Need To Know 2001-06-15

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"Microsoft has embarked on a campaign known as the 'war on hostile code', with the goal of preventing _any_ hostile code from running on users' systems..." http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/raw_sockets.asp - via resource starvation, presumably? >> HARD NEWS << license to re-use MiniNTK this week (ie, less news, no tracking), because a) we're officially well into slow news season, but b) Suck's recent demise means that if you now say you're "on holiday", everyone naturally assumes that you're dead. Still, awards are always good for filling up the front page, especially after vaguely NTK-related e-democracy gateway FAXYOURMP.COM won NEW MEDIA AGE's "Best Use Of The Web" category, to be now commemorated on a site that makes the Interactive BAFTAs seem easy to navigate by comparison. Other highlights of the evening included host (and sometime Will Smith tribute act) Richard Blackwood bafflingly failing to persuade the audience to "Get With [His] Wicked", two-time winners ("Business To Business" and "Grand Prix") GLOBALFARMERS not making it down from Edinburgh to collect either of their awards, plus of course Leslie Bunder not winning anything (and after making all that fuss - see NTK 2001-05-18), indicating that perhaps there is some justice in the world after all. http://www.newmediazero.com/news/home.asp?sd=14062001 - "Globalfarmers [...] offered WAP as well as Web"! http://www.newmediazero.com/awards/web.htm - go back to "Categories" page, click on next one, repeat http://www.suck.com/daily/2001/06/08/ - and they've taken Feed, http://www.unmetered.org.uk/ with them Otherwise, we're forced to fall back on our usual stand-bys: followups to previous stories and/or corrections to this week's stories in The Guardian and/or The Register. After we wondered why THE GUARDIAN was so consistently upbeat about wacky Flash website generator Moonfruit last week, CEO WENDY TAN thoughtfully sent us ABC-audited evidence of their 196,584 sites built so far, explaining that only about 4,470 appear on Google because "Google's crawlers don't normally pick up Flash sites unless the siteleaders actively register [with them]" (A site that generates homepages that don't show up on search engines? Buyers must be queuing round the block!) THE GUARDIAN proved that they weren't unduly biased toward Moonfruit by running an extended plug for RABBIT-ON.COM, co-founded by occasional Guardian contributor, Imogen O'Rorke - though, to their credit, this doesn't seem to have driven any huge amount of traffic there, going from the total of 2 postings on the "Rabbit Board" forum so far. And this time not even THE REGISTER fell for the spoof "Britney dead" BBC news page, leaving it to, once again, THE GUARDIAN to explain: "Outsiders can produce a page that appears to belong to another's service as long as the numbers of the address, in this case the BBC's, are added in the correct order". Hey, maybe _that's_ where all these bullshit Guardian articles are coming from. http://www.mediaguardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,504663,00.html - vs http://www.rabbit-on.com/phorum/list.php?f=1 http://www.mediaguardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,506736,00.html - also, the song is actually called "Baby One More Time" >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious AA online quote form aware of risks of Wrestlers, Professional Snooker Players, and Tupperware Dealers behind the wheel: https://www.aainsurance.co.uk/insurance/aains/car/quote/secure/sq1.asp ... ICL cybercrime consultant advises "de-romanticising" hackers - by using fiction-inspired term "cyberpunks" instead: http://www.cw360.com/article%26rd%3D%26i%3D%26ard%3D101609 ... http://www.isgay.com/ almost cave in to legal threats, the big cissies... http://www.ourprice.co.uk/ - your log files, vs checking your (or someone else's) "ONLINE SPARE ORDER STATUS": http://microwave.harris.com/cservice/ ... "Online ads get in your face", illustrates CNET - unless you take "tag" off URL: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6269719.html?tag=tp_pr ... "highly promising youngster" is a sprightly 101 years old: http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/team/squad/sjolund/ ... who's that being quietly voted out of VICTORIA REAL?... fake friends?: www.friendsreunited.co.uk/FriendsReunited.asp?wci=membernotes&member_key=70084 ... only Terminator-style VC funding from the future can save us now: http://foobar.starlab.net/~degaris/news/bankrupt.html - unless, of course, this is proof they've already intervened: http://www.cs.usu.edu/~degaris/news/zurich.html ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful LIBERTY - the human rights organisation, not the chintzy department store - will be holding their ANNUAL CONFERENCE - PRIVACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS: WHAT CHANCE FOR ARTICLE 8? and their AGM over the weekend (from 10am Sat 2001-06-16, Hamilton House, London WC1R, UKP35). Still, if you'd rather leave all that tedious bureaucratic campaigning to the lawyers in suits, there's another chance to stick it to the man at the LONDON CANNABIS MARCH & FESTIVAL (from 12noon Sat 2001-06-16, Oval Tube, London, 99p), originally drawn to our attention as part of an email from a US reader enthusiastically describing the merits of Nestle's soft-centred "Treasures" chocolate bars. This (the march, not the chocolate bar) appears to be a re- staging of a similar event scheduled for May 6th of this year which, according to the so-called "news papers", apparently "did not happen" - though didn't you get the email that it actually had been cancelled due to heavy rain? Maybe there _is_ something to all those short-term memory-loss studies... http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/mevent2.html - doesn't support the human right not to use frames, though http://www.schmoo.co.uk/cannabis/ - the choc bars look like treasure chests, and have... http://www.schmoo.co.uk/comdot/cannabis.htm - ..."1 of 4 varieties of really good stuff" at their core http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010611/80/buq7k.html - look, it's not a stereotype if it's actually true http://list.ftech.net/pipermail/gllug/2001-June/008752.html http://list.ftech.net/pipermail/gllug/2001-June/008526.html - stop press: Greenwich Geek Picnic, hacking BBQ >> MEMEPOOL << oogle that google physics model isn't bad, but where are the course contours?: http://www.electrotank.com/lab/minigolf.html ...wicked crease, dude: http://cub.phpwebhosting.com/~eib/ei/homepage/main.php ... MOUSE movies: http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html ...withdrawn from WHERE? http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_314817.html ... lines composed on seeing a UK Gold repeat of THE A-TEAM: http://www.poetry.com/Publications/display.asp?E=1&ID=P0864244&BN=047&PN=1 ... not the CLASS WAR nostalgia site maybe you were hoping for: http://policehelmets.homestead.com/ ... mad Japanese toy of week: http://www.worldshopdirect.com/ToyE/aquaroid-2.htm ... life imitates intermittently funny ONION-alike, again: http://www.urbanreflex.com/portillo.html ... oh, "I agree": http://www.ecompany.com/articles/mag/print/0,1643,9772,00.html ... WAP 404: http://www.ntk.net/2001/06/08/dohphone.jpg ... (bottom of) http://www.mcdonalds.com/legal/ trademarks phrases "Changing The Face of The World", "Hey, It Could Happen"... HipCrime steganography ... just in time for FATHER'S DAY: http://www.selsyn.co.uk/sockmail.shtml ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the less-postponed http://www.tvgohome.com/ TV>> nutty film weekend kicks off with Rubik's Snake computer nonsense DEMON SEED (12.40am, Fri, BBC1), possible Lara Flynn Boyle nudity romance EQUINOX (12.20am, Fri, BBC2), bizarro arthouse unlookalike noir SUTURE (1.20am, Sat, BBC2), plus the late William Burroughs and Heather Graham - together at last! - in Gus Van Sant's DRUGSTORE COWBOY (12.40am, Fri, C4)... after this week's "Se7en", Morgan Freeman season continues with uninspired "Silence Of The Lambs" copycat KISS THE GIRLS (9pm, Sat, BBC1)... and the erratically bi-annual SCI-5 NIGHT gets off to an early start with the original ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (3.15am, Sat, C5), an improvement over Spielberg's pro-Grey propaganda CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (9pm, Sun, C5)... as we've said before, Frank Oz's dire IN AND OUT (10pm, Sun, C4) is an extended version of the "gay" Seinfeld episode - though, in this case, there *is* something wrong with that... THE MONEY PROGRAMME (7.30pm, Mon, BBC2) looks at identity theft - in our day, we had to make do with the birth certificates of people who died before getting a National Insurance number... and C4's usual tub-thumping DRUGS LAWS DON'T WORK season (11pm-ish, Tue-Thu, C4) is handily preceded every night by a cautionary example of the dangers of hallucinogens, deranged pseudo-Japanese "interactive gambling" spazzorama BANZAI (10.30pm, Tue-Thu, C4)... Bruce Willis and an autistic code-cracking kid blunder through crypto-thriller MERCURY RISING (9pm, Tue, C5)... Melissa "Sabrina The Teenage Witch" Joan Hart enchants an ex-con into murdering her parents in TWISTED DESIRE (11.15pm, Wed, BBC1) - presumably why she lives with her aunts in the TV show... and hopefully they've avoided the traditional "will-they-won't-they" "Moonlighting"- style romantic intrigue in two simultaneous family detective shows, MACREADY AND DAUGHTER (8.30pm, Thu, BBC1) and DONATO AND DAUGHTER (9pm, Thu, C5)... FILM>> the curse of the exec producer strikes again, as Wes Craven "presents" hastily-renamed-from-"Dracula 2000" DRACULA 2001 (http://www.cndb.com/ : Basically, when [Colleen "Vitamin C" Fitzpatrick] reaches orgasm, she stretches in mid-air to unleash a birds-eye view of both her breasts and nipples [...] Jeri "Seven of Nine" Ryan also appears)... and the Farrelly brothers didn't even bother turning up to direct their Heather Graham/ Chris "Rollerball" Klein incest-fest SAY IT ISN'T SO (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/say_it_isn%27t_so.html : gross out humor involves, but isn't limited to, [Klein] accidentally getting his arm stuck up inside a cow's rectum, waxed-off hair from the pubic or buttocks region being used as a beard for disguise, and the top of an ear accidentally being clipped off by an inept hairdresser)... otherwise it's Richard Gere in terminally ill May/December romance AUTUMN IN NEW YORK (http://www.cndb.com/ : There IS a [Winona Ryder] nipple, at 1:23:18)... Oscar-nominated gay Cuban drama BEFORE NIGHT FALLS (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2000/before_night_falls.html : Johnny Depp plays a flamboyant male transvestite/transsexual who visits the men in prison, smuggling things to them in his rectum - but we don't see anything graphic)... or Nick "Lock, Stock" Moran playing a stuck-up Edwardian in repressed period drama ANOTHER LIFE (imdb: independent-film / murder) - a film that, without wanting to pre-judge it or anything, has sat in distributor limbo for the past 2 years... CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> CADBURY'S PEANUT SUB (32p) appears to be a half-hearted incursion into Snickers territory, described by reader MIKE GREY as "some weird new peanut thing" (and by his mother as "a bit like a Topic"), but MARS have fought back with the GALAXY LIASON (35p), a illicit rendezvous between chocolate and praline hazelnut paste. "New permanent line" is the confident boast on the counter-top boxes, despite the Mars marketing geniuses deciding to introduce it to the public at the height of summer, when a packet of warm chocolately smush is what everyone's looking for. Then again, that did seem to work for Cadbury's wildly successful MARBLE bar exactly three years ago... over in savouries, it's shaping up to be a spicy summer all round (in accordance with NTK 2001-04-27 prophecy), with "Smokey BBQ" being more normal than the "Tangy Salsa" new KP MINI CHEDDARS (though we have yet to spot either outside large multipacks), plus JOSH ROULSTON reporting that JACOB'S CHILLI CREAM CRACKERS (also available in "Roast Onion" and "Sundried Tomato") are "quite nice actually, with an accumulative chilli effect as you eat them". "Firecracker Chicken" and "Balti Curry" THE REAL MCCOY'S CRISPS are much as you'd expect, but the rice cake war appears to be over - for now! - as UNCLE BEN'S "Barbecue", "Cheese and Onion" and "Pizza" RISPINOS are no match for the salty new QUAKER SNACK- A-JACKS... you might want to wash those down with a "Chilla Vanilla" FRIJJ ("exactly like cheap molten vanilla ice cream, but in a good way" - TOM PEARSON), though not quite up to the standard of NTK office staple WHITE CHOCOLATE FRIJJ EXTREME, an experience often compared to "snogging a Milky Bar". Either remains preferable to Coke's doomed unsparkling drink ALIVE, whose "Orange Cascade" and "Tropical Torrent" variants both taste like underdiluted Soda Stream concentrates or something ... following the recent PENGUIN FLIPPER DIPPERS, PEANUT LION BAR/"NOW MORE CARAMEL" LION BAR disappointments, this month's new product developments (and brand extensions) to look out for include: BAHLSEN luxury boxed biscuits CIELO (UKP1.99 for 17); CRUNCHIE NUGGETS IN A BAG; 15p pyramid-shaped bags of MINI SMARTIES (spotted in a petrol station just outside Manchester by GEMMA WATT who, continuing NTK contributors' "too much information" tradition, appears to be the girlfriend of Mike Grey, the Peanut Sub guy); and the latest from regular "Taste Abomination" contenders NESTLE ROWNTREE WONKA OOMPAS (29p), a bag of chewy sweets ostensibly featuring the savoury flavours of "Caterpillar" (cucumber) and "Mashed Potato". So far we've only tried the 99p "Family Bag", which restricts itself to "Rhubarb 'n' Custard", "Jam Doughnut", "Popcorn" and "Snozberry" - and, frankly, they were bad enough... >> 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 "less of the 'reportedly', if you don't mind" http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/a167.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. 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