Need To Know 2002-02-01

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"[Children] sleep with Pooh on their sheets, they wipe their faces with Pooh as they get out of the shower..." - anti-Disney litigants resort to "dirty protest" http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,5-2002047037,00.html >> HARD NEWS << prizes accrue The BLOGGIES are announced, and all of the constantly updating, filter and linking, daily diarists of the Web are there to cheer the winners on. Excepting the www.livejournal.com folk, and those everything/nothing kids, and the advogato/kuroshin journalers, of course. Nope, this one's for people who do *proper* weblogs. But if so - where was JORN BARGER, weblog ur-father, the man who coined the very term? In one of those perfect coincidences, Jorn's website, www.robotwisdom.com, running since 1997, disappeared from the Web just about the time the Bloggies were being revealed. Of course, Barger's been "disappeared" off the blog community's giftlist for a while. When his Israel divestment campaign veered into what some called out as anti-semitism, shocked bloggers removed their links to him, like shoppers determinedly looking away from a mother slapping her child. So it's unlikely he'll snatch that lifetime achievement award any time soon. Jorn's cranky, of course: a Kibo-loving hippy and underemployed Joyce fanatic who sits in his bed and scribbles about AI. Weblogging, like everything else he pursues, is an obsession. WIL WHEATON, by contrast, is the well-rounded cute geek boy of legend: the quoteable, filmable, film-quoting ex-RenFaire ex-Trekee yukster who tips a beanie to the Fark guys, knows the slashdot mod jokes, and gives respect where it's due. No surprise he won most of the awards. And isn't that what the Net's about? http://www.fairvue.com/?feature=awards2002 - and who'd do better with $20.02? http://metatalk.metafilter.com/mefi/1511 - "I bet his financial problems are a result of the Zionist control of the world financial markets" http://www.wilwheaton.net/ - "/me does the happy dance" http://web.archive.org/web/20000510161001/www.feedmag.com/feature/cx329.shtml - "I live on bread and water, so as not to submit to the Idiots." http://instinct.org/~jorn/ - just the domain name renewal cheque clearing After much deliberation, and some locking of people in our toilet, we decided to split the New Year "Design Our Stylesheet" prize. One half, as originally proposed, we set upon awarding to entrants who parodied other, pretty-boy, sites (while spurning the cheap shortcut of just linking to their own stylesheets and yes we do mean you, GORDON JOLY). The other half-award, we newly declared, was to be awarded to whoever of the remaining entrants most skillfully evaded the whole point of the competition. This was a practical decision. "Why not make it look a bit more like Ceefax?", wrote VANILLA BEACH, helpfully. "Everyone watched Ceefax." Stylish? Yes. A "sheet", Vanilla? No. In a similiar vein, RICHARD IRONS declaimed, together with many fully compliant whingers, "How about publishing NTK in XML format?". You need to wait until our 2003 competition, Richard, where readers will be asked to guess the CORBA interface to our .NET SOAP-over-NNTP API. You nut. Others complained about dabbling with CSS at all. Pigdog Journal's MR. BAD swung an uncharacteristically helpful bat here: "NTK readers can always use PigDog DeCSS to remove style-sheet shmoo - http://pigdog.org/decss/ ". But to do so would only increase your liability to subpoena by legal spider-bots, and naturally, cause you to miss our sedulous runners up. Start with LES MCKENNA's defiant, "Yer back to basics VT100" stylee: http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?style=http://www.carlisle.ac.uk/ntk.css Move onto TOM GILDER's fantastic triple-bill homagerie, which came near to sweeping the boards (sucky in Opera) - http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?s=http://tom.vpwsys.co.uk/css/ntk/bbc.css and http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?s=http://tom.vpwsys.co.uk/css/ntk/slashdot.css http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?s=http://tom.vpwsys.co.uk/css/ntk/theregister.css And finally, stumble upon PAUL HAMMOND's contribution, which combined both borderline parody *and* wilfull disruption: http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?s=http://www.paranoidfish.org/things/ntk_404.css Mr Hammond and Mr Gilder receive halves of the T shirt prize for their effrontery; all other entries are to have their punishments mercifully withheld. We hope you're all very pleased with yourselves. http://kevan.org/twin.cgi?blog=1062 - *evil* twin, we like to think... http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?s=ntk.css - yeah, we'll stick with this for the proportional lovers The Realnames-style JINI private namespace - which we were so skeptical about back in December - seemed to have it all: an annoying IE plug-in which redirects words (and non-"www" URLs) typed in the address bar to the pages of those who've reserved those particular words for as little as UKP50 per month. Of course, the ultimate online endorsement can only come from a former household name/international music star, and Jini's arrived this week in the form of the Surrey-based net consultant who claims to work "for a woman called Joan Armatrading". Joan apparently "owns several keywords on various search engines", but would very much like to sublet some "to give smaller companies an opportunity to promote their businesses on the web cost-effectively". Her Jini keywords include "movies" and "pictures", both of which currently link to the official site of *the* Joan Armatrading. Without getting into "After They Were Famous" territory, is this really what the 1970s' answer to Tracey Chapman is up to nowadays? Is it just bizarre retaliation for net entrepreneurs like Cliff Stanford foraying into pop music with "Girls@Play"? And will stunts like this keep Jini themselves out of the "Where are they now?" file - along with the fact that, so far, we've found it impossible to uninstall the bastard thing? http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02001-12-07&l=82#l - www.sun.com/jini/ has better search engine placement, natch http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4324885,00.html - so *that's* whose buying those ebay EverQuest items... >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious RUGBY not as popular in Ireland as you'd been led to believe: http://www.ntk.net/2002/02/01/dohirish.gif ... Euro "rounding down" in action: http://www.ntk.net/2002/02/01/dohblin.png - or is it essential to compete in today's intensely globalised job market?: http://www.ntk.net/2002/02/01/dohanglia.jpg , http://guardiantools-d-aspen.workthing.com/vacancy/12/36812.xml ... BBC shows "artist impression" and photo on the same page: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1791000/1791904.stm ... idea for Fast Show character - Overexcitable Estate Agent: 194.176.198.67/home/wwwea/search_profile.cgi?ea=01132682100&sor=S&reg=YAL ... if we gave you a map, they wouldn't be secret, would they?: http://www.vatican.va/library_archives/vat_secret_archives/map/ ...CENTRE POINT architect to live for 18,000 years (bottom of): http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,60-2001372987,00.html ... <TITLE> tag "CELEBRITIES" showing the fun to be had in Devon - http://www.devon.gov.uk/econeuro/tourism/devotedstories.html - include Sheffield's "Sarah Booth", Nottinghamshire's "Mr Battersby", and "Mr Durling", of Wiltshire... the future already happened: http://www.ntk.net/2002/02/01/dohtrain.gif ... well, there goes at least one idea for the business plan: http://www.ntk.net/2002/02/01/dohcam.gif ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Perhaps anticipating all those companies who won't be sending quite so many people to MILIA this year (from Mon 2002-02-04, Palais Des Festivals, Cannes, 350 Euros upwards), harrowing experimental electronica night DORKBOT LONDON has relocated to the slightly more central State 51 venue (7pm, Wed, 2002-02- 06, free). NTK's "Dave Green" has been asked *not* to bring his guitar on this occasion, creating a breathing space for new acts like SIMON WISTOW to "kick, punch, it's all in the mind" on the subject of games and generative music, based around demos of titles like Rez, Vib Ribbon and Parappa The Rapper. Other attractions include electronic sculptor ROLF GEHLHAAR, "over-active" artist-musician TOM NULLPOINTER and, testing your recall of zany SOUND and VDU 19 commands to the max, a load of BBC Micros set up "just to see what people do". http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotlondon/ - venue still the most accessible thing about it http://www.milia.com/ - "never too late to register", the pop-up pleads http://www.fosdem.org/ - also this month: Stallman hits Europe. Songsheets ahoy! >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Compared to Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, Galeon, Skipstone and the rest of the Unix browsers, DILLO is a scrappy little thing. Its HTML rendering isn't great; it don't do frames or CSS; no javascript, plugins or ftp. Right now, you need to apply source patches just to get SSL and cookies to work. But dillo has one feature: it's fast. Not "ooh let's get out our stopwatches and put it in a race with IE" fast: this is "what righteous voodoo hex has this mother *placed* upon my TCP/IP stack?". Dillo's written in C, with some threaded networking code you shan't want to look at: but the remainder is 200KB of eminently hackable GTK code. You won't want to use it as your everyday browser (yet). But you'll enjoy your current choice a *lot* less after you've seen this. http://dillo.sourceforge.net/ - somebody suck this code back into the Gnome/KDE filebrowsers >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ www.tracysboyfriendsreunited.co.uk ... MR T vs World Economic Forum: http://www.geocities.com/net_strike_net/english_active.html ... and another reason not to book your operation for late December: http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/309/6970/1686 ... hope it's a misguided viral campaign for an upcoming scifi film http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=wv0oi0r4.fsf%40mail.dckco1.tn.home.com most rubbish LoTR analogies so far: volume discounts for THE ONE RING? http://www.badalijewelry.com/tolkien.htm ... one API to bind them all: http://java.sun.com/ ... but still filk wins the prize: http://www.kddresearch.org/Tolkien/Humor/RedSOW/ ... the new extreme ironing: www.cheeseracing.org ... exceeded their parameters: http://world.std.com/~jlr/doom/doom_eng.htm ... hahaha RUSSIANS are funny: http://funreports.com/ vs alright, alright we get the message: http://shamedagain.blogspot.com ... www.flybmi.com vs www.fly-bmi.com ... ah, the smell of it : http://www.duke.edu/~bis/gravity/ ... but where's the wife auction? http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1313577170 ... http://www.hyperdoc.net/ ... "WinZip comes with Windows XP" says http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/bliss.asp : that'll be news to Nico Mak of Winzip Corp... P&P = about UKP229? http://www.kodak.co.uk/UK/en/digital/dx3700offerStatement.shtml >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> in a refreshing change from all those WW2 documentaries, TIMEWATCH examines a brutal US massacre of civilians in KILL 'EM ALL: AMERICAN WAR CRIMES IN KOREA (9pm, Fri, BBC2)... NTK contributor Alan Connor seemed as surprised as we were to find his book club spoof "The Pooters" in tonight's COMEDY LAB (11.55pm, Fri, C4)... you can enjoy SCANNER COP (1am, Fri, C4) without having seen previous straight-to-video sequels "Scanners II: The New Order" and "Scanners III: The Takeover" ... and, all together now, "I am wanking as I write this" - Anthony Hopkins in THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (1.55pm, Sat, ITV): http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.patrick/hopkins.html ... Saturday is quirky cameo-packed indie curio night on BBC2, with lame Catherine McCormack romcom THIS YEAR'S LOVE (9pm), sleepy Southern Altman yawn COOKIE'S FORTUNE (10.45pm), and overrated Linklater student-spanking frenzy DAZED AND CONFUSED (12.35am)... though C5's line-up is looking "murderously" good with new runs of US imports CSI (9pm, Sat, C5) plus LAW AND ORDER (10pm, Sat, C5)... NTK's "Dave Green" predicts mild t- shirt product placement during the games reviews in low-budget double-bill gadget show DON'T READ THE MANUAL (12noon, Sun, UK Horizons)... James Bond knock-off JACKIE CHAN'S FIRST STRIKE (9pm, Sun, C5) is "a disappointing end to the Police Story series", but surely an improvement on Robin Williams CGI afterlife odyssey WHAT DREAMS MAY COME (10pm, Sun, C4), or indeed Kevin Costner's class tourism epic DANCES WITH WOLVES (10pm, Mon, C4)... while C5 sticks to what it knows best with Rutger Hauer terrorist Olympiad BLAST (9pm, Mon, C5)... hot on the heels of last October's "Gas Attack", SMALLPOX 2002 (9pm, Tue, BBC2) provides another handy how-to guide to creating a bioweapon epidemic... Mel Gibson remakes "Point Blank" in PAYBACK (9pm, Tue, C5)... ROBOCOP 3 is on again (10.30pm, Tue, ITV)... M*A*S*H: THE MOVIE (11.35pm, Tue, BBC1) isn't as good as the TV series... and new late-night comedy series THE ESTATE AGENTS (11.05pm, Thu, C4) is - thank god - yet another sitcom set in the workplace... FILM>> probably the less you know about it, the more you'll get out of refreshingly surprising Denzel Washington/ Ethan Hawke pseudo-Shakespearean bent-cop ghetto-fable TRAINING DAY ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Training+Day : you do actually get a great shot of [Eva Mendes'] breasts and can even pretty clearly see her lower area)... other than that, the Farrelly brothers continue to plough their increasingly well-worn bad-taste feel-good furrow with Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black, Jason "George from Seinfeld" Alexander and Laura "TV Pizza" Kightlinger in fatty schmaltz-fest SHALLOW HAL ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/shallowhal.htm : equations in the CAP analysis model used to calculate the Sex/Homosexuality score had to be modified to accommodate overflow; toilet humor, multiple; such a theme [that inner beauty is more valuable than physical appearance] could be a positive influence if it were not saturated in morally extortionistic sexual and impudence/arrogance influences)... Sly Stallone and Dina Meyer blunder into mysteriously unreleased-in-the-US sub-"The Thing" containment drama hunt- em-up D-TOX (imdb: original title "Eye See You")... or it's Robert Altman, Jeremy "The Net" Northam, and Stephen Fry - together at last! - in period murder mystery GOSFORD PARK ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/gosford_park.html : we see [Kelly "Trainspotting" Macdonald's] bare back as she bathes; [Emily Watson] shows some cleavage as she bends over in a slip; [Ryan Phillippe] asks [Kristin Scott Thomas] if she needs company and we then see him trying to undo her dress. It's implied that they fool around)... >> 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 http://groups.google.com/groups?q=baen+mocks "NTK mocks everyone, what makes you so special?" 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) 2002 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ 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. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.