Last night I watched Paradise Lost 2: Revelations on HBO. It was a followup to the powerful documentary that covered the case of three teenage kids who were convicted of the murder of three 8 year old boys about 7 years ago. After watching the second installment and parts of the first installment, I’m left with a truly disturbing portrait of the criminal justice system in small town America. The three teenagers were convicted (one is sentenced to death) based upon a coerced confession given by a 16 year old boy with an IQ of 72 (after 12 hours of questioning without his lawyer present) and the fact that they liked to wear black. For updated information, check out this Web site about the “West Memphis Three”. (By the way, I really appreciate the fact that HBO continues to fund high quality documentaries. They alone are worth HBO’s monthly fee.)
Mark Lowenthal has a funny rant about Amazon.com in the Washington Post, and it’s not about patents! Instead, it’s about all of the problems he’s had with getting his book listed in their catalog accurately. I know how it feels. Some time ago they listed some character named Krish Menon (probably works at Amazon.com) as the co-author of my CGI book. I tried to get it changed, but I haven’t had any luck. Who knows, maybe Krish’s friends are responsible for raising my sales ranking from awful to mediocre?
If you’re tired of Slashdot because of the juvenile level of discourse, check out Advogato.
Is it me, or did Real Networks just give up?