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        "What does being accountable really mean? Making sure that
         it's your name only that's on anything successful. Or adopt
         the Microsoft value and..."
         ...be a chilled-out entertainer first, *then* a manufacturer
                                          of secure operating systems?
            - MS unveil their in-house "The Office XP" training tools 
                           http://www.ntk.net/2004/01/23/dohbrent.jpg


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                               filtering SPEWS

         SPAM WILL EAT ITSELF! The Net's overloaded immune systems
         continued to misbehave this week, with SPEWS blacklisting
         fellow anti-spammer DSL Reports (when is SPEWS going to
         discover it has "Spam" in its acronym, and blacklist
         itself?), and Habeas's anti-spam header haiku being
         commandeered by a Viagra salesman. Perhaps it was because so
         many of the antibodies were meeting for a SPAM AND THE LAW
         conference in San Jose. Capped by Larry Lessig (whose
         transformation from speccy academic lawyer to a Steve
         Jobsian all-in-black hipster is now complete) to Declan "the
         anti-Lessig" McCullough, maven after maven pouted over the
         world's new, weakly-flapping, anti-spam laws. Highlight of
         the day was fresh-faced FTC rep Michael Goodman tentatively
         admitting that the definition of "Internet Access Service
         Provider" in the American CAN-SPAM legislation was so vague
         as to include anyone who ran a website - meaning that the
         mass private prosecutions that marketeers tried to hack out
         of that draft law might still be possible. Most edgy
         performance came from John Praed of the Internet Law Group,
         who redirected his anger at a PowerPoint crash into a sharp
         screed against spammers and how he was going to "get them".
         Surprisingly, when asked who in the audience was a spammer -
         a novel method for tracing IPs - only one person took the
         bait. It turned out to be the programmer of a *very* popular
         anti-spam program. In a moment of shameful confession, he
         admitted that the marketing department of the company that
         sells his program also sends out UCE. As others hung their
         heads in sympathy (et tu, marketing?), no one noticed who
         had snuck out for a well-timed break. Eager audience-member
         Scott Richter, currently being sued by New York State
         Attorney Eliot "Ness" Spitzer *and* Microsoft, reputedly the
         world's third-largest spammer, had eluded his interrogators
         once again.
         http://www.isipp.com/events.php
                          - not someone to give your business card to

         We're guessing you've heard of the bizarre victimisation of 
         CD-WOW.COM, who were this week told that their selling of 
         discount-priced CDs legally obtained in the Far East does 
         not count as "importation for personal use", even if they 
         individually airmail you each one from Hong Kong. What this 
         means for game imports, Region 1 DVDs, Amazon's transatlantic 
         book offerings (and increasing range of third-party fulfilment 
         options) and - heck - almost any CD you see in a shop with 
         Japanese writing on it remains to be seen, though the FREE-
         SKLYAROV-UK list incisively realised that it could mean that 
         all CD-Wow has to do is to start a separate company in Hong 
         Kong - another hard-won victory for the British Phonographic 
         Industry!
mailman.xenoclast.org/pipermail/free-sklyarov-uk/2004-January/005592.html
                                - like anyone's buying CDs now anyway
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34745.html
              - Play.com based in Temporary Autonomous Zone of Jersey
         http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/1200048/
               - coincidentally, Amazon.co.uk sale *must* end Feb 1st  

         People taking last week's news a bit too far: "Thanks
         guys!", writes .nz's SHADE, who has been trying dodgeit.com,
         the no-password throwaway e-mail account mentioned in last
         week's tracking. "It was interesting to see that
         joe@dodgeit.com not only got his NY Times registration sent
         to dodgeit.com, but his DynDNS.org account". Well, as Stan
         Lee said, with great access comes great plausible
         deniability, Shade. CHRIS DRAKE actually tried to get
         "dot.name.name", and was refused by .name's filters, but
         still managed to get as far as "a.silly.name". He invites
         other readers to send in the most ludicrous, most libelously
         named domain that .name declares to be permissible. We're on
         for that, although steady on the libel bit, all right? And
         finally, we didn't actually *mean* it about sending Mars
         Explorer dohs. Sorry for any inconvenience caused there.
         http://www.dodgeit.com/
                                   - sex@dodgeit.com another good one
         http://www.nic.name/
                                     - overly defensive registrations
         http://www.spesh.com/contact.html
 - on the bright side, aren't the MER "random noise" symptoms exactly
                                       the same as the end of Contact?


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         Skillz! - guess what the URL is for the non-excerpt version: 
     http://certcities.com/shop/downloads/TheSkillfulDeveloperexcerpt.pdf
         ... pet ant accidentally swallowed ant poison? try cannabis!: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2004/01/23/dohant.gif ... nothing sickening 
         about: http://www.ntk.net/2004/01/23/dohvile.gif ... not that 
         Register readers (or contributors) need self-defence products 
         any more than most: http://www.ntk.net/2004/01/23/dohstun.gif 
         ... Google goof revisited -  a comic strip that prettifies war: 
         http://www.bry.fast.co.za/~stuartm/rave/cypunx/comix/rouge.html
         ... now *that's* conservative: http://www.tory.org/home/inca/ 
         ... for one week only - special "record cover mix-up hilarity" 
         triple bill: http://www.101cd.com/Music/info.asp?id=1318433 , 
http://www.djpeanuts.co.uk/product/Max+Bygraves/Singalongamaxmas/B00000APLR/
         http://www.ntk.net/2004/01/16/dohdk.gif ... jaded Q reviewer 
         knows just how Therapy? album will sound 4 years in advance: 
http://www.q4music.com/nav?page=q4music.review.redirect&fixture_review=121297
         ... express shipping? http://www.ntk.net/2004/01/23/dohvenus.gif ... 
         ah, irony: http://www.ntk.net/2004/01/23/dohschool.jpg ... 


                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                         GOTOs considered non-harmful

         Doesn't seem to be any clear sign of this on their site, but 
         THE FRIDAY THING are having some sort of launch party for 
         their LONDON NEWS REVIEW "student magazine for the 21st 
         century" (from 7pm, Mon 2004-02-02, Walkabout Aussie bar, 136 
         Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D, free but you're supposed to 
         RSVP if you think you're entitled to attend via one of their 
         elaborate subscriptions offers or something). Just a quick 
         update on a couple of their other ever-imaginative projects: 
         they've startlingly concluded that an earlier plan to form a 
         political party to "unseat the Tories as the main party of 
         opposition" was, in fact, "rubbish" - while December 2003's 
         double tube derailments seem to have cast something of a 
         downer on their campaign to keep London's notoriously over-
         maintained underground network open until 3am at weekends, 
         with their petition closing last month at 65,800 signatures, 
         a mere 34,200 short of their target. Of course we're just 
         jealous because it was deflecting attention away from our own 
         pioneering transport strategy - an SMS service to put people 
         who pester you for "a quid to get the bus" in touch with the 
         ones who hang round tube stations collecting used travelcards.
         http://www.ntk.net/2004/01/23/dohlate.gif
            - from the folks who brought you the totally non-viral...
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/09/05/dohcheek.gif
                                       - No no no! Wrong wrong wrong!
         http://www.ntk.net/2004/01/23/dohcheap.gif
               - also seem to think "Cheap Date" is a "new magazine"?
         http://science-project.org/inspire/in_sci_cafe.htm 
               - this Mon: Kev Warwick *above* Norwich food allergies
         http://www.piecouncil.org/national.htm
                          - and today: "When come back, bring pie..."


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Dread words have slipped through the lips of men, but none
         so dread as these: "Thus is the Lisp to Perl compiler
         constructed". You can hear the thunderbolts crackling
         overhead, can't you? DAVID RITCHIE has an odd idea of both
         Lisp and how to better mankind - but he has marshalled some
         desperate justifications for his monstrosity. It's a Lisp
         with Perl's regexps built in, an ability to run wherever
         Perl runs, access to the CPAN modules, and a chance to
         horrify both Lisp and Perl advocates. The generated code is
         about as terrifying as you can get this side of Intercal: it
         looks like Ritchie has converted the Lisp into *pure
         syntax*.
         http://www.hhdave.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
    - "I have used it succesfully for a fairly large project at work"


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

     http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?query=imaginary+girlfriend
         - for less than the price of 160Mb Lexmark Alsatian on wheels: 
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3750&item=3453467335 
         that's not "random noise" - that's just me updating my blog: 
         http://www.markcarey.com/mars/ ... no NASA blood for oil: 
         http://www.petroleumnews.com/pnarch/010228-49.html ... get 
         your own Java-virtual-machine-3D-flight-sim ass - to Mars: 
         http://www.radicalplay.com/aces/ ... new 2-screen Nintendo 
         is the new - Multi-Screen Game & Watch... hey, free classic 
         audiowarez: http://www.illegal-art.org/audio/liner.html ... 
         Google illustrating news stories in new "comic strip" mode: 
         http://images.google.com/images?q=prescott+kelly+funeral ... 
         though what's stopping those "PR firms, think tanks, industry-
         funded organizations" from re-editing their own Wiki-page 
         entries? http://www.disinfopedia.org/ - Leslie Bunder-stylee: 
        http://londongeek.org/index.cgi?action=edit&page_id=LeslieBunder
         (see revision history 1.9-1.10)... new skin for "Blunkett 
         policy maker": http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/other/dailymail.php ...
         

                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> it's Amanda Holden, Jamie Theakston and John "Loved By 
         You" Gordon-Sinclair - together at last! - in vaguely "Mad 
         About You"-style divorcee sitcom MAD ABOUT ALICE (8.30pm, Fri, 
         BBC1)... Wilco road movie I AM TRYING TO BREAK YOUR HEART 
         (10.30pm, Fri, BBC4) hopefully documents the band being 
         dropped from AOL Time Warner subsidiary Reprise Records then 
         getting re-signed to Nonesuch Records (a subsidiary of AOL 
         Time Warner), ingeniously making the same corporation pay for 
         the same (flop) album twice... and the original POLTERGEIST 
         (9.05pm, Sat, C5) fails to answer McSweeneys.Net's question: 
         what if you built an Indian graveyard - on top of an old 
         Indian graveyard?... OK, so Rob "Marion and Geoff" Brydon 
         voiceovers old clips in THE DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY (11pm, Wed, 
         ITV), but they've ignored DJ Yoda's pioneering new soundtrack 
         in favour of the original one for THE GOONIES (5.55pm, Sun, 
         C5) http://boomselection.info/archives/000019.php ... as THIS 
         WORLD: AMERICAN VIRGINS (9pm, Sun, BBC2) looks at the growing 
         phenomenon of US teenage abstinence, with many now too fat to 
         even leave the house, let alone have sex with each other - see 
         also Dawn French-voiced Beryl Cook painting animation BOSOM 
         PALS (10.35pm, Mon, BBC1)... still enjoying these trashy pop-
         science docus like ULTIMATE THRILL RIDES (8pm, Mon, C5) and 
         HITLER'S PLAN TO ATOM BOMB NEW YORK (8pm, Mon, C4) before the 
         start of I'M A CELEBRITY GET ME OUT OF HERE (9pm, Tue, ITV) - 
         former MP Matthew Parris returns to a different kind of 
         "urban" jungle - a rundown Newcastle suburb - in FOR THE 
         BENEFIT OF MR PARRIS, REVISITED (10.30pm, Thu, ITV)... there 
         are po-faced new series of CSI: VEGAS (9pm, Tue, C5), LAW AND 
         ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT (9.50pm, Tue, C5), FRASIER (11.05pm, 
         Wed, C4) and SIX FEET UNDER (11.05pm, Thu, C4)... VR-thriller 
         THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR (11.20pm, Wed, BBC1) had the misfortune 
         of being released just after "eXistenZ" and "The Matrix"... 
         and spot-on Mark Kermode soundalike http://www.garthmarenghi.com/ 
         makes the tricky transition to 1980s TV horror spoofery in GARTH 
         MARENGHI'S DARKPLACE (10.35pm, Thu, C4)... 

         FILM>> "Signs", "The Matrix", "8 Mile", and "Freddy Got 
         Fingered" are among the targets when the makers of "Police 
         Squad" join endearing scattershot spoof-fest SCARY MOVIE 3 
         ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/scary_movie_3.html : A 
         supernatural force states that it won't recognize the Martin 
         Luther King holiday as a day off; An alien slides a large 
         knife under a door so that he and another alien can view a 
         crotch shot of [Anna Faris'] panties (in the reflection on the 
         blade) as she kneels on the other side of the door. We then 
         see one of the aliens licking his lips and both playing with 
         their own nipples)... only one cinema in London seems to be 
         showing chess computer docu GAME OVER - KASPAROV AND THE 
         MACHINE ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains mild language - C?)
         ... while this time it's Nicole Kidman as Clarice Starling, as 
         Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter takes a bite out of her *and* 
         institutional racism in Clinton-era potboiler THE HUMAN STAIN 
     ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Human+Stain%2C+The+%282003%29 : 
         Nicole looks really good here, and there's no shortage of her 
         on display. Anthony Hopkins, who's 66 but looks much older, is 
         in all of her nude scenes, which is either really kinky or 
         really wrong, depending on your taste)...


                               >> 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
            "doesn't even work with other letter combos in the URL"
                     http://jennifer.19333.com/ntk.html

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