Need To Know 2003-01-17

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"Even my DNA is held by the Police (voluntarily, I hasten to add). If yours isn't, what precisely is your objection?" http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7157 - Thinking about it, we have *no* objection to the police holding Andrew Thomas's DNA. Nope, no objection at all... >> HARD NEWS << notions disabused When you left us last Friday: Lord Falconer, minister in charge of ID cards, was claiming that his consultation was showing a 2:1 majority in favour of them. By Monday, thanks to your mails via stand.org.uk, the ratio must have been more like 2:1 against. At time of writing, with over 4000 new responses in one week, we'd estimate it's now something like 80% anti, 20% pro. David Blunkett, who was tipped to announce growing public support for the project at a conference on Wednesday, instead talked of cabinet splits, and "not wanting a revolution" over the proposals. Isn't it always a surprise when you log in to check your inbox after the weekend? http://www.stand.org.uk/ - 4232 and rising http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2657143.stm http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=369646 - oh, you *say* you "don't want a revolution" All very good, but we're still left wondering - who were those original correspondents that were so gung-ho for the ID card? We suggest the curious check out next Thursday's ENTITLEMENT CARDS CONFERENCE. It's sponsored - and we can't think why - by top government IT contractors EDS, Fujitsu, IBM, Siemens, and SchlumbergerSema, and organised by trade lobby INTELLECT UK. Ministers and civil servants will be speaking to this select few - and it's not the first time they've popped over for a chat. Back in early 2002, Intellect was meeting regularly with the government, helping them with a "pre-consultation paper" on how best to introduce ID cards to the public. Intellect recommended a three phase roll-out. In the first stage, "there would be no requirement to produce the card" (a la the current consultation proposals). In phase two, we'd all get government-issued X509 certificates (just like in Revelations). But it's phase three that where it gets really fascinating. For example: as part of an integrated tax- reporting database, "an intelligent benefits payments system could recognise when a citizen's circumstances have deteriorated, and ensure benefit payment is made expeditiously." So you're looking at not only real-time government monitoring of bank and tax records, but a paperclip that jumps up and says "So, it looks like you got canned. Would you like some help?" http://www.cssa.co.uk/press/bulletins/weekly_bulletin/bully_10_12_02.asp - "endorsed by the Home Office" http://www.intellectuk.org/publications/position_papers/intro.asp - bottom of the list (also warns that not telling public this will result in "negative press and more than a little mischief") http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2662491.stm - you mean, inland revenue flogging private tax records-style mischief? http://www.btinternet.com/~robert.hinkley/opinion/congestion.html - and don't get us started on the congestion charge either Ah, the time-honoured traditions of "stepping down": gathering the contents of your desk into a black bin-liner; being escorted out of the building by the security guard; the ceremonial deletion of your home page from the company's servers. But, as the ever-vigilant AOLWATCH.COM has spotted, schadenfreude fans can still smile at the youthful idealism of outgoing AOL chairman STEVE CASE - thanks to the mission statement still currently hosted on his AOL page. Here, Case confessed to being "very excited" about the merger with Time Warner, saying the new company will continue to be guided by principles that include "encouraging responsibility" and "leaving no one behind". As AOLWatch notes, this is already a cut-down version of his January 2001 flight of fancy, when he earnestly predicted that AOL Time Warner would be "the premier global company" in some field or another. All these moments will be lost, delinked from Steve's cheery homepage - which now forwards to an old bio with no mention of the $60billion write-down he's being encouraged to take responsibility for. http://aolwatch.com/mission.htm - by "leaving no one behind", I specifically meant "not me" http://web.archive.org/web/20010209025031/stevecase.aol.com/ - "and create an [accounting scandal] of your own!" >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious some actually quite revealing GOOGLE MISHAPS, for a change: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22red%3Abig%20brother%22 , or even "Index of /private" +"Last modified". But, then again: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22degree+bums%22 ... "These sticks were made for walking", genetics student proclaims: http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/17/dohwalk.gif ... bit-of-politics banner: http://www.asianjoke.com/pix/images/whendowelaunch.jpg ... and the winner of the monster truck rally gets to live in Israel: http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/17/dohplo.gif ... FIRST TUESDAY SCOTLAND mails members with subject "Net Discunts UK" ... for tax reasons, Virgin fleet consists of -10 aircraft: http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/17/dohboe.gif ... good for alephs 0-5: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005ULQT/ ... and working with monkeys can really take a toll on a young lady's looks: http://home.earthlink.net/~lawjpa/ ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Let no-one deny that the GREATER LONDON LINUX USER GROUP know how to party, as tomorrow's large lecture theatre all-dayer promises to feature "overhead projector debugging", a 90-min MySQL magical mystery tour, and the return of their acclaimed "Heckle Steve" session (from 12noon, Sat 2003-01-18, New Cavendish Street campus, Westminster University, appears to be free). You can also purchase CDs, pro-Linux PC badges and Tuxwear from TV star John Winters of linuxemporium.co.uk, and - as if that weren't enough - "If we're lucky", the organisers confide, "the Refectory on the ground floor will have its food and drinks machines restocked". It's all part of a literally Linux-packed year ahead, of which you can find more details over at OxLUG's site, although an insider sagely observes: "We struggle to see how the UK can support 3 big Linux Expos in a year, and guess that one or more of these will get 'postponed'". http://www.gllug.org.uk/meeting-20030118.html - also handy for http://www.computermarket.com/cgi-bin/floorplan?vnu_id=18 http://www.oxlug.org/majorevents.html - what no http://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/code/ ? http://club.net-art.ws/#demo - demo coders against the war in Brixton tonight >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Everything on earth should have a latitude and longitude. What? Oh. Well. Put 'em all in a free, world-accessible database then, where they can be put to some good use. Yes, 2003 will be the year of geospatial hype, and the first usable free apps to help usher it in are stumbling, head-down, toward their goals. GPSDRIVE is a German mapping app for Linux which bypasses the whole proprietary map business by downloading images on the fly from Expedia and Mapblast. It's still got that icky "smells like Tcl" Linux UI, but is gearing up with neat features, including random speech synthesis, integration with WiFi AP sniffers, and a "friendsd" daemon, which lets gpsdrive users find each other on a live updated map. To add to the stew is Dan "sweetcode.org" Egnor's 2002 Google Programming Contest winner GEOGRAPHIC SEARCH, which uses the TIGER census data (freed by Bruce Perens) to convert any US address into Lat/Long co-ordinates, scrape addresses from free text, and other textogeospatialomagico. Co-ord collectors in the rest of the world are still saddled with government-created mapping data that isn't freely distributable, worse luck. But things are getting better: Joshua "memepool.com" Schachter's new project GEOURL.ORG is collecting together freely accessible Lat/Long decoding sites, as well as pooling a few waypoints himself with his location-to-URL reverse directory. Geospace! It's where it's at! http://www.kraftvoll.at/software/index.shtml - defaults to sticking you somewhere in Germany. Austria. Somewhere funny. http://ofb.net/~egnor/google.html - schweet http://www.geourl.org/ - I'm over here! http://space.frot.org/ - London as MUD >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ top hit on: http://www.google.com/search?q=Wayne+Hussey ... "Phil Collin" does not send out CDs himself, reveals otherwise meticulous FAQ: http://www.philcollins.co.uk/shop.htm - he's busy playing this: http://www.pearldrum.com/dreamkit/ (needs Flash, sorry)... which Pete Townshend story *didn't* make Slashdot?: http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=townshend ... http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003021955,00.html imitates RAMBO IV: YOU UNGRATEFUL GETS http://www.lazycinema.com/0212.html - in its turn emulating "undetermined" Internet rumour at: http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/rambo.htm ... spot the odd review out: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553247786/ ... where the army of Orcs had passed, only chaos was left: http://books.dreambook.com/lilje/main.html ... Danger! Danger! One Hit Wonder!: http://www.dude.ru/music/gigflapping.html ... and the last we'll be hearing from the honourable member for Scunthorpe: http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk/press/0301164.htm ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> THE LAST STARFIGHTER (5.15pm, Sat, C5) is an upbeat 1980s CGI wish-fulfilment version of Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" http://www.hatrack.com/osc/stories/enders-game.shtml - itself soon to be another major film, possibly starring Jake "Anakin" Lloyd: http://www.angelfire.com/mo/Wiggin/Ender.html ... Michael Bay technocrane treat ARMAGEDDON (9.20pm, Sat, BBC1) cross-promotes an "Averting [Asteroid] Armageddon" edition of HORIZON (9pm, Thu, BBC2)... while topical drama-doc repeat SMALLPOX 2002 (11.25pm, Sat, BBC2) is cheerily preceded by Al "The Pub Landlord" Murray in Glasgow-based "Saturday Live" revival LIVE FLOOR SHOW (10.25pm, Sat, BBC2)... Daniel Pemberton co-wrote *and* appears in another-chance-to-see COMEDY LAB: SHOREDITCH TWAT (1.05am, Sat, C4)... removing heads of state is this week's big movie theme, via black-and- white US nailbiter SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (3.55pm, Sun, C5), assassination original THE DAY OF THE JACKAL (11.35pm, Tue, BBC1), plus Watergate dramatisation ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (12.25am, Thu, BBC1)... and the scariest thing about Jan De Bont's uninspired remake of THE HAUNTING (10.15pm, Sun, BBC1) is that he was ever allowed to make it... Mel and Sue host the new RI:SE (from 6.55am, Mon-Fri, C4), along with Iain "The 11 O'Clock Show" Lee, who always makes for entertaining live TV: http://www.mediaguardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,557769,00.html ... Zooey Deschanel plays Roz's cousin in FRASIER (10.35pm, Mon, C4)... Spielberg's Gray masters are pleased once again by his "please abduct me" propaganda in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (8pm, Mon, C5)... and Arnie spoofs himself in self- referential actioner LAST ACTION HERO (8pm, Wed, C5)... series spinoff movies THE WILD WILD WEST REVISITED (3.40pm, Tue, C5) and MORE WILD WILD WEST (3.40pm, Wed, C5) introduce recent Will Smith atrocity WILD WILD WEST (8pm, Thu, C5)... BATTLE STATIONS (8pm, Thu, C4) jets back to the *previous* Korean war at the controls of a MiG-15... EASY MONEY (9.50pm, Thu, BBC2) goes on location with porn-in-a-van couple Penthouse editor Violet Storm and her partner Jim - perhaps best known as "Phil McCavity"... and they should get Johnny "ITV Digital" Vegas to announce the irrepressible English dubbing of Japanese TV show of Chinese folklore MONKEY (12.35am, Thu, C4)... FILM>> Kim Basinger *is* Dr Dre, as Eminem battles to overcome crippling stagefright and his streetfightin' ways in good-by- musicians'-acting-standards semi-autobiography odyssey 8 MILE ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=8+Mile : brief partial glimpse of [Eminem's] butt; you can see [Kim Basinger's] ass; it looked to me like [Britanny Murphy's] nipples popped out at one point)... a Luc Besson writing credit and cast of unknowns spell unsophisticated blow-'em-up action for THE TRANSPORTER ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/transporter.htm : woman as toy; vulgar gesture; firearm threat to neck; "I hate you" to father; father's order to kill daughter for failure to comply)... otherwise it's just tuneless gangster musical CHICAGO ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/chicago.html : [Renee Zellweger] shows some cleavage; during various musical numbers, we see a great deal of leg/upper thigh and partial butt shots on many of the female performers who do some suggestive dancing while some suggestive lyrics are present as well)... or Dana "Garth" Carvey wasting his impersonating abilities in juvenile spy fart-fest THE MASTER OF DISGUISE ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Company chose to remove dangerous imitable technique, a series of head butts, to gain a PG category. A "12A" uncut was available to the distributor)... CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> "No longer do I have to buy these wee beauties on import from the Chinese shop in Oxford!", writes someone we suspect to be reader PADDY ROBINSON-GRIFFIN, referring of course to WRIGELY'S EXTRA THIN ICE (75p for pack of 24 "stamp-sized vegetarian gel sheets", which release "a powerful peppermint rush" when dissolved on your tongue, he explains). The product appears to be "non-hallucinogenic", Paddy clarifies - yet still qualifies as "awesome" in his book. No word yet on how they measure against similarly sized packs of LISTERINE ACTIVES or the more pharmaceutically potent FINLAY'S SLIM MINTS (UKP2.95 for tin of 45), loaded with the great taste of alleged appetite suppressants and metabolic accelerants chromium polynicotinate and L-carnitine. And, by international "functional food" standards, that's nothing - in Canada, courtesy of BENYLIN, apparently you can buy MEDICATED FREEZER POPS ... following last month's US taste-testing, BARRY MCCAULEY reports they've been selling VANILLA COKE in a newsagents near his work (Colindale, London NW9) for "quite a few weeks now", although French writing on the can leads him to suspect it could be a "grey import". DANIEL WILSON claims he "picked up a bag of SMARTIES COOKIES in Reading Tesco's" which, inexplicably, reminded him of his mum's Chilli Con Carne "the night it rained cockroaches when we were on holiday", while NTK's own LEE MAGUIRE was first to note the re-emergence of WALKERS (nee SMITHS) SALT AND SHAKE CRISPS: http://www.hexkey.co.uk/lee/log/2003/01/10/#1042195800 - in new "matt packaging". Look out for their BAKED BEAN FLAVOURED CRISPS to tie in with Comic Relief in Match, with multipacks incorporating a whoopee cushion delightfully labelled either "Wet & Windy", "Atom Bum" or "Sonic Boom"... and finally: "Why not try all 3?" asks the back of the box for NESQUIK CEREAL AND MILK BAR (referring to the Golden Grahams and Cheerios variants), the obvious answer being "Because this Nesquik one is disgusting". More promisingly, we await your comments on KINDER MAXI BAR (19p), MARS "BISC &" BISCUITS (due early this year), would-be rival to motorway service station staple Peperami DOT BREAKS (comprising "15 Ready to eat Mini Salami's", in flavours Spicy, Mustard and Original), plus Oriental Express's long-awaited frozen version of traditional Szechuan delicacy SPRING ROLL AND CHIPS (99p)... >> 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://kevan.org/hiero.cgi?para=NTK+-+high-tech+sarcastic+update+for+the+uk 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.ntkmart.com/ (K) 2003 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Full license at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0 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. 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