Need To Know 2002-10-11

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"The eight-game contest comes five years after IBM computer Deep Blue beat then-world champion Garry Kasparov -- the first time since the invention of a chess program in 1958 that a machine had beaten a human." http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/10/03/bahrain.chess/index.html - all those games you lost against GNU Chess? It was *cheating*. >> HARD NEWS << unwilling dupes It was Eldred vs Elder Gods this week, with the US Supreme Court mulling whether to remove intolerable copyright extensions. It's not entirely clear how we'd do the same in the current Europe: Copyright law is becoming more and more a EU-wide issue, and there's precious few areas where people can protest against European legislation (we'll mention one next week, hopefully). So in the UK, for now, we are forced to indulge in civil disobedience. Clearly frustrated by the diminished public domain, it was left to BBC News24's "Click Online" presenters last week to publicise www.etextz.com, a brave holdout in copyright liberation. You "can't help but find a good read in its database", they marvelled. Including, they didn't add, many previously costly works written by Douglas Adams, Neal Stephenson and William Burroughs. Some small technical error appears to have caused the BBC to remove its glowing review from the Website - but thank God they've still maintained the link to the other legitimate business practice covered, that of selling chunks of lunar real estate online. http://eldred.cc/ - still running the remains of his library from a cablemodem http://www.eldritchpress.org/ - after the copyright extension gutted the collection http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/02/click_online/03oct.ramn - 19 minutes in http://www.bbcworld.com/content/template_clickonline.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=6 - as watched by ... http://www.linux.org.uk/~telsa/Diary/diary.html - ... Telsa and four others Hanging around TV's "cruel and shallow money trench" a little while longer: BIG BROTHER and FAME ACADEMY are both made by the production company Endemol - Big Brother for Channel 4, the current Fame Academy for BBC1. They both involve wannabe celebrities being watched 24 hours a day in a some kind of controlled secure environment. We're entirely prepared to concede the benefits of outsourcing the websites for these kinds of shows and reusing as much back end software as possible. But doesn't it suggest you're recycling a very similar show format if you also reuse the same test data? http://www.bbc.co.uk/fameacademy/news/newsitem80.shtml vs http://www.channel4.com/apps26/search/index.jsp?searchQuery=Xchange http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohfame1.gif http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohfame2.gif - and this is where you start paying... in GIFs >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious K-19: fact? http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohk19pt1.png or fiction? http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohk19pt2.png ... who will claim responsibility for MORE INAPPROPRIATE BANNER-ADS? http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohxfire.jpg ... Rangers games getting more violent: http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohfirm.jpg http://www.tesco.com/entertainment/help.htm#expresscheckout - TESCO goes existential... Feds react to WIRED NEWS redesign: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55342,00.html ... Irish Bishops younger, smaller, more female than previously thought: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2311025.stm ... alright, you get just *one* more PUERILE GOOGLE SEARCH: http://www.google.com/search?q=interfeces ... one thing is clear - the number of times "clear" used in this piece: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-10-07-afghan-lessons_x.htm ... horse asks BBC's graphic designers: why the long faces? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/2302853.stm ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful You can prove anything with Google, and it's easy enough to show that Sir Clive "ZX" Sinclair has a brother called Iain who was born in 1943 - the very same year as the *other* Iain "Radon Daughters" Sinclair. Coincidence - or symptomatic of some deeper psychogeographic geek resonance whose significance we cannot currently comprehend? These, and other, issues will no doubt be pondered at Strange Attractor's MEGALITHOMANIA! (from 10am tomorrow Sat 2002-10-12, Conway Hall, London WC1R, UKP20), featuring Sinclair on "The M25, London's Stone Circle", "Psychedelic Archaeology", "Megaliths in Movies" (hopefully "Quatermass" and "Children Of The Stones"), plus "rocking" (sorry) accompaniment from the likes of Wigwam, Mount Vernon Astral Temple, Gorodisch, and Coil. But no heckling Iain's talk by asking if the ZX81 and Spectrum casings were inspired by the 2001 monoliths, OK? http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/megalithomania3.html - it's mega! http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/sinclair/life_of_clive.htm - vs http://www.complete-review.com/authors/sinclairi.htm http://www.youhavebeenwatched.org.uk/pressrelease/artpr.html - also tomorrow: CCTV movie art at London's Isle of Dogs >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering After only a month's development, Phoenix, the Mozilla.org skunkworks' rewrite of Moz, has tabs, a sidebar, and support for extensions like mouse gestures and ting. Some of the dev team is already talking of finishing up, doing a brief ticker-tape parade, and moving onto creating a slimlined mail client called THUNDERBIRD. So where does stately MOZILLA trunk, with its sprawling skyscrapers of XUL, go now? In some pretty intriguing directions, judging by the scrabbles in Bugzilla and checkins on the nightly builds. The latest Mozilla builds now have typeahead. Bounce on the keyboard while browsing, and Moz will search through the current page for a link with the same text as what you type. Hit return and it'll open the link. It's a browser usability no-brainer that only took six years to hit upon - for keyboard fiends, it makes navigating Moz faster than lynx. Next up: CONTENT EDITABLE - a mimic of the IE feature that lets you edit sections of an HTML page in place. And after that, the crowd demands: PGP support and for all you pr0n fiends, yyenc decoding in the newsreader. Lizard's not dead yet. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/ - traans-mute! http://www.mozilla.org/projects/ui/accessibility/typeaheadfind.html - just available in nightly builds for now http://www.geocities.com/pratiksolanki/ - secret preference settings of the gods >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ still pretty funny, even if it is fake (requires Flash, sorry): http://www.247365.com.au/extras/enrique.html ... when AUDIOPHILES STRIKE BACK: http://www.vinylvideo.com/ ... and the all-time "great movies" of this endearingly free-thinking individualist include Blade Runner, The Matrix, Fight Club: http://www.chrisworth.com/ME/about_me.html ... where "M2A" = "Mouth to Anus"?: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2319249.stm ... highlighted in any colour you like, though it defaults to red: http://mencal.kyberdigi.cz/english.html ... Castrol GTX - good safety tip: http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/natinduc.html ... keeping http://www.mulatta.org/Thaielephantorch.html away from http://www.gemueseorchester.org/anfang_e.htm ... no "certain death"?: http://www.cheapflights.com/misc/space.html vs http://www.adventureplanet.com/ap_home/ap_trips_tcr.asp ... and the best adaptation of http://www.blogjam.com/ntk.not/ to http://www.thefridaything.co.uk/demo.txt wins a t-shirt... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> the (brief) Anna Friel/ Ewan McGregor nudity in ROGUE TRADER (9pm, Fri, ITV) is over in time to catch the Molly Shannon guest-starring double-bill of WILL AND GRACE (9.30pm, Fri, C4)... Saffron "Deep Blue Sea" Burrows weekend begins with baffling videogame adaptation WING COMMANDER (12.15am, Fri, BBC2) and continues with rom-com HOTEL DE LOVE (11.50pm, Sat, C5)... and Mia "24/ Not Another Teen Movie" plays a stripper in Atom Egoyan arthouser EXOTICA (12.10am, Sat, BBC2)... there's an uninterrupted cross-channel triple bill of quirky nonsense in the form of CGI snake chase ANACONDA (9.35pm, Sat, C4), Adam Sandler idiot-fest BILLY MADISON (11.25pm, Sat, BBC1) and unacclaimed Larry "Seinfeld" David bitterness vendetta SOUR GRAPES (1.40am, Sat, C5)... Sunday night unfortunately appears to be rapist night, thanks to police procedural drama SIRENS (9pm, Sun, ITV), botched-heist thriller BEST LAID PLANS (10.30pm, Sun, BBC2) and of course overrated Kubrick wide-angle brainwashing semi-sci-fi A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (10pm, Sun, C4)... plus more Kubrick tedium on Tue in piano-soundtracked plodder EYES WIDE SHUT (10.05pm, Tue, C5) - http://www.google.com/search?q=%22eyes+wide+shit%22 more like... a corporate lawyer takes on the greatest challenge of his career - pretending to be a garage MC - in another bloody FAKING IT (9pm, Wed, C4)... DOWNLOADING SEX (11.40pm, Thu, C5) gives you a free password to view behind the scenes at nerve.com... and apologies for missing last week's debut of both BBC Micro-featuring schools-programme spoof LOOK AROUND YOU (9.50pm, Thu, BBC2) and the heavily Charlie Brooker voice-overed THE BEST OF TV GO HOME (11.55pm, Thu, C4)... FILM>> with the real Will Graham off running the CSI team in Las Vegas, tormented office junior Ed Norton leads soulless exposition-heavy student-drama-style "Manhunter" remake RED DRAGON ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Red+Dragon : there are again some very clear butt shots, glimpses of [Ralph Fiennes'] big cock and balls dangling between his legs and some shadowed full frontal views; My g/f loves this guy so she was really looking)... nonetheless, original Hannibal Lecter Brian Cox seems to be keeping busy, this week appearing in both Dennis Quaid "Fields Of Dreams" baseball dud THE ROOKIE ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/the_rookie.html : We see [Quaid] in bed, shirtless [...] as well as [Rachel Griffith's] bare shoulders - with the sheets pulled around her chest) - in addition to gross-out stoner police slapstick SUPER TROOPERS ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Super+Troopers+%282002%29 : lengthy views of [a] big, fat, very unsexy butt and a brief view of [a] tiny penis; if you are into big fake boobs, then enjoy)... otherwise, that "Hackers/ Swimfan" guy is back in juvenile Jonathan Frakes time-freezing sci-fi CLOCKSTOPPERS ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/clockstoppers.htm : deceitful advertising; irresponsible cycling; teen assuming "command" of father; adult in underwear; planning to take advantage of technology to see nakedness)... >> 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 "like the Daily Mail" http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/27442.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) 2002 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.