"[BT Broadband Basic's] 1GB cap is the equivalent of 20,000
web pages, 200 MP3 music tracks or 100 large software programs..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3521539.stm
...anyone know what the other 640MB on the Photoshop CD is for?
>> HARD NEWS <<
oh Santa Cruz
Who can be bothered to keep up with the SCO story these
days? Only those who like a laugh. To summarise for those of
you with better things to do: SCO first announced that they
had a paying "licensee" for "Linux", worth "seven digits".
The licensee, EV1servers said they'd paid - not that much.
Paypal error in your favour, SCO! Next, always a little
publicity-shy, SCO sent out a press release announcing that
they'd be sending out another press release, announcing a
Linux user they'd be suing. Tomorrow. No, no, the next day.
Two users. Yes, two. The day after tomorrow duly arrived
(along with their financials, which sucked). SCO said they'd
be suing AutoZone. Not, as it turns out, for using "their"
Linux without a license: but for migrating their servers
from SCO to Linux "too quickly" for them not to be illegally
using SCO's own libraries. SCO's case was water-tight, and
entirely unexpected, with only one flaw: the person in
charge of migration had posted to the GrokLaw site nearly a
*month* ago, asserting that they'd not had to use any SCO
libraries, and that he'd be happy to explain exactly "why
SCO lost AutoZone's and several large account's businesses"
in public. SCO also sued DaimlerChrysler, an act one
eye-witness said caused widespread ROTFLMAO at the company.
Then someone leaked ESR an internal SCO mail implying that
Microsoft was funding the whole thing. Suavely, SCO admitted
that mail was genuine. Then, as if admitting to your leaked
documents wasn't bad enough for preserving secrecy, someone
at ZDNET - ZDNET! - did "show changes" on one of their Word
documents, and found several versions of their barratry
strategies. With a grudging nod to ESR, it looks there's a
parallel Gandhicon going on here: first they're worried
you'll win; then they fight you; then they start laughing.
Soon, comes the ignoring. And then you're gone.
http://www.groklaw.net/
- not soon enough mind you
Just a quick update on last month's story about EBAY.CO.UK
filling up with pyramid-like "Matrix" scams - eBay's official
position (attributed to "an eBay spokesperson") admits: "It is
important to note that these items are not permitted on
eBay.co.uk and any of these items that come to our attention
will be removed. It is against eBay's policy for any user to
purchase items outside of the site or for catalogues to be
listed where users can directly order items". The operative
phrase here being "any of these items that come to our
attention" - eBay appears to have no interest in filtering
these auctions out itself, preferring that users do it via
their mildly convoluted maximum-10-items-per-submission
complaints form. This appears to be what they're trying to do
over at sites like MATRIXWATCH.ORG - but given that eBay.co.uk
does appear to remove auctions for illegal electric stun guns
and other weapons from their site, wouldn't it be easier if
they also added some of these to their list?
http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/search.dll?query=%22free+link%22
- another handy search term
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/community/png-catcurrent.html
- vs http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/34956.html
http://www.matrixwatch.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=2
- not quite the "exiting" new idea it starts out to be
And just to draw a line under our most recent craze: the .name
registration gold rush has petered out at last, with CHRIS
BARNES claiming he's now "the proud owner of" my.domain.name,
SCHABE wondering "if there's a prize for most hostile entry"
re: his bitch.say-my.name, and ERIC PALMQUIST getting more
phonetic with his thatzma.name suggestion. But "don't read NTK
drunk" was the concluding moral offered by DARREN IRVINE, that
condition having contributed to his wanton registering of
theman.withno.name. Excellent safety tip Darren, though
sometimes it takes us a while to sober up after writing it.
http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2004_02_29_xrrf_archive.html#107813613660639685
- in our experience, *all* computer experts drink. That's
usually how they ended up as computer experts...
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
Mothra on way?: http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/05/dohgojira.gif
... Devon Coastguard unleash highly trained sniffer plants:
http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/05/dohcliff.gif ... Jack Schofield
must have been using WinXP much longer than anyone realised:
http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/05/dohwin91.gif ... too clever for
mere mortals: http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/05/dohsmarts.gif ...
http://www.marinereef.org/searchdetail.php?species=fish&id=230
- quite common round here... this month's extra-puerile GOOGLE
GOOFS: http://www.google.com/search?q=business+analist ,
"windows mellinnium", cuntomers, nutcacker, "mange change",
"dental plague", "reputable business magnet", "new ear of",
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aguardian.co.uk+guradian
... Google changes most of Elmer Fudd's "PageWanks" back, but
not all: http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/05/dohpwank.gif ... .NET
in action: http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/05/dohdabsnet.gif ...
not the sort of "small businesses" that they had in mind:
http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/05/dohproduct.gif ... define
"unsolicited": http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/05/dohcox.gif ...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
GOTOs considered non-harmful
There's a (relatively) rare opportunity to catch Creative
Commons US co-director PROFESSOR JAMES BOYLE in his native
Scotland at next Tuesday's public lecture THE ANCIENT RIGHTS
OF CYBERSPACE?: ENCLOSING THE COMMONS OF THE MIND (4.30pm,
next Tue 2004-03-09, University of Glasgow, presumably free?).
He's an entertaining speaker and all, but there still might be
slightly more laughs at the 2004 IG NOBEL TOUR OF THE UK AND
IRELAND (from next Thu 2004-03-11, various venues, UKP5),
featuring organiser MARC ABRAHAMS plus a range of favourites
old - Scrotal Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture, Using
Magnets to Levitate a Frog - and new: The Impressive Brains of
London Taxi Drivers, The First Scientifically Recorded Case of
Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Duck.
http://www.gla.ac.uk/newsdesk/events/details.cfm?Event_Number=1413
- really ought to make a TV series called "Boyle's Law"
http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/events/info/customs.htm
- or go heckle the Patent Office all round the country
http://www.improb.com/ig/2004/ig-tour-UK/2004-britain-ig.html
- drinking game: every time they namedrop a Nobel prizewinner
http://www.savetherhino.org/
- Douglas Adams lecture clash (hey, try eating less rhinos!)
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
"Oh, to be a top DJ again," writes YOZ GRAHAME, rather over-
romanticising the three housewarming parties he's played in
the last five years. "But now that I'm all MP3ed-up, it'd be
nice to use mixing software that brought back the joy of vinyl
without spending half a grand on Final Scratch. I've had my
eye on the HERCULES DJ CONSOLE but until payday I've got
TACTILE 12000 (Windows and OSX), possibly the only
Sourceforge project written in Macromedia Director. None of
that fancy auto-BPM-detection here; instead you get big
spinning discs, draggable needles, nudge buttons, splittable-
stereo cueing (along with multiple sound outputs) and hotkeys
for everything. Admittedly the scratching's a bit crap and the
whole thing's rather more Fisher-Price than Fischerspooner,
but it's good enough to get me started on my efforts to mix
'Yellow Submarine' with Weezer's 'Green Album' - roll on, Lime
Wednesday!"
http://www.tactile12000.com/
- style and substance locked in mortal soundclash
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tactile12000/
- a great start for both of you Lingo OSS coders out there
http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/S&V/djconsole.shtml
- unlike FS, actually looks like it justifies the price
http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/
- bonus tracking: yet another (Windows-optimised) VNC
>> MEMEPOOL <<
contains a source of http://snackspot.org/
M. Banks working on *the* definitive genre publication:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841491551 ... new
craze hits UK clubs: http://qwer.org/MikeOIdfieldDance.html
... Kingsmill accidentally reveal their upcoming "Scooby Doo"
movie tie-in: http://www.danontherun.com/sandwich.htm ... now
if Yahoo *really* wanted to make life unpleasant for Google:
http://www.google.com/contact/newsletter.html ... learn from
you competition: http://www.adnx.com/services_us.html (via
http://www.digikitten.com/forums/showthread/t-5565.html ) vs
http://www.atimi.com/atimi_processes.html ... web's lamest
superheroes: http://www.commanderx.com/adventures.html vs
http://www.captaineuro.com/ ... in explicit medical detail:
http://www.google.com/search?&q=aorta-bifemoral+bypass ...
galaxy found approx 1000 times beyond limit of observable
universe: http://physicsweb.org/article/news/8/3/1 ... major
milestone in language acceptance - Tetris running on Parrot:
www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl6.internals/21350 ... cheers:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/irish.virus.hoax.html
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> OK, so you've missed the pilot episode, but there's not
much to catch up on in "From The Makers Of Freaks And Geeks"
half-hour college comedy UNDECLARED (1am, Fri, ITV)... the
trailers give the impression that new Northern Irish sitcom
PULLING MOVES (9pm, Fri, BBC3) is like "Lock, Stock and Two
Smoking Barrels" starring the members of Westlife... and look
out for some special new non-aspirational adverts in the
breaks to baldy Alain de Botton's latest made-up modern
malaise, STATUS ANXIETY (7pm, Sat, C4)... David Fincher's
relatively downbeat THE GAME (10pm, Sat, C4) is, depressingly,
now cited as an influence in yet another tedious "immersive"
time-waster: http://www.projectsyzygy.com/syzpage2.htm ... an
interesting cast fail to illuminate white hip-hop racial
politics in the somewhat experimental BLACK AND WHITE (2.25am,
Sat, C4)... while the lack of humility displayed by Jeff
Goldblum in the face of CGI animal romp CATS AND DOGS (6.25pm,
Sun, C5) here is staggering... rich kids Dawson's Creek THE
ORANGE COUNTY (6.30pm, Sun, C4) doesn't seem very closely
based on the Kim Stanley Robinson trilogy of the same name...
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (9pm, Sun, C5) shows in the same slot as
"Starship Troopers" last week, though this time the ones in
Nazi uniforms are the bad guys!... and DEMOLITION SQUAD
(7.30pm, Mon, C5) provides a handy counterpoint to RACE FOR
THE WORLD'S TALLEST SKYSCRAPER (8pm, Mon, C5)... film of the
week - if not the year - is low-budget "The Making of Co-ven"
indie horror AMERICAN MOVIE (12.20am, Tue, BBC2)... hope those
BBC iCan windfarm protestors are tuning into powercut scenario
IF - THE LIGHTS GO OUT (9pm, Wed, BBC2)... and our main
contribution to the "Crisps" episode of THE MONEY PROGRAMME -
FAT PROFITS (7.30pm, Wed, BBC2) was suggesting they should
show Golden Wonder's ill-judged ad campaign likening suppliers
to drug dealers: http://www.goldenwonder.com/popup.html ...
FILM>> "Christ!" - on a bike! - is the typical reaction to
trashy Ice Cube "The Fast And The Furious" motorbooty TORQUE
( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/torque.htm : Erotic
symbolism is rampant, testosterone is apparently all that
exists; [Jaime Pressly] has more steel poking through her than
a rotisserie hog and exudes as much goth as Book of Shadows:
Blair Witch 2)... despite the presence of Benicio Del Toro
(and the title), not many drug busts in mood piece 21 GRAMS
( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=21+Grams+%282003%29 :
Opens with a shot of Naomi Watts topless. Not only does she
continue in that state for entire scenes, director Alejandro
Gonzalez "Amores Perros" Inarritu frequently shoots such tight
close-ups that her breasts completely fill the screen)...
bonkers Brittany Murphy and Heather Locklear's prissy daughter
*both learn something from each other* in the predictable not-
based-on-the-Billy-Joel-song-of-the-same-name UPTOWN GIRLS
( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Uptown+Girls+%282003%29 :
[Murphy's] wearing a loose fitting relatively unbuttoned
shirt. When she crawls on all fours, it's possible there's
something there, but the lighting is very dim and there's lots
of shadows. The albeit too brief nipple peeks aren't reason
enough to see this flick)... while set in North London - and
apparently only being released there - is the fate of well-
worn Jewish wedding would-be comedy SUZIE GOLD (imdb: Contains
strong language, moderate sex and soft drug use)...
AD MUSIC FOR SIX PEOPLE>> fortunately you seem to be getting
almost as bored about Ad Music That Sounds Like A Well-Known
Record as we are, with just one nomination this month for
"McDonald's 99p menu" resembling "a third-rate knock-off" of
Daft Punk's "Around The World" (plus it's hard to establish
whether it actually is a cover of Kylie's "Slow" in the Nivea
Moisturiser for Men ad, or just some bleeping noises that
sounds a bit like it). In fact, the only thing that'd make
this feature more obscure would be picking ads that most of us
were never likely to see, an avenue currently pursued by
reader ADRIAN FURBY, who maintains a solitary vigil monitoring
antipodean television for all manner of transgressions, and
dispatching occasional bulletins along the lines of "There's
an ad for Libra tampons here in Australia that features three
guys, each in a different coloured outfit, breakdancing on a
large piece of cardboard to a song that sounds suspiciously
like Herbie Hancock's 'Rock It', BUT ISN'T". Tampons for men?
What *is* going on down there?... fortunately, January's
challenge to find songs which would be ideal for particular
product campaigns has risen to fill the gap, with even BBC
London's Danny Baker suggesting that The Wurzels' cover of
Gina G's "Oooh Ahhh, Just a Little Bit" would be perfect for
Ribena's new "cool" and "fiery" variants of the same name:
http://www.snackspot.org/thread.php?story=0403031412daa . TIM
BANNISTER proposed that "If for some reason Busted turn down
that planned alteration" ("That's What I Go To Poole For", NTK
2004-01-16), "there's always a chance that Peaches would be up
for a reworded '[Flip] The Pain Away'", concluding with the
refrain "Stay in Poole - 'cos it's the best" (we've since
moved on to tweaking Coldplay's breakthrough hit to be more
about Lucozade - "We've made a drink/ We've made a drink for
you/ It's full of energy too/ And it is all: yellow!", and The
Shamen's "Destination Eschaton" as an excellent jingle for
"Destination: Chessington")... ED SINGLETON has "long thought"
"a successful contact lens advert campaign could be built on
the back of Mel and Kim's 'Ain't Ever Gonna Be Bespectacled'"
(an improvement on our cancer-awareness rework of Kim's solo
hit "G.L.A.D - Get Leukaemia And Die"), while reader GRAHAM
suggested "Bernard Matthews Turkeys update their image with
that Christina Aguilera song, or better yet get Bernard out of
retirement to do his own cover version [Bee-yoo-ti-ful/ No
matter what they say]". But PAUL DIXON snatched this month's
no-prize for a staggering selection of somewhat varying
quality, ranging from Kelis' "My Nesquik brings all the boys
to the yard" to the Beastie Boys' "You gotta fight! For your
right! To Smarrrrrties!" and Oasis' "Wagonwheel": "Maybeeeee,
the school bell is gonna save meeeee/ 'Cos playtime makes me
feeeeel/ Like a Wagonwheeeeel"...
>> 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
"exhilarating and vaguely bizarre"
http://www.sfbg.com/38/22/x_techsploitation.html
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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