plasticbag.org

Completely fascinated, and slightly alarmed by the ever-updated Anarchist Cookbook / Terrorist Handbook. Build a fire bomb if you must. But be warned – apparently Sulphuric Acid is quite dangerous…

Do you want to do something actually subversive? Then go and look at this. It’s a tiny piece of code that can descramble DVDs. Make it your e-mail signature today – and make sure it is distributed far and wide so that everyone has at least one copy on their machine. You know – just in case. [Read all about it: Descramble That DVD in 7 Lines]

In the article: Amazon.com readers comment on the Modern Library’s Top 20 Novels of the 20th Century, Kevin Goldstein finds actual comments posted by members of the public about books that are acknowledged greats. The comments are – pretty much uniformly – rather embarrassing for their authors. But the tone of the article as a whole is patronising and insulting. I am a cultured individual who has spent six and a half years in University, and I haven’t read more than three or four of the books listed on the page. Rather than sneer at those who do read them and don’t get them, shouldn’t we be encouraging them to try other books? Not everyone (and I include myself in this) will necessarily complete or get much satisfaction out of reading Ulysses.

Random linkage: 1) Willow?! Noooooooooooooooooo! [more] 2) Apple’s new Ad Campaign kicks arse (via Luke).

Online for a bit: plasticbag.org | cam.

Australia and Copyright Law
“Over half a century ago the English writer Norman Douglas had occasion to observe that ‘all mankind is at the mercy of a handful of neurotics’.”

I just popped out for lunch and grabbed myself a copy of Pixies: Complete ‘B’ Sides from Virgin on Tottenham Court Road. I’m now reeling from how wonderful they were, and completely in love with the CD which I now plan to play over and over again until my ears bleed.

On the pornography of news:

News is increasingly characterised as entertainment, but this only goes half-way. News is essentially a pornographic enterprise – and a dark one at that – repackaging human misery and destruction in easy to assimilate text and pictures – the content of which becomes swiftly meaningless to the audience, to be replaced by image and spectacle of collapse, catastrophe and mayhem. When did you last gasp at the news? Was it when you heard about an international summit limiting arms? Or was it when you saw images of earthquake damage, diseased people or identikit pictures of recently deceased people. And why the fasination with murder? More people die of car accidents and failures in the health service every day than are murdered in a year. The news packages up killings, and sells them to our worst instincts. News is rape trials and police plodding through fields looking for corpses – it is sex scandals and disgrace. It is all stories, and it’s a strange death instinct in all of us that gets off on it.

Whatever anyone else tells you, there is time for change. The election was a farce – we can make it right once more. The two lacklustre candidates that America was presented with need to accept that neither of them were right for the country – and that’s why the country couldn’t decide. We need a third candidate – an intelligent, able … sexy … candidate. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: Pacey Witter for President!.

Newsflash: Davo launches ickle.org.