Anton Maiden represented the ultimate in geek DIY culture. Using MIDI files of Iron Maiden songs cribbed off the Internet and a microphone plugged into his PC, 19-year-old Anton Gustafsson created energetic and excitable versions of his favorite band from his home in Sweden. His unusual recordings became a cult hit in the United States, mostly with college radio DJs and fans of “outsider music.”

Anton is dead at the age of 23, after being reported missing for over a week. His homepage remains unchanged, though this article has more information. If you can confirm these reports, e-mail or IM me. His death is confirmed (thanks Tomas), and it appears to be suicide.

High-quality MP3s of the Anton album (Allmusic.com review) are available, thanks to Dan H. Warning: negative comments about Anton’s music will be deleted.

The following 14-minute masterpiece is the pilot for “Kids Show,” a deranged version of Sesame Street developed by comedy writers Vernon Chatman and John Lee for USA Networks, but recently sold to MTV for a six-episode contract. The quality of this video isn’t very good, but it doesn’t matter. (Warning: Not for the easily offended.)

Watch the video: Windows Media, 24MB (mirror)

The Smoking Gun unmasked the name of the Cubs fan that interfered with a foul ball in Tuesday night’s Cubs game, and the Chicago Sun-Times printed far more information. The entire world now knows his name, age, employer, Little League team, and neighborhood. They also published a neighbor’s name, Ron Cohen, which exposes the fan’s home address, as well. A quick glance in Usenet shows that he has a long posting history, so we even know his likes and dislikes. (Update: It’s not the same Steve Bartman… Thanks, Jon.)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t he still considered a private person? And doesn’t the Chicago Sun-Times article tangibly endanger his life? I’d love to hear from someone familiar with privacy law. Is he considered a limited public figure by appearing in a public place and trying to catch a foul ball? I’d say he has a decent case against the Smoking Gun and the Sun-Times for negligence.

At any rate, he’s rapidly turning into the net’s newest celebrity. The Photoshop remixes are coming fast and furious… I’ve compiled a list of them below. (My personal favorite.)

Update: DPS notes that SteveBartman.com/org/net domains have all been registered in the last few hours.

Continue reading “Cubs Fan” →

Paypal has frozen the account of micropayment service BitPass. Scott McCloud, one of their advisors and its most prominent user, stated that Bitpass was given seven days to provide Paypal evidence that their service isn’t a violation of the U.S. Patriot Act. Is this because Paypal is genuinely concerned that Bitpass could be used for money laundering, or are they interested in shutting down a potential competitor?

Scott reported this information at this O’Reilly’s Foo Camp over the weekend, and doesn’t appear to have hit the web anywhere yet. Please let me know if you find any more information about this story.

Update: Abe Burmeister spoke to Bitpass and confirms the report.

October 14, 2003: Paypal employee Patrick Breitenbach posted a comment on my site, stating that Paypal reactivated the Bitpass account this morning. Patrick said that Paypal didn’t intend to disrupt payment process, and claimed the decision to suspend their account was unrelated to competitive issues. Though the End of Free points out that their Senior Manager for Biz Dev is speaking a micropayments conference next month.

I added a miniblog to my site, which will be a list of interesting links as I find them. Subscribe to the RSS feed, if you like. If you like this blogging style, Cameron posted many other great examples.