"Drinkaware.co.uk is run by the Portman Group, which is funded
by the alcohol industry to promote sensible drinking. The
site, which is currently unavailable because of technical
problems but is expected to go live later on Friday, offers an
alcohol unit calculator using real drink brands..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4003229.stm
- ironic this particular site should fall victim to "Error 500:
too many cocktails at big launch the night before"
>> HARD NEWS <<
spelled "L-Z-Ws"
Last year, Microsoft had 4,000 patents in total. This year,
they applied for another 3,000. They are now planning at
least twenty IP cross-licensing deals with other large
corporations, and have made it clear that they are seeking
similiar alliances with even their worst enemies. This
April, they quietly offered a "Royalty Free Protocol License
Agreement" on their site. It generously allows the license
of "any intellectual property rights Microsoft may have in
any or all of [the following] protocols". The 130 protocols
listed included Appletalk, most of TCP/IP - and everything
else, from DNS to Zmodem, from DHCP to the port 9 discard
service (whose sole function is to drop packets). Signing
this license frees developers from being sued for IP
infringements by Microsoft, but prevents you from working on
GPL software (Samba already warns its contributors not to
sign it). This week, Microsoft indemnified all their
customers from the legal fallout of any court cases
revolving around their IP. Which implies there is either
about to be such a battle: or at least Microsoft wants
everyone to think there'll be one. Put this week in your
diaries, ladies and gentlemen of the Internet: you don't
need Yoda to tell you that the Patent Wars have begun.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041107154122603
- pat groklaw says all you need to know
http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/phonywar.htm
- or the phony war, at least
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
GOTOs considered non-harmful
Let's just say there's a more than a few names we recognise
in the speaker lineup at next month's all-free LONDON PERL
WORKSHOP (Sat 2004-12-11, Imperial College Student Union,
London SW7 - where we had NotCon in the summer; free but you
must pre-register on the site), tackling topics on everything
from "Perl Black Magic" and "Python For Perl Programmers" to
"Managing And Sending Mail". Even more imminently, there's the
tantalising possibility of a special geowanking night (no,
it's not what it sounds) at next week's DORKBOT LONDON (7pm,
Wed 2004-11-17, Limehouse Town Hall, London E14, also free) -
and what better way to celebrate international Geographical
Information Systems (GIS) Day?
http://london.pm.org/lpw/signup.html
- still haven't quite worked out the actual venue capacity?
http://www.dorkbot.org/dorkbotlondon/
- vs http://www.gisday.com/
http://www.cybersalon.org/
- Cybersalon feat. The Mighty Jungulator @ Dana Centre today
http://www.spacestudios.org.uk/courses/arts_digital_course.asp?id=501
- Wireless week (though isn't every week?) in Hackney
http://www.lektrolab.com/pages/currentevents.html
- and more London circuit bending + chip music at end of Nov
http://www.greatesthobby.com/wgh/default.aspx?id=88&c=a
- sorry, a bit late for "Take a Model Train To Work" day
>> ANTI-MEMES <<
there's smoke, flames, http://dohthehumanity.com/
paste-in reviews to appeal to self-loathing Bruce Willis fans:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6337369871
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6337368887
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6337368561
... worth a shot, we suppose: http://www.no2id-petition.net/
... disappointed this hymn isn't to the tune of "Relax"
(caution, MIDI): http://www.jmanjackal.net/eng/engscause.html
... http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=27667 : "20
years at Microsoft" - with beard that looks like he spent some
of those chained to a radiator... *exactly* how we look when
settling down to an relaxing evening of illegal song-swapping:
http://www.harderfaster.net/?section=news&action=shownews&newsid=11685
... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3982367.stm imitates RoboCop 2:
http://www.trudang.com/critter/robocop2.html ... antiobesity
wonder drug Acomplia (aka Rimonabant) = stealth anti-stoner
medication, allege (unexpectedly paranoid?) cannabis
campaigners: http://www.ccrmg.org/journal/04aut/icrs.html ...
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
Firefox hit 1.0, which means it's no longer fashionable to
like it, and you have to now start grumbling about lack of
documentation, when oh when will they fix the Slashdot
rendering bug, such unprofessionalism is unbecoming from
such... err, unprofessionals etc etc. To fan the flames,
allow us to plug the to-die-for extensions you should
install, play around with, and then struggle to uninstall
later, plus their not-quite-what-you-want slimmed-down
equivalents. Lots of people like ADBLOCK, but we prefer
installing URIID and playing around with ad-blocking
UserContent.css settings. WEB DEVELOPER continues to rule,
although we can probably still live with just the "edit
styles" bookmarklet. PAGERANK gives you everything you wanted
from the GOOGLETOOLBAR. And SUPER DRAG AND GO (which opens a
new tab from dragged links, text, or what have you) probably
doesn't do everything that you want from TABBROWSER
EXTENSIONS. But then TBE is now so gigantic people really
should start referring to it as "Firefoxzilla". And do some
complaining, people. We're slipping behind our quotas!
http://adblock.mozdev.org/
- big and chunky
http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/adblock.html
- ad blocking with style
http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/uriid
- not sure this even works with 1.0
http://morphis.eu.org/
- super drag and go!
http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/#webdeveloper
- tool kit
http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/webdevel.html#edit_styles
- edit css bookmarklet
http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_tabextensions.html.en
- Jabba the plugin
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> Rachel "Road Trip" Blanchard joins the cast of the
magnificently non-naturalistic internal-monologue sitcom PEEP
SHOW (10pm, Fri, C4)... Rob Schneider xenotransplant romp THE
ANIMAL (11.10pm, Fri, C4) has its moments, but it's no "The
Hot Chick" or "Deuce Bigalow"... and "Fame Academy" alumnus
James Fox sings Oasis' "Don't Look Back In Anger" at THE ROYAL
BRITISH LEGION FESTIVAL OF REMEMBRANCE (9.25pm, Sat, BBC1) -
haven't these people suffered enough?... there must still be a
gap in the market for a more "specialist" adult movie knockoff
of BRIDGET JONES DIARY (9.25pm, Sat, C4) entitled, well -
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22bridget+jones%27+dairy%22
... Jon Ronson comes late to the "Unusually Named US Military
Personnel" contest with Major General Albert Stubblebine III
http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,6761,1339464,00.html
in his ever-entertaining THE CRAZY RULERS OF THE WORLD (8pm,
Sun, C4) - assuming you don't mind it being narrated by what
http://www.livejournal.com/users/internetsdairy/ calls "Alan
Bennett's inner child"... and we particularly enjoyed the
explosive riposte to all of James Cameron's tiresome T2 "There
is no fate but what we make" moralising in TERMINATOR 3: THE
RISE OF THE MACHINES (9pm, Sun, C5)... SPACE ODYSSEY - VOYAGE
TO THE PLANETS (9pm, Tue, BBC1) implies the BBC has actually
been paying attention to Matt "Yahoo Serious" Jones' blog post
http://blackbeltjones.typepad.com/work/2004/01/a_dare.html -
except they've cut out the tedious "actually going to planets"
element and just show the cool sci-fi footage that, since the
1970s, the public have actually come to prefer... while, as
we've said before, we're not sure about the musical numbers,
but the "Tundra" episode remains an excellent introduction to
THE MIGHTY BOOSH (7pm, Wed, BBC2) - though will it still
contain the incongruous lines "icy bastard" and "You said it,
bitch"? http://www.themightyboosh.inuk.com/tundra.html ...
FILM>> as we noted about 4 years ago, KW Jeter's "Blade Runner
2: The Edge Of Human" does not appear to be the inspiration
for this week's same-scenes-as-the-first-film-but-in-a-
slightly-different-order sequel BRIDGET JONES 2: THE EDGE OF
REASON (imdb: bangkok-thailand; boyfriend-girlfriend-
relationship; england; germany; premarital-sex)... oddly, the
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ detected "one use of strong language
and moderate violence" in the 111m 58s subtitled/ Cantonese
cut of wirework-heavy sporting-cliche wuxia-nonsense SHAOLIN
SOCCER, though an additional incident of "drug use" has crept
into the dubbed-English 87m 25s edit that's being semi-widely
released over here... then next week, it's back to Mel Gibson
"Conspiracy Theory" territory again in Denzel Washington
political brainwashing remake THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/manchuriancandidate_the.htm :
mother using son for personal gratification; gambling; a
single use of the most foul of the foul languages; bizarre
drawings of evil and murder, repeatedly)...
>> 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
"as disappointed with Halo 2 as you are (NB: SPOILERS)"
www.google.com/groups?selm=72bc196b.0411082252.4dc5c309%40posting.google.com
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) 2004 Special Projects.
Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/
Full license at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0
Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com - with NTK in the subject, cheers.
All communication is for publication, unless you beg.
Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material.
Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention.
Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.