The Null Device
2000/7/24
Hoax of the day:A dedicated hardware SETI@home accelerator, allegedly based on surplus CPUs intended for cruise missile guidance systems.
Tension, apprehension and dissention have begun: The ten most annoying songs are in. Not surprisingly, Our Kyles is at #5 with I Should Be So Lucky. Though I don't get how Lady In Red is more irritating than that Celine Dion song (which one? any one from her repertoire, actually).
Heard today on the excellent Intermingle programme on 3RRR: There is a tradition in the butchering trade to talk backwards when at work, as the tiles in the back room reflect sound to where customers may hear, and hearing details of the process may put customers off. No idea whether this is true, but it's interesting...
Psst! Anyone want to buy a sofa-bed? If you're in the Melbourne (Australia, not Florida) area and can pick it up, email me.
Fight club, Brazilian style: Brazil has a long tradition of combining combat with dancing. The most recent manifestation of this is the fad of funk balls, large ultraviolent dance parties where slum-dwelling malchicks gather for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, egged on by DJs playing "funk", a local violence-oriented genre of music completely unrelated to the works of George Clinton. (via RobotWisdom)
According to DJ Tubarao, or Shark, as his name translates from Portuguese, a good funk DJ is able to manipulate the clubbers' feelings of anger. "A DJ gets to know his crowd because we play the same balls every weekend so we understand the rhythm of their fighting... I take great pride in controlling my crowd. If I see they want blood, I'll put on a fast funk tune, but if they need cooling down then I'll soothe them with something for the girls."
They start to chant: "We are the terror possessed by hatred. We will invade Side B and take the Germans. We want blood. We want slaughter. We want bodies on the floor." And then the DJ screams: "Attention Side A. Attention Side B. It's the time you've all been waiting for. Time for the Mortal Kombat." Moments later, the fighting begins.
A good summary of the recent JenniCam scandal. Now that Jenni is revealed in a less flattering light than usually, and many of her former fans are deserting in disgust, the party is probably over for her. Will Jenni become the Dana Plato of the Internet, forced to cater to a sleazier audience to make a living? (via RobotWisdom)
Trainspotting: Half of Melbourne's privatised railway lines are about to get new trains, with video surveillance devices. Judging by the unusual carriage count (eight) and the colour scheme, this suggests that they may be based on the old blue and yellow trains that were scrapped a decade or so ago. (And I thought all those were junked...)
In its latest attempts to recapture the glory of the Menzies era, the Howard government moves to bring back national service, albeit in a limited form, for unemployed young people.