MetaFilter posts tagged with case

Act of Terror: arrested for filming police officers - video

nickyskye — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:21:01 -0800

When police carried out a routine stop-and-search of her boyfriend on the London Underground, Gemma Atkinson filmed the incident. She was detained, handcuffed and threatened with arrest. She launched a legal battle, which ended with the police settling the case in 2010. With the money from the settlement she funded the production of this animated film, which she says shows how her story and highlights police misuse of counterterrorism powers to restrict photography. Article in French. On Facebook under the title Fat Rat Films.

One Day Prop Build

tocts — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 11:47:40 -0800

Watch Mefi's Own™ asavage create a carrying case for his Blade Runner Blaster in just a single day.

"Roe has been her life, but it's no longer much of a living."

zarq — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 16:05:26 -0800

"Better known as the “Jane Roe” in the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, Norma McCorvey has led a conflicted life. Forty years ago, she was at the center of the court decision that famously legalized abortion. Today, she is a zealous anti-abortion advocate." Why did McCorvey turn against the cause she once championed? Tracing the life of an Accidental Activist. Via

“I‘m not lying!”

zarq — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:25:45 -0800

This past August a murder charge was dismissed against Nga Truong, a young mother who had confessed to Worcester, MA Police interrogators in 2008 that she had smothered and killed her 13 month-old baby, Khyle. A judge later concluded that confession was coerced -- extracted in part by police "deception," "trickery and implied promises" -- and the case was dropped. (pdf). Her case raises questions: What coercive power do detectives have who are driven to extract confessions? Under what circumstances might someone admit to a crime they have not committed? WBUR (Boston's NPR station) investigated Truong's case and has an extensive report, Anatomy of a Bad Confession: Part One and Two Truong spent 2.5 years in jail awaiting trial. She was 16 when she was arrested and is now 20. Video excerpts from the interrogation. Reporter David Boeri's additional opinions on the case and police interrogation techniques. (videos) Worcester Police Department statement on the case

Does digital writing leave fingerprints?

iamkimiam — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 11:38:24 -0800

"When legal teams need to prove or disprove the authorship of key texts, they call in the forensic linguists. Scholars in the field have tackled the disputed origins of some prestigious works, from Shakespearean sonnets to the Federalist Papers."

Decoding Your E-Mail Personality Ben Zimmer, of Language Log discusses the Facebook case and forensic linguistics in the NY Times. More on forensic linguistics (and forensic stylistics) over at Language Log. For a much more in-depth discussion of the Facebook case, including a plethora of links, Language Log's post High-stakes forensic linguistics has got you covered. Other linguistic and forensic stylistic analyses and commentary: Bellweathers to the state of your relationship Donald Foster's Wikipedia page, follow-up NY Times piece about the real author of Shakespeare's sonnets, the Ramsey murder, and more issues for Foster and the use for forensic stylistics in the anthrax letters case. Neural Network Applications in Stylometry: The Federalist Papers (this is a JSTOR link to a first page, abstract and downloadable PDF) Recording police questioning (A NY Times short opinion) Using linguistic analysis to determine exactly how many events took place in New York on that morning in September: An excerpt from 'The Stuff of Thought' and the final World Trade Center insurance settlement. Interview with Carole Chaski and the Keyboard Dilemma (Google Books link) Other forensic linguistics resources: The Forensic Linguistics Institute, including a corpus of texts! Institute for Linguistic Evidence International Association of Forensic Linguists International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics

Talk of the Town: A McCarthy Era trial and tribulation

jeffisme — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:34:40 -0800

Miriam Moskowitz is one of the last survivors of the McCarthy era trials. She was sent to prison after being convicted of obstruction of justice in a trial that Roy Cohn said was a "dry run" for the Rosenberg case. Indeed, Miriam was in jail with Ethel Rosenberg. Her newly published book, "Phantom Spies, Phantom Justice" is one of the only books on the period to write about Ethel as a woman not as a symbol. The gripping memoir of Miriam's trial, her imprisonment and its aftermath, is also the first thing Miriam has ever written. At 94, that's quite an achievement. The Talk of the Town section of the New Yorker has a piece on Miriam. Click on the link to read it.

Case Based Learning; Justin Case

infinite intimation — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 00:08:40 -0800

Albert Einstein once articulated what many scholars have felt in their own work: The history of scientific and technical discovery teaches us the human race is poor in independent thinking and creative imagination. Even when the external and scientific requirements for the birth of an idea have long been there, it generally needs an external stimulus to make it actually happen; man has, so to speak, to stumble right up against the thing before the right idea comes. The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University [html][pdf] National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science Science education in the United States has been faulted by politicians, laymen, and scientists. Case studies as a teaching technique: Although the case method has been used for years to teach law, business, and medicine, it is not common in science. Yet the use of case studies holds great promise as a pedagogical technique for teaching science, particularly to undergraduates, because it humanizes science and well illustrates scientific methodology and values. It develops students’ skills in group learning, speaking, and critical thinking, and since many of the best cases are based on contemporary—and often contentious—science problems that students encounter in the news (such as human cloning), the use of cases in the classroom makes science relevant. At the University at Buffalo, we have been experimenting with case studies in science courses for over 15 years. We have found the method to be amazingly flexible. It has been used as the core of entire courses such as “Scientific Inquiry” or for single experiences in otherwise traditional lecture and lab courses. Cases dealing with cold fusion, AIDS, acid rain, ozone depletion, and toxic waste disposal have been used with undergraduates, graduates, and students in professional schools. A case on cystic fibrosis has been used in small laboratory sections run by teaching assistants and a case on the spotted owl has been employed in a large class of over 400 students. In our experience, students exposed to the case method have been extraordinarily excited and actively involved in their learning. The aim of the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science is to promote the development and dissemination of innovative materials and sound educational practices for case teaching in the sciences. Our website provides access to an award-winning library of case materials and we offer a variety of opportunities, including a five-day summer workshop and two-day fall conference, for science faculty to receive training in the method. Our work has been supported over the years by the National Science Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the U.S. Department of Education. Robert Merry (1954) has written that the case process is inductive rather than deductive. He adds "The focus is on students learning through their joint, cooperative effort, rather than on the teacher conveying his/her views to students." Charles Gragg (1953) wrote a captivating article entitled "Because Wisdom Can't be Told," in which he stressed that the purpose of case teaching is to develop analytical and decision-making skills. Erskine et al. (1981) noted that students "are developing in the classroom, a whole set of skills of speaking, debating and resolving issues. They are also gaining a sense of confidence in themselves and relating to their peers." I would add that the use of case studies in science should encourage students to critically appraise stories about science they hear through the media, to have a more positive attitude about science, to understand the process of science and its limitations, and to be able to ask more critical questions during public policy debates. In short, the goal in most of our case method teaching is not so much to teach the content of science (although that does clearly happpen) but to teach how the process of science works and to develop higher-order skills of learning. Looking at Bloom's (1956) taxonomy of cognitive learning, we focus less on "knowledge" than on comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Cases seem ideally suited to illustrate the relevance of science in society. Cases are equally suited to the collaborative/cooperative learning format in small groups but can easily be used in large discussion classes, as exemplified in law and business schools. They can even be adapted for megaclasses of students. Case studies are stories with an educational message. They have been used as parables and cautionary tales for centuries, yet their formal use in the science classroom is recent. So recent, in fact, that until the early 1990s the case study literature in science was virtually non-existent. Until this time, faculty had neither taught with cases, written cases, nor seen one. This only began to change as more and more faculty realized inadequacies of the lecture method and began to seek novel methods of instruction. Enter the case study, a method imported from business, law, and medical schools. National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science Case Collection -large collection of case studies, and resources materials Other Case Collections -links to databases of case studies from other institutions and organizations, in many fields, business, science, engineering, many more Related Sites Case Study sources The Day They Turned The Falls On: The Invention Of The Universal Electrical Power System

A Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich of a Computer Case

filthy light thief — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:49:55 -0800

The use of cardboard for things other than packaging is not new to the blue, from detailed artwork to furnature (and even re-making the Tron light cycle scene), and now computer cases. Brenden Macaluso's design is not the first, with a Japanese design from 2005 (the original site is down, but Archive.org has a backup, with more versions archived), and other kludged fixes for an existing case missing parts. Recompute wasn't the only cardboard case in the 2009 Greener Gadgets design competition. The other was Cardboardcase, by Francesco Biasci and Martina Becattini, which is a more of a traditional computer case form. On the DIY side, Instructables provides plans for a DIY cardboard laptop case. Recompute is inspired by the amount of computer hardware being recycled at the end of the product's lifecycle. The video section of the related website has additional associated clips. According to an interview with Macaluso, the design wasn't initially limited to cardboard as a material, but as he researched the components he found that cardboard had some bonus features, such as a greater tolerance for heat (cardboard has a higher fire and ignition point -- 258°C and 427°C, respectively -- where plastics begin to melt at about 120°C - source), and the corrugation ventilates the entire structure. The processor has its own cooling fan built in and the power supply and mother board are isolated from each other to keep heat from one affecting the other (source).

Neko Case on Necco Wafers

dbarefoot — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:40:47 -0800

Amusing NPR interview with Ms. Case From the NPR show "Not My Job", a rambling and entertaining interview with alt-country, loud singing, red-haired songstress Neko Case. On an unrelated note, I know she's American, but we Canucks like to claim her as our own, what with her Canadian Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and her collaborations with Canadian bands.

iBeaver

Burhanistan — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:26:36 -0800

iBeaver - make your own

The End of Porn?

Saucy Intruder — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 10:46:42 -0800

The End of Porn? The Ashcroft/Gonzales Justice Department has made obscenity prosecutions a top priority, with 60 prosecutions in the first four years of the Bush administration (compared to four for the entire eight years of the Clinton administration). Anti-porn advocates were dismayed in January when a federal judge in Pittsburgh, citing dicta on sexual liberty in the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision, dismissed an indictment in a closely-watched case. Today, however, the Third Circuit reversed, rejecting the defendant's arguments that (1) Lawrence protected their liberty interest in distributing pornographic material, and (2) earlier Supreme Court obscenity precedent should be revisited in light of the increased prevalence of Internet transmission. The result, undoubtedly, will be a new wave of prosecutions not seen since the Supreme Court set limits on First-Amendment based protections in the 1970s.

R2-D2 case mod

Witty — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 08:40:19 -0800

"R2 that seg fault is popping up again, see if you can lock it down!"

LEGO Case mod

XQUZYPHYR — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 15:42:11 -0800

LEGO case mod.

Welcome to Mars City, marine.

weretable and the undead chairs — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 15:22:13 -0800

Mars City. An amazing case inspired by Doom 3.

but the ending still sucks

bargle — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 14:49:16 -0800

HalfLife 2 Case. I want one.

Plug in, boot up, say yes

moonbird — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:04:25 -0800

Case mod, matrimony style; a geek's marriage proposal [with pics]

Best Case Ever.

jcterminal — Tue, 23 Apr 2002 16:52:14 -0800

Best Case Ever. As in computer case, just in case you couldn't case it out. dig? anyways. like someone else said, this thing says 'geek pimp' all over it.
don't be a hater!

donkeysuck — Fri, 11 May 2001 00:02:35 -0800

Lost or broken CD case? Ripped a disc and now it's just floating around on your desk? Freewheeling College students to the rescue! You give 'em the lowdown and you get a formatted paper CD case as a .pdf file. Input your own song titles or run an album search through their DB. They even archive mixes for you to share with others.

ericost — Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:03:24 -0800

"In a case believed to be a first of its kind since the inception of the Wisconsin hate crimes law, three area young men have been charged with a hate crime for singling out a Christian." Found at obscurestore.com