- "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 capacity to oversee their work. Their access to legal services is presumably similar to their access to medical care. There's nothing amusing about this outcome. It's seriously depressing that "the coked-up cartoon-dragoon attorney" is the best representation that person, in their helpless situation, was able to navigate to.
To a normal person, sure. But the legal system ruins lives and deals in ruined lives every day. They don't blink twice at that stuff. A cartoon dragon on the other hand...
I remember reading a couple years back, when some judges in Louisiana were exposed systematically discarding legal petitions from incarcerated plaintiffs into trash cans, without reading them. Totally nulled out any access to courts, any possibility of justice, for thousands of people.
Judges in PA were just selling kids to private prisons.
"Ciavarella disposed thousands of children to extended stays in youth centers for offenses as trivial as mocking an assistant principal on Myspace or trespassing in a vacant building.[3] After a judge rejected an initial plea agreement in 2009,[4][5] a federal grand jury returned a 48-count indictment.[6] In 2010, Conahan pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and was sentenced to 17.5 years in federal prison.[7] Ciavarella opted to go to trial the following year. He was convicted on 12 of 39 counts and sentenced to 28 years in federal prison.[8] Conahan, who had been released to home confinement in 2020, had his sentence (due to end in 2026) commuted in 2024 by President Joe Biden."
Thousands of innocent kids in cages, and Mr. Biden actually pardoned that judge as a "nonviolent offender". I think I'll never forget that particular pardon, the obscenity of it. It, just, inverts the ideals behind the reform movements, turns them upside-down in mockery.
His constituents petitioned him about the crooked jails, and... Biden heard them; and freed the jailer.
He was already on house arrest and was going to be free of that by 2026.
The willingness to take the optics hit to allow him a little more freedom, a little earlier makes me question what everyone else is leadership is doing, they must really relate to him.
Pardons like that one really fuel the conspiracy theories about how many executive actions in the Biden admin, particularly toward the end, were really carried out by the former President.
This is really important to understand. Formality isn't an arbitrary concept invented by old fogies, it's a psychological hack we apply to convince people to take things seriously. People really like joking around [citation needed], so that's hard to achieve. A lot of people develop weird complexes about it, because there are big gaps between otherwise close subcultures in what should or shouldn't be taken seriously, but I hope nearly everyone can agree that court proceedings are a serious matter.
The watermark is actively distracting from the enormously important work of reading the complaint in detail. This isn't a question of formality for formality's sake, it's a question of ensuring that the processes run smoothly so that justice can be done.
If he studied enough for law school and was able to work in a court for years before becoming a judge, I would assume his ADHD is under control and he is not that easily distracted.
and since HN is less serious than a court, when I write a comment to you here, surely you agree that there is no justifiable reason the people that run this site should not allow me to purple-dragon-watermark my comments. what's the matter with you paul/dang, don't have your adhd under control?
Consciously, sure, but with some studies saying judges tend to rule differently on similar cases based on whether it's before or after lunchtime, do you really want to introduce more subliminal variables like decorations into the legal process?
The "hungry judge" finding did not replicate [0], and the original paper had serious methodological flaws, namely, that prisoners with parole hearings later in the day were more likely to have either overworked "shared counsel" (the Israeli equivalent of public defenders) or no counsel at all [1]. You should consider the hungry judge effect another debunked victim of the replication crisis.
The influence of cartoon dragons probably don't come close the influence of judges and lawyers talking to each other about what schools they went to, what country clubs they belong to, etc.
The breech of formality isn't being turned into a big deal because it might bias case outcomes; in that regard it's a rounding error washed out by innumerable more substantial sources of bias. It's being made into a big deal because formality is the wall between outcomes of cases and feelings of personal culpability for the people who are involved in that process. All of the formality and decorum make it easier for judges and lawyers to emotionally distance themselves from, very often, ruining peoples' lives.
Too many "rounding errors" adding up seems like a reasonable justification for not allowing even seemingly small sources of additional inconsistency. Slippery slope and all that.
Also, just because the other potential sources of bias you brought up exist doesn't mean new ones should be let into the process. I wouldn't be against solutions to remove the ones you mentioned. But I don't think you'd be entirely convinced that just allowing cartoon dragons would decrease bias by making people more empathetic.
Do you know for a fact that those rounding errors add up, or do they cancel out? I feel like all this bikeshedding is just helping to draw the attention off the more significant and well known biases.
Formality is about preserving objectivity. You don't submit papers to a peer-reviewed journal watermarked with a purple dinosaur in a suit for the same reason you don't submit a complaint to a court watermarked with a purple dinosaur in a suit. Scientific publication (despite its many flaws) is about the content of the publication. Everything else - tone, style, grammatical nuance - is prescribed by a style guide because it is otherwise irrelevant.
There are certainly bad judges that hide behind "the authority vested in them by the court," but reductively asserting that formality is about maintaining authority misses the point (and the operating philosophy behind creating a fair and impartial court) by a country mile.
> That should be more offensive than cartoons. In a just world.
If the complaint is true, then yes it is offensive and the results will be more serious than being required to refile the complaint without the watermark. The process of determining if the complaint is true or not is the justice system.
Yes. Now probably a couple dozen people are going to collectively spend thousands of hours going over the complaint. The watermark issue is indeed just a sideshow by comparison.
The posts on this HN story demonstrate exactly the point the judge is trying to make. This sort of optics issue looms so large in human brains that it is indeed generating accusations that the court case is not being taken seriously because the court must obviously be spending all of its attention on this visually appealing story, even though in the grand scheme of things it is a tiny fraction of just the effort that will be spent on this case overall. Justice must not just be just, it must be seen to be just, and this sort of behavior is an impossibly attractive nuisance for people. Even those defending the picture are still being sucked into a sideshow.
The court does not deal in "truth." It deals in civil cases with "more likely than not" or in criminal cases "beyond a reasonable doubt."
It's also why the court prefers that people settle with each other outside of court processes. The court is a brutal cudgel. It has exceptional power to change outcomes but this use is almost never the ideal outcome for anyone involved.
The "outcome" is simply that the judge simply directed the attorney to stop using the dragon watermark. Whats the problem?
And, by the way, I'd recommend a bit less credulity about this kind of lawsuit. While there is no doubt that a lot of terrible things happen in America's prisons, it is also extremely common for inmates and former inmates to file exaggerated or even frivolous claims about the conditions of their confinement. It's understandable. Prisoners have a lot of time on their hands and being incarcerated sucks even if your rights are not actually being violated. Not saying which this is -- I have no way of knowing. I'm just pointing out that it's a mistake to take the allegations in a legal complaint at face value.
> it is also extremely common for inmates and former inmates to file exaggerated or even frivolous claims about the conditions of their confinement.
It seems pernicious to suggest distrust of claims. Like Blackstone's ratio[1], presuming good faith and investigating, then addressing abuses of the system, seems like the ideal process. The ideal likely ending up unsustainable due to staffing constraints.
[1] "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."
If a prisoner in America says they are being deprived of adaquate medical care, it's safe (for people generally, not the legal system) to assume it's true until proven otherwise.
Maybe they're healthy and are complaining about nothing, but if they aren't healthy then it is almost certainly the case that their medical care is substandard if it exists at all.
It's crazy that people treat prisoner complaints from the American gulag as if everyone is just whining. We have some of the worst conditions in the developed world.
You do come off as very dismissive. It's kind of like JAQing off. You're not "just asking questions" you're "just offering suggestions." The suggestion here being that everyone take these kind of allegations with a grain of salt. I guess it's not necessity that those views conflict with each other, but they definitely do not seem congruous.
Well, then let me clarify: I know that there are a lot of abuses in the U.S. prison system. It's a national embarrassment, and I would be in no way surprised if these or virtually any other allegations a person might make turned out to be true. It is also true, however, that there is a huge number of meritless suits regarding prison conditions.
I used to work in the federal court system so I've seen both sides of this close up. I've worked on cases (many of them) where prisoners' allegations of hideous abuse were extremely credible including cases where the plaintiffs went on to win at trial, get sizable settlements, etc. At the same time, our courthouse had an entire office dedicated to triaging the enormous number of suits filed by prisoners, only a small percentage of which had any merit. (And this office is, by and large, staffed with very compassionate attorneys who do that job because they're interested in helping prisoners--these are not, on average, people who want, or have any incentive, to just sweep things under the rug.)
That's why I believe both that our prison system is rife with abuse and that the average prisoner complaint has a good chance of being bogus.
> I would be in no way surprised if these or virtually any other allegations a person might make turned out to be true
Sure. That does seemingly contradict the notion that I should take the filings with a grain of salt, though. I shouldn't be surprised if it's true, but I shouldn't think it's likely to be true? I think you need to pick one.
What is your experience with these that is the basis of you sharing these opinions?
Do you have any insight into why the less meritorious claims were being filed? I can imagine that given the amount of entirely legal abuse, prisoners attempt to fight back with a swing and a miss. Ofc, some people are just assholes and given they're in prison, they have nothing better to do, but it's pretty annoying to file a suit so I imagine many of them are motivated by something.
I'm not sure I can offer much more than educated speculation, but here it is: I think that prison (especially in America) sucks, even when your legal rights aren't being violated. It's full of indignities and unpleasant conditions. A lot of what makes prison unpleasant may genuinely feel like violations of your rights, even if the law would disagree. As a result, many prisoner suits are about conditions and situations that really are unpleasant, but not illegal. (Some suits also have to do with conditions that are illegal, but which the law requires prisoners to try to get addressed through the prison's own internal grievance system, before resorting to a lawsuit.)
Then mix in the fact that, as a prisoner, you have a lot of time on your hands and one of the few things you can spend your time doing is visiting the prison law library. Even better, if your lawsuit actually goes somewhere, you might have the hope that prison officials will have to take you to court appearances. This stuff would indeed be pretty annoying for most people, but less so for some prisoners (especially compared with their limited alternatives).
Prisoner lawsuits are so plentiful that there is actually a federal law that specifically restricts them, called the Prison Litigation Reform Act[1]. It doesn't block suits altogether, but it limits the situations where a plaintiff can file a suit without paying the filing fees. I have, at best, mixed feelings about it (which parallel my complicated feelings towards prisoner suits generally). But the law's existence helps to illustrate the scale of the problem.
The corollary is also true: it's extremely common for courts to be prejudiced against inmate lawsuits. In extreme cases they don't even read their filings,
Why would they spend money on a frivolous case they have no chance of winning? Lawyers, dragon or no, are expensive, and people in prison don't exactly make money. Conversely, abuse of prisoners is endemic in America. I find this all extremely plausible.
> Why would they spend money on a frivolous case they have no chance of winning?
We’re assuming the defendant is without means. If I were in jail, I’d probably spend a decent amount of my spare time filing this sort of thing. If it were hopeless, I could also see myself just trolling. What else will I spend my money on?
Agreed...and if they think there is a chance of winning they are going to work on the case. That seems obvious? I think you always need to convince a judge your case has merit, right? Or else they just 12b6 you or whatever the equivalent is...
>The "outcome" is simply that the judge simply directed the attorney to stop using the dragon watermark. Whats the problem?
I think the poster was trying to make the point that in a "just" society, the story would be about how this individual is in this position and only has the choice of this attorney, and not instead about the purple dragon.
Absolutely. Federal courts are filled with nonsense habeas petitions by pro se plaintiffs claiming this exact kind of stuff. The fact that this person managed to get representation adds some credibility, but then we’re also here discussing how ridiculous that particular representation has behaved.
His website, which also features the purple dragon and a bunch of busted links in the footer, says that the firm "integrates AI to lower the cost of legal services."
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.
The legal system, for millienia, has always been a hodgepodge of very peculiar and esoteric rules about both substance and optics.
That's why lawyers exist, by the way. Outside of small claims court, laymen aren't equipped to navigate it without stepping on every possible rake imaginable.
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.
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."
The problem is you don't "watermark" court filings in the first place.
That's generally not a thing. Court filings have strict requirements around formatting. This isn't any different from trying to file in Comic Sans or a 48-pt font.
Unfortunately this stunt is functioning as free publicity for this firm, because it's getting written about...
I used to sysadmin for a law firm that used watermarks for draft filings as they went through the internal workflow on the theory that nobody would be stupid enough to actually file something with a translucent toucan on it, so it would make accidentally filing a draft less likely.
> Court filings have strict requirements around formatting. This isn't any different from trying to file in Comic Sans or a 48-pt font.
For example, the Northern District of California rules require a 12-point standard proportional-width font, with no more than 28 lines per page 8½ inch by 11 inch white paper with numbered lines. This is their way of requiring double-spacing and enforcing the page limits[1].
BUT - The rules don't say anything about requiring the paper to be portrait rather than landscape. 28 lines on a landscape page would allow for a lot more text.
Alas, I'm not daring enough to try it, as the intent of the rule is clear, and I'm sure no judge would take kindly to it.
Some courts have moved to word count limits, requiring a certification of word count at the end with a lawyer's signature.
Common paper size definitions would indicate that 8 1/2x11 is portrait, while 11x8 1/2 is landscape, so they could reasonably reject a landscape filing on that basis.
Both to prevent silly games and for similar reasons as the "no brown M&Ms" rider in Van Halen's venue contracts: if you read and followed the instructions in detail for small things like formatting, you read and followed the instructions for the things that actually matter as well.
Consistency mainly. Judges want to be able to easily understand what they're looking at and for it to look professional. Double-spacing gives room to write in changes or notes. Line numbers let you reference stuff easily.
Also, sometimes we (developers) like to use wacky data for testing purposes. For example, I like to put Batman as a dummy user, and my QA likes to upload cat pictures when testing uploads/images.
We do it so it's obvious it's test data, and also we're lazy to think of more "real" data.
Just say some users expect real(ish) data for testing. I had a client who was totally not happy when he saw Batman and Superman in the test data.
There was a bank that wasn’t happy with “Rich Bastard” being used as dummy data but not being replaced in the mail merge, resulting in a couple thousand of their wealthiest customers getting a mailing with the salutation “Dear Rich Bastard,”
I learned a long time ago to be very careful with mock, dummy, or test data.... because some people will just push anything to prod, take screenshots during your demo and paste it into the official documentation... you name it.
I was giving a demo on how to set up multiple computers in a federated setup using Active Directory, ADFS, etc... I had about 5 VMs named things like Hank, Peggy, Bobby, Boomhauer, Bill, and a test user HHill, 123 Rainy Street, Arlen, TX -- someone screenshotted and took notes during the demo and now that's in some formal training somewhere material. Thankfully, it's all internal.
When I and doing dev work and I need an available port, just any port, I use 666 -- because it's never used by anything and also DOOM. I gave a sprint demo and I used 660 instead of 666 to demo that the customer can specify the port number of screen X. Someone put that in the internal and also customer facing documentation... so now my company's product is default setup on 660, even thought it's completely user-configurable. Thank God I didn't demo with 666...
I've never really understood developers' apparent need to add cutesy stuff into their work product's test data, variable names, easter eggs and so on. Adding this stuff is all downside risk with no technical benefit that you can explain in a written postmortem that will be read by your boss's boss's boss.
I mean, I get the motivation: You're working on a boring, dry, SeriousBusiness project, and have a creative itch that needs to be scratched. We all have a nonzero desire for a little joy and irreverence at work. But, man, scratch that itch with hobby projects, not stuff that's going out into the public! Or start a "wear a funny shirt day" at work or something like that. I know this is unpopular and makes me look like Debbie Downer, but our projects already have enough technical risks without deliberately adding more.
There's a saying: "Don't post anything online you wouldn't want grandma to see." The developer equivalent is "Don't use test data you wouldn't want the client [or boss] to see." This also applies to variable names, function names, and comments in code.
For a project that involved creating fake companies and user records, I purposely choose to use characters from Star Trek, Star Wars, and the Simpsons for each of the different companies. They're whimsical, non-offensive, and as an added bonus, if I see Homer Simpson listed alongside James T. Kirk, I instantly know there's a data integrity problem.
That last bit is the main reason why I use odd or otherwise out of place test data[0]. Test data should never leak into production. Ideally there should be no means of that happening.
[0] Recent example: tissue sample, species: dog, tissue type: bone. Valid combination, just not present anywhere in prod.
Well, the problem is, in almost all the examples here so far, said stuff was not meant to go out into the public. If your customers end up seeing your product's test data and---heavens above!---variable names, there is an organizational issue that needs to be addressed, cutesy stuff or no cutesy stuff.
Also, isn't the point of QA testing just to throw all and any data to your system? Would you rather have a system that's tested against the eventuality that someone abuses UTF-8 in a textbox or a full SeriousBusiness system with zero whimsy and cutesy stuff? Someone's whimsy cutesy stuff is someone else's street address.
I think you just put a finger on why I absolutely loathe SeriousBusiness Banking Software: they were designed, implemented, and tested in a vacuum that even normal users end up putting a toe out of line that just breaks the assumptions of the spec. You have to be extremely average down to your name to peacefully coexist with them.
If dummy data ever proposes a "technical risk" to your projects, I might argue you're using the term wrong.
Variable names are different, and I'll give you that, but creating humorous dummy data in lower environments shouldn't ever be an issue. Injecting a little fun legitimately helps overcome despair, and the harder and more difficult your project/company is, the more it needs a dose of lightheartedness.
No matter what the scrum boards that reduce us to story points say, we're all human beings. When everything is very high stakes, you're in a perpetual state of fight or flight. It's literally physiologically bad for you. Blowing off steam helps.
As a test of our new Sev1 alerting system, I created a phony alert "The hordes of Mordor are descending upon our data center".
I read the comment to mean that we have enough technical risk that we don't need more general risk. This stuff adds risk. As I have heard: "do you want to read your joke in a courtroom for a non technical audience?" - in some fields more so than others, but there is always a risk that something will go horribly wrong, your system will be involved and your code shows up either directly or as a side effect of discovery.
I can't remember the details, but I've heard a story multiple times about a fake-sounding name being used in testing -- I think US military payroll? -- and causing problems when a real person had that name. Can anyone here remember this?
In any case, "batman" is just about plausible enough that it could be real. I tend to use names like "Mr. Testy Testalicious" which (a) contain the string "test", and (b) are so wildly absurd that I'm confident nobody will ever collide with it.
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 times, in fact. And I discovered that it was actually the systems at KLM and Northwest that would throw my ticket out, my last name being “Fake.” And I have missed flights and have spent way too many hours with customer service trying to fix this problem. Here’s another thing too, is that I was unable for the first two years of Facebook to make an account there also. And probably all of my relatives.
lol so much data gets converted into strings at some point when passed around. Definitely encountered systems where you have to check for both null and "null"
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.
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.
Unicode is not the only character set (or the best one); this is a falsehood programmers believe about character sets (I wrote a list of this too but I do not remember if I had published it). However, that is not the most severe issue, due to the other things mentioned, such as if people do not have names (or if there are multiple ways to enter them, or if people sometimes change their name, or have the same name as other people, etc).
> Unicode is not the only character set (or the best one); this is a falsehood programmers believe about character sets
Unicode is the best if I want to communicate with other people. I lived through the 1990s; you won't convince me that playing "guess the encoding" with dozens of subtly-incompatible standards (and non-standards, and almost-standards) was a good time, or that having to override a web browser's helpful guess was fun.
Try to understand these issues or rather how they could affect your business processes and software implementations down the line rather than dismissing them on a technical level.
You can store the Unicode representation just as you normally would. But what you don't do is assume that your Unicode representation is the only representation of the actual name.
More concretely, there are names that have multiple equally valid ways of writing them. You can probably expect that usually the same one is used, but you should absolutely not require this when building your business processes.
Even more concretely, as an example there are transliteration or simplification / shortening rules that allow people with otherwise strange or long names to buy an airline ticket. The actual, real name may not be any of the ones you have in your system. This matters e.g. when searching for someone or in customer support.
As for people without names (or unknown names), you should probably recognize that the handling might differ by country. E.g. records with "John Doe" in the US might have to be handled differently: analogous to "NULL != NULL" in SQL John Doe != John Doe. Or maybe even "Jane Doe == John Doe" in some cases. See also "Fnu Lu" (First Name Unknown, Last Name Unknown) used in the US.
And although I don't have knowledge about all the countries in the world, it may very well be that this leads to situations where the "no name" has to be handled specially or at least understood to be a special case, completely differently from other cases.
> 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.
Maybe don't rush to remove your "legacy" encoding support because "everyone is using UTF-8"? Or at least check with some Japanese users with obscure names first.
Our first user at one company was Richard Test. He had user ID 1001. Well-meaning people deactivated his account several times over the years because it looked fake to them.
Sorry, Richard. I hope you were more amused than annoyed.
I’ve told your story about Mr. Test to several people over the years but I’ve never been able to remember where I got it from. I’m glad to have finally found it again, and thank you for the anecdote!
One of the audio checks I've heard over the many conventions I've volunteered for is "Ice Ice Icicles, Cue Cue Cuticles, Test... Test... Testicles" with the final word pronounced like Hercules.
I used to use Testy Tester until one of my coworkers commented that she was acquainted with the Tester family, and there were quite a few of them in the area. These days I usually have completely separate systems for testing, but even there I use something like Zzzperson for test data.
I've seen too many stories of placeholder text ending up in production... so I better make it worthwhile and include some Lovecraft quotes [0] because everyone needs more gibbering, cyclopean, eldritch adjectives in their lives.
I give Abubis a special pass, because they sell a business oriented version without the character. The true cost of using FOSS is you don't have any say in what the developer does.
This just confirms OP’s point that "you don't have any say in what the developer does", since the only way to get your modifications in if the developer disagrees is to maintain your own version of the code.
Sure, and then at some point you get conflicts because whatever thing you modified is not supported anymore and/or the syntax changed for some reason and/or other random issue, and then good luck. Forking works well only if upstream is already stable or you’re fine running an old version.
I forget how the phrase goes, but it's something like, "Someone else can do it better than you, but no one will ever care more about what you need than yourself." The point basically being that there are tradeoffs: you are either okay with imperfection, or you have to do it yourself. It appears true, whether it be for software development or home repair.
When designing, the standard practice is to use Lorem Ipsum - sort of mangled Latin that works like normal text but is very recognisable. This backfired once when I did a website for the Jesuits - the feedback they gave was that the design looks good but they were all baffled by the text and could I do something about it please.
I’d not considered that they might be the only client where everyone was fluent in Latin.
Reminds me of the Catholic friend who once told me that he had done IT support for every Catholic religious order with a presence in the city where he lived, except two.
The Carthusians didn't use computers, and the Jesuits didn't need his help.
I'm a big fan of using Emoji for names of test/dummy users. It helps test your application and dev stack's end-to-end Unicode compliance. It is less likely to conflict with real data (so far as I'm aware we haven't yet seen children born named with emoji, though that is likely a matter of time). It is often very visibly test data that stands out. But also and maybe more important, you can have fun with it.
We had a Dev environment that showed a doge meme on the auth page that had been there for like...7 years or something? "So auth. Much secure. Wow." etc.
Every other environment had standard boiler plate corporate logo + whatever product name. We kept the meme stuff in Dev just so you could be visually reminded, "Oh right, this is the crazy broken one."
Queue 7 years later, an emergency where we just had to impress a new client with a demo of how the product would work. And of course, the only thing that was really in a semi-ready state...was Dev. We couldn't move it over to a different one for some stupid reason or another.
Number one comment after the demo? "This looks very unprofessional. We do not want a dog logo on the login page. Is your team taking this seriously?"
We ran into the same thing back in the dot-com era. The development group had a sample customer set up as "Master Bait & Tackle", which had an outdoor outfitter theme. With items like fishing reels, lures, backpacks, etc. Entirely innocent (apart from the name).
Sales & Marketing got wind of how consistent the data was in it and wanted a copy they could use in presentations and for trade-show exhibits. We all said absolutely not. But they went around us and got a copy anyway.
It did not go well when a potential customer made a comment about the name during a demo.
Lesson learned. Always use the word "Test" in your test data. Always.
I used to put a diagonal light gray huge "DRAFT" across pages of certain documents for which it was important that a working draft not be interpreted as final.
What would've been a great use for the lawyer's dragon documents would be to clearly mark incomplete/unapproved drafts, for internal review only.
Because, obviously, there was no way that you would accidentally submit a filing to the court with a huge purple cartoon dragon on every page.
Depending on the lawyer's personality, a big purple dragon might also double as lighthearted stress relief, when billing 12+ hours a day, of high-stakes work.
His business is called “Dragon Lawyers”, his phone number is JAKELAW, his main reason for using is because “people like dragons” and his firm’s goal is to “integrate AI to lower the cost of legal services”. I’m pretty sure this is not the guy pulling his hair off for 12+ hours a day to make sure he is doing it right.
Don't stop there: 80% of the links on his website don't work and he has fake reviews from "Johnathan Smith," "Michael Brown," "Emily Johnson," and "Sarah Davis."
Having a specific telephone number and liking dragons are not the real problems.
The fake reviews and broken links would seem to be real problems. Adding watermarks to documents that should not contain them is also problems. "Integrating AI to lower the cost of legal services" may also be a problem.
There is correlation and there is causation, and just because some feature is only correlating (but not causing) the problem, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to it. They’re red (or purple?) flags.
I also think the dragon could be used for such drafts like you describe, although that should not substitute for writing DRAFT on the document, but instead the dragon would be in addition to writing DRAFT on the document (perhaps in the header and/or footer, since the dragon means not room for that in the middle of the document). Both the DRAFT label and the dragon (or other pictures in the watermarks) would only be used in drafts and both omitted for the final version.
There's a point in everyone's career where they think their work is under constant threat of being stolen, copied, repurposed or otherwise used in a manner that will "steal your livelihood" or some thing..
Eventually you realize that a) no one cares, your work isn't _that_ unique and valuable and b) if someone wants to use your stuff, they will find a way..
The idea of a giant watermark behind text that can just be scanned and OCR'ed anyways is this kind of silly.
I don't think that's true for the generation of people who grew up with the internet. "Information ought to be free" was ingrained into their systems. You either put something on the internet and expect that people will want it for free, or you don't put it on the internet and it's private.
> Is like my great grandpa scolding us at the dinner table for laughing and talking
It's more like a non-familial, formal dinner setting. Think about a job interview where the CEO and interviewer take you and another interviewee to dinner in a fancy restaurant. You turn up in jeans and sneakers with your buddy and you laugh and crack jokes together, the other interviewee turns up in smart clothes and talks soberly. In a few cases (and perhaps only seen in Holywood movies about the American Dream) the CEO may love the irreverence and impertinence and see it as a strength and sign of strong individuality, in almost all cases the bosses will not appreciate it and you will not get a job. Great grandpa loves you, the boss at your place of work doesn't.
While the metaphor they chose may conflict with your personal experiences, you should still be able to do a good-faith reading of it and realize the underlying point.
But nah, probably better to nitpick over the details.
Would it make more sense if it was a funeral instead? A wedding?
I agree that the metaphor is good. The point is understood. However, the specific clothes that are considered OK in one context ore another are always changing and based in criteria that most of the time makes no sense.
Um, this is highly region dependent. If it were a hot day, I would be comfortable interviewing with a CEO in nice shorts and a clean t-shirt, and fully expect that they'd dress similarly.
The example wasn't just "an interview" it was "a high end restaurant" but TBF the outcome is indeed highly dependent on both region and the personal preference of the CEO.
I would say that job interview in the fancy restaurant is the first "unprofessional" step in this chain. The place to conduct serious interviews is called the office.
At my company when we bring you onsite for an interview takes you to lunch. The person who takes you to lunch is not allowed to talk to the people making the hiring decisions. You can thus talk about whatever you want. It is a relaxing situation where you can safely press about what work is like. If you talk about something that in an interview is illegal (likely family) it doesn't matter because that person doesn't have a say on if you are hired.
(I encourage anyone who does interviewing to have a similar policy - if someone flys in to talk to you that means you are buying them meals anyway. Ensuring there is time to talk about things that might or might not matter is important)
For engineers we wouldn't go to a fancy restaurant. However I'd expect executives probably would.
Why would interviewees believe you? I have heard such claims before and assumed they were false and treated lunch as just continuing the interview while doing something we all had to do anyway. If the interviewee raised numerous red flags, the interviewer would absolutely be sworn to silence? Even informally?
I wouldn't blame them for not. However our integraty means we will anyway. And that the lunch people don't have a voice is carefullp monitored by hr just in case something goes to court.
For higher tier jobs, the setting can be wherever looks good. I've met and been hired by CTOs at a local coffee shop and an Indian buffet. Nothing about a meeting room in an office is more conducive to an interview than a shaded patio with a nice chai.
Courts deal with serious life-changing issues and everyone involved in a court case is expected behave seriously. In fact, that is literally the primary role of the judge. And why judges are famously strict on procedure, demeanor, and the overall decorum of the courtroom. This is the only thing that prevents your average court case from turning into an episode of Jerry Springer.
The court is not a homely dinner between citizens, it's the pinnacle of state power and a place where people are judged by it. Even if the court would always be just and fair it would still be a place of tragedy and suffering for many of the participants.
A judge has the power to (effectively or actually) end someone's life. I am very glad this responsibility is taken seriously. As an adult I'm sick of memes and childish "stickers" etc everywhere as it is. It certainly doesn't belong in a court.
The legal system relies on an sense of awe. Gavels, neo-classical buildings, wigs, elevated benches, latin and yes formality in documents are all just ways to build and maintain that awe.
It’s just as terrible as a lawyer submitting a document written in a totally inappropriate register, like street slang littered with vulgar phrases. There’s a time and a place for cartoon dragons. A court of law is neither. If you don’t understand why, maybe it’s time for you to learn a thing or two about human communication.
If this was a small claims court over a $100 garden fence post being broken, maybe. An annoying distraction, for sure, and unprofessional for someone who's supposed to take your case seriously, but little harm done.
This is about a woman whose entire life hangs in the balance. A higher standard of care and professionalism is expected.
Plus, depending on where you live, judges may decide to hand out punishments for whatever power-tripping reasons they see fit. There have been plenty of videos online of judges handing out sentences to (black) people for not responding in whatever the American version of the Queen's English is. It's an absolutely fucked up system, but when you're operating in such a system, an appropriate amount of fear and respect for the judge is necessary.
You can play games with the court in your own time, but don't risk your clients' lives because you feel compelled to add your stupid mascot to official documents.
The judge is right, but unfortunately there is no easy way to handle it. Right now, effectively, what he did was give JAKELAW the free advertisement that he wanted to get when he submitted the document in the first place. Hell even I have memorised his phone number. That was not a watermark, that is intentionally put there to annoy and distress the reader so it becomes news. He knows his audience and played all his cards right. Gaslit the judge, put the judge in a situation where he has to be the “bad” guy (even though he’s right), and has even earned some leverage to criticize the system as being frivolous.
And to be honest we can waste our time indefinitely trying to argue the meta here that “maybe Jake is not that bad”, and let him catch us on his gaslighting trap, but the truth is that yes, he is the asshole playing with people’s lives, not the judge.
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
What a fascinating cultural difference. In my corner of the world there's a Facebook page, the name of which translates to "Half-assed court documents" and it showcases badly made documents issued by courts.
It actually distracts from reading. It feels as if the person producing these papers hasn't even tried reading them themselves, it's painful for the eyes. And what is this watermark even supposed to protect from?
Headline umderstates the issue. The logo in the corner is fine, but this watermark covers the entire page, behind all the text. I wouldn't even call it a watermark by this point, it's a fucking background. Now it just needs to be tiled.
Read thru hundreds of comments, and yet your comment is the only one that comes close to actually rendering an opinion on the design of the watermark.
Someone did comment about the appropriate color to be used (grey63?) but i haven't really heard from experts on what would be good outcome, if this was any other forum and watermarking was still acceptable.
Imo there's no point watermarking legal text like that. Just a logo in footer or header is enough. Even for something that does need to be protected, watermarking is defunct and garish. Like qr codes.
And as a furry I appreciate their logo in general.
Courts have all sorts of detailed requirements for briefs. They specify font, size, spacing, etc. It is crazy that a lawyer thought that this would pass muster.
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.
It certainly didn't start with 80s cartoons - anthropomorphized depictions of animals feature among the oldest written works. Aesop's Fables are 2500 years old, and the geographic dispersal of similar stories indicates that they originate even further back than that.
My cousin is a furry, and she has the following the say about it:
'You still use the term furry, really. "Furry" has become an wide umbrella term used for artwork featuring fictional anthropomorphized animals and tends to cover any species - so this would include fur-less animals such as reptiles, amphibians, birds, and even insects.
"Scalie" is used to describe art/characters featuring anthropomorphized reptilies and dragons. Fans of them would still be furries tho.'
I'm a furry (Been for ~10 years, actually going to a big con in a week) but not a Therian. I too sometimes find some of the Therians a bit, uh, eccentric. But I think it's worth clarifying that most (I think) don't literally believe themselves to be part animal or werewolves or whatever, I think it's usually a spiritual thing, where they so strongly identify with the animal that it's part of how they act and see themselves.
I, personally, find that actually more understandable (as someone that isn't in the group) than I do, say, most religions and their belief in a higher power. That's not to in an attempt to offend or belittle either group (or the overlap, religious Therians), just a view from my particular perspective where it's really no more strange than anything else people do. If it makes them happy, lets them connect with others, etc. who am I to judge?
There are, of course, outliers that literally believe themselves to be shapeshifters or whatever, but, okay? As long as its not impacting their day-to-day too much, many of them are still probably mentally more healthy than a lot of other people.
Speaking as a trans therian, being a therian is kind of like being trans, except there's no cross-species HRT, and even fewer people will be willing to respect your identity.
It is really hard to actually describe what this means, though. What's the actual distinction between "they so strongly identify with the animal" and "they are the animal, trapped in a human body"? Is it just the desire to tell us "ok but you know you really are human, right?" I know my body is a human body, I know my DNA is human DNA, but that doesn't say anything about the mind inside this body, the concept of self. What I experience can best be described by a thought experiment: imagine that, through some magic spell, an animal was put into the body of a human and had to learn how to fit in to human society. What would that animal be feeling after all that? Probably the same way I feel.
Ultimately though, it doesn't really matter how one tries to describe this. None of the descriptions will be sufficiently accurate. But what matters is that treating me as the animal whose identity I claim makes me happy, and it doesn't harm anyone.
I have now! Thanks for the recommendation. Consciousness, the subjective experience of what it is like to be something, is very difficult to explain except insofar as there are similar shared experiences that one can make analogy to. I certainly agree with Nagel that entities in human bodies are not equipped to understand the subjective experience of someone whose primary means of sensing the world is through echolocation. This does make me wonder how many bat therians there are, though I would imagine the answer is more than zero.
And that standardized and plain format is simply typographically ugly.
The legal profession has done better. Just look at the opinions from the Supreme Court. Single spaced, nice typeface, good margin. Hallmarks of elegant typesetting and optimized for readability. Why aren't legal filings standardized based on this format?
First, the order being reported is made against the lawyer, not against the lawyer's client - And it is in order not to do this in future. So, while your observation is good I think the conclusion you draw from it doesn't follow.
Secondly, one aspect of your good point is that arguments are filed in a very plain format. The point being that the format does not detract from the message. In this case, the format heavily detracts from the message. Have you seen the PDF? It's absolutely nuts. I hope he doesn't turn up to court wearing a dragon mask.
All courts have local rules or even standing orders governing filings and pleadings - from case styling formatting, font/size, spacing, max pages, ect… Federal district courts are not places to flaunt rules of the court or court orders.
Beyond that lawyers are governed by state bars and rules of professional conduct — as an example the Florida bar has taken action against an attorney that used to advertise himself as a “pitbull.”
Regarding tattoos courts have rules of decorum, which generally cover appropriate dress/attire in the courtroom. As far as tattoos, I’ve been to thousands of hearings and can give a single anecdote. It was a drug possession case and the defendant was allowed to transfer their case from circuit felony to drug court - basically allowing completion of drug classes while on kind of pretrial probation in exchange for either a nolle pros (dismissal) or withhold of adjudication. The drug court judge gave the defendant a hard time at this initial hearing over having a drug molecule tattooed on their neck - questioning if drug court was a good fit for someone the seemingly was pretty committed to drugs (based on the neck tat). The drug court judge can see a hundred or more defendants a day, they’ve seen it all and aren’t passing judgement, its just that their experience allows them to read people extremely well and they had legitimate concerns because getting in trouble in drug court can result in automatic conviction of the original charge + having to deal with any new charge.
A rule of thumb professionalism and decorum go a long way in court - this attorney could be decent, but as a potential client any lawyer using a gimmicky dragon in a suit in their paperwork should probably raise some red flags for you.
I don't see how the order is making anyone more or less guilty.
Judicial process historically has a certain seriousness flair and a code of conduct based on it. Making fun of the judge or the court of law is a quick way go get removed from the process or fined, or even jailed. As well as performing marketing stunts like this.
I disagree with the way the bar associations are currently constructed as state-sanctioned monopolies. Since they're technically the ones who determine who is "allowed to practice", that's a hard question to answer.
I'd be comfortable establishing a stronger dress code for courtrooms - wear business casual or some such - but dyed hair and tattoos aren't easily fixable mistakes if you get called to court, so they have to be permitted for at least the defendant. For attorneys, it's probably fine to say that those with purple hair and tattoos can practice but not appear in a courtroom to represent a client. They can prep and file a patent but not represent you in a trial. That is, of course, if most people would hire an attorney with purple hair and tattoos. I would not do that unless I wanted to somehow get the death penalty for a speeding ticket.
Except those are choices they made knowing full well the consequences. Here's what people miss: the fact that it's a social norm is reason to care, not reason to ignore it.
If you were a brilliant lawyer strongly committed to your craft, you would not get tattoos or dye your hair purple. The reason is simple: too many people would see it and think less of you. As such, it makes you less able to effectively defend your clients. When your job involves appealing to society on behalf of someone, you do not make a middle finger to that same society an immutable part of your appearance unless you are very thoughtless, also not a characteristic I want in a attorney.
There's also the fact that law, more than most disciplines, is premised on adherence to old, old forms of tradition and ritual. In britain they still wear powdered wigs, for goodness' sake. The law still uses Latin terms though it's decades to centuries since educated men learned it in school. Our legal tradition in America is old, with Common Law in some ways tracing back to William the Conqueror. The other major legal tradition on which I've read, Justinian's Codex and its evolution into the Napoleonic Code, dates back to the 500s AD. Discarding old customs, even if you think them outmoded, trampling social niceties because you find them outmoded, is a really bad sign for a capable attorney.
The best lawyer is one that will convince the jury of your innocence. Courts recognize that having defendants appear in prison jumpsuits is prejudicial and can bias a jury [1]. Good lawyers understand and shape optics to help their legal arguments. I know that we all have unconscious biases that affect our judgement. While I think we should build systems that are better at removing those biases and allowing different types of people be successful, I am not going to risk going to jail to make some sort of point. I am going to use every tool at my disposal to make my case. If cutting my hair or shaving my beard or wearing a certain color tie is likely to help, I’m going to do all that. I’m also going to have a lawyer that does that as well, including no crazy purple hair or face tattoos.
Your surgeon paradox says that if someone is successful despite not looking the part, they must be all the better. But are there lawyers with face tattoos or crazy hair that are considered successful in high stakes criminal law in front of juries? For corporate or patent or tax law, that is so much about a deep intimate understanding of hundreds of thousands of pages of ultra specific “loopholes” and optimization strategies, I would not be surprised if there were lawyers who look very alternative. But criminal law lives and dies on persuading people who are not legal experts.
The point is this might work for a surgeon but does not for an attorney. There are enough jurors who would be strongly biased against anyone arguing before them with purple hair and tattoos that it's exceedingly unlikely anyone with such an appearance ever could rise to the top of his field.
This would also be true in e.g. M&A. Even if Cravath's fieriest new partner looked like that I'd hesitate to hire him. Patent law might be an exception, but if I needed to actually go to court, WilmerHale's top guy would still be a liability. Even in a bench trial the judge could see it as disrespectful or look down on my representation because of it. You see my meaning here?
On the table, the surgeon's appearance has little or nothing to do with his ability; in court, a lawyer's appearance can be crucial.
> I would follow up with, if the shoe was on the other foot, do you believe that a lawyer with tattoos and or purple hair should be allowed to practice?
Yes, they should be allowed to practice, because a lawyer’s tattoos and purple hair do not have anything to do with court documents and readability of those. Exceptions obviously apply, as not all tattoos are created equal, and having a visible gang-affiliation tattoo or a tattoo saying “cop killer” (which actually happened, but to a defendant) might be problematic as a lawyer.
Here is an analogy that might help: my employer might not care if someone communicates in offtopic employee chats using gifs and emojis, but I can easily see an employee getting fired for doing the same thing either to an external customer or in cross-org sev 0 incident threads.
> What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty?
That question is for the jury to decide for better and worse. There are lots of good points to a jury trial which is why free societies usually (always?) have them in some form. However one downside is you will once in a while get someone on the jury who judges you not on the facts of the case but on things that shouldn't matter.
Overall it is still better than the alternatives in my opinion, but it does mean you need to figure out what your local cultures are and avoid offending them (note cultures is plural - figure out them all).
In fact, in many societies, tattoos are considered a sign of low status, affiliation with lower class (which tends to get harsher sentences) and/or criminal activity, and may - consciously or subconsciously - lead to worse outcomes in trials.[1]
Just tattoo 'cop killer' on your forehead and see if they give you parole.
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 choose not to watermark the document, tattoos cannot be removed that easily. And yes, there are various situations where you'd be asked to cover your tattoo if it was inappropriate for the situation too.
> 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)
One day, someone will discover a use for across-the-page watermarks that is not better handled by marginalia and makes up for the loss in readability, copyability and compatibility with graphics.
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.
I realize no one is claiming otherwise, but this writer almost certainly did it intentionally for humorous effect. ("Aubergine wyrm" is just too good to be accidental.) It's like "the lick" in jazz.
Using modern terminology, I think it's actually a drake, not a wyrm. Wyrm and dragon were only a synonyms centuries ago, nowadays dragon is an umbrella term for those and more.
I wish that same judge were handling consumer rights right about now, because someone needs to put a proverbial foot down and curb what advertising has become.
Stop Purple Dragon Cartoons from popping up while I'm reading an article.
Stop the 15 second Purple Dragon commercial that plays every G D time I watch an online video.
Stop screaming at me to buy Purple Dinos while I'm pumping gas that already I'm paying out the A on to fill my tank.
(I'd be curious to know if anyone lives next door to one of these gas stations; it must be obnoxious being subjected to that 24/7.)
It's not professional - It's a bad look. Liberty Mutual - I'm talking to you. Et al. Y'all have gone off the rails.
I think it's a mistake to have rules about filings. Maybe it's distracting, but if the filing has been done, there should be no reason for the court not to read it and make a decision based on the text.
Procedure or order can't be more important than deciding cases.
If you allow one person to get away with this, others may see it as an invitation to do worse. Filings are often a matter of immutable public record and it makes sense that there should be rules as to what goes into them.
What is the act of deciding cases if not a carefully constructed procedure meant to keep order? What is the harm of telling a lawyer to try again, this time following the rules?
You hear the case, however it's presented, and then you decide.
In Swedish courts the court evaluates evidence as it likes. If the judges and sort-of-half-judge-half-jury-Nämdemän agree that something can be concluded, then they're allowed to conclude that.
Obviously procedure is useful, but hearing the complaint is more important.
It's not about procedure for procedure's sake. It's about establishing a precedent that unnecessary content should be left out, so that complaints are always conveyed and heard sincerely.
All the court is asking the lawyer to do is to re-file without the distracting formatting. It's not like they're throwing the entire case out. It'll still get read.
It's also worth noting that the local rules for just about every court prescribe document formatting - so it's not like any of this should come as a surprise to the attorney.
Putting this another way: If a professor tells you to submit an essay in 12 pt Times New Roman, and you turn it in using 16 pt Comic Sans - it's entirely within the professor's right to say the formatting is so distracting that it makes their job difficult and ask you to print out a revised version before they'll grade it.
They’re more than willing to hear the case. It’s the lawyer, not the complainant, who the court is chastising.
If anything, it scans like the court is concerned, like you are, that this vulnerable person’s case isn’t being presented with the seriousness it deserves.
Yes, but if a filing is sensible they should not care. It is reasonable to forbid further such filings, or require it to be re-filed, but artificially delaying something for the sake of seriousness or decorum is not to take it seriously.
If it is a serious matter you deal with what you have.
But it's simple enough to regenerate it without the watermark. Also, if it's actively annoying the judge, it's in the lawyer and client's best interest to fix it once and give the judge time to clear his head instead of repeating the issue.
My dad said something a few years ago - we’re all more interested in being ‘funny’ and ‘edgy’ than acting like adults and getting on with each other. The world has gotten very embarrassing.
Did he ever specify what he meant by ‘acting like adults’? I can imagine a number of changes in attitude one might associate with growing up, and I find a good part of them regrettable at best.
These documents should all be processed through a computer to sanitize anything that could be considered unique or specific enough to identify anyone involved with the creation. some kind of linter for court documents.
We've asked you this before, and we're now asking again: could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
I am not so sure. Since the problem seems to be (and should be) that there is a watermark at all (as other people have mentioned), I think it would not solve it.
Courtrooms are not a place designed for "fun". If you're in serious legal trouble you better hope your lawyer isn't there to have "fun" and make it difficult for the judge to read about your case.
The hosting company iFastNet uses a green and yellow dragon, which is what came to mind when I read the title, despite it being nearly 2 decades since I had anything to do with them, so I think this is definitely a marketing stunt of some sort.
- "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 capacity to oversee their work. Their access to legal services is presumably similar to their access to medical care. There's nothing amusing about this outcome. It's seriously depressing that "the coked-up cartoon-dragoon attorney" is the best representation that person, in their helpless situation, was able to navigate to.
To a normal person, sure. But the legal system ruins lives and deals in ruined lives every day. They don't blink twice at that stuff. A cartoon dragon on the other hand...
I remember reading a couple years back, when some judges in Louisiana were exposed systematically discarding legal petitions from incarcerated plaintiffs into trash cans, without reading them. Totally nulled out any access to courts, any possibility of justice, for thousands of people.
https://www.propublica.org/article/louisiana-judges-ignored-... ("Louisiana Judges Systematically Ignored Prisoners’ Petitions Without Review" (2023))
It's the type of story that sensitizes you to awareness of the pattern.
That the victim in the OP story got access to an attorney of any color—even dragon-purple—actually puts them above the median.
Louisiana judges have their own rap sheet [1]. It is curious that they are the only state that does not have common law.
[1] - https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/09/judges...
Judges in PA were just selling kids to private prisons.
"Ciavarella disposed thousands of children to extended stays in youth centers for offenses as trivial as mocking an assistant principal on Myspace or trespassing in a vacant building.[3] After a judge rejected an initial plea agreement in 2009,[4][5] a federal grand jury returned a 48-count indictment.[6] In 2010, Conahan pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and was sentenced to 17.5 years in federal prison.[7] Ciavarella opted to go to trial the following year. He was convicted on 12 of 39 counts and sentenced to 28 years in federal prison.[8] Conahan, who had been released to home confinement in 2020, had his sentence (due to end in 2026) commuted in 2024 by President Joe Biden."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
Thousands of innocent kids in cages, and Mr. Biden actually pardoned that judge as a "nonviolent offender". I think I'll never forget that particular pardon, the obscenity of it. It, just, inverts the ideals behind the reform movements, turns them upside-down in mockery.
His constituents petitioned him about the crooked jails, and... Biden heard them; and freed the jailer.
He was already on house arrest and was going to be free of that by 2026.
The willingness to take the optics hit to allow him a little more freedom, a little earlier makes me question what everyone else is leadership is doing, they must really relate to him.
"There but for the grace of God go I"
Pardons like that one really fuel the conspiracy theories about how many executive actions in the Biden admin, particularly toward the end, were really carried out by the former President.
The formality of the process helps them keep their conscious clear. Attacking the formality of the process therefore threatens them.
This is really important to understand. Formality isn't an arbitrary concept invented by old fogies, it's a psychological hack we apply to convince people to take things seriously. People really like joking around [citation needed], so that's hard to achieve. A lot of people develop weird complexes about it, because there are big gaps between otherwise close subcultures in what should or shouldn't be taken seriously, but I hope nearly everyone can agree that court proceedings are a serious matter.
The watermark is actively distracting from the enormously important work of reading the complaint in detail. This isn't a question of formality for formality's sake, it's a question of ensuring that the processes run smoothly so that justice can be done.
If he studied enough for law school and was able to work in a court for years before becoming a judge, I would assume his ADHD is under control and he is not that easily distracted.
and since HN is less serious than a court, when I write a comment to you here, surely you agree that there is no justifiable reason the people that run this site should not allow me to purple-dragon-watermark my comments. what's the matter with you paul/dang, don't have your adhd under control?
Consciously, sure, but with some studies saying judges tend to rule differently on similar cases based on whether it's before or after lunchtime, do you really want to introduce more subliminal variables like decorations into the legal process?
The "hungry judge" finding did not replicate [0], and the original paper had serious methodological flaws, namely, that prisoners with parole hearings later in the day were more likely to have either overworked "shared counsel" (the Israeli equivalent of public defenders) or no counsel at all [1]. You should consider the hungry judge effect another debunked victim of the replication crisis.
[0]: https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/...
[1]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1110910108
The influence of cartoon dragons probably don't come close the influence of judges and lawyers talking to each other about what schools they went to, what country clubs they belong to, etc.
The breech of formality isn't being turned into a big deal because it might bias case outcomes; in that regard it's a rounding error washed out by innumerable more substantial sources of bias. It's being made into a big deal because formality is the wall between outcomes of cases and feelings of personal culpability for the people who are involved in that process. All of the formality and decorum make it easier for judges and lawyers to emotionally distance themselves from, very often, ruining peoples' lives.
Too many "rounding errors" adding up seems like a reasonable justification for not allowing even seemingly small sources of additional inconsistency. Slippery slope and all that.
Also, just because the other potential sources of bias you brought up exist doesn't mean new ones should be let into the process. I wouldn't be against solutions to remove the ones you mentioned. But I don't think you'd be entirely convinced that just allowing cartoon dragons would decrease bias by making people more empathetic.
Do you know for a fact that those rounding errors add up, or do they cancel out? I feel like all this bikeshedding is just helping to draw the attention off the more significant and well known biases.
Formality is about preserving objectivity. You don't submit papers to a peer-reviewed journal watermarked with a purple dinosaur in a suit for the same reason you don't submit a complaint to a court watermarked with a purple dinosaur in a suit. Scientific publication (despite its many flaws) is about the content of the publication. Everything else - tone, style, grammatical nuance - is prescribed by a style guide because it is otherwise irrelevant.
There are certainly bad judges that hide behind "the authority vested in them by the court," but reductively asserting that formality is about maintaining authority misses the point (and the operating philosophy behind creating a fair and impartial court) by a country mile.
> That should be more offensive than cartoons. In a just world.
If the complaint is true, then yes it is offensive and the results will be more serious than being required to refile the complaint without the watermark. The process of determining if the complaint is true or not is the justice system.
Yes. Now probably a couple dozen people are going to collectively spend thousands of hours going over the complaint. The watermark issue is indeed just a sideshow by comparison.
The posts on this HN story demonstrate exactly the point the judge is trying to make. This sort of optics issue looms so large in human brains that it is indeed generating accusations that the court case is not being taken seriously because the court must obviously be spending all of its attention on this visually appealing story, even though in the grand scheme of things it is a tiny fraction of just the effort that will be spent on this case overall. Justice must not just be just, it must be seen to be just, and this sort of behavior is an impossibly attractive nuisance for people. Even those defending the picture are still being sucked into a sideshow.
The court does not deal in "truth." It deals in civil cases with "more likely than not" or in criminal cases "beyond a reasonable doubt."
It's also why the court prefers that people settle with each other outside of court processes. The court is a brutal cudgel. It has exceptional power to change outcomes but this use is almost never the ideal outcome for anyone involved.
The "outcome" is simply that the judge simply directed the attorney to stop using the dragon watermark. Whats the problem?
And, by the way, I'd recommend a bit less credulity about this kind of lawsuit. While there is no doubt that a lot of terrible things happen in America's prisons, it is also extremely common for inmates and former inmates to file exaggerated or even frivolous claims about the conditions of their confinement. It's understandable. Prisoners have a lot of time on their hands and being incarcerated sucks even if your rights are not actually being violated. Not saying which this is -- I have no way of knowing. I'm just pointing out that it's a mistake to take the allegations in a legal complaint at face value.
> it is also extremely common for inmates and former inmates to file exaggerated or even frivolous claims about the conditions of their confinement.
It seems pernicious to suggest distrust of claims. Like Blackstone's ratio[1], presuming good faith and investigating, then addressing abuses of the system, seems like the ideal process. The ideal likely ending up unsustainable due to staffing constraints.
[1] "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."
If a prisoner in America says they are being deprived of adaquate medical care, it's safe (for people generally, not the legal system) to assume it's true until proven otherwise.
Maybe they're healthy and are complaining about nothing, but if they aren't healthy then it is almost certainly the case that their medical care is substandard if it exists at all.
It's crazy that people treat prisoner complaints from the American gulag as if everyone is just whining. We have some of the worst conditions in the developed world.
If you think I said that, I suggest you read my comment again.
You do come off as very dismissive. It's kind of like JAQing off. You're not "just asking questions" you're "just offering suggestions." The suggestion here being that everyone take these kind of allegations with a grain of salt. I guess it's not necessity that those views conflict with each other, but they definitely do not seem congruous.
Well, then let me clarify: I know that there are a lot of abuses in the U.S. prison system. It's a national embarrassment, and I would be in no way surprised if these or virtually any other allegations a person might make turned out to be true. It is also true, however, that there is a huge number of meritless suits regarding prison conditions.
I used to work in the federal court system so I've seen both sides of this close up. I've worked on cases (many of them) where prisoners' allegations of hideous abuse were extremely credible including cases where the plaintiffs went on to win at trial, get sizable settlements, etc. At the same time, our courthouse had an entire office dedicated to triaging the enormous number of suits filed by prisoners, only a small percentage of which had any merit. (And this office is, by and large, staffed with very compassionate attorneys who do that job because they're interested in helping prisoners--these are not, on average, people who want, or have any incentive, to just sweep things under the rug.)
That's why I believe both that our prison system is rife with abuse and that the average prisoner complaint has a good chance of being bogus.
> I would be in no way surprised if these or virtually any other allegations a person might make turned out to be true
Sure. That does seemingly contradict the notion that I should take the filings with a grain of salt, though. I shouldn't be surprised if it's true, but I shouldn't think it's likely to be true? I think you need to pick one.
What is your experience with these that is the basis of you sharing these opinions?
Do you have any insight into why the less meritorious claims were being filed? I can imagine that given the amount of entirely legal abuse, prisoners attempt to fight back with a swing and a miss. Ofc, some people are just assholes and given they're in prison, they have nothing better to do, but it's pretty annoying to file a suit so I imagine many of them are motivated by something.
I'm not sure I can offer much more than educated speculation, but here it is: I think that prison (especially in America) sucks, even when your legal rights aren't being violated. It's full of indignities and unpleasant conditions. A lot of what makes prison unpleasant may genuinely feel like violations of your rights, even if the law would disagree. As a result, many prisoner suits are about conditions and situations that really are unpleasant, but not illegal. (Some suits also have to do with conditions that are illegal, but which the law requires prisoners to try to get addressed through the prison's own internal grievance system, before resorting to a lawsuit.)
Then mix in the fact that, as a prisoner, you have a lot of time on your hands and one of the few things you can spend your time doing is visiting the prison law library. Even better, if your lawsuit actually goes somewhere, you might have the hope that prison officials will have to take you to court appearances. This stuff would indeed be pretty annoying for most people, but less so for some prisoners (especially compared with their limited alternatives).
Prisoner lawsuits are so plentiful that there is actually a federal law that specifically restricts them, called the Prison Litigation Reform Act[1]. It doesn't block suits altogether, but it limits the situations where a plaintiff can file a suit without paying the filing fees. I have, at best, mixed feelings about it (which parallel my complicated feelings towards prisoner suits generally). But the law's existence helps to illustrate the scale of the problem.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/images/asset_upload...
The corollary is also true: it's extremely common for courts to be prejudiced against inmate lawsuits. In extreme cases they don't even read their filings,
https://www.propublica.org/article/louisiana-judges-ignored-... ("Louisiana Judges Systematically Ignored Prisoners’ Petitions Without Review" (2023))
Why would they spend money on a frivolous case they have no chance of winning? Lawyers, dragon or no, are expensive, and people in prison don't exactly make money. Conversely, abuse of prisoners is endemic in America. I find this all extremely plausible.
> Why would they spend money on a frivolous case they have no chance of winning?
We’re assuming the defendant is without means. If I were in jail, I’d probably spend a decent amount of my spare time filing this sort of thing. If it were hopeless, I could also see myself just trolling. What else will I spend my money on?
I think contingencies are common in cases like this? The lawyer gets paid iff their client wins.
In that case, you not only have to convince a judge that your case has merit, you also need to convince the lawyer.
They aren't going to work on contingency if they think your case is frivolous.
Agreed...and if they think there is a chance of winning they are going to work on the case. That seems obvious? I think you always need to convince a judge your case has merit, right? Or else they just 12b6 you or whatever the equivalent is...
>The "outcome" is simply that the judge simply directed the attorney to stop using the dragon watermark. Whats the problem?
I think the poster was trying to make the point that in a "just" society, the story would be about how this individual is in this position and only has the choice of this attorney, and not instead about the purple dragon.
Absolutely. Federal courts are filled with nonsense habeas petitions by pro se plaintiffs claiming this exact kind of stuff. The fact that this person managed to get representation adds some credibility, but then we’re also here discussing how ridiculous that particular representation has behaved.
The coked-up AI cartoon dragon attorney.
His website, which also features the purple dragon and a bunch of busted links in the footer, says that the firm "integrates AI to lower the cost of legal services."
Hopefully this lawyer is making sure this AI isn't making up the cases it's citing, which is a continuing problem: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ai+make+up+legal+cases
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.
people say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but first impressions are everything
"Don't let a shallow first impression affect your deeper judgement, but expect others to let it affect theirs."
Has a nice ring to it
The legal system, for millienia, has always been a hodgepodge of very peculiar and esoteric rules about both substance and optics.
That's why lawyers exist, by the way. Outside of small claims court, laymen aren't equipped to navigate it without stepping on every possible rake imaginable.
And somehow along the way every institution seems to have forgotten the meaning of the phrase "even the appearance of impropriety".
> That should be more offensive than cartoons. In a just world.
Has anyone at any point expressed otherwise? You're tilting at windmills.
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.
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."
The problem doesn't even seem to be the dragon.
The problem is you don't "watermark" court filings in the first place.
That's generally not a thing. Court filings have strict requirements around formatting. This isn't any different from trying to file in Comic Sans or a 48-pt font.
Unfortunately this stunt is functioning as free publicity for this firm, because it's getting written about...
I used to sysadmin for a law firm that used watermarks for draft filings as they went through the internal workflow on the theory that nobody would be stupid enough to actually file something with a translucent toucan on it, so it would make accidentally filing a draft less likely.
Writing "DRAFT" on it might also help.
In a speech bubble attached to the toucan!
Translucent Toucan... my highschool nickname.
> Court filings have strict requirements around formatting. This isn't any different from trying to file in Comic Sans or a 48-pt font.
For example, the Northern District of California rules require a 12-point standard proportional-width font, with no more than 28 lines per page 8½ inch by 11 inch white paper with numbered lines. This is their way of requiring double-spacing and enforcing the page limits[1].
BUT - The rules don't say anything about requiring the paper to be portrait rather than landscape. 28 lines on a landscape page would allow for a lot more text.
Alas, I'm not daring enough to try it, as the intent of the rule is clear, and I'm sure no judge would take kindly to it.
Some courts have moved to word count limits, requiring a certification of word count at the end with a lawyer's signature.
[1]: https://cand.uscourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/CAND_Civil_Loca... (Civ. L.R. 3-4(c)).
Common paper size definitions would indicate that 8 1/2x11 is portrait, while 11x8 1/2 is landscape, so they could reasonably reject a landscape filing on that basis.
That's why you print it upside-down instead, they would never suspect a thing!
> Unfortunately this stunt is functioning as free publicity for this firm, because it's getting written about...
Yeah I suspect a lot of their cases going forward will be on contingency.
What’s the purpose of the format requirement? To enable ocr or to just prevent silly games like this one?
Both to prevent silly games and for similar reasons as the "no brown M&Ms" rider in Van Halen's venue contracts: if you read and followed the instructions in detail for small things like formatting, you read and followed the instructions for the things that actually matter as well.
Umm, no - courts aren’t testing the reading comprehension of lawyers.
Consistency mainly. Judges want to be able to easily understand what they're looking at and for it to look professional. Double-spacing gives room to write in changes or notes. Line numbers let you reference stuff easily.
> I don't know what the big deal is. Lady Justice also has scales.
This comment had me spitting my coffee. How do they even come up with this.
Also, sometimes we (developers) like to use wacky data for testing purposes. For example, I like to put Batman as a dummy user, and my QA likes to upload cat pictures when testing uploads/images.
We do it so it's obvious it's test data, and also we're lazy to think of more "real" data.
Just say some users expect real(ish) data for testing. I had a client who was totally not happy when he saw Batman and Superman in the test data.
There was a bank that wasn’t happy with “Rich Bastard” being used as dummy data but not being replaced in the mail merge, resulting in a couple thousand of their wealthiest customers getting a mailing with the salutation “Dear Rich Bastard,”
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dear-rich-bastard/
I learned a long time ago to be very careful with mock, dummy, or test data.... because some people will just push anything to prod, take screenshots during your demo and paste it into the official documentation... you name it.
I was giving a demo on how to set up multiple computers in a federated setup using Active Directory, ADFS, etc... I had about 5 VMs named things like Hank, Peggy, Bobby, Boomhauer, Bill, and a test user HHill, 123 Rainy Street, Arlen, TX -- someone screenshotted and took notes during the demo and now that's in some formal training somewhere material. Thankfully, it's all internal.
When I and doing dev work and I need an available port, just any port, I use 666 -- because it's never used by anything and also DOOM. I gave a sprint demo and I used 660 instead of 666 to demo that the customer can specify the port number of screen X. Someone put that in the internal and also customer facing documentation... so now my company's product is default setup on 660, even thought it's completely user-configurable. Thank God I didn't demo with 666...
I've never really understood developers' apparent need to add cutesy stuff into their work product's test data, variable names, easter eggs and so on. Adding this stuff is all downside risk with no technical benefit that you can explain in a written postmortem that will be read by your boss's boss's boss.
I mean, I get the motivation: You're working on a boring, dry, SeriousBusiness project, and have a creative itch that needs to be scratched. We all have a nonzero desire for a little joy and irreverence at work. But, man, scratch that itch with hobby projects, not stuff that's going out into the public! Or start a "wear a funny shirt day" at work or something like that. I know this is unpopular and makes me look like Debbie Downer, but our projects already have enough technical risks without deliberately adding more.
There's a saying: "Don't post anything online you wouldn't want grandma to see." The developer equivalent is "Don't use test data you wouldn't want the client [or boss] to see." This also applies to variable names, function names, and comments in code.
For a project that involved creating fake companies and user records, I purposely choose to use characters from Star Trek, Star Wars, and the Simpsons for each of the different companies. They're whimsical, non-offensive, and as an added bonus, if I see Homer Simpson listed alongside James T. Kirk, I instantly know there's a data integrity problem.
That last bit is the main reason why I use odd or otherwise out of place test data[0]. Test data should never leak into production. Ideally there should be no means of that happening.
[0] Recent example: tissue sample, species: dog, tissue type: bone. Valid combination, just not present anywhere in prod.
> not stuff that's going out into the public!
Well, the problem is, in almost all the examples here so far, said stuff was not meant to go out into the public. If your customers end up seeing your product's test data and---heavens above!---variable names, there is an organizational issue that needs to be addressed, cutesy stuff or no cutesy stuff.
Also, isn't the point of QA testing just to throw all and any data to your system? Would you rather have a system that's tested against the eventuality that someone abuses UTF-8 in a textbox or a full SeriousBusiness system with zero whimsy and cutesy stuff? Someone's whimsy cutesy stuff is someone else's street address.
I think you just put a finger on why I absolutely loathe SeriousBusiness Banking Software: they were designed, implemented, and tested in a vacuum that even normal users end up putting a toe out of line that just breaks the assumptions of the spec. You have to be extremely average down to your name to peacefully coexist with them.
If dummy data ever proposes a "technical risk" to your projects, I might argue you're using the term wrong.
Variable names are different, and I'll give you that, but creating humorous dummy data in lower environments shouldn't ever be an issue. Injecting a little fun legitimately helps overcome despair, and the harder and more difficult your project/company is, the more it needs a dose of lightheartedness.
No matter what the scrum boards that reduce us to story points say, we're all human beings. When everything is very high stakes, you're in a perpetual state of fight or flight. It's literally physiologically bad for you. Blowing off steam helps.
As a test of our new Sev1 alerting system, I created a phony alert "The hordes of Mordor are descending upon our data center".
It was well received by the team.
I read the comment to mean that we have enough technical risk that we don't need more general risk. This stuff adds risk. As I have heard: "do you want to read your joke in a courtroom for a non technical audience?" - in some fields more so than others, but there is always a risk that something will go horribly wrong, your system will be involved and your code shows up either directly or as a side effect of discovery.
For example, I like to put Batman as a dummy user
I can't remember the details, but I've heard a story multiple times about a fake-sounding name being used in testing -- I think US military payroll? -- and causing problems when a real person had that name. Can anyone here remember this?
In any case, "batman" is just about plausible enough that it could be real. I tend to use names like "Mr. Testy Testalicious" which (a) contain the string "test", and (b) are so wildly absurd that I'm confident nobody will ever collide with it.
Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr, famously had issues with IT systems:
https://tim.blog/2019/02/21/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts...People named Null are also having struggles in the modern world:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160325-the-names-that-b...
lol so much data gets converted into strings at some point when passed around. Definitely encountered systems where you have to check for both null and "null"
This seems like a good spot for the link to @patio11's "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About 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.
Unicode is not the only character set (or the best one); this is a falsehood programmers believe about character sets (I wrote a list of this too but I do not remember if I had published it). However, that is not the most severe issue, due to the other things mentioned, such as if people do not have names (or if there are multiple ways to enter them, or if people sometimes change their name, or have the same name as other people, etc).
> Unicode is not the only character set (or the best one); this is a falsehood programmers believe about character sets
Unicode is the best if I want to communicate with other people. I lived through the 1990s; you won't convince me that playing "guess the encoding" with dozens of subtly-incompatible standards (and non-standards, and almost-standards) was a good time, or that having to override a web browser's helpful guess was fun.
>So... what? What do I do with this?
Try to understand these issues or rather how they could affect your business processes and software implementations down the line rather than dismissing them on a technical level.
You can store the Unicode representation just as you normally would. But what you don't do is assume that your Unicode representation is the only representation of the actual name.
More concretely, there are names that have multiple equally valid ways of writing them. You can probably expect that usually the same one is used, but you should absolutely not require this when building your business processes.
Even more concretely, as an example there are transliteration or simplification / shortening rules that allow people with otherwise strange or long names to buy an airline ticket. The actual, real name may not be any of the ones you have in your system. This matters e.g. when searching for someone or in customer support.
As for people without names (or unknown names), you should probably recognize that the handling might differ by country. E.g. records with "John Doe" in the US might have to be handled differently: analogous to "NULL != NULL" in SQL John Doe != John Doe. Or maybe even "Jane Doe == John Doe" in some cases. See also "Fnu Lu" (First Name Unknown, Last Name Unknown) used in the US.
And although I don't have knowledge about all the countries in the world, it may very well be that this leads to situations where the "no name" has to be handled specially or at least understood to be a special case, completely differently from other cases.
> Try to make less of them
> 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.
Maybe don't rush to remove your "legacy" encoding support because "everyone is using UTF-8"? Or at least check with some Japanese users with obscure names first.
See, the issue is a lot of people have stupid names.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(surname) - 'Batman is a surname of English origin. It originates from Saint Bartholomew and means "a friend or servant of Bart."'
It lists a few people, like "Daniel Batman (20 March 1981 – 26 June 2012) was an Australian sprinter." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Batman
A few DDG searches finds others with the surname Batman who are not famous enough to be on Wikipedia.
Aside: Batman (John) is also a well known name in Melbourne, au.
He was a kind of founding father. He negotiated a fake treaty to steal the land from the local Kulin nation. He wanted to call it Batmania.
Also responsible for organising hunting parties for bushrangers and multiple massacres and genocide of aboriginal people in NSW, VIC, and TAS.
Total fucking cunt.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Batman
I used to use Test T. Testerton until coworkers critiqued that "Test T" reminded them of male genitals.
Our first user at one company was Richard Test. He had user ID 1001. Well-meaning people deactivated his account several times over the years because it looked fake to them.
Sorry, Richard. I hope you were more amused than annoyed.
I’ve told your story about Mr. Test to several people over the years but I’ve never been able to remember where I got it from. I’m glad to have finally found it again, and thank you for the anecdote!
Hah! That’s awesome. What a small world!
One of the audio checks I've heard over the many conventions I've volunteered for is "Ice Ice Icicles, Cue Cue Cuticles, Test... Test... Testicles" with the final word pronounced like Hercules.
[sigh]
Now all I can think of is, "of course, you'll be playing the part of Sans Testicles."
I usually use Adele Dazeem as in [0]
[0] https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/adele-dazeem-idina-menz...
Batman is definitely a real name... https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24911186
Maybe, Foo Bar is a real person too. :-/
DOGE is going to delete Jon Tester [0] from the list of historical senators
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Tester
Major Major Major from Catch-22?
I used to use Testy Tester until one of my coworkers commented that she was acquainted with the Tester family, and there were quite a few of them in the area. These days I usually have completely separate systems for testing, but even there I use something like Zzzperson for test data.
I have this one baked into my dummy data:
Ralf Kramden 1060 W. Addision Chicago IL 60613 United States
lol I read something else right there
I've seen too many stories of placeholder text ending up in production... so I better make it worthwhile and include some Lovecraft quotes [0] because everyone needs more gibbering, cyclopean, eldritch adjectives in their lives.
[0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft
Rust had something similar: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/13871
Your client needs to remove the broom stucks in their ass. Your story reminds me of the uptight people angry about the Anubis' catgirl.
I give Abubis a special pass, because they sell a business oriented version without the character. The true cost of using FOSS is you don't have any say in what the developer does.
Au contraire, FOSS allows you to fork and make modifications.
This just confirms OP’s point that "you don't have any say in what the developer does", since the only way to get your modifications in if the developer disagrees is to maintain your own version of the code.
You could fork and then auto merge anything that doesn’t conflict with the specifically weird cartoons these people are strangely attached to.
Sure, and then at some point you get conflicts because whatever thing you modified is not supported anymore and/or the syntax changed for some reason and/or other random issue, and then good luck. Forking works well only if upstream is already stable or you’re fine running an old version.
Be the change you wish to see
This is also true of paid software, except you have to start from scratch.
I forget how the phrase goes, but it's something like, "Someone else can do it better than you, but no one will ever care more about what you need than yourself." The point basically being that there are tradeoffs: you are either okay with imperfection, or you have to do it yourself. It appears true, whether it be for software development or home repair.
Would you say the same to the judge in Dragon Lawyer's case?
When designing, the standard practice is to use Lorem Ipsum - sort of mangled Latin that works like normal text but is very recognisable. This backfired once when I did a website for the Jesuits - the feedback they gave was that the design looks good but they were all baffled by the text and could I do something about it please.
I’d not considered that they might be the only client where everyone was fluent in Latin.
Reminds me of the Catholic friend who once told me that he had done IT support for every Catholic religious order with a presence in the city where he lived, except two.
The Carthusians didn't use computers, and the Jesuits didn't need his help.
I'm a big fan of using Emoji for names of test/dummy users. It helps test your application and dev stack's end-to-end Unicode compliance. It is less likely to conflict with real data (so far as I'm aware we haven't yet seen children born named with emoji, though that is likely a matter of time). It is often very visibly test data that stands out. But also and maybe more important, you can have fun with it.
A friend of mine uses a scraped list of heavy metal band names for QA testing how well systems deal with weird characters.
He is, himself, a weird character.
We had a Dev environment that showed a doge meme on the auth page that had been there for like...7 years or something? "So auth. Much secure. Wow." etc.
Every other environment had standard boiler plate corporate logo + whatever product name. We kept the meme stuff in Dev just so you could be visually reminded, "Oh right, this is the crazy broken one."
Queue 7 years later, an emergency where we just had to impress a new client with a demo of how the product would work. And of course, the only thing that was really in a semi-ready state...was Dev. We couldn't move it over to a different one for some stupid reason or another.
Number one comment after the demo? "This looks very unprofessional. We do not want a dog logo on the login page. Is your team taking this seriously?"
We ran into the same thing back in the dot-com era. The development group had a sample customer set up as "Master Bait & Tackle", which had an outdoor outfitter theme. With items like fishing reels, lures, backpacks, etc. Entirely innocent (apart from the name).
Sales & Marketing got wind of how consistent the data was in it and wanted a copy they could use in presentations and for trade-show exhibits. We all said absolutely not. But they went around us and got a copy anyway.
It did not go well when a potential customer made a comment about the name during a demo.
Lesson learned. Always use the word "Test" in your test data. Always.
Cue, not queue.
I used to put a diagonal light gray huge "DRAFT" across pages of certain documents for which it was important that a working draft not be interpreted as final.
What would've been a great use for the lawyer's dragon documents would be to clearly mark incomplete/unapproved drafts, for internal review only.
Because, obviously, there was no way that you would accidentally submit a filing to the court with a huge purple cartoon dragon on every page.
Depending on the lawyer's personality, a big purple dragon might also double as lighthearted stress relief, when billing 12+ hours a day, of high-stakes work.
His business is called “Dragon Lawyers”, his phone number is JAKELAW, his main reason for using is because “people like dragons” and his firm’s goal is to “integrate AI to lower the cost of legal services”. I’m pretty sure this is not the guy pulling his hair off for 12+ hours a day to make sure he is doing it right.
Don't stop there: 80% of the links on his website don't work and he has fake reviews from "Johnathan Smith," "Michael Brown," "Emily Johnson," and "Sarah Davis."
Having a specific telephone number and liking dragons are not the real problems.
The fake reviews and broken links would seem to be real problems. Adding watermarks to documents that should not contain them is also problems. "Integrating AI to lower the cost of legal services" may also be a problem.
There is correlation and there is causation, and just because some feature is only correlating (but not causing) the problem, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to it. They’re red (or purple?) flags.
Could be both, like Better Call Saul.
I also think the dragon could be used for such drafts like you describe, although that should not substitute for writing DRAFT on the document, but instead the dragon would be in addition to writing DRAFT on the document (perhaps in the header and/or footer, since the dragon means not room for that in the middle of the document). Both the DRAFT label and the dragon (or other pictures in the watermarks) would only be used in drafts and both omitted for the final version.
The Draft Dragon is impossible to ignore.
What about a header/footer saying "DRAFT" (ideally with the date and other things that would perhaps not fit on a watermark)?
Text watermarks can be a PITA when they cover the page and the PDF reader prioritizes them for text selection rather than the top layer text.
Perhaps the watermark could be made as a picture even if it contains text, so that it cannot be used with text selection.
Wow! I thought the judge was overreacting. But that's one extremely annoying watermark. I would demand the same, no matter what I do for a living.
There's a point in everyone's career where they think their work is under constant threat of being stolen, copied, repurposed or otherwise used in a manner that will "steal your livelihood" or some thing..
Eventually you realize that a) no one cares, your work isn't _that_ unique and valuable and b) if someone wants to use your stuff, they will find a way..
The idea of a giant watermark behind text that can just be scanned and OCR'ed anyways is this kind of silly.
I don't think that's true for the generation of people who grew up with the internet. "Information ought to be free" was ingrained into their systems. You either put something on the internet and expect that people will want it for free, or you don't put it on the internet and it's private.
Of course, there are edge cases to any scenario.
It might be appropriate if you're a children's cartoonist/artist and you're sending out proofs? But yeah, I get your point and agree.
Any image in this position would be distracting.
However, I have never understood notions like this: “it is juvenile and impertinent. The Court is not a cartoon”
Is like my great grandpa scolding us at the dinner table for laughing and talking.
> Is like my great grandpa scolding us at the dinner table for laughing and talking
It's more like a non-familial, formal dinner setting. Think about a job interview where the CEO and interviewer take you and another interviewee to dinner in a fancy restaurant. You turn up in jeans and sneakers with your buddy and you laugh and crack jokes together, the other interviewee turns up in smart clothes and talks soberly. In a few cases (and perhaps only seen in Holywood movies about the American Dream) the CEO may love the irreverence and impertinence and see it as a strength and sign of strong individuality, in almost all cases the bosses will not appreciate it and you will not get a job. Great grandpa loves you, the boss at your place of work doesn't.
Surely you are aware that a lot of the people on this site interview in their jeans
If the CEO invites you to dinner at a high end restaurant hopefully you change into something a bit nicer.
He's in jeans too
Y'all are wearing pants??
New boss: "Why are you wearing a dragon fursuit?"
Candidate: "Dress for the job you want"
Boss: "Hired! Welcome to Fort Knox"
If I showed up at a work event with a dragon fursuit, my boss would be like:
"Okay, what's the punchline?"
"… and the barman says, 'Why the long face?'"
"… and orders a Flaming Sambuca"
"… so I asked him for a light"
Blazer and jeans, of course.
I'm sorry to disappoint
While the metaphor they chose may conflict with your personal experiences, you should still be able to do a good-faith reading of it and realize the underlying point.
But nah, probably better to nitpick over the details.
Would it make more sense if it was a funeral instead? A wedding?
The metaphor is perfect. Access and outcome depend on your ability to acquire and maintain a suit/lawyer, including knowing where and when to deploy.
I don't think it's nitpicking when I'm talking about technology tropes on a technology-focused site
I agree that the metaphor is good. The point is understood. However, the specific clothes that are considered OK in one context ore another are always changing and based in criteria that most of the time makes no sense.
No reason for disappointment, but you likely won't be invited back.
Um, this is highly region dependent. If it were a hot day, I would be comfortable interviewing with a CEO in nice shorts and a clean t-shirt, and fully expect that they'd dress similarly.
The example wasn't just "an interview" it was "a high end restaurant" but TBF the outcome is indeed highly dependent on both region and the personal preference of the CEO.
I would say that job interview in the fancy restaurant is the first "unprofessional" step in this chain. The place to conduct serious interviews is called the office.
At my company when we bring you onsite for an interview takes you to lunch. The person who takes you to lunch is not allowed to talk to the people making the hiring decisions. You can thus talk about whatever you want. It is a relaxing situation where you can safely press about what work is like. If you talk about something that in an interview is illegal (likely family) it doesn't matter because that person doesn't have a say on if you are hired.
(I encourage anyone who does interviewing to have a similar policy - if someone flys in to talk to you that means you are buying them meals anyway. Ensuring there is time to talk about things that might or might not matter is important)
For engineers we wouldn't go to a fancy restaurant. However I'd expect executives probably would.
Why would interviewees believe you? I have heard such claims before and assumed they were false and treated lunch as just continuing the interview while doing something we all had to do anyway. If the interviewee raised numerous red flags, the interviewer would absolutely be sworn to silence? Even informally?
I don’t work in tech.
I wouldn't blame them for not. However our integraty means we will anyway. And that the lunch people don't have a voice is carefullp monitored by hr just in case something goes to court.
For higher tier jobs, the setting can be wherever looks good. I've met and been hired by CTOs at a local coffee shop and an Indian buffet. Nothing about a meeting room in an office is more conducive to an interview than a shaded patio with a nice chai.
Courts deal with serious life-changing issues and everyone involved in a court case is expected behave seriously. In fact, that is literally the primary role of the judge. And why judges are famously strict on procedure, demeanor, and the overall decorum of the courtroom. This is the only thing that prevents your average court case from turning into an episode of Jerry Springer.
The court is not a homely dinner between citizens, it's the pinnacle of state power and a place where people are judged by it. Even if the court would always be just and fair it would still be a place of tragedy and suffering for many of the participants.
A judge has the power to (effectively or actually) end someone's life. I am very glad this responsibility is taken seriously. As an adult I'm sick of memes and childish "stickers" etc everywhere as it is. It certainly doesn't belong in a court.
In all honesty, would you hire this dude as YOUR lawyer?
He’s not experienced in this court to know what the judge likes and dislikes.
I’ve found it helpful to use lawyers who know the courts and people of the courts where my case is going to take place.
The legal system relies on an sense of awe. Gavels, neo-classical buildings, wigs, elevated benches, latin and yes formality in documents are all just ways to build and maintain that awe.
If he laughed and talked in court over the judge, he would also be scolded.
It does sound like something Mr. Milchick would say. You must abandon childish things, and all that [defiant] jazz
It’s just as terrible as a lawyer submitting a document written in a totally inappropriate register, like street slang littered with vulgar phrases. There’s a time and a place for cartoon dragons. A court of law is neither. If you don’t understand why, maybe it’s time for you to learn a thing or two about human communication.
If this was a small claims court over a $100 garden fence post being broken, maybe. An annoying distraction, for sure, and unprofessional for someone who's supposed to take your case seriously, but little harm done.
This is about a woman whose entire life hangs in the balance. A higher standard of care and professionalism is expected.
Plus, depending on where you live, judges may decide to hand out punishments for whatever power-tripping reasons they see fit. There have been plenty of videos online of judges handing out sentences to (black) people for not responding in whatever the American version of the Queen's English is. It's an absolutely fucked up system, but when you're operating in such a system, an appropriate amount of fear and respect for the judge is necessary.
You can play games with the court in your own time, but don't risk your clients' lives because you feel compelled to add your stupid mascot to official documents.
The judge is right, but unfortunately there is no easy way to handle it. Right now, effectively, what he did was give JAKELAW the free advertisement that he wanted to get when he submitted the document in the first place. Hell even I have memorised his phone number. That was not a watermark, that is intentionally put there to annoy and distress the reader so it becomes news. He knows his audience and played all his cards right. Gaslit the judge, put the judge in a situation where he has to be the “bad” guy (even though he’s right), and has even earned some leverage to criticize the system as being frivolous.
And to be honest we can waste our time indefinitely trying to argue the meta here that “maybe Jake is not that bad”, and let him catch us on his gaslighting trap, but the truth is that yes, he is the asshole playing with people’s lives, not the judge.
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
What a fascinating cultural difference. In my corner of the world there's a Facebook page, the name of which translates to "Half-assed court documents" and it showcases badly made documents issued by courts.
You don't watermark legal documents that you are submitting to a court.
> that plaintiff shall not file any other documents with the cartoon dragon or other inappropriate content
Formal answers to goofiness (voluntary or not) will always amuse me.
It actually distracts from reading. It feels as if the person producing these papers hasn't even tried reading them themselves, it's painful for the eyes. And what is this watermark even supposed to protect from?
Printing and photocopying? Because this could get really unreadable really quick.
Headline umderstates the issue. The logo in the corner is fine, but this watermark covers the entire page, behind all the text. I wouldn't even call it a watermark by this point, it's a fucking background. Now it just needs to be tiled.
Read thru hundreds of comments, and yet your comment is the only one that comes close to actually rendering an opinion on the design of the watermark.
Someone did comment about the appropriate color to be used (grey63?) but i haven't really heard from experts on what would be good outcome, if this was any other forum and watermarking was still acceptable.
Would love to hear such thoughts!
Imo there's no point watermarking legal text like that. Just a logo in footer or header is enough. Even for something that does need to be protected, watermarking is defunct and garish. Like qr codes.
And as a furry I appreciate their logo in general.
Courts have all sorts of detailed requirements for briefs. They specify font, size, spacing, etc. It is crazy that a lawyer thought that this would pass muster.
I get why furries are called that — they’re into human-animal caricatures with fur.
What do you call someone who likes dragons? Scalies?
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.
It certainly didn't start with 80s cartoons - anthropomorphized depictions of animals feature among the oldest written works. Aesop's Fables are 2500 years old, and the geographic dispersal of similar stories indicates that they originate even further back than that.
Austin Osman Spare did it earlier than that, as did some of the old greeks and others.
My cousin is a furry, and she has the following the say about it:
'You still use the term furry, really. "Furry" has become an wide umbrella term used for artwork featuring fictional anthropomorphized animals and tends to cover any species - so this would include fur-less animals such as reptiles, amphibians, birds, and even insects.
"Scalie" is used to describe art/characters featuring anthropomorphized reptilies and dragons. Fans of them would still be furries tho.'
yep that is what they are calling themselves
TIL and I didn't want to, sigh, Internet.
Unintentionally discovering a thing you know you're going to hate has got to be top 10 internet experiences.
Hate's a strong word for this interaction.
Don't ask a question you don't want answered :P
They're not InDrag? :-D sorry, this is a silly subject
Fun fact: there are also "therians", which are people who truly believe they are part/all animal.
I'm a furry (Been for ~10 years, actually going to a big con in a week) but not a Therian. I too sometimes find some of the Therians a bit, uh, eccentric. But I think it's worth clarifying that most (I think) don't literally believe themselves to be part animal or werewolves or whatever, I think it's usually a spiritual thing, where they so strongly identify with the animal that it's part of how they act and see themselves.
I, personally, find that actually more understandable (as someone that isn't in the group) than I do, say, most religions and their belief in a higher power. That's not to in an attempt to offend or belittle either group (or the overlap, religious Therians), just a view from my particular perspective where it's really no more strange than anything else people do. If it makes them happy, lets them connect with others, etc. who am I to judge?
There are, of course, outliers that literally believe themselves to be shapeshifters or whatever, but, okay? As long as its not impacting their day-to-day too much, many of them are still probably mentally more healthy than a lot of other people.
Speaking as a trans therian, being a therian is kind of like being trans, except there's no cross-species HRT, and even fewer people will be willing to respect your identity.
It is really hard to actually describe what this means, though. What's the actual distinction between "they so strongly identify with the animal" and "they are the animal, trapped in a human body"? Is it just the desire to tell us "ok but you know you really are human, right?" I know my body is a human body, I know my DNA is human DNA, but that doesn't say anything about the mind inside this body, the concept of self. What I experience can best be described by a thought experiment: imagine that, through some magic spell, an animal was put into the body of a human and had to learn how to fit in to human society. What would that animal be feeling after all that? Probably the same way I feel.
Ultimately though, it doesn't really matter how one tries to describe this. None of the descriptions will be sufficiently accurate. But what matters is that treating me as the animal whose identity I claim makes me happy, and it doesn't harm anyone.
Have you read "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" by philosopher Thomas Nagel?
I have now! Thanks for the recommendation. Consciousness, the subjective experience of what it is like to be something, is very difficult to explain except insofar as there are similar shared experiences that one can make analogy to. I certainly agree with Nagel that entities in human bodies are not equipped to understand the subjective experience of someone whose primary means of sensing the world is through echolocation. This does make me wonder how many bat therians there are, though I would imagine the answer is more than zero.
I’ve bumped into a robot bat, though that’s not quite the same thing. (They made a userscript to change CAPTCHA boxes to say “I am not a human”.)
Question - is watermarking legal filings even common? How about the law firm logos in the footer?
No; this filing is very unusual. Typical practice is for legal filings to be submitted in a standardized and very plain format.
And that standardized and plain format is simply typographically ugly.
The legal profession has done better. Just look at the opinions from the Supreme Court. Single spaced, nice typeface, good margin. Hallmarks of elegant typesetting and optimized for readability. Why aren't legal filings standardized based on this format?
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?
I want to make two observations here.
First, the order being reported is made against the lawyer, not against the lawyer's client - And it is in order not to do this in future. So, while your observation is good I think the conclusion you draw from it doesn't follow.
Secondly, one aspect of your good point is that arguments are filed in a very plain format. The point being that the format does not detract from the message. In this case, the format heavily detracts from the message. Have you seen the PDF? It's absolutely nuts. I hope he doesn't turn up to court wearing a dragon mask.
> First, the order being reported is made against the lawyer, not against the lawyer's client…
I suspect the client will be billed for the revisions, though.
All courts have local rules or even standing orders governing filings and pleadings - from case styling formatting, font/size, spacing, max pages, ect… Federal district courts are not places to flaunt rules of the court or court orders.
Beyond that lawyers are governed by state bars and rules of professional conduct — as an example the Florida bar has taken action against an attorney that used to advertise himself as a “pitbull.”
Regarding tattoos courts have rules of decorum, which generally cover appropriate dress/attire in the courtroom. As far as tattoos, I’ve been to thousands of hearings and can give a single anecdote. It was a drug possession case and the defendant was allowed to transfer their case from circuit felony to drug court - basically allowing completion of drug classes while on kind of pretrial probation in exchange for either a nolle pros (dismissal) or withhold of adjudication. The drug court judge gave the defendant a hard time at this initial hearing over having a drug molecule tattooed on their neck - questioning if drug court was a good fit for someone the seemingly was pretty committed to drugs (based on the neck tat). The drug court judge can see a hundred or more defendants a day, they’ve seen it all and aren’t passing judgement, its just that their experience allows them to read people extremely well and they had legitimate concerns because getting in trouble in drug court can result in automatic conviction of the original charge + having to deal with any new charge.
A rule of thumb professionalism and decorum go a long way in court - this attorney could be decent, but as a potential client any lawyer using a gimmicky dragon in a suit in their paperwork should probably raise some red flags for you.
I don't see how the order is making anyone more or less guilty.
Judicial process historically has a certain seriousness flair and a code of conduct based on it. Making fun of the judge or the court of law is a quick way go get removed from the process or fined, or even jailed. As well as performing marketing stunts like this.
Lawyers are held to different standards of professional conduct than defendants. This also makes it much harder to read.
I see what you are saying about there being different standards.
I would follow up with, if the shoe was on the other foot, do you believe that a lawyer with tattoos and or purple hair should be allowed to practice?
We may never agree? But I think that we should be more tolerant of individuality than prejudice.
You're comparing a person's appearance to the formatting of a legal document. Nobody is talking about the physical appearance of the attorney.
There is procedure and standards in document filing for a reason, this is more difficult to read than a white background.
I change my mind. A tattoo is individuality, a purple dragon on a client document is not an appropriate place to express that.
I disagree with the way the bar associations are currently constructed as state-sanctioned monopolies. Since they're technically the ones who determine who is "allowed to practice", that's a hard question to answer.
I'd be comfortable establishing a stronger dress code for courtrooms - wear business casual or some such - but dyed hair and tattoos aren't easily fixable mistakes if you get called to court, so they have to be permitted for at least the defendant. For attorneys, it's probably fine to say that those with purple hair and tattoos can practice but not appear in a courtroom to represent a client. They can prep and file a patent but not represent you in a trial. That is, of course, if most people would hire an attorney with purple hair and tattoos. I would not do that unless I wanted to somehow get the death penalty for a speeding ticket.
I don't like the idea that one should be excluded from doing a type of work because of something arbitrary like hair color or skin markings.
Except those are choices they made knowing full well the consequences. Here's what people miss: the fact that it's a social norm is reason to care, not reason to ignore it.
If you were a brilliant lawyer strongly committed to your craft, you would not get tattoos or dye your hair purple. The reason is simple: too many people would see it and think less of you. As such, it makes you less able to effectively defend your clients. When your job involves appealing to society on behalf of someone, you do not make a middle finger to that same society an immutable part of your appearance unless you are very thoughtless, also not a characteristic I want in a attorney.
There's also the fact that law, more than most disciplines, is premised on adherence to old, old forms of tradition and ritual. In britain they still wear powdered wigs, for goodness' sake. The law still uses Latin terms though it's decades to centuries since educated men learned it in school. Our legal tradition in America is old, with Common Law in some ways tracing back to William the Conqueror. The other major legal tradition on which I've read, Justinian's Codex and its evolution into the Napoleonic Code, dates back to the 500s AD. Discarding old customs, even if you think them outmoded, trampling social niceties because you find them outmoded, is a really bad sign for a capable attorney.
If you were facing the death penalty would you pick a lawyer with purple hair and face tattoos to defend you?
I would if they were the best lawyer available? Their personal appearance is going to be pretty far down my list of concerns. See also Taleb’s Surgeon Paradox: https://medium.com/incerto/surgeons-should-notlook-like-surg...
The best lawyer is one that will convince the jury of your innocence. Courts recognize that having defendants appear in prison jumpsuits is prejudicial and can bias a jury [1]. Good lawyers understand and shape optics to help their legal arguments. I know that we all have unconscious biases that affect our judgement. While I think we should build systems that are better at removing those biases and allowing different types of people be successful, I am not going to risk going to jail to make some sort of point. I am going to use every tool at my disposal to make my case. If cutting my hair or shaving my beard or wearing a certain color tie is likely to help, I’m going to do all that. I’m also going to have a lawyer that does that as well, including no crazy purple hair or face tattoos.
Your surgeon paradox says that if someone is successful despite not looking the part, they must be all the better. But are there lawyers with face tattoos or crazy hair that are considered successful in high stakes criminal law in front of juries? For corporate or patent or tax law, that is so much about a deep intimate understanding of hundreds of thousands of pages of ultra specific “loopholes” and optimization strategies, I would not be surprised if there were lawyers who look very alternative. But criminal law lives and dies on persuading people who are not legal experts.
[1] https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/can-an-o...
The point is this might work for a surgeon but does not for an attorney. There are enough jurors who would be strongly biased against anyone arguing before them with purple hair and tattoos that it's exceedingly unlikely anyone with such an appearance ever could rise to the top of his field.
This would also be true in e.g. M&A. Even if Cravath's fieriest new partner looked like that I'd hesitate to hire him. Patent law might be an exception, but if I needed to actually go to court, WilmerHale's top guy would still be a liability. Even in a bench trial the judge could see it as disrespectful or look down on my representation because of it. You see my meaning here?
On the table, the surgeon's appearance has little or nothing to do with his ability; in court, a lawyer's appearance can be crucial.
I wouldn't be opposed to it, but I wouldn't select based such traits.
A friend of mine is a lawyer with numerous tattoos, and it didn't preclude him from successfully representing his clients in court.
He's also a USMC veteran. Stereotypes can be funny like that.
> I would follow up with, if the shoe was on the other foot, do you believe that a lawyer with tattoos and or purple hair should be allowed to practice?
Yes, they should be allowed to practice, because a lawyer’s tattoos and purple hair do not have anything to do with court documents and readability of those. Exceptions obviously apply, as not all tattoos are created equal, and having a visible gang-affiliation tattoo or a tattoo saying “cop killer” (which actually happened, but to a defendant) might be problematic as a lawyer.
Here is an analogy that might help: my employer might not care if someone communicates in offtopic employee chats using gifs and emojis, but I can easily see an employee getting fired for doing the same thing either to an external customer or in cross-org sev 0 incident threads.
> What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty?
That question is for the jury to decide for better and worse. There are lots of good points to a jury trial which is why free societies usually (always?) have them in some form. However one downside is you will once in a while get someone on the jury who judges you not on the facts of the case but on things that shouldn't matter.
Overall it is still better than the alternatives in my opinion, but it does mean you need to figure out what your local cultures are and avoid offending them (note cultures is plural - figure out them all).
In fact, in many societies, tattoos are considered a sign of low status, affiliation with lower class (which tends to get harsher sentences) and/or criminal activity, and may - consciously or subconsciously - lead to worse outcomes in trials.[1]
Just tattoo 'cop killer' on your forehead and see if they give you parole.
[1] https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/f/305...
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 choose not to watermark the document, tattoos cannot be removed that easily. And yes, there are various situations where you'd be asked to cover your tattoo if it was inappropriate for the situation too.
> 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)
> The whole point of a judicial process is to make judgments on the merit of a case not personal prejudice.
And specifying the style of something that they are able to change easily helps that.
> What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty?
Unfortunately, it's true - that's how it will be seen. :(
[flagged]
One day, someone will discover a use for across-the-page watermarks that is not better handled by marginalia and makes up for the loss in readability, copyability and compatibility with graphics.
Until then, we'll be seeing this...
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.
Exactly that, thank you!
I realize no one is claiming otherwise, but this writer almost certainly did it intentionally for humorous effect. ("Aubergine wyrm" is just too good to be accidental.) It's like "the lick" in jazz.
Using modern terminology, I think it's actually a drake, not a wyrm. Wyrm and dragon were only a synonyms centuries ago, nowadays dragon is an umbrella term for those and more.
Some people want to be artists but are journalists instead.
I wish that same judge were handling consumer rights right about now, because someone needs to put a proverbial foot down and curb what advertising has become.
Stop Purple Dragon Cartoons from popping up while I'm reading an article.
Stop the 15 second Purple Dragon commercial that plays every G D time I watch an online video.
Stop screaming at me to buy Purple Dinos while I'm pumping gas that already I'm paying out the A on to fill my tank.
(I'd be curious to know if anyone lives next door to one of these gas stations; it must be obnoxious being subjected to that 24/7.)
It's not professional - It's a bad look. Liberty Mutual - I'm talking to you. Et al. Y'all have gone off the rails.
Gamers may be the most oppressed group of people… but I think furries are a close second.
At least it wasn't a bad dragon.
Well the judge thought it was a bad dragon!
I think it's a mistake to have rules about filings. Maybe it's distracting, but if the filing has been done, there should be no reason for the court not to read it and make a decision based on the text.
Procedure or order can't be more important than deciding cases.
If you allow one person to get away with this, others may see it as an invitation to do worse. Filings are often a matter of immutable public record and it makes sense that there should be rules as to what goes into them.
What is the act of deciding cases if not a carefully constructed procedure meant to keep order? What is the harm of telling a lawyer to try again, this time following the rules?
You hear the case, however it's presented, and then you decide.
In Swedish courts the court evaluates evidence as it likes. If the judges and sort-of-half-judge-half-jury-Nämdemän agree that something can be concluded, then they're allowed to conclude that.
Obviously procedure is useful, but hearing the complaint is more important.
It's not about procedure for procedure's sake. It's about establishing a precedent that unnecessary content should be left out, so that complaints are always conveyed and heard sincerely.
All the court is asking the lawyer to do is to re-file without the distracting formatting. It's not like they're throwing the entire case out. It'll still get read.
It's also worth noting that the local rules for just about every court prescribe document formatting - so it's not like any of this should come as a surprise to the attorney.
Putting this another way: If a professor tells you to submit an essay in 12 pt Times New Roman, and you turn it in using 16 pt Comic Sans - it's entirely within the professor's right to say the formatting is so distracting that it makes their job difficult and ask you to print out a revised version before they'll grade it.
By my reading, the judge isn't even making him refile. They just said to not do it again.
Nah this is not the place to let folks get cutesy. If anything the standards should be strict and uniform.
Yes, the dragon is terrible and it's very inappropriate, but someone can't behave sensibly may still be someone whose case the courts must hear.
They’re more than willing to hear the case. It’s the lawyer, not the complainant, who the court is chastising.
If anything, it scans like the court is concerned, like you are, that this vulnerable person’s case isn’t being presented with the seriousness it deserves.
Yes, but if a filing is sensible they should not care. It is reasonable to forbid further such filings, or require it to be re-filed, but artificially delaying something for the sake of seriousness or decorum is not to take it seriously.
If it is a serious matter you deal with what you have.
But it's simple enough to regenerate it without the watermark. Also, if it's actively annoying the judge, it's in the lawyer and client's best interest to fix it once and give the judge time to clear his head instead of repeating the issue.
Uniform formatting makes it easier to evaluate a case on the text and not the formatting, though.
My dad said something a few years ago - we’re all more interested in being ‘funny’ and ‘edgy’ than acting like adults and getting on with each other. The world has gotten very embarrassing.
Did he ever specify what he meant by ‘acting like adults’? I can imagine a number of changes in attitude one might associate with growing up, and I find a good part of them regrettable at best.
Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGOofzZOyl8
From the PDF linked in TFA:
> Respectfully submitted,
I don't think the judge thought it was submitted all that respectfully.This was a good example of a case to assign the plaintiff a new lawyer at the old ones expense
These documents should all be processed through a computer to sanitize anything that could be considered unique or specific enough to identify anyone involved with the creation. some kind of linter for court documents.
What if that is part of my religion?
[flagged]
[flagged]
Read the article and find out
Why not?
[flagged]
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer...
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't post shallow dismissals...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[flagged]
We've asked you this before, and we're now asking again: could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful .
I am not so sure. Since the problem seems to be (and should be) that there is a watermark at all (as other people have mentioned), I think it would not solve it.
Oh no! How dare someone have some fun
Courtrooms are not a place designed for "fun". If you're in serious legal trouble you better hope your lawyer isn't there to have "fun" and make it difficult for the judge to read about your case.
Does purchased for $20 online imply the dragon is an NFT?
I bet the lawyer could flip it now if yes.
No? The concept of purchasing images online has existed long before NFTs
I find it disturbing that a judge has blocked the legal system because they don't like a lawyer's logo.
They didn't, though. No one has lost access to the legal system. They just said they had to resubmit without the watermark on every page.
If watermarks are thing, and the judge just doesn’t like this one because he finds it disrespectful, that sounds like a first amendment issue.
Contempt findings are subject to the 1st amendment, but criminal speech acts are not protected by the 1st amendment.
Arguably, the dragon exhibits a trespass against the dignity of the court itself.
“Dignity” is just racism in disguise.
The hosting company iFastNet uses a green and yellow dragon, which is what came to mind when I read the title, despite it being nearly 2 decades since I had anything to do with them, so I think this is definitely a marketing stunt of some sort.