Need To Know 2003-10-17

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"We start with a package of MS Office training," says Mahmood Zahir, information and communication technology programme assistant for the [Afghanistan UN Development Programme], "where we teach our students an introduction to computers - Windows XP - and then Word, Excel, PowerPoint..." http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1063619,00.html - for the love of God: HAVEN'T THESE PEOPLE SUFFERED ENOUGH? >> HARD NEWS << stifling boos DAVID BLAINE will be gone, but if you're in London on Wednesday, there'll still be a chance to taunt and bait resigned-looking men in cages. Yes, it's SCRAMBLING FOR SAFETY 7, the ancient Roman entertainment in which civil servants answer heavily-sarcastic questions about privacy, security and crypto in front of a live and gently livid audience. This year, we'll be mainly shaking our fists at those RIP surveillance standing orders. Simon Watkin, the only Home Office official ever to be accused of trolling, will defend his country's honour, and then there'll be a parade of those who'll be wielding the new surveillance powers, including a Trading Standards Officer, a man from the Dept of Work and Pensions, and somebody from the police "(invited)". And if you can't make it to that, stay in your room and write a hundred lines. Preferably to your MP, as that bloody software patents thing is dragging on. (This will be the last push but one, if anyone is counting.) http://www.fipr.org/sfs7.html - Who Listens To The Listeners? http://www.ffii.org.uk/council.html - "Write to your MP - or the software industry gets it" In between the sex orgies, the guzzling of live bunnies, and the dance around the pyre of a giant Dave-Winer shaped "Wiki Man" (joke (c) Andrew Orlowski, cheers kthx), it was a weekend of high-achievement dossing at the notorious O'REILLY FOO CAMP. Bram "BitTorrent" Cohen, having solved content distribution, announced he was now tackling other simple problems: reputation systems, version control and perhaps after lunch the NP-complete set. Reserving enough brainpower for this unfortunately involved forgetting his own birthday, which unbeknownst to him, was on Sunday. Similar problems beleaguered Gnome wunderkind Nat Friedman, who almost absent-mindedly flew to the wrong city. Elsewhere on the stumbling edge, the geolocation folk led by Joshua "Memepool" Schachter and the RFID/barcodians led by MSFTian Marc Smith, struggled to either locate or track good solutions to their biggest bugbear - the hoarding of databases like the UPC and the Ordnance Survey. The WiFi-folk, glad to find a venue where they weren't asked to fall off roofs while troubleshooting everyone's connectivity, mainly got drunk. Above it all, there was a strong sense of handing-off-the-torch across the generations. Although with Bob "Visicalc" Frankston outtalking everyone 4:1, Kevin Kelly compelling gentle Brian Behlendorf to teach him how to DJ, and Jaron Lanier - yes, Jaron "bloody" Lanier - somehow coming from behind to outdo everyone with an avatar system that dynamically aped your every facial expression via a Webcam... it wasn't entirely clear which direction that torch was going. http://www.advogato.org/person/Bram/diary.html?start=96 - also solving energy crisis http://www.nat.org/2003/october/#10-October-2003 - unstoppable! (even when going in wrong direction) http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/002061.html - barcodes, sweatshops and an 11K reader for phonecams http://www.oblomovka.com/entries/2003/10/13#1066058820 - now *we* would never make fun of "private" webpages Continuing last week's consumer-rights crusade over the anti- Opera/ Mozilla discrimination of MARKSANDSPENCER.COM, NTK reader LISA notes "if you use Mozilla Firebird with the user agent switcher plugin (has to be downloaded/installed from the plugins page) set to Internet Explorer, the site seems to work perfectly. Couldn't get JobCentre to work with a falsified user agent though". Which offers little consolation to fellow masked Mozilla user PETE, who has been frustrated by M&S's policy on no less than two separate Christmas shopping expeditions over successive years, adding "There has, by the way, been a Moz evangelism bug open on this for ages". That's where you can find Steve Wind-Mozley, "Channel Developer" of the store's E-commerce Team, promising that Mozilla will be unblocked "as soon as [he has] finished pressure testing the new code" - a claim he made on Feb 25 of this year. Steve, we know there's a myth that Mozilla users can go a long time without changing their underwear - but is it really sensible to allow them to wait nearly 8 months (and counting) before permitting them to buy any new ones? http://www.marksandspencer.com/disallowed.html - or browsers *pretending* to be IE5, Netscape 6.1 etc http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164280 - not quite the "no quibble" returns policy we'd hoped for >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious and he's not the only one being vigilant in that department: http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/17/dohcum.gif ... dog eats Madonna - not news, but: http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/17/dohdog.gif ... from the folks who bought you that "4 gallon stainless steel urn": http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/10/dohdeal.gif ... because Glasgow is - the new Devon: http://www.glasgowonly.co.uk/ ... celebrities' life-force simply "too strong" for mere mortals: http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/26/dohrob.gif ... and has Robbie Williams got himself some sort of "Dorian Gray" thing going on here?: http://www.dotmusic.com/artists/RobbieWilliams/ ... contentious Euro 2004 draw pits Welshman against Welshman: http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/17/dohwales.gif , Holland "riven by dissent": http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/17/dohdutch.gif ... and there's nothing wrong with hypocrisy per se - it's just when other people do it: http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/17/dohhypo.gif >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful This weekend's LOEBNER GRAND PRIZE CONTEST 2003 - offering $100,000 to "the first computer program whose conversation is indistinguishable from a human's" - looks as safe as ever (Saturday afternoon, 2003-10-18, Continuing Education Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford, not open to the human public from the looks of things), considering that we caught out the online version of UK finalist Jabberwacky in about 6 exchanges (JABBERWACKY: How are you? HUMAN: Bit under the weather to be honest. JABBERWACKY: Oh I see. Why did you say it?). Further examples of unnatural intelligence should also be on show at next Wed's DORKBOT LONDON (7pm, Wed 2003-10-22, State 51, 8 Rhoda Street, London E2, free), featuring NTK retro guru James Larsson's "One Hundred And One (Mainly Dangerous) Uses For An Old Monitor" - or indeed this weekend's cash-for-autographs fest LONDON EXPO (11am-5pm, ExCeL exhibition centre, Royal Victoria Dock, London E16, UKP6), where the celebs range from Anya out of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" to Boomer from out of "Battlestar Galactica" and - of course - Wicket the Ewok. http://www.surrey.ac.uk/dwrc/loebner/ - vs http://www.jabberwacky.com/ (literally!) http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotlondon/ - "disparate energies, possibilities and connections" alright http://scifishows.com/londonexpo/home/guests.shtml - "NOTEABLE" notably misspelled throughout http://www.miniaturegolfer.com/world_crazy_golf_championships.html - also this weekend: World Crazy Golf Championship, Hastings http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/offers/asp/OF_OpenDoors.asp - another excuse to take the kids to McDonald's at half-term >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering When a Mac joins your network, it's always fun to guess what will announce its shareable resources first: OS X's built-in zeroconf/rendezvous protocol, or its braying human owner, showing off again. As printers, PVRs and, yea, Windows iTunes start implementing their own support for the (we grudgingly concede) cool standard for network configuration and general high-level LAN chattiness, it behooves us all to peer a bit more deeply into this, the Appletalk of the future. Step forward, HOWL, a free toolkit for zeroconf hacking on Windows, Linux and BSD. It's barebones, but good enough to start building your own utilities. There's a CLI and sample code for the Unixies, and a IE plugin browser for Windows. Worth messing around with for the sheer intellectual thrill, to toy with new application ideas, or the noble pursuit of making rude words appear in the Mac guy's Rendezvous bookmark list. http://www.swampwolf.com/products/howl/ - also your chance to annoy Microsoft too! http://radio.weblogs.com/0105002/categories/technical/2003/01/01.html - and an implementation in Python to annoy anyone else left http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/rendezvous/ - in the unlikely event that none of this makes any sense >> MEMEPOOL << contains a source of http://snackspot.org/ Barefoot Doctor legs it, faced with barefaced skepticism: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.685e9480/4 ... first post!: http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/17/dohken.gif ... "Focused on advancing solutions that contribute to the welfare of the global community": http://www.ms.northropgrumman.com/home/ ... now featuring that "Extreme Computing" show-stopper "Calcium": http://db.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/dvd.shtml ... calling the usability police - overextended metaphor in progress: http://www.dashxpress.co.uk/main.htm ... and if you thought Flash sites were bad, see the future of Shockwave interfaces: http://www.ulucube.com/ ... more SUN fun - no, you may not "provide, in any way, access to the HTML code for the link": http://logos.sun.com/logosite.jsp?Category=third&Logo=get-java&Page=request ... Danish for "I love you" apparently "not available": http://www.nypl.org/branch/central_units/d/f/language/danish.htm - what is this Earth-emotion you non-Scandinavians call "love"?... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> Clint Eastwood plays a grizzled past-it veteran whose crimes must remain UNFORGIVEN (9pm, Fri, C5) - a description which also applies to the BBC1's depressingly familiar "new" comedy lineup, comprising Jasper Carrott's uneasy disability- com ALL ABOUT ME (8.30pm, Fri, BBC1) plus largely unnecessary continuations of ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS (9pm, Fri, BBC1) and HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU (9.30pm, Fri, BBC1)... on a more positive note, there are tantalising glimpses of Larry David's standup in the pilot of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (11.15pm, Fri, BBC4), leading into the first episode of season two (10.30pm, Tue & Fri, BBC4)... otherwise it's just filth, filth, filth in the form of 3-part jazz mag docu SEX EMPIRES (9pm, Sun, BBC2), the "graphic and explicit" PORNOGRAPHY: THE MUSICAL (10.40pm, Tue, C4), pseudo-educational slot SEX RULES (10.40pm, Wed, C4), plus a "search for teenagers' brightest business ideas" in BEDROOM BRITAIN (7.55pm, Mon-Thu, C4)... neat catchphrases, slightly too much other dialogue in Russell Crowe beat-'em-up GLADIATOR (9pm, Sun, C5) - annoyingly clashes with Radiophonic Workshop tribute ALCHEMISTS OF SOUND (9pm, Sun, BBC4), but that'll probably get a repeat... the CGI-and-sandals action continues in Roman reconstruction POMPEII - THE LAST DAY (9pm, Mon, BBC1)... and, just as everyone was genuinely losing interest, David Blaine emerges from his ABOVE THE BELOW (9pm, Mon, C4), intriguingly scheduled 2 hours before STEPHEN KING'S THINNER (11.15pm, Mon, C4)... "the best feature-length 'made for TV' series pilot since 'The Matrix'" remains our verdict on X-MEN (9pm, Wed, ITV)... the ever-increasing pollution of public and mental space is celebrated in THE ADS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD (9pm, Wed, C5)... and without spoiling the ending of EVERYMAN - DOES PRAYER WORK? (9pm, Thu, BBC2) - signs point to "no" http://www.suntimes.com/output/health/cst-nws-pray15.html ... FILM>> even occasional hints of Kevin O'Neill design fail to detract from the undiluted unwatchability of dire Alan Moore adaptation - and inadvertent argument *for* the indefinite extension of copyright - THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/lxg.htm : ethereal beast goading the living; excusing piracy; lust for blood)... also adding to the usual half-term tedium: the gratuitous violence is tolerable, the interminable exposition and back-story less so in Tarantino-esque uneven retro pastiche KILL BILL: VOL 1 ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/kill_bill_vol1.html : [Uma Thurman] kills many without remorse in her vindictive spree; the term "Jap" is used in a derogatory fashion; Uma Thurman wears a midriff-revealing top)... while the producers of "The Adam And Joe Show" create a more overtly homoerotic celebration of kitsch in '90s death-clubber PARTY MONSTER ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Party+Monster+%282003%29 : Chloe Sevigny shows us her rump; [Macaulay Culkin] bares his ass in a peek-a-boo costume at a party)... >> 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 "Slightly more deadpan in the original interview!" http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1063370,00.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.