Need To Know 2003-05-02

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>> HARD NEWS << sender, returned to In the upper section of four-colour problem that is mainland Britain, Scotland's election has come to an end, and a new batch of MSPs sent to Holyrood. Well, actually, it's mostly the same batch of MSPs - but with one difference. This week, they won't have a backlog of email. In their infinite wisdom, when Parliament was dissolved back in April, all the MSP's (and their assistants) email accounts were deleted too - on the grounds that they were no longer MSPs. Mailing lists and personal mail alike have since received bounce errors, suggesting instead that you write them a letter or track down their personal email address yourself. Apparently, the same thing will happen at Westminster next election: Like Bagpuss, when the Parliaments disappear, all their mailhosting services disappear too. In the interest of keeping track of these people, wouldn't it be better to set up a forward to whatever lucrative city job politicians move on to? Or at least hold the mail for the 80% of politicians who just keep getting re-elected? http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2003-April/024968.html - ah, I appear to have been helpfully unsubscribed from everything We have a simple antispam filter at NTK: we only read mail with self-deprecating subject lines - "You've probably already seen this" and "Not very funny", as opposed to "The best invention ever" and "Offer you cannot refuse". It's worked for us so far - so it's been particularly upsetting to discover our Legitimate Corporation Spam Corpus collection turns out to be chockablock now with greedy nasty grasping multinational capitalists, but meek little lovely charities. Following that first dark omen of the RSPCA, it turns out they're *all* at it: Oxfam (via France), the WWF (via Los Angeles), and Save the Children (via good old Florida and sent, according to the headers, using Pine on Mozilla via Outlook Express). What is going on here? Are charities more desperate than we thought? Are spammers now manipulating our guilt and our non-profits to get some sort of clickthrough reward for themselves? Is it possible to overclock being good so much you become evil again? We'll carry on looking into it, but we though we'd share being weirded out with you. http://as1.emv2.com/I?X=e6c375ca763f6a917da1223ee0c8911d - points to Oxfam's email privacy policy. Which is nice. http://www.google.com/groups?selm=1050807787.33.19116%40verence.noctua.org.uk - take action for a spamming planet http://www.sampleclub.net/children/ - don't click, it only encourages them Dave writes: Debbie Barham was the geekiest person I ever met. She stood up for me when Davey Winder flamed me on uk.media in 1996. She wrote three books, at least one sitcom, gadget reviews for Wired UK, and god knows how many jokes for newspaper columns, and radio and TV shows. She came up with the NTK section heading "Confectionery Theory", and the first winning entry in our competition "Buy A T-shirt, Subvert The Mass Media, Get One Free". She died on April 20, of heart failure due to anorexia, aged 26. Deb didn't write about herself much - she preferred the classic one-liners - so here's her byline from her acclaimed dissection of the 'Bridget Jones' genre: "Debbie Barham lives in London, where she works as a journalist and writes comedy for television. She has just finished her first novel and hopes to read another one soon." http://www.google.com/search?q=%22da+barham%22 - see also "Debbie Barham" +Psion, +webloggers, and so on http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,946106,00.html - Debbie "DA" Barham, 1976-2003 http://yourmedicalsource.com/library/anorexia/ANO_help.html - just in case >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious bias-free: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/02/dohfoxiran.gif ... leading by example: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/02/dohroy.gif ... OK, trying to make the GOOGLE GOOFS a bit less puerile now: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22my+strenghts%22 (don't seem to include spelling), plus phrase "be pendantic" and ultimate OCR demo: http://www.google.com/search?q=Qmfice ... David Allan Serfozo, Tripod user, lists wisdom of - David Allan Serfozo: http://serfozo.tripod.com/dave/id24.html ... and the award for "Double-take Logo of the Week" goes to: http://www.janustraining.co.uk/ ... top test sites of the web: http://www.kenneymoore.co.uk/who.htm , http://www.globesprinkler.com/ ... moneybags JK Rowling still wearing special warm cardigan: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/02/dohjk.gif ... oh, those hormone treatments: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/02/dohtao.gif ... May 1st issue of http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/02/dohzen.gif imitates http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-04-04&l=9#l , believes Barbelith to be ".com WebZine", goes on to fall for last month's Tom Watson MP "Yo, teens" page... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Broadly, we're in agreement with SPIKED ONLINE that it's hard to get accurate assessments of how dangerous anything actually is, which is (loosely) the theme of their PANIC ATTACK all-day conference (10am, next Fri 2003-05-09, The Royal Institution, London W1S, from UKP20) featuring, among others, controversial Skeptical Environmentalist author BJORN LOMBORG, whose claims have been applauded as both "dishonest" and "clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice". Fortunately, we're also persuaded by the position of The Ecologist magazine - that ignoring the potential hazards of, say, genetically modified food just makes it look like you're in cahoots with Monsanto. For a somewhat less Pollyanna-ish view of the future, there's always SCRAMBLING FOR SAFETY 6 (1.30pm-5.30pm, The Hong Kong Theatre, LSE, London WC2, free but RSVP), the Foundation for Information Policy Research's almost-annual crypto get-together, this year looking at those hilarious data-retention proposals in the company of Simon "Privacy International" Davies, Duncan "Zircon" Campbell, et al. http://www.fipr.org/sfs6.html - not remarking on how practical and well-thought-out they are http://www.spiked-online.com/panicattack/ vs http://www.bowblog.com/archives/000327.html#000327 , http://www.forsk.dk/uvvu/nyt/udtaldebat/bl_decision.htm http://www.cures-not-wars.org/ - cannabis weekend, vs http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/2995275.stm http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/CcSchedule - in London on Sat: sod the psychogeography, show me bunkers! >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering So you've got a friend and you've been telling them for years about how the Intarweb is going to transform society and change the way cities are designed. Only these days, they're stuck in the usual nightmare world of popup, ads and spam. You have one lunchtime to put things right without completely screwing up their Windows machine (again). What do you do? If your friend is using POP to pick up their mail, download SAProxy, a local free POP SpamAssassin proxy. It's good enough, and you won't have to bork too much with their mail client. Be prepared to fiddle around with exciting text config files, albeit wrapped in a sensible configuration UI. Moz Firebird does great popup handling, if you can cope with unzipping it somewhere safe. Or you can wait until 0.6 comes out, any day now. Stick one of the userContent.css files mentioned in the slashdot discussion below into its chrome directory, and it'll CSS style away most banner ads too. If it's an XP machine, you can skin Firebird to use IE-a-like widgets with Christopher Cook's Luna skin. And, voila! The Internet like it's supposed to be, and a Windows machine perforated with destabilising Free Software! http://saproxy.bloomba.com/ - pay no attention to the exhortations to download Bloomba http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/phoenix/nightly/latest-trunk/ - okay, maybe a nightly isn't the best choice. Wait a week. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=62583&cid=5846505&threshold=0 - flash or no flash http://www.intraplanar.net/projects/luna/ - for Firebird (or whatever it's called this week) http://pages.prodigy.net/zzxc/ieskin/ - or if sir prefers Win 98 and Mozilla >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ Ain't It Cool News "reviewer" imitates The Onion's "The Star Wars" guy: http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=15110 ... EVENING STANDARD joins in the b3ta-style photoshop fun: http://www.thememoryhole.org/media/evening-standard-crowd.htm ... when will the public tire of vocal samples over piss-poor ambient techno?: http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/6532 ... SARS imitates title sequence of 1970s SF thriller Survivors: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/jj20/l-z/clips/survivors1975.rm ... http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://validator.w3.org/check it's basically "extreme piercing": http://www.trepanning.tv/ , http://www.trepan.com/people_personalities/coloringbook.pdf ... harder to spot those "50 Years Ago" stories in Georgia: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,85737,00.html ... Japanese Nazis Party borrow poster from http://www.motherearth.org/ : http://www.nsjap.com/axis/english.html ... more Nazi consumer goofs: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_775737.html ... http://www.amcgltd.com/archives/002450.html#002450 - if so, the Kilroy team would like to hear from you... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> the squealing-and-pointing gesture remains the ideal way to highlight signs of human weakness, thanks to the second - and by far the scariest - version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (12.15am, Fri, BBC2)... the Bank Holiday is "Directed by Richard Lester" with both A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (3.25pm, Sat, BBC2) and SUPERMAN II (10.30pm, Mon, ITV)... as Fi Glover's debt documentary SPEND SPEND SPEND (7.15pm, Sat, BBC2) is intriguingly juxtaposed with a "Revised repeat" of THE 100 GREATEST TV ADS (7.30pm, Sat, C4)... "The Bill" spinoff M.I.T (9.15pm, Sat, ITV) appears to stand for "Murder Investigation Team" rather than "Massachusetts Institute of Technology"... get out the markers and the whiteboard for a double-bill of LAW AND ORDER (10pm, Sat, C5) plus the best abandoned-by-Channel4 cop show ever, HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET (11pm, Sat, C5)... and who knows what Robinson and Schofield are hoping to find this time with the now-annual TEST THE NATION: THE NATIONAL IQ TEST (8pm, Sun, BBC1) - it probably won't have gone up, given that the trailers count Angelina Jolie among THE 100 GREATEST MOVIE STARS (9pm, Sun & Mon, C4)... it's movies, movies, movies on Bank Holiday Monday, with candlepowered Kubrick classic BARRY LYNDON (11.50am, Mon, BBC2), Robert Altman-style ensemble chase caper IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD (1.10pm, Mon, ITV), darker side of "Toy Story" semi-CGI satire SMALL SOLDIERS (6.20pm, Mon, BBC1), "The Fast And The Furious" - but with surfers instead of cars! - POINT BREAK (9pm, Mon, C5), plus De Niro beat-'em- up RAGING BULL (12.05am, Mon, C4)... fortunately, Sky and cable subscribers can maintain some sort of balance with a remorseless 12 hours of DALEK DAY (7.20am, Mon, UK Gold)... occupational makeover show HEADHUNTING THE HOMELESS (9.50pm, Wed, BBC2) is appositely preceded by management intervention I'LL SHOW THEM WHO'S BOSS (9pm, Wed, BBC2)... can't wait to see what earth-shattering revelations they've dug up for HEATHER MILLS: THE REAL MRS MCCARTNEY (10pm, Wed, C4) - she's not really an amputee? is actually a top arms dealer? killed and ate Linda McCartney?... while the ever-insightful Dave Gorman and girl band "neX-us" http://www.nex-us.tv/ discuss their lunch preferences on THE NATION'S FAVOURITE FOOD (8pm, Thu, BBC2)... FILM>> another perfunctory outing of obvious special effects, appalling dialogue, and mutants, mutants, mutants - including one which, if you're not paying attention, appears to go by the name of "Biro" - make up tame "Wrath of Khan"-template sequel X2 (imdb: fighting/ leader/ mutant/ sequel/ based-on- comic/ superhero/ marvel-entertainment/ mansion/ bigotry/ hatred/ racism/ adamantium-claws/ adamantium/ marvel-comics/ wolverine)... otherwise it seems to be a good week to dump potentially underperforming local projects, like THE HEART OF ME ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : contains moderate sex and nudity), HEARTLANDS ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains moderate sex and language)... or, continuing the "starts with an H" theme, Steven Seagal, Ja Rule and Claudia "Babylon 5" Christian - together at last! - in HALF PAST DEAD (imdb: helicopter/ machine-gun/ martial-arts/ prison/ body-landing- on-car)... >> 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 "24 hour party people" http://www.craphound.com/images/etcon2003pix/etcon2003pix.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) 2003 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Full license at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0 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. 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