Need To Know 2003-04-25

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"A quarter of those questioned said they played for more than 41 hours a week. But Dr Davies does not think this is unhealthy. He said: 'Most people I know spend about 3-4 hours a night watching TV'..." - "Fantasy games 'not for geeks'", reveals... fantasy gamer http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/2939175.stm ...though if they were spending (41/7 =) nearly 6 hours watching *the same programme* every night, maybe there'd be more cause for concern? >> HARD NEWS << prof shirky - or doc mabuse? As they forked over the money in a forebodingly gloomy Silicon Valley, you could tell the EMERGING TECH attendees were a bit nervy. Sure, the first one had sounded great. But this year? The talks didn't look earth-shattering (Howard Rheingold *and* smart name tags? Be still my heart!). The Valley itself looked a little less salubrious, a little more "Famous Home Of Google, Inc (Population 25)". And the rumour going around was that this had become "just a blogging conference" - as though bloggers were somehow to tech culture what furries are to science fiction. From a dazed Esther Dyson, to the feral teenhackers scavenging on the sidelines, you could smell the fear: that they were about to turn up a year late and several hundred dollars short. http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/22/etech03_grid.html - ah, trackback: the referer logs you enter in manually But if Emerging Tech was supposed to become some self-referential circle-jerk of blathering pundits, not everyone got the memo. Like hardware-core hackers Bunny Huang and Eric Blossom, who respectively tutored FPGA programming and Game-Cube sniffing, and previewed the $300 USB 2.0 GNU Radio setup. Or Brit Stuart Cheshire, splurting out the details of Apple's IETFish standard "appletalk without the backchat" zeroconf implementation and grinning like the eponymous cat when he got a networked printer to work straight out of the box. Or Tim O'Reilly himself, whipping up a GeekCorps/Jhai PC/Redundant Tech hacktivists summit to sort out ways to smuggle appropriate IT into the developing world. Even the core of pontentially deep waffle talks - the Semantic Web kids, the Social Software chin-scratchers, hell, even those nattily dressed bloggers in their multi-tabbed Safaris - pulled back from the brink with presentations that were more Mathematica than Powerpoint, delivering cartloads of stats and research to back up their arguments. Somewhere along the line, they'd stumbled on some facts. http://web.mit.edu/bunnie/www/ - first against the wall when Valenti is president http://www.dns-sd.org/ - appletalk without all that "i'm a macintosh!" nonsense http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2003/04/ - including an up my street inter mortem http://space.frot.org/ - london psychogeography http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3085 - geek activism summit And there were low points. But the audience, already hypersensitised by brooding, Google-cold-turkeying Reg journalist Andrew Orlowski (whom NTK wishes nothing but good fortune), chose to turn on those who waffled and handwaved, as though they were burning entrance fee dollars in front of their faces. Attendees ran out screaming from the "Social Software Alliance"'s attempt to bore people into professional union. The sizeable British invasion sat around cackling "bollocks" if anyone even for a second tried to pull that Americanocentric ... well, bollocks. Marc Canter, founder of Macromedia, shouted at everyone, just to make sure they were paying attention. And the emerging technologies shuddered and thrashed, but still continued to emerge. It's a slightly older new frontier, but they're not blogging a dead horse yet. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/30367.html - you know, a simple "I'm washing my hair tonight" would have done, Andrew http://www.socialtext.net/ssa/ - doooooooooooomed >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious everything OK there? http://www.ntk.net/2003/04/25/dohham.gif ... Freudian slip over what Digital Rights Management tech is really for: http://www.ntk.net/2003/04/25/dohpriv.gif ... slight GOOGLE GOOFS backlog: newtwork, foolball, "eerie clam", http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22martian+luther+king%22 ... retro-trends - cybersquatting: http://www.sclub8.com/ , plus: www.bfi.org.uk/showing/nft/calendar/details.php?title=Anne%20Widdecombe%20Ahoy ... regional press mock hoax victims, redefine "133t haxOrs": http://www.expressandstar.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=9&num=29534 ... never any question of CRAIG DAVID (or "his lady") "cheatin' around": http://www.ntk.net/2003/04/25/dohcheat.gif ... ORLOWSKI combines Blondie drummer Clem Burke with guitarist Chris Stein: http://www.ntk.net/2003/04/25/dohorlo1.gif ; devises more "Pants" version of "The Black/ White Panthers": http://www.ntk.net/2003/04/25/dohorlo2.gif - you know, hating GOOGLE must really cut into his fact- and spell-checking... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful When writing a profile of WILLIAM GIBSON, be sure to mention that, when he originally wrote "Neuromancer", not only did he not know what a "modem" was, but he had never even seen a computer, and had been raised in the forest by ponies. Anyway, there's still time to catch the second half of his UK tour (tonight in Birmingham UKP3, tomorrow Sat 2003-04-26 at London's Forbidden Planet, presumably free), reading from and signing his acclaimed present-day return-to-form PATTERN RECOGNITION (Penguin hardback, UKP16.99). The new book is described as "a real sensual pleasure" by one of our favourite cultural commentators - The Register's international man of letters, Andrew Orlowski - although Gibson himself "doesn't come across as a natural writer" and is "lucky to have chosen technology as his underlying subject matter", according to those intrepid cartographers of the human condition over at EDGE magazine. http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/archive/2003_04_18_archive.asp - soon to disown the cult of blog, says "Recognition Patterns" Orlowski http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30334.html - "I'm reading slower"; Gibson certainly not speaking faster https://www.fastweb.co.uk/spy.org/cgi-bin/williamgibson.pl - Forbidden Planet likely to be "busy", hackers warn http://www.infosec.co.uk/ - in London on Tue: volunteer your password, win a pen http://www.riseup.net/ourmayday/mayday/index03.html - MayDay mayhem on Thu: pop-ups, frames, flash intro http://www.zprod.org/freshFrame.html - Thursday after: Paul Granjon presents Nottingham robot lab >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ MICROSOFT getting into the influential bookwarez business: http://research.microsoft.com/~daniel/unix-haters.html ... ANNE FRANK fan fiction (reassuringly, all rated "PG-13" or below): http://www.fanfiction.net/list.php?categoryid=1218 - vs http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7/Gallery/Special.html ... first MAHIR, then Al-Jazeera?: http://www.ikissyou.org/ ... quest for the world's worst open-source-themed songwriting: http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html - as ever, Stallman's "Join us now and share the software" is a tough one to beat... reinvigorating well-worn theme: http://www.gaybetamax.co.uk/ (via http://www.proteinos.com/ , needs Quicktime, sorry)... following previous NTK discussions of "the [golden] ratio": http://www.ladle.demon.co.uk/misc/mirage/ + other maths news: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~icecube/cgi-bin/index.php?page=woodchuck ... select text - spamdexing, or something more supernatural?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/villages/imber.shtml ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> scathing social commentary FRIENDS (9pm, Fri, C4) at last highlights the dangers of poor identity authentication and photomanipulation on Friends Reunited-style sites... WILL AND GRACE (9.30pm, Fri, C4) returns with a whole new series of stereotypical gay/straight jokes... and there's another chance to see the UK's games industry's latest risible attempt at taking itself seriously in B-list celebrity award show GAME STARS (12.35am, Fri, ITV) - "And the winner is: Solid Snake!" [unidentified man steps up from crowd]... SPEND SPEND SPEND (7.05pm, Sat, BBC2) takes an intermittently anti-consumerist look at whether money really can make you happy... DYING FOR DRUGS (8.30pm, Sun, C4) shows how to profit from suffering, if you're a huge pharmaceutical company... and is surrealism the answer, wonders "future of comedy" pilot one-off THE BOOSH (9.30pm, Sun, BBC3)... Monday sees a handy medical triple- bypass of SARS: KILLER BUG (9pm, Mon, C4), Wolfgang Petersen aerial actioner OUTBREAK (9pm, Mon, C5), plus weird Nic Cage/ Scorsese paramedic paranoia trip BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (11pm, Mon, ITV)... Armando "Saturday Night Armistice" Iannucci takes a shot at the 11'O Clock Show slot with daily topical roundup GASH (11pm, Mon-Thu, C4)... though it looks like they've had problems coming up with just 30 mins of political satire every week for THE STATE WE'RE IN (11.30pm, Tue, BBC3)... a techno- loving Benedictine appears to be the hero of posh school documentary MY TEACHER'S A MONK (10.30pm, Tue, ITV) - would also make a good title for a sitcom... the myth of the lone inventor is once again trotted out by lame Tomorrow's World replacement INNOVATION NATION (8pm, Wed, BBC1)... while the brief nude scenes are unlikely to get you through either tormented painter biopic SURVIVING PICASSO (11.30pm, Wed, ITV) - or the perhaps unfortunately named future prison sci-fi FORTRESS 2: RE-ENTRY (10pm, Thu, C5)... FILM>> it's "Alien" meets "Stand By Me" in yet another tortuous Stephen King male-bonding misadventure DREAMCATCHER ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/dreamcatcher.htm : attack by alien to a man's crotch; no, it couldn't be like all the other alien infestations ripping out of the stomach wall or out the throat. It had to be the anus)... Spike Lee shows a post "7-11" New York in imminent-jailtime last-hurrah THE 25TH HOUR ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=THE+25th+HOUR : there is indeed a bath tub scene with [Ed] Norton but [Rosario "Josie And The Pussycats" Dawson] remains mostly covered by bubbles; Anna [Paquin], like Rosario, is also not naked in the final cut of the film)... the New York Times poster quote that the cast "brings *some* of the vacant hep-cat suavity [...] of Ocean's Eleven" [our emphasis] can't be a good sign for goofy botched-heist Clooney vanity project WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/welcome_to_collinwood.html : the camera focuses on [Jennifer "Spin City" Esposito's] clothed butt as she bends over; it's possible some kids could be enticed to try to pull off a crime)... and mother Charlize Theron takes on brutal child-kidnapper Kevin Bacon in TRAPPED ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Trapped+%282002%29 : while Courtney [Love] is still on the ground there are five frames of her right tit. She then stands up and the towel blocks the rest of the view as she completely ditches the bra. For the Courtney Love collector only)... RED BOOK AUDIO>> the advert soundalikes seem to be tailing off for the summer, with only SIMON CARLESS complaining that the US KitKat ad "featuring wacky newscasters goofing off in a commercial intermission to the tune/slogan 'Give Me A Break'" had "such an Andrew WK-ripped-off soundtrack, it hurt". Simon was unable to identify *which* of Andrew WK's tracks might have inspired the ad, since he "only has the one". Among broader pop similarities, very few seem to have commented on the (intentional?) resemblance between Athlete's "El Salvador" and Avril Lavigne's "Complicated"; or a karaoke track for the Commodores' "Three Times A Lady" and Christine Aguilera's "I Am Beautiful (In Every Single Way)" - though not in a way "which is obviously apparent to the naked eye", notes I HATE MUSIC http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/2003_02_01_hated.html ... ADRIAN MOULDER took the comparisons to the next level by observing that right-wing historian and TV presenter Andrew Roberts http://www.andrew-roberts.net/cv.htm is "pulling the same face" as NTK's favourite Neo-Regency Face Warrior Gary Le Strange http://www.garylestrange.co.uk/ . He then appears to have confused us with the likes of http://www.b3ta.com/ by suggesting that "someone (but not me) should do an animated duet of Sweep (from The Sooty Show) singing the squeaky bits of the new Madonna single", claiming to have "located some frames already": http://makeashorterlink.com/?N15812D24 , http://members.lycos.co.uk/SootyandSweep/ ... and in the ever- fertile field of videogame crossovers, TIM CANT enthused that "Tekgul" by Mono Trona is "some Japanese bint wailing over the C64 Parallax music - WORD UP!!!!", shamefacedly followed 3 days later by the confession "I meant Sanxion. HOW COULD I BE SUCH A FOOL?!" In which case, it remained only fitting for retro-gentleman ASHLEY POMEROY to ponder whether last year's Amazon book title "Cryptography: a Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Very Short Introductions)" - http://www.ntk.net/2003/04/25/dohverysho.gif - might have been "a reference" to David "Whistlin' Rick" Wilson's covertape track "Hold My Hand Very Tightly (Very Tightly)" - a classic whose lyrics are thankfully preserved for future generations: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1190388 ... >> 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 safe for work?" http://www.boobies.nl/NTK NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Unsubscribe? 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