Need To Know 2003-11-21

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"What has caused the terrorist attack today in Turkey is not the President of the United States, is not the alliance between America and Britain. What is responsible for that terrorist attack is terrorism..." - Tony Blair puts his finger on what's really going on the world http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1089630,00.html ...furthermore, it is precisely because we fear that which we fear - that we are afraid of it >> HARD NEWS << summarily removed Remember the good old days, when you and your transhumanist mates could amicably disagree on such pressing topics as the name of your crypto-currency, the ocean your data haven nano-atoll would float on, and whether or not you'd let your other post-singularity instantiations join a hive-mind? These days, that precious techno-consensus has shattered. Brother against brother, Stross against Raymond; people don't even agree which Political Compass quiz to take any more. We're still trying to map out this new reality (so much more tedious than the new realities we thought we'd have by now). But an announcement this week seemed to peg out the scale a little for us: the techno-libertarian Cato Institute arguing with techno-socialist Bill Thompson over whether Google should be a public utility. As diverse a viewpoint as you could muster, and just as realistic a discussion as those "what colour will you dye your solar system" chats we had all those years ago. Meanwhile, in an attempt to be non-partisan, we've accepted a 1UKP bribe from an anonymous NTK subscriber to "lay off Bill" for a bit - see: interventionism *and* the free market, together at last! http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/031114-tk.html - there, the best of both worlds http://politics.beasts.org/ - Which Cartesian Co-Ordinate Are You? First off, apologies to subscribers whose NTK was spam-trapped a couple of weeks ago for inadvertently including a open proxy IP address buried in the Received: header. We've realised how to stop that: we don't have such an easy solution for anyone who works at Channel4, whose corporate gateway blocked last week's issue for being "of a pornographic nature", possibly due to the inclusion of some of the channel's own TV listings. If SAM KINGTON can read this at all, it's probably via our RSS feed, after his SpamSieve installation achieved an superhuman level of Bayesian sentience and rejected NTK 2003-08-08 for its gratuitous use of such giveaways as "organised", "mitnick", "mercy", "preceded", "erotic", "non-" and (apparently) "3210". But even he should consider himself lucky that he doesn't work at HITACHI DATA SYSTEMS, who hinted at their strict definition of work-related mail by remarking "Your message failed to pass Hitachi Data Systems content filtering system", in response to our "Welcome to the NTKnow mailing list" Mailman confirmation greeting. http://www.hexkey.co.uk/lee/log/2003/11/08/#1068321120 - our spam correspondent has the full story http://www.ntk.net/rss.php - aka the poor man's rich site summary >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious bloody outer-space property developers have sold off all the moon: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/21/dohmoon.gif ... or visit our Mars branch: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/21/doh40m.gif ... quite a commute, so need typists that can travel at 9 times speed of sound: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/21/dohtype.gif ... powered by a 300 megawatt wristwatch (gets through lots of batteries though): http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/21/dohmega.gif ... http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/b/a/ss_Honda_lawnmowers.html ... double-URLtendres of the fortnight: http://www.mp3shits.com/ , http://www.mattressex.co.uk/ , http://www.atitproductions.com/ , www.nutrend.co.uk , http://www.cts-group.co.uk/coprofile.htm , http://www.blackfriarswinebar.co.uk ... when testdata attacks: http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=14107508 , http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=101203338 ...Comdex 2003 at the Las Vegas Convention Center welcomes BRIAN: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/21/dohbrian.gif ... infinite monkeys making real progress: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/21/dohape.gif >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful (Just to settle this whole "goto's" apostrophe business once and for all, reader TOM DOLAN helpfully chips in to suggest "Couldn't you just pretend it's a contraction of 'goto is'?" To be honest, Tom, we're currently looking to whether the plural of "goto" should in fact be "goes to", just as it should technically be "passers-by", "Whoppers Junior" and "Burgers King".) Anyway, we're sure someone will be able to explain the correct pluralisation to you at next Tuesday's open-to-the-public "introduction to Linux and free software" MENSA LECTURE (7pm, Tue 2003-11-25, Dover Castle pub, London W1G, UKP4.50 inc "1 drink from bar"). It's delivered by NTK reader, Linux Magazine contributor (and Lead Programmer on Gamecube "Die Hard Vendetta"?) STEVEN GOODWIN, with the intriguing title "Why My Friends And I Re-Invented The Wheel. Again" (and not, as we'd hoped, "You Don't Have To Self- Identify As Having A Genius-Level IQ To Successfully Install Linux Nowadays - But It Helps"). http://www.bluedust.com/mensa/ - what's the plural of Mensas? Mentalists? Mensae? http://www.doolin.com/events.html - doh: same day as Ronan's Irish RSS talk http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/ - next Saturday: Adbusters-instigated anti-consumer activism http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ukbloggers-social/message/723 - doh: same day as Funjunkie's Christmas London blog bash >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering There are many TLA to TLA convertor utilities, but none so perversely useful as VNC2SWF. This blob of super-glue for Linux intercepts the remote display protocol VNC and converts it into a Macromedia Flash animation - an instant Webbable replay of every repaint, every mouse twitch on a screen. It's the obligatory Sourceforge screenshot of the future! VNC2SWF isn't perfect - some screen recordings confused both the legit Flash plugin and the GPL'd clone. And while VNC2SWF is cool, wouldn't a full VNC client serving out of a Flash file be even cooler? http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/vnc2swf/ - Flash. cool. what has *happened* to us? >> MEMEPOOL << contains a source of http://snackspot.org/ sick of Firebox? http://www.seethru.co.uk/shop/cocoon/ , www.gizmo-guru.com , www.buymethatnow.com/category87_1.htm ... http://www.groovymother.com/archives/2003/11/12/specchums.html - eeurgh Miss, Begbie swapped POKES!... Pong at up to 8Mbps: http://www.binatonebroadband.com/ ... Anton Maiden RIP: http://www.waxy.org/archive/2003/11/09/anton_ma.shtml - his idiosyncratic Iron Maiden-covering spirit kind of lives on: http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/ver2/search1.php?new=1&search=iron+maiden ... this week's all-too unfortunately inappropriate Google text ad: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/21/dohcrate.gif ... spam taking that SpamAssassin "QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT" test literally [NSFW]: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/21/dohquotes.txt ... truth in hoardings: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/21/dohrevolutio.jpg ... how *all* the "top--sites.com" are describing themselves: http://top--sites.com/update.htm?d=top--sites.com&e=w ... we say - download it quick before they start rolling out IPv6: http://blort.org/~kgasso/images/how-to-catch-script-kiddies.gif >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> 24 hours of DR WHO (7am-7pm, Sat & Sun, UK Gold) commemorates the show's 40th anniversary, along with perhaps the ultimate tribute - yet another spoof by the multitalented "Dead Ringers" team as part of CHILDREN IN NEED (around 8pm, Fri, BBC1) http://www.martian.fm/a_to_z.htm ... Jon Ronson rediscovers Disney song Oscar-winner Randy Newman in THE ART SHOW (7.30pm, Fri, C4)... while the popularity of SOUTH PARK (12.25am, Fri, C4) just *proves* that the right is fighting back against a media dominated by pesky big-business liberals: http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_4_were_not_losing.html ... Victor Lewis-Smith's Radiophonic Workshop hagiography ALCHEMISTS OF SOUND (7pm, Sat, BBC4) gets a digital repeat, in accordance with NTK prophecy... don't expect too savage a critique of star-friendly mysticism in JERRY HALL'S GURUS (8pm, Sun, BBC3)... as Piers "Who he?" Morgan ponders the hollow, empty world of modern celebrity in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING FAMOUS (9pm, Tue, C4) - not to be confused with the more literal parasites profiled in BODYSNATCHERS (9pm, Wed, BBC1) ... more conventionally disturbing entertainment is available in the form of Jan Svankmajer's overlong Czech-subtitled semi- animation LITTLE OTIK (12.40am, Mon, C4), online suicides documentary CHATTING TO DEATH (10.40pm, Tue, C4), plus ex- dancer Lisa Bufano talking "about using the internet and other media as forums for expressing herself sexually as an amputee" in DESIRABILITY (11pm, Tue, BBC3) - though you don't get very much if you Google for her name... oh, and in case you missed any news coverage of the event, HORIZON (9pm, Thu, BBC2) muses whether the recent breakup of the Columbia space shuttle may have been caused by "damage to the wing" or something... FILM>> "When the planes hit the Twin Towers", says Hugh Grant in the opening narration, "as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love" - but only 'cos it was way too early to text your friends to tell them to avoid Richard Curtis' latest zany posh Brits nonsense LOVE ACTUALLY ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/love_actually.html : The filmmaker wants [Joanna Page] to remove her top so that they can see her nipples. She then complies)... everyone else seems to be trying to avoid releasing anything at all the same week, with the possible exception of Eurotrashy "xXx"-alike STEAL ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Riders+%28aka+Steal%29 : Natasha [Henstridge] supposedly engages in a scene with male lead [Stephen] Dorff in a hot steam room around the 29 minute mark, but it's so obviously a body double)... while James Cameron may have wanted to make "Aileens", and Jean-Pierre Jeunet "Aileen: Resurrection", but Nick Broomfield stood firm and made his own limited-release sequel to "Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer", AILEEN: LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364930/ : If you like this title, we also recommend... Lily Tomlin)... AVAILABLE IN A WIDE RANGE OF BLACK>> yes, we did a T-shirt round-up just the other month, but the post strike's over now and we've got the Nochex payment system fully up and running, so all you need is a valid UK debit card (Switch, Solo, Visa Debit, Electron or Maestro) at http://www.ntkmart.com/ - and you don't have to sign up for any fancy PayPal account or anything! This month: you can declare that *your* chest is "Not A Place Of Honor", that "No Highly Esteemed Deed, Rock Concert, and/or Software Release" is commemorated there - and that, furthermore, it is a "A Message And Part Of A System Of Messages/ We Considered Ourselves To Be A Powerful Culture" etc etc - with our adaptation of the popular "Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant": http://downlode.org/etext/wipp/ ... or indicate your disdain for the current "heavy metal" revival (like it ever went away!) with the "AD/HD" logo (surrounded by "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder/ World Tour 200... - What Year Is It Again?"), or all those Hollings-Bill-style proposals thanks to DUNCAN MARTIN's Ben Franklin tribute "They That Can Give Up General Purpose Computers For The Sake Of A Little Eye Candy Deserve Neither Computers Nor Eye Candy": http://www.ntkmart.co.uk/ntkmart.cgi#Frank - which he sent in about this time last year, but still gets a couple of quid royalty from each one sold nevertheless... in more recent entries: SAM PIKESLEY stood out from the pack with his "l33t" pun http://www.pikesley.org/1337brigadetshirtdesign.html ; WAYNE WILLIAMS sought to capitalise on the relative success of his previous "l3m4r5" shirt with a selection of quirky follow- ups http://www.ntkmart.co.uk/images/wwilliams.jpg ; and ANDREW WIFFEN sent in no less than 29 suggestions - sadly we can only print the best: http://www.ntkmart.co.uk/images/awiffen.gif ... it's been quieter in "Buy One, Subvert The Mass Media, Get One Free" recently, though we've had reports of VIOLET BERLIN wearing one while interviewing Matt "Little Britain" Lucas in GAMEPAD 4 on Bravo http://www.whizzbang.tv/news.html , while PAUL EDWARDS provided this year's traditional sighting of both an "Adminspotting" and a "404" at this year's "Erotica UK" (as per http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02002-03-08&l=258#l )... which just leaves the winners announcement for the World's Best and Worst Email Impersonations of Iain "Thumb Bandits" Lee (see http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-08-29&l=291#l ) - the former going to whoever mailed from a "scoshi" email login explaining that "it's Japanese for 'The Eleven O'Clock Show'" (it isn't, it's more like "small" or "little one" - but we're not sure whether the real Iain Lee would know that either), and the latter being the self-confessed "femalee" lookalike GILLIAN KIRBY. We just need their addresses now to send out their prizes, so if they could mail us again with the subject line "I'm A Pretend Iain Lee Prize-Winner (Or Somebody Pretending To Be One)"... >> 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 "deeply ungenerous" http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000807.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. 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