The Null Device

Manchester's Biggest Twat is in the news again. Tony Wilson has been suspended from reading the Granada regional TV news after unleashing an obscenity-laden tirade into a microphone which he thought was switched off. (It, of course, wasn't.) (via Rocknerd)

¶ manchester tony wilson 0

Meanwhile, ricin was found in Paris at the Gare de Lyon. I can see the murdoch headlines already: "THEIR COWARDICE DIDN'T PROTECT THEM", and such.

¶ chemical weapons france terrorism 0

1300 arrested in anti-war protests in San Francisco, Land of the Free. What's going on? A crackdown on dissent under draconian new homeland-security laws, or something more prosaic? Is it still legally OK for non-Middle-Eastern-looking Americans to express unpopular views in public?

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Revolution is not an AOL keyword, a pretty good Gil Scott-Heron pastiche. (via bOING bOING)

Revolution is not an AOL Keyword.
Revolution will not be powered by Microsoft on
The Next-Generation Secure Computing Base
And will not star Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee
Or Larry Lessig and Martha Stewart.

I wonder how long until someone records a spoken-word version of this.

¶ aol gil scott-heron humour parody pastiche poetry revolution spoken-word 0

Salam Pax: real Iraqi blogger or CIA/Mossad psy-op? This guy thinks he's real, citing traceroute info and email headers. Mind you, how do we know he isn't a disinformation agent as well?

¶ internet iraq salam pax 5

A NYTimes piece looking at the culture of away messages on instant messaging services, and how many users (typically young people) treat their messages like LiveJournal mood rings. (via Techdirt)

She said her friends often use away messaging as an emotional outlet. "One friend always has up song lyrics that reflect her mood," she said. Ms. Sanders has done that, too. During reflective moments, "I would be listening to sad songs and would be, 'That would make a great away message.' "

What's more, the away message "becomes a litmus test for personal worth," said Rebecca Blatt, another sophomore at Penn. "Writing 'having an awful day,' or 'drowning in a sea of tears' clearly invites a reaction. What if no one responds?"

And when it comes to sweethearts, especially former and future ones, away messaging adds a new immediacy. Those unwilling to delete a former flame's screen name can effortlessly if painfully keep track of a life they are no longer part of.

(Even if they never were part of it in the first place except in their fevered imaginations.)

Not that this is anything new, mind you; similar things have been happening on goofey for a decade or so; and then there are .plan files (remember those?) from back in the days when people used multi-user UNIX systems. Ah, that takes me back.

¶ away messages culture online unix 0

Everyone was joining in, including the guy who goes around with the "psychatric laws are absurd and serve organised crime" sign. His view on war is that religion is to blame, it seems. Of course, he must be an utter crackpot as nobody in their right mind would blame religion for war, would they?

¶ melbourne photos protest psychoceramics 0