Rilbur

Sounds like you've done more research into the subject than I have... Which is embarrassing, all things considered. After all, I have a very personal reason to be interested in the subject.

I scored a 1... most of my wardrobe is from Target/Walmart/Kmart or similar. Of course, given a year or two of full-time employment and those numbers are likely to shift a tad. (Slacks are better for work than jeans...)

Probably because the jury is still out on whether Asperger's is a form of Autism at all As for 'exploiting' autism, I don't see many autistic individuals strapped in front of a computer and forced to do mental labor of some kind... Or strapped in front of an assembly line... Etc, etc. Writers will always grab at oddities and anomalies to write a story. That's part of what we do, after all.

If a star supernova'd close enough to the earth, we'd bake... but I don't think we're likely to see that.

In the lack of contradictory evidence, I believe him. His interview backs up my basic assertion that this was less a hate crime and more him being a 'dumb kid' fresh off the leading strings. This has no relevence to anything under discussion. He was never, and should never, be tried regarding Clementi's suicide. He jumped off a bridge. Suicide. Case closed, no need to dig deeper. He was probably just listening to his counsel's advice.

Taking a plea means pleading guilty. Which means you have to say what you did. You're pleading guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. Which doesn't mean you take the stand as a witness, but you do stand up in court under penalty of perjury and say 'yes, I did these things'.

Yeah, elastic band FTW. That's what it's there for.

Well, the article HH5 linked earlier has some suggestive pieces. Suggestive, and frightening. Frankly, I suspect this one is going to be fought straight up to the supreme court -- and with good reason. I didn't even realize it, but as another news article pointed out, this is the first time bias laws have been directed at non-violent crimes. The fact that the evidence on bias is so incredibly shaky makes that doubly scary to me, especially since apparently the only aspect on which they were able to label it a hate crime is that CLementi felt bullied. I don't know about anyone else, but I definitely think that 'feeling' that someone is biased towards you shouldn't count towards any type of bias charge -- too many people have persecution complexes already to go around handing them that kind of loaded weapon.

Not a chance in hell. There is simply no way to avoid needing a computer in today's world. Even if you restrict it to 'personal computers' such as desktops and laptops, they're still too important to day-to-day life for most individuals. And since Ravi is still a college student, he is -- if his college is anything like mine -- required to have a computer for classwork. It's almost imposible to keep the driver's liscence of a drunk driver revoked, so why the hell would they waste time even trying something that is less enforceable, and far more crippling?

​Go re-read HH5's posts; he's been talking about future events that may have occurred. That's the 'wild speculation' that I'm decrying. Let me be clear on my position: What Ravi did was wrong, was illegal, and he should be punished. Where I disagree is with the witch-trial mentality people are developing over it, trying to turn it into murder charges and arguing for punishments more suitable to a severe crime. Ravi's actions were those of a prank that got out of hand -- extremely so, yes, but a prank. As such, while he does deserve punishment -- innocent intents do not excuse the criminal act, they merely mitigate it -- I don't view him as a severe criminal deserving of 'hard time'. Six months, max. (For reference, a quick bit of research shows that invasion of privacy is a class A misdemeanor, which in some jurisdictions is punishable by 10,000$ fine, up to nine months jail time, or both) And please note that even this 'mild' sentence is still a life-long penalty; he'll be branded a criminal for the rest of his life and as such will not be eligible for bonding in most professions. While most work places focus on felonies, even a misdemeanor can disqualify you for any number of 'good' jobs. As for distribution, I went and dug into the matter a bit more; you are correct that he didn't invite friends to watch on a single machine, but rather used twitter to make the 'livecast' available. Since the prosecution hasn't brought any such charges against him, I'm going to assume those charges are not viable for some reason beyond the scope of my limited legal 'expertise'. He's certainly brought the less-justified bias charges, at any rate! (Less justified as in nothing I've seen supports that these acts were a bias crime)

OK, how about every other Sunday? (I loves it, btw -- great chapter!)

In that case, we've come to an impasse and can never agree. As for the rest of your post... you're right, we don't know. Therefore, we can't judge from it. Innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, you're throwing wild speculation about what may or may not have occurred out as reasons to punish Ravi, which is absurd. We have to fit the punishment to the facts, not the facts to the punishment. Wild speculation about what may or may not have happened is pointless.

It's incredibly difficult to read through your posts, but right here you show the emotion behind your logic. You're too focused on the outcome -- Clementi's suicide -- rather than the crime, which was mischief that rose to the realm of the criminal, and even then only as a misdemeanor. The outcome of his actions wasn't simply beyond his control, it was outside of his ability to predict. I wouldn't consider 'suicide' to be a reasonably predictable outcome from having a tryst put 'on camera'. Outrage, yes, suicide, no. Frankly, Ravi's case is being blown up over people's outrage that he 'drove' Clementi to suicide. If Clementi hadn't thrown himself off a bridge, this case wouldn't have even hit the papers -- and probably wouldn't be pushed so hard by the police. So far, all the evidence I've seen is that Ravi decided to 'snoop' on his roommate having sex, and then decided to make that snooping public. To me, that might, maybe, justify a small modicum of jail time, but I'd be much more inclined to view it as something that justified a few hundred hours of community service. As for Molly, 300 hours seems a bit heavy to me. She was, at worst, an enabler. 300 hours community service is, by way of comparison, about two months worth of full-time employment. She's already got a 'full time' job in being a student, so lets cut that back to one day's work (eight hours) a week on the weekends. That's about nine months of her life that she's going to be paying for her 'crime', four and a half if you remove all her days off.

This consumer preview isn't even a beta product. It's the starting point for the design they're going to try and push. It's a chance for consumers and tech guys to start looking at what a next-generation windows machine will look like. Touch screens are coming. The question isn't 'if' we're going to start seeing them in use, it's what they're going to be used for. Windows 8 is trying to do two things. First, it's providing a touch-friendly approach to the desktop, while second, it's moving away from a design that it's been using for nearly twenty years now. Sure, if it's not broke don't fix it... but we've learned a lot since then about how to build electronics. This is a chance to get rid of some of the cruft that older OS's stuck us with. It's not that the new approach is in any way worse than what we're dealing with now; it's that it's different, and we need to spend some time learning it anew. Lets see how this experiment plays out before we judge it too harshly.

hh5, however you spin it Clementi choose to jump off that bridge himself. Not murder. You'd have a hard time making a case for manslaughter, even. Without a hell of a lot more evidence to show some kind of persistent or ongoing psychological assault, the suicide is something that is firmly Clementi's own doing. It sucks, but I'm not going to blame it on the others in this situation. What they did was out of line, sure, but Clementi, ultimately, took that final leap.

Actually, what I'm saying is that the fact that it was gay sex was accidental to the actual act -- catching his roommate having sex. That's why I put the parenthesis in; 'gay' wasn't a part of the motivation, it was simply part of the situation. Furthermore, as far as proof... please show me something that proves that it was a bias act, something more than 'oh, look at my roommate having sex -- with a man!'. That's not enough to show bias, either.

Hence the trial. Maybe he intended it as a prank, but it goes way beyond the scope any prank should have had. I'll also chip in with those that say you can't label this a hate crime (or even a bias crime). No evidence points that this was about filming gay men having sex, it was about catching his roommate having (gay) sex. Big difference there.

as always DK, wonderful!

Because he was pranking him?

'What, it's something that prevents pregnancy after the sex act is finished? ABORTION!' That is the level of science knowledge you're arguing with, sir. Edit: And withdrawal? Is he REALLY that stupid? Withdrawal simply don't work people!

Yes, we have Google's new, single privacy policy, replacing GMail, Google Search, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google This and Google That's individual policies. Nothing evil there just because it's 'new'. Google is big. This means that, sometimes, something slips through the cracks. Sometimes, some small part of it doesn't behave, and the rest gets blamed.

"House AI will provide anything else you need, and can contact me if necessary," Dill reminded Momma Bear before he carefully sealed the door behind him. Trudging upstairs, he dropped into his bed, exhausted. He missed having Brian there, but Bri wasn't going anywhere without Sammy for a while and someone had to be upstairs if anyone came visiting. Next thing he knew, Cher was shaking him awake. "So how did it go?" she demanded. "Where are Bri and Sammy?" Dill groaned as she ripped the c

Marcel frowned as he looked into the water. Scrying the boy had always been difficult, and chancey, but this was different. The boy was protected by his very nature, a focus of Light energy that Marcel's Dark powers found hard to touch. Caution and skill were required to do anything to the boy, or anyone around him, as that Light energy would react violently to the presence of the Dark. But this was something different. Marcel threw another spell out through the bowl of water, seeking not the b

I'll forgive you Tolkien readily enough... I find it hard to believe you'd compare me to Lewis or Jordan! Thanks for the kind words!

I'll agree, the entire approach to the doctor needed tightening, badly. I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway.