Need To Know 2003-03-21

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>> HARD NEWS << les livres rouges We had our doubts about WROX PRESS' commercial nous, ever since they hit upon their uniquely unappealing book design of monochrome mugshots of tech author's faces over a lurid swollen red and yellow cover. But, despite the sheer reeling ugliness of their covers, Wrox did well. And entering any computer corner of American or British bookshops of the past few years, one would always be faced with shelf after shelf of the Prisoners Of Wrox. Well, now they're dead. Not the authors - no, they always looked like that. No, the parent company, Peer Information, has gone bust. Curiously, while it had dozens of spin-off imprints and Web ventures (Glasshaus, Friends of Ed, Wrox US, Wrox France, Wrox India, and so on) Peer Information turned out to be a family business run out of Birmingham ("albeit", writes one mourner, "the posh bit"). So, let us take a few minutes to salute this little known British success story, and like so many before them, hope they come out of receivership soon. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/1UUY0JNJHGCZG - Look Inside My Badly Tonsured Head! http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/29790.html - that's Birmingham, England, not Birmingham, Alabama Now, back to the war: and we're only a few kilometers so into enemy territory, but we've already got the confirmed surrenders of two marketing companies. Well, maybe not surrender: but they're certainly co-operating. Following last week's look at dodgy spam from supposedly stately organisations, PHDiq (for the RSPCA) and i-level (for the BT Ignite spam) are looking into why their client's mailouts got sent unsolicited to dodgy addresses via cowboy spammers. Both CEOs say they only deal in opt-in lists, legit mailers, and never, ever via unsecured boxes in Argentina. And they want to get to the bottom of these slip-ups. Heard it before? Maybe: but with the EU anti-spam legislation creeping into reality, the result of this ongoing investigation is going to be very telling. If these two, big name, reputable companies can't separate their prestigious clients from the seedy underside of dodgy offshore shell companies and Web-crawled email addresses, who can? In the meantime, we're still looking for any spammish messages from respectable companies (and thanks to the reader who sent us in a spam that appeared to be sponsored by the Met Police. It checks out, but you had us worried for a moment.) http://www.quicktopic.com/19/H/V5cPAqX7zhf - post your spam here >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious The GOOGLE scanner was used to assess the security of 282+ hosts: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22nessus+report%22 - in other oversights & misspellings: blog default "my funny motto" plus a worrying top result for "first come, fist served"... GOOGLE NEWS devises alternative epithet for "Coalition of the willing": http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/21/dohgay.gif ... censor yourself, advise FOX: http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/21/dohdo.gif ... competing with AMAZON in the cut-throat e-commerce market: http://www.ikea.co.uk/product_presentation/subcat.asp?id=3094 ... good availability: http://www.holswap.com/details_3209.htm ... where application shall speak peace unto operating system: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbcworld.com ... <TITLE> tag remembers who created whole mess back in 1919: http://multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?X=5000000&Y=3900000&coordsys=mercator ... "further purchases" to fully appreciate the wide-screen experience: http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/21/dohplas.gif ... "Sort by number of players" pessimistic about shrinking market for NINTENDO: http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/21/dohtendo.gif ... >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Ostensibly, WORKRAVE is an applet with the simplest of jobs: it tells you to take a period break from typing to save your poor wrists. In real life, it's like one of those "let's build an C++ application" documentation examples gone completely nuts. From its humble beginnings, it's now an excrutiatingly well-engineered taskbar applet that runs on GNOME and KDE. Oh, and Windows. It's got a statistics feature, so it can tell you how many miles you've moved your mouse. Yeah, yeah, we know - but it's also got a networked client-server facility. Built-in. So not only can you now never escape from its persistent "take a break" fascism, but you can gather facts on how many miles *all* your mice have moved, from your laptop to your desktop to your VNCed Win2K server. It's GPLed. The author has a cafepress shop where you can buy Workrave t-shirts. There's also a leaflet you can print out and hand to your non-cult friends. The name appears to be a play on a $55 commercial program that does a similiar job - but, Jesus, what else could that do for the money? Operate a little crane to lift your hands up and down on the keys? http://workrave.sourceforge.net/ - I actually blew my tendons trying to change all the settings >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful On hearing the rumour that next week's UK BIG BROTHER AWARDS (Tue 2003-03-25, time and location currently secret) are being held on a boat to dissuade infiltrators, it's hard not to be reminded of Dr Johnson's comparison of being on board a ship and being in jail (he said he'd prefer being in jail, because ships were just "jail - with a chance of drowning"). Here's hoping there'll be no need for either at the slightly more accessible INQUIRER SECOND BIRTHDAY PARTY (from 6.30pm, Wed 2003-03-26, upstairs at the Coach and Horses, 1 Gt Marlborough St, London W1F, free), followed on Thursday by another chance to catch Simon "Big Brother" Davies at another of those SPIKED ONLINE EVENTS on Trusted Computing (7pm, Thu 2003-03-27, Hill and Knowlton, 35 Red Lion Square, London WC1, from UKP10) - yes, we know that site editor Mick Hume isn't running "Living Marxism" any more, but that still seems like a lot of money to get in, eh comrades? http://www.privacyinternational.org/bigbrother/ - NTK has always been at war with The Register... http://www.fancyapint.com/thepubs/pub207.htm - nearest thing The Inquirer has to an online invite http://www.spiked-online.com/events/ - plus in May: panic on the streets of Mayfair http://www.multiplay.co.uk/i15/ - this weekend: UK's biggest LAN party (again), in Newbury http://www.silicon-beach.com/events.html - also on Thu: Palladium vs Open Source in Brighton http://www.cfp2003.org/ - and in April: New York's Computers, Freedom and Privacy >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ this week's http://www.theonion.com/ imitates - itself from a year ago: http://www.theonion.com/onion3809/gulf_war_2.html , http://www.theonion.com/onion3810/hilarious_hamlet_essay.html , http://www.theonion.com/onion3805/holocaust_museum_cashier.html , http://www.theonion.com/onion3808/hammurderer.html - see also: http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php?memo_id=189 ... and just in time - looks like TVGoHome fans were getting pretty desperate: http://foof.myby.co.uk/tvghjoke.gif ... if piracy funds criminal activity, legal music sales aren't much better: http://www.justablip.co.uk/about/dodge.htm ... RIAA facing yet *another* illicit digital downloading technology: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993488 ... blogs playing popular "Which opportunistic right-wing leader are you?" quiz: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm (via http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/24436 )... all looking good over at: http://www.iamintrouble.com/ ... BBC considering "Bearded Lady" b3ta-style photoshopping-humour site... CHARLIE DANIELS challenges Saddam, Sean Penn to Georgia fiddle showdown: http://www.charliedaniels.com/soapbox/03/242.html ... >> GEEK MEDIA << what you say? someone set us up a http://www.tvgohome.com/ ? TV>> far from being an elaborate trail for the new series of BANZAI (10.30pm, Thu, E4), THE PEOPLE'S BOOK OF RECORDS (9.30pm, Fri, C4) is the primetime debut of Zeppotron, the folks behind other, less well-known successes, and TVGoHome: http://www.revolutionmagazine.com/news/view.cfm?r=1&id=96482 ... the "Scotty" guy from "Galaxy Quest" plays TV's first obsessive-compulsive detective in US import MONK (5.45pm, Sat, BBC2) - made by "Mandeville Films", playground insult fans may be pleased to hear... and what on earth will DESIGNING THE DECADES (8pm, Sat, BBC2) find to say about the 1970s?... BBC3 brackets the final episode of TAKEN (9pm, Sat, BBC2) with a special UFO night (from 8pm, Sat, BBC3), up against THE X FILES: THE MOVIE (9pm, Sat, ITV2) - itself heralding the long- overdue conclusion of THE X FILES: THE TV SHOW (10.45pm, Sun, BBC2), though the ever-popular monkey people get their own spinoff in "When Gallaghers Ruled The Earth" unsubstantiated hypothesising WALKING WITH CAVEMEN (8pm, Thu, BBC1)... Dawn from "Buffy" shows an early aptitude for sleuthing as HARRIET THE SPY (1.05pm, Sun, BBC1)... the embarrassment of being associated with a delusionally unfashionable head of state is explored by both MY DAD'S THE PRIME MINISTER (6.05pm, Sun, BBC1) and THE WAR FOR OIL (7.30pm, Wed, BBC2)... Guy Ritchie sets his sights on the slightly less ambitious project of hidden-camera justice show SWAG (8.30pm, Sun, C5)... and Tim from "The Office" and the girl from the Abbey National ads reappear in Simon "Men Behaving Badly" Nye's workplace sitcom HARDWARE (10.05pm, Sun, ITV) - not based around the 1990 cyberpunk film of the same name... for anyone who failed Saturday's NATIONAL RELATIONSHIP TEST (9pm, Sat, BBC1), BBC2 helpfully provides a selection of 5 different WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER (11.20pm, Tue, BBC2)... alternative applications of nuclear explosions are examined in Nicole Kidman thriller THE PEACEMAKER (9pm, Wed, BBC3) and Project Orion docu TO MARS BY A-BOMB (9pm, Wed, BBC4)... and thanks to DELIVERANCE (10pm, Wed, C5), humming the start of "Duelling Banjos" remains the ideal way to indicate that a visit to the countryside isn't going particularly well... FILM>> Pierce "James Bond" Brosnan faces his most far-reaching sinisterly secretive opponent so far - the Catholic Church! - in Oirish orphanage custody-battler EVELYN (imdb: 1950s/ pub/ based-on-true-story/ haircut/ dog-racing/ nun) - not based on the Pop Will Eat Itself song of the same name... otherwise there's Yet Another Beverly Hills Cop Remake NATIONAL SECURITY ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/nationalsecurity.htm : sadomasochism with inappropriate touch; adult in underwear, repeatedly; police cover-up/corruption, repeatedly; massive tattoos, repeatedly)... or Brittany "8 Mile" Murphy, David "Sledge Hammer" Rasche, the guy from "Dude, Where's My Car?" - together at last! - in Euro-matrimonial mayhem JUST MARRIED ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/just_married.html : [Brittany Murphy] shows more cleavage while bent over and in several other scenes; we see a flashback of [Ashton Kutcher] and another young boy holding toy "Star Wars" light sabers at their crotches like erect penises and thrashing them about)... >> 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 "depressingly non-compliant" http://www.headstar.com/ten/ 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.