Need To Know 2004-11-26

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2004-12-10
#350
Patents, presents, privacy

2004-11-26
#349
Google recruits, history refuted

2004-11-12
#348
Geowanking for plugins

2004-10-29
#347
McCandless and Brooker - together at last

2004-10-15
#346
Web 2.0, Stirling Albion - Nil

2004-10-01
#345
Jumping the shark, gun

2004-09-17
#344
Foo, Foo, Alan Sugar, McGrew

2004-09-03
#343
Piracy good, not bad like you thought

2004-08-20
#342
Google boner, kick out the MD5

2004-08-06
#341
Yo Robot, Carry On Camping

2004-07-23
#340
from Odeon to Od-Iain

2004-07-09
#339
Browser Wars II - Electric Boogaloo

2004-06-04
MiniNTK #30
Not the NotCon final Schedule

2004-05-28
#338
Peek-a-boo Barney, Charles III "in charge"

2004-05-21
#337
Hey, Hey, Software Pa(tents) - slight reprise

2004-05-14
#336
A wip-woawing Widdecombe wollercoaster wide

2004-05-07
#335
A prawn sandwich and a BBC Micro

2004-04-30
#334
Eternal Sunshine of the Wireless Find

2004-04-23
#333
PayPal, piracy to "destroy society"

2004-04-16
#332
Loads more Gatesions, all-geek radio

2004-04-09
#331
Easter NotCon speaker hunt

2004-04-02
#330
The mass Onion-isation of pretty much everybody

2004-03-26
#329
LOAFs of spam, wifi settees

2004-03-19
#328
state of the "nanny state" nation

2004-03-12
#327
EU Ew-yew, pseudo- edutainment

2004-03-05
#326
SCO bandits, eBaywatch

2004-02-27
#325
Tidgy fridges, didgeridoos

2004-02-20
#324
ConConUK, Space 0.64 miles per second

2004-02-13
#323
All Tim O'Reilly, all the time

2004-02-06
#322
info on ebay scams only $10

2004-01-30
#321
the site now running on platform - well, whatever platform you like...

2004-01-23
#320
spam vs spam, Lisp to Perl

2004-01-16
#319
Name-calling, nuclear lan parties

2004-01-09
MiniNTK #24
Even more unpopular answers

2004-01-02
MiniNTK #23
Unpop quiz

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"Once installed the ['Skulls' malware] replaces all the icons on the main page with skulls and replaces all the working applications, such as contacts, calendar, notebook etc with non-working versions so the phone becomes almost useless. The only thing the phone can do is *make and take calls*..." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/4033231.stm [our emphasis] - Nokia users, eh? Are they *never* satisfied? >> HARD NEWS << merci beaucoups The app that we've always dreamed of - the one that goes around the Internet, finds every embarassing mention of you ever, and then magically deletes it - may finally be available. Attorney General LORD GOLDSMITH, in his role as the Peer who goes "Shhhh!", reminded the newspapers that they couldn't talk about current court cases without being in contempt of court. Then, going all futuristic cyber-Lord Justice Dredd on us, he added that if newspapers had any articles in their online archives about people in the case, published *before the case even existed*, they should delete them for the duration of the trial. To repeat that for the hard of believing: you can't stop jurors from using Google, so the entire media should modify their online history, or risk contempt of court proceedings. How will this work exactly? A juror googles a defendant's name, clicks on the first link and then says "Well, this blog links to a Times story with the tag 'dog raper still in the news', but the link leads to a 404, SO NOTHING HAPPENED?". I mean, we all knew that the blogosphere was beneath contempt: but will that now actually be a defence in the eyes of the law? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1375365,00.html - go through Google News to see this without a subscription http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/2004/11/attorney_genera.html - or see it here permanently recorded (you see how this works?) >> EVENT QUEUE << GOTOs considered non-harmful Obviously we're sceptical about events promising "amazing insights into how search engines actually work", but we guess it's not so bad when they're actually being run by Google - in this case, under the inspirationally generic title of GOOGLE TECH TALK (7pm, Monday 2004-11-29, Huxley Lecture Theatre 311, Imperial College, London SW7 2BZ, free but looks like you have to RSVP). Plus, there's also the opportunity to talk to the company's VP of Operations, Urs Hoelzle (anag.), about "exciting jobs in engineering", if you know what they mean. For those hoping to construct their own category-killing search site, however, we are assured that there are "a few" places left at December's LONDON PERL WORKSHOP (Sat 2004-12- 11, Imperial College Student Union, London SW7 2BB, free but you have to pre-register on the site) - featuring streams on both "Advanced" and "Learning" Perl, the latter introduced by NTK's own "Dave Green", possibly with a song, should that be likely to swing it for you one way or the other. http://dev.pulsegroup.com/google/gl0262 - not quite where NotCon was, but just round the corner? http://www.google.co.uk/jobs/culture.html - "typical day" apparently involves everything except work http://london.pm.org/lpw/signup.html - looks like you have to just fill in the survey now http://www.no2id.net/events/brixton.html - Stop Press: No2ID public meeting in Brixton on Tue http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/ - and don't forget not to buy anything this Saturday http://www.nmk.co.uk/event/2004/12/14/Christmas-Lecture - not even tickets for Eva Pascoe's Christmas Lecture, Dec 14 http://www.pirateutopia.org/ - or more Open Source theatre at Norwich Arts Centre next week >> ANTI-MEMES << there's smoke, flames, http://dohthehumanity.com/ "More than 80% of male members who visited Japan to see Japanese women in July 2004 became a couple and started a serious relationship": http://www.destinajapan.us/ ... oldie but goodie: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=recursively ... another triumph for "international product naming" dept: http://countrystore.tabasco.com/index_category.cfm?tlcatid=299 ... starting to see why author "wishes to remain anonymous": http://www1.us.ioccc.org/2004/anonymous.hint ... moderately seasonal/ management-themed Google goofs of the month: http://google.com/search?q=%22office+manger%22 (and variants), http://www.google.com/search?q=%22mythical+man+moth%22, plus http://www.google.com/search?q=%22pubic+domain%22 ... new thrill! surreally inapproriate (yet SFW) Google imagewhacks: http://images.google.be/images?q=erotic+angels+of+rock , http://images.google.com/images?q=Dick+Cheney+Costume ... >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering "Most broadcasters are today standing about the equivalent of one mile from Mount St Helens. When it blows, frankly, it will be too late to run." Yet another of these P2P peers, this time Lord Currie, chairman of OFCOM, fretting about smug broadcasters getting blasted into oblivion by big fat pipes and bigger hard disks. Well, stirring up the lava last week was Lazyweb founder, Sahara multi-marathon running maniac and all round Edwardian gentleman BEN HAMMERSLEY, who from the comfort of his Florentine apartments has brewed up RADIOPOD, a fistful of Perl glue code which you stick in a cronjob, hand over some radio times as arguments, and watch it chop up a Realplayer feed into individual programmes. Marvel then as it saves them as MP3s and spits out a a Podcast-friendly RSS2.0 feed. Then, we imagine, we just sit around and roast some marshmallows. http://www.benhammersley.com/weblog/2004/11/14/releasing_radiopod.html - brave enough to flaunt copyright... http://sourceforge.net/projects/radiopod/ - cheeky enough to start a SF project for a 4K script http://www.rts.org.uk/Information_page_+_3_pic_det.asp?id=3587&sec_id=503- - blah blah regulatory environment blah blah ARGH! FEET ARE MELTING! http://blogtorrent.com/ - some more stuff to loosely join >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> it seems like something of a special "songwriters" season, with Lennon and McCartney deconstructed in HOWARD GOODALL'S 20TH CENTURY GREATS (7pm, Sat, C4), ELTON JOHN: AN IVOR NOVELLO TRIBUTE (8pm, Sun, BBC1), CLOSE TO YOU: THE STORY OF THE CARPENTERS (8pm, Sun, ITV3), plus IMAGINE: BRIAN WILSON'S SMILE (10.35pm, Wed, BBC1)... John Cleese is unlikely to be introducing many of his own starring roles in the-usual- suspects-but-in-a-slightly-different-(based-on-UK-box-office- takings)-order THE ULTIMATE FILM (9pm, Sat; 8pm, Sun, C4)... and the characters don't really go anywhere, but really that's just nitpicking as LITTLE BRITAIN NIGHT (from 9pm, Sun, BBC3) offers (numerous?) "too hot for terrestrial" bits before they're cut for BBC1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3964995.stm (9.30pm, next Fri)... Arnie suggests a no-doubt popular alternative to "hunting with dogs" in THE RUNNING MAN (9pm, Sun, C5)... the winner of Brit "Spelling Bee" HARD SPELL (7pm, Mon, BBC1) gets the chance to virtually firebomb civilian populations in a pro-celebrity BOMBER CREW (9pm, Mon, C4)... while, despite the recollections of EMPIRE WARRIORS (9pm, Fri, BBC2), capitalism seems to kill far more people than terrorism is ever going to, implies ONE NIGHT IN BHOPAL (9pm, Wed, BBC1)... FILM>> great CGI hair, fabrics, action scenes etc, but isn't the post-"Watchmen" plot basically "Spy Kids" featuring "The Fantastic Four"?, we feel compelled to ask of THE INCREDIBLES ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/incredibles_the.htm : adolescent mischief with arrogant defense of it; smacking on the bottom, twice; dressing to maximize the [cartoon] female form)... still, following the recent poster quote advising that "You Must See 'Saw'", at least there haven't been any suggesting that you "Remember To Check Out" Julianne Moore sub-PKD memory-tweaking NSA nonsense THE FORGOTTEN (imdb: abduction; conspiracy; experiment; dutch-angle; shot-in-the- back)... or even that you'll "[Heart]" David "Three Kings" O Russell's ostensibly existential ensemble self-indulgence I [HEART] HUCKABEES (imdb: sudanese; absurdism; vulgarity; breast-suckling; topless; self-abuse; dinner-scene)... AVAILABLE IN A WIDE RANGE OF BLACK>> and it's crazy Christmas clearout time over at http://www.ntkmart.co.uk/ , as what may be the last of the current incarnations of the "404: /Shirt /Tie: Not Found" and "Hey Hey 16K" designs are joined by a loosely law-enforcement themed selection identifying the wearer as either "Network Security" (as proposed by the guys over at PC Extreme magazine), opposed to ID cards (courtesy of the http://www.no2id.net/ campaign), or simply "Police Aware" (as originally nominated by reader ALEX TEUGELS just slightly over three years ago - see NTK 2001-09-21)... as that time delay implies, we're kind of doing OK for t-shirt concepts at the moment, with favourites including Scott Keir's lonely flashmob-wear http://www.scottkeir.com/solitary/solitary.png - but could whoever sent in the "It's not Asperger's Syndrome" slogan please get in touch? Still, we're always interested in any ideas that are perhaps slightly more original than RICHARD BEER's suggestion: "Any chance you can just copy some of the excellent Thinkgeek ones? I'm not sure if they can copyright a couple of words of text" - unless perhaps he's confusing us with somebody else... which just leaves the celebrity-packed results of this year's "Buy One, Subvert The Mass Media, Get One Free" competition, with TV's PHILL JUPITUS and AL Digital's ADAM LAURIE both losing points for locating their illicit product placement in comparatively obscure media outlets (The Yorkshire Evening Post and BBC News 24's "Click Online", respectively http://www.ntkmart.co.uk/images/ ). Congratulations therefore to our old Wired UK nemesis HARI KUNZRU, for sneaking a (mildly) fictionalised version of the old "iloveyou.vbs" design onto page 61 his new novel "Transmission" - Hari wins a free t-shirt of his choice, just as soon as he sends us a pic of the mention that we can put on the site, or the book officially comes out in paperback in 2005, whichever happens first... >> 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 "maximal in brain" http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/91/11/4975 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.