws. Unreviewable.
Jury nullification is not part of the law, and it is hotly contested whether it was originally intended or is even a good idea (I doubt both). It is reversible error, for example, for a lawyer to explicitly or implicitly ask a jury to nullify. The power to nullify is more a byproduct of the unreviewability of most acquittals. because the jury is effectively a black box.
Your example is a good one. But a few Q's: Do you have expertise in the field, that you can interpret raw data correctly? Could I do it, too? Could any reasonably intelligent person do it and come to the correct conclusion? (One nice thing about science is that there is absolute truth. Not so law. I have some background in both fields.)
:).
Laws also require expertise to interpret, and law school is tough for a reason. The discussions about statutory interpretation in the courts and in the academy are positively endless, and the correct approach is probably one of the most prominent topics in the law. (Judge Posner of the 7th Circuit has written some of the most accessible articles on this.) Laws often do not speak for themselves, and the result of 12 people on a jury coming each to a different private understanding of the law would be chaotic. I think allowing the jury to second-guess the lawyers and the judge -- who are more likely right -- "simply introduces an extra unnecessary point of error into the process" with no compensatory gain.
Whether the DMCA is valid, incidentally, depends not on whether it is a wise or just or efficient or necessary law. The only question is whether it's valid and constitutional, period. The people who haggle about wisdom and justice and efficiency and necessity are called legislators. As for its interpretation, in the present case it's pretty simple unless I haven't followed the case closely enough.
Regardless of expertise, and perhaps more compelling, there is a basic procedural rationale. Judges have to explain their analysis of the law on the record when denying challenges, and approve jury instructions. These things are on the record and available for review. The private judgments of a juror are not. The record is this huge bound paper thing that anyone can see, and which goes up on appeal.
I've actually been involved (as an advisor, not the decisionmaker!) in this process of judging the validity of a law, and it can be tough. You're welcome to read the decision: United States v. Kenney. It was some of my most challenging work, and the decision was widely followed by courts in other circuits so I guess the logic wasn't too bad. BTW, while Kenney may appear to be a gun control case, it's really not; the topic is the generic power of Congress to enact laws under the Commerce Clause.
If "I" the judge am wrong I will have exposed my reasoning for all to ridicule, and exposed myself to reversal by the Supreme Court (which, believe it or not, happened once -- the judges there ignored my advice, although I concede I was right partly by luck
I don't have time to review their entire website, but they're clearly stating an aspiration, not the current law. So when they talk of the jury having a right, they're not referring to anything in existing law. From their "about" page: "In particular, FIJA seeks to restore the traditional trial by jury, and protect it from further incursions."
;-) FIJA is basically right about the checks and balances thing, juries do account for some of the Framers' concerns about the state abusing its powers; however, checks and balances have their limits. Too much power in anyone's hands is bad thing, and a jury is merely a small unaccountable sample of the citiczenry, not their representative. We elect our representatives, but not our juries.
So they want to "restore the traditional trial by jury" and to prevent "further incursions." In other words, they're activists and would like to promote legislation -- they even have a guide on how to organize your own local reform effort.
As for whether they're right on the substance, I'll keep my mouth shut. I am after all a member of the conspiracy to deprive juries of their powers.
Also, we already grant juries much more power than many countries, including the British from whom we adopted the system; the jury is a very significant element in the judicial system. I should be careful to point out that the jury right belongs to the defendant, not the jury per se. So more jury power against the state really means more protection to the defendant. A defendant can also choose to waive trial by jury.
Last, believe me that the constitutionality of laws in taken very seriously by the judiciary. Although the courts are or course not perfect, they are independent and do not act as rubber stamps for the legislature. Again in the UK, courts generally can't question the propriety of a law at all -- there is no so-called judicial review IIRC.
I think it remarkable that anyone could call natural the act of putting human DNA into a silk worm, but I do understand your point.
... was Frankenstein natural? I guess the parts were all technically human, but don't forget the swapped brain and revive-from-the-dead part.
... Man and God [lightning flashes in background; maniacal laughter echoes in the darkness]. :)
Good point. So
I think of rDNA used in this way as just inventing a new yoke for the oxen. With developing new lifeforms, well, then you tread the line between
The nanobots did look a bit like electron micrographs I've seen of virus particles, as well as their grasp-and-inject motion. Making them out of metal? Who knows?
Facts are for the jury and law is for the judge; the judges are right about the rule (one would hope!); a constitutional right to invalidate laws does not exist for the jury. FIJA or whoever may disagree and may want to change and perhaps can, but it's not the law. What they propose is a reform, or that current law is wrong, which is their right but a fringe view. (I'm citing federal practice; individual states do have varying practice, as is their right according to their constitutions to evaluate state laws.)
:)
IAAL FWIW.
There is no insult in trying this case here. The basis rule is that if you violate the law of another country within their jurisdiction, they've got you. It is a potentially frightening aspect of the internet, but is merely an outgrowth of the law if you murder someone on foreign soil -- you could be prosecuted there even if that country's law were repugnant to American values.
ElcomSoft was knowkingly doing business in the states, in willful violation of the law. End of (jurisdictional) story.
IAAL, and your explanation snaps me back from my befuddlement at this story. I couldn't figure out what was going on until I remembered "jury instructions". Yes, of course, jury instructions are prepared with the input of both parties, in what is supposed to be plain english, and are subject to appeal. From working on an appellate court, believe be these instructions are gone over with a fine-tooth comb. If the DMCA is improperly representaed, or its content changes because of the result in an intervening case, the verdict (guilty -- innocence doesn't typically get appealed) was be vacated and remanded for retrial.
:)
Translating the law into jury instructions is routine. I'd probably appreciate it if I were a juror! It's not that statutes can't be understood by the layperson, it's that their meaning depends on carefully chosen terms of art (like "willfully" as a specific and perhaps surprising legal meaning that would be spelled out for the jury) and precedent from this or related statutes. Thus a statute usually must be researched and interpreted to apply it, and interpretion is not normally the province of the jury.
In short, if anyone things this is a DMCA conspiracy it's not, and if they thinks it's unfair to the people, it's not. Folks the ACLU would otherwise be apeshit (to use the technical legal term).
I disagree on "Deciding whether the law is okay or not is for another court." -- trial courts declare statutes invalid as easily as any other court. Their decisions are reviewed by the appellate court de novo, which means the trial judge gets no deference, the theory being that any judge can evaluate the law regardless of whether they were present at the trial. Questions of fact may well require deference to the trial judge, who saw the witnesses testify. On the other hand, the trial court is bound by precedent, the rulings of higher courts. Once the upper court decides something, lower courts do not get to second-guess it.
Lastly, there is one way jurors do pass on the valdity or even sense of a law or a particular prosecution, called jury nullification. Nullification is where the jury basically acquits where it should have convicted. This "power" (it is not technically legitimate) has been used for good and ill, and has no lasting impact on the law. But once a valid acquittal is entered, retrial is normally (not always) barred by double jeopardy. (Notice how I have to ut siclaimers all over the place -- the law is complicated, and not just a matrix of arcane rules. Rigid, easy to understand rules often sacrifice justice in the name of clarity. Notice also that I have trouble stopping writing once I begin.
Remarkable how we humans struggle to achieve artificial materials and processes, yet periodically return to strictly natural ones for their superiority. I'm not promoting the naturalistic fallacy -- that natural = better -- but it strikes me as a reminder of the power of evolution to produce sophisticated and even elegant processes.
... I wondered why all the kids sleepwear was poly. They're treated for fire-resistance on the one hand, yet melt into your skin on the other.
Notice how cotton and wool have never quite been displaced as clothing. I was explaining the inferiority of polyester to my son at Target today
I'm also reminded of our discovery of ways to hijack bacterial cellular machinery to produce insulin (Humulin) about 20 years ago. (I don't understand the article's reference to insulin produced from "mammalian cells grown in expensive bioreactors" -- it's plain old E. Coli which, although ubiquitous in humans (coli = colon), has a career of its own. The author may be thinking of conventional porcine insulin, a slaughterhouse byproduct, but that's not "grown in expensive bioreactors." Maybe I misunderstand.)
We have a while until we develop Start Trek-level nanobots, and are stuck asking nature for a hand with selected problems.
Patriotism simply gets in the way of the truth sometimes.
Doesn't this cut equally against the New Zealanders? No one mentions that. The Kiwis are proud of their country, too.
I know the popular int'l image of Americans is jingoists blinded by misguided patriotism, but I would add that there are an awful lot of us very concerned with "getting it right." We've done some really good stuff and some really ungood stuff; let's get it all out on the table.
The frequent repetition of the Pearce story is of no weight; it means the proponents are persistent, not right. The lack of documentation is a big deal not because the event needed some gold seal of approval; rather, it is very unclear what happened -- even to the Pearce proponents.
I find compelling the lack of contemporary evidence, and Pearce's nonpursuit of the first flight crown; indeed IIRC he conceded it was not a controlled flight. The flight most often described ended in a crash after the pilot lost control in midflight, and as a flight instructor I can tell you that is not considered a successful flight. (Although there is a pilot joke that any landing you walk away from is a good landing.) Later flights have been described even less convincingly.
Reality check: Ultimately it does not matter a whit who is right. It's an error of patriotism to be overly proud of the achievements of long-dead people who happened to be of the same nationality. The NZ Pearce boosters share this flaw with the reflexive U.S. Wright defenders. Personally I don't care if it was us or the Kiwis or the Martians. Far more interesting is the contributions made by various individuals to the progress of flight, such as aerodynamic models, ailerons, propellor design, etc. -- not stunts. What is the legacy of Pearce, and of the Wrights (who worked hard to promote aviation; a older guy at my field had his first license signed by a Wright brother). The Americans actually fell behind the Europeans on aircraft development after Kitty Hawk (think Red Baron), a development many times as important to history as the romance of first flight.
(An odd blast from the past is renewed interest in Wright-style wing-warping as method to control fighter aircraft.)
Just to clear things up, I am a guy. Heterosexual, for what it matters.
;-)
:)
:) As for Cary, that does sound kind of like a chick name but, well, he's dead. (grunt) Note that the bestial grunts reaffirm that I'm straight, or that's the CW.
As to your Q "why" -- are you kidding? Homophobia. Straight men are totally afraid, and the rest are wary of setting off those who are.
Meanwhile, many of the same pigs who can't deal with homosexuality find lesbian situations provocative (ever notice the prevalence in male-oriented porn? fellatio, too...). Never mind that one woman complimenting another is usually not sexual; men tend to miss on that, too, and their emotionally stunted relationships with women show it. (Note that my opinions are at an embryonic phase here.
Now, in my manliest voice, George Clooney looks like the lobotomy was botched. It's the same with Kevin Costner, there's nobody home. I know many women mind them attractive, as well as a fair number of men (wink), but we guys all know women have terrible taste in (other) men.
I think it's pretty stupid, and don't like the overwhelming emphasis on looks for either gender (obviously I'm no George Clooney). O pit gorgeous in parentheses to downplay it a tad, becuse although she is gorgeous she is a whole lot more. (Disclaimer: my wife is black.
Trivia: I think Nichols and Roddenberry may have been involved when she got the job, so was sex/beauty/schtupping the overriding factor? I think she deserved it on merit regardless. I mentioned elsewhere that she nearly quit the show after two years because she wasn't getting anything better than, "Hailing frequencies open, sir," but was talked out of it by Dr. King of all people, who said ST was about the only television he would let his kids watch because it had a black person as an officer doing respectable work, not a criminal or pimp or prostitute or slave or so on.
FWIW, I happy to say that Harrison Ford is cool (no, I don't "want" him) (grunt), Clint Eastwood (in an, ahem, rough-hewn way) (grunt), Sean Connery (the older version, without the attitude) (grunt), Cary Grant (grunt)... They're all good actors, the quality I really respect them for. Now if any of these guys is actually gay, I take it back!
The preceding has been largely tongue-in-cheek. We don't seem to have an obnoxious smiley for that, or do we?
Stumbling sarcasm -- is that really the best you can do?
There goes your bonus.
Insufficient cyncism! Here, the left wing can give the right a drubbing:
I'm not sure at what point workers started feeling that they were "entitled" to this gift.
The calculating view: Nothing your employer never gives you is a gift. It is compensation for services rendered or incentive cultivation of good will. Either way, the employer deducts it and the employee is taxed on it, with certain minor exceptions for gifts worth less than $25 and the like. According to the IRS, employer-to-employee gifts simply don't happen, and I don't think we should be any less stoic.
As for bonuses being per se gratuitous, that's not so perhaps because the popular understanding of bonus bridges over into year-end compensation. An incentive bonus between employers and employees as an express or implied part of the work relationship can not be withheld on caprice -- it's merely delayed compensation. Entitlement to a future bonus may be valid even post-termination: employers sometimes illegally fire employees to avoid paying benefits.
In short, in some cases the expectation of bonus is morally justified; in more severe cases it may be a legally actionable entitlement. In rare cases the discriminatory or abritrary administration of a bonus system may also be illegal (racist, sexist, and so on).
But I digress because of the compulsion to be thorough. My philosophical advice: Remember, it's not a gift, it's compensation.
Your comment is a reflection of the unfortunate and legally inaccurate attitude that employers are doing you a favor by giving you a job, bonuses, and so on -- while also acting as though employment contracts were negotiated among equals. Which is it?
And, readers, if you're relying on it to support your finances around Christmas time, harsh as this may sound, you deserve whatever's coming.
Sure, and you may also deserve that bonus coming. And I don't mean a fuck-you bobbing doll of your wealthy CEO, fit only for target practice. (OK, perhaps that was the writer's due reward; I'm being charitable.) What the writer apparently feels is a moral betrayal. It's hard to judge reasonableness without knowing enough details, but the decision could go either way. If it looks likely this crap will continue regardless of work performance, I'd recommend updating the resume.
Hmm, am I going too far afield here if I imagine we're supposed to pick good guys and bad guys here?
;-)
The geeks here sounds like creative types who still live with their parents and maybe have a nice car; the suits genderless soulless drones with 401(k)'s and more likely have a nice car.
If anything this article illustrates the uselessness of stereotypes. As soon as the writer concedes the existence of hybird strains, the binary distinction loses value. Better to talk about these different qualities and identify people who have interesting mixes. Someone else here mentions race; I wouldn't be so melodramatic, but yes it's analogous. Geek and suit are superimposed social abstractions that, as individuals, we should reject.
Now I feel like I'm working a little hard to make something interesting of a humdrum article that reads like something written on a deadline and a hangover. How come they never take my submissions?
In all events, it's been nice talking to you. Now, about those gas giants (no, not the televangelists)....
Other places? Yes, but here it is on-topic. Bitching makes very little sense without the issue right in front of you. Complaining is also my little way of telling the anonymous modders to get bent.
I mentioned karma to point out that was not my point, though of course my pride is terribly wounded, not. Also, the complaint bubbles the victimized comment back out so that others like you will actually see it and read it. This one was a bit long, and if it gets modded into oblivion it might as well not have been written.
Actually in many way I feel there is safety in numbers. If they were only monitoring a we few people I would be nervous, but when the amount of data being collected we are people just numbers in a statisitc somewhere. Just another brick in the wall.
... sadly our system requires us to wait for sensational abuses before anything changes.
Yes, but people get screwed one-by-one.
An example of the effect of these databases is what happens to victims of identity theft. I suppose at some point you might cease to exist.
There is one area that is sacrosanct -- your video rental records. Although presumably they may be subpoenaed, they may not otherwise me disclosed to anyone because of a federal statute on point, which arose from conservatives irritated about something that popped up in the Bork hearings. Note that hearsay video preferences (Long Dong Silver) popped up in the Justice Thomas hearings, and reading selections (Vox) in Lewinsky scandal.
So, privacy invasion comes up again and again, and it offends people, I hope to the point that more safe harbors like the relatively frivolous video rental law will be passed. It is bizarre, for example, that it has taken so long to protect medical records with the force of law
Perhaps you know how to disable most of these tracking systems, do you really want these big corporations watching the every move of your grandmother - who unlike you, doesnt know any better?
:).
... just in case. Just b/c I'm paranoid...
Yeah, my grandmother listens to a lot of gangsta rap. (I care about her oo much to let her use a PC anyway. It's good to be unpopular when spyware first chooses the popular.)
As an aside, it only occurred to me recently that a simple credit card report could provide a wealth of information on not just purchases, and physical movements. Even without compiling multiple sources a significant detective trail can emerge, as we see on Law & Order each week and accept because it's being used against bad guys (note that the L&O intro presumes suspects guilty
I've started using more cash
Very nice analysis! An "A-"
... The appearance of scholarship is as important as its fact.
It would have been an A+ had you included some gratuitous footnotes or hyperlinks
Also, this Yakov shtick was dead a long, long time ago. I thought we'd deported Yakov to Russia in exchange for dismantling some nukes. But if you look at his personal site, it looks as though he is actually nailing some gigs.
In Soviet Russia, GIGS nail YOU! Har-har-har.
I understand that you're being facetious about my rejection of my faith. It is a possibility, although I regard it as a very unlikely one.
Facetious -- not really, not with the negative connotation. Just pointing out that I might not be on the defensive about my beliefs any more than you. As for my future change, I agree with your second sentence. The future can always bring change, but our beliefs are not necessarily up for grabs. And most of us would not endorse coercion one direction or the other; these are things we're supposed to figure out for ourselves (my wife and I just a long car ride conversation about the interaction of gov't and religion, prayer in schools, etc. -- and no, we don't agree about everything; and our child will be baptised this coming weekend).
Within and among religions there is such tremendous variation, perhaps the churchgoer chooses one more to be affirmed than changed. I sat next to a Methodist minister on a flight once who commented on his religion's political liberality, and the concern of some of the clergy that too many younger people were joining "for the wrong reasons" -- shared secular values rather than the God part. I do not personally accept that joining a church is a necessary step.
I think the framework of Christianity -- the open, loving version -- is beautiful. Some people's readings of certain parts of the Bible are deeply disturbing to me, and many just depend on what you believe -- kind of like some parts of the Constitution. What to believe, I don't know, and I don't think the world is holding its breath. I do enjoy thinking about it, which suggests I do listen, and my notion of God is that there's some patience. (I can't imagine tolerating mankind without patience.)
They talk about this somewhere in the FAQ that a simple link check often does work. So we get dupes even where the links are identical?
The sanity check could compare the language of the cited articles for overlap, or a preponderance of keywords. I know the slashdot software is under continuous development, who knows what is in the works.
But here, I think a pretty quick check for the spammer's name or the link would have done the trick. I don't know whether it was attempted, but if not that small time savings for the editor consumes many times the time of the posters.
A troll mod? Why, did I offend the modder?
Might be a good time to think about the term troll. My comment was sincere and weighted to provoke thoughtful debate. I don't see these issues aired at all often (I assume the first half of the comment offended). I also won't drop the remark and run; the comment is not there to inflame.
I don't give a damn about losing a point of karma. I do dislike some anonymous twerp doing the equivalent of yelling "shut up." That's the real troll.
I know everyone hates statistics, but that's not really the issue here -- it's basic arithmetic. I mean, they can't add and multiply properly, either by accident or design, but as soon as they're caught at it they undermine their already limited credibility.
:)
... anyone have a cite? The biggest problem is estimating the returns from schemes that have never been tried. In other words -- statistics and, worse, speculation.
This reminds me of virtually any tax debate in Congress, excpet there it is at least partly statistics -- trying to extrapolate from known values and economic relationships to determine future revenue. WIth the RIAA, at least in the present example, we see simple nonsense. Of course, this sould be the work of the PR people, a group not known for math skills.
As for "the idea of increased sales through increased exposure" that's a matter for speculation, and a decision I feel that is wholly up to sellers to determine, not the consumer. I imagine the relationship of publicity (earned at the sacrifice of some profits) to ultimate profits (the number they really care about -- not sales) is a curve of some sort, with diminishing returns beyond a certain point of giveaway music. More efficient piracy will not advance the game, rather it may give the beneficiaries an added sense of entitlement, and reduced obligation to pay the big bad record labels for anything. This is not so much civil disobedience as yielding to temptation while feeling justified for just desserts or educating the greedbags.
On the publicity point, recall that Napster and P2P are pull not push mechanisms; you have to request what you want, thus you already know something about it and probably like it. This is less likely to spur sales than push, where the studios would promote music that is not yet established, and which they believe need promotion.
Someone MUST have done a decent study of this question
As an ethical matter marketing should be left to the sellers, with input from consumers but not pressure in the form of piracy. They have a right to be stupid; we do not have a right to coerce. If I were the seller, losing music to piracy would not immediately dispose me to start giving "samples" away for free -- I might go the RIAA route, even if it were illogical. Psychologically, it has to be a decision they feel they made on their own, or that upstarts demonstrate to be viable. Also, if the sellers can make more money not giving out free music, I can't blame them for a second.
Is this an unspoken confession the /. search engine is too horrible for even editors to use?
Those who can not remember the past (stories) are condemned to repeat (them) (over and over and over and over). -- Santayana (sort of)
A curmudgeon's critique:
(1) Against those silly people who spend $$$ on silly movies;
(2) Against those silly people who pirate silly movies while insisting how silly they are.
At least group 1 is honest about what they like and how they acquire it.
And if the franchise is making "too much money," and deserves to be knocked down a notch by piracy, then let's not forget those productions that make "too little money," who deserve our subsidies. That seems symmetrical, and thus queerly moral, though few of us are going to send checks to money-losing moviemakers.
At least we could help people who can't afford these movies to see them. the folks complaining that the studios are making too much money or that the products are too exapensive are often those who can afford them. Either way, science fiction isn't really a nutritional need up there with the four food groups. If I was going to steal something, it would be food first. If you just have to have a Picard figurine and insist on stealing it, well you have issues..... most of use scrape by without a Picard figurine, or personal copies of the movies for that matter.
Outside of the US, esp. the developing world, the DVD prices must seem outrageous. (I have no ideas as to the foreign prices of figurines, lunchboxes, "fake" phasers, and so on.) Perhaps the industry will work out a multitier price scheme as do the drug companies. That was the whole point of regional DVD's?
Of course most of these arguments are just a bit silly, as are all of the rationalizations for Robin Hood piracy of this fluff. Sobriety first.
The Star Trek series would have ended earlier if its profits has been just a bit thinner. Ok, maybe it should have ended earlier, but I like many see value in some of the later work -- and we pay our way. True, the grosses are grosser than many realize! But are they out of proportion to the success and likability of the series? Hell, they hit the jackpot over and over (every other film maybe) and deserve it, it's not coming out of anyone else's pocket who didn't ask to see it.
On Trek -- I love the bald slant in MSNBC Nemesis review subtitle: "It's good enough for Trekkers but not for rest of us." What are Trekkers, a brainwashed subspecies? (well, maybe.) Should I trust a review by someone who confesses bias as "the rest of us"? (Just an editorial thing.)
I really really really want to see a bold successor to Trek that develops a whole 'nuther universe without cheats like transporters and phasers and Spock. I thought I was seeing that emerge in the bio-universe of Farscape, one of the first non-derivative space operas in a long time. Oh well, I may have to wait for Farscape: The Next Generation.