The Null Device
2001/12/30
From the Grauniad, 50 things we'll be glad to see the back of in 2002:
1 Fear of flying no longer simply meaning the fear you're about to die because of turbulence or the flaps making that awful schmeeee all-gone-wrong sound, as if that wasn't enough, but now encompassing the fear you're about to die because you're too close to the vortex from the plane in front, or some suicidal madman's about to fly you into the sea, or some thin-lipped fanatic's about to fly you into a major city landmark, or the bastard in front wants to blow off his own feet.
21 Pompous pronouncements which bear little examination. 'The world has changed forever.' No it hasn't. 'This has nothing to do with Islam.' Yes it does. 'Faith can defeat evil.' Actually, faith is part of the problem. 'I'm a fighter, not a quitter.' Bye bye now.
34 High-Rise Terminals: those ludicrous cod-Aussie upward inflections at the end of each sentence? Know what I mean? Want to stop it now, mate?
41 Corporations using images of mohicanned rebellious counter-cultural anti-materialists, to sell things.
46 Members of bands having precisely one personality trait each.
A BeOS power user describes his experiences with MacOS X, what advantages it has, and where it still drops the ball compared to BeOS. Interesting (if rather long). (Thanks, A.)
One year after breaking the CPRM story, the Reg takes a look at copy prevention mechanisms on PCs, and things are looking ominous.
The BBC has a piece on Pete Waterman, who has shaped manufactured throwaway pop music for some decades.
According to media curmudgeon Julie Burchill, two figures dominated 2001: Osama Bin Laden and Kylie Minogue.
I just found the nature of an annoying bug in licq: it gets the byteorder wrong on UINs on some incoming messages, which results in messages appearing to come from nonexistent users. (I.e., a message from user 0x1234567 would appear to come from 0x67452301.) So, if you get messages from nonexistent users and want to find out who sent them, just convert the UIN into hex and byte-swap it. Or wait for a fix.