81–90 of 322 posts
It was a mistrial due to jury deadlock, as reasonable doubt was present.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. A bigger problem is defining field boundaries and determine who gets to judge qualifications, both of which introduce points at which biases can be introduced systematically.
I'd settle for not actively weeding out experts as we do in the current voir dire process.
On the other hand if you take, for example, an engineer who learns to build bridges and builds a lot of bridges in one company, and then moves to a different company still building bridges, one would not think that just because they build a great bridge at company B, company A should be compensated.
Where do you draw the line between 'improving your craft / becoming a better software developer' to 'taking a company's IP'?
An interesting statement on things that may be relevant in the grand scheme of the trial, but, unless I'm really missing something here, the verdict was about busting an NDA (the Code being downstream of the NDA violation). Hence the $500M vs the $4B in damages. If it was just about code, then I'm sure Carmack's points would hold up just as well as they read in hindsight. But - and it's a big but - keep in mind his p…
It was this deep understanding that made Occulus valuable and it was seemingly funded on Zenimax's time and dime.
I don't have the evidence so I can't make a judgement about whether Zenimax or Carmack is in the wrong here, but this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well…
I often wonder if John was involved with the story telling aspect of his games, not just the code.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Why is there an assumption that you can explain anything to anyone? There is no law of nature stating that the maximum complexity anyone can invent is smaller than the complexity the average person can understand.
I'd say there are very few people who are doing things so out there that they cannot explain what they are doing. We aren't that special. We aren't magical unicors who work in all corners of our galaxy. No we are programmers, PhDs, mechanics, engineers. Our jobs share a lot in common with each other and can be easily broken down to their base components. That's the job of a programmer like Carmack. To break things do…
So, those very few people out there are basically fucked up with no recourse? How few are they?
Anyway, yep, we are normal people. Normal people that spent a decade or four learning something very specialized. Now, why should we take for granted that people that never learned anything in our specialty can understand anything we know in a week?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very common argument against juries, and I think it's one of the most powerful. Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice. But if we take the idea of a jury to be about judging by one's peers, it should be patently clear (heh) that the jury o…
Ignoring the idea of a corporation being judged by other corporations, the idea that "peers" should be judged more strictly (i.e., limited to "people in similar situations" monetarily, professionally, etc.), I feel like you would run a very clear risk of creating juries that function similarly to "good-old-boy networks" that are unwilling to judge too harshly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very common argument against juries, and I think it's one of the most powerful. Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice. But if we take the idea of a jury to be about judging by one's peers, it should be patently clear (heh) that the jury o…
I once espoused a similar opinion, but have since changed my mind. I'm a physicist, and once expressed to a judge I had met on the trail that I wished I could be judged by my academic peers. It was my belief that they would be more receptive to logical argument, understanding in their analysis, and more committed to fundamental principles. The judge was visibly surprised, but said little. What later changed my mind w…
Have you met any academics?
I don't have the evidence so I can't make a judgement about whether Zenimax or Carmack is in the wrong here, but this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well…