>> HARD NEWS <<
a conspiracy brews
How long has it been since that rash promise: to start a
member-driven digital rights group in the UK, funded by fivers
pledged by ragged-t-shirted philanthropists like yourself?
Just over an "NTK week", we'd estimate - or one of your earth
months. And the news? Well, dispensing with the traditional
policy of starting a public wiki, a mailing list, and then
trailing off awkwardly into an endless "design a logo"
competition, your deputised authorities have been hard at work
in the background: smooth-talking potential benefactors,
drugging and kidnapping would-be board members, and sidling up
to people who should know better and futilely hinting that
they should quit their day jobs. But time's a ticking on the
pledge, and there's a point where you have to say "screw this
top-down crap: let's become 'massively distributed' and get
everybody else to do the real work". That time is - very
close. But in the meantime, in the style of one of those
always-disappointing teaser campaigns, let us give a name to
our domain: Welcome, please, THE OPEN RIGHTS GROUP. Defenders
of freedom; drinkers of tea.
http://www.pledgebank.org/rights
- look, you should have seen what the *second* choice was
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
GOTOs considered non-harmful
Among the (many) interesting aspects of October's WORLD SUMMIT
ON FREE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURES (Sat and Sun, 2005-10-01
and 02, Limehouse Town Hall, London E14 7HA, UKP10) is that,
as well as tackling contemporary matters of interest like
wifi, open geodata and community currencies, it also (John The
Baptist-style?) aims to "gather participants, themes, issues
and programme items" for a "larger event in India in late
2006".
http://www.okfn.org/wsfii/wiki/WsfiiDescription
- more info at http://www.okfn.org/wsfii/programme.html
Taking on "big consumerism" (and raising money for a Portland
zine distributor) the week before, reader Iain Aitch's READING
FRENZY (12noon-5pm, Sat 2005-09-24, Horse Hospital, London
WC1N 1HX) is a second-hand book sale where almost everything
costs a quid, and they'll waive the UKP1 entrance fee if you
bring along some (decent) old books of your own.
http://www.iainaitch.com/reading_frenzy.htm
- "Librarian fancy dress" may also swing it for you
And outside London, there's a slight overlap between the UK's
"first major [demoscene] party for a few years", SUNDOWN 2005
(from 6pm, next Fri 2005-09-09, Budleigh Village Hall, Devon,
EX9 7DU, UKP25), and - stop us if you've heard this before -
how blogs and wikis are "enabling conversations between
businesses and their customers [...] instead of the monologue
of PR" at OUR SOCIAL WORLD (from 9am, Fri 2005-09-09, The
Moller Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge CB3 0DS, prices
from UKP60 plus VAT), an event which we sincerely hope has
been named so they can sing along to the hit single from
Disney's Aladdin: "It's Our Social World! (our social world!)/
A new fantastic point of view/ No one to tell us no/ Or where
to go" - or say they're "only dreaming"?
http://www.sundown2005.org/rules.php
- may also be wishful thinking, but "Girls get in for free"
http://www.cybersalon.org/info.html#vrp3
- vs "Encouraging women to use mobiles" night, Tue Sep 20
http://oursocialworld.com/
- see also London http://www.podcastcon.co.uk/ Sat Sep 17
>> ANTI-MEMES <<
there's smoke, flames, http://dohthehumanity.com/
really beyond the usual remit of the "Make A Wish" Foundation:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1732873,00.html ...
it's like "Make" magazine for people who aren't too ambitious:
http://chalkline.blogspot.com/2005/08/diy-coffee-scented-car-freshner.html
... in other DIY ingenuity: http://samsung.co.uk/ vs "Dave G,
I dispair!!!" comment in www.ntlworld.com/styles/global.css
... somewhat technically-themed Google Goofs o' the month:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22command+lie+interface%22 ,
never forget your http://google.com/search?q=%22loin+name%22 ,
http://google.com/search?q=%22fully+fuctional%22 thankfully
more popular than http://google.com/search?q=fully-cuntional ,
http://google.com/search?q=%22massage+from+the+director%22 ,
slightly more impressive dummy copy than that "Lorem Ipusm":
http://google.com/search?q=complex+chronotron-feedback , and
the long-overdue return of "Unusually Named US Military
Personnel": http://google.com/news?q=Bunnatine+H.+Greenhouse
... http://www.wftv.com/slideshow/2691965/detail.html?qs=;s=11
- fossil evidence confirms Earth once ruled by - fish guy out
of "Stingray": http://tv-timewarp.co.uk/stingray/ ...
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
Look, I JUST want to run cross-platform automated browser
tests of my BLOODY dev website so I can TELL when I break
stuff WITHOUT sitting there being MISTER CLICKY CLICKY
TESTBOT myself. Is that so very HARD? Judging from the
ingenious SELENIUM, which achieves the trick of automated
web site regression testing, yes, it is hard:
hack-on-top-of-hack hard. Instead of cheating and use IE's
OLE2 automation, Selenium does this: it loads, in-browser, a
bunch of javascript-driven browser frames on top of your
site's pages, which are trapped within their own frame. Then
the javascript does the clicky clicky on the lower frame,
magically filling your website's forms and clicking links
in Safari, Opera, IE and Firefox, testing the resulting page
appearances to ensure it fits in with what you want your
site to do. The javascript frames take their orders from a
set of instructions spelled out in an HTML table page, or
can be driven by Ruby, Java or Python plugins (using a
JS->local process communication protocol that's even more
evil). The downside is that because of that darn javascript
security model, your Selenium javascript and command tables
have to be on the same server as your testee website. But
don't worry: somebody's written a Selenium web proxy, which
fakes Selenium's presence on any foreign site. And if you
think that's sick, wait until someone introduces the
Selenium coders to those Greasemonkey maniacs.
http://selenium.thoughtworks.com/index.html
- it makes a bit more sense when you download it
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
FILM>> the makers of "Anchorman" - minus Will Ferrell - aim a
bit lower in midlife grossout rom-com THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN
( http://cndb.com/movie.html?title=40+Year+Old+Virgin%2C+The+%282005%29 :
This R-rated flick might go down as the movie with the most
missed skin opportunities - the worst being Kat Dennings, who
plays the daughter of the woman the virgin ends up dating)...
Rachel "Wedding Crashers" McAdams faces every air passenger's
nightmare - sitting next to the author of that hard-hitting
industry insider's column in "Edge" magazine - in RED EYE
( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/red-eye.htm : a quite
violent film with a gaudy helping of foul language; exposure
of adult woman's underwear by fall. Yes, a woman's underwear
is likely to be exposed when she falls but the filmmakers know
*exactly* what is in each and every frame)... then, later in
the month, there's another of those wacky Japanese animations,
HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE (imdb keywords: castle/ floating/
scarecrow), and no doubt a continued lack of explanation as to
how, in the absence of fresh "hosts", zombies are able to feed
or reproduce, in GEORGE A ROMERO'S LAND OF THE DEAD (imdb
keywords: shot-in-the-chest/ shot-in-the-crotch/ shot-in-the-
eye/ shot-in-the-forehead/ shot-in-the-leg)... still, on the
plus side, 2.20am tonight sees an occasional Channel 4 showing
of Skip "Swordfish" Woods' top Tarantino-ish sitcom THURSDAY
( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Thursday+%281998%29 :
[Paulina Porizkova] strips and forces herself on this guy
[...] Her dialogue used to degrade him is also a major plus.
A must-see!)...
>> 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
"The koolest kid in Peoria, Illinois"
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Danny+O%27Brien
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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