"The bottom line is that I feel really good about it. Here I
was taking big chances, breaking a new genre."
- JOHN TRAVOLTA, on further man-animal torturing BATTLEFIELD EARTH sequels
... breaking it beyond repair, I should add
>> HARD NEWS <<
patterns of abuse
So, what is going on at Demon? Their flat-rate Surftime
service delayed from its launch on October 9th, the network
fritzed from Friday 13th through most of the weekend, and
even the stoutest Demon defenders on the newsfroups letting
out the occasional gripe that things ain't what they used to
be. We'd pay no heed to RICHARD TIBBETTS'S theory on
demon.service that the troubles were caused by "a group of
terrorists [who] have barricaded themselves inside demon
towers with all the ... techies as hostages". Except...
there *do* seem to be a bunch of people camped outside,
compound-style, Demon's Park Royal facilities centre.
*They* say they're Gypsies - but do they mean Roma, or just
legal representatives of Gipsy Media, the most recent
company to besiege Demon to silence its own subscribers? And
what of that latest resignation note from a Thus senior
employee? His all@demon message said that the company
"wallows in its present circumstances and ... continually
shoot[s] itself in the foot" because of poor communication
and tribalism, and that if it carries on, "we may as well
give Energis a bargain and sell out now". Senior management
having a touch of the truth? Nah. Must be the gypsies' fault
after all.
http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=680197567
http://www.meejahor.com/article.phtml?id=10
- Gypsy rights, USENET wrongs
http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/n/t/thus.l.html
- Yahoo having problems with that "Thus" name, too
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/paradigm.htm
- the first Distributed Nation, btw
You'd think with 41 states to pick its experts from, the
Council Of Europe wouldn't have fscked up its "Cybercrime
Convention" a *second* time. But even with the help of the
US and Canada (expecting to get a nice G8 world treaty out
of it), they still managed it. Not only does the doc still
forbid the distribution of "illegal devices" for the
purposes of illicit access to computer systems, the
convention now allows for extradition under those
over-general terms too. That means that Alec Muffet/ Ross
Anderson/ your favourite DeCSS/CueCat hacker could be hauled
off in irons to the ice-pits of the Northwest Territories.
Readers abroad who shrugged over RIP will be pleased to know
that the proposals also internationalise government access
to keys or, hell, any "necessary data" held on a computer.
Article 10 makes copyright infringement a criminal offence
worldwide, no excuses. Oh, and ISPs will be obliged to
collect and store information on their subscribers - despite
that information being used in the past "to identify
dissidents and persecute minorities", as the Global Internet
Liberty Campaign's protest letter has it. Final version is
due in December. God help us all.
http://www.ntk.net/cybercrime/
- the Convention, originally a Word document. Quelle surprise.
http://www.gilc.org/privacy/coe-letter-1000.html
- Dear COE, are you insane? Love, everyone else.
http://www.securityfocus.com/commentary/98
- David Banisar, the Nader of Privacy, comments
http://www.coe.fr/eng/std/states.htm
- there goes Bulgaria's IT industry
There are those of us still sufficiently traumatised by the
WIRED UK "unpleasantness" to be a little wary of the launch of
INDUSTRY STANDARD EUROPE (out today, UKP1.95, handed out free
in some London railway stations). UK/Europe-oriented version
of runaway US success? Check. Staffed by the cream of British
new-media journos, a Wired UK designer, and headed by John
Battelle? Check. Until recently based in the "cursed offices"
at 20 Soho Square, still haunted by the restless spirits of
Virgins .com and .net? Check, check, check! When we put this
to them, they were quick enough to come back with the Hegel/
Marx quote about history repeating itself "the first time as
tragedy, the second as farce", so we wish them luck with
their in-flight-magazine-accessible first issue - especially
if the rumours are true that it coincides with a decreased
availability through major news outlets of, shall we say, some
of the less exciting-looking "new economy" magazines.
http://www.thestandard.com/about/learn/company/bios
- and is it just us, or is this JB looking more and more...
http://www.neweconomywatch.com/bios.htm
- ...like his old Wired UK pal, JOHN BROWNING?
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
ABC fail to heed our Illuminati puppet-masters' press embargo:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20001012_1018.html
... otherwise another "quiet week" - in national news,
business news, LEEDS NEWS: http://www.yourleeds.com/news/ ...
UrbanFetch FALCO, BagsOfTime FALCO, http://www.koobuycity.com/
"moving to larger premises in order to better satisfy
londoners expectation!" [sic]... evidently Wizard Of Oz fans:
http://www.365proaudio.com/breakingnews/liquidaudio.htm ...
"Most annoying aspect of going online with a modem?" It's not
the huge dial-up charges or even slow data rates, reveals BT
OPENWORLD, but http://www.ntk.net/2000/10/20/dohopen.jpg ...
because of http://www.zpok.demon.co.uk/lame/plt001.html -
http://www.downside.com/deathwatch.html ... outside: now:
http://signwave.co.uk/photos/view.cgi?foto=db/misc/urgency.gif
... "Do you limit any types of Internet activity? No", says
http://www.libertysurf.co.uk/sections/help/faq.html?id=31 -
forgetting "Yes - staying on longer than we like you to"...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
goto's considered non-harmful
Thanks to the lone tipster who alerted us that next
Thursday's BAFTA INTERACTIVE AWARDS (2000-10-26, London)
promise to be "predictably crap - especially in the console
game nominees, two of which [READY 2 RUMBLE BOXING: ROUND 2
and TIMESPLITTERS - both for PS2] are yet to be released and
one of which [MEDIEVIL II, presumably] is utterly shit". The
METAPOD people asked us nicely if we could mention "the
first major festival celebrating innovation in the UK's
creative industries" (from today, various venues, the West
Midlands), though we're sadly unable to endorse it further,
due to the presences of Warp Records, Richard "Hypermedia"
Barbrook, Sadie "Cyberfeminism on Drugs" Plant, and
showcases like "the PDFheaven project, launched this year by
protova.com to showcase innovative uses of Adobe's Acrobat
format".
http://www.metapod.com/expo
- yeah, we could think of an "innovative use" or two for it
http://www.bafta.org/bafta/5_ie/5_NOMINATIONS_2000.htm#console
- no "comedy" category any more; just "moving images", "sound"
It's APACHECON 2000 EUROPE at London's Olympia from 2000-10-
23, from UKP350 per day; it's free to see Philip Greenspun
at a secret London location tonight (though probably too
late to register, 'cos ArsDigita never tell us about these
things early enough); and the cyber-enhanced exoskeletal
gloves come off on Tuesday night at Reading University,
where a Kevin- dissenter from the Cybernetics Dept, Dr Mark
Bishop, attempts to foster a healthy debate over the
imminent robotic takeover, in a talk entitled "Dancing with
Pixies: Strong Artificial Intelligence and Panpsychism". His
argument seems to be that non-biological systems (bricks,
cups of tea) can't possess human-style consciousness,
bizarrely concluding that this somehow makes them *less* of
a threat to humanity, not more!
http://www.kevinwarwick.org.uk/index.html#event
- nothing dangerous about a non-sentient bulldozer, is there?
http://www.arsdigita.com/events/event-info?event_id=2010
- white-water team-building may go on until after 10.30pm
http://apachecon.com/2000/EU/
- Olympia Conference Center, right next to Big Ben...
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
NANOLOOP is a high-alcohol homebrew cartridge for the
Gameboy that turns the 'boy into a techno synthesiser.
It's built by German students at the University of Hamburg,
and in some very deep way, the music it generates seems to
reflect that. The interface is broadly unfathomable, and the
samples are generated by torturing the Gameboy's onboard
sound chip, so there's a charming air of Sonic on E to the
whole enterprise. 70USD gets you the cart direct from
Hamburg, but supplies are limited. Also included: a manual
that first-adopter Adrian Ward describes as having been "run
through babelfish twice", and schematics to build your own
MIDI interface. Makes our copy of Beatpad for the Palm look
a bit shit. Makes your whole former life look shit, too.
http://www.nanoloop.com/
- Classic has "more 'warm' and balanced sound characteristics than Color"
http://stub.org/uploads/nanoloop.mp3
- Ade's work-in-progress
http://www.5thwall.com/minimusic/
- excuse music journo exaggeration: Beatpad's cool too
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
when oh *when* will the public tire of homoerotic EMINEM
parodies?: http://www.soundbreak.com/events/thompson/index.php
... fuelling rumours about the "special sauce" of RONALD
MCDONALD: http://www.ntk.net/2000/10/13/harley-spunk.jpg ...
now, a vote for Hank, The Angry Drunken Dwarf is a *wasted*
vote: http://www.silicon.com/142e-envoy/home.htm - but not one
for CASPER BOWDEN... like that ATARI pop video, but in Flash!:
http://www.kaizolabs.com/captainlowrez/episode1.html ...
PETER "HATE" BAGGE belligerently resists whole animated point:
http://www.adobe.com/motion/features/shutins/ ... make FSCK
fun: http://www.movement.uklinux.net/fscktris/fscktris.html
... if 20 is true, it's hardly "the end of the world", is it?
http://www.discover.com/oct_00/featworld.html ... DOMAIN worth
more than house? http://www.mbr.com/ ... BRASS EYE e-commerce:
http://www.bestbuy.com/detail.asp?e=11000813&m=1&cat=38&scat=39
... keep KEVIN away from http://216.247.9.207/ny-best.htm ...
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
the less blasphemous www.tvgohome.com
TV>> assuming you get this in time, another good ANGEL this
week, spoofing zany West Coast political correctness (5.25pm,
Fri, C4).. a FRIENDS double-bill (9pm, Fri, C4) visits some
sort of parallel universe/ alternate reality - we always *did*
get those two confused... momentum-unconserving Arnie actioner
ERASER (9pm, Fri, ITV) was last shown October 23 last year...
and, after reader "Dunc" wrote in last week complaining that
"Highlander II" is "much, much worse" than we suggested, we
dread to think how badly he'll take the prospect of HIGHLANDER
III: THE SORCERER (11.05pm, Fri, BBC1), followed by Harry
Knowles-endorsed sci-fi camp SPACE TRUCKERS (12.40am, Fri,
BBC1) - alien terminator robots, apparently with ballerinas
inside... lame movie weekend continues with tediously '50s
"Mars Attacks" inspiration INVADERS FROM MARS (12.45am, Sat,
BBC1)... WITNESS (8pm, Sun, C4) popularises some nutbar who
claims she can photosynthesise, not eat... things pick up with
Queen Amidala's work-experience assassin classic LEON (10pm,
Sun, C4)... plus Kevin Costner's celebration of bad golfing
sportsmanship, TIN CUP (10.35pm, Mon, BBC1)... while, despite
its title, C5's MR PERVERT OBE (11pm, Sun, C5) turns out to be
a documentary about a headmaster who abused his pupils, not a
1970s sex comedy... clearly nothing cynical about the cross-
gender appeal of women's health docu BREASTS UNCUPPED (9pm,
Sun, Sky1) or product redesign makeover BRAND NEW BRA (9pm,
Tue, C4)... the "Gone In 60 Seconds" team of Nic Cage, Jerry
Bruckheimer and Scott Rosenberg exceed their baggage allowance
by packing way too much into CON AIR (9pm, Tue, C5)... and,
after last week's "Robocop", Wednesday night is Verhoeven
night again on C5, with Wayne "Newman from Seinfeld" Knight's
finest moment - and some other stuff - in BASIC INSTINCT
(10.15pm, Wed, C5)...
FILM>> a bumper week for scantily-clad women advocating some
sort of vague feminist message - a concept we just can't get
enough of - and the clever money is on Kristin "Jumanji, Drop
Dead Gorgeous" Dunst and Eliza "Faith from Buffy, True Lies"
Dushku's sassy cheerleaders in high-school bitch-fest BRING IT
ON (imdb: bloopers-during-credits/ championship / high-school
/ plagiarism / teen / flatulence / cheerleader / cheerleading
/ competition / dance / ethics / football / gymnastic) - yes,
even versus Jerry Bruckheimer's resolutely '90s-soundtracked
"Flashdance" remake COYOTE UGLY (http://www.cndb.com : "no
nudity [...] The only scene that was mildy exciting was when
the girls jump on the bar and pour pitchers of water on each
other [...] John Goodman has larger breasts than any of the
girls")... Ford, Pfeiffer and Robert "Back To The Future"
Zemeckis competently resurrect the ailing genre of teen-free
horror in WHAT LIES BENEATH (http://www.capalert.com : face
underwater; terror startles; licking kissing; numerous
paranormal forces manifesting in inanimate objects; nude woman
in tub, more than once - gender-specific areas not seen)... we
thought Christopher Nolan's low-budget "Following" debut was
overrated; this time, the gimmick in MEMENTO (imdb: amnesia /
independent-film / murder) is dense anterograde amnesia,
consistent with damage to area CA1 of the hippocampus. Also,
it's got Carrie-Anne "The Matrix" Moss in it... while it's
Jonathan Lipnicki, Richard E Grant - together at last! - in
THE LITTLE VAMPIRE (http://slashgoth.org/stories.php?story=81
: "really enjoyed it [...] flying cows [...] [based on] two
children's TV series. One from the US in the '80s and one I
believe from Germany in the early '90s")...
BONERS/INCORRECTLY REGARDED AS GOOFS>> someone from GRANADA
MEDIA, makers of SWAP TEAM [last week's issue], mailed to say
they'd "checked their records" and no SwapItShop ad was shown
in the half-time ad-break on Saturday 2000-10-07. In that
case, we're wrong - it must have been in the ad-break just
*before* the show, as was the case on Sat 2000-10-14, when the
ad newly invited viewers to collect tokens from packets of
Wotsits, the sponsors of the programme. We'll get you, SWAP
TEAM!... also from last week, an anonymous tipster proclaimed
http://darryn-reeds.tripod.com/S-Club-7-secrets.html "even
more evil - for attempting to install the Comet Cursor trojan
spyware thingie", while STEVE THORNTON admired "the FALCOed
brilliance" of http://uk.clust.com/consent.asp , revelling in
"the worst 'use policy' I've ever seen: 'I want my address to
be sold to spammers' checkboxes scattered throughout, some
meaning 'yes', some 'no', then a broken script to finish it
off"... going back a while now (to clear a backlog of goofs
you've probably already forgotten we made), the BBC's LIZZIE
JACKSON shot down our - admittedly speculative - story about
the BBC considering Napster-enabled "Post-@" as a chat client
[NTK 2000-08-25], pointing out that "[the BBC] regularly look
at all kinds of software as all companies do, to perform all
kinds of functions," though, no doubt to the disappointment of
license-payers everywhere, "- one we wouldn't incorporate is
file-swapping"... ELLIOT NOEL asserted that Japanese death-by-
video movie "Ring" [NTK 2000-08-18] "wasn't really 'renamed'"
from the original title, "Ringu", because "there's just no
straight consonant 'ng' in Japanese. There is a consonant 'n'
symbol, but no 'ng' symbol, so the closest phonetic Japanese
approximation to 'ring' is 'ri-n-gu'". Apparently, similar
effects cause no end of hilarity if you try to explain the
(phonetic) difference between "wind" and "window" to Japanese
exchange students, as both map to "wi-n-do"... opening what we
fear is a none-too-fresh can of worms, ED AVIS queried our
caption to http://www.ntk.net/2000/07/14/dohtrain.jpg, arguing
"That's not a BBC Micro, which would say 'BBC Microcomputer
32K' or something similar. The 'Acorn MOS' message means it
must be some kind of Master or maybe a B+". Like Railtrack
don't have enough problems already... and finally, regular
pedant PAUL BLEZ made a bid for "World's Most Unhelpful Proof-
Reader" when he coyly announced: "There was another big typo
at the end of [an unspecified issue of?] NTK which I can't be
bothered to find!". Thanks Paul, that ought to do it...
>> 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
"a rather inelastic product."
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-8219/1/1
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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