Need To Know 2003-01-24

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"There are few things in Italy that seem to work, including the football team at the moment but citizens seem satisfied with the ID card which is rarer than sex with an elephant" - GIUSEPPE MISTRETTA, First Counsellor of the Italian Embassy http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2688697.stm ... babelfish now being used to translate official EU statements >> HARD NEWS << looping the loops Remember that time that MICROSOFT forgot to pay $35 for their passport.com domain, and Hotmail completely broke until a Linux coder phoned up NetSol and paid it for them and then we all went "hahahahahaha" and it was funny? Ahh. Well, Microsoft's entry in the DATA PROTECTION REGISTER expired on January 8th. This means that all personal data held by them in the UK is now illegal, in that jaunty white collar criminal-but-getting-away-with-it way Microsoft has. Sadly, the DPR folk say that it's not as easy as just us paying up the 35UKP. Apparently, Microsoft (or good-hearted and overly knowledgeable Linux coder friends of theirs) will have to put in a completely new application. Which makes it a bit less fun. Still, you could always ask the Information Commissioner if they'd be up for prosecuting MS on your behalf for unlawfully using your info-soul. You have that right if you're a "data subject" of Microsoft, you know. http://www.dpr.gov.uk/cgi-bin/dpr98-fetch.pl?source=DPR&docid=111181 - Oh so *data subjects* are the "offenders and suspected offenders"? http://www.doublewide.net/ - still funny three years on and oppressively over-explained And remember that time when the US government wanted to put a wiretapping backdoor into every digital phone, and it was called THE CLIPPER CHIP, and everyone was like "Woah!", and it got thrown out and the cypherpunks and EFF won and it was the beginning of cyberrights? No, us neither. Our dads do, we think. Well now, on the eve of a perhaps unjustifiable, but certainly justifying, war, that ghost of past battles returns. Down at the Drake hotel in Chicago yesterday, US business and law enforcement met up to discuss "ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE NEEDS FOR CARRIER-GRADE VOICE OVER PACKET SERVICE". Now, let's see: if it's VoIP between the real telephone network, and the Net, surely they can pop the taps in the former, right? So why does VoIP need special attention? Are they worried about Internet only, IP to IP, voice? Are they talking about putting the eavesdropping tech into the hardware itself? And if so, are any countries worried that the "they" here is exclusively US law enforcement? Hard to tell, because apart from "carriers, solution providers, standards and industry groups", no-one from the civil liberties side was allowed in to the meeting. As VoIP spreads as a consumer app across the Net, it'll be intriguing to see if this shadow of Clipper follows it: history repeating itself, first as farce, and then as a tragedy. http://www.askcalea.com/summit.html - don't want other people listening to their conversations http://tinyurl.com/4v5s - taken down already? try this Google cache of the same page http://www.epic.org/crypto/clipper/ - 1984 vs 1994 >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious great promotion, wifin limits: http://www.starbridge.co.nz/ ... ... careers or personal? http://jobs.escapeartist.com/J-39908/ ... problems with your ISDN line? click here to - oh. Oh. http://www.bt.com/isdn/ ... not quite the optional extra you'd hope for on a merc http://www.regencymotors.co.uk/stocklist.asp ... Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles to fight in Gulf War II: http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/24/dohmanor.gif ... new .ORG registrars PIR start as they mean to go on: send out notice to domain owners with 18,000 addresses in cc: line ... Donald Sutherland struggle against typecasting shows results http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/24/dohact.gif ... Widdecombe of the week: http://www.xsls.com/?158 ... oh come on guys, just one more PUERILE GOOGLISM: http://www.google.com/search?q=redshit+galaxies ... BBC graphics department looks into Linux, gives up: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2680955.stm ... overly cagey events listing declines to get specific about which pub, where in Sydney Harbour: http://www.cw.com/template_03.jsp?ID=aus_events >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful "A strictly 'non-geeky' look at the genre" is promised by THE LONDON SCIENCE FICTION FESTIVAL (from Mon 2003-01-27, mostly next weekend, various central London venues, individual event pricing), manifesting itself in a programme that features "Hypercube: Cube 2", "Solaris", two Anime Allnighters, and a short with Emily "Bits" Booth in it. NTK's Dave Green is billed to appear as part of THE DOUGLAS ADAMS MEMORIAL DEBATE: DOES SCIENCE FICTION PREDICT THE FUTURE? (11am, Sat 2003-02- 01, Curzon Cinema Soho, London W1, UKP5), along with Mark "Black Ice" Bennett, Steve "Slaughtermatic" Aylett, and Jonathan Clements, writer (and director) of some of those 2000AD audio drama CDs. So, nothing too geeky there. http://www.sci-fi-london.com/programme.htm - The Matrix! Plan 9! Soylent Green! http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20021014/farscape.shtml - from the folks who killed "Farscape" http://www.bigfinish.com/2000ad/ad03_downtoearth.htm - Simon Pegg *is* Johnny Alpha http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/programmes/events3.htm#wireless - some sort of wireless thing at the Tate that afternoon http://www.ents24.com/web/event.php3?eventid=s476272 - Club Classical night later on Sat: hardly Acid Brass, is it? >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering The big thing about LEO, the outlining editor for Python, was its support for Literate Programming. Unfortunately, Literate Programming is aggravatingly dull in a way only a Knuth obsession can be. This may have put a few people off. But Leo has always been a bit more than that. After some recent sweet loving by creator Edward K. Ream, it feels these days like an editor about to blossom into a original and powerful IDE. Usable with most languages, but coziest with Python syntax, the Tk editor is bulging with all kinds of scripting hooks waiting be exploited (it's already got a fine "import and turn into a hierarchy" feature for Python code). It could make a great refactoring editor, ala Intellij IDEA, or (once they've fixed the .leo formats problems with CVS) a neat configuration manager. It ain't there yet. But even if the possibilities never dawn, it's still the best cross-platform outliner the Free Software world has. Which, unfortunately, is rather faint praise for now. http://personalpages.tds.net/~edream/front.html - literate programming EXTREME! http://www.refactoring.com/ - i wonder how often they rewrite that front page >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ either TERRY PRATCHETT book titles are getting more abstract: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/055276471X/ - or searching for "Dumpbin" shows you prices in bulk... HARRY POTTERS "not just for kids" - though expressions in 2nd pic imply otherwise: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/2684937.stm ... "Has Sir considered our popular 'mauled by an elephant' look?": http://www.orange-today.co.uk/news/story/sm_742619.html ... BAE cuts 1000 shipbuilding jobs in UK, takes the piss in USA: http://www.na.baesystems.com/cgi-bin/prjps/req_ViewJobs.cfm?id=2&rn=207690 ... why CANADIANS tend to suffer such chronic low self-esteem: http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_011303_general.html ... HERRING - blogging: http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/ ... http://216.136.200.194/auction/Jan/20031208934432828315774.jpg - steampunk slashdot spoof saves you going through the rest of http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=409288 ... oh, stick your firm 4-block rectangle in my welcoming hole: http://www.striptetris.co.uk/ (NB: pants return in level 7)... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> C5's "movie doubles" pick up with a couple of genre- restricted classics STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (8pm, Fri, C5) and COMA (10.10pm, Fri, C5)... there's some sort of blaxploitation undercurrent to C4's similar double- billing of I'M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA (1.50am, Sat, C4) with AMERICAN PIMP (3.20am, Sat, C4)... and Clive Anderson presents a "Body Panic" edition of CONSPIRACIES (9.30am, Sat, BBC2) before defecting to interview Mark Lamarr in the role of GOD ALMIGHTY (10.45pm, Tue, C5)... an ad exec swaps bodies with his dog in baffling kid comedy DOGMATIC (2.05pm, Sun, C5)... there's rare footage of Prince Charles frolicking in the wild in NATURAL WORLD (6.25pm, Sun, BBC2)... as DIY makeover shows take an alarming turn by offering SEVEN WAYS TO TOPPLE SADDAM (9pm, Sun, BBC2)... C5's weeknight schedule remains as endearingly bonkers as ever, with WEAPONS OF WORLD WAR II (8.30pm, Mon, C5) looking at "Tanks" - next week, "Planes"? - plus new reality gameshow THE HONEY TRAP (11pm, Mon, C5) featuring male holidaymakers making fools of themselves to impress women, as if they ever needed any incentive... that said, the new series of CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION (9pm, Tue, C5) moves to Tuesday to lead-in for yet another acclaimed US cop import BOOMTOWN (9.50pm, Tue, C5)... and TWO GIRLS AND A GUY (11.40pm, Tue, ITV) is the play where the poster should have predicted that Robert Downey Jr is "about to learn a new sexual position: honesty. Thanks to his two girlfriends!"... over on digital, Simon "The Code Book" Singh presides over baffling-in-every-respect gameshow MIND GAMES (8.30pm, Tue, BBC4)... sadly it's not PJ O'Rourke presenting the otherwise self-explanatory HOLIDAYS IN THE AXIS OF EVIL (9pm, Mon & Tue, BBC4)... and there's a rare showing of real-time alleged "24" inspiration NICK OF TIME (9pm, Wed, BBC Choice)... 16th- century Satanist hunt recreation WITCHCRAZE (9pm, Wed, BBC2) segues neatly into the pseudo-documentary format of all-new MARION AND GEOFF (10pm, Wed, BBC2)... HORIZON (9pm, Thu, BBC2) shows how to build a dirty bomb... BATTLE STATIONS (8pm, Thu, C4) looks at the Huey helicopter - just months after it was the subject of BBC2's "Decisive Weapons"... and the former stand-up imitates http://www.rootingoutevil.org/ when he becomes MARK THOMAS - WEAPONS INSPECTOR (7.30pm, Fri, C4)... FILM>> anyone who found the director's overrated "Election" weirdly depressing will presumably "enjoy" his two-hour Jack Nicholson wasted-life post-retirement drab-fest ABOUT SCHMIDT ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=About+Schmidt : you see [Nicholson's] ass; [Kathy "Misery" Bates] whips off her robe, and gets in the tub totally naked)... the TV ad describes it as "Roman Polanski's most personal film" - which, considering he made "Rosemary's Baby", doesn't entirely come across as a recommendation for Holocaust hide-and-seek epic THE PIANIST ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/the_pianist.html : for kids/teens already predisposed to such behavior and/or attitudes, it's possible the film could inspire further anti- Semitic behavior and/or attitudes)... Betty "Hill Street Blues" Thomas re-teams with Eddie "Dr Dolittle" Murphy for the dire I SPY ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/i_spy.html : [Famke Janssen] then says that she's getting hot and throws back the covers and we see her in her panties. [Eddie Murphy] then tells [Owen Wilson] to "bite her on the ass real hard") ... which just leaves this week's dumb-but-fun alternative - the reuniting of ER's Julianna Margulies and Ron Eldard on board "The Shining" meets "Deep Rising" hybrid GHOST SHIP ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Ghost+Ship : we're given a wonderful full-top-frontal shot of [Francesca Rettondini] naked as [Isiah Washington] tries to bang her from behind - only to find (whoops!) she's a still a ghost!)... >> 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 "the only nationwide phonecard club run for and by the members" http://www.norsktelekortklubb.no/english.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? 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. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.