Need To Know 2001-08-10

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"This intricate-looking image was actually generated by a computer program" - caption to Mandelbrot snapshot, NEW YORK TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/07/science/physical/07INFO.html ...like everything else on this Web page, you *idiot* >> HARD NEWS << bringing balance to the load Oh, "they" bleat about how all their readers are sending them SirCam documents, and how the Net is grinding to a halt with CODE RED (n+1) infections, but why, we - and he - must ask, is no-one writing about HIPCRIME? The bane of USENET has, it seems to us, has achieved a more worrying goal than SirCam, Code Red, and a hundred urban myths and spam kings - the often-predicted death of USENET. Hipcrime's Java NewsAgent program is spreading further and further afield. It has a simple strategy. First: it creates a unique posting of computer generated gibberish, which is nonetheless electronically indistinguishable from a normal usenet post. Then it covers its origin by adopting the headers of random (real) usenet poster. Prepare to send it to a random group, but set follow-ups to the group to be destroyed. Post from an untraceable dialup, or better still via the hundreds of open Wingate socks4 proxies. Repeat until the group is drowned in "what the hell", "please keep to the charter", "what has this to do with frank zappa?" messages. Impossible to filter, impossible to cancel, and damn hard to warn the whole of Usenet about: especially if everyone outside the froups is blind to its existence. And it's been there since the mid-90s. And, yeah, people still read USENET. http://groups.google.com/groups?th=773aad3a582328b9,208&start=0 - watch the descent into madness http://www.ntk.net/2001/08/10/freshred.gif - meanwhile Code Red stalks the Microsoft vulnerabilities http://www.dasbistro.com/default.ida - hold on: doesn't the first command turn the server *off*? Of course, it was an unexpected vulnerability in a Microsoft *personality* that threatened servers this side of the pond when people realised that the now-notorious STEVE BALLMER video, which had been kicking around as an .avi file for at least a couple of weeks beforehand, had at last become available in a format that people might actually want to view it in. Thanks to everyone who helped with the mirroring, and to all the proper journalists who got an official "no comment" from Microsoft after becoming exasperated with our explanation that we "got it off a mailing list or something". Perhaps that same generosity might be able to help out ailing UK comedy sites MARTIAN.FM (having problems with the time - and other, cultural - differences between the UK and Detroit); tiresome Chris Morris lickspittles COOKDANDBOMBD.CO.UK (having problems hosting that ever-controversial "Brass Eye" episode); world- hating comedy forum SOME OF THE CORPSES ARE AMUSING (see previous NTKs); and - last, but not least - little-known news spoof site THE REGISTER, whose mishaps this week included forgetting their router password and having to evacuate the office following a shooting. And they say satire is "too safe" nowadays. http://bbspot.com/toys/video/ballmer/ - can you smell what the OS division is cooking? http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/20897.html - quite tame, by http://www.notbbc.co.uk/corpses/ standards At the end of last month, Pythonista Eric S. Raymond extended an olive branch to the Perl developers, suggesting that the two languages (or "tribes" as esr is wont to call everyone) put aside their differences to work on a common runtime. It was all the P's in our time: Python, Perl, Parse Trees, Parrot (the April Fool's joke hybrid Py-Pl language) and, most importantly we guess for ESR, Pissing Off Microsoft by routing around their own .NET runtime. Three weeks later, the process still hangs in the balance. There's suspicion in the Python camp that the Perl6 mongers have no intention to decommission their explosive syntax stockpiles, and ongoing division among Python developers over the true nature of the "%" operator has slowed the process. We just hope no-one starts sending suicide packages into CPAN or blowing up the ActiveState offices. Simon Cozens has been engaging in shuttle diplomacy across the language divides, rooting over the Python parser, and has started the "rainbow alliance" mailing list, language-dev. Jesus, they're even talking to the PHP authors in there. http://www.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-July/016406.html - love how esr's .sig file always implies he's waving a gun as he composes his mail http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Browse/Threaded/language-dev - just don't trust those Sather guys >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious LUCAS displays unerring eye for a topical public-relations coup: http://www.ntk.net/2001/08/10/dohclone.jpg ... give birth to a blinkin' MONSTER: http://www.ivfcenter.net/ ... more hopeful reality-TV satirists fight for the limelight at http://www.dangerisland.tv/ ... "before" and "after" pics of Rudy from "Survivor"?: http://www.toymania.com/main.shtml ... as if call centres didn't already strip away your dignity: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010807/od/nudists_dc_1.html ... BBC hope to provoke a discussion on "living in slugs": http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/tp_archive/19428.stm - hang on, there's enough here to build your own world-class news operation: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/services/ , http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/background/newsid_1245000/1245746.stm ... and http://www.thelabourparty.org points to... from the folks behind http://wwwntk.net/ - http://www.sexclowns.com/ ... hint: the clue's in the immediately adjacent image filename: http://tv.carlton.com/ourhouse/comp_q3.jhtml ... #*@!$~-ing keyboard: http://www.ntk.net/2001/08/10/dohcurrency.png ... woah there, Detective-Sergeant - you'd better hold your horses: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004CUOJ/ ... the "mutants and human sheep" name-calling continues: http://217.148.32.187/FriendsReunited.asp?wci=bb&school_key=139661 ... hey, everyone goes a bit crazy at a PERL CONFERENCE: http://195.38.233.125/YAPC/friday/Pict0048.htm ... FALCO http://www.taste.co.uk - worth every penny of UKP110,000: http://www.name-shop.net/prime.htm#taste ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Last time we mentioned "Transmetropolitan" in NTK, some crazed Spider-Jerusalem-style maverick troublemaker promised to mail us his surviving issues of "Denny Whiplash", a comic-strip which WARREN ELLIS apparently wrote and drew "in the mid-80s" for his 6th form college magazine. Sadly, our source's scanner has since mysteriously malfunctioned, but it might still make for an unusual conversation piece when Warren joins a bunch of other Titan Books talent - Ian "Halo Jones" Gibson, Steve "Deadline" Dillon, Glenn "Slaine" Fabry - at their 20 YEARS OF TITAN BOOKS mass signing tomorrow (Sat 2001-08-11, Forbidden Planet, New Oxford St, London WC1). Since Steve Dillon also worked on "Rogue Trooper" in his time, maybe he could answer that eternal question: what if Rogue had not conveniently had those three friends with near-fetishistic interests in guns, helmets and backpacks, respectively? How differently might the stories have turned out had his trooper-colleagues been obsessed with, say, ladies' shoes or underwear instead? http://www.2000adonline.com/index.php3?page=news&story=signing - "Back me up here, Panties! Shoes - we're going in!" http://www.dnscon.org/dns4/ - We don't *think* we're speaking here this year. Or are we? >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering This will be, I swear, the second-to-last Elite nostalgia piece that NTK runs. The New Kind, the reverse-engineered C reimplementation of the original 6502 BBC Micro game has hit v1.0. It runs under Windows and Linux (using the giftware Allegro graphics library), and fair brings a tear to your eye - and that's just paging through the source. But even if the stark beauty of assembly-based-C code doesn't appeal, the homages to every iteration of the game - including rock hermits, witchspace ambushes and the fabled Cougar will win anyone who still gives a toss over, I'm sure. http://www.newkind.co.uk/ - Darkness Falls is so much better (albeit less accurate) than "Attack of the Clones" http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0108/07/i_ba.04.html - Braben on CNN: kids should be *flying* around and shooting http://www.phink.net/elite/ - now with graphics. on WAP >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista idealistic artists miss large astronomical object, point: http://www.paintthemoon.org/ ... spanking new Japanese input devices: http://www.monzy.com/intro/boong-ga/brochure.jpg , http://www.pioneer.co.jp/soundbum/ ... suspicions confirmed about "sports fans": http://www.ruggerbugger.com/index2.htm ... BBC http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=86965 imitate http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/article.14.1936.html ... "accidenture" ad at http://corporateanthems.raettig.org/ - not exactly an "anthem", is it?... vs lost consultancy wisdom of the ancients: http://home1.gte.net/sny22njz/artofwww/ ... "formulaic POKEMON slash" writes an especially jaded reader: http://daviduck83.homestead.com/lemons.html (from alt.games. nintendo.pokemon.hentai)... "It's the car, right? Chicks dig the car?": http://robertinhisferrari.com/ ... continuing this week's unusually bodily-functions-fixated memepool, KEVIN SMITH astroturf site: http://www.moviepoopshoot.com/ ... not smelling *of* it - NEW SCIENTIST readers now smelling own wee: http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opletters.jsp?id=ns230339 ... it seems I have underestimated you once again, DOC-TOR: http://www.itn.co.uk/news/20010809/entertainment/01davison.shtml ... http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_364943.html imitates http://www.theonion.com/onion3533/death_of_child_3533.html ... this week's mildly confused CHRISTIAN pop-lyrics parody site: http://www.anti-gay.com/hybrids/parody.htm ... and don't tell the http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/newsroom/170701kitten.shtml kids' crusaders about this alarming new pet-keeping craze: http://www.fsinet.or.jp/~sokaisha/rabbit/rabbit.htm ... >> GEEK MEDIA << hello? tvgohome? HELLO? TV>> BBC1 unleashes a monolithic EASTENDERS-based Friday line- up (from 7pm, Fri, BBC1), with attractions including Jonathan Ross, Alistair McGowan and, bafflingly, last year's Victoria Wood Christmas Special... ALT-TV (7.30pm, Fri, C4) remakes the old indie "20 Dates" docu format as "Four Weeks To Find A Girlfriend"... and ITV seems to have wavered in the Arnie-vs- Arnie Saturday night game of chicken and is no longer showing "The Terminator" against TOTAL RECALL (10.15pm, Sat, BBC1)... filling in between the usual months-old home-grown clip shows comes the actually-quite-promising months-old imported clip show AFI'S 100 YEARS: 100 LAUGHS (9pm, Sat, C4) - inexplicably featuring neither Kevin Smith's MALLRATS (1am, Sat, BBC2) nor his CHASING AMY (11.55pm, Wed, C4)... risible "isn't the net amazing?" series THE FUTURE JUST HAPPENED (6.35pm, Sun, BBC2) at last gets around to cutting-edge cyber-icons Keith Chegwin and Marillion... former Letterman/SNL writer Rich Hall makes it big at last as grizzled character comic OTIS LEE CRENSHAW (11.05pm, Sun, BBC2)... and C5 finds itself on familiar territory once again with Rutger Hauer cybercrud NEW WORLD DISORDER (9pm, Mon, C5), clearly preferring to schedule stuff that might be any good - Jeremy "The Larry Sanders Show" Piven's quickfire comedy-drama CUPID (2.20pm, Mon-Fri, C5), Clint Eastwood's WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART (3.20pm, Tue, C5) - in the middle of the afternoon... SIN? (11.35pm, Tue, C4) seriously proposes abandoning all technological progress for "ethical reasons"... BBC2 commemorate Louis Farrakhan being allowed into the country with an week of ISLAM UK (most evenings from Mon, BBC2), culminating in Laurence Llewelyn- Bowen changing his name to "Mohammed El-Shabbaz" to enhance the Moroccan ambience in HOME FRONT: ISLAM SPECIAL (8pm, Wed, BBC2)... and the Dando assassination has only intensified celebrities' search for lookalikes who could potentially stand in for them at risky public occasions like STARS AND THEIR DOUBLES (8.30pm, Thu, ITV) - presented by an uncannily convincing "Des O'Connor" and "Claire from Steps"... FILM>> it's space ghosts - coast to coast! - in what largely resembles a feature-length version of motion-capture classic "Starship Troopers: The Animated Series" (think Thunderbirds puppets re-enacting scenes from "Aliens") being possessed by a near-comprehensible anime plot in FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/finalfantasy.htm : multitudes of new demons for nightmares; camera angles to force the viewer on the private areas of the characters; open mouth kissing; multiple bizarre creatures; glorification of Gaia with the powers of God; lengthy dialogue glorifying false god and belittling the righteous)... otherwise it's Steve "The Day Today" Coogan, Ben "Armstrong and Miller" Miller, Lena "Gossip" Headey, Jenny "Logan's Run" Agutter, Simon "Spaced" Pegg and Omar "Doctor Zhivago" Sharif - together at last! - in not-exactly-"Alan Partridge: The Movie" kiddie caper THE PAROLE OFFICER (http//www.bbfc.co.uk : rated 12 for moderate violence, sexual references, and language)... or otherwise self-explanatory Danish junior Dogme-95 animation HELP, I'M A FISH (imdb original title: the oddly Penelope-Pitstop-sounding HJAELP, JEG ER EN FISK)... CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> a weirdly limited roll-out of the MCDONALDS CHICKEN MCCRISPY ("2 pieces of succulent bone-in chicken", UKP2.48) - based on KFC's anecdotal ethnic appeal, are they deliberately aiming it at the UK's black population? Still, nothing for the Colonel to get too worried about just yet - it's like a deep-fried Chicken Kiev without the garlic butter inside, and has "This product contains bones" written all over it like a bad cameo episode of Star Trek: TNG. Staff have so far politely declined our suggestions that it should be renamed the "Chicken McBoner", or that they should do a similarly breadcrumbed cutlet called the "Ally McVeal"... we did see an attempted McFlurry rival - the AVALANCHE - in what may well be KFC's "flagship" store in Leicester Square (with M&Ms and Starburst Joosters sprinkle options), but Micky D's continue to push the envelope here with the recent sundae- repurposing MCDRIZZLE SHAKES (mmm, hot fudge sauce), the bizarre ICED MOCHA (with huge chunks of *real ice!*), and our product of the month, the STRAWBERRY CRUNCH MCFLURRY, with lots of jammy sauce and slightly salty digestive biscuit. On a completely unrelated note, thanks to both PETER FLINT and SIMON GREENWOOD for spotting that the terms and conditions linked to in NTK 2000-06-15 http://www.mcdonalds.com/legal/ contain the trademark "McDonald's All American High School Jazz Bank" - a phrase whose non-appearance elsewhere on Google leads one to suspect it may be "a misprint", but for what? Not "Jizz", surely?... back with sweets, a muted "s'alright I suppose" for CADBURY'S STRAWBERRY BUTTONS (only seen in Budgen's 7-11 stores so far), ROWNTREE'S bigger-than-Jelly- Belly MEGABEANS (the "Oingy Boingy" TV ad is a remake of the "All Your Base" video, maintains JOHN HANDELAAR), while the M&M'S CRISPS debate rages on. "They have had them in the states for ages and they are truly grim", advised CHARLOTTE LATIMER, "like sugar and chocolate covered ricicles, with sugar. Yuck", before going on to semi-recommend FRUITELLA JELLIES (25p/bag, "like little jelly beans that have had floor sweepings mixed in at the liquid stage - possibly the weirdest thing to pass my lips in a long time") and continental import HARIBO MAOAM STRIPES (UKP1 for bag of 12, "they are not stripey though, just very chewy and a very awkward shape to get in your mouth")... ALETHA MCHALICK confirmed that the centre of an M&M Crisp "is def[initely] NOT like a Malteser, it's horribly dry and slightly stale-tasting, like old rice crackers if anything at all", echoing the Proustian reverie of SUSAN CASEY, whose office snacks on "brandy snaps; panforte de Siena, going to war cake for 13th century Italians; plain Choco Leibniz, the philosopher's biscuit (bump up your IQ with a tonne of sugar); and [of course] orange-flavoured cardboard- coloured fish-shaped biscuits, 1cm long, from Muji, sadly discontinued". To which we can only add: watch out for NESTLE QUALITY STREET'S THE BIG PURPLE ONE (35p each, due Christmas), MARS "HARRY POTTER" BERTIE BOTTS EVERY FLAVOUR BEANS (39p, due September), plus CHICAGO TOWN CRAVINGS PIZZAS for pregnant women, with "Pineapple, Gerkin and Chocolate", "Egg, Cheese and Pickle", and "Fruit and Chocolate" toppings (UKP1.99)... >> 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 "an afterthought" http://www.bbspot.com/Features/2001/08/Top_11_ballmer_vid.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? 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