Need To Know 2001-02-02

archive

"What Microsoft has done is as close to my mission statement as anything I've seen. They're making it as easy to buy music as it is to steal it." http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-4684177.html - JAY SAMIT, VP at EMI Group ...and as a record exec, of course I do both >> HARD NEWS << got you Despite support by such legal heavyweights as CAROL VORDERMAN and ZDNET NEWS, an amendment to permit entrapment of suspected online chat crims didn't pass muster in the Lords this Wednesday - possibly because it'd have breached Article 6 of that pesky EuroConventionoHumanoRightso. But who needs laws when the febrile Interweb permits all? To a paranoid eye, everything online was a trap this week. Take the boast by 192.com that they'd bought half of THE BIG BREACH's first printing, and were set on distributing it to their 650,000 users. Very laudable: except wasn't it 192.com who were this year's runner-up in the Big Brother Awards for "Most Invasive Company"? This honour was bestowed thanks to their habit of storing data on almost everyone in the country, and a curious phrase in their privacy policy that states "While i-CD Publishing is committed to your privacy, we cannot guarantee that your private communications and other personally identifiable information will never be disclosed in ways not described by this policy". And you know, we can't help feeling that composing a database of 10,000 known "subversives" wouldn't be worth something to *someone* around here... http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2001/4/ns-20571.html - Richard Whiteley, Gyles Brandreth have yet to comment http://www.192.com/beta/products.cfm?icdaction=details&item_id=19 - they can't silence us all, can th- http://www.thebigbreach.com/ - Mr Bond, I believe you have already met our little "guestbook" And even if MI6 aren't entrapping, those unsurprisingly competitive mites in the cut-throat world of comping (with which we are currently obsessed) are getting damn close with it. Hark to DOTCOMPER.CO.UK's bitchy attack this week on COMPINGQUEEN - both hawking commercial competition newsletters - in the uk.rec.competitions newsgroups. Dot accused Queen of stealing comps, and to prove it, secreted false "ringer" compos within their newsletter. Queen, naturally, went on to post the fake competitions as teasers for her 40UKP a year newsletter.Only slightly more puzzling than why such seasoned quiz buffs had spotted the fake ones ("Fair Play Cruises: First letters of answers spell JUDAS"), was why either company thought the uk.rec.competitions regulars would give a blank - given that so many comps were nicked from the froups. A few even referred to "the darker side of comping". Leaving both companies struggling to complete this common phrase or saying: Information seeks to be _____? http://www.deja.com/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=721688271 - last of the summer whines But there's one place we can start tackling all this criminality - with those pesky kids! Based on the rigorous screening process that is the National Cycling Proficiency Exam, left- leaning thinktank THE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH have proposed a "surfing proficiency test", where kids would airily prove that they know how to avoid porn before being allowed to browse by themselves - a scheme currently backed by Internet Magazine and old-school Pipex dude Bill Thompson (perhaps under the impression that it will include a written exam on Apache configs and obscure RFCs). On behalf of smartarse-kids-who-know-more-than-their -teachers everywhere, NTK wholeheartedly supports this alternative-to-censorship initiative, and has several suggestions for the test already: Did you "look both ways" to make sure no adults were around before searching for "XXX passwords"? Or, more pertinently, do you know not to use the search term "amateur" (as in "dramatics" or "astronomy") on altavista.co.uk, as this automatically starts feeding you banner ads for sex sites? http://www.internet-magazine.com/news/view.asp?id=840 - remember: if it asks "Are you over 18?", you just say "No" http://www.allatsea.demon.co.uk/cycling/ - intensive 6-week course on carrying luggage, slowing down >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious "If I had a pound for everyone who vists this site - wait a minute, I do!" http://www.ntk.net/2001/02/02/handdoh.gif ... REDHAT getting hang of Apache: http://updates.redhat.com/ ... sure, the Beasties' SABOTAGE is exciting - but Hitchcockian? http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004CPN5/ ... rate our STATS: http://www.dooyoo.de/dooyoo.ukstat/Dec_2000.HTML ... when oh when will the public tire of INAPPROPRIATE BANNER ADS: http://www.ntk.net/2001/02/02/frankendoh.jpg ... feeding him KALAKUKKO? http://jobsearch.monster.co.uk/jobs/9412162.asp ... "love the GIANT PUBIC LICE, Peter - where'd you get them?" http://www.dome2000.co.uk/assetsale/zones.html ... news in PIKACHU: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1145000/1145813.stm ... ENGLAND "too small for Salon to hold a meeting there", brags http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,41406-2,00.html - forgetting http://www.ntk.net/?back=archive99/now0108.txt ... radical new journalism forum http://www.spiked-online.com/ "should work with Internet Explorer versions 5.0 and upwards"... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful FIRST TUESDAY LONDON, evidently still going strong, mailed its UK subscribers this week with an invitation to the "The Future of TV", followed by 60 lines of uuencoded text - their "most cryptic announcement to date", quipped one NTK reader. Those who did eventually decipher the message learned that the future of TV seems to be boring old broadband convergence (again), extensively discussed by the gang at a secret central London location on Tue 2001-02-06 (UKP10, you probably need to be "invited" or something, but somehow we doubt they'll be turning people away). Of course, that just happens to be the same night as the London leg of the ITC's 2001 FARADAY LECTURE, rumoured by boy-inventor (and Britain's best Yahoo Serious impersonator) Matt "Blackbelt" Jones to feature "Dr Johnny and his holographic TV" (6pm, Tue 2001-02-06, Wed 2001- 02-07, Sadlers Wells, London). Not one to be left out, PROF KEVIN WARWICK continues his tireless efforts to warn of the imminent meccano apocalypse by asking "What is Intelligence?" at the Old Town Hall, Reading (Tue 2001-02-06, UKP5) - a series launched last week by PROFESSOR SUSAN GREENFIELD, who's made a bit of a habit out of encouraging people to listen to the master of cyborgs recently, almost as if some neurological implant was controlling... well, we've said enough. http://www.firsttuesday.com/EventDetail.asp?id=374 - "David Docherty? I thought we'd booked David _Duchovny_!" http://www.faraday.org.uk/faraday/default.htm - Cardiff, Glasgow, Bristol, Jersey: everyone's talking about 3DTV http://www.rdg.ac.uk/ContEd/thl.htm - see also Feb 20th's "The Future In Science Fiction" http://www.c-realevents.demon.co.uk/ - pedal-powered convention for the hardcore steampunk fans >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Continuing our theme of stuff-I-bet-you'll-say-you-could do-with-a-Perl-two-liner-but-must-continue-to-amaze-Windows -users is the unnecessarily good EGENIE, a dialog box that pipes messages through to Genie's free Web->SMS gateway, without that finickety Web bit. Credit to Richard Lawrence for actually writing the thing, with the sort of attention to detail that means that, yes, you can use your Outlook Contacts with it, and yes, you can multiple-mail and break up messages automatically. Extra points for Richard's combative approach mailing list accusations that this is "ideal for spamming SMS" by elegant defences that begin "Actually, I am that 'smartarse'". http://egenie.wibble.org.uk - smartarses, we like And just in time for LinuxWorld: Veghead's fine, fine, fine kernel-embedded middle-management emulator for Linux 2.4. 11KB of totally unnecessary, dangerously insecure and poorly justified code which simply demands to be run in kernelspace. Comments to /dev/bollocks at: http://www.squirrel.co.uk/veghead/software/bollocks/ - transform impactful bandwidth! >> MEMEPOOL << haross lycos whois aoltimewarneryahoo.com ... FRESHMEAT in a Nutshell: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/01/31/2352210&cid=39 ... http://www.consultants-conference.de/media/kpmgsong.mp3 vs http://www.phrenetic.org/mp3/kpmg_jungle.mp3 ... life imitates HAIKU ERROR meme: http://zpin.com/viao.jpg ... put the bat DOWN: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1104979102 ... apparently, they can get you for "impersonating a police officer": http://www.ukcop.net/ ... the "c" stands for "COFFEE", of course: http://c-cup.com/linux/ ... I feel so DIRTY: http://www.planet.com/dirtweb/search/dirtsrc3.html ... solution to global warming riots is better AIR CONDITIONING: http://news.excite.com/news/r/010129/17/health-warming ... ICQ 51083014 ... NOKIA racing... evangelists imitate SIMPSONS: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/002/1.28.html ... "hang on - these files are encrypted, it could take a few minutes": http://www.barrykirkey.com/i.audio.htm ... license to be cypherpunk http://www.cypherspace.org/CPL/... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> humourless diarist Adrian Mole goes through his second regeneration in THE CAPPUCCINO YEARS (9.30pm, Fri, BBC1) - hopefully C4 will compete with a follow-up series, set 18 years later, of "Teenage Health Freak"... Tom Cruise and the Blade Runner unicorn frolic through Ridley Scott's extended Timotei ad LEGEND (7.40pm, Sat, BBC1)... and it appears to be "Sex Week" on Channel4 - for a change - kicking off with SEX: THE ANNABEL CHONG STORY (11.10pm, Sat, C4) - as we pointed out in NTK 2000-04-21, 251 guys no longer constitute "The World's Biggest Gang Bang" - then continuing with KAMA SUTRA: A TALE OF LOVE (10pm, Sun, C4), WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (10pm, Mon, C4), BETTER SEX (10pm, Tue, C4), PRIVATE PARTS: THE CLITORIS UNCOVERED (11.05pm, Tue, C4), gender-reassignment gameshow BOY MEETS GIRL (9pm, Tue, C4), cross-dressing French film MA VIE EN ROSE (12.05am, Tue, C4), POSITION IMPOSSIBLE (9pm, Wed, C4) and a double SEX IN THE CITY (10pm, Wed, C4) - all rounded off with the powerfully erotic, probing, questing presence of THE MARK THOMAS PRODUCT (11.20pm, Wed, C4)... the best C5 can come up with is "Murder Week", featuring Renee Zellweger polygraph psycho-thriller LIAR (9pm, Sun, C5) - written and directed by the "Good Vs Evil" Pate Brothers, mafia yawn GOODFELLAS (10pm, Mon, C5), plus Rutger Hauer regular THE HITCHER (9pm, Thu, C5)... after extensively indulging the "Lost Civilisations" theorising of Graham Hancock, C4 seem to be being a bit more skeptical about the "Was God An Astronaut?" claims of THE REAL ERICH VON DANIKEN (9pm, Mon, C4)... a creeping bioengineered menace threatens to wipe out all life on earth, but that's enough about the "Killer Algae" HORIZON (9pm, Thu, BBC2), BBC1 are also showing the glacially dull STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (8.05pm, Thu)... and, for all the other column inches it's generated, no-one has yet commented on the game-theoretic implications of "your partner has to watch the video if you do" in the hypnotically compelling TEMPTATION ISLAND (10pm, Thu; 10.30pm, Sun, Sky1)... FILM>> WHAT WOMEN WANT is, presumably, to see Helen Hunt struggling with an recalcitrant partner - Tom Hanks, Kevin Spacey or, this week, Mel Gibson - in a new movie every week (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/whatwomenwant.htm : many instances of child arrogance and hatefulness; suicide talk; man wearing towel only; portrayal of sexual sanity, but only after sexual irresponsibility; full male nudity - with no genitals) - though we still prefer Teletext's more literal interpretation: http://www.ntk.net/doh/990827mars.gif ... John Malkovich casts a real vampire as "Nosferatu" in Scream-vs-Ed Wood magic-of-moviemaking goatee-stroker SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2000/shadow_of_the_vampire.html : We see [Catherine "Braveheart" McCormack]'s bare breasts as she rolls around on a bed with her robe open, apparently high from something she's taken) - though surely most movie cameras contain mirrors, and vampires "cast no shadow" anyway?... the aptly-named Michael Winterbottom answers the largely unasked question "What would 'Vertical Limit' be like if it was remade as a period drama and written by Thomas Hardy?" in THE CLAIM (imdb: Sarah "Go" Polley, Wes "American Beauty" Bentley, Milla "The Fifth Element" Jovovich - together at last!)... still, there's always advance previews of retro-rocker ALMOST FAMOUS (http://www.theonion.com/onion3703/celebrity_couples.html : "Actress Kate Hawn is now married to a long-haired rock musician from The Black Crows. I guess she wasn't really acting when she portrayed a slavering groupie to a rock band of questionable talent")... FEEBDACK>> it took just one week for reader DAVE DEANS to wilfully misunderstood our appeal for new PCs for Schnews: "If you say Schnews are out of action for a short while..." - then he handily recommends http://uk.indymedia.org instead... an (ex?)employee of H2G2 described the Industry Standard's upbeat http://europe.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,14111,00.html as "the kind of stuff we were peddling 3 months ago". Hang on: http://europe.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,12651,00.html - it's also the stuff _they_ were peddling 3 months ago... and ADRIAN MOULDER accused us of giving an atypically "easy ride" to rubberburner-alike http://www.stimulus.com/members/msl/ , largely by neglecting to highlight his "oral sex poetry", enjoyable by clicking on "Like A Rose" and "Greatest Meal" at http://www.stimulus.com/members/msl/poems/angel/ssub/ ... continuing the vaguely genital-related theme, the proprietor of a well-known industry quotes site followed up NTK 2001-01- 19's "Linuxcare will go down for stock" gag by observing "Perhaps you (and the original author ) weren't aware of this tidbit? http://www.upside.com/Chris_Nolan/39ee17e60.html "... ANGUS KENNEDY, clearly with plenty of time on his hands after the apparent demise of "his" MEN'S QUEST magazine [NTK 2000- 05-12], has continued to amuse himself with the Kabalarian name analyser - http://www.kabalarians.com/male/penis.htm - from NTK 2000-08-18... and finally, KATY LINFIELD wrote in a few weeks ago to inquire: "Why do you always degrade your TV/movie reviews with puerile references to whatever glimpses of female nudity may be seen?", citing "We see [Tea Leoni's] mostly obscured body through the smoked shower glass door" from NTK 2000-12-22, among other examples. Our rapid response team attempted to rectify this imbalance by packing subsequent issues with references to male nudity - "a few times [Tom Hanks'] buttock was exposed" [2001-01-12], "Geoffrey Rush shows us his butt for an extended amount of time" [2001-01-19] - only to be then accused, by ROS TAYLOR, of having become a "[more] homoerotic slashdot" (if such a thing is possible). Both were reassured by our excuse that the quotes are aimed to contrast the oddly similar reviewing styles of "Concerned Parents" websites, like http://www.screenit.com and http://www.capalert.com , with the rather more secularly motivated Celebrity Nudity Database http://www.cndb.com - and to highlight the potential for possible abuse: nudity-hungry teens surfing the (often more comprehensive) god-sites for "recommendations", or more liberal parents judging suitability from listings in the CNDB - who, for instance, did attempt to contextualise Requiem For A Dream's sighting of "Jennifer Connelly's bush" [NTK 2001-01-19]... nonetheless, the debate remains open, so do let us know if you want to see more of "Tom Hanks' buttock" and its ilk. Please note that this does not mean we want you to send us your own nudity-sightings, especially the guy who mailed in a detailed account of the "several full frontals", "fine young jutting breasts", and "long hair falling across groin" he'd managed to freeze-frame on his DVD of Disney's "The Little Mermaid"... >> 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 "hey, we have go.gif!" http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=717084967 NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Unsubscribe? Mail ntknow-unsubscribe@lists.ntk.net Subscribe? Mail ntknow-subscribe@lists.ntk.net NTK now is supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntkmart.com/ (K) 2001 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com All communication is for publication, unless you beg. Press releases from naive PR people to pr@spesh.com Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material. Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.