Laurie (#102): As someone who lives in Los Angeles, you're wrong on this particular count. The L.A. jails are so overcrowded with felons, particularly violent felons, that virtually everyone with lesser offenses serves 10% of their sentence or less. Many people serve no time at all; they are often released right after they are booked because there is no room for them.
Hilton is useless, but she's actually serving more time than she would have served if she were a nobody. Three strikes and you're out isn't an issue here because she was arrested for a misdemeanor not a felony.
Yes, this is taking up headspace that should be used for more important things. No, I don't think it's being engineered by anyone for nefarious purposes. Ratings go up, networks make money, networks show more of it.
On the other hand, I thought that we gave part of the broadcast spectrum to the broadcast networks in return for serving the public good. This clearly isn't.
Yeah, wikipedia seems to be running full tilt away from the very thing that made it such a great resource in the past. The stuff I needed wikipedia for were things I couldn't get in a normal encyclopedia; cutting edge pop culture information, quirky trivia about old 80's saturday morning cartoons, plot summaries of doorstop fantasy novels so that I don't have to reread 3000 pages before I can start the latest book.
Wikipedia used to be the place for that. But when I went yesterday to look up what happened in Erikson's "Memories of Ice" 'cause I can't remember who the heck Fanderay and Togg are and why I should care, I saw they had deleted 90% of the plot summary because wikipedia is now supposed to " contextualise the fictional nature of the work" instead of do something, you know, useful.
The great quirky stuff is exactly the sort of thing that the idiots at wikipedia are trying to get rid of. Why would they try to be just like a print encyclopedia? If I want a print encyclopedia I can look on my bookshelf.
The NY Times is reporting that Kurt Vonnegut passed away today. I'm sure lots of readers of Making Light were admirers. I was always particulary fond of Cat's Cradle, myself.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2007 | 4 |
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