Need To Know 2002-03-01

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"The 54-year-old owner of an Apple PowerBook - festooned with Grateful Dead bumper stickers - sat down to chai tea in his rent-controlled apartment overlooking San Francisco. *Donning black leather pants*, cowboy boots, a turquoise necklace and a cell phone earplug, the self-declared 'techno hippie' talked to CNET News.com about dot-communism, cattle ranching and the hallucinations of the masses." [our emphasis] http://news.com.com/2008-1082-843349.html - Oi, Barlow! Get your trousers on - the straights are here... >> HARD NEWS << with interludes Forget Bob Dylan, Tony Bennett, Billy Joel - the most moving performance at this week's GRAMMY AWARDS came from old-time crooner Michael Greene, President of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, who waxed lyrical on the subject of the "comfort, solace and sweet celebration" that "the power of music" brings to the world. But then the lighting changed, the backing switched to monks chanting over a gothic trip-hop beat and, striding through the dry ice swirling across the stage, Greene went on to rap about how he'd personally witnessed the hood's darker side, where MP3 fans stole bands' livelihoods "one digital file at a time" - it's "out of control and oh so criminal", he wailed. The number ended with a cautionary tale of three kids he knew who fell in with a bad crowd, downloaded thousands of songs in a Morpheus binge, and are now presumably in the custody of the relevant authorities. Tragically, we don't have an audio recording of this potential floor-filler, but if anyone out there does, wouldn't it make a great remix anthem for our "World Wide Web/ of theft and indifference"? Also, from the way things are going, it sounds like he might just appreciate the royalties. http://grammy.aol.com/features/speech.html - been spending most my life/ livin' in a Napster's paradise http://www.base58.com/booms/ - in accordance with last week's "Geek Media" prophecy We always thought the biggest danger to placing WiFi antennae on the roof was the pancake-shaped radiation pattern of those darned omnis. Well, let this be a lesson in perspective (and sadly, parallax). ROB FLICKENGER, 802.11 advocate and handy author of O'Reilly's "Building Wireless Community Networks" nearly did a Rod Hull last week, falling from two floors up while setting up a point-to-point net link. He's out of the hospital now, but spent some time in intensive surgery to fix some serious internal injuries. As we all know, there's no Nutshell guide for that. "No amount of bandwidth is worth your physical harm", say the O'Reilly kids. We're not backtracking that far: but please do send someone else up instead of you. You know what you're like. http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/1124 - wouldn't happen to that Cringely chap. He thinks he can fly. It's the retro game artifact you emulate on your printer! After a hiatus of seven years, popular Commodore childish thing ZZAP64 is back! A dot-for-dot prepress continuation of the iconic eighties games mag, it would be churlish to report that the hi-res file is over thirty megs (482,031 times more than the unexpanded 64 could handle) in 6502-unreadable PDF format. The point is perfect verisimilitude. So, making their reappearance, good or bad: Ken D. Fish and his "helper" - old Zzap editor Gordon Houghton, POKE pages, caricatures of gurning thumb-raising journalists, kneejerk dissing of Amiga and Spectrum users who don't know the war is over, letters that conclude that "Despite all the anti-aliased 3D flashiness of today, there still isn't anything to touch Paradroid", and a very senile White Wizard. New aspects to the magazine include soft-erotica adverts for Emily "Bits" Booth's "memorabilia" Website (presumably filling in for the absence of Miss Whiplash), and over a dozen C64 fanatics who have desperately fantasised about being on the Zzap contributor's list for over a decade. In some ways, it's a bit like watching Paul Darrow reprise Avon with no budget and a ship-full of aging, grinning, Blake's 7 fans. http://www.zzap64.co.uk/ - so that's okay then http://www.thetoque.net/020226/pics/trs80mag.jpg - life imitates... http://www.blakes7.com/ - which of course is what Timelash was >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious http://www.webjemdesign.com/links.htm links to Emma Noble, whois webjemdesign.com implies - is it *the* JAMES MAJOR?... http://www.ctw.co.uk/ not updated for a month now - uh-oh... all the professionalism you'd expect from the "Seach" field: http://www.alljobs.co.uk/list_jobs.php3 ... "Like this BBC Emergency Information Service page? Send it to a friend!": http://www.bbc.co.uk/159/ ... best known for slaughtering the opposition: http://www.ntk.net/2002/03/01/dohmilo.png ... ass probed: http://www.ntk.net/2002/03/01/dohass.png ... hairy- bellied YAHOO traveller goes on epic trek to find own navel: http://eur.a1.yimg.com/eur.yimg.com/a/uk/travel/northtravel43.gif ... classic spellcheck humour - but with a modern telco twist: http://www.ntk.net/2002/03/01/dohho.png ... sod the ratings, what do you make of all the Invalid Tags lower down the page? http://www.half-empty.org/ideas/bd/0f/27/e1/d8/default_index.html ... YAHOO NEWS ignores statute of limitations on dinosaur crimes: http://www.ntk.net/2002/03/01/dohrex.png ... look, could you just http://www.shutthefuckup.com/ about cheese?... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful LONDON 2600 appear to be tipping The Countryside Alliance to win the hotly contested "Most Invasive Company" category at Monday's BIG BROTHER UK AWARDS (from 6pm, 2002-03-04, the LSE's Hong Kong Theatre, London WC2). This seems largely on the strength of the pro-hunting lobby's enthusiasm for storing the "Habits", "Sexual life" and "Criminal intelligence" of current, past and potential offenders, competitors, students, minors and anyone else they don't like the look of, right down there at the end of their lengthy entry in the Data Protection Register. Now, according to this online search facility, event organisers Privacy International don't appear to have a DPR entry themselves, so does that mean anyone can just turn up and claim to already be on their list? http://www.privacyinternational.org/bigbrother/uk2002/ - your Government Organisation is "Most Heinous", dude http://www.dpr.gov.uk/cgi-bin/dpr98-search.pl?Fieldname=countryside+alliance - go on, search for "Privacy International"... http://www.london2600.org.uk/ - of course, some of us are more "potential" than others >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering And what will happen when the revolution comes, and all those Windows users are put against the wall? More than was bargained for, suggests DEAD MAN'S SWITCH. Distributed by Ars "too platform-independent to last the dawn" Technica, and written by Ars forum member Aryeh Holzer (no relation to Jenny), this Windows service is the anti-cronjob. Once configured, it'll sit in the background, and unless you reset its clock every week (or month, or day, by your command), it'll assume you've been offed and proceed to encrypt incriminating files, send e-mail to friends, relatives and enemies, and - of course - enter "Posthumous Coward" postings to your favourite Web forums. This does rather depend on your uptime being shorter than that of your Windows server. But we can see to that. http://daisyman.arsware.org/dms/ - by the author of CoolMon! http://www.arsware.org/ - how knowing is this whole "ars" thing, anyway? >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ I fancy your mum: http://www.figleaves.com/mothers_presents/ ... pay Rob Malda, or elope with http://alterslash.org/ ?... make GAUSS RIFLEs for kids and soon only kids will have Gauss Rifles: http://scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/magnets/gauss.html ... can we have a "who the hell are either of them?" option: http://www.aolwatch.org/annetteq.htm ... new IMAC = ultimate joss-stick holder?... THE PAROLE OFFICER gets reception it deserves: http://www.doyourecall.co.uk/ ... Grand Prix World Championship company http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns05715.html maybe should have checked http://www.gpwc.com first... MS Oxymoron: http://thinks.com/words/oxymorons.htm ... hang on, what if all the job ads people have been posting are trolls?: http://brightonnewmedia.org/pipermail/bnmlist/2002-February/002415.html , http://brightonnewmedia.org/pipermail/bnmlist/2002-February/002399.html ... http://www.mobilespam.com/ ... the modern KEVIN WARWICK family: http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/news/2654727.htm ... ... no idea what PANASONIC are selling here, but we want one: http://newtown.hi-ho.ne.jp/raibo/raidersei/image/agency/cm/mail.swf >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> according to billings, former-Wired-UK-reviewer-turned- novelist Hari Kunzru is standing in for either Tom Paulin or Tony Parsons (or both) on tonight's NEWSNIGHT REVIEW (11pm, Fri, BBC2) - prompting Ray Bradbury to propose the destruction of all literature in FAHRENHEIT 451 (1.05am, Fri, BBC2)... Graham "Father Ted" Linehan's been written out of the new series of BLACK BOOKS (9.30pm, Fri, C4)... and the only "Tim Hyam" we could spot on Google writes for Global Investor Magazine, probably a different one to the "webcam protester" profiled on WATCH ME (2am, Fri, C4)... following another showing of semi-"Star Wars" inspiration 633 SQUADRON (5.25pm, Sat, BBC2), BBC2 celebrates the departure of all its ratings- unfriendly serious documentaries to somewhere where even fewer people will watch them, in a simultaneous transmission of the launch of BBC4 (from 7pm, Sat, BBC2)... though you'll need digital to catch dotcom disaster docu STARTUP.COM later in the week (10.15pm, Mon, BBC4 KNOWLEDGE or whatever it's called)... and ITV marks the occasion by scheduling one of its dumbest line-ups of all time, kicking off with MR BEAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (5.50pm, Sat, ITV)... Sally "Fist Of Fun" Phillips is reunited with Emma "Nostradamus" Kennedy in magazine-based workplace comedy-drama RESCUE ME (9pm, Sun, BBC1) - still, maybe it's a magazine about conspiracy theories and video games... BBC2 uses critically-acclaimed realtime-gimmick US action ratings-flop 24 (10pm, Sun, BBC2) as a lead-in for the Christ-is-this-still-going? season 8 of THE X-FILES (10.45pm, Sun, BBC2)... while Gene Roddenberry's posthumous ANDROMEDA (4.45pm, Sun, C4) makes "Stargate SG-1" look sophisticated... ITV2 takes on Paramount's early-evening "Seinfelds" with repeats of the previous night's peerless LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN (7pm, weekdaily from Tue, ITV2), as shown on CBS two days earlier... hopefully someone will point out that she's not the only person who can post "poems" to her site at some point during WHEN LOUIS MET ANNE WIDDECOMBE (9pm, Tue, BBC2) www.political.co.uk/annwiddecombe/gal.asp?ref=gal006.jpg&caption=SQUEEE! ... and, to commemorate the long-postponed return of the ever- appalling ATTACHMENTS (10pm, Wed, BBC2), here's one of Justin "Mike" Pierre's earlier, more rigorously researched roles: http://lavender.fortunecity.com/jerningham/437/ivar.html ... FILM>>> Richard Gere and Laura "Congo" Linney don't trap the monster by getting him to bash his head over and over again against an enormous lightbulb, in daft "based on true events" sixties-set extended-X-Files episode THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/mothmanprophecies.htm : graphic eye injuries; disaster mayhem; female nudity behind a steamy shower door; unholy presences; inexplicable stoppage of all electrical devices; appearance of dead wife [Debra "Will & Grace" Messing])... Kevin Spacey is so dour he expects Judi Dench and Julianne "The Lost World" Moore to cheer him up by telling "Newfie" jokes http://www.nfldproducts.com/jokes/ , in weatherbeaten smalltown newspaper weepie THE SHIPPING NEWS ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/the_shipping_news.html : [Cate Blanchett] shows some cleavage in several scenes; we see most of her butt in her thong bottom, covered by transparent fishnet stockings)... and Larry "Kids" Clark continues his potentially unhealthy interest in teenage hi-jinks in real- life "Wild Things" low-budget murder exploitation romp BULLY ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Bully+%282001%29 : while most of the explicit nudity in this movie is female, the camera spends a lot of time panning on the boyishly smooth skin of the male stars; as [Nick "Disturbing Behavior" Stahl] is being given a blowjob by Bijou ["Almost Famous"] Philips, his butt is seen for an extended period)... THE "VICTORIAN AFFECTATION">> in accordance with NTK prophecy [2001-06-08], we can confirm that Greg Egan's SCHILD'S LADDER http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0575071230/needtoknow0e marks an almost entirely satisfactory return to the superhard humanist s/f of his previous masterwork "Permutation City", but with bits of "The Fermata" and "Fantastic Voyage" mixed in there as well. But try to avoid as many plot spoilers as you can (like on the back cover); "This will be Greg Egan's breakout book" the publishers fondly imagine, under the impression that there's nothing a mainstream audience enjoys more than two or three pages of made-up theoretical physics before getting into the plot... "Permutation City" continues to hang on in our bestsellers chart http://www.ntk.net/books/ which also features strong showings from Don DeLillo's "Who will die first?" classic WHITE NOISE, Charlie Brooker's filth- packed TV GO HOME, and the recently re-released "drug-crazed Tolkien-parody" [NTK 2001-12-14] BORED OF THE RINGS, prompting reader MARTIN BACON to point out that "[it] is not a parody. It is a burlesque, and a pretty crude one. The whole point of a parody is that you get well into it before realising the original is being sent up, not have it rammed down your throat on page 1 para 1. The authors admit this in the introduction, when they say they could have written a parody but didn't"... our favourite among the (ever-varied) multimedia purchases threatens to be ME FIRST & THE GIMME GIMMES' "Are A Drag" CD http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000IPAQ/needtoknow0e - on the strength of its Gnutella search suggestions alone - as the band threaten to rival THE MR T EXPERIENCE with this album of ska-punk covers of popular showtunes. Alan Moore is well-represented by new graphic novel compilation TOP TEN and his timeless THE COMPLETE D.R. AND QUINCH, though reader BEN MOOR has now backed down from his blanket recommendation of DARK KNIGHT 2, admitting that it's "bonkers" and pinning his hopes on the eventual conclusion of Warren Ellis' MINISTRY OF SPACE instead. And finally, proving that amusing Amazon reader reviews aren't dead, they've just moved into other genres, DAN CALLADINE was tickled by the entries for that noted "triumph of post-instrumentalist cinema" BEN DOVER - ENGLISH PORNO GROUPIES http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004SPG3/ - praised for its "existential anguish" and "a twist not seen since the Usual Suspects", and not imitating The Onion at all: http://www.theonion.com/onion3544/ironic_porn_purchase.html ... >> 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 "now come the metafilter death threats" http://www.sfbg.com/36/22/x_techsploitation.html NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Unsubscribe? 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