>> HARD NEWS <<
poohing the poohs
LORD BIRT IN PORN SITE LINK, crows London's Metro this week,
aping sister paper The Mail on Sunday's expose of the old
BBC director general ("LORD DIRT!") and his wicked ways. The
"link" in question turns out to be a mite tenuous, even for
the Mail. Birt is a director of PayPal, "a company that
processes payments for Internet pornography". Except, of
course, that it doesn't. Or tries not to, as poor old Jenni
"Cam" Ringley claimed led to the demise of her site. Still,
nice plug in the Metro for hangingbitches.com, a site that
you'd think Mail readers would be all for bringing back.
http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2004_04_18_xrrf_archive.html#108237737053765567
- scroll down or just http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/23/dohbirt.jpg
http://www.petitiononline.com/nopaypal/petition.html
- Kinkycobbler Inc also hit hard
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3189039958
- TOP MATHEMATICIAN LINKED WITH SHADY RED "ERDOS" FIGURE
Rather more unexpected was the confirmation of ALL (C)
INFRINGERS IN TERRORISM LINK, from the usually level-headed
Advertising Standards Authority. TRISTAN RODDIS, pissed off
at that Federation Against Copyright Theft cinema advert
where you stare at a branding iron while a voice tells
you that "Piracy funds terrorism", complained to the ASA.
The ASA, after some perusing of FACT's literature, declared
that, yes, piracy did fund terrorism. Slightly more
dubiously, they went on to concede that the ad's other
somewhat controversial statement - that piracy "will destroy
society", was not a misleading exaggeration. Given the high
odds, we sincerely hope that everyone now continues to
file-share on the free networks, thus beating down the price
of pirated material to zero, wiping out all that terrorist
income, and saving society with their warez.
www.asa.org.uk/adjudications/show_adjudication.asp?adjudication_id=37673
- legal, decent, honest: well, one out of three isn't bad
http://www.aacp.org.uk/Proving-the-Connection.pdf
- see p.14 for that indubitable connection to terrorism
http://newsite.screen-play.net/pipermail/bnmlist/2004-April/057358.html
- "will destroy society" complaint originally upheld
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
"and I'm not coming out until you find that bloody tape":
http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/23/dohcup.gif ... don't believe
Edmonds' lies: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/23/dohnoel.gif ...
maybe that thing in Tony's mouth helps explain the confusion:
http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/23/dohnow.gif ... clicking on the
http://www.drc-gb.org/newsroom/website3.asp "Inaccessible web
site" breadcrumb link goes to... what a difference a day
makes: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/23/dohden.gif ... hell,
freezing over: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/23/dohhoc.gif ...
looks like something's started tainting the Amazon prefs
database again: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/23/dohsenn.gif ,
http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/23/dohmem.gif ... "Entrys"? Come
*on*, Portsmouth!: http://www.upsu.net/doc.asp?doc=1934 ...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
GOTOs considered non-harmful
Members of the audience will no doubt be asked to make sure
they've left their cellphones switched *on* at next Thu's
CYBERSALON MOBILE FUTURES (7pm, 2004-04-29, Dana International
centre, Science Museum, London SW7, free but pre-register
places at ticket@danacentre.org.uk), featuring presentations
on bluejacking, that "Urban Tapestries" collaborative mapping
thing, plus Orange Head of Group Strategy Paul Amery -
presumably the real-life equivalent of the annoying Kevin
Spacey lookalike in the Orange cinema ads they show just
before the film? Interaction of a bafflingly non-electronic
kind, however, will be the order of the day over at PILCHARD
TEETH PRESENTS: COUNTER CULTURE (8pm, also Thu 2004-04-29, the
ICA, London SW1Y, UKP6, ICA members free), as Adam "Surf ad"
Buxton introduces a reprise of friend-of-NTK Ben Moor's social
history of board games, their demented concepts of what used
to pass for entertainment, plus what they're probably worth on
eBay nowadays. And what will Will "TFI Friday" Macdonald be
doing while all this is going on? Sort of standing behind Ben
shrugging his shoulders and grinning?
http://www.ica.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=13146
- He's a mon-ster. A mon-ster, my friend...
http://www.cybersalon.org/info.html#mobilefutures
- Barbrook to unveil new 802.11 access point beret
http://www.futuresonic.com/futuresonic/mobile_connections/
- futher "mad for (wireless) IT" in Manchester next week
http://www.spy.org.uk/ratblog/archives/000257.html
- Reclaim The Thames Beach tomorrow, Reverend Rat maintains
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
It looks like even more people are doing the "private P2P
file-synchronising network" thing than we thought (though
presumably secretly sharing the information with only their
most trusted friends). In the hope that somebody will romp
through these, pull out the best ideas of each, and create
an app that everyone will settle upon, we present:
CLEVERCACTUS, a NAT-friendly Java app (recommended by Jim
Hughes); the multi-platform SHINKURO - "Father of the 'net
and everything", says Ben Laurie of the DARPA-funded
project; then there's the sternly businesslike GROOVE by Ray
"beautiful hair" Ozzie's team (via Jim Morgan); and "How
about SPIKE?" says Simon Phipps, of Porchdogsoft's Windows
and Mac LAN clipboard sharer. For once we haven't tried any
of them (closed betas/no friends), so take your pick.
http://taint.org/2004/04/16/210206a.html
- good summary by Justin "Spamassassin" Mason
http://www.financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000115.html#more
- see, everyone's at it
https://www.clevercactus.com/share/login.process
- get some friends, quick
http://www.shinkuro.com/
- "a strong interest in information sharing"
http://www.groove.net/
- feels like the new Marimba, somehow
http://www.porchdogsoft.com/products/spike/
- yay zeroconf!
>> MEMEPOOL <<
contains a source of http://snackspot.org/
answers to everything except - wouldn't this be quicker if it
was coded in JavaScript?: http://aeoe.freeshell.org/atose/ ...
on thin ice with us already: http://isuparody.tripod.com/ ...
Dire Staits' "Money for Nothing" video - for the 21st century:
http://www.bendawkins.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bogdan_qt.html
(largish QuickTime, sorry)... Stock Photograph Goldfish dices
with death once again: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/3633439.stm vs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/3040891.stm ... the war against the
word "webinar"... naked eBay guy WLTM similar "night owl":
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3092428344
what the? http://www.jesus-action-figure.com/ - novelty action
figures funny again? (.mpg video)... zany sales pitches less so:
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/k.asp?action=page&page=news&topic=yarrrr
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> the crack team of MONSTER GARAGE mechanics struggles to
turn an old episode of "Salvage Squad" into something as
inexplicably popular as "Scrapheap Challenge" (7.30pm, Fri,
C4)... "from the makers of Banzai", boasts rabblemocking fake
science candid camera EXPERIMENTAL (11.45pm, Fri, C4)... but
we're more intrigued by the http://www.straightdope.com/
potential of C5's competing PUB AMMO (11.55pm, Fri, C5)...
Robin Williams *is* Commander Data in cheesy Asimov travesty
BICENTENNIAL MAN (5.30pm, Sun, C5) - now largely US-Robotics-
free: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182789/trivia ... not too
many surprises in this week's tell-all celebrity revelations
SEX, SECRETS AND FRANKIE HOWERD (9pm, Sat, C4), ROD HULL: A
BIRD IN THE HAND (10pm, Sat, C4) and CHARLOTTE CHURCH -
SPREADING HER WINGS (10.45pm, Wed, BBC2)... and it's almost
as if Islam, Christianity and Judaism were codifications of
regionalised societal customs rather than, say, literal
interpretations of ethical teachings, ponders multi-faith
musing CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM (8pm, Sun, C4), laying the
foundations for - hopefully "Eurotrash" influenced - Islamic
magazine show SHARIA TV (12.10am, Tue, C4)... regarding BORN
RICH (11.05pm, Tue, C4): "How do you carve out a meaningful
existence if you never have to work?", asks someone *whose job
is reviewing TV programmes for the Radio Times*... Laurie
"Roseanne" Metcalf steps in to become the third actress to
play the psychiatrist's first wife in FRASIER (11.05pm, Wed,
C4): http://amazingforums.com/forum2/FRASIER/117.html ...
while BBC4 launches a DNA Week featuring DOUBLE HELIX: THE DNA
YEARS (11.45pm, Wed and Thu, BBC4) and a RICHARD DAWKINS
PROFILE (11.15pm, Wed, BBC4) with guaranteed ratings-grabber
JOHN SULSTON - ONE MAN AND HIS WORM (12.25am, Tue, BBC4)...
FILM>> "the many continuity lapses and other apparent
technical errors are a matter of deliberate stylistic choice
in this pastiche of 1970s 'B' action movies" chuckles the IMDB
over aimless more-of-the-same Tarantino yawn KILL BILL: VOLUME
2 ( http://www.ahafilm.info/movies/moviereviews.phtml?fid=7573 :
an article on the production [...] includes the journalist's
first-hand observations of chickens being tossed behind the
moving car. The article also says that Thurman accidentally
killed a chicken while struggling to drive a stick shift
vehicle [...] We are rating Kill Bill Vol. 2 "Questionable")
... Angelina Jolie turns psychic profiler in the daft TAKING
LIVES ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2004/taking_lives.html :
[CAUTION, POPUPS] The "f" word is used sexually; [Ethan Hawke]
shows up at [Angelina Jolie's] place. There's heavy breathing
between the two and he opens her shirt or robe, exposing her
bare breasts)... while presumably starting a tour of the UK's
arthouse cinemas - and other "specialist" venues? - is what
appears to be just the one print of surprisingly graphic pre-
WW2 retro adult compilation POLISSONS ET GALIPETTES/ THE GOOD
OLD NAUGHTY DAYS ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Consumer advice is
not supplied for the R18 category)...
BONERS: CORRECTIONS, CLARIFICATIONS, AND "INCORRECTLY REGARDED
AS GOOFS">> and top marks to ENDIE, the first to point out
that it actually looked more like *Saruman* had been killed by
the Israelis in http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/26/dohsaur.gif ,
not "Sauron", as we may have implied. Still, Sauron, Saruman,
Dr Magneto and Slartibartfast - we always did get those ageing
British character actor villains confused. JEZ SMITH didn't
need "no dumb-ass program to remove all the Adobe Acrobat
plugins and stop them from loading at start-up", as advocated
by cheeky Rod Begbie (and us, admittedly) in NTK 2004-02-20,
because he prefers to "just take 'em out of the plugin
directory and put 'em into optional" - we're assuming he means
"all of them"? - while PETER FERNE confirmed that listenable
circuit-bending pioneer http://www.kidcarpet.co.uk/ can often
be found "serving behind the bar at The Chelsea Inn, Bristol's
Premier Wireless Boozer" [NTK 2004-03-26]... spookily, ROB
BUCKLEY, CASPAR, and PAUL HAMMOND all came up with exactly the
same example of "why not to trust theoretical physicists when
talking about Maths" regarding DR PETER J. LOVE's theory that
"every possible message occurs" in the decimal expansion of
pi: http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02004-02-20&l=237#l . The
number 1.01001000100001000001... (with one more zero each
time) is infinite and non-repeating, they all agreed, but
never features, say, the message "01010". "A better thing to
say would be that Pi is 'normal'", suggested DAVE TAYLOR (in
his best Pub Landlord voice), "except that no-one's ever
proved that": http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NormalNumber.html
... former "Times Interface" regular ANNA SODERBLOM made a
welcome return to these pages with the news that husband Ben
Hammersley hadn't finished the Marathon Des Sables when we
mentioned it last Friday, but has now, if you see what we
mean, and should be back to full "blogging strength" soon. And
RICH HERRING was so grateful for the London marathon sponsoring
he received from generous NTK readers that he wondered if
we/you'd be able to help in his next arbitrarily heroic task -
the slaying of the Loch Ness monster, for which he requires
the assistance of a local virgin. "I've already had one offer
from an 18 year old man which wasn't really what I was
thinking of", he confides, "but it might be my only shot":
http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/warmingup.php?id=498
>> 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
"this guy clearly wasn't there - they were horizontal hold lines for a start"
http://www.3ammagazine.com/litarchives/2002_sep/clerkenwell.html
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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