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        "My practice is to delete all of those who do not reply to my 
         email, or who are so tardy to be ineffective, and similarly 
         web pages and hyperlinks. And it really works!"
            - Earth 98% full... delete Peter Cochrane's "ineffectives" 
                                                          immediately
                http://www.silicon.com/opinion/166-500001/1/5686.html


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                                motley crews

         She's got a little list: the McCarthy witchhunt continued in
         Brussels this week, with Arlene M., leader of the software
         patent campaign, sending a "factsheet" to MEPs, correcting
         the errors of those subversive programmers who've been
         fighting her proposal. She gets as far as the second
         sentence before blowing the "fact" part of her mission.
         There she describes her pursuers as "the Free Software
         Alliance": an organisation that doesn't appear to exist.
         Then again, when you have the EuroLinux Alliance, the
         Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, the Free
         Software Foundation, the Oxford Internet Institute, Super
         Mecha Donald Knuth, the Soros Foundation, SUSE, Redhat and
         the 228,137 people who've signed the anti-software patents
         petition against you, it must be easy to mix up names. The
         fiendishly efficient FFII have already written a detailed
         reply to this rearguard action. It also works as a decent
         summary of the positions of both Arlene *and* the sinister 
         Free Software Alliance if you haven't been keeping up. If
         you're bored this weekend - or would prefer to keep your job
         producing patent-free software in Europe - you might want to
         read it, then have a word with your MEP about a few of those "facts".
         http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/amccarthy030901/
                                                     - point by point
         http://www.europarl.org.uk/uk_meps/MembersMain.htm
                                                - digging up your MEP
         http://petition.eurolinux.org/
                         - or just sign the petition, you lazy COMMIE

         Just to emphasise the positive power of protest: rogue gamer 
         STUART CAMPBELL has been back on the campaign trail, once 
         again tackling games-biz body ELSPA, but this time over the 
         informatively incorrect FAQ on their website. "Am I legally 
         entitled to make a backup of my original software?" you ask;
         they used to unequivocally answer: "No". As Stuart's superfast 
         reflexes rapidly tracked down, section 50A of the amended 1988 
         Copyright, Designs and Patents act in fact encourages "a 
         lawful user of a copy of a computer program to make any back 
         up copy of it which it is necessary for him to have for the 
         purposes of his lawful use", a difference of opinion which 
         Stuart felt necessary to report to the Advertising Standards 
         Authority. They said it wasn't really their area and pointed 
         him in the direction of Trading Standards, who said it wasn't 
         their area either - but they had a word with ELSPA anyway, 
         who've now modified the wording to warn against backing up the 
         "film and sound" copyrights which they believe games inevitably 
         contain. Of course, making backup copies of lawfully obtained 
         audio or video material for your personal use isn't quite so 
         explicitly permitted under UK law, but - and please correct us 
         if you know any differently - we're not sure if it's actually 
         specifically banned either?
         http://www.rllmuk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14006
                 - chipping Playstations also not *that* illegal, yet
         http://www.rllmuk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14505
           - result, though not clear who ELSPA should be reported to
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3192927.stm
             - and still illegal to circumvent lame anti-copying tech

         Everyone's praising the Hutton Inquiry's data dumps, but is
         anyone actually ploughing through the online evidence? Yes
         they are - including bits that they shouldn't be. Subscriber
         WILLIAM ANDERSON spotted that some of the BBC's submitted
         evidence wasn't all as [redacted] as it could be. Take
         Gilligan's phone bill: "Not all of the data has been
         properly blanked... visible within the first couple of
         inches are the BT account number, the bill number (...
         usually used by BT as proof that you are who you say you
         are) and, critically an 0208 phone number". All gone now,
         replaced with a time-warping note that says the phone bill
         is "not yet available". Wonder how many people phoned
         Gilligan up and started hassling him for a quote?
http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/evidence-lists/evidence-bbc.htm
                                        - BBC/13/0058-0067, 0068-0096
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-08-22&l=192#l
                              - (sort of) in accordance with prophecy 


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         hey, once you get those 400-year old Londoners talking about 
         the "old days": http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/05/dohgreat.gif 
         ... SYDNEY advertises October street parade followed by "an 
         apple": http://duxton.com/upcoming_hotel_main.asp?hotel_id=2 
         ... WIDDECOMBE of the week (you can come up with ruder ones): 
       http://www.365london.co.uk/locationdetail.asp?title=Ram%20Raiding
         ... ah, the old "The Helpdesk/ The Helpless" comedy confusion: 
         http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/its/aboutus/latestnews/#0 
         ... monthly return of the ever-popular PUERILE GOOGLE GOOFS: 
         http://www.google.com/search?q=baptits , "breech of contract", 
         http://news.google.com/news?q=javascript+fella , "rdf tripes", 
         and what *is* so special about "Cack Cocaine"?... THE FRIDAY 
         THING's Paul Carr slams viral marketers' attempts "to drive 
         traffic away from other people's websites towards their own": 
  http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1028727,00.html
         - harsh words from former promoter of "buy Cheeky Girls record" 
         campaign: http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/05/dohcheek.gif ...


                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                         goto's considered non-harmful

         MARK THOMAS is officially opening the centre to co-ordinate 
         protests against next week's DEFENCE SYSTEMS AND EQUIPMENT 
         INTERNATIONAL (various times and venues around Excel 
         Exhibition Centre, pre-registration necessary for arms fair). 
         Meanwhile, controversy-magnets SPIKED MAGAZINE tackle the 
         issues that really matter with a short season of net-related 
         debates, starting with INTERNET REGULATION: IS THERE SUCH A 
         THING AS HARMFUL CONTENT? (7pm, next Wed 2003-09-10, Hill and 
         Knowlton, 35 Red Lion Square, London WC1R, from UKP10), in the 
         company of ROLAND "Internet Policy Agency" PERRY and YAMAN 
         AKDENIZ from Cyber-Rights and Cyber-Liberties UK. Then, 
         assuming proper WiFi protocol is observed, expect the usual 
         flurry of uninformative "I'm actually blogging this *from the 
         event*" postings the week after when GONE TO THE BLOGS: THE 
         BLOGGING PHENOMENON IN PERSPECTIVE (7pm, Wed 2003-09-17, IBM 
         South Bank, 76 Upper Ground, London SE1) annotates the musings 
         of bonkers anti-blog blogger BILL THOMPSON and the iSociety's 
         inescapable Chris Evans-lookalike JAMES CRABTREE.
         http://www.dsei.org/
                           - "There will also be music from Cello Man"
         http://www.dsei.co.uk/
     - "Vessels are berthed immediately alongside the exhibition hall"
         http://www.spiked-online.com/event/
           - it's basically Lee and Herring's "Ironic Review". Ahhhhh.


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         E-mail is dead! Long live Usenet! Wait, is that right? GMANE
         is a website that subscribes to all your favourite tech
         mailing lists, then spits them out as despammed NNTP feeds.
         Searchable, skimmable, threadable and disposable, it lets
         you hang on with your fingernails to a bunch of different
         online discussions without drowning in filters and
         mailboxes. Thanks to gmane's constant Great Renaming, it can
         be a little hard to find your old haunts: who, for instance,
         knew that gmane.emacs.code-browser was really a feed of
         ecb-list@lists.sf.net? But at least the tree format
         encourages browsing - and if your favourite mailing list
         isn't there, there's a simple one page form to add it.
         Instant Web archive!
         http://gmane.org/
    - of course, potentially instant Web archive you don't know about
         http://gmane.org/about.php
                                - but at least it's run by a good guy
http://www.google.com/groups?q=%22please+respect+x-no+archive+when%22
                                                               - oops


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                contains a source of http://snackspot.org/

         DHTML LEMMINGS dead: http://www.xs4all.nl/~crisp/lemmings/ - 
         predictably... but some things will never die (Flash, sorry): 
         http://www.powerstrike.net/Tehkan/mamejump.html ... the new 
         "Quake haikus": http://www.twhi.org/rip/wizard/bluewizard.htm 
         ... raising possibility that DMX's lyrics "What these bitches 
         want", "Where's my bitches?" and "bitches drippin sweat" are 
         actually about female dogs: http://www.boomer129.com/home.html 
         ... DULLEST TITLED BOOK ON AMAZON contender #2 "You'll design 
         longer-lasting, more cost-effective road pavements", thanks to 
         http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0070144516/ ... 
         Commodore said "most famous author in sci-fi history" *above* 
         Jakki Brambles: http://amiga.emugaming.com/celebrities.html 
         ... September 11 will inevitably "happen again", experts warn: 
     http://www.cullenleeds.force9.co.uk/september11tm/infonationstation.htm
         ... Babelfish Japlish: http://qwer.org/cnnjaplish.html ... Comic
         Sans != a feature: http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/05/messengerad.gif
         ... what situationist prank is this? http://www.paulmorley.com ... 


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> "Pitch Black" director David Twohy provides rather more 
         pedestrian ET incursions in THE ARRIVAL (1.20am, Fri, BBC1)... 
         romantic comedy DON'T GO BREAKING MY HEART (2.30am, Sat, C4) 
         was memorably promoted with the poster tagline "He couldn't if 
         he tried!"... and we still think the "Do not have anything in 
         your life you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds" 
         line from HEAT (9pm, Sun, BBC1) would make a good ad for those 
         USB keyring memory sticks... according to the Radio Times, 
         SOUL SEARCHING (8pm, Sun, C4) reports that "scientific opinion 
         is swaying - maybe we do have an inner, God-given spiritual 
         essence"... the trails list the celebrities as "Gail Porter", 
         "Mel C" and "Miss World", which is how they'll hopefully refer 
         to her in "Superstars" remake THE GAMES: LIVE (9pm, Sun, C4) 
         ... and we previously pondered if Ewan McGregor's character - 
         called "The Eye" - might like to "hold bees" in bizarro serial 
         killer romance THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER (10pm, Sun, BBC2)... 
         THE CURSE OF FRIENDS REUNITED (9pm, Mon, C5) really ought to
         include their frankly rubbish "don't give out your email 
         address" regexp... Sandra Bullock booze battler 28 DAYS (10pm, 
         Mon, C5) turns out not to be a prequel to "28 Days Later"... 
         and "Desmond's" veteran Robbie Gee reappears in BBC1's all-
         black sitcom THE CROUCHES (10.35pm, Tue, BBC1) - maybe Richard 
         Blackwood was busy doing "Quote me happy" insurance ads... 
         JUMP LONDON (10pm, Tue, C4) seems to refer to the activity of 
         leaping from rooftop to rooftop as "free running" rather than 
         the original French name of "Le Parkour"... listen out for the 
         samples from the new UNKLE "Eye for an Eye" single in arthouse 
         war film THE THIN RED LINE (11pm, Tue, ITV)... Stephen Fry 
         reunites with Hugh Laurie, John Sessions in urban-legend-
         debunking panelgame smugfest QI (10pm, Thu, BBC2)... and 
         CANTERBURY TALES (9pm, Thu, BBC1) updates some of the Chaucer 
         classics - just as Dire Straits did all those years ago: 
         http://www.museumoftechno.org/correspondence/lyrics.html ... 
         
         FILM>> it's Dennis Pennis, Johnny Vegas and Vince "Swingers" 
         Vaughn - together at last! - in crude crown-green bowling 
         slapstick BLACKBALL ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains strong 
         language)... though fans of unclothed middle-aged British 
         female character actors will already be queuing up for based-
         on-a-true-story CALENDAR GIRLS ( http://www.mpaa.org/ : Rated 
         PG-13 for nudity, some language and drug-related material)... 
         a slightly odd back-to-school release for "let's do the show 
         right here" adolescent showbiz-wannabes spectacular CAMP 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/camp2003.htm : social 
         brutality, repeatedly; pelvic thrusts by a small child; belly 
         sin; one might get the impression most performing artists 
         choose to be "gay") - disappointingly, not based on either 
         the Scottish beverage http://www.sybertooth.com/camp/ or the 
         adenosine nucleotide "cyclic AMP" which regulates various 
         metabolic processes at a cellular level... despite the "no 
         special effects" claim, the preponderance of over-water shots 
         implies a lot of boat-based imprinting during the making of 
         WINGED MIGRATION (imdb: nature/ avalanche/ farming/ hunting/ 
         parrot)... and one of the blokes from "Attachments" is hunted 
         down like a dog in semi-downloadable Brit "Deliverance"-alike 
         THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains 
         strong language, drugs use and violence) - which, for once, 
         *does* appear to be based on the Public Image Ltd song of the 
         same name: http://www.thisisnotalovesong.com/ ... 


                               >> 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
                                 "dysfunctional"
      http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story=439760

                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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