"The book is everywhere. There is a very real risk that many
people who read it will believe that the fables it contains
are true..."
- Catholic archbishop speaks out against "shameful and
unfounded lies" in best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4350625.stm
...and Christians in particular have proved themselves oddly
susceptible to this kind of ruse
>> HARD NEWS <<
hurrahs and booze
Drunk with the promise of hardware hacking, also cocktails,
EMERGING TECHNOLOGY, O'Reilly's annual neophiliac frenzy,
reeled into gaudy San Diego this week: both hammered and
hammering. Perhaps led astray by the still alarmingly high
Brit content ("English accents make all presentations more
entertaining", says the peanut gallery on IRC,
suspiciously), perhaps engaged by the Google-Yahoo-Apple-
Microsoft-plex sponsors' free drink, the overall tone seemed
to be less chin-stroking, and more "nothing that can't be
solved with an engineering metaphor, some alcohol and maybe
a power drill". Perhaps most disturbing, in that context, was
Drew Endy's synthetic biology talk, in which MIT sets about
building a DNA mechanical parts bank (with explanations on
how teenage biohackers might synthesise it at home). Or the
ever-lurid imagination of old NTK friend JAMES LARSSON, whose
mix of chicken electrocution, puns, and disturbing seduction
hacks certainly required some kind of a stiff drink afterwards.
http://parts.mit.edu/
- wait, what's in this cocktail again?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596009224/needtoknow0e
- issue 1 of "Make" hardware hack magazine, UKP6.96, out now
It's usually around this time of year that people start asking
"Hang on, why don't we do an EtCon-kind-of show - right here!"
(in the UK, that is), and we do have a few ideas along these
lines already - though (currently) no particular constraints
on when to hold it. Help us out by mailing tips@spesh.com with
events we should try to avoid clashing with, ones we could
perhaps catch people en route to (the Netherlands' 4-yearly
WHAT THE HACK at the end of July, for instance), or if you
know of any interesting speakers who don't usually come to the
UK but are going to do so at some point during the year. On a
completely separate note - and shorter timescale - we'd also
like to hear any "alternative" ways you could suggest of
celebrating next month's WIPO-sponsored WORLD INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY DAY, with a particular emphasis on stunts that are
actually constructive and could generate some positive WIPO-
countering press, possibly a problem with one previous
proposal regarding "book-burning" parties. No, not like the
Nazis - burning out-of-copyright books onto free CDs!
http://www.own-it.org/events/details/?eventId=66&p=1
- this one at the Patent Office/ the very heart of Mordor
http://www.whatthehack.org/
- via the always-interesting http://www.ukuug.org/diary/
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
GOTOs considered non-harmful
Just a small point about #33 in O'Reilly's MIND HACKS guide:
as any fan of signal detection theory will tell you, it's not
universally the case that adding noise to a weak signal
increases its detectability - if, for instance, you were
trying to spot a single, one-off stimulus in a random
environment, adding more noise would just increase the number
of false positives. "Stochastic resonance" (as described in
"Mind Hacks") is more like an artefact of the way that a
periodic - or otherwise predictable - signal tends to be more
detectable than a more random one, and that averaging noise
over time effectively corresponds to lowering the detection
threshold or increasing the gain. So: don't go asking obvious
questions like that when authors Matt Webb and Tom Stafford
demo some of their popular cog-science pub-tricks from the
book (6.30pm, Wed 2005-03-23, 2nd Floor, Foyles Bookshop,
London WC2H 0EB, UKP4 redeemable against purchase of O'Reilly
publications on the night) - if only because someone's sure to
try and prove they really can boost their wifi reception using
a Van Der Graaf machine.
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2005/03/mind_hacks_at_foyles.html
- depending on the periodicity of the 802.11 signal, of course
http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/2800
- sensors detect: link moved to http://neurodyn.umsl.edu/sr/
http://www.socialtext.net/loicwiki/index.cgi?london_europablog
- some sort of Six Apart blogging bash in London this Thursday
http://doors8delhi.doorsofperception.com/
- "Doors of Perception 8" in Delhi from Mon (Stirling Albion: nil)
http://www.spaceuk.org/conf2005/2005.htm
- UKP35/ day Brit rocket retrospective at end of month, Surrey
http://www.gilscottheron.com/lywhitey.html
- or, as Gil Scott-Heron puts it, "Whitey on the Moon"
>> ANTI-MEMES <<
there's smoke, flames, http://dohthehumanity.com/
would be a shoo-in for worst Photoshop montage of the month,
but now we're worried that might adversely prejudice our
application for a PhD in "Progressive House with Applied
Techno": http://www.courses.dce.harvard.edu/~musie145/ ...
nearly as laugh-out-loud as Wikipedia - but intentionally so:
http://mrpalmguru.com/uncyclopedia/ ... right-hand image
filename not quite the "right-on" image they told designers
they were aiming for: http://www.little-shop.com/aims.html ...
"The only word I can imagine to define this company's client
support service? Fascinating. Quite fascinating, Captain":
http://www.webhost4life.com/ ... Google Goofs o' the week:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22viscous+assault%22 ,
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22vicious+fluid%22 ,
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22investment+baking%22 ,
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22perspective+employer%22 ...
aghast BBC warns of "network of computer buffs who derived
pleasure from cracking codes protecting copyrighted software
such as Windows 95": http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/4205559.stm ...
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
Despite all the alcohol/bioterror/loft-party nonsense of
ETECH, there's a halo effect of genuinely-useful code releases
- albeit mostly written during the presentations. It's
especially good for the "BigCos" (cough) who show that they're
listening to Uncle Tim and sharing more than just the booze.
Amazon's new OPENSEARCH, for example, is both a small step
towards the Semantic Web and a nifty way to offload their
indexing onto other people. GOOGLE took the opportunity to
showcase their eclectic collection of Open Source projects,
ranging from sparse hashtables to, um, something that dumps
core (but dumps it really well). SIXAPART quickly followed
suit, though theirs was more of a "Here are our Perl modules,
and... oh! Look what we found in LiveJournal's cupboard!"
affair. And for all the non-developer suits confounded by low-
flying memes exploding from every corner, YAHOO!'s new "Tech
Buzz Game" was there to soothe the capitalist brow: you may
not understand it, but that won't stop you making money off
it.
http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/weblog/2005/03/opensearch_at_e.html
- we weren't joking about that "written during" thing
http://code.google.com/
- Hashtable has ImFeelingLucky() function, returns targeted ad objects
http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/docs/powertools
- all of LiveJournal's GPLed goodies except for, um, LiveJournal
http://buzz.research.yahoo.com/bk/index.html
- "Buy FOLKSONOMY! And all the typo variants too!"
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> a surprise (Dr Who-spoiling?) showing of the early, funny
episodes of Sky1 stalwart BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER comes to
6.40pm, Sat, C5... Mel Gibson plays a "deeply religious" Air
Cavalry helicopter enthusiast in Nam revisionism WE WERE
SOLDIERS (9.10pm, Sat, ITV)... and expect slightly more of the
"Good British name" Pub Landlord catchprases than his "Police
Academy" weapon sound-effects in AN AUDIENCE WITH AL MURRAY
(9.15pm, Sat, ITV)... reality-show-examining hypothetical-
future drama-documentary IF - TV GOES DOWN THE TUBE is
ignominiously shunted off to 11.20pm, Mon, BBC2... BBC4
counterpoints human-shield tragi-comedy BAGHDAD OR BUST (9pm,
Wed, BBC4) with acclaimed analysis of US military-industrial
policy WHY WE FIGHT (10pm, Wed, BBC4)... and, following a week
that's featured ironically repeat-based DOCTOR WHO NIGHT
(7.30pm, Sat, BBC2), and both of the Peter Cushing movies
DOCTOR WHO AND THE DALEKS (3.50pm, Sat, BBC2) plus DALEKS -
INVASION EARTH 2150AD (12.40pm, Fri, C4), we're still hoping
that the new series of DOCTOR WHO (7pm, next Sat, BBC1) will
incorporate some of the League of Gentlemen's 'zine spoof,
"Dandy Lord": http://www.ntk.net/2005/misc/dandylord.html ...
FILM>> "not as bad as it could have been", yet "not a patch on
the 'Hellblazer' comic either" is the unsurprising verdict on
gothic Keanu Reeves supernatural nonsense-fest CONSTANTINE
( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/constantine.htm : The
angel Gabriel was a potty-mouthed androgynous female [Tilda
Swinton] while the Bible says otherwise; spiritual use of
lukewarm in clear defiance of God's admonition against being
lukewarm; That God and Satan made a wager sounds as if the
story is saying God and Satan are equal in power and
authority!)... you suspect that British audiences may come up
with their own "four-letter" solution to the Hangman poster
http://www.empiremovies.com/posters.php?id=571 for low-budget
sub-"Fight Club" artsy psychological potboiler THE MACHINIST
( http://cndb.com/movie.html?title=Machinist%2C+The+%282004%29 :
Jennifer Jason Leigh lies in bed with Christian Bale and
reveals her rack at the 20 and 59-minute marks)... the
imminent Easter holidays are marked with the release of CGI
romp ROBOTS ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/robots.htm :
transsexual suggestion; posterior in face humor; flatulence,
repeatedly)... then, next week, expect MISS CONGENIALITY 2:
ARMED AND FABULOUS (imdb: break-up/ drag-queen/ fake-breasts/
hung-upside-down/ ski-mask/ underwater-scenes) to largely
overshadow Will "Anchorman" Ferrell and Radha "Pitch Black"
Mitchell in quirky Woody Allen "comedy v tragedy" intertextual
exercise MELINDA AND MELINDA (MPAA: PG-13 - adult situations
involving sexuality, and some substance material)...
>> 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
"much-admired"
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/announcements/lifehacker-faq-028869.php
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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