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Tips, news & gossip to tips@spesh.com - with NTK in subject line, cheers.


                              >> HARD NEWS <<
                             subject to misuse

        It's all gone a bit Le Carre around here. Most have now
        heard the story of DAVID MERY, the techie arrested and
        searched for being geeky in a terroristic manner, and later
        documented on the Guardian front page and Slashdot.
        Initially, we thought Mery's treatment was a cover for the
        police to confiscate a BeBox for themselves, but now we're
        growing more concerned. Few know the pivotal role the
        notorious pataphysicist Mery has played in the seedy
        underworld of tech journalism: editor of the samizdat .EXE
        Magazine; one of the few to have ever met that Mata Hari of
        TurboPascal, Verity Stob; rare familiar of both NTK and
        Andrew "Spart" Orlowski. Was Mery's handling a warning to
        the British IT journalist community to keep their mouths
        shut? And if it wasn't, is there any way we can get them to
        do it anyway?
        http://gizmonaut.net/bits/suspect.html
     - careful logical deconstruction also sign of guilt, apparently
        http://gizmonaut.net/soapflakes/EXE-199711.html
                                                - constant developer

        While scientists valiantly warn of the pandemic spread of
        the DRM flu, has anyone considered that innocent-seeming
        CORY DOCTOROW might be an unsuspecting carrier? After years
        of close physical contact with the biohazardous hands of
        MPAA lawyers during the brief Broadcast Flag outbreak of
        2004, he now seems to have been in *just* the right spot to
        see the pestilence jump the species barrier to European
        Digital TV. And this variant seems a lot nastier: tweaked by
        Hollywood lawyers to determine at a much finer grain what
        Europeans get to record off their TVs, where you get to save
        it, what constitutes a "family", and who exactly in open
        source will be buggered this time. And while the American
        Broadcast Flag appears now to be at least temporarily
        cordoned off in a batch of carefully isolated politicians,
        this European "CPCM" mutation looks to be spreading through
        the sprawling, marshy standard bodies endemic to the European
        continent. Will we live in a locked-down, quarantined TV
        world? Or are we *insufficiently paranoid*?
        http://www.eff.org/IP/DVB/dvb_critique.php
                   - yeah, it's from work. We also steal their toner
        http://www.promise.tv/technology.html
            - more explanation on how that Open Tech demo would work


                              >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                        GOTOs considered non-harmful

        Fresh from its (comparative) success at the Edinburgh
        Interactive Entertainment Festival, POINT AND SCHTICK: CAN
        INTERACTIVITY MAKE YOU LAUGH? transfers to London's West End
        for one night only, and is actually a discussion about why
        computer games aren't a bit funnier, in the company of NTK's
        Dave Green and - at time of writing - most likely someone from
        upcoming "social gaming" PS2 pop quiz "Buzz" (6.30pm Thu 2005-
        10-20, 01zero-one Creative Learning Lab, Hopkins Street,
        London W1F 0HS, free - including drinks and snacks - but mail
        insync@westking.ac.uk to pre-register). Prior to that, the
        capital also plays host to several supporters of the
        fashionable "free software" scene, in the form of popular
        programming-manual-publisher TIM O'REILLY (7pm-11pm Thu 2005-
        10-13, Hogshead pub, 11 Dering Street, London W1S 1AR, "UKP1
        finger buffet payable on the door"), plus writer CORY DOCTOROW
        (6.30pm, this Monday 2005-10-10, Borders Oxford St, London W1D
        2LE, free) *and* Brazilian Culture Minister GILBERTO GIL (from
        7pm, also Mon 2005-10-10, Guanabara, Parker Street, London
        WC2B 5PW, also free) - these last two ideally participating in
        some live simultaneous Creative Commons mashup sort of thing.
        http://www.01zero-one.co.uk/pages/insync.asp?Section_ID=8
         - not named after the "Zero-One" city in that "Matrix" toon
    http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://yoz.com/wired/1.04/if/games.html
        - along the lines of this argument again, but s/story/comedy/
        http://www.geekdinner.co.uk/
        - like a "John Peel Day" gig for people who don't like music
        http://craphound.com/000518.html
       - Cory will be reading, signing... and generally DRM-opposing
        http://www.cybersalon.org/future.html#gilbertogil
                     - as the play has it, "where the nuts come from"
        https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BadgerBadgerBadgerTour
        - Stop Press: Ubuntu's Jeff Waugh also in UK later next week
        http://www.mayyouliveininterestingtimes.org/
         - inaugural Cardiff Creative Technology Festival, Oct 28-30
        http://www.bdmwiki.com/index.php/Tech_Camp_Ireland
              - and it's Tech Camp Ireland on Sat Oct 15, to be sure


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

        somewhere you can send www.molestationnursery.com -ish URLs:
        http://domainrookie.com/hilarious-domain-name-mispronouncings
        ... US military evaluating feasibility of - Thunderbird 2:
        http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/050912_walrus.html
        ... perhaps unexpectedly-judgmental Google typing goofs of the
        month: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22mary+j+bilge%22 ,
        http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22black+and+shite%22 ,
        http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22brothel+and+sister%22 ,
        http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22roller+bladder%22 , plus
        http://google.com/search?&q=%22information+supper+highway%22 ,
        http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22know+your+socks+off%22 ,
        and, to go with the "congenial abnormalities" of NTK 2001-06-
        22: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=genial+warts ... just
        when you thought they didn't make Flash intros like this any
        more: http://www.ilab.co.uk/ ... proof that Web 2.0 has - at
        last - arrived; receives critical imprimatur of Keith
        "RealNames" Teare: http://www.teare.com/ ...


                               >> TRACKING <<
              sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

        We are the web apps that go "NING"! The three unique selling
        points of Marc Andressen's new start-up are stealth, PHP, a
        persistent object database store, and a fanatical devotion
        to the - . Ahem. Perhaps it's not surprising that there's a
        British tang to www.ning.com, with many of the Brit Web 1.9
        crowd's usual suspects involved in designing the API, site
        and developer "evangelism" (which we sincerely hope will be
        renamed "developers having tea at the vicarage"). But will
        imported labour help Ning escape the Curse of Marca? Sure,
        the site's "View Web App Source" model picks out the clever
        bit of Marc's last good implementation, and should go some
        way to reassuring all these picky Web developers who expect
        their software to be free and Free. But how comfortable will
        they be, trusting all their data to the loving arms of
        Ning's singleton, proprietary OODB? Will coders only be
        happy when some bright FOSS spark has re-implemented their
        own half-baked Ning-a-like in a way that lets you run it on
        your own machines, for no money, and with GPL v3 Free
        webservice protections? And most importantly, when that
        happens, what will those who go Ning! say then?
        http://www.ning.com/pivot/any/any/sex
- also, how many porno web apps will be implemented in the next few weeks?


                               >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                 get out less

        FILM>> Joss Whedon's penchant for self-parodic dialogue,
        ensemble casts of unknowns, and endless unconvincing kung-fu
        largely fails to translate to the big screen in feature-length
        TV episode SERENITY (imdb keywords: steampunk/ space western/
        wisecrack humor/ shot in the chest)... the pre-Halloween
        gothicness continues with low-budget subtitled Russian fantasy
        romp NIGHT WATCH (imdb: based on novel/ animated sequence/
        witch/ vampire/ supernatural/ moscow/ local blockbuster)...
        then next week, we'd skip the director of "Top Gun", the
        writer of "Donnie Darko", and Keira "bloody" Knightley -
        together at last! - in DOMINO (imdb: bounty hunter/ SWAT team/
        shotgun/ helicopter/ FBI), possibly in favour of slightly more
        satirical explosions in Nic Cage arms-dealer odyssey LORD OF
        WAR ( http://capalert.com/capreports/lordofwar.htm : display
        of massive firearms, repeatedly; rear nudity, repeatedly; talk
        of evolution; adultery)...


                              >> 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
                           "Entirely unacceptable"
           http://geeklawyer.org/blog/2005/09/02/talking-of-humour/

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