Need To Know 2000-11-10

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"Leading shares held firmer ground on Wednesday with drugs providing the impetus on hopes Republican George W. Bush would finally win through in the closest U.S. presidential election for decades." - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/001108/80/aoivo.html ...and it wouldn't be the first time... >> HARD NEWS << somewhat confused As US democracy stumbles, wouldn't it be great if the two opposing sides could forget their mutual antagonism, and find someone else to take the blame? Well, let's see: incomprehensible instructions, an installation process that takes forever and then ends up hanging... the accusing finger of history points to at least one obvious target. Your first conspiracy clue: Florida was one of the first states to toy with an online voting system this year. Not a big deal - only 300 or so military guinea-pigs. Of course, now they're a potentially presidential three hundred, some people are reading rather more into it- especially GENE GAINE, who puts this together with the factlet that Melinda and Bill recently gave $5 million to the state of Florida. And that the online system ran on Windows. And that Gates, of course, would stand to profit from a Bush presidency. My God! How could we have been so blind? http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A1=ind0011&L=foi-l#35 - Blame Microsoft! http://www.plaidder.com/florida.htm - Blame somebody! http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/blueblank.html - what's this? the blue screen of electoral death? http://www.nielsen2004.com/ - one way to stop this happening again And it's not as if you can run away to the cinema to escape from reality. Even this week's US release of "Charlie's Angels" is scattered with psychic Microsoft bleed-through. There's Tim Curry doing a Larry Ellison cameo (although he sadly neglects to pout "I see you shiver with database normali...sation" at any point), and a plot that revolves around an awkward billionaire programmer whose source code - the "blueprint", you will recall, of "all computer software" - gets nicked by his enemies. Admittedly, instead of infilitrating a trojan into the company LAN, they mug him in a carpark and steal the code from his back pocket: but still, spooky prescience or what? Slightly less subtle is the upcoming thriller featuring Tim Robbins as another Seattle billionaire programmer with monomaniacal tendencies. The film is called "Antitrust". Its stealth site features an interview with Jon "Maddog" Hall. Its forums are full of astroturf open-source bait ("I agree with everything", writes one suspiciously keen webmail account-holder). What the hell *is* this? Does somebody think the slashdot effect works for box office too? http://www.mgm.com/antitrust/special/special.html - all in Sorenson QuickTime. Sigh. And just when we'd completely lost the ability to separate fantasy and reality, the REGISTER chips in with a report that the BSA are now claiming that they have "pirate software detector vans". Laughable, the Register wisely insist. But hold on: don't our files show a Microsoft-sponsored Ross Anderson spec for an eerily-similar anti-piracy detector van two years ago? Could this be true? Did we hear someone put out Netscape 6 without telling anyone? Did a major anti-RIP protestor admit to us that they were once interviewed for a job with GCHQ? Are we losing our minds? http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/14562.html - BSA indulge in weird propaganda, check http://www.ntk.net/?back=a98/now0213.txt&line=55#l - MS anti-piracy vans, check http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/10/052256&mode=nested - mysterious NS 6.0 appearence, check. Now, what was the other one? >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious http://www.playworks.net.au/newweb/ "best viewed at 800 x 600 D.P.I." - though isn't everything?... one dot.com living the ATTACHMENTS dream (left column): http://www.londonforum.co.uk/ ... DAPHNE AND CELESTE T-shirt competition entries continue to flood in: http://www.ntk.net/2000/11/10/dohdaph2.gif ... re: NTK 2000-08-04's "uh-oh" theory: http://www.modo.net - FALCO! http://www.foodoo.com - FALCO!... "THE MAN" beaten at last: http://www.theman.com/ ... just click the goddamn button: http://www.quios.com/registration/terms.tmpl ... US company lumps Labour-governed UK in with other ex-communist nations: http://www.3com.com/global/world/uk.html ... "Least useful sites on web? Personal webpages", quips over-modest BOO CEO: http://www.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,3605,393278,00.html - still, they *could* have called Boo http://www.twa.at ... "It is not permitted to use this service to send [...] sexual, racist, discriminatory or defamatory content to anyone who might consider such content to be offensive" - slightly self- defeating Terms and Conditions of SMS RANDOM INSULT GENERATOR: http://www.xtremetxt.com/toyz/insultgen/sms/... bad journo! "No free lunch" says EVA PASCOE, in need of unmetered clue: http://195.92.21.98/news/Digital/Columnists/2000-10/pascoe301000.shtml >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Yes, we were wandering round Westminster in the rain on Sunday, vainly searching for the advertised "Setting Fire To Giant Diana Car-Crash Paintings", and gradually reaching the conclusion: "Hang on, wasn't this the same controversy- confronting KLF who postponed their 23-minute Barbican gig when it coincided with Diana's demise, citing 'the mood of the nation' or some such nonsense?" God knows what they thought they were playing at (though, in retrospect the vague directions to "The Palaces of Buckingham and Westminster" might have tipped us off that something was amiss). Oh yeah, this week. As previously advertised, it's a McSweeney's- special WORDS @ THE ICA this Sat (for those of you who don't yet consider the printed word a "Victorian affectation"), plus LIVING WITH THE RIP BILL (for journalists) at the ICA on Thu, while Ross Anderson seems to be taking the show on tour with a similarly titled seminar in Cambridge on Tue - for adepts uncomfortable with the ICA's proximity to the Buckingham Palace/ Admiralty Arch "Dragon Line". http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/Security/seminars/2000/2000-11-14.html - RSVP to Ross on this one, in case he needs a "bigger room" http://www.courseleader.com/about/press/mediaforum.asp - yes, it is Richard "LocoScript for the Amstrad PCW" Clayton http://www.ica.org.uk/performance/113806/ - of course, there's plenty of other reasons to avoid the ICA http://www.ntk.net/2000/11/03/krash.gif - "gunpowder, treason and plot" postponed, due to rain >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Always scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr Freshmeat? With the Cambrian Linux explosion of buggy IRC clients, punning (G)N(.*)pster clones, half-finished Perl modules, and window managers written in stackless Haskell for JPython, it's sometimes a relief to turn back to the crystalline certainties of WINDOWS. No such frenzy there: just people lounging around on pouffes, idly waiting for the next Explorer update. Look at what we're reduced to plugging: POWERARCHIVER for Windows, a free compression/decompression utility. Slim, handles most file formats (from ZIP to CAB and JAR, via those warez stalwarts, RAR and ACE), freer than WinZip's nagware and, yes, calm down ladies, it's skinnable. Only question is: what's left to zip? Your Powerpoint slide collection? http://www.powerarchiver.com/ - if computers are tools, why is it me who feels used? >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista BNP poet strikes again: http://www.fuel-protest.com/poem.html - could take a few lessons in rhyming and scansion from http://tv.cream.org/buchan/pika_ryhmes.html ... media baffled by motives of DOME DIAMOND THIEVES - unaware of possible application in building orbital laser platform to hold the world to ransom. Or it's the start of the publicity campaign for the TOMB RAIDER film... *someone* still developing for DREAMCAST: http://kinox.org/articles/linuxdc.html ... still not too late to set up "everyone-hates-that-nerve-show.com": http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001109/en/television-nerve_1.html faintly evocative of REALDOLL FAQ: http://www.distefano.com/ ... so, is it the MacOS "Ralph" voice - or HOWARD RHEINGOLD?: http://www.salon.com/audio/nonfiction/2000/10/27/rheingold2/ ... "I don't normally write in to EASTENDERS fan sites, but": http://www.punternet.com/reports/6210.html ... poor SHIELDING: http://java.sun.com/products/midp/images/space_invaders.jpg ... hard-hitting FLASH critique of workplace drug-testing: http://www.somethingawful.com/taco/animations/urine.html (vs http://www.bbc.co.uk/entertainment/sickboy1.html )... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> the opening of amusing Stallone/ Bullock future satire DEMOLITION MAN (9pm, Fri, ITV) is apparently a shot-for-shot homage to Burton's "Batman" - Stallone returns on Sunday in STOP OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT (2.50pm, Sun, BBC1)... let's face it, TRIGGER HAPPY TV (9.30pm, C4, Fri, rpt) wasn't that funny the first time... and BBC2 tells the real story behind "The Great Escape" in THE WAR BEHIND THE WIRE (9pm, Fri, BBC2) - after this and the docu about Hitler's actual search for the Ark Of The Covenant, they should soon get round to the real- life events and personalities dramatised in the WW2 film "Kelly's Heroes"... a good week for action-trash fans, with Arnie as CONAN THE BARBARIAN (10.35pm, Sat, ITV)... the usual Saturday night hilarity on C5, culminating in Woody Allen's fey Mia Farrow-vehicle ALICE (12.40am, Sat, C5)... Ray "Darth Maul" Park standing in for Rayden, in techno beat-em-up sequel MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION (9pm, Tue, C5)... and 1970s Speedball-inspiring pretentious but likeable ROLLERBALL (9pm, Sat, BBC2)... C4's brief, 4-hour WHO'LL SAVE AFRICA season (from 8pm, Sun, C4) seems perilously close to attributing many of the continent's problems to systematic first-world exploitation, or something... Chris Carter reveals his "sources of inspiration" - ie: alt.conspiracy? - in X FILES NIGHT (9.15pm, Sun, BBC2)... thanks to last week's Jim Cameron fan page http://www.wimpyjesus.com/cameron/love.htm , we now know that "The Terminator" is a "better love story" than THE ENGLISH PATIENT (9pm, Sun, C4)... while the star of EARTHQUAKE IN NEW YORK (9pm, Sun, C5) is former host of "When Things Tumble Over, Spill Or Fall Out Of Cupboards" - Greg Evigan!... Rob "Marion And Geoff" Brydon and Julia "Jam" Davis team up - at last! - in docusoap-spoof HUMAN REMAINS (10pm, Mon, BBC2) ... Bill Murray still the only man to have managed a funny remake of a French film in QUICK CHANGE (9pm, Wed, C4)... Donald Sutherland - who else? - leads Heinlein's original Bodysnatchers-adaptation THE PUPPET MASTERS (11.30pm, Wed, ITV)... and THAT THING (9.50pm, Thu, BBC2) gives a free 10- minute ad to Playstation 2 - admittedly, about as close as most of us will get this year to actually owning one... FILM>> last issue, our enthusiasm to tell the world about George W Bush's secret Illuminati past meant we failed to double-check the IMDB's "Opening this week" selection - in fact, both "The Skulls" and "Lost Souls" aren't out for ages (which, far from undermining our "-owl, -er" theory, actually backs it up!)... this week, it's the turn of the end-phonemes "-ck" and "-d", with "-ck" having the edge in a movie which meets *all* our criteria for a cinema trip: a) it's science fiction; b) it features Catherine O'Brien from "Neighbours" ( http://ezthemes.iboost.com/previews/radha_mitchell.jpg ) and the English-accent chick from "Farscape"; c) brutal non-stop special-effects violence; and d) it's quite dark, so you can't always see what's happening on low-contrast pirate VHS or VCDs - as hinted by the title PITCH BLA-CK (http://www.capalert.com : massively vulgar and invasive ignominy; animals eating human flesh and ripping bodies apart, leaving only the bones; a distinct and inescapable [lack] of presence of programming to form the viewer's grasp of faith and God)... or take your childhood-obsessed weird former schoolfriend - unless, of course, you *are* a childhood-obsessed weird former schoolfriend - to naturalistic awkwardness comedy CHUCK AND BU-CK (imdb: independent-film / man-child / mother-son / play- within-play / actor / shot-on-video / stalker / wedding / arrested-development / childhood-friend / flashback / funeral / gay)... there's a more conventional take on age-regression when the "dead person" Bruce Willis' latest young co-star can see is: his own future self! - in grown-up feelgood fairy-tale DISNEY'S THE KI-D (http://www.capalert.com : adolescent arrogance against authority; talk of "seeing your mother naked"; "supernatural powers" of time displacement - but nothing evil or sinister [part of an extraordinary digression on religious relativity])... Harold "Egon Spengler" Ramis crosses the streams of supernatural comedy once again, in sketchy Liz Hurley remake BEDAZZLE-D (http://www.capalert.com : sucking kissing; sex bar; brief crotch nudity - female; calling on God and getting Satan; woman claiming to be Satan; glorification of Satan; mockery of God, holiness, Salvation; never are we to tempt or challenge Satan for any reason)... while Mark Wahlberg continues wallowing in the criminal demi- monde, battling to save imperial measurements from metrication in THE YAR-DS (http://www.cndb.com : nude appearances by Joaquin Phoenix and Charlize Theron - bafflingly, playing a character called "Erica Stoltz" - though no specifics on how this compares with the golden age of Theron-nudity classics like Two Days In The Valley and Cider House Blues)... AD MUSIC FROM SIX PEOPLE>> yes, we were a bit harsh on Tom Standage's idea [NTK 2000-10-13] of spotting tunes in TV ads that sound unmistakably like - but not quite the same as - more well-known songs, but that was before we remembered thinking that JMC's "Unwrapping The Package Holiday" campaign sounded like it really wanted to be "Smokebelch" by The Sabres Of Paradise, as actually used nowadays by Vodafone... TIM BANNISTER agreed that "the recent IBM advert for their Thinkpad T20 would sound a lot better if they'd actually used Iggy Pop's 'The Passenger', rather than something that just sounds like it ought to sound similar"... while STU BRUISE maintained Tom's original brand-awareness vagueness, citing "the cosmetics one with the Air 'All I Need' rip-off and the nappies one with the Jean-Jacques Perry soundalike"... also, thanks to everyone who noted that Asda were using the instrumental riff from TOUCH AND GO's "Would You (Like To Go To Bed With Me)" to promote their "George" range of back-to- schoolwear, though that's not quite the same thing... in other pop news, WINDY MILLER belatedly inquired "Is it just me, or does 'Kids' by Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue sound a lot like 'Opposites Attract' by Paula Abdul? I'm just wondering whether [the video] features a cartoon cat." Well, it didn't - though we'd always assumed the whole song was a deliberate hybridisation of every male/female duet ever: the line "Notify your next of kin/ you're never coming back" being a clear allusion to "Want to tell my daddy/ I'll be missing in action" from Meat Loaf and Cher's "Dead Ringer For Love"... pausing only to ponder "is Radiohead's 'Kid A' album named after one of the James Bulger defendants?", ADRIAN MOULDER suggested we combined our interests in lyrical parodies and the Cthulhu mythos with "this 30-year old magistrate from Singapore: http://www.khaosworks.org/filk/ who specialises in Lovecraft- themed filk based around ABBA songs", adding "the MP3s of some of his serious stuff - like 'Fanboy Soul' - aren't bad either"... and finally, STEPHEN HEWITT outed The Offspring's "The Kids Aren't Alright" for bearing "a striking similarity" to Belle And Sebastian's "String Bean Jean" - "well for the first ten seconds anyway", before concluding "of course Shampoo [NTK 2000-09-08] invented girl power, at one point they were among the top 100 richest women in the country - those crazy Japanese pop kids ensuring Carrie and Jacqui would never want for bubblegum pink lipgloss again"... in the absence of any new Shampoo material, however (and the new Fatboy Slim album turning out to be rubbish), fans might have to make do with new Atari Teenage Riot protegee, LOLITA STORM, whose debut long-player, at about 1:30 per track, makes perfect Napster fodder with such life-affirming anthems as "Hot Lips, Wet Pants", "I Luv Speed", "You Make Me High When You Go Down Low", and "Anthea Turner's Tears", featuring the line: "by means fair or foul / like fucking Peter Powell"... >> 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 "fixed in CVS" http://x57.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=676235353 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. Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.