>> HARD NEWS <<
shortening the fuse
HAHAHA! The Americans are funny! This Thursday, the funniest
of them all, Mitch Bainwol of the MPAA, said with a straight
face firstly how much he loved his MP3 player (glad you
could enjoy it, after you tried to sue the Diamond Rio out
of existence). Then, his organisation asked, very gently,
for all digital radio players to be rigged so that: you can
only record for a minimum of 30 minutes; have no metadata
storage at all; and only save a maximum of fifty hours of
music, before the machines would start deleting - in strict
FIFO order. That's the land of the free, my friend! Can't do
digital TV, can't do digital radio, and when they do, they
let their self-style "entertainment" industry drool DRM all
over it! Never happen here, of course:
http://www.dvb.org/index.php?id=294
- ulp.
http://www.xmfan.com/viewtopic.php?t=50894
- PLEASE DO NOT PRESS THE RED RECORD BUTTON AGAIN
Hopefully moving beyond a simplistic techno-libertarian "Well,
my computer seems able to copy all sorts of stuff, so it must
be morally justifiable *somehow*" riposte to this kind of
thing, the as-previously-advertised OPEN RIGHTS GROUP is
holding its first open-to-all get-together in London later
this month. What's definite so far is the date (the evening of
Tue 2005-11-29), the venue (the 01Zero-One Creative Learning
Lab cyber-basement, Hopkins Street, Soho, London W1F 0HS) and
the aim: for all potential members, the press, and any other
digital activists to meet each other and discuss what's
currently lighting up their personal early-warning systems.
Further details will be furnished closer to the time via the
organisation's conveniently just-launched official site,
including what time to actually turn up, whether you need to
pre-register (you know, for numbers), and tips on identifying
- let alone accessing - the venue's seamless metal door
embedded in an otherwise featureless brick wall.
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/
- now with its own Wikipedia entry, and everything
http://www.pledgebank.com/rights
- save from the ignominy of http://pledgebank.com/list/failed
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
GOTOs considered non-harmful
Live in London? Like programming? Then you're in for a treat
this month, as the metropolis is rocked not just by SOCIAL
SOURCE 2005 (exploring the potential of Free and Open Source
software for the Voluntary and Community Sector, 9.30am-5.30pm
next Wed 2005-11-09, City Temple Conference Centre, Holborn
Viaduct, London EC1A 2DE, free) but also this winter's LONDON
PERL WORKSHOP 2005 (Sat 2005-11-26, City University, near
Angel, London EC1V 0HB, free but pre-register on the site).
But glancing further north - just for a moment - November's
spawned another monster in the form of Edinburgh's inaugural
"people doing strange things with electricity" show-and-tell
DORKBOT ALBA (from 4pm, Sun 2005-11-13, Forest Cafe, 3 Bristo
Place, Edinburgh EH1 1EY, also looks free), in the company of
a-life artist RICHARD BROWN, ZOE "Dial-a-Diva" IRVINE, and
wearable-computing-enthusiast-turned-"Speckled Computing"-
researcher MARTIN "EARTH" LING.
http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotalba/
- while http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotlondon/ moves to Mon Nov 21
http://london.pm.org/lpw/
- also, from the looks of things, something to do with the...
http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/events/
- ...Docklands "Web Frameworks Evening" on Thu November 17
http://www.socialsource.org.uk/pmwiki.php/EventNov05/HomePage
- bit vague on whether you need to register or anything though
http://www.geekdinner.co.uk/
- plus a London Geek Dinner with Molly Holzschlag on Nov 24
>> ANTI-MEMES <<
there's smoke, flames, http://dohthehumanity.com/
Amazon.co.uk credits Jeffrey Zeldman with yet another work of
http://amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553840444/ "Pleistocene
detail, provocative speculation [...] sex, tribal politics,
soap opera, and homicidal woolly rhino-hunting adventure":
http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609610597/ ... vaguely
legally-flavoured Google misspellings of the month:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22died+interstate%22 ,
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22fist+and+foremost%22 ,
http://google.com/search?q=%22temporary+retraining+order%22 ,
http://google.com/search?q=%22fragrant+abuse%22 - or, with a
nod to Spinal Tap, you won't find heavy metal using "dobly":
http://www.google.com/search?q=dobbler+shift ... membership
possibly put off by odd headline spelling of "Proffesionals":
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/Global-Business-Professionals
... "BBC Broadcast" rebrand makes impressive "Pseuds Corner"
bid: http://digitmag.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=5265 - lucky
they overlooked nature's other "expert navigators" that begin
with "B", like the "bird", or "bluebottle", or "bat"...
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
Sometimes, it seems that all life consists of piping
the same basic Unix utilities in ever varying combinations.
If that's true, then perhaps the secret of life-extension is
GNU SCREEN. Which is here, not because there's anything new
with it (it's nearly twenty years old, and no longer
actively developed), nor has there been some new and
wonderful application for it. It's still the same as it's
always been - a program that lets you run more than one
terminal session at a time, and switch between them, and
re-attach to them if you lose the connection to a remote
machine. It's just here because we sense that everyone is
re-discovering it again, and we wanted to make sure, as
ever, you smugly rediscovered it a fraction of a second
before your friends.
http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
- go on, you've been meaning to learn it. Ctrl-A! Ctrl-A!
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/3/9/16838/14935
- kuro5hin! the great hope for 2004!
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
FILM>> hitting pretty much all the places you'd expect (but in
a good-natured, sporting fashion), the only disappointment is
that they didn't work in more homages to the original 1975
"Rollerball" in MTV quadriplegic-rugby documentary MURDERBALL
(imdb: high school friends/ car crash/ handicapped person/
paralympics/ wheelchair)... for all that we've enjoyed Cameron
Crowe's previous romantic nonsense, Kirsten Dunst and that elf
guy apparently aren't so good in this new one, ELIZABETHTOWN
( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/elizabethtown.htm : adult
in underwear, repeatedly; portrayal of parent as "pal" to son;
building suicide machine; postponing suicide; plan to get back
to suicide; talk of killing self)... and Crowe's just not in
the same league as his idol Billy Wilder, as proved by next
week's (presumably limited-screen) re-release of 1944's top
film noir DOUBLE INDEMNITY (imdb: cult favorite/ insurance
fraud/ femme fatale/ told in flashback/ jump from train)...
>> 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
"holy", "crap"
http://www.gnome.org/~jdub/blog/projects/ubuntu/1129996213
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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