Sending a letter to judges to tell them what is going on in their own courtroom? When you are a party to neither case? Clearly because you have a bone to pick with one of the parties?
Contemptible. Reprehensible. Absolutely pathetic. If I were either judge I would send I nice letter to this lawyer to come down for a nice chat where I tell him to stay the hell away from cases pending before my court.
There is nothing more sad than an attorney putting their own moralistic crusade over propriety and- yes- ethics. You're not a party, it isn't an appellate case where outsiders get their voices heard, so the ethic thing is to keep your nose out of the court's- and the parties'- business.
If someone wants to code their program for them, that's their business. If it helps the community, that is great. All this talk about the BSA "deserving" the help of "the community" is ridiculous. Just a load of projecting one's own feelings onto a very large and diverse group of people, who as smaller groups or individuals may or may not agree with your views.
As others have said, people have to authenticate photographs. Video from surveillance cameras would go something like: was in proper working condition, data was retrieved and stored in safe place, inscribed using proper techniques.
As for what the defense attorney could do, he could of course attempt to attack the authentication or chain of custody, but that isn't any different from photographs for the past 50 years. It's much easier to explain away photos rather than lose capital with the jury by fighting them tooth and nail (and almost assuredly losing).
The other option, put something about the possibility of fabrication in your close, but that is objectionable. It will be overruled, true, but the judge would almost certainly (in my experience) give the jury a speech about how closings are just argument and they have to rely on what they heard in the evidence to reach their decision.
My own confusion as to the meaning of "drive by" in this context did make me wonder about ease of contribution.
What if there were a bifurcation or distribution of the bug-fixing/feature-adding problem? This may be really stupid, but I imagine a situation where testers go through finding things that are wrong or where they go wrong, then submit that bit of code.
On top of this, there is a system which grabs the trace and shows the bit of code where everything got derailed, and in other panes the stuff it called to, so anybody could look over the "offending" code, without having to be intimately familiar with the kernel or the library or whatever, since it is all laid out for them. Then, people can tinker with the code and submit them for (automatic, since you know what to look for) testing, maybe leave comments on the ticket to help others' or as a group try to figure it out.
I don't have time to wade through mountains of kernel code looking for bugs, but I would be more than willing to look over a (relatively) small bit of code in a collaborative fashion to see if I pick up on something others had missed.
You do realize that you can't have players directly control the sword in Zelda, or any other control scheme people keep ranting about, because your controls aren't the only factor that determines what happens.
Let's use zelda. You swing your sword. The enemy blocks it with a shield, and Link gets thrown back a bit. But you do not. You arm is down, but the fact that you were blocked necessitates the sword to be up in the air, reeling backwards. How are you going to reconcile the two? You could disable user control for a bit as Link reels, but where do you pick up afterward, provided the remote doesn't move? Link's sword teleports from being up to down, and you've just confused your player.
Another additional concern that is less prevalent in zelda that it would be in other games, that a large part of balancing a game (not to mention setting a scene) is controlling what the player is able to do. The remote is nearly weightless, it would be simple to just run at enemies swinging the remote back and forth as quickly as possible (very fast) to have link swing his sword as superhuman speeds. This destroys the scene (ridiculous physics), but it also screws up balancing; does the developer assume everyone will swing like a madman and make it really difficult for those who choose not to, or make it really easy for those who choose to do so by balancing the game toward those less inclined to flail their arms wildly?
Balance is also important in a "real" exercise routine to ensure muscles are worked evenly. A good example is weight machines- if your balance is very bad, you will not be able to use the machine properly, and you may end up injuring yourself.
Actually, none of them are videogame-related. He is being reprimanded for misbehavior regarding his role as an agent of the court. They arose in the context of a lawsuit which featured games as part of its subject matter, but none of this actually has anything to do with games.
But hey, someone who disagrees with "the viewpoint" is being punished. That the malfeasance and reprimand has nothing to do with that viewpoint is irrelevant, so long as everyone gets their blood.
"The blatent gall that the RIAA lawyers have in telling the judge he's wrong will NOT get the judge to say "Oh gee, you're right all along, my bad". It'll just piss him off to the point of letting him find more flaws with the RIAA's arguments in other areas."
Attorneys tell the judge that he's wrong all the time. Every case, actually. There will always be a motion to dismiss. There will always be a motion to reconsider. There will always be a motion for summary judgment. There will always be a motion to reconsider that ruling.
This is all part of normal trial procedure. In fact, these motions are required to preserve issues for appeal. Just because a trial court ruled against them in a similar yet unrelated case by no means makes the motion frivolous.
In my experience, if a new case comes in that is in some way related to a case pending in that courthouse, generally it will be assigned to the judge who is hearing the already-pending case, just because the judge is more familiar with the parties and in a better position to get them set for trial/disposition than other judges would be.
"I opined that 'it is highly unlikely that the RIAA will make a motion to dismiss counterclaims,' since I knew they'd be risking sanctions if they did."
Well, that was rather stupid of you. Why in god's name would you not make the motion? Even if you know the judge is going to deny it, if you in good faith think you have ground to file it (the judge disagreeing does not mean it's groundless), you have to make the motion to preserve that issue for appeal.
Under your bizarre logic, a criminal defendant should never move for a new trial after a bench trial, because the judge already said the guy was guilty! Silly defendant! Except if he doesn't, his appeal isn't worth a hill of beans.
It's like that guy who claims that the income tax is unconstitutional because there wasn't a quorum present to ratify the fourteenth amendment. Except this is actually worse, since there is no tangible benefit (such as getting rid of the income tax):
So, you go to the judge, make your argument that the board has been improperly appointed, and the first words out of the judge's mouth are: "What do you hope to accomplish with this suit?" Your answer will be "Uh, make it so that the board is appointed by the president."
"So, you want me to order the government to fire half of its judges, spend millions of dollars reorganizing itself, spend millions of dollars and hours revisiting past patent decisions, just so we can defend our right to have someone else appoint, in all likelihood, the exact same judges after all the dust has settled."
"But... but... it's the constitution!"
"Okay, then. The Director of the PTO is an agent of the President and therefore is acting on his behalf when appointing judges. The constitution is satisfied."
*sad face*
And that, ladies in gentlemen, is why stupid "gotcha" claims, especially those expounded upon by academics, because they a) would have serious drawbacks, and b) absolutely no real benefit.
"This is, unfortunately, a very dangerous ruling in light of some of Microsoft's activities relating to OOXML because it raises the bar on the proof required to act against such behavior."
What? Antitrust law pertains to actions by firms that harms, or is likely to harm, consumers. In the US, that is the alpha and omega. Whether it is collusion, actions by a firm with market power, or a merger which would lead to an overly consolidated market/small nontransitory increase in price. Now, the government can argue that the actions taken are likely to harm consumers, but to say that the court's focus on consumers rather than foul play against competitors is somehow novel or distressing betrays a complete lack of understanding of the operation and purpose of antitrust law.
I imagine the accounts very rarely have a higher balance than the cost of obtaining them. Their value as a mechanism for money laundering, however, far outweighs the loss due to the actual account balance.
"As to arguing to a pre-conceived conclusion, I don't follow what you're criticizing there. How can one argue anything effectively without having made up one's own mind?"
A more clear statement is "ignoring evidence to bolster a pre-conceived conclusion." Like it or not, that's really what you did.
You began your post by saying that you did not watch the video, which detailed at least partially WotC's position, and then went on to characterize it. You then went on (in tenor) to suggest that WotC has some sort of obligation (or at least that it would be objectively good) to make OGL "free as in speech." The former is false, even if the 3.5 version of the OGL was. The latter is your opinion, on a matter that (I will hazard a guess) is really irrelevant to the vast majority of consumers in the market.
And to clarify, I was not insulting you. I was highlighting the logical fallacies of your argument (argued to a pre-conceived conclusion, ignored readily available evidence, etc). If you feel insulted, I would say that had more to do with your position than anything I had to say about it.
I think they should pull on Shaq more. He's a big D&D player (he was at the press unveiling and got the first copy of Alderac's d20 "World's Largest Dungeon") and is eminently more recognizable. WotC has the cash to make it happen.
Like how AD&D created the dichotomy between classes and races? That wasn't D&D. Or how 2d Ed threw in proficiencies and different movement rules? That wasn't D&D. How about 3d Ed, which created feats and skills and standardized exp? That certainly wasn't D&D.
Dungeons and Dragons is a brand, a bundle of concepts and mechanics upon which a concrete game is built, and a franchise which provides consumers with an indicator of a) a level of quality and b) a general "feel" that differs from other games (such as Legend of the Five Rings). If we go by your ridiculously restrictive definition, then everything from AD&D on was "a new product cashing in on the D&D name.
shorter: "I've decided that WotC should give their stuff out on my terms, and also I've decided that he won't tell me exactly what I want to hear, so I've constructed a convenient straw man to attack, unsullied by actual knowledge of their position."
This entire argument presupposes that legislators want the meaning of the statute's language to be clear. Very, very often vague language is used to effectuate compromise, or to avoid extremely difficult questions that would bog legislation down for years in debate. A little vagueness can go a long way.
Where would the horde of unseen servants get a 400 cubic foot piece of lead?;P
As for the wizard healing bit, it would take a full wish to duplicate Heal (level 6 spell), but your point stands. The problem is that there's no "channel damage" ability for wizards similar to "channel positive energy." The cleric has a full compliment of curative spells because of this, and even full Wish cannot duplicate Mass Heal (level 8). Plus, wishes are generally in short supply because they are high level, so why they are very useful "gadget" spells, they have to compete with more conventional spells for spell slots, so as healing spells they're only really useful if everything has gone to pot.
The real edge the wizard has is aoe damage, as opposed to a buffed cleric's single damage to one or minor damage to large groups. You can't counterspell the cleric's fist, however, and their AC is much higher, and they have higher HP.
Slashdot Mirror
Sending a letter to judges to tell them what is going on in their own courtroom? When you are a party to neither case? Clearly because you have a bone to pick with one of the parties?
Contemptible. Reprehensible. Absolutely pathetic. If I were either judge I would send I nice letter to this lawyer to come down for a nice chat where I tell him to stay the hell away from cases pending before my court.
There is nothing more sad than an attorney putting their own moralistic crusade over propriety and- yes- ethics. You're not a party, it isn't an appellate case where outsiders get their voices heard, so the ethic thing is to keep your nose out of the court's- and the parties'- business.
Open Source Software: only for people we like.
Or, answering bigotry with more bigotry.
If someone wants to code their program for them, that's their business. If it helps the community, that is great. All this talk about the BSA "deserving" the help of "the community" is ridiculous. Just a load of projecting one's own feelings onto a very large and diverse group of people, who as smaller groups or individuals may or may not agree with your views.
As others have said, people have to authenticate photographs. Video from surveillance cameras would go something like: was in proper working condition, data was retrieved and stored in safe place, inscribed using proper techniques.
As for what the defense attorney could do, he could of course attempt to attack the authentication or chain of custody, but that isn't any different from photographs for the past 50 years. It's much easier to explain away photos rather than lose capital with the jury by fighting them tooth and nail (and almost assuredly losing).
The other option, put something about the possibility of fabrication in your close, but that is objectionable. It will be overruled, true, but the judge would almost certainly (in my experience) give the jury a speech about how closings are just argument and they have to rely on what they heard in the evidence to reach their decision.
My own confusion as to the meaning of "drive by" in this context did make me wonder about ease of contribution.
What if there were a bifurcation or distribution of the bug-fixing/feature-adding problem? This may be really stupid, but I imagine a situation where testers go through finding things that are wrong or where they go wrong, then submit that bit of code.
On top of this, there is a system which grabs the trace and shows the bit of code where everything got derailed, and in other panes the stuff it called to, so anybody could look over the "offending" code, without having to be intimately familiar with the kernel or the library or whatever, since it is all laid out for them. Then, people can tinker with the code and submit them for (automatic, since you know what to look for) testing, maybe leave comments on the ticket to help others' or as a group try to figure it out.
I don't have time to wade through mountains of kernel code looking for bugs, but I would be more than willing to look over a (relatively) small bit of code in a collaborative fashion to see if I pick up on something others had missed.
You do realize that you can't have players directly control the sword in Zelda, or any other control scheme people keep ranting about, because your controls aren't the only factor that determines what happens.
Let's use zelda. You swing your sword. The enemy blocks it with a shield, and Link gets thrown back a bit. But you do not. You arm is down, but the fact that you were blocked necessitates the sword to be up in the air, reeling backwards. How are you going to reconcile the two? You could disable user control for a bit as Link reels, but where do you pick up afterward, provided the remote doesn't move? Link's sword teleports from being up to down, and you've just confused your player.
Another additional concern that is less prevalent in zelda that it would be in other games, that a large part of balancing a game (not to mention setting a scene) is controlling what the player is able to do. The remote is nearly weightless, it would be simple to just run at enemies swinging the remote back and forth as quickly as possible (very fast) to have link swing his sword as superhuman speeds. This destroys the scene (ridiculous physics), but it also screws up balancing; does the developer assume everyone will swing like a madman and make it really difficult for those who choose not to, or make it really easy for those who choose to do so by balancing the game toward those less inclined to flail their arms wildly?
Fire Emblem: So difficult it will sterilize you.
Balance is also important in a "real" exercise routine to ensure muscles are worked evenly. A good example is weight machines- if your balance is very bad, you will not be able to use the machine properly, and you may end up injuring yourself.
Actually, none of them are videogame-related. He is being reprimanded for misbehavior regarding his role as an agent of the court. They arose in the context of a lawsuit which featured games as part of its subject matter, but none of this actually has anything to do with games.
But hey, someone who disagrees with "the viewpoint" is being punished. That the malfeasance and reprimand has nothing to do with that viewpoint is irrelevant, so long as everyone gets their blood.
"The blatent gall that the RIAA lawyers have in telling the judge he's wrong will NOT get the judge to say "Oh gee, you're right all along, my bad". It'll just piss him off to the point of letting him find more flaws with the RIAA's arguments in other areas."
Attorneys tell the judge that he's wrong all the time. Every case, actually. There will always be a motion to dismiss. There will always be a motion to reconsider. There will always be a motion for summary judgment. There will always be a motion to reconsider that ruling.
This is all part of normal trial procedure. In fact, these motions are required to preserve issues for appeal. Just because a trial court ruled against them in a similar yet unrelated case by no means makes the motion frivolous.
In my experience, if a new case comes in that is in some way related to a case pending in that courthouse, generally it will be assigned to the judge who is hearing the already-pending case, just because the judge is more familiar with the parties and in a better position to get them set for trial/disposition than other judges would be.
"I opined that 'it is highly unlikely that the RIAA will make a motion to dismiss counterclaims,' since I knew they'd be risking sanctions if they did."
Well, that was rather stupid of you. Why in god's name would you not make the motion? Even if you know the judge is going to deny it, if you in good faith think you have ground to file it (the judge disagreeing does not mean it's groundless), you have to make the motion to preserve that issue for appeal.
Under your bizarre logic, a criminal defendant should never move for a new trial after a bench trial, because the judge already said the guy was guilty! Silly defendant! Except if he doesn't, his appeal isn't worth a hill of beans.
last sentence should read "especially those expounded upon by academics are a waste of time,"
I reed gud.
It's like that guy who claims that the income tax is unconstitutional because there wasn't a quorum present to ratify the fourteenth amendment. Except this is actually worse, since there is no tangible benefit (such as getting rid of the income tax):
So, you go to the judge, make your argument that the board has been improperly appointed, and the first words out of the judge's mouth are: "What do you hope to accomplish with this suit?" Your answer will be "Uh, make it so that the board is appointed by the president."
"So, you want me to order the government to fire half of its judges, spend millions of dollars reorganizing itself, spend millions of dollars and hours revisiting past patent decisions, just so we can defend our right to have someone else appoint, in all likelihood, the exact same judges after all the dust has settled."
"But... but... it's the constitution!"
"Okay, then. The Director of the PTO is an agent of the President and therefore is acting on his behalf when appointing judges. The constitution is satisfied."
*sad face*
And that, ladies in gentlemen, is why stupid "gotcha" claims, especially those expounded upon by academics, because they a) would have serious drawbacks, and b) absolutely no real benefit.
Meet stone.
"This is, unfortunately, a very dangerous ruling in light of some of Microsoft's activities relating to OOXML because it raises the bar on the proof required to act against such behavior."
What? Antitrust law pertains to actions by firms that harms, or is likely to harm, consumers. In the US, that is the alpha and omega. Whether it is collusion, actions by a firm with market power, or a merger which would lead to an overly consolidated market/small nontransitory increase in price. Now, the government can argue that the actions taken are likely to harm consumers, but to say that the court's focus on consumers rather than foul play against competitors is somehow novel or distressing betrays a complete lack of understanding of the operation and purpose of antitrust law.
"Clever" strategies like this is how people lose millions of dollars in court.
I imagine the accounts very rarely have a higher balance than the cost of obtaining them. Their value as a mechanism for money laundering, however, far outweighs the loss due to the actual account balance.
Slashdot believes whatever google says; all other corporations lying scum.
Film at 11.
"As to arguing to a pre-conceived conclusion, I don't follow what you're criticizing there. How can one argue anything effectively without having made up one's own mind?"
A more clear statement is "ignoring evidence to bolster a pre-conceived conclusion." Like it or not, that's really what you did.
You began your post by saying that you did not watch the video, which detailed at least partially WotC's position, and then went on to characterize it. You then went on (in tenor) to suggest that WotC has some sort of obligation (or at least that it would be objectively good) to make OGL "free as in speech." The former is false, even if the 3.5 version of the OGL was. The latter is your opinion, on a matter that (I will hazard a guess) is really irrelevant to the vast majority of consumers in the market.
And to clarify, I was not insulting you. I was highlighting the logical fallacies of your argument (argued to a pre-conceived conclusion, ignored readily available evidence, etc). If you feel insulted, I would say that had more to do with your position than anything I had to say about it.
I think they should pull on Shaq more. He's a big D&D player (he was at the press unveiling and got the first copy of Alderac's d20 "World's Largest Dungeon") and is eminently more recognizable. WotC has the cash to make it happen.
Like how AD&D created the dichotomy between classes and races? That wasn't D&D.
Or how 2d Ed threw in proficiencies and different movement rules? That wasn't D&D.
How about 3d Ed, which created feats and skills and standardized exp? That certainly wasn't D&D.
Dungeons and Dragons is a brand, a bundle of concepts and mechanics upon which a concrete game is built, and a franchise which provides consumers with an indicator of a) a level of quality and b) a general "feel" that differs from other games (such as Legend of the Five Rings). If we go by your ridiculously restrictive definition, then everything from AD&D on was "a new product cashing in on the D&D name.
shorter: "I've decided that WotC should give their stuff out on my terms, and also I've decided that he won't tell me exactly what I want to hear, so I've constructed a convenient straw man to attack, unsullied by actual knowledge of their position."
This entire argument presupposes that legislators want the meaning of the statute's language to be clear. Very, very often vague language is used to effectuate compromise, or to avoid extremely difficult questions that would bog legislation down for years in debate. A little vagueness can go a long way.
Where would the horde of unseen servants get a 400 cubic foot piece of lead? ;P
As for the wizard healing bit, it would take a full wish to duplicate Heal (level 6 spell), but your point stands. The problem is that there's no "channel damage" ability for wizards similar to "channel positive energy." The cleric has a full compliment of curative spells because of this, and even full Wish cannot duplicate Mass Heal (level 8). Plus, wishes are generally in short supply because they are high level, so why they are very useful "gadget" spells, they have to compete with more conventional spells for spell slots, so as healing spells they're only really useful if everything has gone to pot.
The real edge the wizard has is aoe damage, as opposed to a buffed cleric's single damage to one or minor damage to large groups. You can't counterspell the cleric's fist, however, and their AC is much higher, and they have higher HP.
Sorry for the late reply.