Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kevin_Lowe]

Last modified and last accessed do not need human interaction to be set by the operating/file system.

Do you have any specific theory as to how the last modified and last accessed dates were altered? Can you point to a specific piece of software that could plausibly have done this?

Or are you merely stating that this contravenes no laws of physics?

 

[LondonJohn]

HI RW

Your post contains excellent premises, and it was such a pleasure to follow such impeccable logic to your conclusion.

With the evidence based/oriented objective admonishment still *scarred* in my memory, however, I guess I would be forgiven for initially wondering about "cites"

However, I hasten to deduce that my claims of expenditure of limited resources is supported by nothing more than common sense thinking that few firms would (or could) finance internally (pro bono) such a large undertaking and for so very lengthy a time span (coming on 3 years in a week)

Yours is no less supported by common practice of Firms often internally financing worthwhile causes, and in fact supported, albeit only somewhat, by the example you do cite.

Yours may well also be supported by the Hometown upper crust fraternity's familiarity, frequent associations and tendency to help each other's pet projects by 'movers and (Seattle) shakers, of which Mr Marriott and Firm are a definite potent quantity.

I may speak more about the latter on another subject.

PS:
Pardon me for confirming my previously admitted and bemoaned self esteem issues, but my name here is Pilot Padron
.

Again, why do you suppose that David Marriott's commitment to this case (or that of his firm) is "such a large undertaking". Marriott himself has said that his (and his firm's) assistance is limited to managing media requests and arranging media access to the family, coupled with some general PR advice on how to present themselves etc.

How much effort do you think this takes? I'd be surprised if it takes more than a couple of hours a week. Maybe during the trial and immediately post-verdict it took up to 10 hours a week, but maybe these days it's less than an hour a week.

But then, you clearly believe that Marriott is being "economical with the actualite", and that he and his firm are doing a fair bit more than that - both in terms of size and scope. My question therefore remains: what exactly do you believe that Marriott and his firm are doing on behalf of Knox and her family, and do you have any evidence to support your beliefs?

 

[RWVBWL]

HI RW
PS:
Pardon me for confirming my previously admitted and bemoaned self esteem issues, but my name here is Pilot Padron
.

_________________________________________________________________
Hi once more pilot padron,
Thanks for the post!
Just a mention,that since I had read your other post bemoaning your self esteem issues,
please do note that at 1:08pm Los Angeles times, I corrected the mis-spelling of your name, 2 minutes before you posted!
Anyways fellow JREF member, have a great rest of your day!
RWVBWL

 

[Machiavelli]

If you have a citation to show that it's plausible we might see a t(lag) of five hours or more in the case of a small-to-moderate sized meal eaten by a healthy adult woman under normal circumstances with no alcohol, then cite the relevant paper.

This is still a wrong demand, in my opinion. For example I could cite you material to show that t(lag) is not an agreed parameter among pathologists, and only the emptying t(1/2) is agreed to be considered as a reliable parameter for measurements. Any calculation based on t(lag) instead of 1/2 emptying time would considered unreliable in principle by a portion of the scientific community.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I wasn't being facetious Kevin when I asked about ROLAIDS, but perhaps naive. If Meredith chewed a couple tablets of antacids after dinner---NOT an uncommon action--- could that have substantially retarded her digestion timing? What research did you find on this subject.

As I said at the time, I think it's an unreasonable attempt to shift the burden of proof to demand specific citations to refute every purely speculative theory you advance. If there are no witness statements stating she took antacids, no antacids found in her possessions and no evidence of antacids in her stomach contents then I think it's your job to trot along and find (a) evidence Meredith took any such medication and (b) evidence that the effect on t(lag) is substantial enough to explain a t(lag) of five hours or more in a normal young adult eating a small-to-moderate sized meal with no alcohol, stress or other relevant confounding factors.

(Personally if I was going for a Hail Mary theory based on medications, I'd pin my hopes on ranitidine-type stomach acid suppressors rather than buffering tablets).

 

[bucketoftea]

You're wrong.
Variables include medication, state of mind, the contents of the meal itself, posture, if asleep or awake, recent exercise, and the vast number of variations in human enzymes. You're very very wrong.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

This is still a wrong demand, in my opinion. For example I could cite you material to show that t(lag) is not an agreed parameter among pathologists, and only the emptying t(1/2) is agreed to be considered as a reliable parameter for measurements. Any calculation based on t(lag) instead of 1/2 emptying time would considered unreliable in principle by a portion of the scientific community.

So you admit you have no evidence to support the idea that a t(lag) of five hours or more in a normal young adult eating a small-to-moderate sized meal with no alcohol, stress or other relevant confounding factors is remotely possible?

If that is the case, then it's certainly a reliable enough "parameter" to do the work we are asking of it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You're wrong.
Variables include medication, state of mind, the contents of the meal itself, posture, if asleep or awake, recent exercise, and the vast number of variations in human enzymes. You're very very wrong.

You mean to say that you have found the Holy Grail of guilter research, the paper that shows that t(lag) of five hours or more in a normal young adult eating a small-to-moderate sized meal with no alcohol, stress or other relevant confounding factors is plausible?

Don't keep us hanging around like this, show us the citation! After all if you say we are very, very wrong you must be very, very sure of your evidence.

Or are you just pulling a Fiona and saying "I see that a vast number of things can affect a person's adult height, so therefore it seems reasonable to me that a four metre tall person did it"?

 

[pilot padron]

Again, why do you suppose that David Marriott's commitment to this case (or that of his firm) is "such a large undertaking". Marriott himself has said that his (and his firm's) assistance is limited to managing media requests and arranging media access to the family, coupled with some general PR advice on how to present themselves etc.

How much effort do you think this takes? I'd be surprised if it takes more than a couple of hours a week. Maybe during the trial and immediately post-verdict it took up to 10 hours a week, but maybe these days it's less than an hour a week.

But then, you clearly believe that Marriott is being "economical with the actualite", and that he and his firm are doing a fair bit more than that - both in terms of size and scope. My question therefore remains: what exactly do you believe that Marriott and his firm are doing on behalf of Knox and her family, and do you have any evidence to support your beliefs?

Hi L.J
Thanks for reply and also easing of my also self esteem related concerns about 'being ignored'.

I intend to completely address the remaining of all the issues you found hard to believe here as time allows.
The 'size of the undertaking is a new concern that I will now add to your list

In addition to my very lengthy disagreement with some of your beliefs pretty clearly laid out in above posts, I will address advocacy groups and paid bloggers as time permits.(and size of undertaking)

In the meantime, would it be presumptuous and overly self confident if I interpret your marked and unusual lack of response to my previous "lengthy" posts on the topic (heavily salted with unmistakable references to your post) as reluctant silent assent to and begrudging agreeement with same

 

[Machiavelli]

You need to show that we might see a t(lag) of five hours or more in the case of a small-to-moderate sized meal eaten by a healthy adult woman under normal circumstances with no alcohol, and you need a citation from the literature to show that.

No, I do not.
I contest your entry data. I contest your assmptions from their foundation. I reject the certainity that we can consider that as a normal "moredate size meal"; I reject the clause of "normal circumstances" (also because my theory is based on the assumption that Amanda and Rudy Guede or whoever are already coming at the cottage at the time about when Meredith comes in, and that Meredith is a non norml situation since around 21:00); I reject the absence of alchohol, because there is evidence of the contrary.
So I reject all the first three conditions that you mention as necessary for your conclusion. This implies it is obvious I am not going to take your conclusions.
Moreover, I reject even further asumptions, like the time of the last meal, which you consider as certain and equivalent to 18:00 - 18:30, while I don't. I reject the assumption that a 23:30 time would be necessary to fit with witnesses and evidence, and this is a capital difference between my way of thinking and your argument. Finally, I observe that you do not consider/ do not search in scientifc studies the possible influence on digestion time of further variants, namely: the subsequnt ingestion of other meal entries after some time, the variants due to fibers and kind of meal/food components, the actual advanced status of digestion (so defined in reports) found in Meredith's stomach.

 

[Machiavelli]

So you admit you have no evidence to support the idea that a t(lag) of five hours or more in a normal young adult eating a small-to-moderate sized meal with no alcohol, stress or other relevant confounding factors is remotely possible?

I don't know. I never made a research based on t(lag) and I never will.

 

[LondonJohn]

Hi L.J
Thanks for reply and also easing of my also self esteem related concerns about 'being ignored'.

I intend to completely address the remaining of all the issues you found hard to believe here as time allows.
The 'size of the undertaking is a new concern that I will now add to your list

In addition to my very lengthy disagreement with some of your beliefs pretty clearly laid out in above posts, I will address advocacy groups and paid bloggers as time permits.(and size of undertaking)

In the meantime, would it be presumptuous and overly self confident if I interpret your marked and unusual lack of response to my previous "lengthy" posts on the topic (heavily salted with unmistakable references to your post) as reluctant silent assent to and begrudging agreeement with same

Yes, unfortunately it would. My apologies.

 

[el buscador]

No, I do not.
I contest your entry data. I contest your assmptions from their foundation. I reject the certainity that we can consider that as a normal "moredate size meal"; I reject the clause of "normal circumstances" (also because my theory is based on the assumption that Amanda and Rudy Guede or whoever are already coming at the cottage at the time about when Meredith comes in, and that Meredith is a non norml situation since around 21:00); I reject the absence of alchohol, because there is evidence of the contrary.
So I reject all the first three conditions that you mention as necessary for your conclusion. This implies it is obvious I am not going to take your conclusions.
Moreover, I reject even further asumptions, like the time of the last meal, which you consider as certain and equivalent to 18:00 - 18:30, while I don't. I reject the assumption that a 23:30 time would be necessary to fit with witnesses and evidence, and this is a capital difference between my way of thinking and your argument. Finally, I observe that you do not consider/ do not search in scientifc studies the possible influence on digestion time of further variants, namely: the subsequnt ingestion of other meal entries after some time, the variants due to fibers and kind of meal/food components, the actual advanced status of digestion (so defined in reports) found in Meredith's stomach.

So, you're saying that Meredith was tortured from 21:00 to 23:30 and that stopped her normal digestion? Really, can you produce any cites from anywhere to validate this assumption?

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>The same above factors concerning esteem, moderated by my early training about the virtue of humility make me hesitate to accept (2).

LOL

But in the (unusual to me), absence of usual fervent rebuttals of people of persuasions favoring innocence (Politically Correct enough I arrogate?) I suppose (2) has to be more closely aligned with accuracy, and thus accordingly so conclude.

In my opinion, this is the case.

PS:
I have deliberately used a few of my "favorite 'marmalade sized' words" today in no way as an attempt to elevate self esteem as discussed above and thus not deficient nor necessitating self praise .

But rather an ancillary effect of this post to as courteously as possible counter the *personally perceived* slur from Poster Best who yesterday made lengthy aspersions about English being my 'second language' .

Forgive me, pilot, dear, but I don't think it's helping.

 

[pilot padron]

You mean to say that you have found the Holy Grail of guilter research, t

With all due respect to a poster of your longevity and one probably possessing "ever so" much more knowledge of protocal here...

I was admonished by another member for using the terminology "FOAKer" here. As a neophyte, I readily concurred that it might be, as noted in the exchange, probably no less offensive than the term 'guilters'

Was I mistaken about offensiveness, protocol, longevity endowed poster privileges and/or all the above ??

 

[Mary_H]

Chris and Rose, you two remind me of the nightmares I had in high school having to read fantasy literature when all I wanted to do was read things of a factual nature. I am afraid there will be a Q&A session of which I will fail miserably.

I'm with you, christianahannah. I read Through the Looking Glass out of curiosity, but it is beyond me to read science fiction or fantasy, or to understand why so many people love it.

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't know. I never made a research based on t(lag) and I never will.

But many, many research doctors have done exactly this sort of research. It's all documented, and nearly all of it is available online. And the best bit is: anyone can access it!

I imagine that you've never done research on the gravitational pull effect due to the mass of the Moon and its shifting distance from any given point on the Earth, yet you understand that oceans/seas and some rivers and lakes have tidal variations?

You may also never have done any research into the effect of friction on phosphorus chlorate, but you understand that when you strike a safety match against the striking surface on the box, fire is produced?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

It has already been proved that your belief on in "information leaked in order to shape puiblic opinion" is false. I showed how your ideas for example on HIV test had no basis in reality.

But that is just one of many examples. I have written a summary of this case, and here is an excerpt:

The authorities made good use of every opportunity to discredit Amanda in the eyes of the media and the public. One such opportunity involved a Harry Potter book. In describing her activities on the evening of the murder, Amanda told police she spent some time reading a Harry Potter book in German at Raffaele’s apartment. She explained that reading the translated editions of familiar books was a technique she used to improve her language skills.

On December 18, 2007, investigators went to the cottage to search for more evidence. They were desperate to come up with something that would support their claim that Amanda and Raffaele were involved in the murder. Among the items they found were a Harry Potter book in German. They triumphantly presented it to the media as proof that Amanda had been lying, because the book she claimed to have been reading at Raffaele’s apartment was found instead at the cottage where Meredith was murdered. The media responded exactly as the authorities might have hoped. In the US, NBC’s Live with Dan Abrams reported the story on December 19. Following are excerpts from the program transcript.

ABRAMS: More bad news for American college student Amanda Knox suspected of being involved in her roommate‘s murder in Italy. Now, new indications that investigators are finding more discrepancies in Amanda‘s story. She told the chief investigating judge that she was reading a Harry Potter book at her boyfriend‘s house the night of the murder. But alas, authorities have now found the book, not at her boyfriend‘s apartment, but at the cottage where she was living, but also where the crime took place.​

The program continues with Italian reporter Andrea Visconti and US legal analyst Pam Bondi:

VISCONTI: Bad news. Not only did they find the book, they found the book in German. How many people in Italy read Harry Potter in German? Now, Amanda apparently reads German. So she did say that she was reading the book in German and that very copy ended up in Meredith‘s apartment.​

ABRAMS: And she said, “I was reading it at my boyfriend‘s house,” which has been her alibi up to now, right?​

VISCONTI: She did. Exactly. So this is another lie or contradiction or whatever, so her situation is getting really difficult.
​

At this point, Bondi steps in to offer her analysis:

BONDI: What they‘re doing, Dan, this is really about the credibility of her story. And Italian investigators are doing a great job. They‘re slowly chipping away at her story. They went back in the house just yesterday and that‘s how they found the book.​

The crucial fact that the authorities neglected to mention was that Amanda did, in fact, own the German editions of two Harry Potter books. She bought them in Germany the previous summer. One was at the cottage, and the other was at Raffaele’s apartment. The police knew this. A German Harry Potter book is shown clearly on video they took at Raffaele’s apartment, more than a month before they found the other book in Amanda’s room.

 

[pilot padron]

LOL
In my opinion, this is the case.
Forgive me, pilot, dear, but I don't think it's helping.

Hi Mary

I beg to respectfully differ about the cause of posts being ignored, as well as the helpfulness of 'marmalade' sized verbiage

1) I am starting to get "flak' and expect more, so your conclusion there simply no longer has legs

2) Matthew Best returned shortly after the marmalade analogy, which was directed to him, with his side of the story,
After that exchange I now consider us perhaps not yet beer drinking' buddies, but definitely not antagonists flaming each other behind the iron curtain of cyberspace, so that one too carries no weight; it was *very* helpful

A respectful request:
I am just a little uncomfortable with your folksy terminology calling me "dear" until you resolve the real question of your gender that you were so very witty about somewhere else in cyberspace

 

[Machiavelli]

I note that you yourself are happy to ignore the views of these nineteen judges when it suits you - specifically, you claim to think Meredith was murdered around 22:00 not at 23:30. Do they not have better information than you too, or are you claiming that you have some privileged access to information that puts you on a higher plane even than the "nineteen judges"?

Actually, it is not true that all those judges placed the time of death at 23:30.
However, I do exactly what you would consider rational to do: my opinion on Amanda's guilt was formed long before the sentence of the court of Assise. My opinion was based on the examination of a large portion of the evidence. I did listen to italian discussions on the expert reports at the time when dr. Introna and other gave their testimony, and a did listen to the various argument from the expert testimonies on the different topics, long before the verdict. I was not able to predict what exactly the court would have chosen to put into their final reconstruction of the crime, and I was almost certain they would get something wrong, but I was able to calculate in advance the nature of the verdict and the prison time.
The fact is, this is what I believe, there is often a "good" reason also for the "wrong" aspects in a verdict. One thing is that a written sentence report is an object that can assume peculiar shapes, it is anyway not the work of an individual, it is the result of a balance of opinions of multiple people. If, to say, there are trhree, four or five judges who really feel they believe Antonio Curatolo, the other judges will adjust their theories on their lines rather than object to their confidence. There are various mechanisms that come into play when the verdict is decided. Sometimes there are also contrasting opinions reported in a sentencing report.