Wow, reading stuff like this makes me really glad I don't live in a country that has something as stupid trial by jury. I wouldn't want my fate to be decided by a bunch of random idiots
The defendant has the option of being tried by a judge.
The jury in a capital case is not a random collection of idiots.
You have to meet certain minimum requirements to serve on any jury: age, citizenship, residency, language skills, mental competency and so on.
In a capital case you can expect to be closely questioned by the state, the defense, and the judge. The voir dire will be dominated by attorneys who are expert in jury selection.
The jury verdict must be unaminious. In a trial before a judge there is no room for courtroom theatrics or a play for sympathy. Your defense had better be flawless.
Isn't the jury supposed to decide if the accused is guilty of the deed they are accused of ? Instead of "sending her a message" because she hurt their feelings ? That statement by a member of the jury alone should have been enough to nullify the judgement.
The risk in allowing your client to take the stand is that every flaw in her character will be mercilessly exposed. The woman came across as arrogant, manipulative, and deceitful. She was tripped up by her own lies.
What the U.S. needs is a parliamentary system with the possibility of coalition governments so that candidates aren't forced into one of two molds.
Party discipline as the European understands it does not exist in the American system.
The national political party does not exist as the European understands it.
Coalitions are forged internally within the Democratic and Republican parties. They are built from the ground up and can be remarkably stable once forged.
But when they collapse they "go all at once and nothing first, just like bubbles when they burst."
The founding fathers thought a revolution every now and then was a GOOD thing.
There was a sea-change in American thought when the French Revolution descended into the Terror. The Founders were never revolutionaries in the modern sense, which is why radicals such as Sam Adams fade out of the picture very early on.
And that is the problem, circumstantial evidence should not be enough to convict. And no, the defense doesn't have to 'explain' the seat, nor does anyone need to answer 'who did it' to aquit him.
It doesn't matter that your formal burden of proof is much less than that of the state. You can't allow a jury to go into deliberation without providing an alternative explanation for a bizarre and damaging piece of evidence:
You have been living out of a trailer for six months.
The day your neighbor's kid disappeared you hitched up this rustbucket for a meandering eight hour drive into the furnace heat of the Nevada deserts, on the way home, you bought replacement pillows, sheets and blankets at WalMart.
From what I can tell, the prosecution has absolutely not proven Hans' guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The prosecution doesn't have to prove guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The prosecution only has to prove guilt beyond a "reasonable" doubt. To the point where the jury is convinced that no further debate will lead them to any other conclusion but a decision to convict.
All they have is some fairly flimsy circumstantial evidence.
Almost all evidence is "circumstantial." You build your case slowly and carefully, in the hope that the jury will see that the pieces fit together in only one way,
If they were so smart, they would have thought of an excuse to get out of jury duty.
The jury is middle aged, middle class, small-C conservative. It draws people who make decisions in society - wield real power - simply because they are able - and willing - to put in whatever time and effort is needed to get the job done.
I find it remarkable that people honestly believe a company like Sony can hide payments of over a half billion dollars fromt heir financial statements to shareholders
The problem can be defined even more simply:
You cannot be a significant player in home video without being backed by Disney.
Ratatouille alone brought home a Golden Tomato award for best-reviewed feature. 10 Annies, a Grammy, Oscar nominations for best screenplay and best feature animation.
Unless you have rediculously low bandwidth, very high morals (lack of legal online HD outlets), or simply a complete lack of tech savvy (in which case you wouldn't be reading this in all probability), download direct to player is THE way to go
"Broadband" - however you chose to define it - reaches less than 50% of American households.
You want to nurse a TB of artifact-ridden downloads - the amateur's DiVX rips - to get the content you want? You think this makes semse for anyone being paid above minimum wage? I don't.
You want to put this up on the 65" screen and pump the audio through your HT surround sound system? I doubt you'll find many who will.
Content that lasts over 4 hours is so uncommon as to be irrelevant to the issue.
There is almost no significant film or video series you could name that hasn't been released as a boxed set. These sets have grown enormously in size and sophistication - and they do have an audience. In a single rental from Netflix you could spend a month with directors like Hawks and Ford and Hitchcock, a new movie every day, in pristine HD restoration, and - for an appetizer - perhaps load an episode of "Maverick," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Perry Mason." or "The Untouchables."
VHS had longer recording times, and that is what the customers wanted.
When Betamax was introduced, how many home TV sets had any external audio or video inputs? How many had comb filtering of the broadcast signal? Betamax predates MTS stereo audio almost by almost ten years.
The HDTV set at entry level has multichannel digital sound and high resolution digital video inputs as standard.
The Internet, now matter how you slice it, is not a common space to be policed by this judge, or that cop, or those senators.
Your actions on the Internet are not above the law.
This attitude is the prime reason why the Geek is not widely loved or trusted outside his own community.
You cannot legislate morality. ever. period.
But you can legislate against actions which a larger society defines as immoral and destructive of its own long-term interests.
we have to look at this like the human species is part of the animal kingdom. That old saying 'survival of the fittest' has more meanings than one, and it is the truth whether you think it fair or not. When diseases hit a population, weak and feeble die first. In fact, during any time of stress it is the weak and feeble that die first.
Then as a sentient species we condemn itself to losing a Stephen Hawking - or this thirteen year old girl - for no better reason than our submission to blind chance.
- - - which is all that "survival of the fittest" really means.
You survive because you possess something of value in a singular moment in time and space. The smallpox passes you by because you had the cowpox as a child.
When the Panama Canal was being built it drew common laborers, skilled workers and engineers from across the globe. The young and fit of all races died in enormous numbers. The most dissipated of the locals lived on.
If congress is so concerned about bullying, why not crack down upon it in the workplace.
Because that would be considered a state responsibility?
Because harassment of any sort can - at least in theory - be successfully prosecuted in the state courts?
The federal government doesn't exercise a police power unless there has been a long history of failure on the local and state level and a national consensus that this cannot be tolerated any longer.
The constitutional theorist may protest - but when a critical mass is reached, things change.
In the 20's and 30's the FBI became deeply engaged in the suppresion of bank robberies, the interstate sex trade, kidnapping for ransom. In the late 60's it began moving in a major way agsinst the KKK.
there's no way to predict where it will land. So Space Data has hired 20 hobbyists with GPSS devices to track them down.
From the article:
Recovery missions can get intense. Workers have had to pluck transceivers out of trees in Louisiana, rappel down rocky cliffs in Arizona, trudge through swamps and kayak across ponds. Space Data pays them $100 per transceiver recovered.
"These things can fall anywhere," says Chip Kyner of San Antonio, who once hiked seven miles before finding the transmitter he was looking for. The final mile was in pitch darkness.
"It wasn't worth the $100," he says, "but it's a neat story."
What happens to this scheme when your recovery teams start demanding hourly wages, mileage and hazard pay?
I hear talk of cheaper cell phone service. But does the rural customer see faster, cheaper or less restricted Internet service then he can get from dial-up or satellite?
Kinda like a website that people can go to to look for other things without knowing the exact url?
How many new "clicks" will Google register from North Dakota?
If you are making serious money in the boonies and are shopping for breeding stock or a $45,000 tractor you are probably comfortable with your dial-up ISP or have found a serviceable alternative like satellite broadband.
You can't hold someone responsible for what somebody does in response to another's actions that's utter stark raving bonkers.
It's for the individual to take responsibility for _their_own_ actions.
The child but not the adult?
Insightful? Hell, no.
The woman maliciously targeted a 13 year-old girl with the unmistakable intent to cause emotional distress.
She may very well have known - almost certainly did know - something of her victim's unique vulnerabilities. This was a deeply detailed and extended impersonation. To call it a "prank" is pure idiocy.
In any event, her conduct went far beyond mere negligence, far beyond mere recklessness and irresponsibility as the jury of your peers generally undrestands it.
I see no intelligible reason why she should not be judged legally responsible for the girl's death. The purpose of such a finding is, after all, to take private vengeance and mob violence out of the picture.
There can be no forgiveness for misconduct where there are no consequences for misconduct.
And what is this 'floating gently back down to earth' stuff?
How many of the packages can they realistically expect to recover?
"Rural and remote" suggests difficult terrain, dense cover, lakes and ponds, and very few people. I don't think we are talking about the cornfields in Nebraska.
What most puzzles me is why Google wants to enter a market difficult and expensive to service, and with so little prospect of a significant return.
The microwave heating technique was tested on a Rhesus monkey
One of the earliest questions Churchill asked was whether a radar beam could disable a pilot - whether a "death ray" was a realistic possibility. The short answer in 1940 was no.
Just like Firefox has slowly and steadily taken market share from IE6+7, Linux will slowly and steadily take market share from Windows.
In the January W3Schools OS Platform Stats Vista is poised to overtake OSX and Linux combined in a month or two.
It could take a little longer, but that scarcely matters.
The trend line for Linux is as flat as the Dakota prairies. 1% growth client-side in five years.
The Net Applications stats you quote show Linux with a 0.67% market share. Pretty much where the Intel exec would place it.
To experience the Year of Linux. the geek needs a time warp, suspended animation. He needs to be revived as "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century."
Obviously, technical superiority and free-ness are not good enough reasons to get everyone to switch over
It is time the geek stopped looking for easy answers in catch phrases like "lock-in," or "convicted monopolist." If his world is defined by a conflict between the cathedral and the bazaar, why is it that Microsoft is so successful on the street?
It is time the geek stopped looking for a government bail-out.
Whether from the bureaucracy of the EU - where Microsoft pays its hundred million dollar fines and still sees 20% growth - or from the African education minister who is expected to pick up the tab for one million XO laptops.
Microsoft built its empire from the ground-up. Too often the geek builds top-down. He thinks in terms of the enterprise distribution - the government mandate - that will magically drive small business and home users to Linux.
All these stories about open source software seem to be joining in a symphony that is ringing a death knoll for MS.
Allow me - again - to propose a moratorium on all "Microsoft is dying" posts until all the following conditions are met:
1 MS stops reporting 15%-20% growth each quarter.
2 MS stops reporting 30% growth in "emerging markets," 20% growth in the EU and 15% growth in the U.S.
3 MS no longer has the energy or the resources to underwrite projects such as the design and launch of a communications satellite for Africa. Microsoft plans comms satellite for Africa
4 MS stops paying dividends.
5 MS no longer holds $20 billion - $30 billion - $40 billion in cash.
6 MS begins borrowing money to meet its expenses - not to finance a takeover of Yahoo!
By donating to charity you will buy good PR, which is otherwise quite expensive.
The geek would do well to remember that Bill Gates has always rated highly in public opinion.
In "communist" China, where the successful entrepreneur is respected and emulated, Gates draws enormous crowds and the ambitious technocrat or party politician wants and needs to be photographed with him.
Genuine philanthropists would hand over money without any strings attached
This is an absolutely ridiculous thing to do under many circumstances. You lose focus, you lose discipline:
Warren Buffett (then the world's second richest person, after Gates) pledged to give the foundation approximately 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares (worth US$30.7 billion on June 23, 2006) spread over multiple years through annual contributions. Buffett set conditions so that these contributions do not simply increase the foundation's endowment, but effectively work as a matching contribution, doubling the Foundation's annual giving: "Buffett's gift came with three conditions for the Gates foundation: Bill or Melinda Gates must be alive and active in its administration; it must continue to qualify as a charity; and each year it must give away an amount equal to the previous year's Berkshire gift, plus another 5 percent of net assets.Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
1/ No Photoshop
Sure, if a company needs Photoshop, Linux is out. But how many PS installations does a regular company needs, unless it is a graphics shop? One, maybe two.
Photoshop is just shorthand for "every mature application that hasn't been ported to Linux." The graphics pro, the small businessman, the home user, each has his own list of essentials.
Try searching Linspire's CNR library for a Print Shop clone.
2/ No GAMES
Companies don't want people to play games.
But you'll find games in schools and in the home and in the military. America's Army is used as a recruiting tool. SimCity was an early port to OLPC.
3/ No MS Office
So you simply use OpenOffice
Or not. Microsoft used a jigsaw puzzle as a logo for its Office system - and there are a lot of pieces in that box that the Geek forgets to mention when he talks about OpenOffice.org. Office Accounting Exoress
Slashdot Mirror
The hijacker records his farewell performance in Afghanistan.
It is excellent insurance against the possibility that he might have second thoughts.
The misfit who opens fire on a school, a shopping mall, a church often feels compelled to justify his actions, document his preparations.
The true sociopath, the brainiac killer, is a very different animal.
In his own imagination he is Hannibal Lecter. In real life, he makes mistakes that would embarrass an Elmer Fudd.
The defendant has the option of being tried by a judge.
The jury in a capital case is not a random collection of idiots.
You have to meet certain minimum requirements to serve on any jury: age, citizenship, residency, language skills, mental competency and so on.
In a capital case you can expect to be closely questioned by the state, the defense, and the judge. The voir dire will be dominated by attorneys who are expert in jury selection.
The jury verdict must be unaminious. In a trial before a judge there is no room for courtroom theatrics or a play for sympathy. Your defense had better be flawless.
Isn't the jury supposed to decide if the accused is guilty of the deed they are accused of ? Instead of "sending her a message" because she hurt their feelings ? That statement by a member of the jury alone should have been enough to nullify the judgement.
The risk in allowing your client to take the stand is that every flaw in her character will be mercilessly exposed. The woman came across as arrogant, manipulative, and deceitful. She was tripped up by her own lies.
Party discipline as the European understands it does not exist in the American system.
The national political party does not exist as the European understands it.
Coalitions are forged internally within the Democratic and Republican parties. They are built from the ground up and can be remarkably stable once forged.
But when they collapse they "go all at once and nothing first, just like bubbles when they burst."
There was a sea-change in American thought when the French Revolution descended into the Terror. The Founders were never revolutionaries in the modern sense, which is why radicals such as Sam Adams fade out of the picture very early on.
It doesn't matter that your formal burden of proof is much less than that of the state. You can't allow a jury to go into deliberation without providing an alternative explanation for a bizarre and damaging piece of evidence:
You have been living out of a trailer for six months.
The day your neighbor's kid disappeared you hitched up this rustbucket for a meandering eight hour drive into the furnace heat of the Nevada deserts, on the way home, you bought replacement pillows, sheets and blankets at WalMart.
The prosecution doesn't have to prove guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The prosecution only has to prove guilt beyond a "reasonable" doubt. To the point where the jury is convinced that no further debate will lead them to any other conclusion but a decision to convict.
All they have is some fairly flimsy circumstantial evidence.
Almost all evidence is "circumstantial." You build your case slowly and carefully, in the hope that the jury will see that the pieces fit together in only one way,
The jury is middle aged, middle class, small-C conservative. It draws people who make decisions in society - wield real power - simply because they are able - and willing - to put in whatever time and effort is needed to get the job done.
The problem can be defined even more simply:
You cannot be a significant player in home video without being backed by Disney.
Ratatouille alone brought home a Golden Tomato award for best-reviewed feature. 10 Annies, a Grammy, Oscar nominations for best screenplay and best feature animation.
"Broadband" - however you chose to define it - reaches less than 50% of American households.
You want to nurse a TB of artifact-ridden downloads - the amateur's DiVX rips - to get the content you want? You think this makes semse for anyone being paid above minimum wage? I don't.
You want to put this up on the 65" screen and pump the audio through your HT surround sound system? I doubt you'll find many who will.
There is almost no significant film or video series you could name that hasn't been released as a boxed set. These sets have grown enormously in size and sophistication - and they do have an audience. In a single rental from Netflix you could spend a month with directors like Hawks and Ford and Hitchcock, a new movie every day, in pristine HD restoration, and - for an appetizer - perhaps load an episode of "Maverick," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Perry Mason." or "The Untouchables."
When Betamax was introduced, how many home TV sets had any external audio or video inputs? How many had comb filtering of the broadcast signal? Betamax predates MTS stereo audio almost by almost ten years.
The HDTV set at entry level has multichannel digital sound and high resolution digital video inputs as standard.
What - precisely - makes copy protection in Blu-Ray superior to that of HD-DVD?
Your actions on the Internet are not above the law.
This attitude is the prime reason why the Geek is not widely loved or trusted outside his own community.
You cannot legislate morality. ever. period.
But you can legislate against actions which a larger society defines as immoral and destructive of its own long-term interests.
we have to look at this like the human species is part of the animal kingdom. That old saying 'survival of the fittest' has more meanings than one, and it is the truth whether you think it fair or not. When diseases hit a population, weak and feeble die first. In fact, during any time of stress it is the weak and feeble that die first.
Then as a sentient species we condemn itself to losing a Stephen Hawking - or this thirteen year old girl - for no better reason than our submission to blind chance.
- - - which is all that "survival of the fittest" really means.
You survive because you possess something of value in a singular moment in time and space. The smallpox passes you by because you had the cowpox as a child.
When the Panama Canal was being built it drew common laborers, skilled workers and engineers from across the globe. The young and fit of all races died in enormous numbers. The most dissipated of the locals lived on.
Because that would be considered a state responsibility?
Because harassment of any sort can - at least in theory - be successfully prosecuted in the state courts?
The federal government doesn't exercise a police power unless there has been a long history of failure on the local and state level and a national consensus that this cannot be tolerated any longer.
The constitutional theorist may protest - but when a critical mass is reached, things change.
In the 20's and 30's the FBI became deeply engaged in the suppresion of bank robberies, the interstate sex trade, kidnapping for ransom. In the late 60's it began moving in a major way agsinst the KKK.
From the article: Recovery missions can get intense. Workers have had to pluck transceivers out of trees in Louisiana, rappel down rocky cliffs in Arizona, trudge through swamps and kayak across ponds. Space Data pays them $100 per transceiver recovered.
"These things can fall anywhere," says Chip Kyner of San Antonio, who once hiked seven miles before finding the transmitter he was looking for. The final mile was in pitch darkness.
"It wasn't worth the $100," he says, "but it's a neat story."
What happens to this scheme when your recovery teams start demanding hourly wages, mileage and hazard pay?
I hear talk of cheaper cell phone service. But does the rural customer see faster, cheaper or less restricted Internet service then he can get from dial-up or satellite?
How many new "clicks" will Google register from North Dakota?
If you are making serious money in the boonies and are shopping for breeding stock or a $45,000 tractor you are probably comfortable with your dial-up ISP or have found a serviceable alternative like satellite broadband.
It's for the individual to take responsibility for _their_own_ actions.
The child but not the adult?
Insightful? Hell, no.
The woman maliciously targeted a 13 year-old girl with the unmistakable intent to cause emotional distress.
She may very well have known - almost certainly did know - something of her victim's unique vulnerabilities. This was a deeply detailed and extended impersonation. To call it a "prank" is pure idiocy.
In any event, her conduct went far beyond mere negligence, far beyond mere recklessness and irresponsibility as the jury of your peers generally undrestands it.
I see no intelligible reason why she should not be judged legally responsible for the girl's death. The purpose of such a finding is, after all, to take private vengeance and mob violence out of the picture.
There can be no forgiveness for misconduct where there are no consequences for misconduct.
Microsoft is underwriting the development and launch of a communications satellite for Africa. Cameroon: Microsoft Partners With Schools for IT Development You can not be more "out there" than that.
How many of the packages can they realistically expect to recover?
"Rural and remote" suggests difficult terrain, dense cover, lakes and ponds, and very few people. I don't think we are talking about the cornfields in Nebraska.
What most puzzles me is why Google wants to enter a market difficult and expensive to service, and with so little prospect of a significant return.
One of the earliest questions Churchill asked was whether a radar beam could disable a pilot - whether a "death ray" was a realistic possibility. The short answer in 1940 was no.
In the January W3Schools OS Platform Stats Vista is poised to overtake OSX and Linux combined in a month or two.
It could take a little longer, but that scarcely matters.
The trend line for Linux is as flat as the Dakota prairies. 1% growth client-side in five years.
The Net Applications stats you quote show Linux with a 0.67% market share. Pretty much where the Intel exec would place it.
To experience the Year of Linux. the geek needs a time warp, suspended animation. He needs to be revived as "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century."
Obviously, technical superiority and free-ness are not good enough reasons to get everyone to switch over
It is time the geek stopped looking for easy answers in catch phrases like "lock-in," or "convicted monopolist." If his world is defined by a conflict between the cathedral and the bazaar, why is it that Microsoft is so successful on the street?
It is time the geek stopped looking for a government bail-out.
Whether from the bureaucracy of the EU - where Microsoft pays its hundred million dollar fines and still sees 20% growth - or from the African education minister who is expected to pick up the tab for one million XO laptops.
Microsoft built its empire from the ground-up. Too often the geek builds top-down. He thinks in terms of the enterprise distribution - the government mandate - that will magically drive small business and home users to Linux.
Allow me - again - to propose a moratorium on all "Microsoft is dying" posts until all the following conditions are met:
1 MS stops reporting 15%-20% growth each quarter.
2 MS stops reporting 30% growth in "emerging markets," 20% growth in the EU and 15% growth in the U.S.
3 MS no longer has the energy or the resources to underwrite projects such as the design and launch of a communications satellite for Africa. Microsoft plans comms satellite for Africa
4 MS stops paying dividends.
5 MS no longer holds $20 billion - $30 billion - $40 billion in cash.
6 MS begins borrowing money to meet its expenses - not to finance a takeover of Yahoo!
You are talking about a package that includes Visual Studio Pro, SQL Server 2003, Windows Server 2005 and Windows Server 2008, etc.
That's a non-trivial download even over a high speed line.
The geek would do well to remember that Bill Gates has always rated highly in public opinion.
In "communist" China, where the successful entrepreneur is respected and emulated, Gates draws enormous crowds and the ambitious technocrat or party politician wants and needs to be photographed with him.
Genuine philanthropists would hand over money without any strings attached
This is an absolutely ridiculous thing to do under many circumstances. You lose focus, you lose discipline:
Warren Buffett (then the world's second richest person, after Gates) pledged to give the foundation approximately 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares (worth US$30.7 billion on June 23, 2006) spread over multiple years through annual contributions. Buffett set conditions so that these contributions do not simply increase the foundation's endowment, but effectively work as a matching contribution, doubling the Foundation's annual giving: "Buffett's gift came with three conditions for the Gates foundation: Bill or Melinda Gates must be alive and active in its administration; it must continue to qualify as a charity; and each year it must give away an amount equal to the previous year's Berkshire gift, plus another 5 percent of net assets. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Sure, if a company needs Photoshop, Linux is out. But how many PS installations does a regular company needs, unless it is a graphics shop? One, maybe two.
Photoshop is just shorthand for "every mature application that hasn't been ported to Linux." The graphics pro, the small businessman, the home user, each has his own list of essentials.
Try searching Linspire's CNR library for a Print Shop clone.
2/ No GAMES
Companies don't want people to play games.
But you'll find games in schools and in the home and in the military. America's Army is used as a recruiting tool. SimCity was an early port to OLPC.
3/ No MS Office
So you simply use OpenOffice
Or not. Microsoft used a jigsaw puzzle as a logo for its Office system - and there are a lot of pieces in that box that the Geek forgets to mention when he talks about OpenOffice.org. Office Accounting Exoress