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Comment Clearly Established: a useful standard. (Score 5, Informative) 775

I am a lawyer, and about a third of my cases are representing state employees, and about a third of those involve cases with a "clearly established" defense, though I practice mostly in the Fourth Circuit, not the Ninth.

The "clearly established" standard is a way for courts to keep these kinds of suits from dinging innocent state employees. Basically, not only does the employee have to violate someone's right, but it has to have been pretty much unreasonable for the employee to think ze wasn't violating that right. Here, in fact, the panel didn't even hold that the kid had a right not to have this stuff said to him. So this case won't be precedent for future cases to reach back and say, "Well, as of the time the Corbett opinion was issued, the right not to have a teacher make fun of your religious beliefs was clearly established."

There are several other possible doctrines for protecting an employee in such a situation, and they're all salutary.

Comment Re:Just say (Score 3, Informative) 525

Even if you say nothing to the officer who stops you, you can be arrested for any driving infraction, even one that isn't a jailable offense, when you're in your vehicle.

Once you're arrested, you can be searched sans warrant. Once you're arrested, your car can be impounded, and your entire vehicle can be "inventory" searched.

Your car can also be searched sans warrant based on probable cause of any criminal activity, even if you aren't arrested.

Better hope the courts decide your phone is more like a footlocker or a trunk, but good luck with that. The Supreme Court, over the course of about a dozen major Fourth Amendment decisions, has taken a dim view of your right to privacy while in your automobile.

IAAL.

Comment Lawyers Only? (Score 3, Informative) 218

I practice before the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia at Alexandria, and they do not allow anyone, including lawyers, to bring their smartphones in. It's routine to have to look at your calendar on the fly when the judge wants to schedule something, so you have to have it with you. The EDVA policy is the main reason I still maintain a paper calendar parallel to my computer calendar.

I understand and buy into the rationale behind not letting jurors bring them in, but the state courts in the area almost universally allow lawyers to bring their smartphones in, and it's such a bonus.
News

Artificial Retinas Can Balance a Pencil On Its End 165

mikejuk writes "A team of researchers has built a neural information system that is good enough and fast enough to balance a pencil in real time. If you think it's an easy task, try it! The Institute of Neuroinformatics, ETH / University Zurich have used what look like video cameras to do the job but in fact they are analog silicon retinas. They work so fast that even with fairly basic hardware they can balance a pencil."

Comment Re:Neither reviewer liked it (Score 1) 429

Subtext, symbolism, and metaphors are all creative work put in by one or more people. I have never understood the distinction between visual or musical symbolism (since you are satisfied by a trite movie with great visuals and awesome soundtrack) and the (thematic?) metaphors you are talking about. All are integral parts of the creative/artistic experience of watching a film.

Comment Re:he's a douche, that's all that matters (Score 1) 334

Oh well, blame the feminists who never thought about the consequences of going to the police because of a condomless one night stand. You heartless bitches.

Is that what passes for "+5, Insightful" these days? Asking a woman who thinks she was raped not to come forward because of your politics is disgusting and terrifying. Your attitude exemplifies the reason that so many rapes go unreported. If she's not a liar or "regretting it the next morning," she's being politically insensitive.

Anyone who modded this Insightful should turn in their mod points or grow some humanity.

Input Devices

Apple Launches New Magical Trackpad, 12 Core Macs 432

theappwhisperer writes "The Magic Trackpad is basically a larger version of the MacBook Pro touchpad, with 80% more surface area for all your swiping and pinching. The entire surface acts as a button, so it's also a possible mouse replacement. And all of the expected gestures are here: two-finger scrolling, pinch to zoom, fingertip rotation, and three- and four-finger swipes. You can enable and disable gestures at your discretion from System Preferences." They also launched 12-core Mac Pros coming in August.
Medicine

GPUs Helping To Lower CT Scan Radiation 77

Gwmaw writes with news out of the University of California, San Diego, on the use of GPUs to process CT scan data. Faster processing of noisy data allows doctors to lower the total radiation dose needed for a scan. "A new approach to processing X-ray data could lower by a factor of ten or more the amount of radiation patients receive during cone beam CT scans... With only 20 to 40 total number of X-ray projections and 0.1 mAs per projection, the team achieved images clear enough for image-guided radiation therapy. The reconstruction time ranged from 77 to 130 seconds on an NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPU card, depending on the number of projections — an estimated 100 times faster than similar iterative reconstruction approaches... Compared to the currently widely used scanning protocol of about 360 projections with 0.4 mAs per projection, [the researcher] says the new processing method resulted in 36 to 72 times less radiation exposure for patients."
Image

Girl Seeks Help On Facebook During Assault Screenshot-sm 417

A 12-year-old girl who was being assaulted by her mother's ex-boyfriend used some quick thinking by sending a message on her iPod to a friend's Facebook account for help. The friend was able to contact the girl's mother who then contacted the police. 42-year-old Raymond Ernest Cesmat was arrested and charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. He is being held at the Dakota County Jail on $175,000 bail.
Image

Given Truth, the Misinformed Believe Lies More Screenshot-sm 961

SharpFang writes "In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that misinformed people, particularly political partisans, rarely changed their minds when exposed to corrected facts in news stories. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger."

Comment Re:Lack of objectivity? (Score 1) 706

Maybe it's just your observation bias. Did you control for that in your highly complex subjective calculations?

The concept of "women's intuition" is from about 100 years ago. If you're going to be sexist, at least update your buzzwords.

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