>> 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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