The Null Device
Posts matching tags 'life imitating art'
2008/5/21
Thanks to technological advances, real life is starting to imitate Second Life (not to mention Robert Anton Wilson novels); Russian government loyalists disrupt a Gary Kasparov speech using a flying penis, apparently made from a miniature radio-controlled helicopter. Kasparov, a former world chess champion, is one of the leading figures in the opposition in Russia. The stunt is believed to have been in reference to a griefing attack in Second Life. There's video and a photo here.
(via Boing Boing) ¶ 0
2007/8/9
After publishing a best-selling crime novel detailing a gruesome torture and murder, Polish crime novelist Krystian Bala has been charged with a similar murder which happened a few years earlier, the victim having been a friend of his ex-wife:
The case was broadcast on Poland’s version of the BBC television programme Crimewatch but it produced no serious leads — only some strange e-mails sent from internet cafés in Indonesia and South Korea, describing the murder as “the perfect crime”.
The first break for the police came when they discovered that Mr Bala, a highly experienced diver, was on a diving trip to South Korea and Indonesia at the time that the e-mails were sent. Then they discovered that he had sold a mobile phone four days after the body of Dariusz J was discovered. It was the same model that the victim was known to have owned, but that police had never found.
Mr Bala offered to take a lie-detector test to prove his innocence and passed. When the transcripts were read out in court, the judge was struck by the very long pauses taken by Mr Bala before answering, a technique that may allow a suspect to mask the physical signs of lying.Of course, that doesn't mean that he did it, though it does start to look somewhat suspicious.
Meanwhile, some light has been shed on another murder mystery, the whereabouts of Lord Lucan; some people, including a retired Scotland Yard detective believe that the disgraced peer, who may have bludgeoned his family nanny to death, is living out of a car in New Zealand, with a cat and a pet possum, no less:
Neighbours say the man has an upper-class English accent and a military bearing like Lord Lucan, who was educated at Eton before serving in the Coldstream Guards.
He is said to have arrived in New Zealand about the time Lucan disappeared and is also understood to be receiving money from property he owns in Britain.
2007/6/2
Life imitates Goodbye Lenin!; a Polish railway worker, who fell into a coma in a year or so before Communism collapsed, has just woken up:
"When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol queues were everywhere," Mr Grzebski said.
"Now I see people on the streets with mobile phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin," he told Polish television.
2003/6/19
Real life riffs off The Goodies: an Oxfam shop has asked donors to not give them any Max Bygraves records, because they've already got too many of them. The same goes for Val Doonican records.
"We love having vinyl of Donovan, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley," she said. "Recently we sold an Elvis single for £79 so it's a good market for us.
2002/12/5
Bombs found at Ikea stores in Netherlands. Police are reportedly looking for a travelling soap salesman and several black-clad accomplices.
2002/9/17
Life imitates A Clockwork Orange? A Victorian company wants to sell alcoholic milk. Named Moo Joose, the knifey moloko will have a 5.3% alcohol content, higher than that of most beer; if they get permission to sell it, that is.
2002/4/20
Life riffs off David Lynch movies: Robert Blake, who played the sinister eyebrowless cameraman in David Lynch's Lost Highway, has been arrested for murdering his wife in real life. (via Lukelog)