Need To Know 2001-08-24

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"By spending many hours playing games some children will not develop their frontal lobes--which play a crucial role in controlling behaviour, and developing memory, emotion and learning." http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2805811,00.html ...I'd rather have a fragged demon blown up in front of me than have a frontal lobotomy! >> HARD NEWS << interference looms Last week was the closing date for comments for the government's "Independent Spectrum Review". Usually we leave all this radio stuff to the hams (the geeks). But from a Netty point of view, the review responses say a lot about how folk are responding to the cheapo wireless net connections built by 802.11b hackers like Consume.Net. The 3G companies don't look scared (not as scared as those Bluetooth guys, anyway), but, boy, would they rather it all went away. "The market and value of [our] licensed spectrum is distorted", insists Hutchison, if those mini-ISPs with their funny beards and Apple AirPorts are allowed to compete. Fortunately for Hutchison, it's illegal for them to compete. In a ruling that would drive RMS nuts, 802.11a users aren't allowed to share their Net connection wirelessly with anyone but their own. And the authorities, embarassed about bankrupting most of the big telcos with that 3G auction, look likely to keep to that rule - even though most other countries are more liberal. The nice government's preferred compromise seems to be: shuffle all the WLAN crazies off the 2.4Mhz network to 5GHz where, they say, ISPs will be allowed. That sounds good to the 3G folk, because the 5Ghz 802.11a hardware isn't around yet, so they can beat the hackers to the wireless broadband punch. Also, 802.11a's range doesn't spread as far as 802.11b, so the ISP idea's doomed anyway. Meanwhile, the Starbucks-with-wireless Net access springing up over the US remain verboten in Britain. Guess the UK'll have to wait for our wireless bandwidth until the nice kindly corp's are ready for us. http://www.interesting-people.org/200108/0190.html - not as bad as the tsk-tsking free-marketeers make it sound http://www.spectrumreview.radio.gov.uk/ - although it'd help to have a Net guy on these panels http://www.smag.radio.gov.uk/index.htm - with the other smagheads More DMCA news: the arraignment of Dmitry's case has been postponed to next week ("plea bargain", yelps CNET ; some sort of negotiation, demurs Dmitry's counsel). With the DMCA-ish European Copyright Directive beginning to clang around the halls of power, the UK government needs to know it can't just pirate the DMCA legal code for use in its domestic courts without getting into lot of trouble with its citizens. There's another protest planned at Hyde Park to coincide with the Sklyarov hearing from 1245-1315BST on 2001-08-30 (details on the UK Sklyarov site below). More long-term, Caspar Bowden's redoubtable Foundation for Information Policy Research is looking for volunteers (both paid and unpaid) to work on EFFish activities in the UK. Fancy a break from your job? On "indefinite sabbatical" from your job? Give Caspar a buzz. http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/ - or its subjects, or whatever. shut up. http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk-announce/2001-August/000003.html - "being a cynic" as a job description? we're *so* there ... http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010822/tc/tech_hacker_dc_2.html - what they say http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6949933.html?tag=mn_hd - what CNET hear Well, it looks like uber-web agency RAZORFISH are going to be with us for a while yet, but that hasn't stopped well-wishers' tributes from flooding in, along with the mildly notorious INDUSTRY STANDARD "no more limos" staff-wide memo (one of a series of "fatuous Standard emails" we've been promised by a reader - collect the whole set!). Continuing the theme of "Make your own summer Bank Holiday fun", another reader appears to have been inspired by a week of even madder (and harder to illustrate?) than usual BBC news pieces (Friday: "Most websites can support only a handful of so-called concurrent users before they crash", Weds: "One [way to pirate books online] is to scan text and then convert it into e- formulas"), and so proposes a competition for the worst BBC News Online graphic depicting "hacking". Here's three recent classics from the archive to get you started: http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_1484000/1484704.stm - aka: Windows users "bricking themselves" over Trojan threat http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_1503000/1503988.stm - this is just your mates from round the office, isn't it? http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_1494000/1494091.stm - your mates from the office in moody cyber-terror montage! http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_1492000/1492558.stm - OK, not hacking any more, but *literally* a well-oiled machine... news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/entertainment/new_media/newsid_1503000/1503799.stm - "Science fiction and fantasy titles have proved more common" http://www.ntk.net/2001/08/24/limomemo.txt - mail us your favourite "e-formulas" (if you've kept them) >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious possibly the most inappropriate banner ad image of the year: http://www.ntk.net/2001/08/24/dohballs.png ... sycophantic THE STROKES review prophetically observes "on tonight's evidence": www.readingfestival.com/reading.asp?page=magazine&section=reviews&reviewID=15 ... "Money does make you happy" counterclaims extensive study: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_381677.html ... TRIPOD trapped in infinite 404: http://members.tripod.co.uk/index.php ... manual storage of "face-crippling costs"? That's *got* to hurt: http://www.ntk.net/2001/08/24/dohface.jpg ... elemEntary errors: http://sandi.net/utip/utipapplicationprocess.htm ... SKY MOVIEMAX ad "influenced" by kung-fu stick-figure Flash... because if they're smart enough to steal other kids' milk: http://www.ntk.net/2001/08/24/dohmilk.png ... WIDDECOMBE of the week: http://digitalart.org/artwork/artwork.php?ID=3&message=terrible%20drawing ... mags still boosting circulation via PHANTOM MENACE stars on cover: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol293/issue5531/ ... UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE insists URL stands for "Universal Resource Locator"... suspiciously accurate "37%" distrust AOL: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nf/20010823/tc/13041_1.html ... IOMART's iomartvo.com shop domain seems to have expired in June... hey, *surely* no-one's ever going to get this far?: http://www.08701101010.com/Favourites/page_23_1165.shtml ... obviously faster than their "analogue" web-browsing machine: http://www.propertylive.co.uk/PL/data/100393/1000/page2.htm ... EUROPOL cc's car-crime press release to 400 security professionals... real dog of a site: http://www.maltesedog.com ... PUNK not dead - heavy-handed satire, on the other hand: http://192.85.241.143/adverts/UK/Freeserve/aolswerve.gif ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Here at NTK, we're all too aware of the many problems caused by online porn - if it's not the increasingly rapid expiry of XXX passwords, it's sites which have started checking the referrer URL or (even worse!) using non-consecutive image numbering to stop simple scripts downloading the entire directory. Anyway, there should be none of that unpleasantness at the imaginatively named CLITERATI.CO.UK, a new site which trades in traditional text-only alt.sex.stories fare (sorry, we meant "upmarket female-friendly erotic fiction") in a modern weblog format. And they're having a launch party at a secret location next Friday (2001-08-31), and there's a few places left on the guest-list, and you are strongly advised to RSVP as instructed at the end of the press release (including recent photo?) if that's at all your sort of thing. http://www.linuks.mine.nu/porn-get/ - "I never thought I'd be posting to a blog like yours, but..." http://www.cliterati.co.uk/page/article.php?story=20010815121028262 - non-consecutive article numbering; NNNNNGGGGHH... http://www.ship-of-fools.com/Features/NedNight.html - also this week: smut-free Christians with sense of humour http://hypermedia.wmin.ac.uk/ - students who still think Flash is a good idea... http://lbw2001.ynfonatic.de/ - and pingtime (for Hitler?), in Germany! >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering "Open Source projects have been able to gain a foothold ... because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market." said Microsoft's Halloween document, back in '98. It's understandable, then, that a lot of Free programmers are wary of Microsoft's spanking .NET protocol, SOAP. They're even a bit worried about SOAP's rebellious little brother XML-RPC. After all, the best thing for MS to the ornate SOAP replacing the public web, is an extra simple protocol like XML-RPC which would keep "most of the value in the services and implementation and NOT in the wire protocol" (Halloween again). But there *is* one sparky alternative that's not too Microsoft, not too complex, and already has a big enough backing to have a life of its own: HTTP. Roy Fielding and a few others are banging on about how HTTP's GET, POST and other commands are already perfect for RPC: and have been proved to be scaleable by the success of the Web. What HTTP (or the REST model as it's called this week) lacks, though, is some real apps that treat HTTP as an API, rather than just that funny browser talk. Maybe it's time (for Linux users at least) to practice with WEBDAVFS, a new mapping of WebDav, the biggest HTTP application that ain't about the pages. WebDav's a full remote filing system implemented over HTTP. Now with Webdavfs, Linux can mount a Website as a drive. And the (relatively) funny thing? Before all this SOAP business, MS implemented it in Windows WebFolders, FrontPage, and IIS before letting it rust. They commoditized it *themselves*. http://internet.conveyor.com/RESTwiki/moin.cgi - Work, REST, and fight http://sourceforge.net/projects/dav/ - of course what REST needs is a manual way to PUT freeform HTML... http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13383 - phew. okay, funny URLs next >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista marginally less annoying than the original, and boots quicker: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/uploads/27000/27549_winrg.swf ... http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/article.15.1961.html funny again for once - if they'd just get over that fucking "Hugo Z Hackenbush" obsession... will the tributes *never* cease? http://www.untitleddocument.co.uk/Issue37/radiogotohell.gif ... psuedo-AI flash app imitates THE ONION's "Outside Scoop": http://www.conspire.com/manningbot.html ... where no man has gone before: http://www.webpan.com/dsinclair/trek.html - vs http://members.nbci.com/starfeet/actors/hollyoaks.html ...yup, strictly it should be be 6NU L1NUX (so don't write in, OK?): http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1181583482 ... jesus - what workplace are these screenshots from?: http://www.guarddvr.com/guarddvr.asp ... re-entry's a bitch: http://www.blessitt.com/crossinspace/ ... HUSHMAIL 2.0 upgrade "cocked up"... JOHN KOVALIC, STEVE JACKSON - together at last: http://www.sjgames.com/munchkin/game/ ... STERLING, the net, this new-fangled weblogging craze - together, er, never mind: http://www.infinitematrix.net/columns/sterling/sterlingi.html ... NIMOY in "one of the goriest yet truly gratifying media player demonstrations yet": http://us.imdb.com/Title?0199709 ... maybe they *should* play "Little Fluffy Clouds" in court: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/I_Thought_We_Knew_That.mp3 ... no v1-4?: http://www.foulds2000.freeserve.co.uk/bushv5.htm ... http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/silly/sillymols.htm vs http://research.biology.arizona.edu/myosin/Bestiary.html ... what will fill the gap left by FRED HOYLE? Hydrogen, probably... >> GEEK MEDIA << unconnected to the triumphant return of www.tvgohome.com TV>> oops, missed yesterday's showing but you can still catch the season 5 opener of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (12.20am, Fri, BBC2) - "Dracula" isn't that great, but stick around for the "what did I miss?" introduction of little sister Dawn... 80 almost-uninterrupted minutes of Patrick Kielty culminates in much-needed retro clip show I CAN'T BELIEVE WE WATCHED THAT (11.10pm, Fri, BBC1) - a gruelling marathon rivalled only by 3 hours of ABBA NIGHT (from 9pm, Sat, ITV2), 6 hours of VIEWERS' CHOICE FRASIER WEEKEND (from 9pm, Sat & Sun, Paramount), nearly 4 hours of THE 100 GREATEST KIDS' TV SHOWS (8.30pm, Mon, C4), or *54* hours of non-stop ROBOT WARS (from 7am, Sat- Mon, UK Horizons)... Channel 5 hits back with a double-bill of OK-ish TV movies it last showed about a year ago: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA (6.10pm, Sat, C5) and FUTURESPORT (10pm, Sat, C5)... but BBC1 picks up the sci-fi trash baton later in the week with CGI spectacular DEEP RISING (9.50pm, Mon, BBC1) and touchy-feely disaster epic DEEP IMPACT (8.05pm, Tue, BBC1) ... C4 celebrates the power to cloud men's minds with THE MAGIC OF TOMMY COOPER (9.15pm, Sat, C4), DERREN BROWN: MIND CONTROL 2 (10.20pm, Sat, C4) and EDINBURGH OR BUST: LIVE PERRIER AWARD SPECIAL (11.35pm, Sat, C4)... and Stephen Soderbergh's acclaimed OUT OF SIGHT? (9.05pm, Sat, BBC1) "Crock of Shit", more like... THE HISTORY OF SURVEILLANCE (8pm, Sun, C4) winds up with an investigation of pixel-sized web bug cookies or something... JK ROWLING AND THE HARRY POTTER EXPRESS (8pm, Sun, C5) officiate over C5's "Witches And Demons" night... and hopefully REPUTATIONS (10.35pm, Sun, BBC2) will touch on the "CIA stooge" allegations about LSD guru Timothy Leary... can't wait to see if there really is an apologising-to-blind-people disclaimer in Leslie Nielsen misfire MR MAGOO (7pm, Mon, C5)... as ever, too much Alan Cumming, not enough Janeane Garofalo in ROMY AND MICHELLE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION (9pm, Mon, C5)... new "go and live in Swaziland" reality show GOING NATIVE (10pm, Tue, C4) imitates http://www.nationallampoon.com/news/8_16b.asp ... and we thought Armando Ianucci would make more "I'm Alan Partridge" episodes if the BBC gave him another series of "Saturday Night Armistice", so we're really not sure if THE ARMANDO IANUCCI SHOWS (10.30pm, Thu, C4) are a good omen or not... FILM>> a special week for fans of Carson "MTV" Daly's ex- girlfriends, with Jennifer "I Know What You Did" Love Hewitt, Sigourney "Ghostbusters" Weaver, Jason "Chasing Amy" Lee, Jeffrey "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" Jones, Carrie "Star Wars" Fisher, Ray "Goodfellas" Liotta and Gene "Superman" Hackman - together at last! - in sassy old-fashioned con-trick ensemble comedy HEARTBREAKERS (http://www.cndb.com : JLH Just teases Us with her Enormous Mammories; NO nudity from Jennifer Love Hewitt in this movie. She DOES wear lots of tight skimpy outfits, if that is any consolation; Lets Hope and Pray that the special scene we are all hoping for is found on the DVD)... while Daly's former fiancee Tara "American Pie" Reid resurfaces with Rachel Leigh Cook in scattershot subliminal- advertising pop satire toon remake JOISE AND THE PUSSYCATS (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/josiepussycats.htm : 19 uses of the three/four letter word vocabulary; song of lust for money; excessive cleavage/breast exposure; full male nudity, genitals masked by convenience objects; teen girl in shower; teen girl in tub; reckless driving to show off)... either probably a better bet than unnecessary Paul-Hogan- meets-One-Foot-In-The-Grave retread CROCODILE DUNDEE IN LOS ANGELES (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/crocdundeeinla.htm self touching; nearly bare bottoms of male transvestites going into a gay bar with another transvestite as the door attendant; sexual immorality (not seen) resulting in child out of wedlock; 9 year old child using the three/four letter word vocabulary; anatomical swimwear; psychic control of animals)... DRESS DOWN FRIDAY>> (or, as http://www.zlatne-ruke.co.yu/ puts it, "MAN CLOTHES") by huge public demand, this month's winning t-shirt design is, of course, CHRIS BARNES'S ingenious URL- encoding of the word "Fuck" ("%46%55%43%4B", RFC1630 fans), on sale at http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/index.cgi?product=Encoded - though, in an unprecedented tag-team double-whammy, we've also stuck our fashionable new designer label on the sleeve, in the form of DAVID J BODYCOMBE's suggestion of the letters "DNKY" with a picture of a donkey above them. David gets 50p from each sale, while Chris (whose design is bigger) gets UKP1.50 per item, which he says will help fund a site "for me and all my weird mates to stay in touch when we all bugger off to Uni in Sep". Aw, bless... and still they come - David J Bodycombe, clearly on a roll, provided two different versions of his "hi score" concept http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/hiscoresf.gif and http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/hiscoresm.gif - great idea, we thought, though maybe needs a bit more of a twist to make it funnier? Ditto for SIMON TATHAM's excellent anti-spam rant: http://www.tartarus.org/~simon/tshirt.png , and PAUL COOMBS' so-far text-only suggestion of a load of "getting to know you" questions ("Hi - what's your name? Can I buy you a drink? What kind of music/ films/ books do you like? Really, I like that kind of music/ films/ books as well"), with "<skip intro>" in much bigger writing lower down. Let us know if you've got any further suggestions for any of these, and you could be rewarded with free shirts or even $$$ if they're particularly good (and we ever get round to printing them)... ones we're still mulling over include MICHAEL SAUNBY's "Broke" http://www.saunby.net/completely/broke.gif , MODESTY B CATT's "Pr0nStar" http://www.phink.net/ntk/tshirts/pr0nStar.html (currently embroiled in legal wrangling), CHRIS GAGNE's "  on the front, and its binary equivalent on the back", which apparently "looks awesome when you're dressed all in black, wearing Ray-Bans, and a leather trenchcoat with huge boots" - dude, what *doesn't*? - and, finally, numerous variations on the theme of "fsck" in some sort of "fcuk" font (anyone know what it is?), including MARK BOWYER's "fsck /fashion", or even MATTHEW PETTY's arguably more contentious "I'm a stupid motherfcuker" - or perhaps "I'm with this motherfcuker ->", he adds, helpfully... but you don't need to design a shirt to win big in this game, you just need to wear one on TV, as proved by O'Reilly Peer-to-Peer book contributor THEODORE HONG, whose successful infiltration of the London Dmitry Sklyarov demo saw his "ILoveYou.VBS" shirt making a starring appearance on that evening's edition of "Newsnight". Under the terms of our exclusive "Buy One, Subvert The Mass Media, Get One Free", Theo wins an NTK shirt of his choice; witness his winning performance (and recent runners-up) at http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/gallery.html . Note that online media don't really qualify (though tasteful product placement is always appreciated, if the plot requires it: http://www.cliterati.co.uk/page/article.php?story=20010813005528135 ), while rogue NTK employee "Dave Green" is hereby disqualified from further entries for failing to heed Al Pacino's lesson in "Scarface": "Don't get attired from your own supplier"... >> 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 "PAWNS OF THE MICROSOFT CONSPIRACY" http://www.disinfo.com/pages/article/id1486/pg1/ 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.