if you have a few minutes...

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:22:12 GMT

If you've got a few minutes, I've got two tasks for you:

From my friend Kathryn who is working at the Forensic Panel in New York City:
"Judges and juries both across the United States and in other countries who decide that a crime is "depraved," "heinous," or "horrible" can assign more severe sentences. Yet there is no standardized definition for such dramatic words that courts already use. And while we may all recognize that some crimes truly separate themselves from others, there is no standard, fair way to distinguish crimes that are the worst of the worst, or "evil."
To minimize the arbitrariness of how courts determine the worst of crimes, and to eliminate bias in sentencing, the Depravity Scale research aims to establish societal standards of what makes a crime depraved, and to develop a standardized instrument based on specific characteristics of a crime that must be proven in order to merit more severe sentences.
This research will refine into the Depravity Standard, an objective measure based on forensic evidence. This instrument distinguishes not who is depraved but rather, what aspects of a given crime are depraved and the degree of a specific crime's depravity. The research will enhance fairness in sentencing, given that it is race, gender and socio-economic blind.

We are trying to get perspectives of all people from all walks of life. We do not only want professionals, psychology majors, or even anyone who has any experience with psychology. The purpose of this research is for it to be a consensus of the public, as they will be the juror in these sorts of cases.
Also, this is in no way either advocating or trying to eliminate the death penalty. It is completely neutral on this. This is, rather, advocating fair and race, gender, SES, blind sentencing in criminal cases. I think whether you are for or against the death penalty, everyone wants a fair and just sentencing system.
If you could participate in both Phase B and Phase C on www.depravityscale.org I would really really really appreciate it. Also please pass this on to family, friends, colleagues, etc. Anyone and everyone can participate!"
Do yourself a favor and get the beta of the new PowerPoint. The rest of the new office is a good upgrade, but PowerPoint really stands out. It is incredibly user-friendly as its new organization does a great job of showing what the end product will be if you choose each option. Microsoft also picked up a flow-chart program and integrated it into PowerPoint as the "IGX Graphics" tool. The only problem I've found is that it's very frustrating to set up hyperlinks from slide to slide. But since most people using PowerPoint don't do complicated things like that, the 2007 version is definitely a significant upgrade.

Stymied: Computers and Internet

if you have a few minutes...