If A Tree Falls In The Forest...

If a tree falls in the forest but no one from the liberal media is there to blame Bush, then how did the Yankees do last night?

Sorry. The WaPo has a laugh-out-loud attempt to evaluate the Zimmerman 911 'Scream' tape which includes this headscratcher:

If you can’t hear the 45 seconds, how do you hear the 45 seconds?

Nobody can really hear anything on that tape, it's too loud.  But you can observe a lot just by watching, so maybe Yogi Berra can take over the prosecution.

OK, seriously.

Legal experts say the recording could be enormously important or disastrous for either side, depending on what a jury determines it can hear.

But what happens when a potentially crucial piece of evidence in one of the most explosive court cases in recent memory is a poor-quality recording of overlapping voices and unintelligible yells, essentially a wilderness of sound?

I think that expert testimony will confirm a juror's common sense - if the background screaming on the tape is unintelligible (my experience) and we don't have samples of Zimmerman, Martin and the 13 year old dogwalker screaming (we don't) then any attempt to draw a conclusion from that tape is unreasonable speculation and should not be admissible. The FBI experts brought in by the state prosecutors couldn't draw any conclusions, and plenty of voice experts explain why at their websites.

The WaPo finds one expert who hears Martin begging for his life. No scenario leading up to that is suggested; given Zimmerman's injuries I guess the theory would be that Zimmerman let Martin beat him for a while, then drew his gun, taunted him for nearly a minute, and executed him. I don't think that timing works with what witness 'John' saw (Zimmerman on bottom getting beaten ad screaming for help, and a gunshot very shortly thereafter), but who knows?

The WaPo also talks with the former head of the FBI audio lab:

Ryan is the retired head of the FBI forensic audio, video and image analysis unit. He said even the best audio forensic expert in the world using the most sophisticated equipment available would have a difficult time determining much at all from a recording of such degraded quality.

“I think it’s hard to scientifically say anything definitive with audio like this,” Ryan said. “. . . One person will come up with one scenario, one speech, one sentence, and some other well-meaning person, trying hard, unbiased in a controlled environment with headphones, will come up with another one.”

...

Ryan also questioned the basic idea that the age of the person or persons screaming during the 45 seconds — and thus whether it was 17-year-old Martin or 28-year-old Zimmerman or both — can be determined by measuring frequency, or pitch.

“To my knowledge, there are no scientific studies of pitch as an indicator or anything else in a scream that would give someone confidence to say how old somebody was,” Ryan said.

When it comes to emotionally charged situations, especially a life-or death situation, the range of the human voice is simply too wide and varied to correlate it accurately to age, Ryan said.

A 28-year-old might scream like a 17-year old. A 17-year old might yell like a 28-year-old.

“The science doesn’t help with a recording like this,” Ryan said. “There isn’t anything to hang your hat on.”

The WaPo concludes with a bit of broadly applicable wisdom:

Ultimately, the only answer to that question that will really matter, if the case goes to trial, is the jury’s. How it hears the 45 seconds, said Stephen A. Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University, will depend partly on the machinations and strategies deployed during the trial.

...

“Most trial lawyers believe, and most psychologists who study the way that people process information believe, that once people interpret something in a certain way, once they begin to believe something, they become committed to that,” he said. “And if they become committed, it’s hard to change their minds.”

That certainly explains the media coverage.

Comments

[Chubby]

Rick, would you personally risk investing in Linked In? I wouldn't put a penny into Facebook, but Linked In interests me.

[pagar]

LinkedIn may turn into the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I still don't see how spending money to buy a stock with a 670 P/E can be the best deal available.

Thanks to all who took the time to answer my questions.------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
"Obama has done to tee off France"

I would think by now most nations would have figured out that the only group that seem to gain from Obama's efforts are the MB. Doubt if France really wants that.

[Rick Ballard]

Chubby,

I was just curious as to whether there was a reasonable answer to Pagar's question. I don't trade stocks.

[DrJ]

Chubby,

I'm conservative with stocks, as I am gambling with the business. I'd wait a while to see how LinkedIn increases earnings. If they do well, it may be worth it in a bit. Right now it is too speculative for my tastes.

In a sense LinkedIn's valuation is a response to the dearth of IPOs. Very few companies go public these days (SarBox) and instead prefer to be acquired by a bigger player.

There just aren't that many companies that offer huge growth potential these days. So that leads to irrational exuberance for the few that there are.

[Chubby]

It appears that LinkedIn is listed on the NYSE instead of Nasdaq, where Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and all the other tech stocks are listed. I wonder why.

[Chubby]

I really liked that post Dr. J., thank you.

The only speculative stock that I have in my portfolio is small stake in IMAX which a friend whom I trust advised me to buy and although I haven't made anything on it yet, he keeps telling me to hang on to it. His name will be mud if he is wrong :)

[DrJ]

Chubby,

Thanks, but please do your own research. "On the Internet know knows you're a dog." I might be one. :)

And your risk tolerance may well be different than mine.

[Melinda Romanoff]

LinkedIn is like a Rolodex on steroids, everyone who works, or has worked, pays, in some form, to be a member.

Only "Social" media that works for me, so far.

Still trying to figure a number for it though.

[DrJ]

everyone who works, or has worked, pays, in some form

The basic, and useful, membership is free. I know of no one who pays for the extra services, though undoubtedly some do.

The money is in the user data. Strictly speaking I don't pay for that. Someone does seek to make money from it though.

[Melinda Romanoff]

And LinkedIn does, on the cheap, which is why it works, IMO.

[Ignatz]

I'm guessing all social media in their present form have a very limited life span as people will either tire of them or a disruptive unforeseen new technology will make them obsolete in a very short time.

[DrJ]

Right Mel: it would not work any other way. But "everyone who works, or has worked, pays" is not right.

[narciso]

Pattern I noticed earlier, I didn't know of this name before;

http://babalublog.com/2012/05/the-dangerous-mixed-messages-from-state-dept-regarding-cuba/

[DrJ]

You may well be right, Iggie, but one gets used to the user interface ("look and feel) and one has a large vested interest and investment into the software and system. It becomes hard to change.

Have you heard of Plaxo? It wants to be your address book for life. Same sort of thing as LinkedIn. Who knows if it will catch on.

There's lots of others.

[Online GED Testing]

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