Need To Know 2001-08-03

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"Ron Dick, head of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Centre, says too many computer users regard their systems as dumb appliances, not recognising that a computer needs 'to be constantly monitored and maintained. It functions like a living organism'." http://www.ananova.co.uk/news/story/sm_363549.html - indeed my British counterpart at the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit informs me that they are practically "electronic brains" >> HARD NEWS << actually, no news Despite fears of the usual authority-distrusting programmers milling around in "what do we do now?" disarray, we're pleased to report that, at time of writing, the UK's highest-profile FREE SKLYAROV protest went without a hitch outside the US embassy in London this lunchtime. Baffled onlookers and a van full of riot police had Sklyarov's unjustifiable incarceration [see previous NTKs] explained to them by means of leaflets, placards, chanting, "street theatre" reconstructions of his arrest, and impromptu filk versions of "YMCA" but with the lyrics changed to be about the "DMCA" instead. Attendance was estimated at "between 30 and 40" by organiser Dan Aykroyd, who doesn't look like he does on the telly at all, and "refused to be drawn" on why the other cast members of Sneakers couldn't make it. Assuming no other railway stations blow up between now and then, the whole thing should be on Newsnight at 10.30pm tonight, though we bet they just show the bit where we're wandering round Hyde Park trying to work out where the embassy is, with some smart-arse "geeks couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery" commentary from Paxman. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t281-s2092269,00.html - many from as far away as Cambridge and Underground Zone 4 http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/ - and a good time was had by all http://www.google.com/search?q=dmca+ymca - also thought this tune would go well with "My-S-Q-L" Of course, this sort of decentralised direct action is all very well in the short term, but as we all know, when you absolutely must get the trains running on time, leadership is vital. Or at least that was the muttering after July's Open Source Convention; commentators like Dan Gillmor spoke of how dignified Microsoft's Mundie was, compared to the fractious, fractured free software zealots. And Webmonkey's Jay Greenspan harkened back to a time when you could tell who was *really* in charge by reading the name at the bottom of the press release. Jay suggested that what was really killing Free Software was that people was just doing what they wanted without someone telling them what everyone should do. He's right: and to get us in the mood for having a boss again, here's a nice video of the Microsoft President and CEO speaking to the troops. Think statesmanlike. http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/dancemonkeyboy.mpg - Think WWF http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/dancemonkeyboy.avi - Think Monty Python's Gumby We're sure we can't be the only ones to be horrified by the hysterical overreaction to last week's BRASS EYE. Wherever you look, you're faced with petitions, word-by-word denunciations, and angry polemics by single-minded editors with a track record of deceiving their audience, pandering COOKDANDBOMBD's coverage, hey. Here's the other links you sent in. http://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/~jstacey/cgi-bin/getarticle.cgi?art=01-07-30 - just when we thought the sick disease of satirism was under control http://www.brasseye.co.uk/testimonials1.htm - just another unfortunate namespace clash http://www.football365.com/content/fun/picturegags/fw_picturega_571100.htm - this isn't going to go away is it? http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/ - hope they're not offended or anything http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_364207.html - sidekick Richard Barry unfortunately out of the country >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious "Ealing bomb believed to be terrorism", speculates ANANOVA, wildly: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_366308.html ... another busy day at "The WAP Store" (Eastleigh, Hampshire): http://squid.smellsofpee.co.uk/photos/wapstore.jpg ... "the contents of this document are confidential" fondly imagines: http://home.intekom.com/google/Google%20results-protocols.htm - bloody search engines... so they give you UKP2 to turn up?: http://www.edfringe.com/cgi-bin/user/edfringe/detailshow.fcgi?id=EDINI ... AMAZON decide that "Web Caching" is mere "kid's stuff": http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/156592536X/ ... "Welcome To Your Future" - and what looks like our past?: http://www.itemus.com/ ... self-confessed astrologer "genius": http://community-2.webtv.net/Archure/Genius/ provides handy comparative review of "Idiots Guide"/"For Dummies" books: http://community-2.webtv.net/Archure/Books/ ... "Updated Every Minute Of Every Day" boasts http://news.bbc.co.uk - ie, they've got a clock?... "Do you know where your property is? We do": http://www.slysearch.com/services.html ... census- takers now questioning everything about damn job (bottom of): http://www.statistics.gov.uk/themes/population/surveys/survey_of_cqs.asp ... "Enjoy the sun" advises weather report - from Mercury: http://www.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/UK/0,2478,1078874,00.html >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful The exasperatingly enigmatic TWENTYTHREE organisation had to cancel their planned live event last week, and Tim O'Reilly will unfortunately no longer be speaking at the UK UNIX USER GROUP next Thu (though apparently VA Linux's Ted T'so might well do a talk instead). But not even the death of star guest Delia Derbyshire can halt the wailing of FORGOTTEN MUSICAL TECHNOLOGIES, this month's presentation by Fortean funsters Strange Attractor (7.30pm, Tue 2001-08-07, The Horse Hospital, London WC1, UKP6). The primarily Theremin-based programme features a screening of that "Theremin - An Electronic Odyssey" documentary plus a number of live performances, including live performances from Bruce "Buggles" Woolley, and - of course - the theme from "Star Trek: The Original Series". http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/ - wow, an analogue synth with no resonance, cutoff, polyphony http://www.ukuug.org/events/TOR_20010809.shtml - s/ Tim O'Reilly / http://thunk.org/tytso/ /g http://www.artscatalyst.org/htm/saforum3.htm - they put one arts project into space; why can't they send them all there? >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering There's so many new features in the straight-outta-alpha VIM 6 BETA, a weaker, more partisan correspondent might be tempted to gargle "bloat!", and return to nvi. But after a while, I swear, it all makes such *sense*. So you can split windows vertically, which sounds like the most shocking Emacs frippery - until you see vimdiff, a beautiful line-by-line realtime diff visualiser. Or the much-talked-of folding: on first glance, one can only imagine using it to create an outliner in Vim macros. But, oh my, when you see you first Perl program with irrelevant subroutines squirrelled away -as though you'd already deleted them! And then there's the client/server system, which, just to irritate the Emacs readers reading this far, sends commands and files to a vim session, like emacsclient. How cool might you be with that? Unicode, decent user manual: there's even a single-mode GUI "easyvim" for spoony pico-lovers. As ever with Vim, it's fun drunkenly stumbling around the updated Vim help files, or maybe pressing buttons at random to see what happens. If you upgrade one program this year, make it Vim 6. Unless its emacs 21. Certainly can't imagine you'd want to upgrade *both*. http://vim.sf.net/ - discussions of a Ugandan nature http://www.troubleshooters.com/projects/vimoutliner/ - not that there's anything wrong with vim macro outliners >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista calling ITV-DIGITAL hotline and saying you want to buy a monkey - every 100th caller gets a free box? Riiight ... shaming the SIRCAMmers: http://www.hartnup.net/pubcam/pubcam ... MILKY BAR KID was strong and tough - but only THE LORD is good enough: http://www.despatch.cth.com.au/DFL/dflAug022000.htm ... *your* essential fluids could help prolong a celebrity's useless existence!: http://www.blood.co.uk/flashAdvert1.htm ... life imitates Kate Bush's "Babooshka" (or maybe Rupert Holmes' "Escape"): http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_354103.html ... weather - with attitude! (see under "Quirky Story 1-3"): http://www.metcheck.com/ ... CRINGELY + GIBSON = conspiracy!: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010802.html ... time for all those old "TOLKIEN may be Hobbit-forming" gags: www.skysports.com/skynews/storytemplate/storytoppic/0,,30200-1024895,00.html ... "plastic bags can be cut into good raincoat for children" recommends newly tourist-conscious Chinese government site: http://www.bjta.gov.cn/English/lvxing_zhishi/lvyou_baojian/1999.09.06.05.htm ... "Lord Of The Dance" reclaims title from Michael Flatley: http://www.dancedanceresurrection.i12.com ... cheer up MARIAH: http://pub28.bravenet.com/guestbook/show.php?usernum=2365914404 ... all too-detailed recreation of the golden age of steam: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010730/ts/life_explosion_dc_5.html ... hang on - isn't this what my HOTMAIL accounts are for?: http://www.mailexpire.com/ ... it's the armed AMIHOTORNOT: http://www.b3ta.com/kill/g.php?k=996488442 ... build your own: http://chaos.greeny.org/~halluc/railgun/intro.html ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the less rude www.tvgohome.com TV>> C4 picks up Fox's grippingly game-theory-influenced reality horror TEMPTATION ISLAND (11.10pm, Fri, C4)... E4 interrupts its wall-to-wall Brass Eye repeats for the third series of brutal prison drama OZ (11pm, Fri, E4), and for anyone who gets E4 but mysteriously doesn't get MTV, a run of surprisingly endearing self-injury fest JACKASS (10.35pm, Tue & Wed, E4)... while TOMORROW'S WORLD (7pm, Wed, BBC1) flags down the reality bandwagon as 75 passengers attempt to escape from a burning Jumbo - live on TV!... building up to the final episode (8pm, Mon), Sky are showing 8 hours of random (best of?) STAR TREK: VOYAGER (from 1pm, Sat & Sun, Sky1)... the curse of doing something hugely popular early in your career then constantly trying to live up to it is doubly explored in DOUGLAS ADAMS: OMNIBUS SPECIAL (8.10pm, Sat, BBC2) and Steve Coogan on THE SOUTH BANK SHOW (11pm, Sun, ITV)... BEST OF BANZAI (9.30pm, Sat, C4) is followed by The Clip Show Eating Itself in the clumsily titled TV TO DIE FOR: THE BEST MUSIC SHOW IN THE WORLD (10pm, Sat, C4), featuring highlights from all last year's "Worst Music Moments From Hell" programmes... but then you've a choice of star-studded sci-fi B-movies in the form of flawed Gibson adaptation JOHNNY MNEMONIC (10.15pm, Sat, BBC1) or Marg "CSI" Helgenberger making ingenious use of an empath to advance the plot in space-sex nonsense SPECIES (10.45pm, Sat, ITV)... Richard Dean Anderson fans can always pretend that MACGYVER: LOST TREASURE OF ATLANTIS (3.55pm, Sun, BBC1) is a feature-length STARGATE SG-1 (12.45pm, Sun, C4) if the latter is cancelled due to cricket... "email isn't secure" reveals the unintentionally hilarious THE FUTURE JUST HAPPENED (7.45pm, Sun, BBC2): http://www.bbc.co.uk/future - click "Prog 2" on the left menu... take a drink every time Simon "Privacy International" Davies pops up in THE HISTORY OF SURVEIILANCE (8pm, Sun, C4)... there's another chance to see ape-make-up docu-soap NEANDERTHAL (8pm, Mon, C4), described by Charlie Brooker as "When Gallaghers Ruled The Earth"... Harrison Ford's well-documented problems with air travel continue in Anne Heche rom-com SIX DAYS SEVEN NIGHTS (9pm, Mon, C5) and Tom Clancy fancy-shmancy CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER (9pm, Tue, BBC1)... look forward to the "Southerners have their own rules" ad placement during harrowing Nam-allegory SOUTHERN COMFORT (9pm, Thu, C5)... and, hopefully heeding Mark Leyner's dictum that "all competition - active or potential - must be neutralised", Carol Vorderman uses extensive testing to locate and identify BRITAIN'S BRAINIEST KID (8.30pm, Thu, ITV)... FILM>> "even better than the original" is the promising word of mouth on Zhang "Crouching Tiger" Ziyi and Don "Swordfish" Cheadle joining Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in action-comedy RUSH HOUR 2 (imdb: china / martial-arts / partner / police / sequel / hong-kong)... otherwise Jeff "The Fly" Goldblum and Elizabeth "Big" Perkins encounter further unnatural phenomena in animatronic/CGI pet-fighting kiddie-chortle CATS AND DOGS (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/catsanddogs.htm : dog flatulence and urination; suggestion of inappropriate touch by proximity; never has God placed the animals above or equal to man)... *very* limited release previews of joke-free "Shrek" remake FIGHTING FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN (imdb: computer- animation / based-on-video-game)... or, in Bristol this weekend, then around the country later in the month, it's the return of STELLA SCREEN ON LOCATION: CINEMA UNDER THE STARS http://www.stellascreen.co.uk/stellascreen/ - a "unique blend of the great outdoors and the hypnotic magic of film", though it must be a bit distracting if the screen really is suspended tug-of-war-style between two horses, like in the TV ads... BONERS, CORRECTIONS, CLARIFICATIONS, AND "INCORRECTLY REGARDED AS GOOFS">> going back a while, reader ANDREW HARTON boldly accused us of mixing up the works of Neal Stephenson in NTK 2001-07-13, alleging "Perhaps you meant 'The Diamond Age', which did indeed contain converted supertankers acting as floating orphanages, rather than 'Snow Crash', which didn't". No, we definitely meant "The Raft" in "Snow Crash" (and we haven't read "The Diamond Age" anyway - is it any good?)... someone calling themselves "PERICLES" believed our use of the phrase "the hoi-polloi" [last week's NTK] was a "sly way of resuscitating the career of 'The The'", because "hoi" means "the" in Greek or something. The enthrallingly over-detailed http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-usage-english-faq/ begs to differ, however, noting that the "first 5 citations in the OED, and the most famous use of this phrase in English (in Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Iolanthe')" all put "the" in front of it; plus, the other way round sounds stupid... also last week, MARK WHITAKER astutely observed that our link to the thesis "Bod: Sexuality and Surrealism", by one Peter Fenelon of the "Heslington Institute for the Harmlessly Daft" was "clearly a piss-take", though to his credit, he did include a link to the (apparently for real) http://www.ncl.ac.uk/crif/stenger.htm for comparison purposes... oh and SIMON JOBSON - "a solicitor in the commercial propery department of a large city law firm" - uncovered that "the Guardian aren't getting any money out of [ http://195.182.183.18/auctions/lot.asp?PropertyID=215 ] - since it's the freehold of their leased office which is for sale", though conceded that it's a "nice idea"... regarding genuine omissions of fact or judgement: KI SUK rightly queried our 2001-03-16 claim that "'Defcon 1' means all-out war when, in reality, 'Defcon 5' does", citing such compelling evidence as http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/defcon.htm - but apparently the audio commentary on the "WarGames" DVD still maintains otherwise... WILLIAM KNOWLES was mightily reassured by Google's attempts to correct the spelling of MTV UK's apparently universal standard "non-frames" browser warning: http://www.google.com/search?q=somefing+has+gone+totally+tits+up&filter=0 "Did you mean: *something* has gone totally tits up?"... and finally, some early editions of NTK 2001-07-13 playfully confused scripting.com US web celeb "Dave Winer" with where- is-he-now UK net evangelist "Dave[y] Winder" - NTK apologies unreservedly for any offence caused to either of them... >> 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 http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.51.html#subj11 "not certain as to anything's authenticity" 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.geekstyle.co.uk/ (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.