(no subject)

[the_rck]

Well, I got more sleep, but I also got a spam phone call and had Cordelia come in to cuddle for a while, so it wasn’t unbroken sleep. I think it helped, however. I went back to bed around 7 a.m. and got up for the day at about 11 a.m.

I came across this at the NPR Science Blog. It’s a little quiz that offers sonnets written by people and sonnets written by computers to see if readers can tell them apart. I thought the difference was clear, but I also thought that comparing the two was fascinating. My suspicion is that the programming will get there eventually, but it’s a long way yet.

I’ve also been poking at the SCOTUS blog. I’d seen that they’d ruled in three cases today, but I’d only seen information about two of the three cases and was curious about the third. The first case had to do with restrictions on abortion clinics in Texas. The second had to do with whether or not the federal government can use a state level misdemeanor (for domestic violence) as grounds to forbid someone from owning a gun. Both of those went in the direction I was hoping for— The clinics can stay open. Folks with misdemeanor domestic violence convictions can’t own guns.

The third had to do with what exactly constitutes actionable corruption by an elected official. That last is one of those rulings that is right, long term, but is being applied in a case where, despite the evidence not being sufficient, the person being prosecuted was doing something solidly on the dubious side of the right/wrong divide. But the justices were unanimous in the ruling, and when that happens, I look several times at the case. I have the impression that the court was concerned that any government official taking action on constituent concerns could be open to corruption charges if that constituent had ever made any sort of gift/donation. That interpretation could certainly be used to harass and destroy people, and I don’t want that as an option even if, right now, it’s being used on people I don’t like. My hope is that the ruling will result in clearer legal guidelines so that everyone has a better idea of where the line is.

Comments

[brunettepet.livejournal.com]

It's great you were able to get a nap in.

[nucleosides.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that SCOTUS essentially upheld the Lautenberg Amendment.

Also worth noting: if an abuser is put on deferred sentencing and they complete it, they can have their records sealed and then expunged at some point and regain the right to possess a firearm at some point afterward. They have to screw that up and have their guilt found/entered (which always happens when their probation for that gets revoked) for the Lautenberg Amendment to apply to them.

Some lawyers are more interested in "not ruining lives", so they try to get first-time offenders or those who they think have a good shot at completing probation on deferred sentencing. And these are invariably the people that you hear about in the news after they've actually killed someone.

If anything, I think the Lautenberg Amendment needs to be strengthened a bit and have the add-on (in some way) that an abuser can't be put on deferred sentencing.

[the_rck]

I'd love to see stronger laws on the subject. Until we get those, though, I want this one upheld.

[hamsterwoman]

Very neat sonnet quiz link! I also didn't have much trouble telling them apart, but was impressed by how almost-right the machine written ones were (the old-timey one made me wonder briefly if it could be particularly obscure John Donne or something, before the repetitions added up to not making enough sense).

[the_rck]

My husband got one wrong. I put that down to him having read less poetry than I have rather than to the machine written sonnets being hard to spot. I very much doubt that he's read any poetry in the last thirty years, and he prefers music without lyrics, so he's not even getting that.

Most of the machine written ones seemed to have odd connections between sentences that I thought weren't things people were apt to do. If I recall correctly, one echoed the word 'drawer' but used it in one place to indicate a person who draws and in the other the pull out storage thingy. I might have been more inclined to think that possible in a less formal sort of poem, but I think that the structure of a sonnet imposes rhythms of thought in the writer so that such a thing would take deliberate effort and end up being echoed in other parts of the poem.

[hamsterwoman]

Yes, the individual sentences are mostly OK, but the "flow" isn't coherent in the machine ones. And you're right, they are also more prone to repetition, but not in a way that underlines meaning or does anything else, just repetition.