Need To Know 2001-11-02

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"The biggest mistake we've ever made, as an industry, is the banner ad. It is ineffective and was created by what is best described as the Wired Magazine hippie crowd. These folks were interested in preserving the user experience..." - JASON MCCABE CALACANIS, Wall Street Journal ... a man who clearly didn't read the magazine either >> HARD NEWS << court will ruse Viva la recession! In the bad old days of the longish boom, digital VCR makers Tivo and Replay were held back from including heavy-duty ad-skipping features and file-copying utilies by the cautious words of their investors. Investors like - the TV networks, oddly, who last century offered big bucks to the digital VCR companies at the same time as they'd fax over a tasty grabbag of legal threats. Get hint? Get funding! Nowadays the content losers don't have the money to bail out Replay's new owners Sonic|Blue - and Sonic|Blue no longer have the luxury to produce a half-cocked product and nuzzle investor teat for succour. For as Napster discovered, if you make a product that only your mother and Disney's lawyers love, you've got total sales of two - and at least one of them hates you already. So it's off to the courts with Replay and the TV networks. Courts which, as the DeCSS vs DVDCCA decision in Sunnyvale this week showed, aren't necessarily as impressed with the media companies' chequebooks as the computer industry used to be. http://news.cnet.com/investor/news/newsitem/0-9900-1028-7739378-0.html - of course, most of the US TV networks backed Tivo http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/DVDCCA_case/20011101_bunner_appellate_decision.html - but that's another conspiracy... http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/nov01/11-02settlement.asp - ...and that's another court case You're a veteran of the USAF and CIA. You've been appointed as "Chief of Homeland Security" for the state of Texas. What's the best way to reassure your fellow Americans about their domestic safety? Why, take out a patriotic ad in "Texas Monthly" magazine, of course: a soldier standing proud in front of the Stars and Stripes wearing a Luftwaffe uniform. OK, so the pic is actually former German defense attache Brigadier General Peter Schmitz, rather than, say, Hermann Goering - but it's all grist to the mill for New World Order conspiracy theorists, already on a state of high alert over that unusual "Homeland" terminology. "Was this a bizarre mistake, a Freudian slip or *a rare moment of candor* [our emphasis] from the Bush administration?", muses online commentator Robert Lederman, whose previous stabs at controversy have included depicting New York mayor Rudy Giuliani as both Hitler and Satan. "Considering that Bush's grandfathers made their fortune on Wall Street managing banks and shipping companies the US government seized in 1942 as fronts for the Nazis", Lederman continues, "it may have been all three". http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/STORY.e9c76eb887.b0.af.0.a4.b60dd.html - c'mon, someone must have a bigger pic of this somewhere http://baltech.org/lederman/bush-homeland-security-10-30-01.html - "The one thing we *didn't* want to happen" And this week's challenge to "Guess The Password For An Official-Looking Iomart: Net Intelligence(TM) Webmail Account" is: marketing@iomart.com . That's marketing@iomart.com - type your wildest imaginings into http://webmail.thinkmail.com/ , where the most l33t haxxors will be rewarded with a memo from Iomart Human Resources, sternly warning that "whoever receives this email" *must* reveal "who is checking this mailbox" by no later than 12pm Thursday 30th August. Failure to comply will apparently result in the account being deleted just 4 hours later, at "4pm on Thursday 30th August 2001". Sometimes those HR deadlines just have a way of stretching into days, weeks and months, don't they? http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/02/iodoh.txt - admittedly, they did fix sales@iomart.com pretty fast http://www.ntk.net/2001/10/26/iomart.jpg - and why not get your ADSL from us while you're about it? >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious "The more you read about how they are going to send the Internet along cables, it is who controls the cable and who controls the flow of information" - ROBERT SMITH, out of The Cure, prophetically imitates Winston Smith, out of 1984: http://www.nme.com/NME/External/News/News_Story/0,1004,47384,00.html ... thank heavens - recruitment pages with a sense of humour: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/02/dohvbc.gif ... sadly, we can't afford to pay our Senior Systems Analysts more than this: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/02/dohannum.gif - we need it for Physics Programmers: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/02/dohhour.gif ... BBC cutting back on "abstract tech illustration" budget?: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1621000/1621875.stm - but can still afford glimpse of "Q-Bert: Where Is He Now?": http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1413000/1413651.stm ... slightly enigmatic plot synopsis for assertiveness guide: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553263900/ ... more immediate subtext - "Root Of All Evil" = Enterprise Javabeans: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596001932/ ... fix - try Jupiter instead: http://bugs.kde.org/db/34/34295.html ... kerning komedy: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~triti/rightfont.jpg ... "Informal/Adult" Welsh approach to Design and Typography: http://www.mediaed.org.uk/resource/display_record.php?resource_no=15 ... prefer not to give your credit card information over the internet? If so, why not "Fax or e-mail" it instead, advises http://www.coolvcd.com/faq.shtml ... unsigned bands? unsigned integers, more like: http://www.dot-bands.com/index.php ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Seems like our "Acoustic Cover Versions of Synthesiser Pop Hits of the 1980s (introducing Matt Jones as The Unabongoer)" have been deemed "too experimental" for the likes of the inaugural DORKBOT LONDON (7pm, Wed 2001-11-07, The Boxing Club, Limehouse Town Hall, London E14, free). Visitors to the UK version of New York's "people doing strange things with electricity" night will instead have to be challenged by the usual computer-generated music and a talk on "fork bombs". Plus, for all you circuit-bending fans out there, details of how to abuse the Yamaha PSR-7 - which, as far as we can remember, is either one of those cheap MIDI home keyboards, or a motorbike. Either way, tunes you're guaranteed to be humming all the way home. http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/dorkbot/dorkbotlondon/ - we'd even agreed not to do "Tainted Perl". Just this once. http://www.rlff.com/ - London Film Festival lurches back into life this weekend >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Outliners and "Brainmappers" are the closest programmers get to EST cults: desperately we buy into them, believing that one day we'll find the ultimate graphing planner that will automagically organise our lives, and turn us into gleaming Edward De Bonos of creativity. So, for level eight of your third todo-list tree node, here's a cheaper, more self-limiting option. PROGECT is a bog-standard Palm outliner you can get the hang of after three minutes and uncomplicated enough to stop you wasting hours fiddling the settings to "optimise" your "goal management scenarios". It's a GPLed student, uh, project, by English language grappler burgbach. Apart from the usual i8n idiosyncracies, it suffers from some consistent crashes that are easily worked around, a few screen-refreshing issues, and other indications of human frailty. But that hasn't stopped a large community moving away from shareware Palm brainsluicers, adopting Progect as their one true outliner, contributing code and generally bucking up its shortcomings. Search widely enough, and you'll find a java desktop app called jprogect in the pipeline, and a Perl syncing library to export your little trees of duty. It's changed our lives! Like all the other ones did for a week! http://progect.sf.net/ - now send us your favourite and we can have a big fight http://ftrain.com/cleaning_the_room.html - this is you tidying your room this is >> MEMEPOOL << warm bit behind gagpipe.com this week's amusing FLASH games that crash in some browsers: http://www.vectorlounge.com/04_amsterdam/jam/flamjam.html , http://www.evolver.co.uk/wayofthestick.html ... MORRIS at war: http://downloads.warprecords.com/morris/bushwhacked.mp3 ... "Brass Eye" science - Mouse 'Rave Concert' Experiment Branded 'Sick': http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_439005.html ... Point-Counterpoint - feminist comment on role of Afghan women: http://128.241.192.9/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=368297 vs JIM "Answer Me!" GOAD: http://www.jimgoad.com/musgirls.html ... "Firearms may be carried at the captain's discretion", reassures http://www.ryanair.com/FQ.html#firearms ... this week's online looky-likeys: DARIUS from "Popstars" slams MS censorship policy: http://www.securityfocus.com/news/270 ... pesky Taliban mistake kind but firm PE teacher Abdul Haq: http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/011029/80/cdapk.html for Afghan warlord "Bullet" Baxter: http://tv.cream.org/baxter.jpg ... only downside of http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/30/14612/236 is someone has to http://www.fridgemagnet.org.uk/kitchen.html afterwards ... proof you don't have to be hi-res to be sexy: http://www.a-blast.org/~drx/lo-tech/teletext/ ...phone the stars: http://www.oftel.gov.uk/publications/1999/numbering/drama599.htm ... hot property: http://members.ebay.co.uk/aboutme/indiafoxtrot/ >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> Adam "What The Victorians Did For Us" Hart-Davis bicycles back with "How"-style explanation show SCIENCE SHACK (7.30pm, Fri, BBC2)... the floppy-haired fop recycles the Letterman desk-show format - again - in FRIDAY NIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS (10.35pm, Fri, BBC1)... and sci-fi comedy PERCY'S PROGRESS (1am, Fri, BBC1) follows a showing of the dick-transplant original earlier this year... Steve "tv.cream" Berry confidently predicts he'll be among the TOP TEN TV HEARTTHROBS (10pm, Sat, C4)... music fans have a choice of Phill Jupitus presenting THE Q AWARDS (10.15pm, Sat, C5) or ALI G hosting the MTV EUROPE MUSIC AWARDS (9pm, Thu, MTV)... and it's free Film Four all weekend for digital or cable viewers, though the only good things on are cult Japanese killer-video horror RINGU (11.50pm, Sat), competent David Lynch ride-on lawnmower odyssey THE STRAIGHT STORY (8pm, Sun) and, er, daft Mira Sorvino monster romp MIMIC (2am, Sat)... the trend of following up feature films with related documentaries on a totally different channel continues with WITNESS (11.10pm, Sat, BBC1) and WITNESS: THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND (9pm, Sun, C4), plus THE VIKINGS (7.50pm, Sat, C4), followed by scary Aryan DNA-history BLOOD OF THE VIKINGS (9pm, Tue, BBC2)... SCREAM 2 (10pm, Sun, C4) is kind of dull, but (briefly) has Sarah Michelle Gellar in it... there are (slightly) more laughs in Matthew Broderick stalker romance ADDICTED TO LOVE (9pm, Mon, C5) than THE X FILES: THE MOVIE (9pm, Mon, ITV)... while THE LIMEY (10.35pm, Mon, C4) famously features flashbacks from one of Terence Stamp's earlier films, though we still think it'd have been better if they'd used "Superman II"... Tuesday is fast-food-themed-fish-out-of-water night, with a chip shop proprietor becoming a top chef in FAKING IT (9pm, Tue, C4) and the head of Burger King UK going BACK TO THE FLOOR (10pm, Tue, BBC2)... Adam and Joe present cartoon clip strand HOT REELS: ANIMATION GRAND PRIX (12.10am, Tue, C4)... and it's maximum Rutger Hauer week on C5 - again - with ornithologist actioner A BREED APART (9pm, Wed, C5), the annual showing of Sov-bloc cyberthriller REDLINE (9.20pm, Fri, C5), plus Thu's now- traditional UNIVERSAL SOLDIER 3: UNFINISHED BUSINESS (9pm, Thu, C5) - which, admittedly, doesn't have Hauer in it per se, presumably due to an administrative oversight or something... FILM>> it's no "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo" (NTK Film Of The Year 2000), but there's some top-notch barnyard impressions and typically off-beat digressions from SNL's Norm Macdonald et al in Rob Schneider xenotransplant slapstick THE ANIMAL (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/the_animal.html : acting like a drug-sniffing dog, [Schneider] blatantly smells a man's clothed rear end; the male host says to check out the "pecs" on one of the women, saying, "That's pure Badger Milk" while lifting up her covered breast with a pointing stick)... biological functions are - literally - the basis of Bill Murray/ Bill Shatner/ Farrelly brothers part-animated light- hearted look at the progress of an Anthrax infection, OSMOSIS JONES (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/osmosisjones.htm : slicing murders; talk of getting drunk; strip bar imagery; portrayal of daughter being superior to father; an out-of- control squad car crash lands in a rectum; tattoos)... or it's Nicole "BMX Bandits" Kidman, Eric "Sykes" Sykes and Keith "Fat Les" Allen - together at last! - in old-fashioned spooky-wooky photosensitive chiller THE OTHERS (imdb: 1940s / ghost / haunted-house / twist-in-the-end / afterlife / death / murder / suicide / superstition / tuberculosis)... CONFECTIONERY THEORY (FEATURING "LIQUID NEWS")>> while the UK struggles on without even a dash of PEPSI LEMON TWIST, up-and- coming novelist JENNY COLGAN excitedly reports sampling COKE LEMON in New York, likening it to "normal Coke to which someone has added three squirts of lemon fairy and ten spoons of sugar". NESTLE's self-heating HOT WHEN YOU WANT canned coffee (UKP1.19) is another promising idea let down by harsh reality: "The verdict is guilty - of being a complete ripoff", fumed DAVE HEMMING, feeling it overpriced for "2/3rds of a can of lukewarm rather cheap coffee", while LLOYD WOOD pondered if "the [exothermic] red liquid tastes better than the coffee it's heating". Lloyd found his in the Uxbridge Sainsbury's, following an incident [reported in THE GROCER, 2001-10-20] in which Nestle "lost control" of the original Midlands-only trials, enabling 11 "control stores" to order the semi-hotly anticipated product nationwide... other disappointments have continued to include MARS HARRY POTTER BERTIE BOTTS EVERY FLAVOUR BEANS (39p/box - "Beware of the strange flavours!"), BAHLSEN CIELO luxury biscuits (UKP1.79 for box of about 20), and QUALITY STREET'S THE BIG PURPLE ONE, which KEVIN CECIL actually quite enjoyed ("nearly the size of a golf ball"), despite paying more than the 35p RRP at the Paddington branch of WH Smiths. On a more positive note, "Just as I'd become resigned to only enjoying German-speaking confectionery (Bahlsen, Lindt, Milka bars)", LEWIS GRAHAM revealed that TUNNOCK'S DARK CHOCOLATE TEA CAKES - with their "perfect shell of reasonably bitter chocolate, crisp base and delightfully frothy middle" - have, at last, "brought [him] home"... once again, there's been more action with the spicy savouries, with a big thumbs-up from us to the wizard's-hat-shaped GOLDEN WONDER BUGLES CRISPY CORN SNACKS (27p) - especially the BBQ and Salt & Vinegar versions - and some sort of elaborate Amazon gift-voucher scheme on both 50g and 200g tubes of PRINGLES, including the more traditional new "Curry" flavour. Though we still await your sightings of JACOB'S CRACKERS THAI BITES (from 39p), MCCAIN'S MICRO CHICKEN WINGS (UKP1.29 for 4 to 5 wings) and, back with sweets, NESTLE's "FROST BITES" variants of FROST PASTILLES, SMARCTIC SMARTIES and MILKYBRRR BUTTONS, plus COLGATE's ADVANCED ACTION DENTAL GUM (from 49p) - though it's a shame they've gone for "Sparkling Mint", "Menthol" and "Peppermint" as flavours, rather than their familiar toothpaste brands like "Total Fresh Stripe" and "Tartar Control"... >> 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 "Sometimes innocent, largely inappropriate" http://www.wwjs.net/search/safe.cgi?url=http://www.ntk.net NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. 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