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Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

arstechnica.com

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Re: Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

#171

Post by msla »

adolph wrote: post #115
pluies wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr, famously had issues with IT systems: Tim: There’re so many places we could start, but in the process of doing homework for this, I found mentioned, and I wanted to do a fact check on this, of you having plane tickets automatically cancelled, and other issues related to your last name. Is that accurate? Did those things actually happen? Caterina Fake: This has happened to me many t…

This seems like a good spot for the link to @patio11's "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names" So, as a public service, I’m going to list assumptions your systems probably make about names. All of these assumptions are wrong. Try to make less of them next time you write a system which touches names. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

I get what he's doing, but some of these are not actionable:

> People’s names are all mapped in Unicode code points.

So... what? What do I do with this? My program has to use something to represent text, and since I fail to be a large multinational consortium, I can't invent my own character set and expect it to work.

Also:

> Confound your cultural relativism! People in my society, at least, agree on one commonly accepted standard for names.

This is pretty much true in countries with naming laws, yes.

> People have names.

People in a database will have certain records which will not be NULL. Whether you call one of those records a 'name' outside the context of that database really isn't my concern.

Re: Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

#172

Post by [deleted] »

lores wrote: post #52
jbverschoor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world has gone from substance to optics. You see it in every industry or field.

Heh, optics have been important since the dawn of man, and probably even before. Ziggurats are all about optics, and so are mating displays. A cynic might say "more important", but that's hard to ascertain.

[deleted]

Re: Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

#173

Post by lilyball »

Wingy wrote: post #148
OJFord wrote: post #145

Is there a term for this (bad) style of writing or linguistic device where you mention the thing ('purple dragon') in the title/first paragraph and then really force a synonym in the second? > Federal Magistrate Judge Ray Kent of the Western District of Michigan was unamused by a recent complaint (PDF) that prominently featured the aubergine wyrm . (Emphasis mine.)

You could call it Elegant Variation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_variation

In the case where it's rather forced, you could call it Inelegant Variation instead.

Re: Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

#174

Post by mark212 »

indrora wrote: post #137
mjgoeke wrote: post #133

That's not a "watermark", keep it to 5% opacity. This is around 13% and very distracting.

There's a color, gray95, that is the recommended black and white color for watermarks in a few books I've read on the topic. Honestly the best way to do it right is to ask the court (politely) what their stated requirements for watermarking are and if you get shrugs, you go for the bare minimum.

there is no court where I have ever practiced that would accept a watermark of any kind at whatever percentage or color. And he didn't need to ask, it's right there in the rules (state and local). Every court has extremely detailed requirements for font, size, line spacing, line numbering, color of cover for printed "chambers copies," size of margins, how the name of the court should be set out and where, and so on. Literally no excuse for this, he's lucky he didn't get sanctioned

Re: Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

#175

Post by cess11 »

JCattheATM wrote: post #60
cess11 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who are into dragons are furries, it's not a literal term. Their furry subgroup is usually called scalies, which besides dragons and snakes include people who are into things like salamanders and other amphibians. I'm under the impression that such taxonomies are less important to these in-groups than whether you're just into the aesthetic or get off on it sexually as well.

Disney movies and 80s cartoons with talking animals really created a whole new subculture.

Austin Osman Spare did it earlier than that, as did some of the old greeks and others.

Re: Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

#176

Post by mark212 »

perihelions wrote: post #37

- "The whole story would be far more humorous were it not from a case in which Perrone represented a woman who claims that she nearly died after being incarcerated and not given proper medical care. Perrone must now refile his complaint in that case—without the cartoon dragon." That should be more offensive than cartoons. In a just world. It's not as if the victim had the luxury of many choices of law firms, or any c…

the victim did have a choice of lawyers, far beyond a "luxury." Don't know if you live in the US or not, but it's hard to avoid personal injury attorney advertising in virtually every forum. More specifically, there are 426 PI lawyers listed in the Superlawyers directory for the Detroit area, and they claim to only list the top 5% of practicing attorneys. The plaintiff here could easily dump this guy and get someone else, for free, especially this early in the lawsuit when the complaint has just been filed.

Re: Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

#177

Post by dogmayor »

mark212 wrote: post #176
perihelions wrote: post #37

- "The whole story would be far more humorous were it not from a case in which Perrone represented a woman who claims that she nearly died after being incarcerated and not given proper medical care. Perrone must now refile his complaint in that case—without the cartoon dragon." That should be more offensive than cartoons. In a just world. It's not as if the victim had the luxury of many choices of law firms, or any c…

the victim did have a choice of lawyers, far beyond a "luxury." Don't know if you live in the US or not, but it's hard to avoid personal injury attorney advertising in virtually every forum. More specifically, there are 426 PI lawyers listed in the Superlawyers directory for the Detroit area, and they claim to only list the top 5% of practicing attorneys. The plaintiff here could easily dump this guy and get someone…

This isn't a PI case and she couldn't "easily" get someone else for free. Maybe you're thinking she could get an attorney to take the case on a contingency basis, but that's not "free."

Re: Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

#178

Post by toast0 »

gambiting wrote: post #17
demarq wrote: post #12

The whole point of a judicial process is to make judgments on the merit of a case not personal prejudice. What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty?

And as the court pointed out, it's hard to judge the merit of the case when you're distracted by a huge purple dragon when reading the legal document. It's the same reason why you can't send documents written in yellow font on a blue background - technically not against the rules, but no judge will suffer through reading it. >>What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty? Obviously you can just…

> It's the same reason why you can't send documents written in yellow font on a blue background - technically not against the rules, but no judge will suffer through reading it.

Using those particular color choices might not actually be suffering. It used to be a desirable color combination for word processing. I don't know if judges tend to review pleadings on screen or on paper though. On paper, black on white would be preferred, of course (unless the court had blue legal paper to print on)

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