Need To Know 2001-05-18

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"The Genius, like the other store sales staff, is not your typical retail employee, Johnson emphasized. The workers must have 'Apple-Mac in their bones,' a 'sincere service orientation' and 'interesting hobbies,' he said." - RON JOHNSON, on Apple's bid to be the swanky, unprofitable Dixons http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-5938890.html ...SIMON QUINLANK, KING OF MACINTOSH >> HARD NEWS << postage due Back into the Useless Net Awards season - tellingly muted this year, as sponsors, nominees, and award-giving bodies pray to remain solvent until the ceremonies. Especially quiet this year is NEW MEDIA AGE, whose effectiveness awards have been made a bit less effective by that 78UKP fee, it seems. A battered LESLIE BUNDER protested on UKNM that not only did they not tell him he wasn't nominated, they're not telling *anyone* who the shortlists are, because "the judges felt ... that some of the entries were very weak and that having a shortlist in advance will give away who the winners are". But we all know on the Internet, information wants to be free (or at the very least, a bit bloody cheaper than 78UKP). Have you been nominated by NEW MEDIA AGE? Let us know, and we'll publish the full list ourselves, dammit. And if it's as obvious as they say, we'll give out the awards early too. Then you can ask for your money back... http://www.nma.co.uk/ - it's probably here *somewhere* http://www.bunderlife.com/ - Leslie, of course, provides value for money While we whine and gripe, others go off and do. Or moan and gripe at the right people, anyway. JASON KITCAT, disturbed as we by GATEWAY.GOV.UK's Unix-hippy-refusing policy [NTK 2001-02-23], applied under the Freedom of Information Act to discover the reason. As is often the case with these requests, though, we're left with more questions than when we started. Excluding Unix machines continues to be a little odd (no API for accessing X.509 certificates on non-Windows/Mac platforms? Hunh?). Yet, while the fancy digital signature bit won't work with open source browsers, it turns out there was no reason to exclude them from the whole site, especially as that bit isn't working much yet anyway. "This [restriction] will be relaxed shortly", they say - how shortly?. Meanwhile, the document reveals, there's now one more govt. sanctioned Public Key Infrastructure provider - Equifax. Yeah, the credit agency. We can't work out if they're evilly escrowing keys like the other official PKI, Entrust, yet. But we do know that for twenty-five quid, they'll id you for the government by grabbing your personal details, and cross-referencing them with your credit record. Not a sentence with many of our favourite words in it, that. The other (better) bit of news is the e-envoy is looking for an open source alternative to both these companies. Those nice netproject people got the contract to research this: Doc Andrew Findlay has the helm, if you'd like to get involved. http://www.free-project.org/writings/foia-1.html - full story on Jason's site http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=2001/now0223.txt&l=40#l - we know this is dull: think of it like those bits http://www.andrew.findlay.org/ - about Lockerbie in the back of Private Eye Not to be confused with NESTLE'S KITCAT of course, one of the multinational brands indirectly causing trouble for Bristol- based "video activists" I-CONTACT. In a posting to noted agit- prop forum The Mark Thomas Mailing List, someone claiming to be from I-Contact says they were promised "full editorial control" over a short film they were making for Channel4 - control which did not, however, appear to extend to annoying specific corporations or encouraging breaking the law. Since the film covered Adbusters-style subvertising and billboard modification, that counted out their planned coverage of the likes of http://www.subvertise.org/politics/spol0012m.html , http://www.subvertise.org/corporations/scor0010m.html , or even http://www.subvertise.org/revolution/grev0019m.html , plus footage of a billboard being pulled down, and ultimately led to I-Contact's withdrawal of the film (or whatever was left of it). What puzzles us is why they didn't follow the example of the BAFTA-award-winning "So Graham Norton" who, when faced with a mildly contentious or hard-to-clear website, ingeniously faked their entire coverage of it. http://www.videonetwork.org/ - last updated in those heady days of January 2000 http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=archive99/now0402.txt&line=44#l - yeah, still going on about this; apparently that's not all... >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious for news of the Oscars - and people called Oscar too! http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/photos/o/oscars.html ... Liam finds new direction: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/18/dohasis.jpg ... "funny" election sites now outnumber registered voters ... tested it: do we get the job? http://www.bbc.co.uk/jobs/e50235.shtml ... all the smart money's in biotech these days, they say: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/18/dohbio.gif ... SUNDAY TIMES showing slight pre-election bias: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/18/dohbias.jpg ... use a MOREOVER feed, make your site more attractive to tourists! http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/18/dohtour.jpg ... picture library has it in for http://uk.imdb.com/Name?Cobain,+Kurt ... but what if my official title is "Supreme Overlord"?: https://www.britishairways.com/execclub/yourdetails_row.jsp ... Scotland now in different time zone from - Liverpool? http://www.circ.uab.edu/nypldr/1time/standard.htm#2 ... putting "no" into nokia: http://page.auctions.yahoo.com/uk/show/qanda?aID=50933065 >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful As predicted last week, this year's ARTHUR C CLARKE UK SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL AWARDS (from 2pm, Sat 2001-05-19, the Science Museum, UKP7.95, free after 4.30pm), will have slightly more of a campaigning element, as nominees and interested parties (including Stephen Baxter, Ken MacLeod, Paul McAuley, Roz Kaveney and Jon Courtenay Grimwood) will be joining core NTK personnel in order to analyse and apportion blame for the precise shortfalls between the tech-level depicted in the movie 2001 and the actual year 2001 that we live in. Who's to blame? Clarke? Kubrick? Sci-fi authors in general? An undemanding public? Those lazy grant-obsessed boffins for not building more space stations? Or, as event organiser Pat Cadigan theorises, the star-people themselves, for hiding the first two monoliths so successfully that we (and our monkey ancestors) never found either of them? http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitors/scifi_festival.asp - my god, it's full of (literary) stars... http://www.csrc.lse.ac.uk/cambridge.htm - annoying clash with CSRC Cambridge roadshow http://c-level.cc/tekken/ - as well as world's first "Tekken Torture Tournament" http://www.wlv.ac.uk/no-future - what if there was *no* future (and we're already living in it)? >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering It's sickening but no surprise to us that MINDGUARD, the handy anti-psychotronic warfare utility, has finally caught the eye of the Powers That Be. That said, we *had* expected retaliatory strikes from liberati-controlled IR-enabled spy-satellites, not a sniffy letter from lawyers of Kortech, current commercial exploiters of the Roswell-derived mind-control ray patent. However "softee softee catchee monkee" the hegemony strikes, it's still only a matter of time before the NANOG Cabal take down Zapato's original distribution. Accordingly, we can only hope that someone mirrors this program, which remeains the only Amiga and Unix app for deciphering, jamming - and potentially, hackers, rebroadcasting - beamed messages from the UN, CIA, FBI, and the Antartic Relay, as well as signals from the transmitter array occupying the apparent territory of the non-existent "decoy" state of Belgium (independently-minded Douglas Adams fans mourning his seemingly accidental death: thinker harder, you gulls). Source is available under Mindguard's own MPL: potential redistributors should audit the Mindguard program carefully, not only for signs of tampering, but also amazing revelations about the true nature of the 'rand()' function. http://zapatopi.net/mindguard.html - get this to Mojo Nation! >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista GEORGE LUCAS to retaliate with his "funny version" of DOGMA: http://www.theforce.net/episode1/index.html#10575 ... so, under the data protection act, BT could find out what their nickname is? http://www.geocities.com/videonetwrk/censor.html ... not the WAKEYWAKEY.COM tribute site we'd been hoping for: http://www.wankywanky.com ... FLASH-free Prescott satire - at last!: http://www.urbanreflex.com/prescott.html ... reality, as ever, even stranger than satire - SINN FEIN, I choose YOU!: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/election/factfiles/votemon.shtml vs "Blair Witch" http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010515/80/bq3r8.html ... more creative CYBERSQUATTING: http://www.sunglasseshut.com ... http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/amihotornot_20breeder vs http://www.crankymediaguy.com/ ... shut up I'm TRYING TO READ: http://users.aber.ac.uk/sdt8/dissertation/contents.html ... the new BONSAIKITTENS: http://www.boring.ch/childsoldiers/ , http://www.banbreastfeeding.com/ ... yes, what price MONKEYS nowadays?: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_294723.html vs http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1311000/1311090.stm ... http://www.cubanboys.co.uk/ BATTLE OF THE PLANETS mix... GIRLS proven evil: http://www.nyx.net/~keking/girls.jpg ... plus, to make matters worse, "The pornography you are looking for is currently unavailable": http://www.phancy.com/404.html ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> it's a relaxing end to the week with "Happiness"-style sick French farce SITCOM (12.05am, Fri, C4), plus Charles Bronson's "Gladiator"-inspiration DEATH WISH (11.10pm, Fri, BBC1)... people behave exactly as experimenters predict when all normal context is removed, reveals pop-psych fakery HUMAN ZOO (10.30pm, Fri, ITV)... while Saturdays now kick off with "Dawson's Creek" spinoff YOUNG AMERICANS (5.55pm, Sat, C5) - based on neither the Danny Cannon movie nor the David Bowie song of the same name - plus ARE YOU CAPTAIN CORELLI, OR NOT? (7pm, Sat, BBC2)... Willis battles deteriorating trilogy quality in DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER (9pm, Sat, ITV)... Alan Rickman reappears as RASPUTIN (10.30pm, Sat, BBC2) - based on neither the Boney M song nor the Richard Herring musical of the same name... and, with a new album out soon, what better time to celebrate the sub-standard solo output of one of The Beatles' less talented members, in PAUL MCCARTNEY: WINGSPAN (10pm, Sat, C4)... the slightly freakier side of cybersex is explored in SEX, LIES AND CYBERSPACE (11.35pm, Sat, C4)... the success of director Boaz Yakin's recent "Remember The Titans" prompts a revival of his scorchingly amoral teen chess gangsterfest FRESH (2.10am, Sat, C4)... and Sunday is Nazi conspiracy night once again, with THE SECRET RULERS OF THE WORLD (9pm, Sun, C4), two-part war trial reconstruction NUREMBERG (10pm, Sun, C4), and 'Nam MK-Ultra thriller JACOB'S LADDER (12.20am, Sun, ITV)... now-yearly showings of Arnie's THE RUNNING MAN (9pm, Mon, C5) provide a useful yardstick for just how closely real gameshows are coming to resemble it... Jeri "Seven of Nine" Ryan graces the pilot of new US sci-fi Timecop/ Quantum Leap hybrid SEVEN DAYS (6pm, Tue, BBC2) - not based around the Craig David song of the same name... Brett "Lawnmower Man" Leonard returns to cyberspace in RS232 killer VIRTUOSITY (10.40pm, Tue, BBC1)... and John "WarGames" Badham makes a gimmicky real-time kidnap thriller when he could have depicted an intergalactic prison planet populated with Daleks, cybermen and other Gallifreyan arch-enemies, and called it: Dr Who And The NICK OF TIME (10.50pm, Wed, BBC1)... FILM>> The Rock, Rachel Weisz's usual sounds-fake-but-is- actually-her-real-accent, and more Patricia Velazquez body- paint nudity enliven extended CGI showreel sequel THE MUMMY RETURNS (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/mummyreturns.htm : not a particularly sexual movie; John Hannah appears to be using a woman as a sex toy; a couple of flashes of posterior flesh in the combat between Nefertiri and Anck-Su-Namun; many unholy manifestations; open mouth kissing between a woman and a decayed body)... otherwise we can't imagine a widespread release for any out of: Joel Schumacher's unknown-actors "Full Metal Jacket" remake TIGERLAND (http://www.cndb.com : the head of this nice-looking [Clifton Collins Jr's] penis is shown; we see exactly how hot [Colin "Ballykissangel" Farrell's] butt is)... critcally acclaimed dog-based sex-Mex farce AMORES PERROS (http://www.cndb.com : There are two shots of [Vanessa Bauche's] breasts during a sex scene. Both shots are quite brief, but they're very clear and close up)... or indeed Johnny Ball, Philippa Forrester and Sarah "Neighbours, Hollyoaks, Fully Booked" Vandenbergh - together at last! - in low-budget digi-video "The Young Ones" campus catastrophe INBETWEENERS (imdb: not, from the looks of things, based on the Sleeper song of nearly the same name)... THE WORSE YOU DRESS, THE SMARTER THEY'LL THINK YOU ARE>> and the exciting news is that leisurewear-starved US citizens can now purchase official NTK merchandise from our intermittently updated http://www.ntkmart.com/ e-commerce site, a process which has been nominally beta-tested by Geekpride Bostonian TIM MCEACHERN (or "Foot and Mouth Tim", as he now expects to be known). Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans can confidently expect to be next in our international expansion - though isn't it winter over there or something? Wrap up warm, for heaven's sake!... admittedly, we've fallen slightly behind on our intended "new t-shirt every month" schedule - for a start, we had to punish Cybercandy for that nasty accidental spamming incident - but we aim to make up for that with the first competition winner in our SUMMER COLLECTION 2001: the face of "a well-known usability guru", wearing glasses and a beret, with the word "Usability!" graffitied underneath (really, it makes more sense when you see it), as submitted by famed Yahoo Serious lookalike (without the afro) MATT JONES http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1334000/1334092.stm . Matt has nobly offered to donate his UKP2 royalty from each shirt to an organisation that promotes web accessibility and usability, but we haven't heard back from them yet about whether they're OK with their name appearing on the site, so you'll have to trust us on that one. Incidentally, we've already raised more than UKP400 for the Redundant Technology Initiative through sales of the "Elite" and "ILoveYou.VBS" designs, part of which they want to spend on printing some shirts of their own, of which more later... completely missing the point (but in a good way), CHRISTIAN PINDER wrote to say "thanks for creating an Elite - The New Kind (Elite-TNK) t-shirt", referring of course to his similarly acronymed C port: http://home.clara.net/cjpinder/elite.html , while MARTIN RODGERS wanted to know if we were "using sweatshops" to produce any of our products, and did not seem reassured by our initial response that they're all made by the respected US brand Fruit Of The Loom, so "No worries there!". Though this helped: http://www.umn.edu/humanrts/links/fruitoftheloom.html ... finally, keep your entries coming, both for the "Buy One, Subvert The Mass Media, Get One Free" competition (full round- up coming soon), as well as the "Design Your Own Merchandise" contest, and let us know if you particularly like any out of: http://www.nepalesetemple.com/ntk/ript2.gif (by "PETE") - the idea is sound, but could be more a bit more visual we reckon; a whole bunch of sometimes sketchy concepts (VARIOUS ARTISTS) for a Redundant Technology Initiative "Skip Raider" t-shirt http://www.daveg.dial.pipex.com/images/skip.html ; or ANDY MCFARLAND's pithy (and currently text-only) "I Spend All Day Bitching About You On IRC Channels You Can't See". Truly, this is consumer e-democracy in action... >> 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 "concerned with the Internet itself" http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:3AF17197.FD503DF0%40ee.ed.ac.uk 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.ntkmart.com/ (K) 2001 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.