"Iran has mastered between 60 and 70% of the technology needed
for the production of nuclear fuel, a former Iranian
representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) said..."
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,6119,2-10-1462_1532374,00.html
...at 90%, they'll have enough energy to start building a
Battle Lab, Spy Satellite, army of Chrono Legionnaires
>> HARD NEWS <<
henceforths and hithertos
Last time the purple T Rex made a flailing-armed assault on
the Net, it was to demand that a parody song be removed from
a site for trademark reasons. The site in question? The EFF,
who did what you'd expect: sighed a little, then pulled back
a curtain to reveal sixteen thousand First Amendment/
Copyright Jedi attack lawyers. This time, scenting easier prey,
BARNEY THE DINOSAUR went for a smaller, crunchier, victim: the
owner of barney.co.uk, six year old Barney Loosemore. Latter
Barney was of course maliciously hoarding the domain under
the ridiculous pretense that he had as much right to his own
Christian name as said fictional corporate entity. Mmm, good
multinational branded dinosaur eats here. Unfortunately,
Barney L.'s dad is Tom Loosemore. Tom is an old school
netizen, ex-Wired UK refugee. He helped set up FaxYourMP,
and various other NTK favourites. Tom sat down and
explained, in words that even dinosaurs understand, why you
can't steal domains from little children. Nominet's dispute
arbiter agreed, spattered HIT Entertainment's plea with
corrective "[sics]", and kicked it out of pretend domain
name court as fast as its stubby little, reptilian little,
vexatious little extinct legs could stumble. Jesus, even the
real dinosaurs didn't go *picking fights* with meteors.
www.nominet.org.uk/DisputeResolution/Decisions/Drs01544Barneycouk.html
- worth reading for the ill-concealed contempt
http://www.hitentertainment.com/portal/flash/player.asp
- can someone cause some kind of worldwide Wiggle-extinction event?
There probably won't be much of an NTK next week; we'll most
likely send out a schedule for the ground-breaking UK NOTCON
taking place the following Sunday (2004-06-06) - which might
still be useful even if you can't make it to London, due to a
"more than token" effort to webcast and IRC-dissect as many
sessions as possible. Then we're hoping to take off most of
the rest of June for essential site maintenance, and perhaps
even a redesign as controversial as 2000's slightly greyer
border on the website and 1997's ditching of the "Culture"
section. Please continue to send us stuff, however, especially
if it might still be funny in a couple of weeks' time, or if
your reminiscences of the last 7 years are as poignant as
those of reader BEN SCHOFIELD, who must speak for many of us
as he recalls: "Jesus Christ, I've been reading this every
week for seven years. I've no more money than when I started,
and my main leisure activities still consist of getting drunk
and sitting in front of computers. Where has my life gone?"
http://www.notcon04.com/
- just a thought, Ben: maybe it's gone to South Kensington
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
that's a *lot* of <form enctype="multipart/form-data"> tags:
http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/dohcgi.gif ... double negative
o' the week: http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/dohieee.gif ...
Transport for London's political incorrectness gone mad:
http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/dohdefect.gif ... Widdy of week:
http://halfpricewebdesign.co.uk/?f=The%20Whole%20Fricking%20World
... not quite his original goal of retaining both American
continents for the Spanish empire, but still keeping his hand
in: http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/dohincharge.gif ... those
missing millions: http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/doh2e.gif ,
http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/doheco.gif ... guess why we
didn't run the last line of the main text as a Google search:
http://www.antiquerestorer.co.uk/sbs/clockbase.htm ... reassuringly
expensive: http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/dohhar.gif ... for real
completists: http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/dohwing.gif ... enjoy
"Various Artists"?: http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/dohvar.gif ...
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
By some freakish act of omission, we've never mentioned
TWISTED, Python's own event-driven based-on-a-MUD became-an-
appserver-cum-package-installer-cum-IRC-bot framework.
Similiarly, we've never banged on about JYTHON, the Python
that runs in the Java VM. Allow us to address both these
failings by talking about two funky web-testing applications
built upon each. Python Browsing Probe (PBP) is a web
session scripting tool built on Twisted and Python's
"mechanize". It lets you script and record a set of Pythonish
commands for clicking on buttons and filling in forms,
letting you automate a whole Web session in a text file.
Mechanize can't *quite* cope with Javascript (yet): so if
you want to use Python to, ooh, say, automate your bank's
javascriptastic statement-downloading Webpage, you might
want to try Jython with HTTPUNIT. HttpUnit is Java's own
browser emulator, which, thanks to the Mozilla project's
Rhino javascript-in-java, is pretty down with the .js. If
you're a Pythonista looking to test your own flaky website
(or spider someone else's), and/or you like Javascript
implementations named after funny animals, give them a try.
http://pbp.berlios.de/
- also linked to buildbot, a neat Python tinderbox lite
http://httpunit.sourceforge.net/
- pretty easy to get running with Jython
http://www.jython.org/
- Jython now up to 2.2ish
http://wwwsearch.sourceforge.net/python-spidermonkey/
- Javascript in Python. Now my head really hurts.
>> MEMEPOOL <<
contains a source of http://snackspot.org/
come on, you were all thinking it: www.martian.fm/artburn.htm
... not the not-safe-for-work "derriere" the Renault ads had
in mind: http://images.google.com/images?q=megane&safe=off ...
Future launch "paperless", potentially "readerless" magazine:
http://www.indiemagazine.co.uk/cgi-bin/news.cgi?id=2593§ion=3
... Oxfam http://www.bignoisemusic.com/ rebadge of Peter
Gabriel's OD2 service requires IE5, Windows Media Player 7,
"doesn't even display in Opera", apparently... handy IQ test
- by seeing how many stupid diallers you're dumb enough to
install: http://www.personaltest.co.uk/ ... spoof "fan" mail?:
ftp://ftp.bbc.co.uk/pub/sketch/monkey.txt (semi-anonymised
mirror: http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/21/dohmonkey.txt )...
together at last: http://sam.zoy.org/fun/goatse/ ... webcams -
were they the "blogs" of the 1990s?: http://www.biddycam.com/
... amazingly, it's all just "concerned citizens" helping out:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=c7sa0t%24prj%241%40FreeBSD.csie.NCTU.edu.tw
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> BIG BROTHER (10pm, Fri, C4) "gets evil" in its new
series, an intriguing development for anyone who thought
TV's most exploitative glorification of CCTV surveillance,
presented by cackling bully Davina McCall, might have gone
some distance down that path already... Andrew Gilligan has
clearly moved on from all that recent unpleasantness when he
asks "Do Our Spies Sex It Up?" in 30 MINUTES (6pm, Sat, C4)
... and despite apparent inaccuracies in the opening explosion
http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/swordfish.html , we still
have a soft spot for anti-terrorist hacker curio SWORDFISH
(10pm, Sun, C4)... the Digital Spy forums claim that HOW
FRIENDS CHANGED THE WORLD (3.55pm, Mon, C4) was previously
pulled from transmission due to Warner Bros "rights issues"
http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=125420
... Arnie erases a painful relationship using memory implants,
an Uzi in relentless "Eternal Sunshine" companion TOTAL RECALL
(10.20pm, Mon, BBC1)... C5 takes its second look at STRANGER
THAN FICTION: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE MOON LANDINGS (9pm, Wed,
C5) http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02002-08-09&l=208#l in less
than 2 years... as science and sensationalism satisfactorily
combine in new three-part embryology docu HUMAN MUTANTS (9pm,
Thu, C4)...
FILM>> wisecracking audiences will enjoy the long gaps for
sarcastic comments after almost every line of the daft dialogue
in largely enjoyable low-key ID4 remake THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
( http://www.ahafilm.info/movies/moviereviews.phtml?fid=7580 :
Production told American Humane that these scenes were filmed
using real wolves, and then later, in post production, CG
wolves were substituted [...] The director was disappointed at
how calm the wolves were; Emmerich wanted them to snarl and
fight with each other, but the wrangler said that they would
not behave that way since they were from the same pack. Scenes
of the wolves walking through snow and chasing Sam and the
other men were computer generated, as was the wolf that jumped
against the window)...
>> 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
"for every sparrow that falls..."
http://pants.heddley.com/2003/12/01/2003-12-01.html#1070280672.720354
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
Archive - http://www.ntk.net/
Unsubscribe or subscribe at http://lists.ntk.net/
NTK now is supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntkmart.com/
(K) 2004 Special Projects.
Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/
Full license at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0
Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com
All communication is for publication, unless you beg.
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.
