The Null Device
2003/12/19
What a Crappy Present!, or, why you shouldn't buy CDs as presents, from the money (from major-label CDs) going to sue music fans and helping to marginalise independent music, to the fact that if the recipient likes the music, they have probably l33ched it from Kazaa some months back. (via Rocknerd)
Michael Jackson joins Nation of Islam, the paranoid black-nationalist UFO cult which seems to be a popular choice with Africa-American celebrities in trouble with the law (see also: Mike Tyson). Maybe if Michael Jackson's music career continues (and, given that Gary Glitter is still releasing CDs, albeit ones that nobody distributes, anything's possible), his output may get less bland and more challenging.
The PCs at a certain hostel in Byron Bay appear to be fuzzy with adware; every few minutes, a program named "Save!" throws up a pop-under ad for some product. Not sure whether they installed it themselves or whether it snuck in with a "funny screensaver" or porn downloader or something.
"Save!", which claims to be associated with some outfit named "WhenU", strenuously disclaims acting as spyware, logging websites, passwords or anything like that. Though, of course, any piece of conspicuous spyware would say that as well. Just in case, I've taken to entering passwords by cutting and pasting words from other pages, deleting bits of them and adding the odd keystroke or two. It is probably theoretically possible to write a piece of spyware that keeps track of pastes, cursor positions, &c. into a password entry box, but in practice it may be quite difficult.
I wonder whether the alleged yuppification of Byron Bay has extended to there being wireless internet anywhere.