>> HARD NEWS <<
postmarked - Peru
"With us, it's personal", says the new motto of the Royal
Mail - and when it comes to viciously killing off the
accessible/usable version of their website, they might be
right. TextGIFs and mouseovers are the order of the day at
the new RM "portal". When subscriberzoid ECLECTECH mailed to
ask where the old text-only site had gone, they assured her
that the old site had to die, as it could not be assimilated
fully into "the increasing technological sophistication of
our online offerings". They did promise that she would
"begin to notice dramatic improvements in accessibility in
the next two months", though. Allow subscriber SEAN SOLLE to
do the same thing in two seconds: "Wait a minute! Who's that
hiding behind an old DNS record, on a completely different
server! Hurrah! Postcodes online, the only thing on their
site you'd ever want to use anyway!"
http://pol.royalmail.com/dda/txt/home.asp
- no cookies or registration needed either!
http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm
- actively helps you go blind
http://accessibility.english-heritage.org.uk/
- of course you *can* be accessible and still cock it up
As Armando Ianucci used to conclude his stand-up set: "There
are only two rules in showbusiness. Number one: always leave
them wanting more". Apparently heeding that advice is the
intermittently delayed "London News Review" weekly offshoot of
"satirical" email The Friday Thing, which managed no less than
3 print issues before disappearing over Easter for what is
expected to be "a couple of months" due to an "introduction of
new investment". Sadly this also means they've stopped taking
subscriptions for that particular project - though, on the
plus side, you can continue to read Rich Herring's prolific,
often yoghurt-obsessed columns (apparently a highlight of the
mag) on Herring's own website for nothing, then send your
money to sponsor him running this weekend's London Marathon
on behalf of the charity Scope, if you so prefer.
http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/
- currently just UKP1000 short of (arbitrary?) target
http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/16/dohlnreview.gif
- "well on the way to producing an essential weekly read"
http://qwer.org/YesThatBenHammersley.html
- Hammersley "Marathon Des Sables" tracker (but no RSS feed?)
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
Bush administration all bunch of "girls", allege Google News:
http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/16/dohloads.gif ... clown appears
later in story: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/16/dohbozo.gif ...
Apple desperate: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/16/dohshift.gif -
+ http://www.google.com/search?q=%22significant+shits%22 ...
http://www.culturalcncl.com/support_index.htm - nice use of
weird-kid.jpg ... more or less reassuring than an .asp error?:
http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/16/dohtang.gif ... SQL brotherhood
exposed: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/16/dohmysql.gif ... all
downhill from there: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/16/dohbea.gif
... no essay now complete without "Gatesions" of search and
replace artefacts: http://www.google.com/search?q=Gatesion ,
http://www.google.com/search?q=Gatesionaires ... at this rate:
http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/16/doh0-60.gif - we're never going
to make our flight: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/16/dohsqkm.gif
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
GOTOs considered non-harmful
Gameboy Audio, a "generative Hypercard" exhibition, Modified
Toy Orchestra, and "other low-tech hokum" are among the
delights at next weekend's 4-IN-04 Access Space 4th Birthday
bash (from Friday 2004-04-23, various venues just down the
road from Sheffield station, free but pre-book as places are
limited). It may even rival the electronic racket produced by
Bournemouth's inaugural mashup masterclass BOOTY ON THE BEACH
(8pm-2am Fri - and Sat? - 2004-04-23, Bartonka, Poole Hill,
Bournemouth, "UKP3 one night, UKP4 both"), featuring scene
favourites Cartel Communique, Lionel Vinyl, McSleazy and Go
Home Productions, who apparently mixed David Bowie's latest
single/ Audi ad soundtrack "Rebel Never Gets Old". No, we
wouldn't have the faintest idea what any of that meant either,
were it not for new fortnightly "bootleg briefing" newsletter
THE CONFIDENTIAL, which comes complete with news, interviews
*and* download links that actually work, and appears to be the
brainchild of the Reviews Editor from that epitome of cutting
edge cool, IDG's "PC Advisor" magazine.
http://donttellyourfriends.net/hush/
- though not an official IDG publication, of course
http://access.lowtech.org/4in04/
- still going 24 hours later?: http://booty.elektrobank.net/
http://www.infosec.co.uk/
- free registration at Infosecurity London before Thu 04-22
http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/expo/
- similar seems to apply for LinuxExpo starting next Tue
http://www.kemptonrally.co.uk/
- almost forgot: "Radio Rally" at Kempton Park this weekend
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
The big new (yet old) killer app this year is going to be a
some dinky little program that lets you easily and
selectively share individual files with groups and
sub-groups of your friends. It seems such a simple idea, but
given the number of Known Clever People struggling to
implement it, it has to be harder than it looks. The
Nullsoft guys tried it with WASTE, but that was too
crypto-tastic to succeed; Ximianites have adopted Novell's
iFolder as their effort, but that's still pre-alpha. Now
ex-Audiogalaxy staffers are working on FolderShare.
FolderShare has some of the right idea - it just sits in
the background, talking P2P with your mates, and silently
rsyncing their shared directories with yours. Weirdly it
requires a central logon, but still won't cope when you and
your friend are both behind NATs or firewalls; you'd think
having a central server, they'd be up for negotiating some
connections. The ACL stuff is still, in the way of ACLs,
confusingly powerful instead of usefully simple. It's also,
tragically, Windows only. It might yet grab the Napster
crown of reaching critical-mass usability, but there's still
a way to go.
http://www.foldershare.com/
- can't help feeling the hard part is a compelling UI
http://usefulinc.com/edd/blog/contents/2004/03/08-ifolder/read
- uh-oh virtual file systems!
http://forge.novell.com/modules/xfmod/project/?ifolder
- uh-oh C#!
>> MEMEPOOL <<
contains a source of http://snackspot.org/
most amusing Title offered probably "THE" - as in "THE Stephen
King"?: https://www.bupa-intl.com/onlinesales/integration.asp
... one not currently safe for work like the other (one is):
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=slanted+lego&safe=off +
"South East" a euphemism for?: http://qwer.org/nsfwSE.html ...
RFID tag available in familiar swastika-shaped form factor:
http://qwer.org/RFID.html ... other choice on the "Hostname"
pulldown: https://www.password.uk.demon.net/webpassword.cgi
... just the "a database of sights and places to visit in the
UK, including opening hours, location and other pertinent
fields" that those pesky Al-Qaeda operatives had been looking
for: http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/pocketinfo/travel_uk.html ...
http://www.rootsmanuva.net/ diversifying into financial advice
for the more mature club-goer... thanks Stu, that ought to do
it: http://www.casnic.org/6.html#2 ...
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> "How come you don't include radio programmes in your geek
media coverage?", asks BBC Radio Entertainment Producer ED
MORRISH - "Yes, of course I have a vested interest". Mainly
because we rarely get to hear of anything good, Ed - though we
can temporarily rectify that by passing on RHYS JONES' alert
that Ben Moor's ELASTIC PLANET is currently being repeated on
digital (11.45pm, Thursdays, BBC7, listed in Radio Times as
"Elastic Plane"), plus SPARKES' recommendation of his own UK
roadshow answer to "Geeks In Space" http://www.lugradio.org/
... otherwise it's another chance to link to the stapler
highlights http://www.virtualstapler.com/office_space/ of
OFFICE SPACE (1.05am, Fri, BBC1)... they're puppets, but they
- get this! - say offensive things!, in the faux-educational
"from the makers of Zig and Zag" THE BRONX BUNNY SHOW (1.15am,
Fri, C4)... and even the combined skills of Iain Lee and Holly
Willoughby might not make this year's GAME STARS (12.30pm,
Sat, ITV) any less toe-curlingly awful... Channel 4 continues
its secret agenda to create a new race of ubermenschen with
bespectacled Julia "Robot Wars" Reed selecting the strongest
specimens in the more-pompous Krypton Factor SUPERHUMAN (7pm,
Sat, C4), on-air termination of unwanted pregnancies in MY
FOETUS (11.05pm, Tue, C4), and the harvesting of organs from
the underprivileged in THE TRANSPLANT TRADE (9pm, Thu, C4)...
while two different views of governmental interference are
contrasted in defensible Samuel L Jackson designer gangster
comedy THE 51ST STATE (10pm, Sun, C4), and Tony Scott/ Will
Smith surveillance thriller ENEMY OF THE STATE (9pm, Mon,
BBC1)... Libby "Celebdaq" Potter aims to dig the dirt on
Nintendo in the promising-so-far OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNES (9pm,
Mon, BBC3)... there's a "dark" double-bill commemorating two
of Cameron Diaz's more bearable performances in THE LAST
SUPPER (11pm, Mon, C4) and VERY BAD THINGS (12.40am, Mon, C4)
... plus there's nothing unhealthy about "fresh ingredients",
maintain the clown-baiting restaurateurs of Clapham's "Real
Burger World" http://qwer.org/burgertime.html as profiled in
RISKING IT ALL (9pm, Wed, C4)...
FILM>> Ashton Kutcher's "Dude, Where's My Past?" performance
is the main letdown in from-the-writers-of-Final-Destination-2
"Donnie Darko, but where something actually happens" awkwardly
chaos-theory-quoting time-travel paradox THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
( http://www.ahafilm.info/movies/moviereviews.phtml?fid=7557 :
A dog gets put in a bag and set on fire. Please read on to
find out how this scene was really achieved)... an adult movie
actress neighbour actually seems to improve property values in
unreconstructed adolescent wish-fulfilment THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2004/the_girl_next_door.html :
[CAUTION, POPUPS] We see [Elisha "24, Old School" Cuthbert's]
bare back and partial glimpses of the sides of her bare
breasts. She then removes her pants)... and it looks a bit
like Liv Tyler, but isn't, on the poster for "based on a made-
up story" Arabian horse-race Viggo Mortensen nonsense HIDALGO
( http://www.ahafilm.info/movies/moviereviews.phtml?fid=7563 :
Contains intense action involving horses, leopards and a
falcon; When the swarm abated, a combination of rubber and
specially-made edible locusts were placed around the set, and
both actor and horse knew which ones to eat)...
>> 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
"your one-stop launch pad to everything NTK related on the internet"
http://www.celebrity-photos-crazy.com/NTK.html
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
Archive - http://www.ntk.net/
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