[Open Tech Update Friday July 22nd: Well, no-one's more 
         surprised than us, but the event is officially "sold out" for 
         tomorrow. If you've pre-registered, you should have received 
         an email with a link to click on if you can attend, and one to 
         click on if you can't. If you haven't pre-registered, there 
         will be "a few" tickets available on the door, but it may be 
         best not to travel a long way only to have to hang around 
         waiting to get in, like that woman from Edinburgh did last 
         year. Either way, there's now a bit more travel info at:

         http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2005/location/

         - we don't plan to stream the sessions live, but recordings 
         should be available once someone's got round to encoding all 
         the video files. And thanks for bearing with us so far.]


 _   _ _____ _  __ <*the* week^H^H^H^Hnow-monthly tech update for the uk>
| \ | |_   _| |/ / _ __   __2005-07-01_ o       join! sign up at
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Tips, news & gossip to tips@spesh.com - with NTK in subject line, cheers.

 
       
        "Defendant slashdot.org is an far-right wing Internet news 
         website that posts libelous and defamatory content and is used 
         by Open Source Community members to anonymously post hate 
         speech, death threats, threats to murder and promotes and 
         advocates acts of domestic terrorism within the United 
         States..."
         http://www.merkeylaw.com/article.php?story=20050621145053855
          - what's more: their "anime" coverage isn't much cop either


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                                evergreen yews

         Feel free to quote this back to us on the day, but we think 
         we're really "getting the hang of" this event-organising - 
         with just over 3 weeks to go, we've already got a near-as-
         dammit full schedule for BACKSTAGE.BBC.CO.UK OPEN TECH 2005 
         (doors open 11am, Sat 23-07-2005, The Reynolds Building, 
         Hammersmith, London W6 8RP) up on the website, now featuring 
         "Yahoo Troublemaker" Jeremy Zawodny, a look at the Dirac open 
         video compression algorithm, and a panel on whether we need 
         something a bit more like the EFF in the UK - plus Ted Nelson, 
         inventor of hypertext, and the launch of the aforementioned 
         backstage.bbc.co.uk developer network, obviously. The other 
         thing that's a bit different this year is that you shouldn't 
         just turn up hoping to get a ticket - if you're not in the 
         schedule (or specifically organising some other aspect of the 
         event), you are strongly advised to pre-register your email 
         address on the site, in which case you're guaranteed to get in 
         if you get there before 11.30. You don't have to pay in 
         advance: all tickets will be UKP5.00 on the day - a bit more 
         than before, but which should make it easier to organise 
         further events in the future (if we actually make any money). 
         http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2005/registration/
               - plus a chance to win a ticket to EuroOSCon, and more
         http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2005/schedule/
        - Matt "Mind Hacks" Webb, someone from Amazon, Ben Hammersley...


                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                      (other) GOTOs considered non-harmful

         If you're coming to the Open Tech event on July 23rd (or 
         even if you're not), we suspect you might also enjoy "outdoor 
         hacker conference/ event" WHATTHEHACK (Thu 28-07-2005 to Sun 
         31-07-2005, Landgoed Velder campsite, The Netherlands, from 
         140 Euros), featuring a similar range of speakers and topics - 
         but with slightly more exotic-sounding surnames. Between now 
         and then, we suggest you satiate your growing excitement with 
         the regular diet of Dorkbot London, FMV cut-scene creativity 
         at the National Film Theatre, or - if you can work out how to 
         get invited (and afford the $4,400) - TED GLOBAL (Tue 12-07-
         2005 to Fri 15-07-2005, Oxford), which almost won us over with 
         an eclectic "usual suspects" array of polymaths like Steven 
         Pinker, Jimmy Wales and Richard Dawkins, then blew it at the 
         very last minute with a casual reference to Keble College's 
         "stunning architecture" and "'Hogwarts'-style dining hall". 
         http://program.whatthehack.org/events.en.html
          - while your mum's at http://www.blogher.org/ in California?
         http://www.bfi.org.uk/showing/nft/nti/
                         - same weekend as http://www.aibo-nation.com/
         http://www.dorkbot.org/dorkbotlondon/
               - just too late to celebrate http://www.fairuseday.com/
         http://www.ted.com/tedglobal2005/
          - that's Steven "Freakonomics" Levitt, we think you'll find
         http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2005/registration/
       - Swansea conf "early bird" rates for NTK readers until 8 July
         

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

         "Recently, TSA has seen an increase in incidents of 
         individuals joking about security at the checkpoint", frowns: 
         http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?content=090005198013f9c3 ... 
         while "during the download process your browser may appear to 
         freeze and become unresponsive. This is normal for IE", sighs 
   http://cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/business/topics/payroll/t4032jan05/menu-e.html 
         ... special bonus backlog - all "Google Goofs", all the time: 
         http://google.com/search?q=%22dead+and+hard+of+hearing%22 , 
         http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chinese+%22wanton+soup%22 , 
         http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22deleted+uranium%22 , 
         http://google.com/search?q=%22lightening+presentations%22 , 
         http://google.com/search?q=integrated+%22turkey+solution%22 
         ... "blah blah blah blah", mutters increasingly imperial-
         sounding: http://whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/news-archive.html 
         ... wouldn't a hint of artistic nudity help grab the target 
         audience's attention?: http://firesofdarkness.com/ecards.htm ... 


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Don't get us wrong, we're always interested in new forms of 
         collective action - as NTK's Lee Maguire points out, artists 
         could negotiate directly with their audience, Marillion-album-
         style, for complete rights-buyouts of works that could then be 
         put in the public domain. But there's a couple of loopholes in 
         MySociety's "I'll do this if X number of other people agree to 
         do it with me" promise-aggregator PLEDGEBANK.COM. First, 
         there's no general mechanism for either authenticating signups 
         or ensuring that they actually do what they've promised (Got a 
         pledge that's a few short of its target? Why not just make up 
         some names - because, in most cases, who's going to know?). 
         And, following on from that, doesn't the "but only if" 
         criterion place slightly more emphasis on the - often 
         completely arbitrarily selected - numeric threshold, rather 
         than on the actual effect of what you're trying to achieve?
         http://www.pledgebank.com/bpifine
                            - vs http://www.pledgebank.com/individual
         http://www.fundable.org/
        - authenticated contributions (towards an arbitrary threshold)
         http://www.dropcash.com/
               - if you just want to raise some money, no matter what

         
                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         FILM>> after "Revenge Of The Sith" and "Sin City", a summer of 
         bad acting in front of unconvincing CGI backgrounds continues 
         with Spielberg's woefully uninspired "Independence Day" remake 
         WAR OF THE WORLDS (imdb: based-on-novel/ dockyard/ father-
         daughter-relationship/ ferry-boat/ lightning/ alien-invasion/ 
         new-jersey/ pregnancy)... the director of "Dog Soldiers" 
         returns next week with a largely female cast trapped below 
         ground in THE DESCENT ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains 
         strong bloody horror)... while, despite a promising setup, 
         recent trailers imply that "Meet The Parents" - but with Vince 
         Vaughn - is where WEDDING CRASHERS ends up (imdb: balloon/ 
         beach/ father-daughter-relationship/ friendship/ houseguest/ 
         hunting/ impersonation/ screwball/ touch-football)...
          

                               >> 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
                             "notability uncertain"
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Danny_O%27Brien
         

                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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