Need To Know 2001-11-23

archive

>> HARD NEWS << under purview Well, it's old news that RMS, Linus, and Ken Sakamura (of Alpha Centauri, we presume, like those Star Trek lists-of-three always end) won 100 million yen each, as co-winners of the 2001 Takeda Award for Techno-Entrepreneurial Achievement for Social/Economic Well-Being. Understandably, everyone's very pleased : "Richard Stallman will have a Happy Thanksgiving this year", chimes in USERLAND's Dave Winer, delighted as ever at someone else's good fortune. But, Winer argues, it's all very well these charitable foundations giving out cash to their own kind, but when will they start forking over to the people who really deserve financial support - profit-making companies? Well, not profit-making, maybe, but - yeah, like the man says, how about Sourceforge? They sure could do with some free cash, if only to reward those selfless shareholders. And allow us to ask the question Winer leaves unspoken but ever present: where, exactly, is *Dave's* money? As he says, RMS hasn't really pushed the envelope, has he? That whole free software thing, some sort of self-contained extensible editing and development environment, an airy-fairy C compiler technology, all envisaged, written and given away for free. Whereas Dave has designed an entire scripting language, for which he asks just a small stipend to purchase. Also, he updates his Website every day. And XML-RPC. He made that up. That's got to count for something, hasn't it? SO WHERE, PEOPLE OF THE WEB, IS DAVE'S FREE MONEY? Thanks for listening. http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2001/11/21 - thanks http://www-tech.mit.edu/V121/N59/59stallman.59n.html - really, thanks http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohgpl.jpg - no, merci! Last days before the Anti-Terrorism, Crime, Security, and Bad, Bad People Bill: in particular, this Monday is the Commons debate on the retention of communications data sections. To recap: currently, ISPs aren't allowed to store data for longer than it's useful in billing. The new law will allow them to do so, for the specific purpose of allowing the authorities to access it in any criminal investigation. As is always the case, the last few days have exposed a clutch of last minute gotchas in the proposed law. The Tories are proposing an amendment that will attempt to ensure that no data will be "disclosed to any private individual or organisation without responsibilities for national security." A nice idea, which means that not even the owner of the traffic data will be able to see what's held on them. And did we say ISPs will be keeping this data? Oh, sorry, we mean "a person who provides a postal service or a telecommunications service". By the legal definition of telecommunications service, you'll be pleased to know that your P2P file-sharing client falls into that category. Hope you're keeping those logs nice and neat for the kindly policeman. http://cryptome.org/uk-atcs.htm - thanks to london2600 for the headsup It's like watching the entire history of representational art repeating itself in microcosm; this week in the BBC NEWS ONLINE graphics department, a breakaway group renounced the psychedelic extravagances of "TV Set Displaying The Demon Headmaster's Photoshop Plug-in Struggles To Leap Over A Bit- Spitting Mission-Impossible-Type-Fuse - None Of Which Explains The Blue Chef's Hat On The Left" (as nominated by reader Tom Anderson): http://makeashorterlink.com/?B2B721E2 . Instead, this new faction advocate a Dogme-style literalism in their work, epitomised by their illustration of the story "Barclays in money laundering probe" with the crude still-life "Laundry Basket, Next To Some Money" (nominated by Gordon Joly): http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1665000/1665474.stm . The trend then peaked in Tuesday's starkly uncompromising "Entrepreneur, With Head Pointing Down", for the caption "Entrepreneurs are keeping their heads down" (Mike Butcher): http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1665000/1665312.stm . Keep those submissions coming and maybe we'll hand out an "Online Turner Prize" or something - we've had a few from other sites as well, but we're proud to say that, for the moment at least, BBC Online continues to lead the world. >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious sure electro jazz sounds terrible, but is it technically a "war crime"?: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohcrime.gif ... "blah blah blah terrorists to blame - you get the idea": http://www.pm.gov.uk/evidence.htm ... at least 4 vacancies: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohcnnjob.jpg ... "see the difference when infrastructure starts with you?", asks HP ad: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohhp.gif ... JONATHAN KING "more interested in finding, helping and breaking talent" reassures: http://www.kingofhits.com/pages/money.html ... AMMO CITY joins forces with own Flash-crazed web designers in clearly-not-doomed opportunity to spam 100,000 "receptive opinion formers": http://b2b.ammocity.com/ ... do come back on 10th January 2000: http://www.webtech2000.co.uk/ ... POWs looking well: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohprison.jpg ... "Compare our prices with the High Street - damn!", advise EMPIREDIRECT: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohprice.jpg ... curse of the inadvertently inserted millions strikes again: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/011120/80/cg355.html ($530 = "374.6 million pounds")... http://www.september11th.co.uk/ points to ... http://www.jesusfuckingchrist.com/ points to... ANANOVA - see me after class: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohano.gif ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful It's surely IT journalism's "Wedding Of The Year": Ben Hammersley and Anna Soderblom, both of whose contributions to the "Times Interface" parish have been so often celebrated in these pages, are to marry this weekend in a private ceremony. It is hoped that, in keeping with "Interface" tradition, at least some of the vows and speeches will consist of verbatim recitals of press releases that turned up in the post that morning. And if you weren't invited either, why not take the opportunity to start work on your cheap and shoddy costume for this year's inaugural SANTACON UK (Sat 2001-12-15, London, one-size-fits-all suits available from Woolworths from UKP9.99)? The aim is to reclaim the pagan Christmas spirit by getting 100 people dressed as "Saint/Old Nick" to drunkenly stagger around the streets and shopping centres, on the understanding that any attempt to arrest them on public order offences might be massively traumatic for any kids who are watching. Ho ho ho, as they say. http://www.santarchy.com/ - mail santacon@hotmail.com for details of UK event http://uk.tombola.com/qxl/ - a deliberate double-entendre on "sacks" here, surely? http://www.rhmfoodservice.co.uk/pages/calendar/calendar.htm - National Cranberry Week: Brit version of Thanksgiving http://www.benhammersley.com/ - relax girls, Dr Keyboard's married >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering "I'm so sorry," wailed Phil Zimmermann, evil mastermind behind PGP and person most likely to destroy the world with his foolish FOOLISH meddling. Well, actually he didn't, but if the Washington Post can make out he was deeply sorry about directly causing Sept. 11th (both the event and the 24 hour period itself, we hear), we can play up his recent softening of the whole "you must meet someone face-to-face to sign their key" mantra. These days he, and other cryptorights demigods, consider that an automatic signing bot (who'll sign your key if it knows you live at an e-mail address) might be one of the softening tweaks crypto needs to get it into the hands of everyone. Another bit is software like HUSHMAIL PROFESSIONAL for Outlook 2000, which wraps the whole shebang in an easy to use interface. At the moment Hushmail's playing catchup with the old PGP Windows codebase - and we're still a little cagey about their infrastructure's private key offsite storage angle - but it's a start. Or are we just compromising ourselves in the face of the New World Order? Ah, who cares. As long as we get our distributed porn, warez and tunez stashes encoded, we're happy. http://www.hush.com/solutions/hushmail_professional/ - we haven't got Outlook2000, but you may have. Send us a proper review! http://www.hush.com/images/diagrams/hushmail-pro-lg.gif - hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm http://www.templetons.com/brad/crypt.html - zero ui is *good* ui http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5605 - I've created a monnnnstah! http://www.philzimmermann.com/news-Response_WashPost.shtml - a monster for good! >> MEMEPOOL << the warm bit behind the http://www.gagpipe.com/ retro ringtones: http://arcadetones.emuunlim.com/ ... must be prevented from teaming up with http://aj.hd.org/ - they'd be unstoppable: http://www.rudimentsofwisdom.com/ ... "Accidents" are third most important news category for Russians nowadays: http://english.pravda.ru/ ... so, do you support cookies?: http://128.220.40.178/previous/Fall99/GSNet/Sprpt953.htm ... Dr Manhattan survives again as Ozymandias flees the scene: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1664000/1664447.stm ... phew - who's just been to the SINGAPORE TOILET SUMMIT?: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1663000/1663934.stm ... http://www.coolbeauty.co.jp/sh02026.htm subtly imitates: http://www.yoni.com/loverf/vulvaintro.shtml ... while the - apparently for real - http://www.foesreunited.co.uk/ imitates: http://www.seethru.co.uk/zine/features/bullies_reunited/ ... the return of the grassroots do-it-yourself TVGOHOME clones: http://uncertain.org/%7Ekevan/cgi-bin/other.cgi ... pop parody double-bill: http://www.waider.ie/music/lyrics/gdb.html , http://groups.google.com/groups?q=fat+l33t+spod ... BBC and THE TIMES keeping fairly quiet over their Taliban nuclear document goof: http://alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11935 ... THE ECONOMIST apologises for any inconvenience caused: http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=865704 ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> "Casablanca", "Alien", "Star Wars" and - of course - "The Matrix" jockey for position in Graham Norton's 100 GREATEST FILMS (9pm, Sat & Sun, C4)... ITV desperately counters with STARS IN THEIR EYES CORONATION STREET SPECIAL (9.20pm, Sat, ITV), apparently including Janice Battersby as Bjork... but always nestling comfortably near the top of our "Top 100 Greatest Movies (Or Other Cultural Artefacts) Of All Time", there's surprisingly entertaining Jagger/ Hopkins/ Estevez/ Russo body swap sci-fi FREEJACK (9pm, Sun, C5): "Ah, Mr McCandless - good to have you back"... C4's much-hyped RICHARD AND JUDY show is enticingly scheduled in the hotly contested Mon-Fri 5pm slot... DESPERATE MEASURES (11.05pm, Mon, C4) is basically "Die Hard - But In A Hospital"... and never mind Kurt Russell's famous 60-word script, the props budget only seems to have only stretched to two military vehicles in Paul "Event Horizon" Anderson's disappointing SOLDIER (9pm, Tue, C5)... mock nationalist Al "The Pub Landlord" Murray adds an unusually self-referential twist to this year's THE ROYAL VARIETY PERFORMANCE (8pm, Wed, ITV)... in Thu's undercover double-bill, KENYON CONFRONTS (8pm, Thu, BBC1) imitates http://www.fallingcity.com/canary/bio_wertz_thrombosis.htm by showing how to fake your own death , while SLEEPERS (9pm, Thu, C4) pioneeringly infiltrates two opposing factions at the same time - this week: racists and Asian shop-owners... and finally, we don't know how much those hard-hitting posh women know about WHAT NOT TO WEAR (8.30pm, Thu, BBC2), but let's hope it's more than they know about running successful dot- coms: http://www.sun.co.uk/dotcomheroes/ready.html ... FILM>> is it just us, or does Robert Redford increasingly resemble a craggy Kirk Douglas impersonator in Tony Scott's flashy "Enemy Of The State" espionage followup SPY GAME (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/spy_game.html : Brad Pitt [...] uses strong profanity, ends up romantically involved with [Catherine McCormack], and finds himself set for execution in a Chinese prison)... otherwise it's Anna "Brookside" Friel, Michelle "Dawson's Creek" Williams, Kyle "Dune Guy" MacLachlan and Trudie "Sting's Wife" Styler - together at last! - in intense retro coming-of-ager ME WITHOUT YOU (http://www.cndb.com/ : [Friel] takes a bath with her best friend [Williams] and both girls' breasts are visible; [Williams has] a great pair and she's a fantastic young actress [though] it's not as much as she showed in "If These Walls Could Talk 2")... David "motherfuckin'" Mamet assembles the usual actor-fest for "one last job" crime caper HEIST (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/heist.html : Since the characters make their thievery look cool and smart, some kids could be enticed to try the same)... chipmunk lookalike Mariah Carey sings, acts a little in autobiographical vanity project GLITTER (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/glitter.htm : vulgar male dress; provocative self touching - repeatedly; cohabitation and intercourse - genitals unseen)... or, for all of you who didn't feel the original was quite gruelling enough, there's APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX - "Redux" being a Latin word meaning "with added nudity", from the looks of things (http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Apocalypse+Now : Colleen [Camp] shows her mammoth breasts during a scene that has been added to the 3 1/2 hr Director's Cut; Aurore [Clement] takes off her robe to show her very, very nice breasts, and it might be possible to catch a glimpse of bush; [Martin Sheen is] nude and sobbing in his room. As he falls to the floor against his bed you can quickly see his penis and balls)... DRESS DOWN FRIDAY>> in the end, so many people sent in variations on the "fsck" theme that we had to go back to Moose's definitive http://www.cafepress.com/moose2000/ idea, and will now be giving a pound to someone like the Free Dmitry / Eurorights campaign for each "FSCK /LINUX" shirt sold. Got a problem with that? Then don't buy one and go and print your own. It's currently being sold through our intriguing Register distribution deal: http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/ , raising the questions: Is it a pro- or anti-Linux shirt? Will it placate - or further enrage - THE INQUIRER's famously Linux-hating reporter Andrew Thomas? And shouldn't it technically be "FSCK /GNU-LINUX"? There are some things that only you can decide... also now on Geekstyle: a "Born To Run" Spectrum one that we did to see how it looked; a few light-grey "Adminspotting" shirts to whet your appetite for the proper black ones due to arrive "any day now"; and, for the benefit of any atypically large, small, female or non-EU/USA-inhabiting readers, a "Special Limited Editions" boutique which will sell XXL or S or Skinny-Fit sizes (where available) to anyone who survives the mildly controversial PayPal signup procedure... recent entries continue to include graphics that we don't have the rights for: http://www.bloommedia.co.uk/richard/ntk/ntk.gif (thank you, RICO MONKEON); BEN MARANEY's bid to reclaim the much-abused "smiley" symbol: http://www.maraney.com/tshirt.htm and, more promisingly, PHILIP ROWLANDS' apparently European Article Numbering-compliant selection of actual readable barcodes: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~phr/barcode.html ... but most of this month's action has been in text-only slogans, with WILL PHIPPS getting right to the point with his succinct, yet enigmatic, "Fuck The Internet". "Real Men Use CP/M", agreed MARKUS DIERSBOCK, while an ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTOR posted four explicitly confrontational gems in rapid succession, including "Undercover Yuppie", "Hacked by Chinese", "Stand Back Or I'll Menstruate" and - our favourite, so far - "Davros Was Right". And acquitted former royal family Prestel hacker ROBERT SCHIFREEN http://www.dunhackin.co.uk/ chipped in with his poetic "Only the crumbliest, flakiest software - feels like software never tested before"... as ever, get in touch if you think you can do better - or if you're planning on winning a free t-shirt by wearing one during a Channel 4 news item on wireless war-driving: http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/ - well spotted, MARTIN LING. Though you don't have to go as far as reader "JEZ" who, inquiring after those Toxico "Police State: Do Not Cross" shirts we used to do (still available via Cybercandy), enthused: "It'll look good under my police uniform!". And they say coppers have no sense of irony... >> 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 "not gay porn" http://forum.fuckedcompany.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/184228.html 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.geekstyle.co.uk/ (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.