Need To Know 2001-05-11

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"Adding a whole new dimension to the concept of first person shooters," writes scotay, "the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health has released a free Catch The Sperm game, the first PC game to take place entirely in a vagina." http://www.plastic.com/article.pl?sid=01/05/05/1535254&mode=thread - did we miss the game partially set in one? or was that Virtual Valerie? >> HARD NEWS << he shoots, he sues There is, you should know, a statute of limitations on libel: in a nutshell, if it takes over a year for the alleged defamee to get around to suing you, then - well, it can't have been very important, can it? It's one of the precious few cast-iron defences you can have in British libel cases, and one you'd expect to be even more important in the ethereal ghoulie-ghosty world of the Net. Not so: last week, Justice Gray announced that The Times, who are supposed to have defamed Grigori Loutchansky in 1998, are repeatedly re-publishing the same article anew whenever anyone visits it on their Website, and thus can be sued until they be deade. And now you too can be sued forever over your archived Web content - unless you take it down the day it goes up. This is because the Web is a publishing medium, not a library. But wait, it's a library. No, it's a television. A gramophonic device! A telephone! A dog! A damned thing, whatever it is. http://www.mediaguardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,486874,00.html - coo, what *did* Time say about him? http://www.google.com/search?q=Grigori+Loutchansky - no possible way of telling http://groups.google.com - four years of libel, just waiting to be used up Talking of being deade, a few moments' silence please, for early NTK godsend, the TIMES INTER//FACE section: shut down because the hassled Times' editor thinks technology is irrelevant these days, and anyway, nobody's buying any adspace. But never, ever, because it was so insanely, delightfully, misinformed. We'll leave new readers to do a search through the archives to find the true classics (watch out for stern advice to keep your public key secret and fedexed to the recipient, and the MP3 music review that gave the upbeat rating "Ease of Use: 5/10 (couldn't get it to work)"). Meanwhile, our retired arch-enemy Dr Keyboard is trapped in a strange half-way chateau between "Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manor" and "A Week in Provence". How can a man like this struggle to get by, when Pud of Fucked Company is making half a million dollars a year off FC subscriptions? A tragedy. http://www.chateaukeyboard.com/ - if we end up like this, kill us http://www.nypost.com/technology/29972.htm - if we end up like this, sue us. it'll be worth it. Next week, as decreed by law, we'll be switching NTK to a 24-hour election rolling news service, constantly updated with the very latest opinion polls, plus second-by-second analysis of all the candidates' positions. Others will not be so lucky: the H2G2 crowd, currently being conveyed around the universe by the Golgafrincham bureacracies of the BBC, aren't allowed to say a peep about it. The BBC, utterly terrified that H2G2's contributors aren't perfectly balanced between right and left (or, indeed, balanced at all), have settled on deleting everything that might be construed as hurtful to their fund-providing masters. And as is always the case in light-hearted communities, matters are now being taken far too seriously, with the rise of the ZAPHODISTAS to fight for... well, getting the new HELP feature replaced with the old "Don't Panic" button, at the very least. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/HouseRules-Election - hey guys, it's just this brand, y'know http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A520769 - "are you really unaware about how offensive this is", one fun-loving researcher adds ...We guess not. This news came out just after we appeared. Condolences to everyone who knew dna. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1326000/1326657.stm >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious battlin' BANNERS: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/11/dohoracle.jpg - meanwhile, http://www.thehungersite.com tactfully invites users to "lose 10 pounds by June 4th"... the return of ET: http://www.gamespot.co.uk/stories/news/0,2160,2065939,00.html - the licence that buried ATARI... happy MOTHERFUCKER'S day: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/11/dohmother1.gif , suggests AMAZON: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/11/dohmother2.jpg ... UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY wooing influential "porn star vote": www.news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/vote2001/candidates/candidates/6/67761.stm ... BT neglect to register futurebt, btwireless domains before announcing new direction, just like they did last time: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/14951.html - still having problems with unavailable ADSL availability checker, too: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/11/dohopen.png ... honesty in web design: http://www.satcon.co.uk/news.htm , bottom of http://www.moremusic.co.uk/ ... NOOO! Too late!: http://www.ansett.com.au/about/linking_application_f.htm ... ... logins and passwords for http://www.spinwithagrin.co.uk all based around name of band and recent album... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Craftily waiting until the suits are all out of the country at E3, "Videogame club grooves meet retro synth in a homage to 80s electronica" at BACK IN TIME LIVE, a club event promising "C-64, retro game and synth at volumes that'll make you quake!" (Wed 2001-05-16, DNA, Birmingham, dress code: smart casual and/or retro T-shirt, UKP5, girls: free). And it's not just that Kernkraft 400 record playing over and over again; other attractions include club mixes of Outrun, Commando, Arkanoid, and Space Harrier, all the better to drown out your shameful fanboy attempts to strike up conversation with retro heroes Tony Crowther, Rob Hubbard and Jeff Minter. Meanwhile, cowering in the saucer section like in "Star Trek: First Contact", the remaining crew of THE REGISTER detect that Borg Queen KEVIN OF WARWICK is initiating an "assimilation session" just yards from their front door, at what appears to be one of the "SciBar" events held by the British Association for the Advancement of Non-Carbon-Based Lifeforms (6.30pm, Thursday 2001-05-17, Maddox Wine Bar, London W1). Oh, and keep your diaries clear for a special panel at the Science Museum next Saturday (2001-05-19), provisionally entitled "2001? Get A Move On! Meeting The 7 Month Deadline For Finding The Moon Monolith And Getting Killed By HAL En Route To Io", part of this year's Arthur C Clarke science fiction awards. http://www.backintimelive.com/ - yeah, we'd drop by, but it's up north. And a school night. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/18624.html - clearly not invited to http://www.e3expo.com/ either http://www.britassoc.org.uk/scibars/forthcoming/sub.htm?content1.htm&2 - bar, street named after Tom Maddox, cyberpunk author http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/05/06/stinwenws01006.html - Warwick to "control" wife; but who's controlling him? >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering PROXOMITRON is a mangling Web proxy that isn't specifically tailored for ad dumping, but then again, it can do things like remove tables, iframes, and BLINK tags. Its weird non-regexp matching strings are balanced by a faily shallow learning curve, plus a neat interactive match tester that visualises your search pattern. Non-libre licensing balanced by cute dedication to Ur-PowerPuff Girls, Shonen Knife. Fact that it's a Windows app balanced by fact that it's a damn sight more flexible than anything we've seen on the freenix's. Yet. http://spywaresucks.org/prox/ - unless, that is, you know better >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista not the "things to see and do at the CIRCUS" site you'd been hoping for: http://www.circuses.com/primattacks.html ... new AMISURPRISINGLYUNFUNNYORNOT vulnerable to repeated requests: http://www.forstle.com/sassy/go.cgi?P=B&L=0000058&V=N (say)... skills not going to waste: http://charity.artificial.com/ , http://eeeff.deepend.co.uk/marksheldon/pictures/job.jpg ... this month, we have been mainly toning our THIGH MUSCLES with: http://www.konami.co.uk/home/games/action/247/gameplay.asp ... ... BUSH leads proposed boycott of sites using US electricity: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010503/pl/bush_energy_dc_11.html [NTK 2001-05-11] - yeah, cut back on email, that ought to do it... JEDI CENSUS campaign persuades NEW ZEALAND to disband military: http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/default.asp?id=10295 - now relies on "The Force" for defence applications... God vs NAPSTER: http://www.ship-of-fools.com/Rant/Rant19.html ... God vs GREYS: http://infoweb.magi.com/~rah/alien.html ... Mee-Mee Toh-Loo GIANT HIVE-MIND: http://www.trygve.com/furbeowulf.html ... nation without LOYALTY CARDS driven to desperate measures: http://lightning.prohosting.com/~receipts/ ... ANARCHISM, pornography, and baffling rants about the nature of evolution - together *at last*!: http://www.e-t-r.net/ ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> more rubbish sci-fi monster nonsense from C5 tonight, with alien-insectoid MOSQUITO (1am, Fri, C5), written by the guy who played Leatherface in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", plus Brit Godzilla remake GORGO (2.40am, Fri, C5)... their kids' shows have always been the funny ones, but nonetheless we have high hopes for SLAP BANG WITH ANT AND DEC (7.05pm, Sat, ITV)... and there's intriguing competition for viewers who consider THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST (8pm, Sat, BBC1) too camp, with Michael Mann's machismo fest HEAT (9pm, Sat, BBC2), Die Hard - but in a towerblock! - classic DIE HARD (9pm, Sat, ITV), Oliver Stone's NATURAL BORN KILLERS (10.55pm, Sat, C5), plus C4 attempting to justify soft-porn yawn EMMANUELLE (12.15am, Sat, C4) - first shown on C5 over two years ago - by preceding it with Alex "Repo Man" Cox's EMMANUELLE: A HARD LOOK (11.20pm, Sat, C4)... T4's 7-hour BRITNEY SPEARS DAY (from 9am, Sun, C4) is actually limited to a couple of docs and a concert from 1.45pm, rather than special Britney-themed episodes of "Dawson's Creek", "Hollyoaks", and "As If"... almost like someone was trying to tell us something, Jon Ronson's floppy-haired "investigation" into the Oklahoma bombing THE SECRET RULERS OF THE WORLD (9pm, Sun, C4) is scheduled against Stallone militia-favourite FIRST BLOOD (9.40pm, Sun, C5), preceded by Naomi-Klein-franchisee Noreena Hertz's anticorporate POLITICS ISN'T WORKING (8pm, Sun, C4), and followed by lame Michael Keaton cloning comedy MULTIPLICITY (10pm, Sun, C4)... plus you may be able to catch Timothy McVeigh's execution live in THE OKLAHOMA BOMBER (10.40pm, Wed, BBC1), though it follows the UEFA Cup Final, so "subsequent programmes may run late"... Monday is speculative pseudohistory night, with IN SEARCH OF EDEN (8pm, Mon, C4), a "Gladiator Girl" edition of SECRETS OF THE DEAD (9pm, Mon, C4), and the enthusiastically daft DOUBLE TEAM (10.30pm, Mon, C4), which closes with Van Damme wrestling a tiger in a Roman amphitheatre full of landmines... following the depressing precedent set by Dave Gorman, CUTTING EDGE (9pm, Tue, C4) uses the same web-search format to track down the 57 illegitimate children of singer Screamin' Jay Hawkins... Julie Burchill has convincingly argued that if your spouse was dying of cancer, then you might devote an unusual amount of energy to creating the domestic sophistication of NIGELLA BITES II (8.30pm, Wed, C4)... Steve McQueen battles the original THE BLOB (1.15am, Wed, C4)... and Kurtwood "RoboCop" Smith adds his voice to slacker road-animation GARY AND MIKE (10pm, Thu, Sky 1)... FILM>> presumably due to some freakish release schedule mix- up, it's an almost entirely mainstream-Hollywood-free week, which is good news for fans of either the fantastic Australian "Drop The Dead Donkey"-alike "Frontline" or the moon landings, pleasingly mixed together in satellite relay romp THE DISH (imdb: independent-film / small-town / space / apollo-11 / australia / based-on-true-story / blackout / moon-landing / nasa / 1960s / radio-telescope / scientist)... otherwise there's madder-than-usual limited-release arthouse fodder, including Dogme-95-Hamlet-in-the-Desert THE KING IS ALIVE (http://www.cndb.com : unspecified Jennifer Jason Leigh nudity) plus mirrorshade-wearing council estate coming-of-ager GOODBYE CHARLIE BRIGHT (http://www.cndb.com : unspecified Paul "Eastenders" Nicholls nudity, also features a clothed Dani Behr) - apparently written by the guy who runs Channel4's FilmFour website... or John "Frasier" Mahoney in adult "Dawson's Creek" gay lifestyle comedy THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2000/the_broken_hearts_club.html : DEAN ["Superman"] CAIN plays a gay actor known for his love 'em and leave 'em type attitude, whose ability to blow off his casual sex partners makes him the envy of his friends)... RED BOOK AUDIO>> we can't remember whether our own "Spot The Pop Song Or Advert That Sounds Like Something Else" contest is supposed to still be going or not, yet NTK's irrepressible musicologists have recently confirmed that the chorus of the SUGABABES' "Run For Cover" sounds just like the "I thought that I heard you laughing" bit of REM's "Losing My Religion", COLDPLAY'S "Trouble" sounds like John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" played backwards, and the parping brass theme to the recent Census TV ads bears an eerie resemblance to the beginning of "The Shining" by BADLY DRAWN BOY. Furthermore, both of SHAGGY's recent singles contain knocking sounds that the unwary might easily mistake for ICQ alert noises, Radio 1 has consistently claimed that NERD's MTV X-Rated Videos favourite "Lapdance" contains incidental music from Super Mario Brothers (though we can't hear it ourselves), while THE MANIC STREET PREACHERS have ingeniously titled their next single "Ocean Spray" ("Oh, please stay a-wake/ then we can drink some Ocean Spray"), possibly envisaging a lucrative sponsorship deal with the popular cranberry juice manufacturer of the same name... in other news, thanks to the anonymous tipster who highlighted a notable lack of "companies" who support ARTISTS AGAINST PIRACY http://www.artistsagainstpiracy.com/support/ [last mentioned NTK 2001-04-27], and to JON DICKINSON, who queried our claim [also NTK 2001-04-27] that the rapper DMX had named himself "after a digital multiplexing system for controlling stage lighting", offering the alternate, though less amusing, hypothesis that "he named himself after the Oberheim DMX drum machine, which was made from around 1980 and was one of the first decent digital drum machines to really take off in the then-nascent hip-hop scene"... our current test track- listing for Napster-clones comes courtesy of '50s-style covers band BIG DADDY http://www.dustbury.com/music/bigdad2.html , whose "Leader Of The Pack"-like reinterpretation of MIKE AND THE MECHANICS' weepie "In The Living Years" really must be heard to be disbelieved. Or, slightly easier to track down, there's always the latest audio collage from "Bob The Builder vs Eminem" maestro SHELDON SOUTHWORTH, whose latest opus pits CRAIG DAVID against BAGPUSS, in his traditionally confusing manner: http://www.diffusionuk.freeserve.co.uk/craigpuss.htm . Still worth visiting his site though, if only to see the letter from permed QUEEN guitarist Brian May, responding to Sheldon's pioneering "We Will Rock You" remix, and wishing him "Good luck! with it all", a sentiment we can fully endorse... >> 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 "in summary, we nick all our stories from The Register too" http://europe.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,16490,00.html 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.