Need To Know 2001-05-25

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"Techies and VCs wrecked dotcom boom, CBI told" http://www.cw360asp.com/eb/eb.asp?b=61&a=102251&i=265497 - business experts dismiss previous "evil pixies" theory >> HARD NEWS << elle est disparue KayCee was an attractive blonde teenage girl from middle America, whose daily struggle with leukemia won the hearts of many, thanks to her - and her mother's - meticulously weblogged thoughts, dreams, and poetry. Last week she sadly passed away, and a sizeable chunk of her fellow bloggers found themselves grieving a a person who they barely knew, but whose short life suddenly meant a great deal to them. Even more so, when Debbie, her "mother", confessed that KayCee didn't exist, that she'd written all the blog entries herself, and effectively engineered her imaginary daughter's own death. Summary to future imaginary people: if you think cynics are bad, then you really don't want to piss off the open-hearted kindly loving folk who tend to cluster around reassuring cute-looking cancer victims they've never met. So far, judging by the threads on MetaFilter (which, in a sympathy attack, decided to not exist itself this week, vanishing off the Net at its most popular point ever) and the inevitable KayCee Yahoo! Club, previous fans of the saga plan on humiliating Debbie in her home town, and maybe have her arrested under mail fraud charges. So: if you want those blogging hits, do struggle with leukemia, not some complex, ambiguous illness like Munchausen's-By-Proxy. You'll never get the care packages flooding in with *that*. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kaycee-nicole/links - it's Craig Shergold meets Princess Diana meets Little Nell http://www.strangecat.org/kaycee/debbies_weblog/ - heart of stone, etc Not sure how we managed to report this one before Slashdot, but the European Parliament report on Echelon is (leaking) out all over the place, with the following recommendations included: that the Member States "develop and manufacture encryption technology and software and above all to support projects aimed at developing user-friendly open-source encryption software", and "public administrations of the member states are called upon systematically to encrypt e-mails so that ultimately encryption becomes the norm". Looking forward to running the diffs on the final, published report. http://fas.org/irp/program/process/europarl_draft.pdf - once again, we roll out the "encrypted in pdf" joke http://cryptome.org/echelon-ep.htm - only to be undermined by those cryptome anarchists Our campaign to handicap the NEW MEDIA AGE "Effectiveness" award-winners continues, as LESLIE BUNDER, to the relief of all, reveals that jewish.co.uk *has* been shortlisted as a "Best Portal", and that someone at NMA "made a mistake" when they told him that it wasn't. Anonymous tipsters claimed that Foresight's www.comicrelief.co.uk has been similarly honoured (category unknown) - but, since the list of nominees was originally suppressed on the grounds that some were so "weak" they would "give away" who the winners were [see last week's NTK], maybe the others are understandably trying to keep it quiet. Clearly this didn't apply to the one award you could view the nominees for: the "person who's contributed most to the industry over the past year", which covers such noted luminaries as Stelios from Easyjet, Mike Lynch from Autonomy, and Jason George from Victoria Real. Oh, why don't they just give it to Douglas Adams for "inventing the internet", and be done with it? http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/05/13/stinwenws01027.html - OK then, "predicting" the internet. Which it doesn't. http://www.newmediazero.com/peopleschoice/ - argh, too late http://www.thescammer.co.uk/ - other follow-up news, in accordance with NTK 2001-04-06... >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious touch my TRACKPOINT: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/11/msndoh.jpg ... DfEE show healthy scepticism over role of CONSULTANTS: http://www2.dfee.gov.uk/consultations/archive1.cfm?CONID=75 ... ATTRITION aims to cut traffic with music reviews, poetry: http://www.attrition.org/news/content/01-05-21.001.html ... MUSIQUE's "New Year's Dub" is "first dance record to gain U2's blessing", reports POPBITCH, apart from all those Achtung Baby dance mixes, or http://www.rapassassins.f9.co.uk/sounds.htm 1989's "A Bit Of U2"... cookbook doesn't include COOKIES: http://www.campbellsoup.com/kitchen/cookbook/request.cfm ... BBC special - news site "folds" under spin-doctor pressure: http://news.bbc.co.uk/vote2001/hi/english/newsid_1180000/1180979.stm , BUFFY's Sarah Michelle Gellar joining "Eastenders 90210": http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/features/exclusive.shtml , WORLD SERVICE interactive: http://www.iam-here.co.uk/partners/ ... SPAMMER hasn't got the hang of password protection either: http://www.bulkemailsoftware.net/thelist.html ... final question for those who can speak WELSH without realising it: http://www.britishelectionsurvey.com/bes/registerx.jsp ... view http://www.ratings.net/popsurvey/profan.cfm+.htr source - c'mon Rob, you can think of more swearwords than that... answering your "if these are the finalists, who got rejected" questions: http://www.bigbrother.terra.com/participants/part1/ http://www.bigbrother.terra.com/participants/part14/index.html >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful "It's difficult to get good photos of some people", chortles a representative of the UKUUG LINUX DEVELOPERS' CONFERENCE 2001 (from 2001-06-29, UMIST, Manchester, UKP30 if you register before 2001-06-01), referring to their somewhat candid images of some of the speakers: Janet cache developer Martin Hamilton ("That's staying until he supplies a real photo"); reality hacker Tom Rathborne ("Is that what too much GIMP does to your eyes?"); and Samba dude Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton (no further questions, your honour). Other upcoming deadlines include the always-entertaining NETMEDIA EUROPEAN ONLINE JOURNALISM AWARDS (closing date 2001-05-31), whose ever- expanding categories now include Science, Financial Reporting, Environment, Business & Economics, Music & Entertainment, Sports, Technology and "Outstanding Contribution To Online Journalism In Europe", which even we were shortlisted for last year, so clearly it's anyone's game at this stage... http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2001/speakers.shtml - be sarcastic about your own event, guarantee a plug in NTK http://www.net-media.co.uk/awards/ - Shell not sponsoring the "Investigative" one this year? http://www.tomw.net.au/2001/bat2001.html - 2001-06-01: exclusive preview of disabled vs Olympics paper http://www.binaryfreedom.com/towelday/ - and just when people had *stopped* quoting Douglas Adams >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering POE suffers from being "the last really interesting Perl development" (Mark-Jason Dominus) before all this Perl 6 craziness: it's the little known lad on crutches left behind after the Pied Pipers of Sebastopol took everyone else to la-la land. That's a damn shame, because hidden behind the minimal, babelfish English documentation, and cra-hey-azy secret origins (it started off as a MUD engine, but then so do most great ideas, yeah?), is a fine event-driven, object-oriented environment for Perl. Its time has come. Back in 1999, when the living was easy and POE was first announced, you didn't need many event-driven object-oriented environments to parse 100KB of comma-delimited-files and output a Web form, or whatever your Perl glue did. These days: well, POE can wrap itself around a GTK loop and manage a fistful of transient, self-contained, self-creating objects. Or it can run a Webserver as an foreground interface to a bunch of background Perl objects doing God knows what. Even NTK's official Perl lamers wrote an HTTP SOAP server which simultaneously controlled an IRC bot by using POE to splice a bunch of CPAN modules together - in an evening. POE is ZOPE without the "Zzzz" of Python. It's small enough to understand, and big enough to extend. It *is* worth a weekend of your copious free time. http://poe.perl.org/ - Perl Object Environment? Or Purity Of Essence? http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/01/poe.html - docs sux: suggest you read the source http://www.perl.com/pub/2000/07/perl6.html#before - Damian Conway: scary black monolith of Perl >> MEMEPOOL << retrospective "recurring themes" special geek movie promotional site features interactive porno ELIZA: http://www.center-of-the-world.com/chat/chat.html ... EBAY discovers killer app: "Naughty Pooing PIG POO COW Poop Sheep": http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1000354237 ... WEBLOGS get some sort of point: http://www.hackfurby.com/ , http://www.voxpolitics.com/laughs.shtml - doesn't link to BOB yet: http://thefreeparty.org.uk ... homoerotic /. post of year: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/05/22/146224&cid=82 ... crazed UK Harry Potter-hating ONION ripoff site of the week: http://www.squealnewspig.com/ ... COUNTERSTRIKE: The Musical: http://dire.tzo.com/dire/Helix/movie.htm ... sysadmin HAIKU: http://www.tuatha.org/~tom/allhaikus.cgi ... vs sci-FAIKU: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~danhorn/scifaikureview.html ... "mocking" Singapore primate raises MONKEY MAN copycat fears: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_83296.html ... INFOGRAMES corporate anthem: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/25/infogrames.mp3 ... FEAR KEVIN: http://www.av1611.org/666/biochip.html ... http://www.avn.com/ng/query.cgi?act=detail&in=news&eid=8841 - SEX BOX, more like... CLIPPY infected by "All Your Base": http://www.microsoft.com/office/clippy/images/rollover_4.gif ... and 'cos they don't do Lego for EMACS yet, origami ELITE: http://www.witchspace.free-online.co.uk/images/cobranet.gif ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the less lightweight www.tvgohome.com TV>> "strong vicious violence, graphic sexuality, pervasive strong language and some drug use" enliven Rose McGowan, Parker Posey arthouse roadkill THE DOOM GENERATION (12mid, Fri, C4)... Hywel "Shelley" Bennett's penis transplant PERCY (1am, Fri, BBC1) receives its now-annual showing... and MAME (2.20am, Fri, C5) is some sort of musical, rather than about the Multiple Arcade Machines Emulator of the same name... Flavor Flav informs suckers "what time it is" in TOP TEN: RAP (10.35pm, Sat, C4)... Sunday night is magic night with latter- day extreme Paul Danielses DAVID BLAINE: FROZEN IN TIME (9.10pm, Sun, C4) and PENN AND TELLER'S MAGIC AND MYSTERY TOUR (around midnight, Sat-Mon, C4)... while WATERWORLD (10.40pm, Sat, BBC1) and THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (9.05pm, Sat, ITV) herald an especially patchy movie week, featuring Jason "Seinfeld" Alexander monkey caper DUNSTON CHECKS IN (3.45pm, Mon, BBC1), the 20-minutes-too-long SPEED (9pm, Mon, BBC1), plus Sharon Stone subaqua Solaris SPHERE (9pm, Tue, C5)... along the way paying tribute to celluloid greats like Humphrey Bogart, in TO HAVE AND TO HAVE NOT (10am, Mon, BBC2), CASABLANCA (1pm, Thu, BBC2); Dolph Lundgren, in ARMY OF ONE (11.20pm, Mon, BBC1), SWEEPERS (9pm, Wed, C5); and Tyne "Lacey from Cagney and Lacey" Daly in THE ENFORCER (9pm, Sun, C5), TELEFON (9pm, Thu, C5)... Jon Ronson ineffectually investigates the Bilderburg Group, as seen on Ken Clarke's old Registered Interests list: www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199798/cmregmem/memi06.htm ... tonight Matthew, Spooks and Atomic Kitten will be playing the hits of a much-celebrated former era in TOP OF THE POPS REUNION 1981 (4.50pm, Sun, BBC1)... Dennis Hopper *is* William Burroughs in ARENA's homage to the "Beat Generation" (11.30pm, Mon, BBC2)... and a sex offender - and "Strange Days" fan? - sticks a camera in his retina in the first of 3 late-night SHOCKERS (10.30ish, Mon-Wed, C4)... Channel4 ingeniously dedicates Bank Holiday primetime to PLANET STORM (8pm, Mon, C4), a 2-hour documentary about the weather on Jupiter... BEST OF BRITISH (10.04pm, Wed, BBC1) profiles TNG/ X-Men star - and future voice of the animated Spider Jerusalem? - Patrick Stewart... and another ARENA (11.35pm, Thu, BBC2) marvels over the way victorious wartime leader Stalin is still revered by the Russians, in exactly the way that, say, Winston Churchill isn't here... FILM>> PEARL HARBOR gets an early release on Thu; until then Penelope Cruz month continues with Johnny Depp Boogie-Nights- but-without-the-pornography coke-fuelled '70s nostalgia BLOW (http://www.cndb.com : Even though Penelope does not get naked, she is so amazing in some of these outfits, I forgot all about the lack of nudity)... Cruz also disrobes in Billy Bob Thornton's latter-day Western yawn ALL THE PRETTY HORSES (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/alltheprettyhorses.htm : defiance of authority; toddler with a firearm; brief glimpse of female frontal nudity; intercourse with brief female upper nudity; recreational gunfire; seemingly sincere mentions of trust in and dependence on God and His Grace)... otherwise those quirky Celts are back to their old tricks again, with Pauline "Father Ted" McLynn co-starring in Roddy Doyle's intertextual Oirish film-geek "When Harry Met Sally" spoof WHEN BRENDAN MET TRUDY (imdb: comedy / romance)... or Blow's Rachel Griffiths reappearing in Welsh kitchen-sink singalong VERY ANNIE MARY (http://www.bbfc.co.uk : Passed '15' for some strong language and single instance of moderate sex)... THOSE WE HAVE LOST>> after 4 years and 200 issues, it's time to toast our homies who didn't make it this far, to give props to the fallen and pour a 40 on the kerb (whatever that means). Still warmed by the ashes of the WIRED UK "unpleasantness" we, in our own unique way, mourned the deaths of Dennis' ESCAPE magazine (recently followed by PC GEAR), last year's oh-so- brief INDUSTRY STANDARD EUROPE, long-running goofsters TIMES INTERFACE (FEATURING DR KEYBOARD), and a shelf-full of Future closures, including CONNECT, ARCADE, MP3 MAGAZINE, CULT TV, and AMIGA FORMAT. EMAP's CU AMIGA joined the rest of the Amiga biz in that great pre-emptive multitasking environment in the sky - along with the DREAMCAST, the ACORN NETSTATION, and we haven't heard much about the BEBOX recently either... other technologies came and fluttered away like leaves in a breeze, including PUSH, VRML, the original DIVX, and literally $$$- worth of dumb cybercash systems (the currently ailing BEENZ), revealing unexpected flaws in the business plans of ONLINE MAGIC, all the free call ISPs, BOO, CLICKMANGO, the amusingly named http://www.theman.com/ , URWIRED and now GAMEPLAY (a third high-profile project from Mark Bernstein, the man behind VR videogames flop Virtuality, and the impressive roster at http://www.midnight.co.uk/entline/new.htm ), as well as freaky networking ideas like http://www.sixdegrees.com and FIRST TUESDAY. And, in the real world, whatever happened to all the high-street TANDY stores?... back with the media, it was goodbye to (and from) extropian goons THE SHAMEN, god-awful TV show DOT.COMEDY, the swiftly-buried Mitnick movie TAKEDOWN and soporific Gibson adaptation NEW ROSE HOTEL - plus, rather more distressingly, US chickzine BEN IS DEAD and happenin' London hangout BACKSPACE. Online, we bade farewell to NTK wannabes NINFOMANIA and THE LARD ENQUIRER, Register ripoff THE BULLET, dire cyber-satire http://www.rant.co.uk , doomed comedy mag THE CURMUDGEON, and Mondo 2000 cyber-legacy sites like http://www.stim.com (and almost everything else RU Sirius has ever done). Friends and enemies alike, we salute you. And if you're actually not dead, and reading this, do get in touch. We'd *love* to hear what you're up to next... >> 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 "unedited 2,600-word transcripts vs 2,000-word articles" http://www.fringecore.com/magazine/m10-11.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 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.