The Null Device

2001/6/1

Luke Haines, the man behind Black Box Recorder and The Auteurs, has called a week-long pop strike. Starting from tomorrow, no pop music (including all modern music) is to be made, listened to or consumed, or so the Lukester says. And to discourage scabs, he and some unnamed comrades will be picketing Radio 1. Haines denies that the strike is a publicity stunt for his new album, which, incidentally, comes out tomorrow.

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This afternoon, after Far and Wide finished, I wandered down to Heartland to see if they had any CDs I'd be interested in (I wouldn't mind getting the Robots In Disguise album, except that nobody seems to have heard of it). As I looked through the store, I noticed that the CD they were playing was really good; sort of quiet indie-pop, with plaintive, almost Morrissey-esque vocals and shoegazer reverb. I didn't find anything I had been looking for, but I did leave with a copy of The Field Mice's Where'd You Learn To Kiss That Way? retrospective 2CD.

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Speaking of that Coldplay song, that reminds me: on a train a few weeks ago, I saw some gentlemen in tracksuits and hair gel singing a version of that, acapella, with finger snapping. Now that's a scary thought: a Boys II Men-style R&B-vocal-harmony cover of Coldplay's Yellow. Who knows; maybe Baz Luhrmann would buy it for his next MTV feature...

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I received an email from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, in response to my letter about DVD region coding, acknowledging the points I mentioned and saying that my comments have been lodged in the ACCC's database. Which means that they may have an impact on the DVD inquiry. If you have a problem with being restricted to the DVD titles Hollywood can be bothered to bring out for Region 4 (or with the extra costs of buying US titles over the Net), it may be a good idea to let them know.

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That explains that "head candy" thing in my referer logs. Though how much of a target market could sarky bloggers be anyway?

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Oooh, nice.

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The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was unprovoked? not true, say the subversive malcontents at disinfo.com.

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The Victorian government is talking with private contractors about procuring 160kph trains for high-speed rail links to regional centres. On the surface, this looks like a good thing; though the PTUA (that bunch of ratbags) did warn that high-speed trains could mean the closure of smaller railway stations between urban centres, and ultimately could lead to the degeneration of passenger rail to a US-style commuter rail system, running only at peak hours to shuttle workers between dormitory cities and their workplaces.

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Clay Shirky on Microsoft's plans for an iron grip on Internet services. In short, they will be using copyright law to prevent anyone from using their SOAP services without going through them. Scary stuff.

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