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  • NTK 2007
  • NTK 2006
  • 2005-12-02
    #366
    Revealing the totaliser for this year's appeal
  • 2005-11-04
    #365
    November spawns a Dorkbot
  • 2005-10-07
    #364
    Mery, Cory, Buzz and Ning
  • 2005-09-02
    #363
    Cheap books and backronyms
  • 2005-08-01
    #362
    Digital Rights vs The Management
  • 2005-07-01
    #361
    Open Tech registration, WhatTheHack, Aibo Nation
  • 2005-05-27
    #360
    *Not* NotCon 2005, Punt Picnic Ahoy!
  • 2005-05-13
    #359
    The XML Factor, Microsoft mind robbery
  • 2005-04-29
    #358
    oh no, not again
  • 2005-04-15
    #357
    not a(nother) pathetic MP quiz
  • 2005-04-01
    #356
    Temptation and the Supremes
  • 2005-03-18
    #355
    O'Reilly Factored
  • 2005-03-04
    #354
    There's money in them thar licenses
  • 2005-02-18
    Mini NTK #31
    Contentions, M and S pants
  • 2005-02-04
    #353
    Round up the usual patents
  • 2005-01-21
    #352
    Mucker, Tucker, Ducker - and Spaz
  • 2005-01-07
    #351
    Freedom of Information, Vectors of Zorn
  • NTK 2004
  • NTK 2003
  • NTK 2002
  • NTK 2001
  • NTK 2000
  • NTK 1999
  • NTK 1998
  • NTK 1997
  • HARD NEWS
  • EVENT QUEUE
  • ANTI-MEMES
  • TRACKING
  • GEEK MEDIA
  • SMALL PRINT
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Tips, news & gossip to tips@spesh.com - with NTK in subject line, cheers.


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                      april foo- oh, who can be bothered?

          DON'T TOUCH THE DOUGHNUTS! Just as Grokster supporters,
          weary from waiting all night for seats at the US Supreme
          Court, were tempted by pastries from the recording industry
          lawyers (who, in some sort of metaphor for the whole
          process, pay folk to wait in line for them), one is
          tempted to ask: does this high drama mean anything for the
          UK? Ah, just wait. In the ancestor to this case, 1984's
          Betamax judgement, the Supremes declared that recording TV
          shows to watch later (time-shifting) was fair use in the
          United States. That surprised a lot of copyright scholars
          at the time - but four years later, time-shifting was
          declared a explicit, limited exemption under UK copyright
          law. If making file-sharing software is seen as an illegal
          activity in the US, there's a good chance that British MPs
          will decide to make the same true here.  And after that,
          why not start having another peck at the time-shifting
          "liberty", too?
          http://www.wetmachine.com/index.php/item/255
                            - Mr Valenti makes exceedingly good cakes
          http://www.bectu.org.uk/policy/pol060.html
          - oh you're allowed to time-shift *analog* TV, but digital?

          And you think *your* IRC server has lamer problems. The folk
          working on Jabber, the open messaging protocol intended To
          Rule Them All, must have been pretty chuffed when the IETF
          accepted its underlying protocol as a standards track back
          in 2000. Getting increasingly less chuffed are those in
          charge of running jabber.org, the protocol's demo server.
          It sounds like Jabber is getting more and more adoption in
          the commercial world; and the commercial world doesn't seem
          to know how to set up its own chat servers. So far, the
          somewhat amazed sysadmins have watched the usual geek chat
          traffic be drowned out by: a British company called trackm8,
          which sells an anti-theft device for trucks (many of which
          sent their "I'm okay!" messages via jabber.org), a US hotel
          services company whose hundreds of kiosks report home via
          jabber.org, and two more companies too poor or technically
          innocent to run their own servers: Telecom Italia and
          Cingular. Peter St Andre, patron saint of the protocol, has
          been kicking the lamers off as fast as they appear, but it
          does beg the question: Is there a bash.org for machine-to-
          machine messages?
          http://www.saint-andre.com/blog/2005-03.html#2005-03-09T11:47
                                                        - hey, no bots!
          http://bash.org/?top
                                              - always good for a link


                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                         GOTOs considered non-harmful

          There's been a lot of interest in the appeal to create a 
          copyright-unencumbered "open" map of London (then the UK) from 
          Russian satellite photography [see NTK 2005-01-21] - though, 
          ironically, some confusion about where you're actually 
          supposed to send your donations. Fortunately amateur-
          cartographic ringleader JO WALSH should be pinning down those 
          - and other - co-ordinates at the Thursday-after-next's OPEN 
          KNOWLEDGE FORUM ON OPEN GEODATA (7pm, Thu 2005-04-14, Stanhope 
          Centre, near Marble Arch, London W2 2HH, free but RSVP) - we 
          (and they) are also interested in any ideas you have for a 
          similar "Open Hardware" evening at some point in the future. 
          Also, it's just a short(-ish) walk across Hyde Park from MY 
          PLAY-STATION AT SERPENTINE 2005 (10am-6pm, every day until 
          April 10, the Serpentine Gallery, London W2 3XA, free), Tomoko 
          Takahashi's installation comprising piles of toys, games, and 
          "more than 7,600 objects and domestic machines", brought to you 
          in conjunction with none other than... Marley Floors. 
          http://www.serpentinegallery.org/current.html
            - also hosting "ultraviolet tag" on the lawn, 7pm tomorrow
          http://www.okfn.org/wiki/OpenKnowledgeForums
              - donations to: http://okfn.org/geo/ (NB not a wiki page)
          http://www.spiked-online.com/event
          - same night as (uncharacteristically free) Spiked wifi chat
          http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1102753,00.html
                   - standard warnings about Spiked events still apply
          http://festival2005.lovebytes.org.uk/
                  - Sheffield Lovebytes festival starts Thu April 14th
          http://www.ukuug.org/osa/
               - closing date for 500 quid UKUUG compo tomorrow (sorry)


                                >> ANTI-MEMES <<
               there's smoke, flames, http://dohthehumanity.com/

          click here to upgrade to our premium subscribers' archive of 
          abstract news pics: http://headlesszombiebunny.blogspot.com/ - 
          vs http://amiabstractornot.highlyillogical.org/ ... truth in 
          URL construction - weary of increasingly unoriginal toy market: 
     http://plush-toy.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_copy_of_Cabbage_Patch_Kids.html 
          - vs well, it could be meat recipes "for" cats, not "using": 
          them: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/cats/meat.php ... 
          inevitably: http://www.martian.fm/words_of_a_dying_man.htm 
          vs http://durrrrr.blogspot.com/ ... puerile Google goofs o' 
          the week: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=skiled+data+entry , 
          http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22is+a+big+crap%22+-shoot , 
          http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22sphere+of+effluence%22 ... 
          reminds us of Charlie Brooker's party ice-breaker "Which (non-
          electric) DIY tool would you pick for the bloodiest workplace 
          massacre - before, of course, then turning it on yourself?": 
          http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Number=1556673 


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

          The problem with wikis - no, revert that, *one* of the
          problems with wikis - is that they're too easy to code, and
          too hard to get right. They're the IRCbots of the '00s. So
          it's with some relief to see that (the Outlaw) Jimmy Wales'
          Wikipedia project has ground some good code out from the
          twin stoney mills of that project's overrun moderators and
          endless waves of public examination. MEDIAWIKI, which hit
          v1.4 this past fortnight, is the Wikipedia wiki: it's also
          easy to install, only really dependent on PHP and MySql
          (unless you want mathematical equations, in which case you
          deserve to have Objective CAML foisted your way). Its edges
          are worn smooth: editing is easy, moderating and standing
          guard over pages is easy, categorisation, uploading images,
          all very nicely tweaked. It could do with a WYKI-WYSIWIG
          textarea, some nicer Firefox helpers, and somebody shouting
          about the "Enhanced recent changes" box in preferences to
          every new user. But wait long enough, and perhaps they'll be
          there too.
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki
                                   - it even has a badly-licensed fork!


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

          TV>> in light of the BBC's alleged schemings to turn any DR 
          WHO (7pm, Sat, BBC1) publicity into "good publicity" - as per 
          http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,66913,00.html , 
          http://www.twistandshoutcomics.com/twistblog/?p=6 - we can't 
          wait to see how they're going to keep the rest of the series 
          in the headlines - maybe by killing a member of the public as 
          per Noel Edmonds' "Late, Late Breakfast Show"?... elsewhere, 
          sci-fi rages almost unhindered across the schedules, in the 
          form of Disney's ultra-dense THE BLACK HOLE (3.10pm, Sat, C5), 
          Queen's "Gernsback Continuum"-style FLASH GORDON (4.10pm, Sat, 
          C4), and a - presumably CGI-free - live remake of the original 
          QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT (8.20pm, Sat, BBC4)... but the laughs 
          should be - slightly - more intentional in the disturbingly-
          not-hosted-by-Jimmy-Carr? 50 GREATEST COMEDY SKETCHES (9pm, 
          Sun, C4)... a 90-minute documentary on the techniques of 
          torture rejoices in the somewhat jovial title WE HAVE WAYS OF 
          MAKING YOU TALK (9pm, Tue, BBC2)... the "Why this is hell, nor 
          am I out of it" line should take on unusual resonance when 
          delivered in a "shopping mall somewhere in the north of 
          England" for the Faust adaptation of BRAND NEW FLASHMOB OPERA 
          (8pm, Thu, BBC3)... and you can always disprove people who say 
          "the remake's never as good as the original" by pointing out 
          John Carpenter's version of "The Thing", the 1978 version of 
          INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (12midnight, Fri, BBC1), or 
          indeed the crass commercial Hollywood-isation of Kurosawa's 
          "Seven Samurai" that we know as "The Magnificent Seven"... 

          FILM>> something of a double-bill for Naomi Watts fans, as she 
          pops up in both this week's more-of-the-same sequel RING 2 
          ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ringtwo_the.htm : having 
          "sixth sense"; demon in TV pulling boy into it; unholy 
          manifestations of evil such as toy merry-go-round starting by 
          itself) and next week's don't-spoil-the-ending "based on a 
          true story" 1970s-set THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON 
          ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains strong language and one 
          scene of strong violence)... while The Rock's dramatic reading 
          of a scene from "Bring It On" is a rare highlight of rambling 
          Elmore Leonard "Get Shorty" ensemble-cast follow-up BE COOL 
          ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Be+Cool+%282005%29 : 
          John Travolta [...] finds [Uma Thurman] sunbathing topless 
          face down on her patio) - also starring Christina Milian, from 
          next week's Tommy Lee Jones cheerleader incongruity MAN OF THE 
          HOUSE ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/manofthehouse.htm : 
          young woman massaging her anatomy to entice; six counts of 
          attempted murder by explosion; abuse of pastoral position to 
          mask criminal activities)... 


                               >> 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
                            "Obey Alan! *Obey Alan!*"
             http://www.google.co.uk/groups?q=subliminal+ntk+cox


                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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                          (K) 2005 Special Projects.
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  • HARD NEWS
  • EVENT QUEUE
  • ANTI-MEMES
  • TRACKING
  • GEEK MEDIA
  • SMALL PRINT