The Null Device
2001/12/20
I had a dream this morning just prior to waking. In it, I ordered a CD single/EP from a semi-obscure independent band from somewhere around Norway or Iceland. (Their name, which escapes me, started with 'C' and they were of an atmospheric/post-rock/shoegazer style. Their artwork used colourised photographs/textures in vivid oranges and blues, with neat typography overlaid.) The CD came with a mail-order catalogue; in it there were various albums/EPs they had out and T-shirts, as well as a new single named "Lily's Song" or something similar. There was also an album of that title, due to come out in 2009, so it must have been a preview. A page of their catalogue also offered a single from The Cure (titled "regret"), for some reason. (Perhaps this dream took place in the future?)
Tech journalist cracks Universal's CD protection, or rather discovers that its effectiveness is somewhat less than universal. Oh, and the Windows-based player on the disc required to play it on a Windows PC is apparently spyware. And they wonder why no-one trusts the recording racket. (via Techdirt)
The New McCarthyism: Dept. of Defense agents visit New York art gallery over an Adbusters "Corporate American flag" billboard they were displaying. (via onepointzero)
Tonight I went to see Theatre In Decay's Xmas In Decay show. It was middling; it had its highs (the Idiot Magnet performance, in which they did some old God's Little Accidents songs, and Lawrence Leung's demonstration of card-sharking tricks, excerpted from his show Sucker), and some moments of pointless self-indulgence.
(Some fragments of overheard conversation from the crowd: "blah blah blah role-playing blah blah blah blah Mortisha's[1] blah blah blah new-romantic blah blah".
[1] a well-known clothier catering to the sp00ky kids; (US readers: think Hot Topic, only without the mall franchises, and with really-expensive vampyre gowns and such.)
Here comes the DVD version of the Bin Laden "smoking-gun" tape, with more features and never-seen-before extra footage.
"There's only one place bin Laden could have gotten such advanced postproduction technology, and that's Iraq," said former CIA Director James Woolsey. "This is all the evidence we need to level Baghdad."