Fun_People Archive
24 Dec
NTK Bits, 1999-12-24

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 99 12:35:55 -0800
To: Fun_People
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Subject: NTK Bits, 1999-12-24

X-Lib-of-Cong-ISSN: 1098-7649  -=[ Fun_People ]=-
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From: "Danny O'Brien" <danny@flirble.org>
Excerpted-from: NTK now, 1999-12-24

 _   _ _____ _  __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the uk>
| \ | |_   _| |/ / _ __   __1999-12-24_ o join! mail an empty message to
|  \| | | | | ' / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / o ntknow-subscribe@lists.ntk.net
| |\  | | | | . \ | | | | (_) \ v  v /  o website (+ archive) lives at:
|_| \_| |_| |_|\_\|_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/   o     http://www.ntk.net/

	"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


				>> 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


			       >> 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
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
                         Archive - http://www.ntk.net/
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                          (K) 1999 Special Projects.
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