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Comment Re:"the Native American Minnesotan" (Score 1) 146

by NewYorkCountryLawyer (#42274911) Attached to: Jammie Thomas Takes Constitutional Argument To SCOTUS

Why do we care that she's of tribal descent? Are we now saying tribal American's are exempt from copyright laws? I flatly refuse to redefine native they way the PC crowd does, if you were born in the US you are native. I happen to be of Cherokee linage as well, but that doesn't matter, I'm native because I was born here.

In this case, I personally believe that she was discriminated against by the jury, because she was a Native American. She was tried many many miles from where she lived and worked, and did not have a jury of her peers.

Comment Re:Question for NYCountryLawyer re illegal downloa (Score 2) 146

by NewYorkCountryLawyer (#42274829) Attached to: Jammie Thomas Takes Constitutional Argument To SCOTUS

Was she really convicted of "illegal downloading?"

1. She wasn't "convicted" of anything; this wasn't a criminal case. She was found liable for copyright infringement by making copies through downloading, thus violating the record companies' exclusive reproduction rights.
2. She was also sued for "distributing" and "making available for distributing", but the judge threw out the "making available for distributing" claim, and there was no evidence offered of the "distributing" claim.

So yes, the only thing she was found liable for was downloading.

Comment Re:by my estimation (Score 1) 146

by NewYorkCountryLawyer (#42274729) Attached to: Jammie Thomas Takes Constitutional Argument To SCOTUS

This case is Capitol vs Thomas, not RIAA vs Thomas. Capitol is a music publisher, and this case was about their works.

1. Capitol is but one of the plaintiffs.
2. The RIAA was in fact running the case, with the aid of the record company plaintiffs.
3. Capitol is a record company, not a music publisher.
4. The case was about the recordings of several different companies.

Submission + - Jammie Thomas takes constitutional argument to SCOTUS (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Native American Minnesotan found by a jury to have downloaded 24 mp3 files of RIAA singles, has filed a petition for certioriari to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the award of $220,000 in statutory damages is excessive, in violation of the Due Process Clause. Her petition (PDF) argued that the RIAA's litigation campaign was "extortion, not law", and pointed out that "[a]rbitrary statutory damages made the RIAA’s litigation campaign possible; in turn,that campaign has inspired copycats like the so-called Copyright Enforcement Group; the U.S. Copyright Group, which has already sued more than 20,000 individual movie downloaders; and Righthaven, which sued bloggers. This Court should grant certiorari to review this use of the federal courts as a scourge"."

Comment Re:Idiots and lasers = bad combo (Score 1) 687

by rangek (#41574363) Attached to: Laser Strikes On Aircraft Becoming Epidemic

Unfortunately, lasers have become so cheap, and super powerful laser-pointers (which has no real world use whatsoever)

I have my physical chemistry students build a Raman spectrometer using a 300 mW green laser pointer. So they absolutely do have a real-world use. The cheapness and power is what makes it a worthwhile and feasible experiment to do.

Comment Re:But that's not the real problem. (Score 5, Insightful) 1651

by HanzoSpam (#41523789) Attached to: To Encourage Biking, Lose the Helmets

Bullshit.

Cycling was as common when I was a kid as it is now. But cycle helmets were not mandatory then. By your logic, cycling should have got less popular over time. It hasnt.

Where I live (US), it's certainly less popular. When I was a kid, people, and mostly other kids, would cycle everywhere. Every kid I knew had a bicycle, and it was their primary form of transportation. Now, I rarely see someone cycling, and when I do, it's usually an adult, and usually on a designated bike trail, not on the streets or sidewalks.

That's not just an anecdotal observation on my part either. I no longer see bike racks installed for parking bikes near schools or stores anymore, they used to be common. If you watch any old children's TV shows from the '50s or '60s, you can see how ingrained the bicycle was in the culture (almost as common as smoking!).

Of course, in those days when you wanted to ride your bike, you just jumped on it and off you went. If we'd had to dress up like quarterbacks every time we wanted to run to the store or a friend's house, we probably would have lost our taste for bicycling, too.
Worms

Submission + - Using lasers, researchers were able to take over the worm's brain (harvard.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In the quest to understand how the brain turns sensory input into behavior, Harvard scientists have crossed a major threshold. Using precisely targeted lasers, researchers have been able to take over a tiny animal’s brain, instruct it to turn in any direction they wish, and even implant false sensory information, fooling the animal into thinking food was nearby.
Moon

Submission + - NASA to Build Manned Space Station Beyond the Moon? (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: After forty years of venturing no farther than low Earth orbit, NASA may have decided to establish a manned outpost at a greater distance than humanity has ever traveled before. According to documents seen by the Orlando Sentinel, NASA has chosen a proposal to build a space station beyond the Moon that will act as a “gateway spacecraft” to explore the Moon, the asteroids and eventually as a staging post to launch a manned mission to Mars.

Comment Re:Federal Judges Need to Go Back to School (Score 2) 584

by HanzoSpam (#41421195) Attached to: Federal Judge Says No Right To Secret Ballot, OKs Barcoded Ballots

They have no understanding of constitutional law. The constitution does now lay out our rights... we have our rights with or without the constitution. The constitution was meant to restrain the government. Since a few people thought that enumerating some of our rights explicitly in the Bill of Rights was a good idea, some how the foolish judges have the idea that if they weren't explicitly enumerated that they do not exist.

That may be true. OTOH, that doesn't necessarily mean anything you care to pull out of your ass is a right.

Submission + - Post Homo sapiens homonids (eurekalert.org) 1

Submitted by ISoldat53
ISoldat53 writes: Researchers have identified a group of Africans that appear to have diverged from the H. sapiens gene pool. See the RTFA for details. We have spent years trying to find out where we as a species come from; it's interesting to speculate on where we are going.
Science

Submission + - New genetic light shed on human evolution (ft.com)

Submitted by HanzoSpam
HanzoSpam writes: A new genetic study of a group of sub-Saharan peoples has challenged the prevailing view that modern humans emerged from one location in Africa before spreading out across the world. An international research team found that the Khoe and San groups from southern Africa are descendants of the earliest diversification event in the history of modern humans – 100,000 years ago. Instead of localising the origin of modern humans to a single geographic region in Africa, the researchers discovered a complex record of interbreeding and genetic stratification, challenging the view of evolution in one place.

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