The Null Device

2002/3/14

The Proclamations of Emperor Norton I, the first and last Emperor of the United States.

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Boot, face, forever: An insightful Salon article on the push for total copyright control, and how it is incompatible with the Internet as a pluralistic communication medium:

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A public service announcement: Please instill in your children conservative valuse of dogmatic religious conviction and intolerant social beliefs... or your child may be one of the one children who join the Taliban. (via the Horn)

(The conservative "Godless liberal pluralism -> joining the Taliban" argument is, of course, absurd; however, one wonders whether or not there may be a weaker memetic effect, in the sense of children with no exposure to religion having reduced immunity to fundamentalist religious memes; I have heard of atheist/humanist parents who deliberately went to church with their children for a year or two to "innoculate" them against getting religion and becoming fundamentalist zealots. Though, of course, one could apply this argument to other virulent belief systems, such as Marxism or Objectivism, for example.)

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This is what Hollow Earth theory believer humour looks like. (via Psychoceramics)

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Strange: 25-year-old burglar from Wisconsin (the state which has produced more serial killers than any other in the US, if I recall correctly) breaks into Chicago Underground storage room, hides huge stash of cyanide, changing the locks afterward. It is not clear what he wanted the cyanide for, or indeed whether he was an admirer of Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein or Marilyn Manson, but he did have a posse of teenage followers who called themselves the "Realm of Chaos". (via rotten.com)

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A page of lore from the London Underground. Some of it will be mostly of anorak interest, though parts (such as train drivers' pranks, dead passengers and such) may be more interesting. And I can't help but wonder wonder whether Meg had anything to do with those "nasty habit?" signs. (via plep)

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