The Null Device

I'm starting to realise that The Particles' Apricot's Dream is pretty much the epitome of the perfect 2 1/2-minute pop song. In its sparse, understated form, there's nothing that can be added to (or taken away from) it that could improve it.

And this was a song recorded by a Sydney indie band in 1979, which would have remained unknown to me were it not on the Can't Stop It! compilation. Perfection hides in the most obscure of places.

¶ indiepop music post-punk 0

"We have control of the mind." While research into human cloning and anything to do with embryos is watched with suspicion, and laws are debated to ban it, neuroscience is slipping under the radar, when in fact, such research without scrutiny might pose more of a threat to humanity than cloning, resulting in technologies such as electronic brain control. Computer God Frankenstein Controls may soon be a reality.

¶ mind control science 6

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, those fierce defenders of liberties in the online world, have just made it easier to be heard: they have opened the EFF Action Center, a one-stop web site where you can check out the issues and send mail to relevant parties telling them why you think something is wrong (or right).

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Want a Hello Kitty laptop, but can't find one? Here's how you can make your own. (via Reenhead)

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After destroying KaZaA, the RIAA has marked AudioGalaxy for death. The AudioGalaxy file sharing service attempts to filter copyrighted songs, but that won't save them, as the RIAA's modus operandi is to throw lawsuits at the target, Scientology-style, until they run out of money and die (or are bought out by a RIAA member and emasculated). In short, AudioGalaxy is, for all intents and purposes, on death row. If you've got some out-of-print rarities you want, you'd better snarf them now.

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