Need To Know 2000-06-09

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"Presentations from the south [of Europe] were particularly dreadful... one spoke while the other simply clicked a mouse to show the next Powerpoint slide" - VANESSA RICHARDSON, on how Europeans don't pitch like *proper* Americans http://www.herring.com/vc/2000/0602/vc-pitch060200.html ... while I, by contrast, just sat there, writing it down >> HARD NEWS << divide by twos Splitters! The inevitable occurred, and following the distinct lack of either apologies or kool-aid drinking in Washington state, the assumption is that Bill and Steve are just waiting for Al or George to come to power, re-install the DOJ staff with friends of Redmond, and quietly forget about the whole thing. But given the company's blithe demeanour to political shenanigans (at the time of the announcement, Steve was in Europe, and Bill was failing to get a decent haircut), do they even care about creating a political solution? What Penfield Jackson spotted about MS was that they were "untrustworthy" types, happy to ignore the spirit of any suggestion if they can comply with the wording. And that means that given a legal division, they'll hack a technical workaround. At the end of this month, Microsoft will announce the details of its Next Generation Web Services. It'll spec out an API framework, using that ole industry standard, XML. It'll be a public API, just like the lawyers want. But you can bet that that API will be so driven by the way that Windows works, that it doesn't matter if you're working with the Microsoft App company or the Microsoft Window company, if they use NGWS, you'll be buying it from them, or a bunch of wannabe's desperately playing catch up with their specs. Doesn't matter who's leading the Microsoft twins when the appeals end: if they're given enough momentum, they'll follow a trajectory of exclusionary methods that'll keep them both lock-step in technological lock-in. Microsoft isn't fighting the legal damage: it's planning to route right around it. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2581842,00.html - Windows services? Web services? NT Technology? http://monkeyfist.com/articles/514 - RPC's considered harmful http://www.ntk.net/2000/06/09/dohcompton.jpg - straight outa Redmond! Like good entropian cynics, we were wont to disregard the SEALAND DATA HAVEN story as another fantasy invented by people who get their business plans from back issues of Interzone. But is there more to it than a Freedom Ship without a rudder? On the con side: the Sealand fortress, while appealing to far-off dreamers, has as much chance of surviving a concerted assault by international law and order as Radio Caroline had of developing a independent nuclear deterrent. On the pro: long-time Anguilla cypher-exile Sean Hastings does seem to have collected a Who's Who of Can-Do cypherpunks to assist, including Sameer "C2Net" Parekh, and Avi "AboveNet/BoardWatch" Freedman, and there's talk of satellite links and connections not just with tetchy Albion, but the continental mainland. And while we think it's going to be a little hard to construct a viable turnover from strong ideals and an AUP that bans anything illegal in customer's country of origin, we can bet that they'll be some useful publicity from when that RIP bill hits - not to mention when they host a Freedom Server, a FreeNet node, and a tax-free casino over there. But will the prospective libertarian clientele be too objectivistically correct to trust any state, let alone a decadent principality? Maybe what the deep cypherpunks say is true: you don't want a data heaven in meatspace, you want it distributed throught the Network. Tim May, he say: don't trust the laws of men. Trust the laws of mathematics. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/04/1742209 - and carry a big boom-stick, we'd imagine http://www.havenco.com/about_havenco/theteam.html - ooh ooh! brits with guns! And as if to illustrate what trouble small islands off the coast of big countries get into, HONG KONG is the latest country to propose banning access foreign sites that contravene local standards of taste and decency. Given that their nearest neighbour recently arrested a Net journalist and threatened him with ten years imprisonment for breaching same, you can see why netizens there are getting a little nervous. Why, if the consultation paper becomes law, the place could become as much an enemy of free speech as Australia! Free Net HK (no relation) asks if you could add your word to the campaign to stop the blockade. Ta! http://www.geocities.com/freenethk/ - free speech... http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ephome/news/newshtm/stories/060900n5.htm - ...or free rides with the cops http://www.nypost.com/news/5645.htm - of course, there are always ways to tunnel dodgy material into a country >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious http://www.491.org/projets/api/ open sources HTML, meta tags from http://www.debian.org/ ... - but by QA teams, too: http://www.ntk.net/2000/06/09/dohphoenix.jpg ... ex-boo employees now bitterer than ex-Wired UK employees, official: http://www.whatididforboo.com/ ... Times INTERFACE (prop.: R. Murdoch) gives rave review to LineOne (prop.: R. Murdoch) http://www.the-times.co.uk/interface/insight/story541.html ... "Irish Firms Find Security Breeches", reassures DOT.IE's newsletter ... MAXIM, 2000-07, p150 recommends boo.com as the website of the month. concludes "You can't go wrong" ... National press reveals existance of bomb making instructions on the Net (again), calls for a national crackdown (again) ... the secret of that special sauce revealed: http://www.deja.com/=dnc/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=628819541 ... It's the new bunderlife! http://www.mostxlnt.co.uk/2000/ ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful "Your Arts Council dollars at work" once again bring you a well-meaning Nathan-magnet in the form of TECH NICKS, a "a long hot summer programme of workshops, presentations and collaborative projects", from 4pm, Sat 2000-06-10, and initially based - where else? - in that very epicentre of Barley-dom, THE LUX CINEMA IN HOXTON SQUARE. The usual co- opting of open source / street-tech philosophies might make it worth a look if you can't make it to this year's YET ANOTHER PERL CONFERENCE 19100 - as could Matthew "Underground/ IOD / Webstalker" Fuller's plan to create the "world's largest human cellular automata" at 7pm Thu 06-15, with people with umbrellas acting as cells in Conway's "Life". Though we think he means "world's largest cellular automaton", unless he's going to be creating more than one of them... http://www.noaltgirls.org/tech_nicks/ - no "cellular automata " (or even automaton) to be seen http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2000/ - UKP75 "Early Bird rate" ends Saturday (members only) http://yapc.org/America/ - " get on the stage immediately, explain your idea, and then leave" >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering One of the eeriest areas of the Net to stumble on at 4am is the engineering nostalgia pages of the TRANSDIFFUSION NETWORK. A thirty-seven year old archive begun by a nationwide collective of schoolboys, maintained by the men they became, Transdiffusion collects the idents, logos, and general desiderata of long dead television companies. Essays on "the presentation manager as chef"; blurred clips of a junior John Humphries from the sixties; echoey MP3s trailing long dead shows; and urgent messages from RTE ordering viewers to turn off their televisions, in case the local powerstation collapsed from the strain - it's all here. And now, we're told the mailing list wing of the wider gang of obsessives MHP-Chat ("the list that discusses anything on TV except the programmes (idents, widescreen glitches, test cards, etc.") is offering a free copy of Volume 2 of the Tansdiffusion CD archive to its own members. Our correspondent writes: "It would seem uncontentious to flag this, since I hardly think anyone would join a TV engineering list in bad faith, simply to lay their hands on such a CD". There's no bad faith within 625 lines of this place. http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/features/kif_1.html - i think i'm going to burst into tears http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/continuity/continuity.html - 404 Errors of the Ancients >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista porn: scandinavians show you how: http://pornolize.com/ ... Microsoft Cellphone vs Apple iMobile? ... Billie Puppet! http://www.bugsbugs.co.uk/stuff/puppets.html ... breathe.com not as cool as they think: http://tsluts.com/?content_id=125 ... www.fuckedcompany.com ! Uh, I mean, Falco! ... ... http://www.mediapill.com/ the official slightly less amusing version of http://www.emporiumoffruit.co.uk/ ... will the British public ever tire of ingenious genre name generators? http://qix.lm.com/cgi-bin/fun/glamname.pl ... this week's reader nomination for The Real Nathan Barley: http://www.jamie.com/projects.htm - his N3 magazine "might be useful if you're attempting to maintain a brand identity online. Who isn't?"... DNA's earlier, funny work: http://www.xcalibur.co.uk/games/hitchhik.html ... Hubcap Central: http://www.ncircus.com/ufo/uphoto.htm ... the acceptable face of Flash *and* France: http://www.hahabonk.com/channel/index.asp?sect=0&movie_id=87 ... Yeah. Who *does* want to marry a sysadmin? http://www.fistfullofunix.com/index2.html ... the post-potato C64 WAP client: http://www.geekhaus.co.uk/recondite/ ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> the most fun in SO "BEST" OF GRAHAM NORTON (9.55pm, Sat, C4) likely to be watching for obviously faked phonecalls and the famed "Argos dog penis" meme [from NTK 1999-12-10]... a triple treat for would-be "Lone Gunmen", with docus on Marilyn Monroe's FINAL DAY (11pm, Sat, ITV), the "mass suicide" of a Ugandan Christian cult in WITNESS (9pm, Sun, C4) - the usual cover-up used to erase evidence of CIA mind-control camps - and thinly veiled Mel Gibson/ Julia Roberts MK-Ultra whistle- blower CONSPIRACY THEORY (9pm, Tue, C5)... oleaginous film- club spaz Mark Cousins now "owns" BBC2 late-night weekends, pestering WOODY ALLEN SCENE BY SCENE (10.55pm, Sat, BBC2) before intro-ing the funniest of his late-era comedies, BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (11.45pm, Sat, BBC2)... David Shayler the first "person with a homepage" profiled in ostensibly pointless 5-minute slot VIRTUAL ME (7.55pm, Mon-Wed, C4)... and Paul "Shopping" Anderson enthusiastically pilfers Alien, Flatliners, Solaris and The Prodigy's back-catalogue for intermittently unpleasant sci-fi EVENT HORIZON (10pm, Mon, BBC1)... David Duchovny, Sigourney Weaver and Will Smith are among the xenobiologist luminaries polled in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS: PROOF OF ALIEN CONTACT (11.30pm, Mon, ITV)... the creators of THIS LIFE (Mon-Fri, 11.20pm, BBC2) - a slot which could just as easily be filled by double episodes of "Seinfeld" - are making a new series about web designers, hopefully called "*No* Life"... and it's Rutger Hauer week on C5 - again - with familiar-sounding serial killer BONE DADDY (9pm, Thu, C5), plus Albert "Mean Guns" Pyun's characteristically bizarre Westworld remake OMEGA DOOM (10pm, Fri, C5)... FILM>> on the plus side, semi-ironic nerd-makeover prom procedural DRIVE ME CRAZY (http://www.capalert.com/ : another teen autonomy movie; one use of the most foul of the foul words; sneaking to introduce dye in the school water system; homosexual presence (multiple); cyber relationship; waste of a jacket in anger) does feature Melissa Joan "Sabrina The Teenage Witch" Hart - and is, of course, based on the Britney Spears song of the same name... ditto - partly - for Woody Allen's Sean Penn tortured-artist jazz odyssey SWEET AND LOWDOWN (imdb triva: "Sweet and Low-Down" by George Gershwin, is a song on the soundtrack of Woody Allen's "Manhattan")... Joely Richardson obsessives get their second trip out of the house this year, as David Duchovny continues battling the supernatural side-effects of experimental organ transplants in Minnie Driver rom-com RETURN TO ME (http://www.capalert.com/ : programming of which Jesus would not approve, largely due to Jim Belushi)... sounding like a Lee and Herring sitcom already, Ewan McGregor plays a character called "The Eye" (who likes to "hold bees"?) in bizarre cult-in-the-making voyeur romance EYE OF THE BEHOLDER (http://www.cndb.com/ : "excruciating surrealist dud of a film. Ashley Judd: her ass in the rain while she's washing blood off her back and calling out her dead father's name; a quick glance of her breasts as she is getting into a bath. Good shot of her right nipple if you watch closely")... and, finally, David Thewlis' GANGSTER NO.1 (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Passed '18' for frequent coarse language and strong bloody violence) is another gritty British crime epic, this time based around the plot of Goodfellas or something - a disappointment for anyone who thought the mistranslated-sounding title meant it was a Jackie Chan film... CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> the mutagenic weather brings a frenzy of speciation, with confirmed sightings of OCEAN SPRAY CRAISINS (spotted by STUART CAMPBELL, UKP1.89 for 170g, dried cranberries that "resemble raisins", available in great- tasting "original" and "strawberry" varieties), plus "limited editions" of CADBURY'S TIME OUT MINT CHUNKY (similar to Wispa Mint, and/or a giant Viscount biscuit), and this month's early contender for taste abomination, CADBURY'S LEMONADE CRUNCHIE, the ill-judged successor - if that's the right word - to the "Champagne Crunchie" [NTK 1999-08-20], and largely resembling a normal Crunchie that's been left on a shelf next to some powerful household cleaning products... keen Cadbury's-watcher MIKE GRAY also alerted us to their sending of special promo CDs to registered Wispa users, featuring a surreal 2-minute audio ad for Wispa Bite and what sounds like the phrase "shoes can be twisted tight for a satin flight stream"... extending our sphere of influence beyond the sweet counter to what http://www.esa.org.uk/ succinctly describes as "potato chips, edible nuts, savoury snacks, tortillas, pretzels, popcorn, pellet snacks, pork rinds, meat snacks and other snacks", we have positive reports of MARKS AND SPENCER'S THE [CHINESE] TAKE AWAY (assorted flavours, all UKP1.99) in Seinfeld-style cartons, and actually pretty darn microwavable (despite the lack of specific instructions) for those of us who love the reassuring smell of irradiated cardboard... while tipster ZOOT argues that "the pointless rebranding of all Kellogg's cereal products makes Frosties look like an appalling 'own-brand' pastiche of itself", prophetically coinciding with Kellogg's controversial, similarly Seinfeldian campaign to "replace *another* of your daily meals with a bowl of cereal. Hell, why not *all* of them?" (our paraphrase)... addressing the "frozen chocolate gravel" effect of both NESTLE SMARTIES ICE-CREAM and the M&M one, we're pleased at last to welcome the MCDONALD'S MCFLURRY to these shores (99p, participating restaurants only), currently only available in Smarties and Cadbury's Daily Milk variants, yet retaining the USA's weird outsized, square-shaped-with-a-clip-on-the-top spoon... and finally, scary-sounding new stuff that we've heard of but not yet witnessed first-hand: send us *your* sightings of NESTLE COLA SMARTIES, NESTLE ROWNTREE BURSTING BUGS, and a startling development in the static "Slush Puppy" market, ICE BLAST - a "Frozen Carbonated Drink" with the sinisterly alliterative slogan: "Feel the Frozen Fizz!"... >> SMALL PRINT << Need to Know is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that happened last week or might happen next week. You can read it on Friday afternoon or print it out then take it home if you have nothing better to do. 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