The Null Device

2003/4/1

Apparently Channel 4 have made a fly-on-the-wall documentary about Morrissey. To be titled The Importance of Being Morrissey, the 75-minute film shows Morrissey relaxing at home, playing gigs and (among other things) drinking and visiting a strip joint. No word on his legendary girlfriend though. (via Largehearted Boy)

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Ah yes; controversial Arab independent news service Al Jazeera's English-language web site is up. See it before it gets h4x0r3d.

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A list of the top 100 April Fools' pranks, from the time of Jonathan Swift to the present day: (via MeFi)

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Some bad news for live music in Melbourne. The Empress Hotel has been forced by Victoria's noise-complaint laws and the encroachment of yuppie apartments to cancel performances by bands who "cannot meet the stringent requirements demanded by the current liquor laws". Which presumably means they'll still have folkies with acoustic guitars (which is just what we need more of, isn't it?) but no actual bands with amplifiers and stuff. At least until they go out of business and get bought up by a pokie franchise or a real-estate developer.

I hope the people who moved to North Fitzroy for the vibrant culture, got sick of it and decided to turn the inner city into Nunawading or somewhere are pleased with what they've done. Cunts.

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If truth is the first casualty of war, dictionary definitions are a notable piece of collateral damage. For example, the BBC has been accused of bias for not following the patriotic party line of CNN/FOXNews.

"The Beeb is a mandatory government-run service staffed with the usual people who go into government-run media, i.e. left-wing hacks," British expatriate Andrew Sullivan writes on his Web site. "The BBC is increasingly perceived, even by sympathetic parties, as the voice in part of the anti-war forces. . . . How the Beeb ceased to become an objective news source and became a broadcast version of the Nation is one of the great tragedies of modern journalism."

Ah yes, the old Communists-in-the-BBC line. Didn't Alexei Sayle do a skit about that in the 1980s? (via MeFi)

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Relations between the US and Turkey are coming under strain because of disagreements over the northern front of the Iraq war. If this goes on, I wonder what will they rename Turkish delight and Turkish baths to; not to mention what they'll be having for thanksgiving.

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The latest development in Trustworthy Computing technology: NewCode, a programming language based on Orwellian principles. It is (theoretically) impossible to express security vulnerabilities in NewCode.

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I was planning to celebrate the Feast of All Fools in some way this year (I was thinking of turning The Null Device into a flags-and-eagles warblog for 24 hours or something), but I didn't find the time. Anyway, Graham has outdone himself. It's got topical commentary, Time Cube and Patagonian Death Gerbils; what more could you ask for?

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This evening, I went to see The Pianist. It's a great film; starkly realistic and profoundly moving (the acts of bestial sadism committed by the Nazi troops, for one); it's one thing reading about these things, and another seeing them in front of you. The sets, effects and photography were also very good, and the acting was superb. Highly recommended.

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