You missed the word "fat", it's like a magical invisible condom surrounding the whole you, protecting you, except that it protects you from having any kind of physical contact whatsoever instead of only genital contact!
Not so! Plenty of men are into BBW. They just need to get over what other people might think of them for going large. Try for older partners who don't give a shit what judgmental people think of them.
Not sure how it works in the gay scene, which may be more applicable to you, given your username, but anyway, that's how it works with men.
And I'm realizing that if any of my local friends knew anyone who was single, they would have set me up with them by now, as my dating "history" is well-known and fully documented.
How can you be so sure? I don't walk around all day pondering which of my single friends I should set up on a blind date.
I think that our history and current realities have come together to make a bit of a Frankenstein of a dating scene. Modern women, it seems, are loath to marry/date down, socioeconomically. This becomes a little tricky in the top quartile or so, because they are effectively eliminating 75% of men from consideration!
When you consider that most men in the top quartile couldn't give one tenth of one hoot whether or not a woman has money (after all, they have their own money) and just want a 25-year-old woman with large breasts (most fertile--blame Darwin), that makes for a lot of successful, lonely women!
It's a little funny to listen to these women grouse about the dearth of available men when they are still single into their mid 30s and their reproductive years are waning. They go on about how educated and successful they are, "so what's wrong?" as though men are nothing more than women with penises.
Suggest to them that they hit on Joe the Plumber if you want real entertainment.
I'm sorry, it's just not a place where you're likely to find someone available, and if you do see someone that appears to be, how obnoxious would it be to walk up to some strange woman and ask her out when she's trying to buy groceries?
I guess it depends on how obnoxious you plan on being about it. "Say, excuse me. I'm sorry to bother you, but have you tried those soy-fritter-health-patty-tasteless-piece-of-nonfood-garbage (you might want to wordsmith that last part a bit, and pray she doesn't notice the luscious-looking porterhouse steak in your cart)? What did you think of them?" If she says, "They're pretty good. Very convenient," and continues with her shopping, then fine.
If instead, she smiles at you. Cocks her head. Plays with her hair, while she's telling you how she prepares that garbage that somehow passes for food, then yes, Casanova, you ask her out. Right there in the middle of the organic frozen food section.
If I were an attractive woman and I couldn't go to the store or anywhere in public alone without being asked out by a dozen different men each time (most of them probably not very attractive or my type), I'd be really annoyed.
Trust me, they're over it by now. If she's attractive, she's probably been asked out over 1000 times. I doubt the 1001st is going to annoy her enough that you should care. At least you're going to be a gentleman about it and are not going to be one of the idiots who honks your horn and cat calls at her while she's out walking the dog or feeds her some stupid-ass pickup line.
2. It changes a lot when you're over 30. Women realize there's no such thing as Prince Charming and it's time to settle for someone who treats them well and isn't going to leave.
That's just their biological clocks ticking. Their waning reproductive years at work. If I were single, I'd avoid women in their early 30s like the plague.
As someone well over 30, I think I'm somewhat qualified to comment here.
Also well over 35. Married. Kids. Yadda yadda yadda.
The "nice guys finish last" thing is alive and well, and there's nothing about it that's a "cop out".
I've never found the "nice guys finish last" business to be reality.
When you're still in THAT stage of life? Yeah, dating is very competitive and you really can finish last in that area if you bring integrity and "character" to the table, but not much else. Without money and/or looks, you're short a couple of key items that help "sell" yourself vs. your competition.
I don't put a lot of stock in that. Most every girl/woman I've ever been with was better looking than me because, well, that's just easy to be. I think women are better looking than men in general, and anyway, it's not like I hit the jackpot in the good looks lottery.
FWIW, I think "integrity" and "character" are not going to help much in getting a date. Confidence and good communication will serve you much better.
BTW, I really think wealth serves as a huge barrier to one's self-awareness. Why do so many Hollywood celebs and pro sports athletes have relationship problems? Why do big-shot CEOs constantly get involved in sex scandals? When you have enough money, you're able to spend your way out of looking in the mirror and getting a true sense of who you are.
Because celebs and athletes feel entitled. They are narcissistic from their success and people constantly telling them how great they are.
The best advice I can give to someone for getting a date looks like this:
Know yourself as best you can.
Make sure you can communicate well with others. Be interested in other people (not just the chick you're hitting on) and they will be interested in you. They just might introduce you to their friend/sister/whatever.
Don't waste a lot of time on potential dates that you aren't certain are even into you.
Don't get into the friend zone if that's not what you want! Make sure they know you are interested romantically, not as friends. Be confident about this. Own it. True, you may get shot down, but that's fine. Move on to someone who is actually interested! I cannot possibly overemphasize this.
Funny story about the friend zone. There once was a girl that I met in college. I was extremely interested, and I was hitting on her mercilessly. She decided to get a bad case of willful disbelief and managed to convince herself that I was really interested in being in the friend zone (memo to the 3 ladies who read slashdot: no guy ever wants to be in the friend zone! Not unless he is way out of your league). Anyway, after a few weeks of this nonsense, I finally had had enough. I told her that I was looking for a girlfriend, not a "friend" friend. That I had enough friends, and that while I liked them very much, that was not what I was interested in with her.
Naturally, she shot my ass down, and I shouldn't have been surprised. But about a month later, a funny thing happened. I was sitting around with my "friend" friends hanging out, and this same girl literally plops herself down in my lap. And I do know what the word "literally" means: she was physically seated in my lap. Apparently, she had come around. 5 years later we were married. Still happily married today.
So, if you are a nice guy, when you are in your late 20's, you will finally get a girl that was banging around with a dozen of other not-so-nice guys, while you where getting 0 and waiting for some interesting-enough-girl that finally gets tired of dating assholes, wants to start a family with a guy that takes care of the kids for her, and wants some nice-guy that doesn't complain, does her every bidding and can live with having sexual relationships only one a week.
I guess it all depends on what you mean by "nice".
If "nice" means approaching women who you are interested in romantically as "friends" so that you can get an in, and then after a year of being "friends" you make a tearful confession that you've fallen for her and you just can't take being "friends" anymore, then yes, you are right, that will not work very well. I would argue that that isn't very nice either, but it's amazing how many "nice" guys who do that call guys who are honest and up-front about their intentions the "assholes".
Personally, I consider myself to be nice, but I've never been one to beat around the bush when I'm interested in someone. It's been a lot of years now, but back when I was single, I'd just lay it out on the table and either it worked or it did not, but at least then I'd have my answer so I could move in or move on.
I'm not sure where in Europe you might have been, but there are plenty of fat people there. I know the stats that we're fatter here on average, but that is due to certain segments of our population eating enormous portions of nutrient-poor food-like stuff.
US urban descendants of Europeans tend to be roughly as fat as our urban European counterparts.
God but you youngsters make me laugh! Over 45? I'll be 60 in a couple of months, anything under 40 and I'd feel like a child molester.
Kids... sheesh...
Well, I'm neither female nor over 45, so I have to go with what women tell me.
What I think might be at play here is that women in their 20s and early 30s grew accustomed to being able to attract hoards of men without any effort. Attracting someone their own age was pretty much a given. But how many 45 year old men do you see pursuing 45 year old women? I'd hazard a guess that you don't see this very often. If I were 45 and single, I wouldn't even look at a women over 35. Just not happening.
Anyway, based on the experience that they had in their prime, it doesn't really enter their consciousness that their target age range is now 55+. So they feel invisible to men their own age. And with good reason. They are.
#1) Women don't actually want to go out with you. What they want is a male "pen-pal". They want you to write long emails to them which they can read in Starbucks while sipping their lattes.
I've never actually done online dating (I met my wife before online dating took off), but I've unfortunately pondered it a bit lately, for reasons that are not relevant to this discussion. To me, this sounds a lot like the offline dating trap of trying to pursue women romantically by first pursuing them as "just friends". As I'm sure most men have noticed, this does not work at all. Making your intentions clear from the get-go works way better.
So along those lines, I wouldn't advise (or tolerate, if it were me) much pen pal-ing with people you meet online (that goes for women and men). That's wasting an incredible amount of time on someone you may not even click with in real life. If she won't so much as meet you for coffee at a neutral location after just a few emails, then I'd look elsewhere. This lady isn't serious about you.
#2) Avoid any woman who's profile claims she isn't seeking anyone who plays games or has baggage. Because she's the one who's playing games and has baggage.
Why? Chicks with baggage are great fun! Just don't get serious with them.
#3) Yes, yes, yes, we all love wine, good food, long walks on the beach. Tell me what's unique about you, not what makes you the same as everyone else!
At the end of the day, most people aren't all that unique. Everything that I've ever done, I'm sure thousands of others have done the same. Anyway, I haven't found that matching interests is really all that important. I'd rather be with someone who is different from myself.
#3) After more than a decade of online dating, I've decided I'm happier by myself anyhow. When I crave "companionship", there are services for that.
Like the number 3 today?:)
Anyway, seems silly for single people to bother with "companionship" services, especially people who don't like women with more baggage than a 747. I always thought that escorts were for married guys that have little time on their hands. I've never used that type of service before, but anyway that was my impression.
Not really. Online dating means a few women that photograph well are bombarded by the vast majority of men.
This is really no different from real life. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the top 30% of women (by attractiveness) get 85% of the male attention, the next 20% get 10%, and the bottom 50% get 5%.
For women, being ugly or over age 45 means you're essentially invisible.
If you mean a person does not have the right to withhold evidence of THEIR OWN wrongdoing, that is an absurdity.
No it isn't. If a judge signs a warrant to search your house, you have no right to prevent it. If you attempt this, you'll very quickly find yourself confined in the backseat of a police cruiser.
Your 5th amendment right applies to the contents of your own mind. You cannot be forced to take an oath and then choose between perjury or confession. But if the police, executing a valid search warrant, say, "Give me the key to the safe," and they know you have the key, you'd be advised to give it to them.
Does not have the right to withhold evidence? So why don't the police just require a murderer to provide the murder weapon, location of the body and any other evidence that they hid?
Or why don't they require people to supply detailed records of all monetary transactions in most economic crimes. Including any Swiss bank account information.
That way the judge can keep anyone accused in jail indeffinitely, saving the people the cost of a trial.
For your examples above, in general, you can't be forced to reveal the contents of your own mind, i.e. testify against yourself. If you were to, to use your example, lead the police to the body or the murder weapon, or whatever, then the act of doing this could simultaneously betray your involvement in the crime. This is why you have the right to remain silent.
What you cannot do, however, is prevent police from investigating the crime. For instance, ordinarily the police could not search your home for evidence of wrongdoing due to your right against unreasonable search. However, if you are accused of a crime, and investigators reasonably suspect that evidence is in your home, a judge would grant a warrant for police to search your home, and you would not be permitted to deny this search.
So here's the tricky bit. For your home, it's simple matter to execute a search warrant against a homeowner attempting to deny the search. Simply confine the homeowner somewhere where he cannot interfere with the lawful search. But when the evidence is encrypted on a computer, that may not be feasible. By law, investigators have the privilege to search the machine for evidence (warrant signed by a judge), but by law, the accused (in my opinion, despite how little that's worth) has a right not to reveal the contents of his own mind, which is presumably where the passphrase is stored. Where these two rights intersect is an area of law that, according to The Fine Article, is still unsettled.
Max penalty for obstruction of justice is 20 years, and the burden of proof is pretty low. I'd be worried more about that than about being jailed for contempt.
The former is appeal-able. The latter often isn't.
Depends on if it's civil contempt or criminal contempt. In criminal, the defendant has the same rights as in any other criminal charge. In civil contempt, the judge is the prosecutor, judge, and jury. You can appeal, but the bar is high for getting it overturned. The maximum amount of time you can be confined for civil contempt is 18 months at the federal level. In many states, however, you could be held for years and years and years with very little meaningful recourse.
A citation for that would be really nice to have around. This password debate has been going around the net for well over ten years and this is the first time that I've heard anyone say that the court can't compel someone to reveal the combination for their safe.
I'm sure it would be.
I'm not an attorney, so I'd be googling it the same as you. Since you want to know it more than I do, feel free to google it yourself.
Sorry to brush you off, but my client isn't paying me to google random stuff. But if you find anything interesting, feel free to reply.
Assuming her lawyers fail to get the judges order reversed, or convince the judge she really can't comply, she just needs to decide whether the potential penalties of her alleged crimes (and whatever increased likelihood of conviction the data would cause) outweighs the time the judge is going to put her in jail for contempt.
Max penalty for obstruction of justice is 20 years, and the burden of proof is pretty low. I'd be worried more about that than about being jailed for contempt.
If there's incriminating evidence, surely this is a perfect example on why the person can't decrypt as it WOULD self incriminate them!
A person does not have a right to destroy, withhold, or falsify evidence of their wrongdoing with the intent of stymieing investigators. That's obstruction of justice.
Where it gets tricky, and where the law is still unsettled, is how this privilege of the government to investigate is balanced by a person's right against being forced to testify against themselves. In an ideal world, the accused should not be required to have any part in his trial at all. He should be able to simply say and do nothing, and the government can either prove its case or not. The reason that this is tricky, is that if the accused reveals his password, he actually divulges two distinct facts: 1. the encrypted evidence, and 2. that the accused knew how to decrypt the evidence. #2 should not be underestimated, because that eliminates the need for the prosecutor to prove that the accused had access to the encrypted evidence, knew of the evidence, etc.
In my opinion, which isn't worth the paper it isn't printed on, this should hinge on whether or not it can be shown that the accused knows the password. If it can't be shown, then I don't think it's right to compel the defense to divulge both facts. But if it can be shown (or has already been admitted/learned) that the accused knows the password, then I think the accused must decrypt the files.
A low-tech example of this is in safes. The authorities can make you hand over the key to a safe, but not the combination. If the safe is locked with a combination, they must crack open the safe if they want its contents. Obviously this is less feasible with modern encryption technology.
Breaking code into screen sized 'called once' sections adds unnecessary complexity, especially if you validate your inputs(as all good programmers should).
I don't consider boiler-plate code to really be code. It's more like wallpaper. A lot of languages have facilities that allow you to skip or condense it or move it (sort of like AspectJ allows you to separate out cross-cutting concerns like trace-level logging, etc.).
Some things are just inheritently complex and the most efficient implementation might be rather abstract and not obvious at first.
I'm having a difficult time coming up with a situation where that is true. The job of a good architect is to take a complex system and model it so that it makes sense. If a developer who is experienced in the tools/languages that you have used for implementation, and is familiar with the project's requirements, can't look at your code and understand what is going on within a few minutes, your system was not architected very well.
Additionally, if the logic of a section of code would leave an experienced dev scratching his or her head, then the problem is the code (unless the code was optimized due to an actually-experienced performance problem). If you write some code that is difficult to read, it's not because you are brilliant. Any idiot can spew out complicated code. Brilliance is taking something complicated and making it straightforward.
Perhaps there is a situation where this is not true, but I have never encountered such a situation. My experience is that code complexity and developer acumen are inversely related.
It really depends on what you're looking for, where you're looking for it, and how much you're willing to pay, but yeah, good devs are hard to find. I know a lot of them, but they never seem to be unemployed for longer than about 5 minutes.
Slashdot Mirror
You missed the word "fat", it's like a magical invisible condom surrounding the whole you, protecting you, except that it protects you from having any kind of physical contact whatsoever instead of only genital contact!
Not so! Plenty of men are into BBW. They just need to get over what other people might think of them for going large. Try for older partners who don't give a shit what judgmental people think of them.
Not sure how it works in the gay scene, which may be more applicable to you, given your username, but anyway, that's how it works with men.
And I'm realizing that if any of my local friends knew anyone who was single, they would have set me up with them by now, as my dating "history" is well-known and fully documented.
How can you be so sure? I don't walk around all day pondering which of my single friends I should set up on a blind date.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather not hook up with someone who was stupid enough to end up single with one or more kids.
I think you'll find that you're being a bit judgmental. What if her husband was killed in a car accident or something?
I think that our history and current realities have come together to make a bit of a Frankenstein of a dating scene. Modern women, it seems, are loath to marry/date down, socioeconomically. This becomes a little tricky in the top quartile or so, because they are effectively eliminating 75% of men from consideration!
When you consider that most men in the top quartile couldn't give one tenth of one hoot whether or not a woman has money (after all, they have their own money) and just want a 25-year-old woman with large breasts (most fertile--blame Darwin), that makes for a lot of successful, lonely women!
It's a little funny to listen to these women grouse about the dearth of available men when they are still single into their mid 30s and their reproductive years are waning. They go on about how educated and successful they are, "so what's wrong?" as though men are nothing more than women with penises.
Suggest to them that they hit on Joe the Plumber if you want real entertainment.
I'm sorry, it's just not a place where you're likely to find someone available, and if you do see someone that appears to be, how obnoxious would it be to walk up to some strange woman and ask her out when she's trying to buy groceries?
I guess it depends on how obnoxious you plan on being about it.
"Say, excuse me. I'm sorry to bother you, but have you tried those soy-fritter-health-patty-tasteless-piece-of-nonfood-garbage (you might want to wordsmith that last part a bit, and pray she doesn't notice the luscious-looking porterhouse steak in your cart)? What did you think of them?" If she says, "They're pretty good. Very convenient," and continues with her shopping, then fine.
If instead, she smiles at you. Cocks her head. Plays with her hair, while she's telling you how she prepares that garbage that somehow passes for food, then yes, Casanova, you ask her out. Right there in the middle of the organic frozen food section.
If I were an attractive woman and I couldn't go to the store or anywhere in public alone without being asked out by a dozen different men each time (most of them probably not very attractive or my type), I'd be really annoyed.
Trust me, they're over it by now. If she's attractive, she's probably been asked out over 1000 times. I doubt the 1001st is going to annoy her enough that you should care. At least you're going to be a gentleman about it and are not going to be one of the idiots who honks your horn and cat calls at her while she's out walking the dog or feeds her some stupid-ass pickup line.
Supermarket? How in the hell do you pick up a woman in a supermarket?
If you use a shopping cart, at least you won't have to carry her far.
Stumble across them at the grocery store?
Actually, that is a great place to meet someone. Someone who likes the same foods as you, to boot!
Dude. Women like that are for sex only. Don't get yourself involved in the drama.
I am 43. I don't even consider dating woman in their 30's. I guess I am the exception to the rule. :)
I'm sure you make 45-year-old women very happy, and you probably do very well for yourself!
2. It changes a lot when you're over 30. Women realize there's no such thing as Prince Charming and it's time to settle for someone who treats them well and isn't going to leave.
That's just their biological clocks ticking. Their waning reproductive years at work. If I were single, I'd avoid women in their early 30s like the plague.
As someone well over 30, I think I'm somewhat qualified to comment here.
Also well over 35. Married. Kids. Yadda yadda yadda.
The "nice guys finish last" thing is alive and well, and there's nothing about it that's a "cop out".
I've never found the "nice guys finish last" business to be reality.
When you're still in THAT stage of life? Yeah, dating is very competitive and you really can finish last in that area if you bring integrity and "character" to the table, but not much else. Without money and/or looks, you're short a couple of key items that help "sell" yourself vs. your competition.
I don't put a lot of stock in that. Most every girl/woman I've ever been with was better looking than me because, well, that's just easy to be. I think women are better looking than men in general, and anyway, it's not like I hit the jackpot in the good looks lottery.
FWIW, I think "integrity" and "character" are not going to help much in getting a date. Confidence and good communication will serve you much better.
BTW, I really think wealth serves as a huge barrier to one's self-awareness. Why do so many Hollywood celebs and pro sports athletes have relationship problems? Why do big-shot CEOs constantly get involved in sex scandals? When you have enough money, you're able to spend your way out of looking in the mirror and getting a true sense of who you are.
Because celebs and athletes feel entitled. They are narcissistic from their success and people constantly telling them how great they are.
The best advice I can give to someone for getting a date looks like this:
Funny story about the friend zone. There once was a girl that I met in college. I was extremely interested, and I was hitting on her mercilessly. She decided to get a bad case of willful disbelief and managed to convince herself that I was really interested in being in the friend zone (memo to the 3 ladies who read slashdot: no guy ever wants to be in the friend zone! Not unless he is way out of your league). Anyway, after a few weeks of this nonsense, I finally had had enough. I told her that I was looking for a girlfriend, not a "friend" friend. That I had enough friends, and that while I liked them very much, that was not what I was interested in with her.
Naturally, she shot my ass down, and I shouldn't have been surprised. But about a month later, a funny thing happened. I was sitting around with my "friend" friends hanging out, and this same girl literally plops herself down in my lap. And I do know what the word "literally" means: she was physically seated in my lap. Apparently, she had come around. 5 years later we were married. Still happily married today.
So, if you are a nice guy, when you are in your late 20's, you will finally get a girl that was banging around with a dozen of other not-so-nice guys, while you where getting 0 and waiting for some interesting-enough-girl that finally gets tired of dating assholes, wants to start a family with a guy that takes care of the kids for her, and wants some nice-guy that doesn't complain, does her every bidding and can live with having sexual relationships only one a week.
I guess it all depends on what you mean by "nice".
If "nice" means approaching women who you are interested in romantically as "friends" so that you can get an in, and then after a year of being "friends" you make a tearful confession that you've fallen for her and you just can't take being "friends" anymore, then yes, you are right, that will not work very well. I would argue that that isn't very nice either, but it's amazing how many "nice" guys who do that call guys who are honest and up-front about their intentions the "assholes".
Personally, I consider myself to be nice, but I've never been one to beat around the bush when I'm interested in someone. It's been a lot of years now, but back when I was single, I'd just lay it out on the table and either it worked or it did not, but at least then I'd have my answer so I could move in or move on.
I'm not sure where in Europe you might have been, but there are plenty of fat people there. I know the stats that we're fatter here on average, but that is due to certain segments of our population eating enormous portions of nutrient-poor food-like stuff.
US urban descendants of Europeans tend to be roughly as fat as our urban European counterparts.
God but you youngsters make me laugh! Over 45? I'll be 60 in a couple of months, anything under 40 and I'd feel like a child molester.
Kids... sheesh...
Well, I'm neither female nor over 45, so I have to go with what women tell me.
What I think might be at play here is that women in their 20s and early 30s grew accustomed to being able to attract hoards of men without any effort. Attracting someone their own age was pretty much a given. But how many 45 year old men do you see pursuing 45 year old women? I'd hazard a guess that you don't see this very often. If I were 45 and single, I wouldn't even look at a women over 35. Just not happening.
Anyway, based on the experience that they had in their prime, it doesn't really enter their consciousness that their target age range is now 55+. So they feel invisible to men their own age. And with good reason. They are.
Do you think that the divorce is due to you having met online?
#1) Women don't actually want to go out with you. What they want is a male "pen-pal". They want you to write long emails to them which they can read in Starbucks while sipping their lattes.
I've never actually done online dating (I met my wife before online dating took off), but I've unfortunately pondered it a bit lately, for reasons that are not relevant to this discussion. To me, this sounds a lot like the offline dating trap of trying to pursue women romantically by first pursuing them as "just friends". As I'm sure most men have noticed, this does not work at all. Making your intentions clear from the get-go works way better.
So along those lines, I wouldn't advise (or tolerate, if it were me) much pen pal-ing with people you meet online (that goes for women and men). That's wasting an incredible amount of time on someone you may not even click with in real life. If she won't so much as meet you for coffee at a neutral location after just a few emails, then I'd look elsewhere. This lady isn't serious about you.
#2) Avoid any woman who's profile claims she isn't seeking anyone who plays games or has baggage. Because she's the one who's playing games and has baggage.
Why? Chicks with baggage are great fun! Just don't get serious with them.
#3) Yes, yes, yes, we all love wine, good food, long walks on the beach. Tell me what's unique about you, not what makes you the same as everyone else!
At the end of the day, most people aren't all that unique. Everything that I've ever done, I'm sure thousands of others have done the same. Anyway, I haven't found that matching interests is really all that important. I'd rather be with someone who is different from myself.
#3) After more than a decade of online dating, I've decided I'm happier by myself anyhow. When I crave "companionship", there are services for that.
Like the number 3 today? :)
Anyway, seems silly for single people to bother with "companionship" services, especially people who don't like women with more baggage than a 747. I always thought that escorts were for married guys that have little time on their hands. I've never used that type of service before, but anyway that was my impression.
Not really. Online dating means a few women that photograph well are bombarded by the vast majority of men.
This is really no different from real life. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the top 30% of women (by attractiveness) get 85% of the male attention, the next 20% get 10%, and the bottom 50% get 5%.
For women, being ugly or over age 45 means you're essentially invisible.
If you mean a person does not have the right to withhold evidence of THEIR OWN wrongdoing, that is an absurdity.
No it isn't. If a judge signs a warrant to search your house, you have no right to prevent it. If you attempt this, you'll very quickly find yourself confined in the backseat of a police cruiser.
Your 5th amendment right applies to the contents of your own mind. You cannot be forced to take an oath and then choose between perjury or confession. But if the police, executing a valid search warrant, say, "Give me the key to the safe," and they know you have the key, you'd be advised to give it to them.
Does not have the right to withhold evidence? So why don't the police just require a murderer to provide the murder weapon, location of the body and any other evidence that they hid?
Or why don't they require people to supply detailed records of all monetary transactions in most economic crimes. Including any Swiss bank account information.
That way the judge can keep anyone accused in jail indeffinitely, saving the people the cost of a trial.
For your examples above, in general, you can't be forced to reveal the contents of your own mind, i.e. testify against yourself. If you were to, to use your example, lead the police to the body or the murder weapon, or whatever, then the act of doing this could simultaneously betray your involvement in the crime. This is why you have the right to remain silent.
What you cannot do, however, is prevent police from investigating the crime. For instance, ordinarily the police could not search your home for evidence of wrongdoing due to your right against unreasonable search. However, if you are accused of a crime, and investigators reasonably suspect that evidence is in your home, a judge would grant a warrant for police to search your home, and you would not be permitted to deny this search.
So here's the tricky bit. For your home, it's simple matter to execute a search warrant against a homeowner attempting to deny the search. Simply confine the homeowner somewhere where he cannot interfere with the lawful search. But when the evidence is encrypted on a computer, that may not be feasible. By law, investigators have the privilege to search the machine for evidence (warrant signed by a judge), but by law, the accused (in my opinion, despite how little that's worth) has a right not to reveal the contents of his own mind, which is presumably where the passphrase is stored. Where these two rights intersect is an area of law that, according to The Fine Article, is still unsettled.
Max penalty for obstruction of justice is 20 years, and the burden of proof is pretty low. I'd be worried more about that than about being jailed for contempt.
The former is appeal-able. The latter often isn't.
Depends on if it's civil contempt or criminal contempt. In criminal, the defendant has the same rights as in any other criminal charge. In civil contempt, the judge is the prosecutor, judge, and jury. You can appeal, but the bar is high for getting it overturned. The maximum amount of time you can be confined for civil contempt is 18 months at the federal level. In many states, however, you could be held for years and years and years with very little meaningful recourse.
A citation for that would be really nice to have around. This password debate has been going around the net for well over ten years and this is the first time that I've heard anyone say that the court can't compel someone to reveal the combination for their safe.
I'm sure it would be.
I'm not an attorney, so I'd be googling it the same as you. Since you want to know it more than I do, feel free to google it yourself.
Sorry to brush you off, but my client isn't paying me to google random stuff. But if you find anything interesting, feel free to reply.
Assuming her lawyers fail to get the judges order reversed, or convince the judge she really can't comply, she just needs to decide whether the potential penalties of her alleged crimes (and whatever increased likelihood of conviction the data would cause) outweighs the time the judge is going to put her in jail for contempt.
Max penalty for obstruction of justice is 20 years, and the burden of proof is pretty low. I'd be worried more about that than about being jailed for contempt.
If there's incriminating evidence, surely this is a perfect example on why the person can't decrypt as it WOULD self incriminate them!
A person does not have a right to destroy, withhold, or falsify evidence of their wrongdoing with the intent of stymieing investigators. That's obstruction of justice.
Where it gets tricky, and where the law is still unsettled, is how this privilege of the government to investigate is balanced by a person's right against being forced to testify against themselves. In an ideal world, the accused should not be required to have any part in his trial at all. He should be able to simply say and do nothing, and the government can either prove its case or not. The reason that this is tricky, is that if the accused reveals his password, he actually divulges two distinct facts: 1. the encrypted evidence, and 2. that the accused knew how to decrypt the evidence. #2 should not be underestimated, because that eliminates the need for the prosecutor to prove that the accused had access to the encrypted evidence, knew of the evidence, etc.
In my opinion, which isn't worth the paper it isn't printed on, this should hinge on whether or not it can be shown that the accused knows the password. If it can't be shown, then I don't think it's right to compel the defense to divulge both facts. But if it can be shown (or has already been admitted/learned) that the accused knows the password, then I think the accused must decrypt the files.
A low-tech example of this is in safes. The authorities can make you hand over the key to a safe, but not the combination. If the safe is locked with a combination, they must crack open the safe if they want its contents. Obviously this is less feasible with modern encryption technology.
Breaking code into screen sized 'called once' sections adds unnecessary complexity, especially if you validate your inputs(as all good programmers should).
I don't consider boiler-plate code to really be code. It's more like wallpaper. A lot of languages have facilities that allow you to skip or condense it or move it (sort of like AspectJ allows you to separate out cross-cutting concerns like trace-level logging, etc.).
Some things are just inheritently complex and the most efficient implementation might be rather abstract and not obvious at first.
I'm having a difficult time coming up with a situation where that is true. The job of a good architect is to take a complex system and model it so that it makes sense. If a developer who is experienced in the tools/languages that you have used for implementation, and is familiar with the project's requirements, can't look at your code and understand what is going on within a few minutes, your system was not architected very well.
Additionally, if the logic of a section of code would leave an experienced dev scratching his or her head, then the problem is the code (unless the code was optimized due to an actually-experienced performance problem). If you write some code that is difficult to read, it's not because you are brilliant. Any idiot can spew out complicated code. Brilliance is taking something complicated and making it straightforward.
Perhaps there is a situation where this is not true, but I have never encountered such a situation. My experience is that code complexity and developer acumen are inversely related.
It really depends on what you're looking for, where you're looking for it, and how much you're willing to pay, but yeah, good devs are hard to find. I know a lot of them, but they never seem to be unemployed for longer than about 5 minutes.