FunnyJunk lawyer to subpoena Twitter, Ars Technica
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
In a sense, like the manager above, Mr. Carreon has thrown himself personally into a fight that was not his fight but that of his client. He has made it personal and now finds himself suing in spray-gun fashion hoping to hit the nearest target connected with the events, whether the law supports him strongly, feebly, or perhaps not at all - all the while standing forth in a public spotlight that magnifies his every action whether good, bad, or indifferent. There is no winning for him in that situation, whatever the merits of his claims.
The most valuable asset of a lawyer is his reputation. I won't presume to tell Mr. Carreon how best to defend his but, whatever else he does, he needs to be very careful not to exacerbate a situation that already is very difficult for him. Whatever wrong may have been done to him, the solution does not lie in a lawsuit of the type that has been filed here.
(Incidentally, this makes it pretty tough to hold lawyers to non-compete agreements, because their clients have a right to keep working with them even if they switch firms.)
Now, whether FunnyJunk likes or doesn't like the publicity this is bringing them is a separate question. You got me on that one.
They allow this precisely because the Martingale system does NOT pay off,
First, according to your definition of losing, gambling away 99% of your life savings would not count as a loss. A better definition would be: having fewer resources at the end of an act of gambling than you had before the act.
Second, you have assumed that infinite comes in only one size. To see the error in that, consider these infinite sets: {1,2,3,...} and {2,4,6,...}. The first set contains all counting numbers and the second set contains only even counting numbers. Both sets are infinite, but the second set is only half the size.
With these corrections in mind, it should become clear that you can start with infinite resources, lose half of your resources and therefore lose at gambling, but still walk away with infinite resources.
All math is abstraction, and you need to make sure it applies to the current case. In this case it doesn't: infinite resources don't exist.
With that said, the reasoning that you two are employing seems mysterious. In my way of thinking, the cardinality of a set of dollar bills and the quantity of dollars are not the same thing. If you start with $20 and lose $20, then you lost $20, and likewise, if you start with an infinite quantity of dollars and lose $20, then you lost $20. Whether the set of dollars before and after gambling have the same cardinality is quite beside the point: $20 never equals $0, so you were $20 richer before you gambled and $20 less rich after you gambled.
> When I said they are not the same size, I did not mean
to invoke the idea of set cardinality.
> if set A contains all the elements of B and set A
contains other elements also, then set A is bigger than
set B
> In my way of thinking, the cardinality of a set of
dollar bills and the quantity of dollars are not the
same thing.
> if you start with an infinite quantity of dollars
and lose $20, then you lost $20
> Whether the set of dollars before and after gambling
have the same cardinality is quite beside the point: $20
never equals $0, so you were $20 richer before you
gambled and $20 less rich after you gambled.
Likewise, although you can measure the value of the difference between the set of money you had before and the set of money you have after, as long as that difference is finite, it has no bearing on your infinite total value. In fact, depending on how you do it, you can lose an infinite amount of money and still have an infinite amount left (the difference between {1, 2, 3, ...} and {2, 4, 6, ...} is {1, 3, 5, ...} and all three of these sets are equinumerous).
Infinity is not an intuitive concept.
If mathematically, the sets are the same size, and practically, in terms of buying power, the bankrolls are the same size, I'm not sure how we can reach an abstraction in either perspective where one is "less" than the other.
(The question of walking away is sort of ill-formed for the original Martingale discussion -- since the point there was that you'd stay at the table until you won a spin.)
Interestingly this brings up another simple flaw in the "infinite resources" caveat. When you do finally win a spin, you'll still have aleph-null dollars -- you won't have actually won anything. So the only condition under which the martingale works -- when you can't lose -- is one under which you can't win either. Unless your goal is not to increase your purchasing/gaming power but to break the casino, as in an "Ocean's N" film.
"It is therefore a good example of a Taleb distribution – the gambler usually wins a small net reward, thus appearing to have a sound strategy. However, the gambler's expected value does indeed remain zero because the small probability that he will suffer a catastrophic loss exactly balances with his expected gain."
The problem with always doubling your wager is that the exponential growth will eventually reach any finite limit in case of a run of 'bad luck'. Without limit, that's not an issue and you'll only lose when you never win any bet, which 'almost surely' won't happen.
It did for me. I used it at the roulette wheel on my last trip to Vegas. I knew the strategy's critical flaw, but thought I would try it for a while. I went up over a $900 and quit for the evening. The next day, I quickly dropped $200 and stopped. I know it was just luck (and I won't be buying Lanai with the proceeds), but you did say never pays off, practically forcing me to be the contrariaHN.
Both Thompson and Carreon (FJ's lawyer) appear to be delusional about the merits of the causes they're putting in front of the court.
But Thompson also appears to be delusional about reality and his role in it: he submitted repeated filings to the court that were laden with cartoons, images, pictures of people he believed were persecuting him, and tirades against the court itself. He did that after being repeatedly warned by the court not to deliver more filings. He did that while one of his previous filings was currently being considered; instead of waiting for a response for the court, he continued to send them additional filings. Here, I'll just let the Florida Supreme Court describe it:
Thompson has submitted over fifty filings directly with this Court, all of
which have either been forwarded to the referee, dismissed, or denied.
Additionally, Thompson’s most recent filings are repetitive, frivolous, and, like his
earlier ones, insulting to the Court. One of Thompson’s recent filings contains
what Thompson refers to as a “children’s picture book for adults” that rehashes his
previous arguments in illustrated form which he states was necessary due to “the
Court’s inability to comprehend” his arguments. Between the text of the motion,
Thompson pasted images depicting swastikas, kangaroos in court, a reproduced
dollar bill, cartoon squirrels, Paul Simon, Paul Newman, Ray Charles, a handprint
with the word "SLAP!" written under it, Bar Governor Benedict P. Kuehne, a
baby, Ed Bradley, Jack Nicholson, Justice Clarence Thomas, Julius Caesar, keys,
and a house of cards, and the motion concludes with a photograph of the
cover of Thompson’s book, Out of Harm's Way.
I can't create a fake account 'pg[invisible-unicode-character]' here and start posting things like "I wish dhouston would just sell Dropbox to Apple already." That's not acceptable, regardless of whether the person being impersonated is loved or hated by all.
> "You sir, are a dumbass. I am doing what any sane individual would do."
I saw it linked somewhere, briefly glanced at it, thought "wow, this guy's not fit to be anyone's lawyer", and moved on. I didn't have time or desire to dig into it to find out if it was really him or not. This article has managed to salvage some of that but I doubt everyone who saw the impersonated tweet will learn about the truth.
It's really no different from being labelled "Arrested for XYZ" by the media and then being proven 100% guilt-free. Even if the media redacts the stories or posts new information, the damage is already done in most cases.
In fairness, the real guy's public statements have had the same effect. I'm not sure a parody account can really be said to have affected the guy's reputation, it's already about as tanked as can be.
I thought it went without saying that Twitter handles, above all newly-created ones, were fake unless they had that additional badge.
The consensus seems to be that Carreon has less than no case, and may in fact be setting himself up for significant reprisals from the courts... except to the extent that douchey Internet pranksters build a case for him by breaking the law themselves.
Remember, broadly speaking, defamation is just undertaking some action that gives some entity a negative image. Before you go nuts on that, yes, truth is a defense against defamation (ie: it is not defamation if it is true). At which point parody becomes defamation is something of a grey line, which Carreon will try his hardest to use.
If Carreon can paint the image in court that the internet is after him, it would probably help him make his case that the fake twitter account is defamation, not mere parody. After all, context matters.
I don't believe at all that that's Inman's intent.
1. http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk 2. http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk2 3. http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk_letter
I'm not sure why you feel this is the case. They've been careful to redact Carreon's contact info from the document's they've published and they've been saying things like "And to anyone else who is reading this: it goes without saying, but stop harassing Carreon. Be lawful and civil in your interactions with him."
> If hundreds of assholes and a dozen criminals support
> you, then that makes it seem more likely that you are
> an asshole or a criminal.
Of course, the mob's lust for blood achieves nothing but self preservation, and even if the claims are baseless, we're observing each day the consequences of its actions; mostly in the form of Carreon building up his case with ostensibly supportive evidence, and dragging other websites into the fray who had no involvement except to allow people to comment.
But, I dunno, I'm not the greatest advocate of internet vigilantism.
He's decided to blindly start swinging. While it is certainly possible that he will not hit anything regardless of the community reaction, the minimal probability of success will be such a pain-in-the-ass that it is not worth it.
And the person that created the account was from Sweden.
Carreon is going to have a fun time getting him into court in the US for a civil case.
Ha. He claims that Disney was the reason the U.S. dropped the nuclear bombs. Interesting analogy.
While i find this completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, he may have a bit of a point on that.
That said, I'm quite certain Disney's cartoons had absolutely nothing... NOTHING... to do with HST's decision to drop the bombs. Furthermore, the poor analogy has an obscure correlation at best with the current lawsuit.
Probably more to do with the sheer grisly nature of the Solomon Islands and Papau New Guinea campaigns, and a desire not to repeat it.
First, any attempt at an invasion of mainland Japan would have likely resulted in horrendous casualties for both sides - and it is almost certain that civilian casualties would have been substantially higher in the event of an invasion.
To counter that point, it is unlikely that an invasion would have been required to secure a surrender, and American insistence on unconditional surrender was a factor in prolonging the war with Japan.
Third, there is at least some merit to the idea that dropping the bombs wasn't just meant to scare the Japanese - it was also meant to demonstrate their power to the USSR.
Incidentally, it is pretty clear that Truman and other Allied leaders saw the Japanese as being sub-human in some ways[1]. How much of this came from societal factors and how much of it came from experiences of the absolutely brutal Pacific campaign battles is debatable, but it is certainly unfair to lay it all at the feet of Disney.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings...
War is hell, don't go setting up shop there.
Incidentally, it wasn't just the Americans that had a dehumanized view of the Japanese during WWII, the Koreans, Chinese, Australians, and just about anyone else who ended up under their boot thought so as well; mainly because they treated just about everyone else as inferior.
Glad we can all get along decades later, of course.
Absolutely. It's possible that the invasion of Japan that was prevented by the bombings was not going to be the one that most people think of. I've always felt the atomic bombings had more to do with sending a message to Stalin than with sending one to Hirohito. At the close of WWII, the Russians were making some very ominous moves in Japan's direction.
Was it worth 200,000+ lives to keep Japan from spending the next several decades as a Soviet satellite state? Very possibly... but I wasn't there, and the people who were sacrificed certainly didn't get a chance to make their views known.
> I've spent a lot of time learning about the decision
> to dropping atomic bombs on Japan, and it is quite
> nuanced.
... which, in turn, prevented us from blockading Japan to starve them out a bit in preparation for a massive beach-head assault on the Home Islands, which would likely have been the most massive loss of life in conventional warfare in the history of the human race, and could well have ended the Japanese as a distinct culture and ethnicity.
If you're going to make a point, by all means make it; don't imply the opposite of what you intend.
It's been overlooked a little, but in the article they juxtapose him saying "I always speak respectfully and never use even soft curse words" with his actual website with parodies using exactly what he says he doesn't.
http://www.american-buddha.com/poet.condoleeza.htm#CONDOLEEZ...
As to who the person was, Carreon had some ideas: it was someone "incited by Inman, or in the alternative and on information and belief, Inman himself."
EDIT: Formatting.
a skid mark, perhaps, but mark no less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law
(Your link really doesn't lead anywhere useful. Try it.)
From what I've heard of mediawiki's code.. probably very. Oh well.
#REDIRECT [[Sayre's law]]
The idea would be to make mediawiki itself automatically preform reasonable redirects when pages don't exist.
Mediawiki does do it automatically, it's called having many thousands of users.
>The owner of FunnyJunk hired Charles Carreon, a lawyer who became famous in the 90s after successfully litigating sex.com. Charles does a bit of modeling too, apparently.