Need To Know 2003-07-18

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"A left mouse push fires it. Kinda crazy really. We actually asked for a great big red button, but they wouldn't give us one..." - Sky movie myths debunked by nuclear submarine crew http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,999743,00.html ...Are you *sure* you want to unleash unthinkable devastation on civilians you've never even met before? Click No to cancel, Yes to continue >> HARD NEWS << swiftly perused Back in July of 2001, we wondered what "the DIRECT MARKETING ASSOCIATION will say when they discover they've left their own membership mailing list available on their server". Two years later, Tom Stuart got a response. "There is a serious breach of data protection law in that a number of email addresses have been given out urging people to send these people spam", they wrote in shocked response to his mirroring of the list. Well, it's not often you have to wait that long for an unsolicited message from the DMA. Ah, they're probably right: although as Tom replied, "If these people have subsequently received spam, can't they just unsubscribe or register on an opt-out list? I hear those are effective at preventing unwanted direct marketing material." http://www.obsess.com/junk/dmaindex.html - can't believe they're complaining about brand new marketing contacts http://www.dma.org.uk/Shared/Staff.asp?Mode=search&d=0 - not too worried about spambots either This isn't just a plug for a reader's site, as it meets at least 3 NTK core news criteria: low-tech retro-graphics; the paid-for content controversy; and letting people know what Stuart Campbell is up to, so we can all sleep a little sounder at nights. Anyway, Mr Campbell, together with fellow former "Digitiser" contributor "Mr Biffo", is responding to the web's woeful lack of opinionated independent games journalism that makes use of the "Mode 7" Teletext display format, and is launching a review site that is only available in this much- loved 40-column, max 4 paragraphs-per-page screen size. As if that weren't tempting enough, you can sample all the weekday content for free as an incentive to subscribe to 10 weekend editions for just 50p each. The advantages over all those free, opinionated, comparatively-usable games review sites are clear - though the one thing that might swing the subscription issue for us would be if DIGIWORLD.TV (for that is its name) also converted modern-day game screenshots into its gorgeously chunky 8-colour 80 x 75 screens. http://www.digiworld.tv/d.tv?a=fnh2 - bring back the Vic-20, heyday of the 20-column text adventure In other "stuff you might have missed while we were on holiday": it still pains us to see THE GUARDIAN (and subsequent Slashdot discussion) perpetuating the popular myth - and mainstay of Ed Byrne's standup act - that Alanis Morisette's song "Ironic" might "not be ironic at all". The web is packed with critics devising coincidences that are more "ironic" than Alanis' examples ("It's like rain, on your wedding day - if you're marrying a weatherman! And he predicted that it wasn't going to rain!"), but the song actually seems to deal in minor everyday instances of *situational* irony, defined by the same Guardian piece as "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result". It's "often" amusing, but doesn't have to be: a "black fly in your Chardonnay" therefore runs contrary to the wine's la-di-dah connotations; "rain on your wedding day" flies in the face of Western associations between happiness and sunny weather. There's no doubt that Alanis could have come up with more "ironic" examples if she'd studied genre classics like Oedipus Rex - "It's like killing your father/ when you're trying not to/ It's like marrying your mother/ when that's socially taboo" - but her original scenarios were probably more recognisable to the CD-buying public. http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,985375,00.html - vs http://www.thudfactor.com/archives/001379.php http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Picture/7379/byrne.html - of course Byrne is exaggerating for comic effect http://www.marcusbrigstocke.com/pacman.asp - and don't get us started on that "Pacman" quote >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious ... unusually Hollywood cast for a Dr Who fan-video: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004CTDO/ - must be Mark Gatiss' League of Gentlemen connections... Netscape (falco!) memorial: http://www.ntk.net/2003/07/18/dohcack.gif ... Adobe demonstrates powerful global search and replace feature: http://www.adobe.co.uk/products/acrobat/acrrfaq.html#A ... haunting Tony Kaye TV ads for Dunlop perfectly recalled by fact-checking journalist not sloppy blogger Bill Thompson: http://www.ntk.net/2003/07/18/dohpir.gif (see also http://www.uktvadverts.com/Adverts/Adverts.aspx?artist=634 ) ... let the train take the pain of your existence advises: http://www.pembrokeshiregreenways.co.uk/frames.asp?sectionid=5 ... unfortunate corporate URLs http://www.poo.uk.com/ compete with unpleasant oval logo at http://www.pooldevil.net/ ... was aiming for last one: http://www.ntk.net/2003/07/18/doheight.gif ... BBC test site ignores internal anti-NTK "be dull" guidelines, dares to be exciting instead: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/gateways/ ... scorchio! http://www.ntk.net/2003/07/18/dohsco.gif ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Both b3ta and The Rockall Times are holding sophisticated cocktail evenings tonight, perhaps scant consolation for those of us who haven't made it to the world's first NIMBUS 2003 HARRY POTTER SYMPOSIUM (started yesterday, the Swan & Dolphin Hotel, Walt Disney World, Florida, from $69.75 per day). Papers include "Imperial Harry: Race, J.K. Rowling, and the Postcolonial Context", "Strangers in a Strange Land: How the Muggle-born are a Powerful Force for Social Change", plus Daily Telegraph science editor ROGER HIGHFIELD, author of "The Science of Harry Potter: How Magic Really Works", explaining how putting the mystical incantation "Harry Potter" in the title can supernaturally increase your book sales. http://www.hp2003.org/ - vs http://www.geocities.com/buffyology/ http://www.therockalltimes.co.uk/2003/07/14/update-eight.html - vs http://www2.b3ta.com/party/2ndbirthday.gif >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Whose idea was it to run RSS news aggregators on the client? There must have been a good reason, but whenever we think back to recall it, a giant laughing face of Dave Winer balloons up and then it goes black. Now here comes Mark "ONElist" Fletcher's BLOGLINES, challenging the received wisdom by being quite good. Bloglines is a server-based RSS reader. You download a bookmarklet that you can stab at whenever you see a blog, RSS-enabled monkey-torturing site, or whatever. Blogline adds it to its spider crawl. You log on to their server to read your carefully rendered RSS feeds. You can import OPML feeds from your local newsreader too. Right now, it seems the perfect solution: platform indy news reading from anywhere, plus you're saving the bandwidth of all those poor sites. Why, it's like Netscape Netcenter lives again! http://www.bloglines.com/register - logon. And save that password, cos the cookies are session only http://www.bloglines.com/help/easysub - here's the bookmarklet >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ http://www.blogjam.com/ vs www.brunching.com/weblogfaqk.html ...(unidentified) satellite net "was even able to turn on Studabaker's [satellite?] mobile when it was switched off": http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=13186085&method=full - or give Marines these: http://www.gametrac.com/track/ ... what every summer barbeque/ clan "induction" session needs: http://www.game-storm.net/services/brander_overview.aspx ... startlingly overlooks ability to "mod his lady's Playstation": http://www.cyber-mag.com/station/me2.htm ... now, if only he could do something about their automatic voice recognition - Caller: "Swiss Cottage", Booking line: "You have selected Odeon Manchester": http://www.dracos.co.uk/odeon/ ... NME.com readers do it (a strict maximum of) once a week (question 13): http://microsites.nme.com/glastosurvey2003/ ... KEVIN WARWICK turning Reading into the closing scenes of "Terminator 3": http://www.spy.org.uk/cgi-bin/morgui.pl ... saved for nation: http://digdug.cx/quotes/ ... http://www.grumbletext.co.uk/ - thanks everyone, that ought to do it... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> here's hoping ALT-TV (7.30pm, Fri, C4) emphasises that the DIY reactor kid was not following the official curriculum for the Boy Scouts of America "Atomic Energy" merit badge: http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~griffin2/scouts/rd-response.html ... spotting the pointless movie references might keep you awake during Paul Anderson "Shane" remake stinker SOLDIER (9pm, Fri, C5): http://www.imdb.com/Trivia?0120157 ... while the racial role-reversal of John Travolta parallel universe misfire WHITE MAN'S BURDEN (11.45pm, Fri, BBC2) means there's still hope for our alternate reality pitch in which - get this - men rule the entire planet and women are virtually second-class citizens... they really owe it to the fans to play Shatner's "Rocket Man" http://www.bentmen.com/realaudio/rocketman.ram over the end credits of STAR TREK - AFTER THEY WERE FAMOUS (9.15pm, Sat, ITV)... the plaintiffs in LAW AND ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT (10pm, Sat, C5) were originally going to be developmentally disabled... and Angelina Jolie and Dave "Eurythmics" Stewart consider a "28bps" modem and "million colour" screen "insanely great" in the unwittingly hilarious HACKERS (9.35pm, Sat, C4) ... North Korea's Kim Jong II is profiled as THE REAL DR EVIL (7.15pm, Sun, BBC2)... DON'T DROP THE COFFIN (8.30pm, Tue, ITV) appears to be "The Real" SIX FEET UNDER (10pm, Sun, C4) ... and HORIZON: THE DAY THE EARTH NEARLY DIED (9pm, Thu, BBC2) is "The Real" DEEP IMPACT (8.15pm, Sat, BBC1)... the non-binding phone-in judgements of ASYLUM: YOU THE JUDGE (8pm, Wed, BBC1) loosely imitate Uri Geller's adoption game-show idea: http://tinyurl.com/71ov , actual Australian immigration: http://www.how2immigrate.net/australia/preassessment-form.html ... "Shatner, Shatner... no, doesn't look like he's in" the magnificent MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE (11.20pm, Wed, ITV)... daughter of disgraced former Tory MP Victoria Aitken shows an unexpected inability to rap in YOUNG, LOADED AND POSH (10.30pm, Thu, ITV)... leaving you with this week's second "Shane" remake, Eastwood's PALE RIDER (9pm, Thu, C5)... FILM>> the improbable F/X of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" meet the numbing psychodrama of "The Ice Storm" in Ang Lee's spectacularly disappointing Jennifer Connelly CGI yawn HULK ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/hulk_the2003.htm : shape shifting, numerous; electric torture, sadistic; I wrote a book on the handling of radiation accident patients by paramedical and hospital personnel and wish I could share with you a few things that make what is portrayed absolutely stupid)... still, it makes a good smokescreen for covering up unacclaimed turkeys like Denis Leary, Steve Buscemi and Liz Hurley - together at last! - in bizarre indie police drama DOUBLE WHAMMY ( http://www.cndb.com/ : you get about 25 frames of [Hurley's] nipple if you want to pause and zoom)... or Heath Ledger/ Kate Hudson cowardly history-frolic THE FOUR FEATHERS ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/the_four_feathers.html : we see rugby players in the locker room after a match, with some having just towels around them. We then see a very brief shot of several of their bare butts)... though that doesn't seem to include the modern-day "Sgt Bilko" antics of Berlin- based still-unreleased-in-the-US military tell-all BUFFALO SOLDIERS ( www.bbfc.co.uk : strong language and hard drugs references) - could never happen in real life, of course: http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030714/wairport.html ... CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> and http://www.snackspot.org/ is also back from its summer break, currently alternating between the latest UK product releases, the edible unusualness we've encountered on our recent travels - and, in the case of WILD BERRY SKITTLES (45p), methodical cross-cultural comparisons between the two. In the former category: a relative thumbs-up for STARBURST SOUR CHEWS (33p, and "sour as a bastard" - Stuart Campbell), PENGUIN CHUKKAS ("I was a [bit] concerned that the biscuit bits might have been from dog biscuits... halfway though the pot, I don't care anymore"- Josh Roulston) http://www.snackspot.org/thread.php?story=0304221946sbc , plus whatever madness is currently emanating from WALKERS CRISPS flavour labs, in the form of their ORIENTAL CRACKERS, GREAT BRITISH TAKEAWAYS CRISPS, and FRENCH FRIES FISH AND CHIPS FLAVOUR... but it hasn't all been plain sailing: WALKER'S SHOTS appear to be gravitating towards bargain bins nationwide http://www.snackspot.org/thread.php?story=0304142342cas , and Stuart Campbell (again) slammed the artificially-sweetened BANANA AND PEACH LILT for "tasting of about 4% banana, 0% peach and 96% dirty radioactive metal", further clarifying that "IF I WANT THE FREAKING DIET VERSION I'LL BUY THE FREAKING DIET VERSION, YOU FREAKING TOSSWIPES"... on the international front, Adrian Furby and his team from Australia were swift to dismiss the "mint-flavoured" SPRITE ICE ("looks a little bit like diluted blue Listerine"), and went on to document the antipodean arrivals of TWIX WHITE, CADBURY'S PICNIC ROCKY ROAD ($1.60), and NESTLE KIT KAT BITES ($2.30), while receiving the intriguing accolade of being the first contributors to have their pics "borrowed" by another site: http://www.foodlineweb.co.uk/FoodWeb/newsletter/july03/product.asp ... over in the US, tasters were largely underwhelmed by drinks like RUSSELL SIMMONS' DEFCON 3 and PEPSI BLUE, but did enjoy MCDONALD'S RASPBERRY TRIPLE THICK SHAKE, ideally accompanied by an as-seen-on-The-Money-Programme maple syrup MCGRIDDLE. And as NTK goes to press, Snackspot is currently assessing currently unconfirmed sightings of the sunflower- based SNICKERS MAD MIX plus MCDONALD'S GREEK MAC, and still think the Fast Food Rockers' song "McDonalds, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut" has potential as a "Natwest-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds"-style anti-capitalist anthem: http://home.arcor.de/starluver/manics/lyrics/natwest.htm ... >> 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 "not a huge liquorice fan" http://www.55379009.com/mediaassassin/ 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? 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