>> HARD NEWS <<
april foo- oh, who can be bothered?
DON'T TOUCH THE DOUGHNUTS! Just as Grokster supporters,
weary from waiting all night for seats at the US Supreme
Court, were tempted by pastries from the recording industry
lawyers (who, in some sort of metaphor for the whole
process, pay folk to wait in line for them), one is
tempted to ask: does this high drama mean anything for the
UK? Ah, just wait. In the ancestor to this case, 1984's
Betamax judgement, the Supremes declared that recording TV
shows to watch later (time-shifting) was fair use in the
United States. That surprised a lot of copyright scholars
at the time - but four years later, time-shifting was
declared a explicit, limited exemption under UK copyright
law. If making file-sharing software is seen as an illegal
activity in the US, there's a good chance that British MPs
will decide to make the same true here. And after that,
why not start having another peck at the time-shifting
"liberty", too?
http://www.wetmachine.com/index.php/item/255
- Mr Valenti makes exceedingly good cakes
http://www.bectu.org.uk/policy/pol060.html
- oh you're allowed to time-shift *analog* TV, but digital?
And you think *your* IRC server has lamer problems. The folk
working on Jabber, the open messaging protocol intended To
Rule Them All, must have been pretty chuffed when the IETF
accepted its underlying protocol as a standards track back
in 2000. Getting increasingly less chuffed are those in
charge of running jabber.org, the protocol's demo server.
It sounds like Jabber is getting more and more adoption in
the commercial world; and the commercial world doesn't seem
to know how to set up its own chat servers. So far, the
somewhat amazed sysadmins have watched the usual geek chat
traffic be drowned out by: a British company called trackm8,
which sells an anti-theft device for trucks (many of which
sent their "I'm okay!" messages via jabber.org), a US hotel
services company whose hundreds of kiosks report home via
jabber.org, and two more companies too poor or technically
innocent to run their own servers: Telecom Italia and
Cingular. Peter St Andre, patron saint of the protocol, has
been kicking the lamers off as fast as they appear, but it
does beg the question: Is there a bash.org for machine-to-
machine messages?
http://www.saint-andre.com/blog/2005-03.html#2005-03-09T11:47
- hey, no bots!
http://bash.org/?top
- always good for a link
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
GOTOs considered non-harmful
There's been a lot of interest in the appeal to create a
copyright-unencumbered "open" map of London (then the UK) from
Russian satellite photography [see NTK 2005-01-21] - though,
ironically, some confusion about where you're actually
supposed to send your donations. Fortunately amateur-
cartographic ringleader JO WALSH should be pinning down those
- and other - co-ordinates at the Thursday-after-next's OPEN
KNOWLEDGE FORUM ON OPEN GEODATA (7pm, Thu 2005-04-14, Stanhope
Centre, near Marble Arch, London W2 2HH, free but RSVP) - we
(and they) are also interested in any ideas you have for a
similar "Open Hardware" evening at some point in the future.
Also, it's just a short(-ish) walk across Hyde Park from MY
PLAY-STATION AT SERPENTINE 2005 (10am-6pm, every day until
April 10, the Serpentine Gallery, London W2 3XA, free), Tomoko
Takahashi's installation comprising piles of toys, games, and
"more than 7,600 objects and domestic machines", brought to you
in conjunction with none other than... Marley Floors.
http://www.serpentinegallery.org/current.html
- also hosting "ultraviolet tag" on the lawn, 7pm tomorrow
http://www.okfn.org/wiki/OpenKnowledgeForums
- donations to: http://okfn.org/geo/ (NB not a wiki page)
http://www.spiked-online.com/event
- same night as (uncharacteristically free) Spiked wifi chat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1102753,00.html
- standard warnings about Spiked events still apply
http://festival2005.lovebytes.org.uk/
- Sheffield Lovebytes festival starts Thu April 14th
http://www.ukuug.org/osa/
- closing date for 500 quid UKUUG compo tomorrow (sorry)
>> ANTI-MEMES <<
there's smoke, flames, http://dohthehumanity.com/
click here to upgrade to our premium subscribers' archive of
abstract news pics: http://headlesszombiebunny.blogspot.com/ -
vs http://amiabstractornot.highlyillogical.org/ ... truth in
URL construction - weary of increasingly unoriginal toy market:
http://plush-toy.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_copy_of_Cabbage_Patch_Kids.html
- vs well, it could be meat recipes "for" cats, not "using":
them: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/cats/meat.php ...
inevitably: http://www.martian.fm/words_of_a_dying_man.htm
vs http://durrrrr.blogspot.com/ ... puerile Google goofs o'
the week: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=skiled+data+entry ,
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22is+a+big+crap%22+-shoot ,
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22sphere+of+effluence%22 ...
reminds us of Charlie Brooker's party ice-breaker "Which (non-
electric) DIY tool would you pick for the bloodiest workplace
massacre - before, of course, then turning it on yourself?":
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Number=1556673
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
The problem with wikis - no, revert that, *one* of the
problems with wikis - is that they're too easy to code, and
too hard to get right. They're the IRCbots of the '00s. So
it's with some relief to see that (the Outlaw) Jimmy Wales'
Wikipedia project has ground some good code out from the
twin stoney mills of that project's overrun moderators and
endless waves of public examination. MEDIAWIKI, which hit
v1.4 this past fortnight, is the Wikipedia wiki: it's also
easy to install, only really dependent on PHP and MySql
(unless you want mathematical equations, in which case you
deserve to have Objective CAML foisted your way). Its edges
are worn smooth: editing is easy, moderating and standing
guard over pages is easy, categorisation, uploading images,
all very nicely tweaked. It could do with a WYKI-WYSIWIG
textarea, some nicer Firefox helpers, and somebody shouting
about the "Enhanced recent changes" box in preferences to
every new user. But wait long enough, and perhaps they'll be
there too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki
- it even has a badly-licensed fork!
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> in light of the BBC's alleged schemings to turn any DR
WHO (7pm, Sat, BBC1) publicity into "good publicity" - as per
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,66913,00.html ,
http://www.twistandshoutcomics.com/twistblog/?p=6 - we can't
wait to see how they're going to keep the rest of the series
in the headlines - maybe by killing a member of the public as
per Noel Edmonds' "Late, Late Breakfast Show"?... elsewhere,
sci-fi rages almost unhindered across the schedules, in the
form of Disney's ultra-dense THE BLACK HOLE (3.10pm, Sat, C5),
Queen's "Gernsback Continuum"-style FLASH GORDON (4.10pm, Sat,
C4), and a - presumably CGI-free - live remake of the original
QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT (8.20pm, Sat, BBC4)... but the laughs
should be - slightly - more intentional in the disturbingly-
not-hosted-by-Jimmy-Carr? 50 GREATEST COMEDY SKETCHES (9pm,
Sun, C4)... a 90-minute documentary on the techniques of
torture rejoices in the somewhat jovial title WE HAVE WAYS OF
MAKING YOU TALK (9pm, Tue, BBC2)... the "Why this is hell, nor
am I out of it" line should take on unusual resonance when
delivered in a "shopping mall somewhere in the north of
England" for the Faust adaptation of BRAND NEW FLASHMOB OPERA
(8pm, Thu, BBC3)... and you can always disprove people who say
"the remake's never as good as the original" by pointing out
John Carpenter's version of "The Thing", the 1978 version of
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (12midnight, Fri, BBC1), or
indeed the crass commercial Hollywood-isation of Kurosawa's
"Seven Samurai" that we know as "The Magnificent Seven"...
FILM>> something of a double-bill for Naomi Watts fans, as she
pops up in both this week's more-of-the-same sequel RING 2
( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ringtwo_the.htm : having
"sixth sense"; demon in TV pulling boy into it; unholy
manifestations of evil such as toy merry-go-round starting by
itself) and next week's don't-spoil-the-ending "based on a
true story" 1970s-set THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON
( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains strong language and one
scene of strong violence)... while The Rock's dramatic reading
of a scene from "Bring It On" is a rare highlight of rambling
Elmore Leonard "Get Shorty" ensemble-cast follow-up BE COOL
( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Be+Cool+%282005%29 :
John Travolta [...] finds [Uma Thurman] sunbathing topless
face down on her patio) - also starring Christina Milian, from
next week's Tommy Lee Jones cheerleader incongruity MAN OF THE
HOUSE ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/manofthehouse.htm :
young woman massaging her anatomy to entice; six counts of
attempted murder by explosion; abuse of pastoral position to
mask criminal activities)...
>> 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
"Obey Alan! *Obey Alan!*"
http://www.google.co.uk/groups?q=subliminal+ntk+cox
NEED TO KNOW
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