Need To Know 2000-09-22

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"This is a new area for us, Windows-based products have not traditionally been associated with Defense Department-specific mission-critical applications..." - KEITH HODSON, scarily-titled "Microsoft Government Spokesman", launches the US Navy's new Win2K-powered aircraft carrier http://www.gcn.com/vol19_no27/dod/2868-1.html ...as proved by the fact that we're all still here >> HARD NEWS << taming shrews Andrew Simmons - or John Doe #13 as he's known to the DVD CCA - still has his DEMON INTERNET site untouched by the long arm of the Movie Industry police: but reports that other Demon subscribers have felt the hot-breath of Jack Valenti on their neck. This month, the MPAA's lawyers sent out a threatening legal letter to Thus, demanding that an unnamed subscriber's DeCSS mirror be smashed - and for a few moments it looked like the litigation-shy ISP was going to capitulate. Provide proof that you have permission to publish the material within five days, roiled the standard e-mail, or lose your site. Well, ahem, replied the customer: please note that a) DeCSS is as public domain as you can get, b) those scary statues the MPAA cite all appear to have the giveaway "U.S." at the beginning of them, and c) I'm a founding Demon subscriber, you ungrateful curs. Demon didn't take it further; we hope that this acts as a hint to any future ISPs who might get fidgety under the MPAA's gaze. If Demon hasn't nodded yet, maybe you don't have to either. http://cryptome.org/decss-demon.htm - Oxford University? You reading this? http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/DVD/19991228-complaint.html - if being cited in the Californian court case wasn't cool enough... http://www.zpok.demon.co.uk/lame/lame.dotcoms.html - Simmons would win on Falco points alone BRITISH TELECOM, ever happy to be in accordance with prophecy [NTK 1999-07-09] continue to mope over that local loop unbundling, muttering that nobody's allowed in until the rooms are tidier. Especially, as it turns out, the more lucrative (sorry, "crowded") exchanges. Before you can bring your mucky feet in here, reports BBC News' Mark Ward, BT are demanding extra 17,200 sq metres of anti-static vinyl flooring, 2,500 smoke detectors, 1,700 "kickproof" security doors, and somebody to clear up all the porn mags that are lying around. Co-locating in BT's exchanges is turning out to be like some student flat-share from hell: a feeling now confirmed by the telco's suggestion that fights over who gets the best rooms be sorted out by a Single Transferable Vote system, which BT apparently studied last term in Politics. This system ends up with BT throwing dice to sort out deadlocks. And what's wrong with a good old game of Spin the Bottle, then? http://www.ntk.net/?back=archive99/now0709.txt&line=31#l - and haven't they had over a year to clean up before the guests arrive? http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_925000/925984.stm - It's called "Bow Wave Process": let us steam ahead with broadband http://www.btinterconnect.com/llunbundle/llu1.htm - while we leave you in our wake... Sadly, it's too late for such shenanigans to affect one cut- throat competition, as Demon, Pipex and CIX fight it out for the "Best Business ISP" accolade at the first-ever UK NET AWARDS (next Thu 2000-09-28, Natural History Museum), the latest embarrassing attempt by FUTURE PUBLISHING, sorry, THE FUTURE NETWORK to rebrand itself as an exciting new-media company. Rivalling even the Yell Awards for "Dullest Web Line- Up Of The Year", the categories alone make hilarious reading: "E-Company of the Year. For the company that shows the best understanding of the new economy and the rules of business in the 21st century. Nominees: The Easy Group, Virgin, Egg". Still, it's good to see that the 6 (out of 17) category sponsors which, 10 days ago, remained "to be confirmed" have now been revealed as none other than: .Net, Internet Works, Internet Advisor, Internet Investor, Business 2.0, and Cre@te Online - 6 of Future's own magazines! http://www.uknetawards.co.uk/categ.htm - "Best Portal: For portals and search engines." Christ. >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?pg=/et/00/9/21/ecrfff21.html believes it would take "25 years" to copy 2 Gigs via floppy - a doddering one disk every six-and-a-half days... fashionable F MAGAZINE expects users to read giant F'ing disclaimer: http://www.fmagazine.com/registration/disclaimer.html ... free AOL CD in last Friday's Evening Standard instructs you to "Insert the enclosed CD in your hard drive"... will the public *ever* tire of inappropriate graphics appearing on a JILL DANDO page? http://www.ntk.net/2000/09/22/dohdando.jpg ... http://www.floridatoday.com/news/local/stories/2000/sep/loc091600c.htm (presumably it "originated" in someone's kidneys) - VS: http://www.ntk.net/2000/09/22/spitfire-wee.jpg ... CNN fails to grasp point of MP3s, offers 48MB WAV in Napster article: http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/09/18/trojan.music/ ... ftp://internet.hasbrointeractive.com/anonftp/ - a little more "interactive" than HASBRO intended?... PLAYBOY sponsor JAZZ festival: http://www.news-press.com/news/today/000919playboy.html >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Oh my god, they've put back GEEK PRIDE SAN FRANCISCO *again* - to 2000-12-01, pushing it further into the wintry depths that last year saw it ultimately postponed to the following spring. "There's a Linux show in Atlanta that ends on [Oct] 13th," recounts the apologetic organiser, "so the sponsors [read: sinister Andover keiretsu] asked for a change and we said 'Sure!'" Closer to home (and closer to now), London's frankly deranged CREATING SPARKS arts 'n' sciences festival staggers to a close with what seems to be an entire week of identical- sounding plays about medical ethics and, as we're sure those wack dudes at Ninfomania would want us to mention, a performance and workshop from "one of Germany's most interesting hip hop bands", ZENTRIFUGAL (2000-09-25/26, Imperial College), inviting you to "feel the rhythm and discover the humour in the German language". http://www.geekpride.org/ - (unconfirmed) line-up includes Winer, Agre, Dawson, us http://www.britassoc.org.uk/creatingsparks/cs2.htm - *rock* me, Amadeus! >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Grapple-hooking into the office at midnight to fix the broken Linux box before management realises it's now running the entire business? Only room in the catsuit for the *one* floppy? Yeah, us too: and since that unpleasantness last time, we're sticking to the simple, useful, mildly cooler TOM'S ROOT BOOT Linux-on-a-3-and-a-halfshell. Oh sure, you've got your fancier picoLinuxen and your Linux Router Project derivatives elsewhere, but only Tom's distribution manages to combine a 2.0.37 kernel, network card mods, pcmcia, ftp/wget'ish downloader, and more rescue utils than you really want to think about right now. And if you need anything else, Tom's root boot is almost elementary to unravel and knit with your own additions. Now, all we need is some way to get past the laser sensor array. http://www.toms.net/rb/ - Discordian date generator included! http://busybox.lineo.com/BusyBox.html - and while we're messing with your head >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista ok, so how about a "Hack http://www.hacksdmi.org/" challenge? ... home to the acclaimed "My Name Is: FRANK BUTCHER": http://geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Stadium/1123/ ... LUMLEY faces final curtain: http://www.clickmango.com/joanna.html ... LEGO fans live up to their famed "party machine" reputation: http://mindstorms.lego.com/products/vision/visioncmd_rolighed.html but is http://www.geocities.com/droideka13/QueenAmidala.html anatomically correct for those "Anakin and Amidala" games?... http://www.lycos.co.uk/service/sms/eingabe.html works with LYNX, Germans... hey, they've done a great job on the woman with the dog: http://www.summum.org/mummification/pets/ ... not the lucrative ANOTHER.COM spin-off everyone was expecting: http://www.datapimp.com/ ... gay experts' get-together: http://207.228.241.80/~dailyupdate/will_and_grace/will_grace.html ... just-for-fun caption compo ("Is it safe?" - Marathon Man): http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/920000/images/_924534_gatesme150.jpg ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the less sold-out www.tvgohome.com TV>> in the unlikely event that you're not getting enough of Craig Charles's jailbreak attempts every weeknight on C5, he turns up with a different blonde co-presenter - Julia Reed from Sky's "Sky Rocket" and ".tv" channel - in the new run of ROBOT WARS (6.45pm, Fri, BBC2), as well as god-knows-which season of the apparently interminable RED DWARF (10pm, Fri, BBC2)... the ever-amusing Will Self guests on ROOM 101 (9pm, Fri, BBC2), while Daphne and Celeste - counting as one choice - appear on NEVER MIND THE BUZZCOCKS (9.30pm, Fri, BBC2) - though would it be funnier if it was the other way around?... David Suchet hijacks a plane with a Psion PDA, as the preposterous EXECUTIVE DECISION (8.50pm, Fri, ITV) gets its second outing in 15 months... and inheriting the much-prized accolade of "the only bit of the 11 O'Clock Show that wasn't shit", you're invited to MEET RICKY GERVAIS (11.05pm, Fri, C4)... C4 builds an "Animation Night" around Simpsons-in-Space toon FUTURAMA (9.35pm, Sat) and a tangentially-themed "look at animated scenes from games that were deemed too racy" edition of BITS (12.50am, Sat)... tough call against perhaps the only reason to subscribe to On Digital, LETTERMAN NIGHT (from 8pm, Sat, ITV2)... while C5 hits back with its bi-annual ABBA DAY (from 12.40pm, Sun)... LOUIS THEROUX'S WEIRD WEEKENDS (9pm, Mon, BBC2) is mildly amusing, we suppose, but even he admits http://www.ew.com/ew/archive/1,1798,1|26829|1|theroux,00.html "he'd rather be Tom Green"... they promised humourless "This Life" new-media Nathan-drama ATTACHMENTS (9pm, Tue, BBC2) wouldn't be this year's "Killer Net" - but just in case, eh? http://www.ntk.net/attachments/ ... up against TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (9pm, Wed, C5), last shown on BBC1 in May... "Woody Allen Wednesday" continues with SCENES FROM A MALL (12.35am, Wed, ITV)... and count the times late-night book- look PULP (1.55am, Thu, C4) implies "comics aren't just for kids", when they meet Warren "Transmetropolitan" Ellis - while, hopefully, not overlooking his excellent recent work on "The Authority"... FILM>> "The Right Stuff" docks gracefully with "Apollo 13" while dodging tantalising bits of debris from "Event Horizon", in competent Clint Eastwood orbiting-OAPs big-screen sci-fi SPACE COWBOYS (http://www.capalert.com : [numerous spoilers, alarming technological insights]; porn mag picture (from the 60s); multiple rear male nudity; actors exposing themselves to an actress; a woman in men's locker room with inviting manners of the male)... bad-taste maestros the Farrellys predictably reunite with hyperactive Jim Carrey in schizophrenia- misdiagnosis split-personality slapstick MY, MYSELF AND IRENE (http://www.cndb.com : "[Carrey] gets revenge by walking onto his neighbours' lawn with his paper, squatting down and taking a shit. When he pulls down his pants and underwear, we get a quick peek at his penis and balls. This slip was almost definitely by accident, and will be hard to spot in cinemas"; "after a great cleavage shot, Jim Carrey, as twisted alter-ego Hank, suprises [Shannon Whirry] who's breastfeeding her baby by putting his mouth in place of the baby's, sucking on her breast... you see no nipple and due to the graphic nature of the scene almost certainly a prosthetic boob was used")... otherwise: those stuck-up schmucks behind "This Life" have produced - at last! - a feature-length version of that hideous dinner-party ad for the Renault Scenic, seemingly based on the imagined phonetic similarity between the phrases "I love you" and "ELEPHANT JUICE" (http://www.bbfc.co.uk : Passed '18' for one strong drug scene and sex)... or Ron "Tin Cup" re-teams with Woody "White Men Can't Jump" Harrelson for Las Vegas road-trip fighting-over-a-woman buddy-flick PLAY IT TO THE BONE (http://www.capalert.com : exaggerated boxing violence; mockeries of Jesus and Christianity (many); pornographic talk, sounds, motions, positioning while begging for sex; sexual intercourse, with and without nudity plus lesbian intercourse and digital intercourse; cohabitation)... DRILY IRONIC T-SHIRT CONTEST UPDATE>> entries have been flooding in for our innovative help-NTK-design-its-own- merchandise competition, which is hugely reassuring seeing as we've yet to finalise the rules/ royalty scheme/ closing date or any annoying details like that. Perhaps inspired by the open-source efforts of http://geekshirts.sourceforge.net/ , GARY CARROLL queried our original "we'll sell the best ones and give the designers some of the money" plan, suggesting "How's about making the designs available as jpegs and letting [us] print our own T-shirts using our cute little inkjet printers, thereby promoting NTK's twisted truth seeking with reduced expense and contribution to global capitalism?" Well Gary, that option will be entirely up to the individual winning designers (apparently people get quite excited about being told they *have* to open source their stuff nowadays)... in other intellectual property news, we're still negotiating with the vast "Zeppotron" media conglomerate over whether you can use "TVGoHome" concepts and/or characters, like the "I'm With Nathan Barley" entry from http://www.growf.org/shirts/ , though you should get away with obvious bastardisations of, say, the NTL logo - http://www.bhikku.co.uk/shirt.htm , for instance. Bold irreverence towards NTK itself is encouraged, as in http://www.mitt.demon.co.uk/tshirt/satyre.png (from JAMES "MOOSE" BROWN, increasingly believed to be the anonymous swearing-obsessed plaintiff from last week's issue), though reliance on yet-to-be-devised printing technologies may hinder your application: http://tv.cream.org/gorilla/ntkt/ ... and, finally, attempting to divine the assumed rulebase from all the other entries you've sent in, it appears that you *can* simply submit a text slogan - the most notable so far being the succinct "British E-commerce: R.I.P.", from someone who knows a thing or two about futuristic capitalism, IAN "ELITE" BELL - although please make sure you mark your entry "T-shirt Contest", so as to differentiate it from all the tips mail we get from people unsuccessfully trying to unsubscribe, or misunderstanding how the search box works. Keep 'em coming!... >> 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 "'Eel' is my middle name" http://members.tripod.com/bhundlan/scripts/PlasticMan.txt 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. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com All communication is for publication, unless you beg. Press releases from naive PR people to pr@spesh.com Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material. 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