| Danny O'Brien on Fri, 24 Dec 1999 22:14:32 +0100 (CET) |
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| <nettime> NTK now, 1999-12-24 |
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"Tribe Flood Network and Trinoo launch their attacks from a
host of innocent computers that already have been broken
into. Then, on a signal from a master computer, the computers
simultaneously bombard the victim machine with packets of
information so fast that it becomes unresponsive. At that
point, the target computer won't respond to commands and
can't be taken off the network."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-1501144.html
... what, not even by unplugging it?
>> HARD NEWS <<
"Humbug!", said Scrooge
It's on nights like this that one naturally turns for
inspiration to the eternal Christmas story: you know - the
one where rampant commercialism devours everything in its
path in the pursuit of a quick buck? LEONARDO FINANCE, a
French subsidiary of the Transasia Corporation, this week
launched a lawsuit against the internationally respected
Association Leonardo, publishers of the multimediatronic
Leonardo Journal. Transasia claim one million dollars in
damages on the basis that a search engine search on the word
"Leonardo" brings up not only their Web site but those of
the magazine. And so, in this season of goodwill, a
squad of eight French policeman broke into Leonardo's legal
address in France - the home of the 80-year old widow of the
organisations' founder, Frank Malina - and confiscated all
paperwork with the word "Leonardo" on it. This all
makes perfect sense. "Leonardo" is a mind-bogglingly unique
and sufficient descriptor for Transasia's work. And it's not
as if "Leonardo" practically connotes the whole tradition of
inventiveness and "prior art". And it's definitely worth
their while fighting for the word, because once they get
hold of that whole Leonardo namespace - no matter *who* used
it before - who else might they go after? How about
helicopter manufacturers?
http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/#raid
- "He who controls the language, controls the future"
http://www.leonardofinance.fr/anglais/
- who'd have thought they'd do it one word at a time?
And if you think the Namespace Wars will be over before
Christmas, note that our trusted betters at ICANN are
planning to move arbitration of domain names to the National
Arbitration Forum. Will this help in matters such as the
ongoing battle between etoys.com and etoy.com, where the
younger, richer, and more commercial company can sue the
award-winning European artists off the face of the Net?
Listen to this quote from the NAF Webpages spotted by Lewis
Shadoff (c/o the excellent Tasty Bits from the Technological
Frontier discussion list): "Forum arbitrators are not
permitted to ignore the law and make decisions based on
'equity'." Equity, for those of you who haven't yet the
sense to become lawyers, is the principle that justice
involves fairness as well as the fixed rules of law. No room
for fairness, or for non-profits too poor to fight back, or
for the exercise of art: just for the iron rules of law and
business. Well, we must have our rules. But who's that out
on the streets of London, wailing up at our window on this
freezing Christmas Eve?
"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.
"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my
business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence,
were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but
a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my
business!"
http://www.literature.org/authors/dickens-charles/christmas-carol/
- the owners of www.dickens.com will be furious
http://www.tbtf.com/
- and a Merry Newtonmas to all our sources
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
MODIFY mails from NSI are now dated Dec 31, 1969 - uh *oh* ...
BRITISH WEB DESIGN & MARKETING ASSOCIATION ("committed to
raising standards") now spamming for members ... you're
leaving this a bit late, guys: http://www.millennium.com/
and http://www.millenniumdome.com/ ... how many OSes does
it take to "power" a Website? http://www.daemonnews.org/ ...
ON DIGITAL in sponsorship deal with Windows error dialogs:
http://www.ntk.net/doh/19991224ondig.jpg ... first Net
libel case to use the "don't blame us, we're autistic" defence:
http://www.ireland.com/scripts/technology/newsshowall.cfm?id=240 ...
still running on NT, but trying to open source as much
as possible, it's http://www.linuxanswers.co.uk/Includes/
... NETGUIDE equivalent of "Jackie Harvey's Outside Scoop"
http://www.netguide.com/Snapshot/Archive?guide=computing&id=1536
suggests we will "see more PCs which will be coming with
dual drives: one for the CD-ROM and one for a DVD." ...
searching http://www.eventselector.co.uk/ for aptly-named
"Comedy" title "Hiss And Boo Show" ...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
goto's considered non-harmful
Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas? Mi2g's bizarre virus warnings? The
terror of "downloadable internet narcotics"? Yes, the
competition is fierce for the FIRST INTERNET FREEDOM
JOURNALISM AWARDS, intended to "name and shame" 1999's worst
coverage of online issues. And to make the face-off even
more exciting, you have to nominate your favourite
scare-mongering fictions before January 1st 2000! (We'll try
to provide a retrospective as part of next Friday's "Y2K In
The Office Fun Pack", but thought you'd appreciate the extra
notice just in case. Some crimes cannot - and must not - go
unpunished.) http://www.netfreedom.org/
- there's a "high quality journalism" prize too. Yeah, right.
http://www.ntk.net/notw/
- what, no category for "most shameless rent-a-quote pundit"?
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology: the Gathering
Oooh, a database library! How seasonal! METAKIT is a curious
mix of flatfile, relational and OODBMS features with a small
footprint and a big following. For those who don't need a
heavy-duty SQL solution, it's tight and fast for <100,000
items, with a snazzy ability to dynamically change data
structures on the fly. Interfaces are available for Tcl and
Python, with Perl promised soon. METAKIT has been kicking
around now for three years or so with good reports, but
looks to capture even more hearts now that it's - tara! -
open sourced. Happy Christmas!
http://www.equi4.com/metakit/intro.html
- well, that's Christmas morning taken care of
http://www.sunworld.com/sunworldonline/swol-05-1999/swol-05-regex-2.html
- addicts drool for the press
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
seasonal pyrotechnics: http://www.sunplan.com/pp/ ... TOPICA
buying up more mailing lists ... EWOK apocalypse:
http://www.geekhaus.co.uk/toybox/ewok.htm ... break into Ion
Storm's HQ and steal the Daikatana master discs:
http://www.arrgh.co.uk/ionstorm ... oh, that canny BOFH: THE
REGISTER pays for the new columns, but who ends up with the
archive? http://bofh.ntk.net/ is your new, ad-free local
mirror ... hooray! a pre-millennium socket layer for the
Z88! http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~djm/z88dk/zsock/ ... a
Spectrum ZX81 - now they *are* rare:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=224436737
... somebody really *doesn't* want cheap Net access in
Manchester: http://www.redbricks.org.uk/comms/crisis/matthewa001.htm
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> Andi Peters is compelled to give Disney a free one-hour
prime-time advert entitled ANDI MEETS TOY STORY 2 (5.25pm,
Fri, C4)... the ropey movie season continues with Adam
Sandler/ Brendan Fraser air-guitar collaboration AIRHEADS
(9pm, Fri, C5), those "Vids" guys dressing up in lizard
suits for a season of original GODZILLAs (1am, Fri night, C4),
and mildly watchable Robin Williams CGI showreel JUMANJI (4pm,
Christmas Day, BBC1)... and, yes, they did take a few
"liberties" with the post-apocalyptic Kevin Costner remake
of IL POSTINO (8.30pm, Christmas Day, BBC2)... don't expect
the famous fish finger ad to feature in BBC2's 6-hour Orson
Welles tribute, including some old black and white yawnathon
called CITIZEN KANE (11.45pm, Christmas Day, BBC2) -
believed to be the best film ever made, after Star Wars and
Blade Runner, natch... and C5 weighs in, perhaps
predictably, with a schedule consisting entirely of Abba and
porn... this year's junior geekfest ROYAL INSTITUTION
CHRISTMAS LECTURES (11ish am, Sun-Thu, BBC2) seem to be
nicked from the pop science paperback "The Arrow Of Time"...
the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (9pm, Sun, BBC1) movie is more
incomprehensibly convoluted than even the TV show, and - at
last - reveals long-term "sleeper" Jim Phelps as a traitor...
after Airheads, the Michael Lehmann disappointments continue
with THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS (10pm, Mon, BBC2)... and
smug talentless scum FRENCH AND SAUNDERS (9.50pm, Tue, BBC1)
dress up as - oh my sides - "The Phantom Menace"... despite
strong competition, Kathryn Bigelow's optimistically
millennial STRANGE DAYS (11.15pm, Wed, BBC2) is the *worst
cyber-VR thriller of all time*... while perfectly capturing
the closed-off claustrophobia, steadily building pressure,
and Nazi-like discipline of spending time with your family,
BBC2 wisely schedules regular showings of U-boat fave DAS
BOOT (6ish, Sun-Fri, BBC2)...
FILM>> "We've got a blind date with Destiny - and it looks
like she's ordered the lobster" chortles wittily scripted
Ben Stiller/ Janeane Garofalo undermarketed flop comic book
adaptation MYSTERY MEN (imdb: parody / superhero /
training), whose top-notch supporting cast - Greg Kinnear,
Hank Azaria - even makes up for Eddie Izzard and a farting
Pee-Wee Herman... the increasingly overrated Kevin Smith
applies his usual laid-back incompetence to predictably
inoffensive modern-day Life Of Brian-style Catholic
self-exorcism DOGMA (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ :
licentious disregard for righteous behavior based on
Biblical admonitions) - in what may come to be viewed as his
very own "A Life Less Ordinary"... connoisseurs regret to
report a failure in meeting previous quality benchmarks in
largely Kermit-free sci-fi spoof MUPPETS FROM SPACE
(http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : nonlegal custody at
gunpoint; false imprisonment; a child character sitting atop
a roof; physical violence to gain advantage; Miss Piggy
gamming - sitting cross-legged intentionally in a very short
skirt showing as much upper leg as possible)... while Martin
"Bad Boys" Lawrence takes a short break from his
intermittently self-destructive behaviour to head up
competent mistaken-identity Beverly Hills Cop remake BLUE
STREAK (MPAA: rated PG-13 for action violence, continuous
language and some crude humor)...
BUMPER CHRISTMAS TURKEY BONER BONANZA!>> and festive
greetings to all of ye who cheered last week's "factoring
primes" faux pas though it was, of course, an allusion to
Bill Gates' famed goof in his book The Road Ahead rather
than genuine incompetence on our part. Ahem... extending
seasonal goodwill slightly further than is usually
recommended, "Where, oh were is David Brake's weblog?" many
of you inquired, while not detailing your precise
motivation. Well, http://blog.org/ is the URL for both
moderately interesting links *and* Brake's own unique brand
of earnest, choir-singing commentary... and ADRIAN MOULDER
once again fell into the trap of assuming our omniscience,
querying the "flagrant omission" from last week's books &
zines round-up of both Norman Spinrad's re-released
trial-by-TV '60s sci-fi classic BUG JACK BARRON and the
latest issue of HULK comic which features a reader's letter
from Al "The Pub Landlord" Murray... LLOYD WOOD felt the
need to come clean over NTK 1999-12- 10's claim that
"Carrie" at http://www.bluenudes.com/ is wearing "Klingon
headgear". After re-viewing "Amok Time", Lloyd reports it
more closely "resembles the thing T'Pau was wearing", and is
"therefore obviously Vulcan"... but beating even that for
corrective urgency comes THOMAS KRUEMMER, who (rightly)
questions Dave Winer's claim [NTK 1999-12-17] that the SS
were the "secret police in Nazi Germany". It would have been
hard to keep them that secret, Thomas argues, as they were
"a second army, but unlike the regular 'Wehrmacht', the SS
troopers were loyal to the NSDAP party. Later the SS
received weapons and also heavy equipment, in order to
outweigh any potential threat to the government from
officers of the regular army, plus the added benefit of
being able to commit acts of war which the Wehrmacht might
have refused to carry out" - hence, presumably, Winer's
confusion. "I hope Dave is more qualified writing about
other matters of general interest," Thomas concludes. And a
Merry Christmas to you, one and all!
>> 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 "holiday, baby, holiday"
NEED TO KNOW
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