Need To Know 2003-05-09

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"The company says that the software may accidentally block a picture of a new born child, but it would permit facial shots to go through..." - Irish software house Telcotec launch their own sure-to-be-popular "adult content filter" http://www.cellular-news.com/story/8805.shtml >> HARD NEWS << counting two by two You'd think that the government department hoping to maintain a database of all UK citizens would be a bit more careful about losing people. "The 2,000 responses we have received from individuals ... have been about 2:1 in favour of introducing [ID Cards]", said Beverley Hughes in Parliament on April 28th. Well, that's strange: we could have sworn that over 5000 replies were relayed by STAND's mail-your-consultation-comments Web form. What's happened to their comments? Do they count as one vote - a sort of giant Interweb representative? And if so, do we all get to use the same ID card? And do all the people who sent their replies in by post get represented by one giant Royal Mail vote? Inquiring minds not only want to know -they might want to mail Beverley Hughes directly at degayj@parliament.uk and ask - where did my comment end up? Oh, and if you cc:'d your MP on your submission, maybe you could ask him or her too. They must be around in Westminster *somewhere*. http://makeashorterlink.com/?M46652084 - we refer the correspondent to Hansard http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,9290,-2575,00.html - our Minister for Citizenship and Immigration http://www.faxyourmp.com/ - if they don't have email addresses Just as the TV CREAM website takes a nostalgic look back at the television, music and foodstuffs of yesteryear, so we like to fondly recall the "good old days" of last November, when the Daily Mail would quote the TV Cream site without any attribution. Because nowadays the Mail's sister paper, the given-away-free-on-the-London-Underground METRO, casts its Google searches a little wider. When Thursday's "Treats They Took Away From Us" retro-sweets round-up described Pacers as tasting "like a tube of toothpaste dissolved in a swimming pool", we couldn't tell whether they were referencing TV Cream's "like a tube of Colgate toothpaste dissolved in a swimming pool" or the very same quote which appears on a (rival?) site called Nostalgia Central. The Metro's text ("Aztec bar: Cadbury's failed answer to the Mars bar. A basic sausage of fudge, no chocolate, with peanuts stuck to the outside") usually follows the phrasing of Nostalgia Central ("Aztec: Cadbury's incorrect answer to the Mars bar - a simple concept that didn't last. It was a sausage of fudge with peanuts stuck to the outside"), itself easily confused with TV Cream's "Aztec: Cadbury's incorrect, raisin-addled answer to the Mars bar - a simple concept that didn't last". So, will TV Cream be more annoyed about Associated Newspapers quoting them without credit, or by the fact they've started going somewhere else? http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/09/dohmet.jpg - vs http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/pop/sweets.htm , vs http://www.tv.cream.org/arksweet.htm http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02002-11-01&l=46#l - a simpler, happier time Concerned reader and diligent student JAMES SMITH voices the hopes and fears of many by asking: "Are any plans for a repeat EXTREME COMPUTING event this year?" And, if there are, he pleads, could we contrive not to hold it "slap bang in the middle" of his exams this time round? Well, it looks like you're in luck, James, as we've neglected to plan anything at all for the summer, in a pre-emptive bid to avoid clashes with two other events which don't seem to have come together yet either. Still, by way of consolation, here's a downloadable version of the unofficial theme from last year's event. Yes, we did make some disparaging comments about "vocal samples over piss-poor [bedroom] techno" last week, but this appears to be some anti-piracy proponent holding forth over the acid house classic "Narcotic Influence" by Empirion. Which, we think you'll agree, is really a different proposition altogether. http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/09/DownloadingLivesAway.mp3 - 1,900K 4-minute MP3. 100% nosebleed techno. http://www.xcom2003.com/ - Nothing to see here. Please move along. >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious YAHOO surprisingly gung-ho about medical self-experimentation: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/09/dohgab.gif ... presumably the Latin for "You Will Be Assimilated - Resistance Is Futile": http://members.microsoft.com/partner/support.aspx ... position of big, little hands: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/09/doh420.gif (banner ad @ snopes.com)... artists confused over difference between "infinite", 6: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3013959.stm ... ... all the good domains have gone (#1 in an ongoing series): http://revelation-bible-jesus-christ-revelation-bible-jesus-christ.com/ ... unfortunate phonetic acronym ahoy: http://www.fcme.co.uk/ ... URL targeting those who "cut down trees, wear high heels, suspendies, and a bra"?: http://www.lumbermansexchange.com/ ... and if we don't do Google Goofs we just end up with lame dohs - 'cos there's nothing happier than a kid in a box: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/09/dohhappy.gif ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful The loosely London-based CARTOGRAPHIC CONGRESS appears to be in full swing, with arguably its most comprehensible event so far being WiFi scavenger hunt NODERUNNER LONDON (from 6.30pm, Thu 2003-05-13, the "edge of Hackney", free but contestants will require a digital camera, GPS unit, and wireless laptop running Netstumbler or similar). Presumably you can join their mailing list for details on this and other events, including this weekend's Field Trip to Kennington Park and - even more exotically - the opening of a "Northwest Passage" to Atlantis. On the subject of abstract quests round East London, next weekend's 2000AD/SFX magazine-sponsored LONDON EXPO (11am to 5pm, Sat & Sun 2003-05-17 & 18, Excel Centre, E16, from UKP6) aims to satisfy almost every member of your local "Comic Book, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Role-Playing Club", with guests from JAMES "Scotty from Star Trek" DOOHAN to MICHELLE "Buffy's Sister" TRACHTENBERG. But, as the FAQ small print points out, "All guests will be charging to autograph items, the costs are set by the guest personally". http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/CcSchedule - http://downlode.org/noderunner/ is an "aspect" of the above http://www.londonexpo.com/ - we said: Robert Picardo *above* "Rimmer from Red Dwarf" http://www.cybersalon.org/ - yet more CyberSalon craziness over at the ICA http://www.ica.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=21 - when they're not talking about the Arthur C Clarke awards >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering The Linux Bootable Business Card (LNX-BBC) is 40 megs of purest ISO image - just small enough to fit onto one of those Business Card CD-Rs, just big enough to boot into a reasonally fully-fledged Linux system without touching your hard drive. So far, so average emergency boot disk. What makes the LNX-BBC different is the level of heavyweight distro-engineering that's gone into that forty megs. Its home-grown dev system, GAR, is a full-featured BSD-ports-like system for Linux, good enough to become the GNOME2 beta-testers dev harness of choice. In its native environment, GAR's been used to reconfigure, strip down, relink and rebuild the entire Linux toolkit: Xwindows, ethereal, ogg vorbis, vnc, ssh, openssl, Perl and Python, ddate and cowsay are all there on the CD, in skinnier swimwear than they've ever dared wear, waving at you, beckoning, taunting. Version 2.1 has just shipped, with the latest versions of everything - although you should wait for a couple of days before the feast of downloadable add-on packages arrives. LNX-BBC 2.1 can be snatched from their site, via bittorrent if you're feeling generous. And if you're feeling ultra-generous, join the Free Software Foundation and receive one as your membership bribe. http://www.lnx-bbc.org/ - well done, the BBC! (as people are always reported as saying by the BBC). http://member.fsf.org/benefits.html - although apparently the 2.1 CD shipment may be delayed due to SARS (true) http://www.nog.net/~tony/warez/cowsay.shtml - moo >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ because fan fiction needs literary criticism more than most: http://www.geocities.com/fractalforge/fractal_clich.htm ... if b3ta hasn't animated it, it may be necessary to invent it: http://www.petinventionco.com/Kitty%20Kaster%20Cat%20Toy.htm ... GUARDIAN crossword now doubling as rude-word wordsearch: http://www.guardian.co.uk/crossword/java/complete/0,7090,-5848,00.html ... really ought to be bundled with that "Microsoft toilet": http://www.idealhomeshow.co.uk/content/attractions/content.asp?location=32 ... tornados, earthquakes are up, but false Christs are down: http://www.raptureme.com/rap2.html ... when oh when will the public tire of swearing ISPs: http://www.illfuckinghostit.com/ ... hey, it's a Tony Blair that does what you want him to: http://myfreecursors.com/ ... Jobs, Kamen drive WOZ to drink: http://www.woz.org/seg/images/SEGstory_01b.jpg ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> it's late-night dystopia night with Cronenberg's laboured videogame-acting spoof EXISTENZ (11.25pm, Fri, BBC1), Charlton Heston recycling parable SOYLENT GREEN (1.05am, Fri, BBC1) and George "Just Shoot Me!" Segal's neuro-implants turning him into a murderer in Michael Crichton's THE TERMINAL MAN (12.40am, Fri, C5)... Fred West, Peter Sutcliffe and Harold Shipman face tough competition from the likes of Neil and Christine Hamilton in the race to find the 100 WORST BRITONS (8pm, Sat, C4)... and ITV2 moves from Woody Allen Bogart homage PLAY IT AGAIN SAM (8.30pm, Sat, ITV2) to a different kind of virtual character in THE MAKING OF THE MATRIX RELOADED (10.20pm, Sat, ITV2)... TRON (1pm, Sun, BBC1) is inexplicably postponed from a previous planned showing over the Easter weekend... THE WORLD'S FIRST PREDATORS (7pm, Sun, C5) turn out to be giant computer-generated insects ... MAGNETIC FLIP (8pm, Sun, C4) shows the science behind recent pseudo-scifi hilarity "The Core"... and flip between BREMNER, BIRD AND FORTUNE: BEYOND IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE (9pm, Sun, C4) and Arabic behind- the-scenes AL-JAZEERA EXCLUSIVE (9pm, Sun, BBC2)... the sequels are showing next week, but still aren't in quite the same league as the original ALIEN (10pm, Sun, C4)... Joss Whedon's FIREFLY (8pm, Mon, Sci-Fi) is basically a steampunk Battlestar Galactica version of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" - but in space, instead of a school. And not enough of the character who's supposed to be "Willow"... and, even though the competition is between Lockkeed and Boeing, the real winner is always going to be the military industrial complex in US-defence bid docu BATTLE OF THE X-PLANES (8pm, Mon, C4) - contrast with the rather more contemporary terrorists-taking- over-theatres threat of TERROR IN MOSCOW (9pm, Mon, C4)... the all-too-real horror of killer traffic jams is explored in mockumentary THE DAY BRITAIN STOPPED (9pm, Tue, BBC2)... the "Most Dangerous Man In Britain" gets a chance to perpetuate his memes in PROFILE: RICHARD DAWKINS (11.20pm, Wed, BBC2)... and maybe it's not too late for a terrestrial premier of topical - though occasionally heavy-handed - Gulf War satire THREE KINGS (9pm, Thu, C5)... FILM>> Seann William "American Pie, Road Trip" Scott provides his critical imprimatur in the form of a cameo appearance in the unashamedly retrogressive frathouse gross-out OLD SCHOOL ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Old+School+%282003%29 : Will ["Saturday Night Live" Ferrell] shows a lot of rear nudity and even brief frontal nudity [...]; a couple of hot sorority girls are topless in an oil wrestling competition about halfway through the film, and the camera lingers on the right areas for quite a while)... Emma "Anya from Buffy The Vampire Slayer" Caulfield makes her big-screen debut in the otherwise undistinguished small-town ghost-chaser DARKNESS FALLS ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/darknessfalls.htm : bloody sputum; explosive startles with strong fright factor, at least 17; excessive cleavage; graphically unholy presence, repeatedly)... following the prophetic accuracy of "101 Dalmatians" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3009537.stm - producers are falling over themselves to film Dodie Smith's other books, starting with non-Quake-themed quirky 1930s romance I CAPTURE THE CASTLE ( imdb: based-on-novel/ bohemian/ nudist)... else it's just the unappealing prospect of another Heather Graham turkey, this time co-starring Colin Firth in ill-judged transatlantic rom-com HOPE SPRINGS ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk : one use of strong language and mild sexual references)... CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> much-valued http://www.snackspot.org/ contributor JOSH ROULSTON emails to ask "So is NTK fragmenting into lots of mini-sites which export XML data which is used with a bit of XSLT to autogenerate NTK - or is it just a 'Lone Gunmen' of a spin-off?" To be honest, Josh, a bit of both - in the 6 short weeks since Snackspot's public unveiling, it's seen things we wouldn't have previously believed: LIQUORICE SKITTLES in a newsagent near Victoria station, Australian TIM TAMS on the shelves of Tesco. And taken in such curiosities as TOPPS JUICY DROP POP, WALKERS SHOTS, MCCAIN "SMOULDERING VIBES" HOT CRISPS, and X-MEN 2: THE CEREAL along the way. Following the popularity of VANILLA COKE, this month's most controversial product was VANILLA ICE CREAM FLAVOUR MONSTER MUNCH http://www.snackspot.org/thread.php?story=0304281608cas - receiving accolades as varied as "not too sweet", "really tastes like ice cream", "disgusting", and "simply hideous". The title of Product Name Which Really Sounds Like It Ought To Be A Double-Entendre passed from previous holder MR FUNNY'S RUNNY HONEY to BOB THE BUILDER'S CHEESY TOOL BAG (also available in "Bob's Pickled Onion" and "Bob's Prawn Cocktail" varieties), while the hotly-contested "Taste Abomination" award goes to BRITVIC FREEKEE SODA CARBONATED MILK DRINK, largely on the strength of its "Is that a hint of Magic Markers?" bouquet - just the strawberry flavour though, the orange version is fine... something else we weren't expecting was the high standard of international contributions, from the sightings of TROPICAL SPRITE REMIX to astonishing revelations about what the Australians came up with after the MAGNUM SEVEN DEADLY SINS debacle - the "SIXTIES NINE" range of ostensibly 1960s-themed lollies, including "Jami Hendrix", "John Lemon" and, bafflingly, "Choc Work Orange", an ice-cream inspired by the ultraviolent Kubrick film which, BEN MOOR felt compelled to point out, was actually released in 1971. Debate continues at http://www.snackspot.org/thread.php?story=0302141653cpi ... what's tested down under usually ends up here (eventually), which means good news for fans of WHITE MALTESERS (due in the UK before Christmas), or New Zealand's "Luxury" and "Noir" versions of CADBURY'S FLAKE. But hopefully we won't have to wait as long for the imminent (battery-flavoured?) MATRIX RELOADED POWERADE, PRIVATE ENERGY DRINK (intended to enhance "adult activities"), and STARBUCKS MOCHA COCONUT FRAPPUCCINO - the US version of which contained 23 grams (an entire US recommended daily allowance) of saturated fat, according to http://www.cspinet.org/new/200210072.html . And there doesn't seem to be any nutritional info on http://www.starbucks.com/ - wonder why... >> 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 "PAYS WHORL NAG PIGEONHOLE. TRY AM'ED QUIETEST NO GINO" http://www.crummy.com/devel/eater/eater.cgi/?url-EoM=www.ntk.net&eat-EoM=words 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.