Need To Know 2005-04-01

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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

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>> 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. 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) 2005 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.