Need To Know 2000-11-17

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"It is believed [Hawking] has visited the accident and emergency department of Addenbrooke's Hospital, near his home in Cambridge, on several occasions with various injuries but has refused to explain how he got them." http://www.itn.co.uk/news/20001112/britain/03hawking.shtml - PROFESSOR STEPHEN HAWKING returns from another secret, paradox-defying battle through space and time ...of course, they have *no idea* who they're dealing with: http://www.theonion.com/onion3123/hawkingexo.html >> HARD NEWS << choose, damn you, choose! You'd probably not know about subtle moves by the INTERNET WATCH FOUNDATION to move from a passive reporter of illegal content online, to a pro-active force for removing certain newsfroups from the British spool. But, in their defence, that's because they're discussing it on the newsgroups themselves - uk.net, mainly. As ever, the issues are muddled: the IWF are asking to remove three groups (nope, they won't say what ones they are) that they feel contain over three-quarters of the illegal material reported to them. Which doesn't sound so bad, except this kind of centralised control of the feeds was pretty much what the IWF was set up to avoid. Given that there's generally an ad hoc approach to dropping groups among ISPs, it's good to see the IWF taking this step slowly, with the now requisite public consultation. And before you throw up your hands and give up USENET for dead anyway, it's worthwhile noting that it's *still* the only heavily distributed information-relaying network that works, Freenet and Gnutella's notwithstanding. Dangerous precedent or just a tweak of the config scripts? Read the noise, then mail your opinion. http://www.iwf.org.uk/about/poli.htm - and then they came for alt.tasteless http://www.deja.com/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=691547047 - 280 messages so far, and counting http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/45/ns-19037.html - meanwhile, ZD Net takes on the *evil* Yahoo corporation .pro, .biz, .museum, .aero, .mudpie, .coop, .seagull, .info, .name? ".NAME"? I'm sorry, but isn't that the kind of top level domain proposal you'd get if you grabbed a seven-year old off the streets, and told him to come up with a suggestion or you'd give him a black eye? Oddly, that seemed to be exactly the procedure chosen by ICANN for their final consultation on Wednesday in LA. In fact, we rather warmed to the event, from the moment that Esther Dyson stormed onto the Webcast with apparent backing from Joni Mitchell, to the Gong Show spectacle of dozens of sweaty suits having 90 seconds to justify their sorry existence. Vint Cerf was excellent in his role as a ghostly Obi Ben Kenobi, and a particular commendation goes to the head of the dotNom consortium, who spent his three minutes berating the whole procedure, only to have second thoughts moments after a stern, "That's Life"-style, dressing down from Esther ("Don't you want to talk about your domain then?" "Uh. Can I have another three minutes?") These are the benefits of open process: any ICANNspiracy theories evaporated in the face of the truth, which was as arbitrary and bizarre as anyone could have hoped. As St. Cerf repeatedly hinted, the whole thing was really just a "proof of concept" trial, and still sucks in several ways. Mainly the "Sunrise" provision of many of the chosen domains means that legitimate businesses (latin for "those with lawyers") get to grab their choice of domains before the grubby masses. Like anyone cares: the "concept" being "proven" here, we reckon, is that any number of top level domains are possible and, hopefully, inevitable. And the more that the gTLD hopefuls and domain-snapping corporations realise they're about to be sucker-punched thousands of times, the more we can watch the whining on RealVideo. Encore! http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/la2000/archive/ - .one? HAHAHAHA! .iii? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Notorious "Jimmy Saville" transcript forgers SOME OF THE CORPSES ARE AMUSING [NTK 2000-09-08] are back, and they're madder than ever. Perhaps enraged by the - incorrect, yet intriguing - rumour on Chris Morris fan sites that Morris' new series will be a TV version of TV GO HOME, SOTCAA selected TVGH as the latest target of one of their typically light- hearted parodies, lambasting mild-mannered proprietor Charlie Brooker for 1: failing to "attack or lampoon" anything; 2: not being as funny as Not The Nine O'Clock News (a reassuring hint of self-parody there, eh readers?); and 3: "utilising what he imagines to be Chris Morris-style humour" - ironic given the rumoured Chris Morris connection mentioned above. Within days, TVGoHome fans hit back with their own parody of SOTCAA's parody, confirming the status of Radio Times-lookalikes as *the* preferred format for modern-day satirical discourse - more popular even than Amihotornot spoofs and Palm Beach Voting Forms. Brooker himself remains "tight-lipped" about the whole affair, though, when provoked, lashed out at the Corpses' version, slamming them for not getting "the fonts [...] quite right. TV Go Home programme titles are rendered in Arial Black scaled - and the scaling's the important bit - to 90% of its normal width". Kids, eh? What do they know? http://www.koekie.org.uk/funnel/ - also outs Lee and Herring as fans of "NTK Live" http://www.notbbc.co.uk/corpses/ - click "Previous" to see them attack or lampoon Al Murray http://pages.zoom.co.uk/pcmftp/ - Buchan, tsluts: we're sure you could automate this... >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious fuelling last week's MICROSOFT VS DEMOCRACY conspiracy theory: http://www.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/US/0,3560,548880,00.html ( backup at http://www.ntk.net/2000/11/17/dohguard.gif )... SILICON.COM news stories auto-refresh within about 5 mins/ 300 seconds - one way to get your page impressions up... IETF social http://www2.eventreg.com/ietf_reg/ietf_reg.html *requires* you to send credit card details un-SSL'd... GEORGE HARRISON lawyer is Blues Brothers-quoting "Simon Mayo": http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/newsid_1022000/1022754.stm ... http://www.pets.com/#pressrelease - yes, you work in an industry where a SOCK PUPPET is considered valuable intellectual property... "Gone Gardening"? "Gone WORM-EATING CRAZY", more like: http://www.ntk.net/2000/11/17/dohworms.gif ... http://195.92.253.218/register/faqs/first14.htm - "Can it? Can it f*ck!"... FUTURE's upcoming "Computer Active" rival to get the bids in: http://www.ntk.net/2000/11/17/dohfuture.jpg ... http://www.topbuisness.com/ (sic) for sale, to help you target lucrative market of high-flying execs who can't spell... HOTEL INTERNET full of bored insane people shocker: http://www.google.com/search?q=all+work+and+no+play+makes+jack+a+dull+boy >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful You know how smug we get when we're consistently right about things? Well, just this once, we'd have preferred to be in the wrong as, in accordance with NTK prophecy [2000-09-22], the on-again off-again GEEK PRIDE SAN FRANCISCO has again been postponed - indirectly due to falling tech shares, we suspect. This disappointment has, however, merely hardened our resolve to put on some kind of large-scale UK geek event next year - possibly reviving the old Access All Areas "computer security" get-togethers, maybe absorbing one or two of the less healthy- looking Amiga shows. Mail us at the usual address if you'd like to get involved, or if the voices in your head tell you to try and stop us before it's much, much too late. http://www.geekpride.org/ - apparently they guessed Tim wrong on "Tell The Truth", too http://www.nngroup.com/worldtour/cit_ld.html - or wait for the Californians to come to you - at $800/day http://meets.gblogs.org.uk/camb2.html - bloggers ahoy! >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering One of the worries about developing on the UNIXish platform is the possibility that various wizards will become terminally curmudgeonated, or die, or both, or already have, before they have a chance to offload the full thirty-years of their gentle wisdom. So it's with some relief that we greet the arrival of GNU AUTOCONF, AUTOMAKE, AND LIBTOOL - henceforth known as the "Performing Goats" book. The whole thing has a slight feel of "One more thing you must know about Bourne shells on AIX is ...argh, no more time, must tell you ... M4 ... square-brackets ... ackkpth", but it's welcome nonetheless. Best of all, though you should pursuade a grownup to purchase the 30UKP hard copy, the hordes of hyperactive schoolchildren who make up the true cutting edge of Linux development can peruse the whole thing online, while saving their pocket money for that Beowulf cluster. Which is nice. http://sources.redhat.com/autobook - of course, the authors will now transpire to be twelve years old >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista seeing through to the underlying "building blocks" of reality: http://www.geocities.co.jp/Hollywood/9060/mtrxe.html... PETER COCHRANE leaving BT, launching UK wing of www.conceptlabs.net , teaming up with brother Zefram?... isn't this what DIXONS is for?: http://212.158.10.26/news/releasemail.asp?ReleaseID=236 ... worth it for "ANNE WIDDECOMBE Film Censorship Database": http://www.dvddebate.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=24 ... http://www.titpillows.co.uk - business plan: diversify into other overliteral realisations of lyrics by CORNERSHOP and/or FATBOY SLIM... ROSE ROYCE & LIMAHL - together at last!: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/newsid_1022000/1022753.stm ... when oh when will the public tire of life IMITATING ONION: http://www.texnews.com/reality/brazosbill/bill041097.html ... POPBITCH in-joke: http://www.chazbaps.com ... relax ladies, he's "married": http://www.amihotornot.com/r/?eid=BSNZG&key=NRSFD ... in the old days, brightly coloured genitals would suffice: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2000/11/14/MN79565.DTL >> GEEK MEDIA << the less imitable www.tvgohome.com TV>> Kevin Costner week steps up to the plate with baseball- groupie men's weepie BULL DURHAM (11.25pm, Sat, ITV), followed later in the week by unintentionally hilarious Mad Max spoof THE POSTMAN (9pm, Tue, C5)... '70s WW2-er ACES HIGH (7pm, Sat, C4) is, indeed, based around the Iron Maiden song of the same name - or vice-versa... while serious cineaste show WATCHING (10.35pm, Sat, BBC2) looks at film's anti-TV propaganda which, if you've just sat through the first in a new run of KISS ME KATE (9.30pm, Sat, BBC1), seems entirely understandable... no wonder Sony never bothers doing decent TV campaigns, when they get so much free coverage in shows like THE BITS SUPERCONSOLE TOUR (12.20am, Sat, C4) and a "Game Wars" special of THE MONEY PROGRAMME (7.30pm, Wed, BBC2)... and Farrelly/ Bill Murray Amish bowling bonanza KINGPIN (10pm, Sun, C4) turns out to be not that closely based around the PC game of the same name - seemingly part of a Sunday-night cross-channel exploration of modern machismo, which also includes Joe "If You're Talking To Me, Your Career Must Be In Trouble" Queenan on REVIEW (8.20pm, Sun, BBC2) and the appealingly titled MAN-TEST (12.40am, Sun, C4)... Tuesday, however, shows its more feminine side, with a serious scientific look at female masturbation in HIDDEN LOVE (10.30pm, Tue, C4), plus Todd Solondz's makeover-free junior nerd-nightmare WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (12.35am, Tue, C4) - working title "Faggots and Retards"... clearly unrepentant, C5 carries on showing cybertrash like VELOCITY TRAP (10.15pm, Wed) and GHOST IN THE MACHINE (9pm, Thu)... and people always complain when we slag off the smug celeb impressions in STELLA STREET (9.50pm, Thu, BBC2), but you've got to admit, it lacks the occasional pathos of the latest batch of ROCK PROFILES (UK Play, seemingly every hour of the day)... FILM>> a pair of ruthless, foul-mouthed mercenaries pursue a hare-brained scheme that results in the shocking murders of many old favourites - but enough about Gwyneth Paltrow/ Huey Lewis singalong vanity project DUETS (http://www.cndb.com: [Maria "Coyote Ugly" Bello] is in the process of getting dressed and we see her breasts as she stands in her underwear) ... in fact, "even more baffling than The Usual Suspects" is our verdict on leisurely convoluted post-Tarantino shoot-em-up THE WAY OF THE GUN (http://www.screenit.com : It's possible impressionable teens could get the idea to kidnap someone for a ransom, and some may want to imitate the "cool" characters and their violent/criminal behavior)... otherwise there's the can't-tear-your-eyes-away spectacle of a sexually precocious adolescent wrestling with demonic influences - but that's enough about Adam Sandler's usual SNL-cameo-packed fart-fest LITTLE NICKY (http://www.screenit.com : Humor stems from punishing Hitler by having objects such as pineapples and flasks shoved up his butt, and it's possible that some kids could get the idea to "punish" others or pets in a similar manner; http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/little_nicky.htm : There is some real spiritual truth here)... no matter what Mark Bloody Kermode says, it's unlikely that brief "new footage" scenes are going to add to or detract from the raw scariness of THE EXORCIST: DIRECTOR'S CUT (http://www.capalert.com : invasive medical procedures; extremely graphic and vulgar demonic possessions with hateful expressions to our Lord)... leaving Nathan Barley-esque Ali G-appropriation curio BLACK AND WHITE (imdb: independent-film / filmmaking / gay / murder / threesome / controversial / cultural-assimilation / gangster / hip-hop / ménage-à-trois / new-york / race-relations / bisexual) - as is so often the case, just missing simultaneous release with Peter Molyneux's tie-in game of the same name... BONERS, CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS>> our Echelon-style scanning of crypto mailing lists swiftly picked up a posting from original researcher MARKUS KUHN on the topic of last week's "Microsoft-sponsored" BSA software detector vans - "Microsoft never had anything to do with it," he says. "We showed [them] early results [...], and they decided that they were not interested in pursuing it any further". NTK regrets perpetuating the error, as presumably do Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com/1998/1298issue/1298techbus4.html ... ANDY ARMSTRONG was sure he was "not the first" reader to point out that NTK's 2000-11-03 reflex-testing link was "Javascript rather than Java" - though in fact e *was* by far the first to do so, by a margin of 0.13 seconds and 14 days... while an anonymous tipster, regarding last week's mention of the "Antitrust" movie, objected that "re-writing HTTPUrlConnection in Java - look closely - is hardly the work of a 'computer genius'": http://www.mgm.com/antitrust/synopsis.html ... despite some impressively conspiratorial counter-theories: http://www.theclothesstore.com/ubbz/Forum8/HTML/000042.html , we now suspect the whole "Diana On Fire" Krash And Burn debacle [NTK 2000/11/03-10] was an unusually pointless "Hoax Magazine" anti-KLF prank, which we fell for. Sorry... when we foolhardily asserted an "absence" of "new Shampoo material" [also last week], MARK SEDDON tentatively drew our attention to the fact that the duo released a new online-only album this August, as proved by even the most cursory of visits to http://www.shampoo.org.uk/ . In many ways, we could not have been more wrong here - though, oddly, we did start mentioning the band at around this time, perhaps detecting their return on a purely subconscious level... speaking of which, ADRIAN MOULDER berated us strongly for not linking to porn-gossip columnist LUKE FORD's comments on cheerleader filth "Bring It On" [NTK 2000-10-20], "the most upsetting film review of all time": http://www.lukeford.com/archives/updates/000828.htm ... and finally, in case that leaves a nasty taste in your mouth, someone called EPONYMOUS updated us on the enigma of Nestle's "Stuff Xmas" Cranberry White Chocolate Aero [NTK 2000-11-03], revealing that the bar had been voluntarily withdrawn after the Church Of England deemed it "potentially offensive": http://www.marketing.haynet.com/news/n001116/nestle.html . There are several interesting aspects to this story, not least of which is that the C of E apparently employs a "head of signal logistics" - so what does *that* involve? Is it like "signals intelligence", where he sits around with a mainframe, trying to decrypt signs from God, who persists in encoding his message using "mysterious keys"?... >> 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 "quelque chose de drole dans chaque article" http://www.linux-france.org/prj/jargonf/N/NTK.html NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Unsubscribe? Mail ntknow-unsubscribe@lists.ntk.net Subscribe? Mail ntknow-subscribe@lists.ntk.net NTK now is supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntk.net/books (K) 2000 Special Projects. 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