"The only thing that prevents people downloading whole
movies on the Net is bandwidth in the local loop ... It is
not technological issues that prevent it, it is business and
political issues which slow it down."
- PETER COCHRANE, Chief Technologist at BT
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2637274,00.html
...although we always *say* it's technological problems
otherwise Oftel would - hey, is this thing on?
>> HARD NEWS <<
carnage ensues
Stuff the polls, ye sons of freedom! In a week when the
www.voteauction.com moved offshore (a site almost as
refreshingly honest as the Danish www.theburglar.com , but
not quite as mercenary as its sister www.rentasoldier.com ),
and George W Bush suggested that the Columbine murders were
caused by a child's "heart turn[ing] dark as a result of
being on the Internet", it's good to see one US-centric
election approximate to decent result. Sure, the ICANN
European poll was decidedly bent toward Germany and their
candidate, Chaos Computer Club's ANDY MUELLER-MAGUHN, but
the surprise hit in the West was KARL "I remember when this
was all Arpanet" AUERBACH, who knocked out Lawrence Lessig
in the final round. Possibly this was due to his arcane
knowledge of pre-IP protocols, but we think mainly due to
his incredibly commonsense approach to the whole DNS mess.
Like the man says, this Net thing can bear *millions* of
TLDs before it falls over, and the only way to smack the
value out of the few we fight over now is by opening the
namespace floodgates. 'Course, that's not what the lawyers
hired to keep the NSI et al's hoarded domains want to hear.
But when they go "wah wah wah, not listening" in future
ICANN discussions, at least there's a chance that the
meetings will be open enough for us to hear their wails.
http://www.cavebear.com/ialc
- hmm. he does *look* kind of bearish.
http://www.iol.ie/~kooltek/
- more polls that don't go as planned
http://planetquake.com/politicalarena/
- we want Karl and Andy skins!
So, the NTK staff are settling down to watch the Saturday
afternoon transmission of "Team Knight Rider" when, in the
Carlton TV area at least, it's replaced by a kids' gameshow
called SWAP TEAM, where youngsters compete to win a futuristic
currency called SwapIts, in what seems to be a Metal Gear-
themed redesign of "The Crystal Maze". Nothing untoward in
that, perhaps, unless these are the very same SwapIts that
are used to broker deals at newly launched toy-exchange site
http://www.swapitshop.com - a suspicion fuelled further by the
appearance of a Swapitshop link on the show's own site,
http://www.swap-team.co.uk/ , and, indeed, a Swapitshop ad
during the half-time break. Might that not be a direct
contravention of the ITC rule that "No undue prominence may be
given in any programme to a commercial product or service" -
whether in the form of conventional programme sponsorship,
paid product placement, or just promising to give them a
mention in return for a pair of boxing gloves and a bike?
http://www.itc.org.uk/regulating/prog_reg/prog_code/section_10.asp
- Ner-ner ner-ner ner! You've - got - an - undue - prominence!
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,16012,00.html
- "We are not in market for hype", says TIMES INTERFACE, in same issue that...
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,16028,00.html
- ...an all-in-one fax/copier/printer "could change the way we do business"
The Observer, 2000-10-08. John Arlidge reports: "Ten years
ago Berners-Lee wrote the electronic code that enables
computers across the world to 'talk' to each-other down a
telephone line. The internet was born and has grown from a
single website to more than 800,000,000, with e-commerce,
chatrooms and email transforming the way we work, shop, do
business, socialise and relax." Okay, we know that sometimes
we can be a bit picky about the technical details, so we'll
cut this down to one question. Why the quotes around "talk"?
Does this mean everything else (like "ten years ago",
"electronic code", "down" a "telephone line", "internet was
born", "grown from a single website", "more than
800,000,000") *isn't* some over-stretched flight-of-fancy
metaphor? Or is this weird quotation reversal, whereby
actually "talk" is the only word that makes any kind of
sense? Yep, it's time for another NTK competition. Send your
the "best" "examples" of Internet "explanations" from the
"proper" media, and win some kind of "prize".
http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,379162,00.html
- and no cheating, you hacks
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4070482,00.html
- although mild plagiarism
http://www.salon.com/business/col/shalit/2000/09/30/olympic_ads/index1.html
- is permitted
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
SUNDAY TIMES journalists create creature "97% human, 3% pig":
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/10/08/stifgnaus01001.html
... BUDWEISER spam 850 addresses with Blair Witch 2 ticket
offer - by pasting them all into "To:" field. No-one's (yet)
caused endless WHAZZUP? chain by hitting "Reply to all"... my
MIND - is GOING: http://www.ntk.net/2000/10/13/dohhal.jpg ...
THUS Ops manager complains about Scottish connectivity for
FREESERVE: http://x72.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=677159239 ... what
about the HUMAN RIGHT not to do *anything* we don't want to?
http://www.shout99.com/contractors/showarticle.pl?id=4574 ...
MP3 NEWS http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/m/mp3.html also includes
updates on Rio Tinto's DIAMOND MINE... http://uk.clust.com/
product catalogue "goes live in August 2000" - waiting for all
the other buying clubs to go bust at the same time?... FALCO!
http://www.pheasnt.demon.co.uk/MUDGE/ISS25/INDEX25.HTM - who'd
have seen that coming, eh?... http://www.sonypsx2.com/ points
to... http://www.perlscripters.com/ ... MIR to IPO: one market
crash you don't want to see... backwards-compatibility,
MICROSOFT-style: http://www.ntk.net/2000/10/13/IE2_screen.gif
... children's LAN parties: "there is blood", reports ABC:
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/GoodMorningAmerica/GMA001009Computer_parties.html
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
goto's considered non-harmful
"Is There Anything New About The New Economy?" asks the (sold
out) GUARDIAN UNLIMITED debate on Tuesday, though we reckon
they'd get some rather more radical definitions of the phrase
"new economy" if they asked anyone at tomorrow's ANARCHIST
BOOKFAIR (Sat 2000-10-14, Conway Hall, London WC1). As well as
numerous slickly-organised Powerpoint presentations on direct
action and the like, there's Rob Newman doing some alternative
comedy ("You know the inherently expoloitative nature of
international globalisation? That's *you*, that is"), while
The Stewart Home Society [see NTK 2000-03-31] will attempt to
subvert the subversives by using the event to make "flaming
hats" and "sex dolls" out of bread.
http://freespace.virgin.net/anarchist.bookfair/
- assuming it's not blockaded by reactionary direct-action
http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/
- notorious troublemakers (even by anarchist standards)
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/neweconomy/
- Smartarse answer: "Well, yes - it doesn't make any money"
Don't you feel oddly violated when the ICA starts digging up
your most precious teenage memories, running a retro arcade,
blathering about how "Computer games are having a pervasive
impact on our culture", and making you want to visit their
stupid GAMES - INTO THE REAL conference (10am, Sat 2000-10-14,
London, UKP16) just to shout "No, games AREN'T cool - not
compared to the things I really did think were cool back then,
like Iron Maiden" in their goateed new-media faces? Anyway,
because they're looking at "work which originated from or was
influenced by computer games developments", there won't even
be any real programmers there, though the usual roll-call
includes the lovely JC "Joystick Nation" HERZ (like all three
"Bits" presenters rolled into one), EDWARD "Playing Fields"
WATSON, and famed publicity-shy recluse PETER "ex-Bullfrog"
MOLYNEUX.
http://www.ica.org.uk/newmedia/games/
- "composer of the music for Tomb Raider 1-3". Ta-da-DAAAA!
http://www.ica.org.uk/talk/111179/
- though Matt "Yahoo Serious" Jones recommends John Maeda, on Thu
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
What we should be doing this week is an in-depth review of
BIND 9's new security features (with nifty DNS-based
distributed key management) and Python 2.0b1 (with nifty new
licensing). But instead, we'll just offload a backlog of
Palm goodies, in the somewhat desperate hope that you
haven't all traded them in for iPAQs yet. First up: the
continuing saga of IMETRO, the underground route planner that
includes every tube from Newcastle to Kyoto. Still has some
weird bugs in it - NTK's Silicon Valley offices are nine
minutes away from Berkeley, somehow - but probably worth the
download in beam-trading potential alone. And for those of
you who crave more Web-page-grabbers, and have already eaten
up all the sites accessible via SITESCOOPER (the *official*
NTK ripper), you might want to experiment with MALSYNC, an
AvantGo compatible conduit for Unix, or the more general
PLUCKER HTML reader which has been around for yonks and
works on Windows and OS/2. Unless you're too busy playing
with the multiple processor capabilities of Bind and porting
all your old lisp code to Python, you big fat geek
show-offs.
http://sitescooper.org
- hey, stick us in your man page and you'd be official too
http://plucker.gnu-designs.com/
- so many grabbers, so few synonyms for "grab"
http://home.worldnet.fr/~patriceb/Technique/iMetro/Metro-en.html
- le metro est arrive
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
scary new candidate for seven-headed BEAST OF REVELATIONS:
http://darryn-reeds.tripod.com/S-Club-7-secrets.html ... JULIE
"First Tuesday" MEYER not the unfeeling Randian we implied:
http://users.ap.net/~sheva51/memory.html#m-o ... IDLER imitate
ONION: http://www.idler.co.uk/pc/html/dotcom.html ... BLAIR
WITCH SCHOOL PROJECT: http://surrealist.custard.org/lego/dead/
... foul language, body piercing, killing Christ - it's THE
BIBLE: http://shanmonster.bla-bla.com/rants/rant61b.html - vs
http://www.jokesonline.org/ ... never "show your working"
again: http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/projects/ISC/ISCmain.html ...
NIELSEN RATING: X - http://www.oasisproductions.net/jake/fear/
... http://www.whitelead.com/jrh/screenshots/ - SimDiana,
SimRodneyKing... new AIBO is PROGRAMMABLE UPSKIRT CAMERA:
http://www.aibo-europe.com/en/features/index03.html ... life
imitates TVGOHOME: http://www.365television.com/production/
... well, they sound just like typical ORACLE 8i applications
to us: http://www.ora.com/news/feuerstein_1000.html ... and
finally: that's no copyright symbol - it's an EYELESS SMILEY!:
http://freespace.virgin.net/nigel.ayers/eyeless.html ...
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> exactly a year since its last showing, goof-riddled Bond
yawn TOMORROW NEVER DIES (8.55pm, Fri, ITV) goes up against
equally flawed HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING (10.30pm, Fri,
BBC1)... C4 steals the baton of Stuart Maconie's retro clip-
shows back from the BBC's "I Love The '70s/ '80s", with a run
of four year-specific TOP TEN shows (9pm, Sat, C4), starting
with 1990... and, after last week's "The Specialist", this
week's Saturday night ITV "mad bomber" flick is the wildly
confusing SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL (9pm, Sat, ITV) - followed
by hotly unawaited Denis Leary/ Sandra Bullock love-on-the-run
rom-com STOLEN HEARTS (11.20pm, Sat, ITV)... BBC2 acquires
staggeringly badly-animated Sky1 refugee ROSWELL CONSPIRACIES
(10am, Sun, BBC2)... hopefully Robert "The Human Body" Winston
will be using a sufficiently vague definition of SUPERHUMAN
(9.10pm, Sun, BBC1) to include Kevin Warwick... pitting BBC1's
first-ever "News At Ten" in a cut-throat ratings battle with
undifferentiated martial arts Bond knock-off JACKIE CHAN'S
FIRST STRIKE (9pm, Sun, C5) and Woody Harrelson's porno-biopic
THE PEOPLE VS LARRY FLYNT (10.10pm, Sun, C4) - latest in the
epic saga of "Vs" films that began with "Kramer Vs Megalon"...
Sky1 are currently repeating the most recent BBC2 SEINFELD
episodes at the almost-less-contemptuous time of 3am in the
morning... the BBC's "Webwise" campaign staggers on, with the
baffling http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise site accompanied by
Vanessa Feltz's NET RESCUE (2.55pm, Mon-Fri, BBC1) and another
beardie Bill Thompson TOMORROW'S WORLD WEBWISE (7pm, Wed,
BBC1) - nicely counterpointed by ROBOCOP (10.15pm, Wed, C5),
even if ITV has already shown it twice in the last 6 months...
if you're posting comments like "Why are they suddenly all
talking with American accents and fighting lame CGI aliens?",
that's because you're watching MEN IN BLACK (8.30pm, Tue,
BBC1) instead of ATTACHMENTS (9pm, Tue, BBC2)... and it's
boffin-vs-boffin on Thu, as Clive Sinclair tries to win back
the R&D budget for future UK PC innovation in a new series of
LATE NIGHT POKER (12midnight, Thu, C4), and nuclear explosions
cause instant global warming in black-and-white suspenser THE
DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE (12.50am, Thu, BBC1)...
FILM>> there's only one place we want to see that "Stuart
Little" mouse guy, and that's in Tom Green's mouth - put on
your best Atari T-shirt for "American Pie"-style proctological
odyssey ROAD TRIP (http://www.cndb.com : [Amy Smart] take her
top off: she hasn't very big tits but she's wonderful; Hot
Scene! A must if you love tiny perfect breasts!; Interestingly
the director intended this scene to be the modern version of
Phoebe Cates' classic topless walk in Fast Times at Ridgemont
High - it doesn't even come close)... doesn't seem to be any
extra footage in this DVD-promoting re-release - like you need
an excuse to re-recite all the dialogue to THIS IS SPINAL TAP
(imdb: docu-drama /parody /spoof /heavy-metal /urban-legend
/independent-film /spontaneous-combustion /fake-documentary
/washed-out /fictional-band /music)... Disney combine "Walking
With Dinosaurs" and "The Lion King" in CGI-animated historo-
travesty DINOSAUR (http://www.capalert.com : since the period
of Dinosaur is between Creation and the Garden of Eden, no one
knows for sure how predator/prey aggression manifested itself,
if at all; this movie may challenge or complicate your young
child's separation of fantasy and reality, [...] especially
when they try to separate fact from fiction with regards to
the theory of evolution)... Jet-Li doesn't exactly come across
as a younger, sprightlier Jackie Chan in straight-to-video-ish
pseudo-Hong-Kong wirework actioner ROMEO MUST DIE (imdb: afro-
american / body-landing-on-car / chinese-american / helicopter
/ jailbreak / gang / interracial-romance / hong-kong / san-
francisco / impalement / interracial / x-rayed-skeleton /
chinese-mafia / video-game / asian-american / amazing-grace-
hymn / betrayal / desert-eagle / martial-arts / real-estate /
murder / revenge)... and not much mirth, oddly, in tragic-love
period drama THE HOUSE OF MIRTH (http://www.bbfc.co.uk: Passed
'PG' for mild language, violence and drugs use): Dan Aykroyd,
Gillian "X Files" Anderson, and fellow ginger Eric Stoltz -
together at last!...
FEAR OF A BLANK NAPSTER>> obviously the time comes when you've
downloaded every record you ever owned (or wanted to own) (or
just heard on the radio) (or whatever), so we've taken to
populating our "Hot List" with tracks that either weren't
released over here, or no-one heard of them when they did:
BELLATRIX's "Jediwannabe" - the Icelandic Star Wars-themed
hybrid of Hole's "Celebrity Skin" and Amii Stewart's "Knock On
Wood"; BT's ranting big-beat workout "Never Gonna Come Back
Down" from the soundtrack of "Gone In 60 Seconds"; DYNAMITE
HACK's acoustic cover of NWA's "Boys In The Hood"; and, in the
retro dept, BILLY BRAGG's 1986 B-side spoken word version of
"Don't Walk Away Renee". Oh, and if you want to hear ROBBIE
WILLIAMS say "sodomy", you need the 4:45 version of "Kids" -
not the 4:46 version from Kylie's album or the 3:32 edit from
what seems to be the US release... speaking of censorship,
it's a fine line between sexism and sexy: GEORGE OVERTON noted
that CYPRESS HILL "aren't allowed to say 'bitch' in their vid
of 'You Can't Get the Best of Me'", despite MEREDITH BROOKS
having had a major airplay hit in 1997 with a song with
"Bitch" as its title... Top Of The Pops didn't bleep Ali G's
"punani" from the beginning of MADONNA's "Music", even though
MTV did, implying that you need a certain degree of MTV-
viewing sophistication to be offended by it... while MATHEW
"KUJI" BEVAN enthused that Radio 1 left "the umpteen 'Shit's
in" EMINEM's ace "Stan" (sample comes from Dido's "Thank-You",
3:45, not as good), even when playing at 10am - yet alleged
that MTV cut the word "trees" from WYCLIFFE AND THE ROCK's "It
Doesn't Matter", suspecting "garden full of trees" to be an
oblique drugs reference. He found the track's computer voice
saying 'It doesn't matter' "awfully reminiscent" of "the Amiga
speech synthesiser"... his mind warped by endless analogies
between our modern internet and the Victorian telegraph, TOM
STANDAGE proposed a variation on our usual soundalikes game,
arguing: "Lots of TV ads were obviously storyboarded with a
particular track, but when it came to getting permission to
use it, it was either too expensive or refused altogether. So
then the agency gets someone to throw together a similar-
sounding rip-off at the same tempo that sounds the same to the
suits anyway". He cites such well-researched examples as "some
crappy car ad that was obviously supposed to have 'Kashmir'
(or PUFF DADDY's version thereof) but now has a rip-off
version instead; a cosmetics ad that used to have FIONA APPLE
but now has an imitation; and - well, no doubt you know of far
more examples than I do". Well, not off the top of our heads,
Tom, but we're open to suggestions - this could be the new
playing "Dark Side Of The Moon" over "The Wizard Of Oz"!...
and finally, Idler regular MATTHEW DE ABAITUA spotted child
techno-prodigy DANIEL PEMBERTON [see NTK 2000-09-08] "at this
year's Big Chill, gadding about clad in a white boiler suit,
decorated with hand-stencilled Ghostbusters logo. His DJ set
brought much-needed humour to the peaceful yet somewhat
earnest festival. When he fluffed a mix, he leapt three feet
in the air and yelped like a startled comedy cat". Have *you*
witnessed Daniel Pemberton - or Toby Slater, or David
McCandless even - in a novelty DJ performance, while dressed
as a 1980s film character? If so, let us know - we're ready
to believe you...
>> 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. It is compiled by NTK from stuff they get sent.
Registered at the Post Office as
"popular in the smoking carriage of the 08:59 to Birmingham New Street"
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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