Need To Know 2003-08-22

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"Microsoft has scoffed at suggestions its software contains back doors for use by United States intelligence services..." http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/15/1060871752574.html - Sorry, CIA: you'll have to use all the existing security holes, just like everyone else does >> HARD NEWS << easier to use What's this? Easier access to the machinations of the Hutton Inquiry site, but without the apparently needless use of JavaScript, cookies, or frames? It must be the work of - The Usability Vigilante! Yes, Odeon recoder MATTHEW SOMERVILLE has struck again, improving the world's accessibility one website at a time. In other good news: do you recall the appalling Post Office page, with its monstrous postal code address finder? Turns out that there *is* an accessible version of this (no registration required) - and the rest of the Royal Mail site too. Those sneaky disabled people have been keeping it to themselves, it seems. In a similar vein to the WAP version of play.com we mentioned, TXTBUX is a convenient SMS-interface ISBN-based Amazon price checker for browsing tightwads. BIGFROG takes an already semi-usable interface, and stuffs it into the burlap bag of RSS with his feeds of Yahoo News etc. And it's good to see BEN CHALMERS of DownwardSpiral reworking Andrew Orlowski's screeds into the format that most suits them. http://www.downwardspiral.org.uk/cgi-bin/orlowski.cgi - it's the Dave Spart blog! http://www.dracos.co.uk/hutton/ - what the?: http://www.dracos.co.uk/web/accessibility/bbcnews/ http://www.access.royalmail.com/dda/index.htm - my eyes have seen the glory of the black text on the white http://www.bigfrog.net/vnews/hot/ - would you recommend this photo overview? http://www.txtbux.co.uk/ - f u cn rd ths u hv bn sld a bk wth n vwls All right, enough. With the most anti-climactic fanfare we can muster, the results of our survey. The worst sites in Britain are... any of the ones to do with trains. The Trainline, the Eurostar site, and, especially, the NATIONAL RAIL booking system. We got fistfuls of mail complaining about the latter, especially by contrast to its previous incarnation, the little app done by plucky North Londern WAPpers Kizoom that was so much better. "The Kizoom app," reminisces the nostalgic STEVE BOWBRICK "... allowed you to define nicknames ('placemarks') for favourite destinations, remembered your current location (It's lunchtime and it's a weekday, so you're at work, so when you click 'next train please' you mean 'next train from my work placemark to my home placemark please') [and] was supported by the BEST SMS APP EVER". The new site by contrast, has enforced waits, only four trips per page, precious little timetabling, and ... oh, the pain goes on. To eradicate this disgrace to our nation (TM Daily Mail), we'll shower with plaudits anyone who dares screen-scrape it into something reasonable. Or, if pandering to busy commuters isn't quite your idea of a charitable gesture, why not re-do our runner up: the Dyslexia Association of London's site, which is so unreadable as to give everybody an insight into that unfortunate condition. http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/planmyjourney/ - then domyheadin http://www.nres.mytrains.kizoom.co.uk/nationalrail/html/new_services.jsp - the remnants of the previous day http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/30564.html - your "to do" list (partly implemented) http://www.dyslexiainlondon.ik.com/ - an animated GIF of juggling letters: that's taking the piss, isn't it? TESCO Cambridge and GILLETTE cave in to bearded privacy activists and withdraw their RFID-labelled razor blades; TRANSPORT FOR LONDON unveil a somewhat more ambitious plan to issue all the capital's commuters with RFID tags. Sure, you'd have to be a bit paranoid to read too much into the fact that, from next January, your London tube and bus fares go up by as much as 25%, unless you give them your name and address to register for their new Oyster "contactless smartcard", which both acts as a travel pass and/or deducts money from your prepaid account when you swipe it across a terminal. The traffic data promises to be particularly useful for London Underground, as their current magnetic-stripe-based dumb ticketing system lacks the ID coding to track specific individuals through the network, so at the moment planners have only the vaguest idea of where most tube journeys go. But, moving into more "tin-foil hat territory", the London Underground is of course also one of the few places where you can't easily be tracked via your mobile phone. http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/08/275818.html - though no word on http://www.spy.org.uk/cgi-bin/rfid.pl http://www.kablenet.com/kd.nsf/Frontpage/5FB8B97C03173BB480256D7A004A8CEB - aka "entry token" for health, benefits, education, etc >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious Tomb Raider 2 "expected to trigger massive interest in Snowdonia, the location of a Chinese village in the film", believes: http://news.google.com/news?q=trigger+snowdonia - more plausible than "massive interest in going to the cinema"?... BBC warns of park bagheads, marauding "gentiles": http://www.ntk.net/2003/08/22/dohgen.gif ... go on, Egg, lend us a quid: http://www.ntk.net/2003/08/22/greatloan.gif ... this week's somewhat redundant Amazon "perfect partner" offer: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006ZS92/ ... responsibilities also likely to include - proofreading our recruitment ads: http://www.ntk.net/2003/08/22/dohrea.gif ... "For an in-depth article, I might only have a couple of hours to pull something together", says broadband fan Anjana Ahuja: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6715-732801,00.html - might explain her "DNA" solution to Turing's Halting Problem: http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=01999-04-09&l=105#l ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Next week is LONDON GAMES WEEK, featuring the European debut of HALF-LIFE 2 at the ECTS (Tue-Fri, 2003-08-26/29, free but "trade only"), the embarrassingly repositioned "Fun, anyone?" PLAYSTATION EXPERIENCE (Thu-Sun, 2003-08-28/31, Earls Court, UKP8 on the door) and, in an ideal world, running battles between the rival VODAFONE UK MOBILE GAMES CHAMPIONSHIPS and the devastating juggernaut of the NOKIA N-GAGE TOUR (see sites for dates and venues). But the festivities kick off with a unique showcasing of non-virtual entertainment, as Lionhead's STEVE "Fighting Fantasy" JACKSON takes the stage at Richmond's The Black Horse pub, to perform "a collection of rock, pop, blues and funk classics" with his band THE JACKSON FOUR (8pm, Sun, 2003-08-24, free from the looks of things). Helping decide between page 23 and page 49 of the "choose your own" setlist will be Eidos' IAN LIVINGSTONE on harmonica and vocals and, at the end of the evening, a bucket will be passed around for donations towards the coding of a new Tomb Raider game. http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=518962&Y=175000&A=Y&Z=2 - check local listings for details http://www.londongamesweek.com/ - vs http://www.n-gage.com/tour/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/32457.html - Kieren leading well-argued Brussels anti-patents demo on Wed http://www.ht03.org/ - unless you're hypertalking with Ted Nelson in Nottingham http://www.petebarrwatson.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrightonBloggers - plus: Brighton Bloggers meet next Fri >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering XKEYMACS is a utility for what must be the Untouchable caste of Emacs: those who not only use Windows, but also, from time to time, are tempted to dabble in other applications. Since 2001, Yutaka Oishi has been tending ("burnishing", in his words) this taskbar applet, which provides as many Emacs shortcuts as it can within as many Windows applications as is feasible. The dialog box looks like a walkthrough for a control-key version of "Dance Dance Revolution", but it hides more than a bunch of hacked key-bindings. Command-line completion for COMMAND.COM? Recording keyboard macros for Notepad? Your time in the wilderness is now over. http://www.cam.hi-ho.ne.jp/oishi/indexen.html - successor to nogu.org's keymacs, keymacs+ http://www.gnufoo.org/ucontrol/ucontrol.html - there's a patent on one-handed-typing? >> MEMEPOOL << contains a source of http://snackspot.org/ dude, your logo's been ownz0rr3d!: http://www.palm.com/ ... video chat with your forced labour camp buddies thanks to: http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/dirty_list/hutichson.html ... a *parody* of a Flash company site? http://www.de-construct.com/ ... proof that the Internet is not yet ready for MELTING WOOD: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=34e75e612afff39b ... filmed in http://www.spodrum.freeserve.co.uk/victory/pages/content/subbuteo.htm ... one of these pics is not *quite* like the others, part 2: http://images.google.com/images?q=best_picture_ever.jpg ... just a matter of time before Tone Loc launches his patented "Funky Cold Medina": http://www.nme.com/news/105934.htm ... Govt stop using Word docs: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3154479.stm hopefully move to PDF files with black rectangles drawn over secret bits: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0308.html#8 ... Death Metal remix "still not as scary as the original": http://www.jonobacon.org/music/solo/jonobacon-freesoftwaresong.ogg ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> PD JAMES'S DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS (9.05pm, Sat & Sun, BBC1) takes the monastery murder mystery of "The Name Of The Rose" and, pioneeringly, sets it in the present day... marvel at the synchronicity of C4's PSYCHIC NIGHT (from 8pm, Sat, C4) coinciding with the Living Channel's PARANORMAL WEEKEND (from 3.50pm, Sat) - skeptic James Randi provides an alternative viewpoint, though sadly not to the extent of going ON HOLIDAY WITH THE [URI] GELLERS (11.10pm, Sun, C4)... while fans of empirically based observation are catered to with the unusual- proximity-of-Mars astronomy special THE ALL NIGHT STAR PARTY (11.20pm, Sat, BBC2)... the original SUPERMAN (3pm, Mon, ITV), THE ITALIAN JOB (9pm, Mon, BBC2), and the usual offhand Gallagher brother hilarity of LIVE FOREVER (22.35pm, Mon, BBC2) are arguably the highlights of Bank Holiday Monday... interchangeable Irish standup Sean Lock is this year's choice to present a low-budget trawl of ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH (11.20pm, Wed, BBC2)... and "It took so much of my leg away I looked like Terminator 2", says one victim of the antibiotic- resistant "superbug" MRSA in INTENSIVE SCARES (9pm, Thu, BBC1), though perhaps he actually means: "I looked like the liquid-nitrogen-damaged 'T-1000' Terminator, from the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day"?... FILM>> apart from most of the first hour and some appalling dialogue interchanges, "not as bad as the first one" is our surprise verdict on LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/tombraider-cradleoflife.htm : In defiance of the Scriptures, presents that Alexander the Great found a box that contains the source of life on Earth, thereby mixing Scriptures with "strange philosopy" and myth) ... otherwise the woefully underexplored world of con artists is revisited in uninspired Dustin Hoffman ADD drama CONFIDENCE ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/confidence.html : the film could inspire some kids to try to con others in any number of ways; a classic painting shows a bare breast and a little bit of pubic hair)... Australian filmmakers and Billy Connolly take a look at the lighter side of taking the church to court in romantic comedy THE MAN WHO SUED GOD (imdb: court- case/ journalist/ lawyer)... and there appear to be about 4 cinemas in the whole of the UK showing self-indulgent Matt Damon/ Gus Van Sant/ Casey Affleck "two blokes wandering around a bit" twaddle GERRY ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : contains strong language)... >> 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 "a rag, a bone, and a hank of hair" http://www.livejournal.com/users/wookiepocket/6431.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? 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