The Null Device

2000/8/28

Creative ways of sticking it to The Man: A song about DeCSS, giving the algorithm in the lyrics. This is probably legal, notwithstanding the MPAA's highly-paid lawyers. (Ta, Graham!)

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Score! I found Swirl's The Last Unicorn at Batman Records for $10. I'm listening to it now; it does sound a bit like Slowdive or Chapterhouse; though, for some reason, the track listing on the case doesn't match the one in CDDB. (The booklet/liner is for the 1995 rerelease, whereas the CD is from the 1994 release.) I was pleasantly surprised to find a familiar name (Lara from FourPlay) among the additional musicians listed in the booklet.

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Civil rights groups take a leaf out of the Church of Scientology's books and attack hate groups with lawsuits, attempting to bankrupt them with litigation and damages. (via FireWithFire)

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Events in Melbourne: Recent anime epic Princess Mononoke, whose English translation was done by none other than Neil Gaiman (and thus should be more poetic than the usual anime translation) is playing at the Kino cinema this Thursday (August 31) at 7.00pm. This should be a must-see.

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The Internet gold-rush, that burst of high-tech tulipomania that hit in the second half of the 1990s, has had a devastating impact on San Francisco. What was once a laid-back, creative city has become ground zero of insane hypercapitalism. The steep rise in rents has driven out virtually all the artists, musicians and bohemians who made the city's atmosphere so unique, and they have been replaced with dot-commers, often packed several to a small apartment. There is very little in the way of slack in the new San Francisco. Among the holdouts of the vanishing SF, there is little sympathy for the dot-commers:

"This is a live/work space intended for artists and academics only. People who work in digital media are OK but no .coms. I'm trusting you know the difference," read one ad on Craigslist.

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The Evil Internet: In the latest development, gangs of young malchicks from heroin-soaked, no-go area Frankston are using the Internet to coordinate party-crashing raids, in which up to 150 droogs descend on parties for some lashings of ultra-violence, stripping the place clean and bashing guests and residents.

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Prediction #2: Despite the recent JenniCam scandal, and the cries of outrage across the Net, the infamous red-haired sociopath's fortunes will take a turn for the better, as the outraged former fans cancelling their subscriptions are more than replaced by new subscribers hoping to catch the titiliation and perhaps some of the bootywhang oozing over the wires. The audience will become more profitable, for a short time, but more sleazy; once the scandal dies down, Jenni may find herself having to choose either going out and getting a job or making her act more hard-core and pornographic to keep the attention. The downward spiral begins. (link filched from RobotWisdom)

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