It shouldn't. We have 21 year olds in charge of heavy weapons in Iraq, Afghanistan and plenty of other places around the world.
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Finder of Lost Next-Generation iPhone Identified
- Thread starter sravana
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It shouldn't. We have 21 year olds in charge of heavy weapons in Iraq, Afghanistan and plenty of other places around the world.
Aaaand once again a friendly reminder that MR has an international following but not all countries and cultures use the same legal terms as California State Law does. They might refer to finders-keepers situations like these as something that would perhaps translate to "misappropriation" or "unauthorized acquisition", while reserving "theft" for situations where shady characters with mask, swag-bag, striped T-shirt and crowbar are the perpetrators.
It does sound like a reasonable thing to do since "theft" and "finders-keepers" crimes are rarely committed by the same category of people. A professional thief isn't going to sit around in bars hoping that someone will leave stuff behind (it could take years), and a finders-keepers-minded person isn't going to actively snatch stuff from people since they don't live a criminal lifestyle, they typically live on the right side of the law until one day when they're 21, or 45, or 80, and they suddenly spot some thing just lying around with no one in sight.
Imagine for the sake of argument that you had read an interesting news story from the alien planet Zorx about a guy who died from a water balloon having been dropped on his head, and since the Zorxians have a 20-inch fontanelle, that balloon just crashed in and short circuited his brain.
So, you go on their Zorx Rumors message board where people are discussing the case. You're not a Zorxian so you don't quite know how to join the conversation, but what the hell, you have to start somewhere, so you write:
"Hi, so was this manslaughter or negligent homicide, or maybe it'll be written off as an accident, what do you guys think?"
Immediately a lot of p*ssed off Zorxians who are frothing at the mouth from indignation pounce on you and go:
"Dumbest question ever. It"s first degree murder when someone dies."
"Really? Murder?", you respond. "Sounds a bit over the top, don't you think? No chance for, say, reckless endangerment? I mean there was no premeditation or intent or anything of the sort, right?"
"Oh man *eyeroll*, the ethics and morals in this world are going straight to hell", says another Zorxian. "Now they're making up excuses for this cold blooded murderer".
Eventually, it dawns on you that the Zorxians simply don't HAVE any other death-related legal terms than first degree murder. They've simply taken manslaughter, negligent homicide, assisted suicide, second degree murder and-what-have-you and rolled them all into one. Does that make you or them stupid?
Apple security gurads showed up at his house. Hmm, I wonder if they were trying to intimidate him.
An "eye for an eye" precedes the Mosaic Code by a few centuries, showing up in the Code of Hammurabi.
How about sending corporate security guards over to someone's house.
This is disgusting! Apple should be ashamed of themselves.
Stop bringing religion into this..this is so lame? Believing in Christ only mean you have admitted to SIN. and would try to live a life like Christ. I think apple in this case is lame and instead of pushing all these citizens with their giant corporate power...they should have just use this opportunity to promo the iphone instead. In my mind, they have lost marks for being a jerk!
It's all technical words for an underlying concept ie caught red handed stealing. Usually to obfuscate the masses by using legal terminology. Doesn't change the fact of the matter.
A few I particularly despise are the terms mis-speak and mis-step. Co-incidentally conjured up and used frequently during the Bush administration, which in plain english, means - I'd said the wrong thing and I f***ed up.
Oh and thanks for putting words in my mouth for a hypothetical situation that was never described to me in the first place. Therefore never giving me the hypothetical opportunity to give my point of view.
In your example I would say it's manslaught, or Zorxslaughter. ie caused the death but it was not premeditated. Yes I understand there are subtleties involved which would change the chargeable offenses list but none of those are the case with Mr. drunken frat boy.
It's stupid for him to ask the question, when he clearly took an object that was not his and sold it for profit. You're making it out to be something it isn't. Which usually the only play left when you've been caught red handed.
Pictures of an earlier prototype very similar to this one were posted on a Chinese website back in February. If the Chinese have already been involved by Apple a long time ago for making manufacturing samples and such, why would American pictures of the same product be the thing that inspired them to create a knock-off?
It would be sort of like a fashion designer spotting one of his creations in a store window and going "wow, that thing looks great, I wish I would've made that. Gotta go home and make a knock-off, nobody will notice".
So I can steal a car a long as it isn't a prototype and as long as I don't open the glovebox to find out the name of the owner. Good!
Today I drive a Porsche!
No, really. I drive a Porsche.
My hope is that cooler heads prevail here.
The kid screwed up. What he did was wrong. It wasn't at all honest. He had many opportunities to do the right thing and didn't do it. It was all about cashing in and making some easy money.
The engineer that misplaced the phone (if that is actually what happened) also made a mistake. He knows it. Apple knows it and thanks to Gizmodo, the entire world knows it. Since the engineer was outed, it's only fair that every single person involved in this gets outed along with their role.
People who are upset because Apple sent representatives to try to retrieve their property need to take a freakin' chill pill. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. They knew it was there (I assume through the GPS). Had Mr. Hogan given back Apple's property right then, that likely would have been the end of it.
No cops. No charges. No story.
Apple wanted it back because it was a prototype device with unannounced features. You can't fault them for that. They wanted to do it quietly and without the police and without charges. You can't fault them for that either. THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN BEST FOR ALL CONCERNED.
At this point, when the phone was not returned, Apple had no choice but to get tough, no company can have people pulling this crap. It's not acceptable. Apple has no choice but to take this unfortunate incident and make a point, so this doesn't happen again.
Where this gets messy is when this genius thinks the "right thing to do" is sell something that doesn't belong to him and make some easy money. It gets messier when Gizmodo thinks the "right thing to do" is buy said stolen property, and dissect the phone publicly.
The kid screwed up and he wasn't remotely honest. He should be in a certain amount of trouble for sure, but I don't want to see it screw up his life. Gizmodo on the other hand should be in a ****-load of trouble. They can't call themselves responsible journalists when they buy stolen property and when they advertise bounties for pre-release hardware. Calling those douche-bags journalists is an insult to journalists everywhere and they don't don't deserve the protection that true journalists get. (which I whole-heartedly support)
Let's hope cooler heads prevail.
The kid screwed up. What he did was wrong. It wasn't at all honest. He had many opportunities to do the right thing and didn't do it. It was all about cashing in and making some easy money.
The engineer that misplaced the phone (if that is actually what happened) also made a mistake. He knows it. Apple knows it and thanks to Gizmodo, the entire world knows it. Since the engineer was outed, it's only fair that every single person involved in this gets outed along with their role.
People who are upset because Apple sent representatives to try to retrieve their property need to take a freakin' chill pill. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. They knew it was there (I assume through the GPS). Had Mr. Hogan given back Apple's property right then, that likely would have been the end of it.
No cops. No charges. No story.
Apple wanted it back because it was a prototype device with unannounced features. You can't fault them for that. They wanted to do it quietly and without the police and without charges. You can't fault them for that either. THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN BEST FOR ALL CONCERNED.
At this point, when the phone was not returned, Apple had no choice but to get tough, no company can have people pulling this crap. It's not acceptable. Apple has no choice but to take this unfortunate incident and make a point, so this doesn't happen again.
Where this gets messy is when this genius thinks the "right thing to do" is sell something that doesn't belong to him and make some easy money. It gets messier when Gizmodo thinks the "right thing to do" is buy said stolen property, and dissect the phone publicly.
The kid screwed up and he wasn't remotely honest. He should be in a certain amount of trouble for sure, but I don't want to see it screw up his life. Gizmodo on the other hand should be in a ****-load of trouble. They can't call themselves responsible journalists when they buy stolen property and when they advertise bounties for pre-release hardware. Calling those douche-bags journalists is an insult to journalists everywhere and they don't don't deserve the protection that true journalists get. (which I whole-heartedly support)
Let's hope cooler heads prevail.
Apple sent security guards to try to intimidate and retrieve their item. Could you imagine if something happened to these guys while in the house. This was an extremely stupid move on Apple's part.
Apple should have called the police as soon as the item was discovered missing. Why did they wait?
There is plenty of "stink" to go around in this case.
I'm sorry. I thought the only magical property of bar stools was to make women look better. I was unaware they were capable of magically turning property that wasn't mine when I entered the bar into my own swag when I leave the bar.
Does it work only with bar stools, or do booth benches work, too?
Please provide a cite that they were "security guards" as you assert and provide proof that they were trying to intimidate anybody. Representatives != security guards. Unless you can provide citations, you are lying. They asked to enter and were turned away. They did.
Wow. That a way to make up facts. Did you even read the Wired article that is the source for this post?
Sweden has it, for one. Don't know about any other countries but Swedish laws were generally not created out of thin air but modelled after those of other more dominant European countries like UK, Germany, France, especially now that we're in the EU together and interact more.
Rough translation of the Swedish Wiki entry (this isn't the actual law text but a simplified explanation):
"Finder's fee is a reward sum paid out to anyone who has found lost property, whenever the owner can be identified and the item has been handed in to the police. The owner is required by law to pay a "reasonable" sum for reimbursements of expenses as well as a "reasonable" finder's fee. "Reasonable" usually means 10% of the item's estimated value. For items such as securities, bonds, stock etc, 1% of the value is acceptable. In cases where utilizing the found item would require the finder to commit a criminal act, e.g. items such as keys, credit cards or driver's licenses, no finder's fee is required. For certain items (my take: valuable items that are often out in the open and easy to steal), such as bicycles, scooters or mopeds, the police has the authority to set a standardized finder's fee. The amount should be so low that nobody is encouraged to steal the items only to "find" them later and turn them in. Apart from the finder's fee the owner is also required to reimburse the finder for expenses involved in restoring the item, such as transportation, storage or loss of income."
If you think it sounds weird, consider the fact that the US and Europe have different 'money cultures' where yours is disproportionately based on voluntarism. donations, tips etc. Your taxes are much lower, your social security checks and unemployment benefits are much lower, foreign aid is actually one of the most frugal in the world per capita even though it amounts to huge sums due to a large population... but you're also expected to pay much larger tips in restaurants than in most other countries, public TV relies on donations, and you always see CEOs of large American corporations trying to outdo eachother when it comes to who can hand out the most money to charities. The European system is built on the idea that people are ******s who wouldn't pay a dime unless they have to, so their good will is substituted with high taxes, or in this case, a legal obligation to pay a finder's fee.
So what if they were security guards? The guy was in possession of STOLEN property. What, you think that Apple should send their receptionist? For crying out loud, they're security guards not the Gestapo. Sending their security guards to obtain their confidential property is absolutely appropriate under the circumstances.
If Brian Hogan felt scared and intimidated, well he should! Furthermore, if a little intimidated is all he felt, he should have considered himself lucky because it would have been better than being charged with a crime and going to jail. HE is responsible for them showing up on his doorstep in the first place!
The smart thing to do, would have been to get it back to Apple as fast as he possibly could. You don't have to be a genius to know that this has the potential to end very badly. Mr. Hogan instead did yet another bonehead move and sold STOLEN property.
If Apple called the police, you'd be complaining that Apple was acting too heavy-handed. Why didn't they just use the GPS and send someone over to get it. Why involve the police in all this and destroy the kid's life, after all he's only 21!
Apple was going to get criticized no matter what they did, but they had to do something. I'm doing my best not to be too hard on the kid here, but he screwed up over and over, and THAT is why he is in the pickle he is.