Need To Know 2003-09-26

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"Although [Russell "Queer As Folk" Davies] says he wants to 'introduce the character to a modern audience', Lorraine Heggessey, the controller of BBC1, insisted yesterday that she did not expect a gay Doctor Who..." http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/26/nwho26.xml ...foppish "Time Lord", travels with entourage of "companions" - what could be straighter than that? >> HARD NEWS << what happened to MOOs? A contrary couple of weeks among the forces fighting the good fight - or at least, convincing everyone else they are. MSN certainly added a few people to their buddy list after many outlets ran MSN's cancelling of their chat services without a glimmer of analysis. MSN UK head Gillian Kent was on all media, recommending people switched from "free and unmoderated" chatrooms to... MSN Messenger. Oh yes, much safer. Anyone wanting to write a real follow-up story might want to try opening MSN Messenger. Click on "Search for a Contact". Choose "Search By Interest". Browse "Profiles By Interest". Click on "People > Romance". Click on "13-19". Voila. A list of potential penpals, sorted by age and gender. Any chance of MSN Messenger getting shut down now? Or is the AIM-killer a bit more profitable than free, moderated chat? http://www.currybet.net/archives/000099.shtml - more quotes http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3139754.stm - and while you're running that press release, could you put this one up too? It got even weirder in Parliament last Thursday, when the Lords debated a bit in the Sexual Offences Act that would let police and GCHQ "make" their own child porn. While the Lords wandered off into a fascinating fancy that Al-Qaeda was using steganography to send sekrit messages in illegal material, the rest of us were left wondering exactly what kind of David Icke-level conspiracy was going on here. Turns out that it's not just the cops "making" pr0n. Since 1999, "making" child porn, in the legal sense of the term, includes caching indecent GIFs, preserving them for the police, or even seeing them fly past as a moderator or suspicious sysadmin. Everyone, it turns out, involved in the self-policing of the Net: from the Internet Watch Foundation helpline callers to those very same MSN moderators keeping an eye on chat rooms, yea even unto GCHQ spies who must stare at every Usenet binary until their eyes bleed, have been "making" the stuff. A crime which, understandably, has no possible defence. And which carries a hefty penalty of ten years in jail. Currently the police are pushing for an "authorisation" fix - which means that every sysadmin would have to apply for a special "Yes, I Make Child Porn But It's Okay" license, or face possible prosecution for even investigating dodgy practices. FIPR, very sensibly, are arguing that perhaps caching isn't *quite* same as "making" child porn, and could have extenuating circumstances under the law. Whatever the final form, for now, a huge chunk of Britain's "family" ISPs are discovering they're legally the same criminals as they're trying to catch. Which might further explain why MSN - and other ISPs - would rather close down their entire service than see employees thrown in jail. www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2003-September/028553.html - mostly funny stuff about Al-Qaeda http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/SexualOffencesBill.pdf - look what I made! So the European Parliament, after some bitching, did the right thing in the end, and voted for enough of the amendments to stop software patents. And who have we got to thank among British MEPS? Not Labour, who voted with Arlene "nasty dirty voters bullying me with their opinions" McCarthy. Not the Tories (although apparently there were a couple of dissidents). How about the Liberal Democrats, then, whose JURI committee member Diana Wallis spoke to their conference on Monday about how "We should be exposing the political choices that lay beneath... technical issues. For example we are currently dealing with a directive on the patentability of computer generated inventions; we have been lobbied to death by various individuals. This is about liberty, about choice, about protecting innovative small enterprises and the consumer." Oh, do guess. The British LibDems voted against fellow European Liberals and for software patents. Only the Greens and the UK Independence Party consistently voted down the bad provisions. Just so you know who is on your side next election. http://lwn.net/Articles/50722/ - directive, with useful comments >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious new minimalism: http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/26/dohlogo.gif ... ... football, football - that's all you ever think about: www.ntk.net/2003/09/26/dohstoke.gif ... 'cos no-one has an up- to-date laptop: http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/26/dohobs.gif ... impressively eclectic lineup for triple-CD PiL tribute album: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000007UDQ/ ... Open University project threatens to set research back 70 years: http://computing.open.ac.uk/Research/Showproject.cfm?ProjectID=39 ... e-Envoy's idea of "html version of full list of e- Champions" is - an html page with another link to the Word file: http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk/EStrategy/EChampions/fs/en ... nothing more annoying than forgetting to rewind your DVDs: http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/26/dohdvd.gif ... Brit initiative in action: http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/26/dohbdi.gif ... The Friday Thing blog lambasts Bowie, Morissette for elementary geographical goofs: http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/26/dohbelt1.gif - yet believes "Beltway" [sic] to be "a suburb of Washington": http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/26/dohbelt2.gif ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Obviously we have only the vaguest idea of what a "private view" might involve, so instead we've decided to hold a "gala opening" for FROM DESPAIR TO LEISUREWEAR: NTK - THE T-SHIRT YEARS (5.30-8pm, next Fri 2003-10-03, Access Space, 1 Sidney St, Sheffield S1 4RG, admission free, exhibition continues 11am-7pm Tue-Sat until end of Oct). It's not just 20 or more of our most technically sophisticated t-shirt designs draped over the walls and shop-window dummies - there'll also be rare and hard-to-get collector's items (like the mythical "red Adminspotting"), and an educational "designer's commentary" explaining the jokes on each one. Plus free wine and nibbles at the opening. And supermodels. Possibly. And next weekend threatens to be a busy one for fans of the esoteric and bizarre, incorporating what seems to be the UK premier of MCSWEENEYS VS THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS (7.30pm, Sat 2003-10-04, the Barbican, London, tickets from UKP10), and the innovation of a "strippers" and a "curry" track at Birmingham 2600's informal computer-security fest BRUMCON III - RETURN OF THE FED GUY (also Sat 2003-10-04), though their site currently seems to be down, making its Birmingham location perhaps even more "top secret" than they'd originally planned. http://www.leisurewear.lowtech.org/ - next: the return of "Memes don't exist, tell your friends" http://www.barbican.org.uk/generic/details.asp?eventID=1776 - "McSweeney's deserves no praise and accepts no blame" http://brumcon.org/ - (slightly) more info at http://www.phreaking.org/ http://www.infowar.com/ - please "Be civil" for InfowarCon, Washington, next Tue >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering KNOPPIX 3.3 is the most convincing argument for Linux on the desktop we've seen. Hell, it's the most convincing argument for thin clients we've seen. Use the free distrib-on-a-CD on your nearest laptop, and the chances are you'll be terrified by its hardware detection skillz (it spotted video card, USB, sound and wireless networking on a straight-out-of-a-box Vaio). Then, after a while being taken aback with its 2GB of speedily uncompressed apps (including two office suites and most of the KDE collection), you'll wonder whether you need to install it at all. If you do (with 3.3's knoppix-installer), you'll get the easiest Debian distribution you could ask for. If you don't, you can content yourself with hardware config and home dir details on USB storage or floppy (optionally encrypted), and keep your precious hard drive virginally intact. http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html - git your isos http://www.knoppix-std.org/docs/crypto_home.html - keep your keychain on your keychain >> MEMEPOOL << contains a source of http://snackspot.org/ bad worm pics - "surf without rhythm" to avoid attracting them?: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/31632.html , http://wireless.newsfactor.com/images/story-computer-worm.jpg ... http://www.anandasangha.net/mysticmicrosoft/ vs power of prayerware: http://www.ultraedit.com/products/story.html ... the laser beam-reflecting game that hasn't disappeared into Macromedia's subscription area: http://www.dyson.co.uk/game/ ... dull Amazon title of the week (falls asleep while typing it?): http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/920111186X ... SETI@home "successful", reveals www.climateprediction.net/ ... well, thanks for clarifying the whole "heterosexual" aspect: http://www.cannibalism.org.uk/ ... token Japlish of the week: http://www.webtribe.net/~davidgentle/2000_10_29_8factsarc.html#1241216 ... Kieren McCarthy lashes out at Prof Kevin Warwick's latest pronouncement, unfortunately omits when or where it took place: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/32991.html (under heading "Welcome back, Master of Gibberish")... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> forget muzzle velocity and armour penetration - it's all about reliability when GREATEST MILITARY CLASHES (8pm, Fri, C5) pits the AK47 vs the M16... according to the now-defunct http://web.archive.org/web/20001018091551/magi.com/~rhdf/scms/arnd.html Arnie's body count hits just 15 in THE RUNNING MAN (9pm, Fri, C5), compared to a whopping 105 in COMMANDO (9pm, Thu, C5) - couple of suggestions for recreating that "futuristic escaped prisoner" look http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,43613,00.html , http://store.yahoo.com/sharperimage-gb/iu558.html yourself ... and who knows what kind of scary RFID metal-strip technology was involved in tracking THE LIFE OF A UKP10 NOTE (11.35pm, Fri, BBC2)... hang on, is this a Saturday afternoon kid- friendly edit of LOGAN'S RUN? (3.50pm, Sat, C4)... in the quest to find the UK's dullest people, the champion of sports reality show BORN TO RUN (5.30pm, Sat, BBC1) goes on to face the winner of WIFE SWAP (9pm, Tue, C4) in the final... while Jonny Lee "Hackers" Miller seems unlikely to correct the popular misconception that Ada Lovelace was "the world's first computer programmer" in BYRON (10pm, Sat and Sun, BBC2)... first they renamed Opal Fruits and Marathons, now Boadicea/ Boudicca loses another letter to become BOUDICA (9.20pm, Sun, ITV)... still, she comes across as something of a peace-loving diplomat compared to whatever goes on INSIDE THE MIND OF TONY BLAIR (8pm, Sun, C4), itself preceding 1983-era Rory Bremner style impersonation political drama THE DEAL (9pm, Sun, C4)... as if you care, being glued - if that's the right word - to the original-and-best AMERICAN PIE (9pm, Sun, C5)... the Radio Times describes "erotic manga cartoons" as one topic of the final WHATEVER TURNS YOU ON (10.55pm, Tue, C5), though GOTHS MAKE BETTER LOVERS (1.15am, Wed, C4), argues C4's "Outside" strand... Robert Winston uses computer graphics to probe THE HUMAN MIND (9pm, Wed, BBC1)... and tough call for Brad Pitt fans between Guy Ritchie rubbish SNATCH (10pm, Wed, C4) and Terry Gilliam's TWELVE MONKEYS (11.20pm, Wed, BBC1) - also rubbish, of course, but - hey - partly set in the future... FILM>> interestingly, Kevin Smith's "Critical Mess" coterie http://www.moviepoopshoot.com/mess/10.html claim that being friends with Ben Affleck *isn't* why they haven't done a spoof poster for not-as-bad-as-you'd-hoped "Chasing J-Lo" remake GIGLI ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/gigli.html : we see [Lopez] in a sports bra (that shows cleavage) and small and tight shorts as she exercises and does various stretches, some of them sexually suggestive; [Affleck] threatens to put a gagged man through a spin in an industrial clothes dryer)... "best" of an odd week is Robert Rodriguez's characteristically incoherent El Mariachi III actioner ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/onceuponatimeinmexico.htm : firearm threat to crotch; thong nudity, repeatedly; death by fire; death by bus; invasive medical procedure, twice, once to gouge out eyes)... the accent-fest continues in grim 1950s "Confessions of a Canal Drifter" Scottish odyssey YOUNG ADAM ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Young+Adam+(2003) : Emily Mortimer shows ample breasts in three sex scenes with Ewan McGregor)... while almost all the Australians from this month's other movies - Heath "Sin Eater" Ledger, Naomi "Le Divorce" Watts, Joel Edgerton and Rachel Griffiths from "The Hard Word" - reunite in armour-plated period shoot-em-up NED KELLY ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : contains infrequent strong violence)... >> 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 "parseable" http://membled.com/work/apps/xmltv/presentation/12future.html NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Unsubscribe or subscribe at http://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. 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.