Need To Know 2002-07-26

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"The system does not store the actual fingerprint, but a map of it which takes in the print's key features..." - Stephen Phillips, Micro Librarian Systems http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/education/2144188.stm ...UK schoolkids allowed to keep their "actual" fingers >> HARD NEWS << where Stanford flew A public fight between former partners spills onto a Web forum - with accusations of poor hygiene, two-timing, and sex with goats. Well, even without that last one, the REDBUS vs REDBUS INTERHOUSE spat still promises to be the best online tussle this side of Watford FC. In the red corner: the directors of colocation corp Interhouse, the first and dearest of Cliff Stanford's startup firms after flogging Demon. In the redder corner - Cliff Stanford himself, trying to regain control after being unceremoniously squeezed off the board a few weeks back. Net veteran that he is, Cliff's revenge involves brushing off the forum software, kicking up the HTML, and spooling his side of the story to the shareholders on his Website. The punters, unused to this degree of corporate transparency, have been peppering him with questions - including at one stage requesting (and getting) a detailed breakdown of Cliff's use of the Redbus private jet. The incumbent board are a bit more taciturn. But even Bo Bendtsen, founder of cheapo webhosting co UK2.NET and newly minted Interhouse company director, has been popping in to fend off Cliff's criticisms. And stumbling, it appears, right into the paths of other Interhouse customers, less than happy to see the owner of a competing hosting company take an executive role in their coloc. That said, Bo's no stranger to BBSs: shame we've yet to see any of his old friends from the FidoNet days post their opinions. http://www.redbus.be/rise/ - sign up for the forums. hell, buy a share and turn up to the EGM http://www.terminate.com/fidonet/ - Bo looking cool in his earlier days http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/18685 - goatse.cx in Watford Still, it's not all pain and strife. To rollback through a few bits of good news from previous weeks: Yahoo turned off their medieval -> medireview autoconverter, depriving the English language of another synonym for "old and busted"; the JPEG committee has, like our anonymous contact, also spotted Lucent pursuing patent claims on JPEG/JBIG codes, and is pursuing it. And, going back a bit further, you may remember ROSS ANDERSON getting het up about the UK Export Bill, which would have placed export bans on a bunch of dangerous items, including some ideas and code. After five months of lobbying, Ross and his cohorts this week got the government to include an amendment that excludes scientific research, material being published, and work in the public domain. Which means you can still write letters about crypto to your friends outside .uk without being convicted of thoughtcrime and ten years in jail. Truly a week in which things got worse slower! http://www.jpeg.org/newsrel1.html - Joint Photographic Experts, Assemble! http://www.ntk.net/2002/02/08/#HARD_NEWS - early Export rumours http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/exportbill.html - Ross actually scarier when happy Bram Cohen, the flaxen-haired hacker behind CodeCon, has been beavering away on BITTORRENT, his P2P obsession, fulltime and unpaid, for eight months. It's nearly ready to ship at DEFCON next week, but it needs a mite more testing. But there's a problem: how *do* you stress test a "swarming downloader"? BitTorrent's a helper app that's designed to allow servers to redistribute the download burden of slashdottings amongst the audience. Download a big BitTorrent-enabled file, and you'll simultaneously upload chunks to your fellow downloaders. It's a nice practical application of P2P. Except how do you simulate a slashdotting? Especially when you've already shrugged off one bona fide, slashdot.org appearence? Cohen sensibly thought of two words here: free pr0n. So he's got a 700meg porn file on his site he'd like you all to download. All of you. Preferably at the same time. If you're curious about network scaling issues, realworld Python applications, or you're just filthy, follow the link below. Preferably within a few minutes of getting this mail. You can always delete the file after you're done - hell, with production values like this, and copyright laws like that, it'd probably be best if you did. And maybe best if you didn't do this at work. http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html - for Windows and UNIX (including a Debian package) http://www.debian.org/CD/ - no, *Deb*ian - talking of which, why not go hardcore, and distribute the Debian 3.0 ISOs instead? >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious starting to run out of the PUERILE GOOGLE MISSPELLINGS: http://www.google.com/search?q=scientits , cocunt, phpinfo(), http://www.google.com/search?q=%22DO+NOT+QUOTE+OR+CITE%22 , and top of the list for "replace this text with title", it's NASA: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/budget/fy96/table.html - c'mon guys, it's hardly rocket science... what's she pointing at?: http://www.ntk.net/2002/07/26/dohoo.gif ... alarming new BULL line: http://www.ntk.net/2002/07/26/dohbull.gif ... "We ALL need a bilingual tag line": http://www.caerphillycu.co.uk/ ... the public face http://www.netmgt.com/ of "public design": http://www.netmgt.com/public_design/ ... recommended by top amnesiacs: http://www.oup-usa.org/isbn/0340742313.html ... "To evict Narinder": http://www.bigbrother-online.co.uk/ ... BBC covers Worldcom crash in pioneering Point/Counterpoint format: http://www.ntk.net/2002/07/26/dohpoint.gif ... latest EDGE reviews ailing, Edge-sponsored "Game On" show at Barbican - "well worth a visit", Edge concludes... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful At least three non-London-based events taking place in the world next week: Finnish demo party THE ASSEMBLY (from Thu 2002-08-01, Hartwall-Areena, Helsinki, from 35 Euros) - now with Nokia 7650 programming compo; and of course the rumoured last-ever DEFCON (from Fri 2002-08-02, Alexis Park Hotel, Las Vegas, US$75). Rounding off this faintly Nordic trio is of course the Edinburgh Festival, at which we have the pleasure of recommending consumer-goods home-delivery homage THE MEASURE OF A MILKMAN (3.15pm, from Wed 2002-07-31, The Pleasance, Edinburgh, from UKP4), a one-man masterpiece from Andrew MacKay, best known as "The Professor" from pub landlord sitcom "Time Gentlemen Please", "Pie Man" from "Lee And Herring's Fist Of Fun", and a former "Michael Faraday" (and, we think, "Nikola Tesla") at the Science Museum. http://www.assembly.org/content/compos/rules_nokia_24h.html - Symbian OS not to be confused with http://www.sybian.com/ http://www.defcon.org/ - coffee, guns, and cannonball runs http://www.edfringe.com/searchshows/detail.php?type=show&id=MILK - love these NASDAQ-style stock symbols http://www.edfringe.com/searchshows/detail.php?type=show&id=TALK - id=COCK not available? http://www.edfringe.com/searchshows/detail.php?type=show&id=JSPRI - Lee also launching his "Pea Green Boat" >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering The problem with chart-drawing programs is the same as their big brothers, presentation programs: the more powerful they are, the more of your precious life you spend tweaking. At what angle and shade of puce, I wonder, should my 3D pyramidical scattergram of our accounting discrepancies over time be? Sometimes you just want a barchart. Well, for simple-living Unix folk, old PLOTICUS may be the answer. PLOTICUS takes in data and config info on the command line, wipes its hands on its denim overalls, and belches a barchart (or linechart, or scatter graph, or whatever) in SVG, PS, PNG or somesuch. It's been around for years. It isn't in Java or PHP, and doesn't use XML. When things go wrong, it doesn't raise an exception, it segfaults. The built-in scripting language looks like something you wrote that time, drunk. But most data sources can be shovelled into it with a bit of Perl massage, and there's a great big pile of built-in (and hackable) scripts that cover most eventualities, and you want a quick-and-dirty chart of your logfile? It's yours. And if you want baroque, you know where the PowerPoint is kept. http://ploticus.sourceforge.net/doc/Welcome.html - ooh! bioinformatics! >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2151754.stm imitates http://www.theonion.com/onion3626/hersheys_pay_obese.html ... http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992572 imitates http://www.theonion.com/onion3631/christian_right_lobbies.html ... ambiguity in the (figurative?) use of "WE DISHONOR GOD BY TOLERATING THE LIKES OF THESE": http://www.christocracy.net/ ... future Al-Qaeda steganographic strategies revealed: www.google.com/groups?q=hihihi&selm=3d2daef8.31075143%40news.btinternet.com ... also from our upcoming "dumb search engine tricks" special: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22self-referential+google+link%22&btnI=1 , and, of course: http://labs.google.com/sets?q1=hugh&q2=pugh ... semi-literate slashdot-comment found poetry of the week: http://features.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=36274&cid=3908805 ... top 100 "best singles ever" - for fans of novelty hits and TV themes: http://tv.cream.org/arksingles.htm ... well, that settles it: http://www.simulation-argument.com/ ... you'll go blind (again): http://www.newsqueak.com/gawking/animatrix/ ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> near non-stop nudity in the movie adaptation of the Register-recommended spyware screensaver VIRTUAL GIRL (9.55pm, Fri, C5): http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/20169.html ... Madeline from TV's "La Femme Nikita" breaks a few other taboos in David "Three Kings" O Russell's debut SPANKING THE MONKEY (12.20am, Fri, BBC2)... while BIG BROTHER - THE "LIVE" FINAL (from 8pm, Fri, C4) is intriguingly juxtaposed with the Richard Burton Eurythmics-themed movie of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (2.45am, Fri, C4)... following her popular series of Lloyds TSB ads, Saturday is Joely Richardson night, as she lezzes up with Saffron "Deep Blue Sea" Burrows in ART THAT SHOOK THE WORLD: VICTORIA WOOLF'S ORLANDO (7.05pm, Sat, BBC2), and - inexplicably - tries to have a child with Hugh Laurie in Ben Elton-scripted abortion MAYBE BABY (9.05pm, Sat, BBC1)... so thank heavens for ITV's now-annual showing of SPECIES (11.30pm, Sat, ITV)... INDIA CALLING (11.05pm, Sun, C4) goes behind the scenes at an English-language call centre in Delhi... MAYBE IT'S ME (7pm, Mon-Fri, E4) is the teen sitcom made by the Pop-Up Video folks, but the title's already been toned down from "Maybe I'm Adopted"... and, after carting a fridge around Ireland etc, the supremely irritating Tony Hawks takes on another pointless bet in ONE HIT WONDERLAND (8pm, Mon-Fri, Discovery) - stick to skateboarding, dude!... this week's prurient factual programming includes unsurprising historical revelations in SEX BC (9pm, Mon, C4), a nice advertising opportunity for Norton Utilities in the breaks between THE REAL GARY GLITTER (10.35pm, Tue, C4), a would-be transsexual Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan in MAKE ME A MAN (9pm, Wed, C4), and Chris Tarrant parlaying his "Is that your final answer?" reputation into a voiceover spot on AMNESIA: TRAPPED IN TIME (8pm, Tue, C5)... Rutger Hauer stalks fellow USAF pilot Robert "Terminator 2" Patrick in TACTICAL ASSAULT (9pm, Tue, C5)... and the competition to find terrestrial TV's worst presenter gets a lot more interesting, as POP (5pm, Fri, C5) provides a primetime slot for ex-Kenickie vocalist and PlayUK veteran Lauren Laverne... FILM>> Crikey, Stevo - looks like you've cut out a couple of "wanker"s to get a PG rating for deranged talking-to-camera film-of-the-year contender CROCODILE HUNTER: COLLISION COURSE ( www.screenit.com/movies/2002/the_crocodile_hunter_collision_course.html : Steve finds and smells dried lizard "poo" and then puts some in his pocket to save it; Steve playfully pats Terri on her clothed butt; Terri shows some cleavage in a tank-top; we see a dog urinating on a man's hat)... otherwise there's yet another chance to see the maestro flaunting his crude period humour and novelty wigs - but that's enough about the added- nudity director's cut re-release of Mozart genius AMADEUS ( http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2002/04/041401.html : The one brief scene of Constanze's breasts, in medium-long shot, has inspired the flywheels at the MPAA to re-rate the movie R from its original PG. Thus high school students are discouraged from seeing this movie)... Mike Myers increasingly overstretches himself in basically the same fricking identical film, but with a bigger budget, as AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/austin_powers_in_goldmember.html : we see that Britney Spears has a navel ring and a small tattoo; Beyonce Knowles plays [Myers'] foxy female sidekick who fights with some people, uses some brief profanity and wears various styles of revealing clothing)... THE VICTORIAN AFFECTATION>> and well done to the following NTK readers who've taken advantage of the recent downturn to write that book they'd always wanted to. Though obviously XCom02 lightning presentation stars JAMES BERESFORD and CHE PAULA DUNLOP didn't write all of THE ALT.CYBERPUNK.CHATSUBO ANTHOLOGY (UKP16.99) http://www.accanthology.com/ themselves - they downloaded their favourite stories (and poems) - with the authors' permission - off Usenet, where some of the highlights - eg David Palmer's "Bugs" - can handily still be found: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1lpq23INNch3%40gap.caltech.edu ... former GEEK PRIDE organiser TIM MCEACHERN has collected the wisdom garnered in his years working with the mighty Andover keiretsu in "yet another clueless business manifesto for the post-digital age" THE NEW NEW ECONOMY (UKP13.99) http://www.geeknation.com/ (love that lossy jpeg!), though he admits that he "wishes he'd thought of" a promo piece like: http://www.satirewire.com/news/june02/economy_of_errors.shtml ... while ADAM WISHART, who makes those "Blood on the Carpet" and "Back to the Floor" TV shows, provides an impressively even-handed account of the "Toywar" row over the etoy.com domain in LEAVING REALITY BEHIND: INSIDE THE BATTLES FOR THE SOUL OF THE INTERNET (UKP16.99), which is apparently only just appearing in shops now because the litigation-crazed etoy artists collective - who are supposed to be the *good guys* - tried to injunct it for alleged negative portrayal of them: http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0203/msg00050.html ... elsewhere in dead tree publishing: MARK BENNETT proudly announces that you can now buy Brit cyberzine BLACK ICE (from UKP5) online: http://www.blackicemedia.net/ , which is useful, because it's almost impossible to find in the shops. Internal NTK fanboy opinion maintains that Marvel's THE ULTIMATES http://persiancaesar.com/continuity/ultimates.htm is "the new Authority", while this month's must-not purchase - in case you were tempted - is the suspiciously titled 16-page (+CD) CRAZY PC (UKP3.95), whose occasional lapses into French lead us to fear it's a very poorly revived version of CRAZYNET from 1999: http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=01999-07-16&l=278#l ... >> 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 t-shirts are so you can see where we are" http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=36782&cid=3957114 NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Unsubscribe? 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