Need To Know 2000-05-26

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"British English and American English are EXTREMELY different. Considering that the assumption was that one version of each language was sufficient, problems cropped up and some of the perfectly normal British English stuff ended up being very offensive in the US." - TRISTAN LOUIS learns from his Boo time http://www.tnl.net/newsletter/2000/boobust.asp ...you know, we'd pay good money for those expressions, Boo >> HARD NEWS << blinking rules These days, we mainly we log on to Cix ("the nerds, the rebels, the cosmopolites" - (c) 1991 Howard Rheingold) when we don't have enough spam to read on our other mail accounts. This week, though, the place was... jumping. Well, as jumping as Cix gets: the pipe-smoking, free-thinking, and in their own words rather curmudgeonly raconteurs have been sent their new terms and conditions - and aren't pleased. Under their noses, Cix has nicked the right to reproduce any content posted to the conferencing system (or Website), forbade them from using any Cix trademarks (making a little tricky, for instance, to give out their cix.co.uk e-mail addresses), and promised to terminate their contract if they ever thought of violating the new terms and conditions. Now, if there's one thing that the average Cixen knows (apart from the wingspans of every post-war prop aircraft, which Radio 4 comedy shows are objectively amusing, and why you should not be wanting to do that with your shelf units), it's their consumer rights. Several million postings of a precise, discursive, and rivetingly pedantic nature later, the management relented. They have now - in true Cix fashion - set up a user committee to investigate the matter further. We await the next rip-roaring episode with ill-disguised glee. http://www.cix.co.uk/ - like the Well, but with the sex and drugs replaced with motorbicycling enthusiasts Changing the tone: Last week, we implied that the "Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?" piece at SMEG.CO.UK may have been based on a slightly better-known near-identical article from THE ONION. But, in an exceptional case of Life Imitating The Onion - Imitating The Onion - Smeg's editor revealed: "I'm afraid you are wrong! I actually wrote the original version 3 years ago - it caused quite a stir - quite unlike anything my friends had ever seen." Smeg joshes that the piece "travelled quite a distance by email" before the Onion "took it and changed several parts to make it 'sound' american", and says they're "currently in a legal battle with Ken Artis, their lawyers" - if you've seen anything pre-dating the Onion's version of October 1998, do get in touch, because Smeg have yet to provide us with any substantiating evidence or witnesses. In a tone entertainingly reminiscent of the "Why is this *keep* happening to me?" original, Smeg refers to "an increasing number of webmasters who [The Onion] have done this to" and believes "[The Onion] have also taken other items from our site" - including, presumably, the only other remotely funny piece on the Smeg page, the familiar-sounding "Ford introduce new instant-win airbag competition". http://www.smeg.co.uk/news3.htm - at least it's not - oh, our sides - an angry agony aunt! http://www.theonion.com/onion3013/airbag.html - published 1996-11-06 ("The Onion's Finest News Reporting") Finally, it's occasionally nice to hear from companies that take their security seriously. When NTK subscriber GEORGE WRIGHT heard from MONEYGATOR.COM that they had "the best Internet security in the world", he had every right to expect amazing things of them. Unfortunately, he'd already had his share of amazements - he'd just been telephoned out of the blue by a stranger, who told him "I've read your phone number on Moneygator.com. And your account numbers, bank, and mother's maiden name." Turns out that the registration form at Moneygator tended to preserve the data entered for a little longer than planned: long enough for the next user to read it. It's fixed now, says the CEO, (well, George reports him saying "we're pretty sure it's fixed"), and has reassured Mr Wright by telling him "when breaches like this happen, it makes the Internet safer". Absolutely: and when we stop hitting ourselves with this cricket bat, we're more comfortable too. http://www.moneygator.com/ - the scary thing is, we're probably giving them more publicity >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious premier BT ADSL site http://www.bt.com/adsl/ touts chief benefit as "CD-quality jazz from a radio station in Chicago" ... German lawyers say filtering out virus attachments at ISP level "punishable with up to two years imprisonment" ... TV doh from Look North http://www.ntk.net/2000/05/26/dohlooknorth.jpg ... that "unique blend of whispering and dove's coo" - Falco! http://www.sneeze.dircon.co.uk/cart.html ... press report Dando suspect is "Loner", "Freddie Mercury Oddball" ... poor BBC's MARK WARD says "I did ask the http://totl.net/Spud/ folks if it was fake and they said no", while the meticulously researched REGISTER sets itself up nicely: http://www.theregister.co.uk/000525-000013.html ... http://www.deuceofclubs.com/moj/mojave.htm - Falco!... CRAZYNET 2.0 - Falco! ... LOOKING GLASS - Falco! ... with "successes" like these: http://www.sun.co.uk/dot-com/ready/ready3_print.html ... cover of new BUSINESS 2.0 magazine looks exactly like AMIGA SHOPPER ... William Hill fix loophole; www.victorchandler.com still working! >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful In accordance with prophecy [NTK 1999-08-06 and most of October], BAFTA have been forced to ditch the "comedy" category award altogether, rather than give it to us. But there's still time to get your entries in for the equally corporate-sponsored (but rather less heavily contested, if you know what we mean) NET MEDIA EUROPEAN ONLINE JOURNALISM AWARDS (deadline 2000-05-31). Hilariously ironic categories include the "Netimperative Award for Best News Story" (what, them going bust, for instance?) and the "Shell Award for Best Investigative Reporting", while the judging panel features such luminaries as beardie Bill Thompson, Ben "Ed" Rooney (formerly of The Telegraph Connected), plus no less than *two* "Mike Brackens". Plus, they're simultaneously running an "Autistic Web Design Contest" (like there's any other kind), sponsored by Sega Dreamcast. Don't get your entries mixed up! http://www.bafta.org/bafta/5_ie/5_AWARDS_cat.htm - no, really, one of the judges told us that was why http://www.net-media.co.uk/eolja/judges.html - otherwise they'll just give them to each other. Again. http://www.ntk.net/2000/05/26/dohnetimp.gif - more banner advertomancy >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering What with ESR's religious-war-by-the-backdoor plans to make Kernel configuration dependent on Python, Tom Christiansen's slow descent into Kurtz-esque insanity on the perl5porters list and Segfault's recent revelation that all Perl core development is to end because Larry says "a language is syntactically complete when you find a use for every bit of the keyboard", it's not been a good Spring for Perl. But the camel has many humps, and if all else fails, the loyal mongers can alway hack up an escape route. Easing the transition to the promised land is LANGUAGE::BASIC, a new Perl module that provides complete emulation of the latest BASIC dialects - if your real time clock stopped around 1980, that is. Special features: ON... GOSUB and DEF FN. Free code to "Hunt the Wumpus" included! Let's go! http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Language-Basic - no RESTORE statement though. damn. http://www.segfault.org/story.phtml?mode=2&id=3905b40e-05c0a760 - oh, Perl's always funny >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista meta tags at http://www.sinclair-research.co.uk/ imply existence of "ZX 79" ... http://www.pumpgirls.com/ unlikely to cover "Sugar, Sugar" ... searching for "eyes only" on http://www.open.gov.uk/search/search.htm ... recognise anyone? YOURSELF? http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html ... rats on coke ... also, pretend it's a tricorder: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2000/May00/StarTrekPR.asp the "FIST OF FUN makes me *mad with power*" guy and E3: http://www.dailyradar.com/features/showbiz_feature_page_84_1.html the ill-advised http://www.postboo.com/ blacklist versus the genius of http://www.k10k.net/issues/issue073/ ... kill 'em with KLM: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_320000/320576.stm >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> apart from the BUFFY vs "Adam" season finale on Sky (8pm, Sky1, Fri & Sun), a god-awful selection on the Bank Holiday, with potential "highlights" restricted to the "skeet surfing" sequence near the start of Abrahams/ Zucker/ Zucker WW2 spoof TOP SECRET (11.50pm, Sun, BBC1)... two blokes on a sofa, talking - the radical premise for BADDIEL AND SKINNER UNPLANNED (10.30pm, Sun-Wed, ITV) - Skinner presumably won't be emulating his live BBC1 show by spoofing the show that comes before, in this case Daniela Nardini's hard-hitting military rape drama, "Rough Treatment"... while THE DAY THE WORLD TOOK OFF (8pm, Sun, C4) promises a "fresh look at the Industrial Revolution"... BBC MUSIC LIVE (all day, Mon, BBC1 & 2) proposes the terrifying prospect of televised toddlers banging tin trays across the land... Ralph Fiennes whistle- blower QUIZ SHOW (10.10pm, Mon, BBC2) harks back to a pre-"Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" era of more diligent contestant- vetting ... Sharon Stone CCTVer SLIVER (10.30pm, Mon, BBC1) features a murderous C programmer... and the makers of "TFI Friday" set a dangerous precedent for the TV spin-off of class-tourism gangster fetishisation LOCK, STOCK, ETC (9pm, Mon, C4) by subtitling the first one "And Four Stolen Hooves" - can't wait for "Lock, Stock, And The Twenty Rings Of Mordor"... CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT (8.30pm, Tue, C4) revels in "Why Don't You?" irony by making its first deprivation TV itself... the director's cut of TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (9.30pm, Wed, BBC1) gets its second outing in about six months... while, combining Robot Wars with The Great Egg Race, we'd like to see the Medieval trebuchet-constructors in MYSTERIES OF LOST EMPIRES (9pm, Thu, C4) take on the ill-armed castaways of ROUGH SCIENCE (7.30pm, Fri, BBC2)... FILM>> the makers of Adam Sandler's "Big Daddy" reshoot "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" in post-Farrelly bad-taste feel-gooder DEUCE BIGALOW: MALE GIGOLO (imdb: aquarium), with former Judge Dredd sidekick "man-whore" Rob Schneider poking affectionate fun at amputees, Tourette's syndrome, the blind etc... STIR OF ECHOES (imdb: bagpipe / murder / independent-film / ghost / hypnotism) attempts to mesmerise viewers into enjoying a grown-up Kevin Bacon remake of "The Sixth Sense"... three- quarters of "All Saints" contribute to half-baked sub-Austin Powers '60s crime caper HONEST (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : passed '18' for infrequent strong sex and drug use, and occasional strong violence) - directed by the multi-talented Dave "Hackers" Stewart, though we'd rather find out what happened to his previously web-touted sitcom collaboration with Carrie Fisher, set in a "nail salon"... and, bizarrely, it's not Anna Friel examining her armpit on the poster for limited-release arthouse French-a-thon GIRL ON THE BRIDGE (imdb: suicide-attempt / gambling / knife-thrower) but her Gallic '90s sex-kitten equivalent, Vanessa Paradis... FERROUS PARTICLES' DAY OFF>> our irregular soundalike music slot returns next week - get your "uncanny resemblances" in now - but for the moment, a special one-off bootleg report from DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION AND THE MUSIC INDUSTRY at Olympia earlier this week, in the company of NTK's fully anonymous correspondent... PAUL SCHATZKIN (CEO, songs.com) admits he owns an illegal Alanis Morrissette MP3, provoking heckle of the day(from myself): "That's Ironic!"... SCOTT MOSKOWITZ (Blue Spike geezer and top SDMI encryption dude) gets starstruck on his panel (Security of Digital Distribution or some such arse) and piles on the rhetoric. "Music should be free!" he opines, and then comes a cropper when some geek in the audience asks him about Blue Spike's open source policy - or lack of one... several execs are reported leaving the building with "tears in their eyes" after being "thrown to the lions" on their panels... no such shame for one executive from [a major TV production company] who admits she knows nothing about the music or internet industries. Over canapes she surprises everyone at the table by turning to me and asking "What's a Napster?" Audible coughs and raised eyebrows all round - I smile calmly and tell her it's a major e-commerce site. No-one says anything... there is, of course, a "no recording" embargo during FRANK "METALLICA" HALL'S speech - annoyingly, as he was excellent. If you're going to be a webmaster, (and presumably, some people have to be), then you may as well have the added advantage of being a 50 year-old, Irish ex-squaddie... extended metaphor of the show came from JIM GRIFFIN (Evolab and "Internet Guru"), who recommends that future business models should "feminise" their thinking. He likens the current way we sell CDs as a violating, penetrative experience and says we're only interested in "the fuck" (I'm paraphrasing here). What we should be doing is modelling ourselves more on Amazon, where it is the relationship after the fuck that is more important than the fuck itself. Griffin wants to cut off our dicks!... at this, Iain Lawson of Universal Music UK audibly snorts and crosses his legs. Don't expect any change in Universal's blanket ban on video streaming any time soon... >> 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 very very late 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 "pii!" http://pikachize.eye-of-newt.com/pika.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ntk.net 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 Press releases from naive PR people to pr@spesh.com Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material. Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.