4 ms·

Top-40 audio engineers are not wrong. Just as you wouldn't format long walls of text and single short phrases the same way in typography, you wouldn't mix these

Top-40 audio engineers are not wrong. Just as you wouldn't format long walls of text and single short phrases the same way in typography, you wouldn't mix these two the same way.

dctoedt 6y ago
> Just as you wouldn't format long walls of text and single short phrases the same way in typography Topic drift: I hammer on my students that contracts are much more readable if done in short, single-subject paragraphs without long wall-of-words passages.
- golergka 6y ago
  I always thought that legal language looks like C code that heavily relies on macros after it has been through a preprocessor. Don't lawyers have effective ways to include and reference things, create standard definitions and procedures without pasting the same stuff everywhere?
  - dctoedt 6y ago
    > Don't lawyers have effective ways to include and reference things, create standard definitions and procedures without pasting the same stuff everywhere? In some fields, yes — but as a class, lawyers: (A) notoriously prefer reinventing the wheel, and (B) sometimes could be suspected of hoping that the MEGO Factor — Mine Eyes Glaze Over — will cause the other side's contract-draft reviewer to overlook something that the drafter buried in a long, wall-of-words provision. I see that happen pretty regularly. (In the 1990s I initiated and headed up a project for the American Bar Association Section of IP Law to try to standardize the wording of various building-block clauses for software license agreements. [0] The chief IP counsel of a Fortune X company [X being a very-low number], whom I knew pretty well from the Section, said he was opposed to having any kind of standardized language because, he said (paraphrasing), "I want to be free to be an asshole.") [0] https://www.oncontracts.com/docs/Rutgers-MSLP-Precursor-to-Gap-filling.pdf https://www.oncontracts.com/docs/Rutgers-MSLP-Precursor-to-G...
  - ruairidhwm 6y ago
    You wouldn't believe the lack of efficiency in law firms (much of the cost of which is passed to clients). When I tried selling SAAS to law firms, there was a degree of resistance because efficiency threatens the charge by the unit model. I no longer work in law ;)
  - xxpor 6y ago
    >Don't lawyers have effective ways to include and reference things, create standard definitions and procedures without pasting the same stuff everywhere? That could actually turn out to be worse. Take a look at a lot of federal bills. They're written like: 'In 8 USC 552(b)(ii) strike the word "foo" and insert "bar baz"' You then have to go cross reference everything for every line. It's a nightmare. If the bill was written in a computer readable diff format instead, that could be better.
- vagrantJin 6y ago
  Aren't some contracts designed to not be readable with long drawn out passages?
  - dctoedt 6y ago
    > Aren't some contracts designed to not be readable with long drawn out passages? From the oleaginous Francis Urquhart in the wonderful original (British) version of House of Cards: "You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment." [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJFiByfiRTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJFiByfiRTA

Top-40 audio engineers are not wrong. Just as you wouldn't format long walls of text and single short phrases the same way in typography, you wouldn't mix these two the same way.

dctoedt 6y ago

> Just as you wouldn't format long walls of text and single short phrases the same way in typography Topic drift: I hammer on my students that contracts are much more readable if done in short, single-subject paragraphs without long wall-of-words passages.

golergka 6y ago
I always thought that legal language looks like C code that heavily relies on macros after it has been through a preprocessor. Don't lawyers have effective ways to include and reference things, create standard definitions and procedures without pasting the same stuff everywhere?
- dctoedt 6y ago
  > Don't lawyers have effective ways to include and reference things, create standard definitions and procedures without pasting the same stuff everywhere? In some fields, yes — but as a class, lawyers: (A) notoriously prefer reinventing the wheel, and (B) sometimes could be suspected of hoping that the MEGO Factor — Mine Eyes Glaze Over — will cause the other side's contract-draft reviewer to overlook something that the drafter buried in a long, wall-of-words provision. I see that happen pretty regularly. (In the 1990s I initiated and headed up a project for the American Bar Association Section of IP Law to try to standardize the wording of various building-block clauses for software license agreements. [0] The chief IP counsel of a Fortune X company [X being a very-low number], whom I knew pretty well from the Section, said he was opposed to having any kind of standardized language because, he said (paraphrasing), "I want to be free to be an asshole.") [0] https://www.oncontracts.com/docs/Rutgers-MSLP-Precursor-to-Gap-filling.pdf https://www.oncontracts.com/docs/Rutgers-MSLP-Precursor-to-G...
- ruairidhwm 6y ago
  You wouldn't believe the lack of efficiency in law firms (much of the cost of which is passed to clients). When I tried selling SAAS to law firms, there was a degree of resistance because efficiency threatens the charge by the unit model. I no longer work in law ;)
- xxpor 6y ago
  >Don't lawyers have effective ways to include and reference things, create standard definitions and procedures without pasting the same stuff everywhere? That could actually turn out to be worse. Take a look at a lot of federal bills. They're written like: 'In 8 USC 552(b)(ii) strike the word "foo" and insert "bar baz"' You then have to go cross reference everything for every line. It's a nightmare. If the bill was written in a computer readable diff format instead, that could be better.
vagrantJin 6y ago
Aren't some contracts designed to not be readable with long drawn out passages?
- dctoedt 6y ago
  > Aren't some contracts designed to not be readable with long drawn out passages? From the oleaginous Francis Urquhart in the wonderful original (British) version of House of Cards: "You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment." [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJFiByfiRTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJFiByfiRTA