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                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                 market moves

         Just in time for the Campaign for Unmetered Telecoms
         Christmas party (sponsored by AOL: oh, the rich historical
         irony), BRITISH "LOLLIPOP-MAN" TELECOM finally announced
         flat-rate deals for those over-exuberant Internet children.
         Dateline is March 2000. The deals: 35UKP a month for 24/7 Net
         access, 26UKP for unlimited daytime calls, 7UKP for either
         free weekend or weekday evening use. The charging system is
         based on a new 0844 number, so you'll have to use an ISP
         that signs up for the new connection, and you'll have to
         have a BT line. And the ISP will be using BT's own local IP
         infrastructure, which should stop them getting any sick
         ideas about investing in their own networks for when
         the local loop unbundles in 2001. BT: they may be monopolistic,
         but they're not *stupid*.
         http://www.unmetered.org.uk/news/news071299.htm
                                        - okay, not short term stupid
         http://www.bt.com/
         - and stupid enough to have an infinite loop on their homepage

         The GNU/Linux General Public License to Print Money
         continued on its stockmarket roll, with ANDOVER.NET and VA
         LINUX both profiting from "Jesse Berst mentioned that once.
         Buy!" daytraders. As of Thursday, Andover shares were
         running at about 400% of the initial offer price, giving
         Slashdot kids a potential eight million dollars to play with
         (on top of the two million cash they scored when they sold
         out). VA LINUX was hit an insane 700% price hike on its first
         day, valuing the company at ten billion dollars,
         about the GDP of Papua New Guinea.
         http://www.rockmine.music.co.uk/Pete2.html
                                - perfect Christmas gift for CmdrTaco

         Reasons to stay out of broadband: On November the 30th, the
         UNDERCURRENTS video-journalist Charlotte Wilcox was bundled
         away by the police whilst recording the N30 mini-riots in
         London. Her tapes and camera were confiscated - indeed, the
         police arrested her on suspicion of stealing her own
         equipment. A female officer conducting a search threatened
         to "throw her down and break her back". No property sheet
         was given for the seizure of her property. Not that sticking
         to words and pictures helps: as the NEW YORK TIMES noted
         this week, the prosecution against Tony Geraghty, author of
         The Irish War, is still on. GERAGHTY is accused of
         breaking the Official Secrets Act with his descriptions of
         the computerised surveillance systems used by the military
         in Northern Ireland. Good thing too: who could imagine
         that our government would ever misuse that tech?
         http://cryptome.org/tony3.htm
- Blair says he's sick of "libertarian nonsense masquerading as freedom."
         http://www.undercurrents.org/
         - journalists masquerading as dangerous video-camera thieves
         http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_555000/555715.stm
                                      - IRA "bug selves", says expert


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         LYCOS insist on rebranding Wired URLs, unaware of the subliminal 
         effect of "suck.lycos.com"... loss of MARS LANDERS bears "eerie, 
         prophetic" resemblance to Voyager season 6 episode "One Small 
         Step", reports STAR TREK magazine... "Virtual" NHS at 
         http://www.nhsdirect.co.uk replicates features of real NHS: slow, 
         unhelpful, falls over because of too many users... urban 
         folklorewatch: GUARDIAN 1999-12-08 runs "McDonnell Douglas 
         warranty registration card", almost certainly *not* posted online 
         "by an employee", who would know that the F-14, F-16 and F-117 
         are not, for instance, McDonnell Douglas planes... your credit 
         card details "are NOT sent over the Internet" reassures 
         https://register.btinternet.com/help/security_help.htm ... 
         http://www.ferrysavers.co.uk offering understandably high 
         insurance premiums for Y2K trips: "£247866.00 pp for the 247877 
         days you intend to be away"... oh, the airports will be *fine* 
         over New Year: http://www.tahallah.demon.co.uk/gatwick1.jpg , 
         http://www.tahallah.demon.co.uk/gatwick2.jpg ... closing for 
         notoriously slow pre-Christmas period: http://www.argos.co.uk ...         


                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                         goto's considered non-harmful

         A hectic week ahead for the transgressive cultural terrorist who 
         regularly redefines society's so-called "boundaries" between art 
         and entertainment. (And who lives in London.) From 8pm tonight, 
         VXSLAB take another of their experimental "things" to the old 
         Lateral offices above Backspace (which clearly hasn't been 
         demolished yet, unless this is part of the process). The ICA's 
         resident net-spazzos at last hit on something the public will 
         definitely like - FREE ICE CREAM (from 1pm, Sat 1999-12-11, the 
         ICA, London). And Richard "the beret" Barbrook's SCIENCE FICTION 
         CYBERSALON (Tue, 1999-12-14) is so "new edge", it's already 
         altered its location once (from noted cyber-murder crime scene 
         The University Of Westminster on Regent St, to the campus 
         building at 115 New Cavendish St, free before 7pm). Pray it does 
         not have to alter it again.
         http://www.nmk.co.uk/nmk/events_diary/events.cfm?ItemID=928
                  - Pat Cadigan! Manga man! (hopefully in robot suit)
         http://bak.spc.org/ice/
            - and what if you *like* the taste of frozen pig fat, eh?
         http://www.vxslab.org/VXSLAB002-s.gif
             - "do what you like with this flyer" - except IGNORE IT!

         Oh, and there's a UK UNIX USER GROUP conference in Cambridge next 
         week too, which we know nothing about, except someone sent us the 
         cryptic message: "Sun, C and SENSS with Bruce in Cambridge - 
         crack Alec Muffett's latest toy", which is kind of funny, if you 
         think about it.
         http://www.ukuug.org/events/winter99/prog.shtml
              - the first bit, we mean, not "cracking Muffett's toys"


                                >> TRACKING <<
                  making good use of the things that we find

         Sometimes the most traditional presents are the best-loved:
         the hand-carved wooden dolly, the old tin soldier, the huge
         lunking overfeatured wrist-worn watch/PC hybrid. Sure,
         ONHAND PC is an anglicised version of 1998's Ruputer, but
         age has not withered its terrifying specs. Three month's
         battery life, 38400bps IR and serial ports, 2MB RAM, 16bit
         RISC processor (with double the clock speed of the old
         Ruputer) and, to quote our correspondent, "Beautiful
         architecture: RAM is on-chip, so while MOV Dn, Dm takes 1
         cycle, MOV Dn, [An] also takes 1 cycle! (also [An+imm8]).
         God it's lovely). Also, screen (102x64) is laid out in
         vertical bytes. It's like they designed it for my
         Wolfensterin-style raycasting app!" How does he know such
         things? Because with every OnHand you purchase, you get two
         huge geek manuals, and a CD with GCC, docs, and ALL THE
         LIBRARIES. Now, *that's* holiday. The OnHand PC: available
         online for $249.
         http://www.onhandpc.com/
         - although "off the wrist" would have been so much more accurate


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                              hasta la altavista

         what *is* it with these obscene DREAMCAST comedy fan sites?: 
         http://www.tgfn.com/dc/ vs http://www.ukresistance.com ... not 
         the NAKED QUAKE NEWS site you'd hoped for (still, "Carrie" 
         appears in full Klingon headgear): http://www.bluenudes.com/ ... 
         as heard at USENIX: the 12 Days of Y2K, http://www.kiai.org/ssh/ 
         ... MP3 POETRY READINGS... no wonder THEY haven't been in touch: 
         http://pass.maths.org/issue9/news/oops/index.html ... sending 
         "Matsushita held a cocktail party at their swanky new skyscraper 
         in Scunthorpe on Saturday. I bumped into Dick Feltcher, whose 
         haircut was a little shaggy. He'd accumulated quite a pile of 
         buttered scones. The subject of blow-jobs never came up, however. 
         What a chump" via EMAIL A FRIEND on any http://www.bbc.co.uk 
         page... PUBS - for The Autistic Geek in your "social" circle: 
         http://www.sirc.org/publik/pub.html ...POTTER - pawn of Satan: 
         http://www.family.org/pplace/pi/genl/A0008833.html ... wahl 
         +host:co.uk as altavista search term produces FAKE MANGA TITLES: 
         "Drunken Girls Mega Control Reproduction Wahl", "Extreme Hot 
         Bikinis Drew UK Wahl", "Public Beach Bikini Dover Wahl Bestiality 
         Encounter Club"... personal nipples: http://www.cultofmarms.org/ ...


                               >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                    the less rude http://www.tvgohome.com/

         TV>> only 6 more years to go before 1970s dystopia LOGAN'S
         RUN (1.30pm, Sat, BBC1) itself turns 30, and must submit to
         the "carousel" for scifi movies that dare to be even duller
         than their spin-off shows... THE HISTORY OF THE POP VIDEO
         (9.30pm, Sat, C4) was originally going to be called "Video
         Killed The Radio Star", so will hopefully feature The
         Buggles' Midi Karaoke classic in all its glory... and, hey,
         anything's preferable to a sub X-Files "EBE" episode of
         JONATHAN CREEK (8.55pm, Sat, BBC1)... John Travolta fritters
         away much of his post-Tarantino goodwill by playing an
         overweight angel in MICHAEL (9pm, Sun, C4)... a timely
         reshowing of that episode of DISPATCHES (10.55pm, Sun, C4)
         which allegedly caused the ALF to brand their initials on the
         reporter's back - that guy who did "Macintyre Undercover"
         probably lives in similar fear of the Elite Modelling
         Agency... plus the early, fitfully amusing MONTY PYTHON AND
         THE HOLY GRAIL (11.35pm, Mon, BBC1) - actually quite closely
         based on the ZX Spectrum adventure of the same name... more
         heavy-handed satire from the Drop The Dead Donkey team,
         sensationally asking "how far will  TV sensationalism go?" in
         SEX 'N' DEATH (9.30pm, Tue, BBC2), featuring Ulrika Jonsson
         "as herself"... while somehow you wonder if even Jamie
         Theakston can prevent you sympathising with the "growing
         epidemic of crime against Britain's phone companies" in
         phreaker's how-to PHONES, ROBBERS AND VIDEOTAPE (8pm, Wed,
         BBC1)...

         FILM>> impressively, intermittently brutal Arnie apocalypse 
         comedy actioner END OF DAYS (http://www.hollywoodjesus.com : 
         gratuitous breast shots; vaginal lubricant; a young girl whose 
         father is watching her, along with her mother, have sex with 
         Satan while NIN's "Closer" song blares in the background) manages 
         to: a) directly address the old "monster not scary enough" 
         problem in Terminator 2; b) answer that old joke "What happens if 
         you dial 666? A policeman comes round upside-down!", while c) 
         recklessly spoofing that entire "The Omen" trilogy - "Satan must 
         impregnate his bride between 11pm and midnight on New Year's 
         Eve!" "What, Eastern Standard Time?". Also features truly 
         appalling Arnie acting, plus three (count 'em!) refs to The Usual 
         Suspects, not including the casting of Kevin Pollak and Gabriel 
         Byrne... a close second for limited-release geek-cred junior 
         rocket scientist OCTOBER SKY (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ 
         : sky-high impudence; "potty-mouth" language; could have been a 
         great movie if the goodness of it was not buried beneath new age 
         entertainment ignominy)... elsewhere, THE LIMEY (imdb: crime / 
         drama) appears to be a largely successful LA-set arthouse OAP 
         remake of "Get Carter" - the flashback clips of Terence Stamp 
         actually come from some old Ken Loach film, rather than, say, his 
         excellent "General Zod" in Superman II... closer to home, THE 
         LAST YELLOW (imdb comment: "contains two curiously pointless 
         homages to the children's TV series The Double Deckers") 
         continues modern British cinema's almost pornographic fascination 
         with the criminal underclass... while Peter Greenaway's 8 1/2 
         WOMEN (imdb: comedy) continues his almost pornographic 
         fascination with numerology, and porn... finally, Albert Brooks/ 
         Sharon Stone head up the latest in an increasingly unamusing 
         batch of Hollywood films trumpeting Hollywood's own creative 
         bankruptcy THE MUSE (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : 
         portrayal of unholy goddess in control of human lives; adolescent 
         use of sexual expression to portray worldliness; excessive 
         cleavage, including before a child, much like the poster for 
         *American Pie*)...

         FEEBDACK>> first, the chance to clear up a couple of old 
         chestnuts: in accordance with NTK prophecy (of about 2 years ago) 
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=archive97/now1219.txt&line=44#l 
         the SGI/ Microsoft "Fahrenheit" project fell apart recently, and 
         one, er, ex-SGI employee was good enough to send us this          
         "translation" of its future http://www.ntk.net/ads/opengl.txt ... 
         talking of "blasts from the past", ex-"The Word" presenter ALAN 
         HAMILTON (you know, little Alan, with the big jacket) mailed to 
         point out an "incorrect baseref" in our (now fixed) EU redirect 
         page http://www.ntk.net/anoneu/ . Can't wait to hear from Amanda 
         De Cadanet (or "Huffty") about their problems viewing the site 
         under Lynx!... and while we're on the subject, FROSSIE objected 
         to NTK 1999-11-05's assertion that "if you're not reading this in 
         its definitive, non-proportional e-mail form, you're a fricking 
         girl", countering that "Real girls read NTK in an XEmacs window 
         running VM under Linux, ta very much". Sadly, her additional tip 
         (a local news story about someone who *received an email* from 
         one of the victims of the recent Honolulu shooting) was deemed 
         too "Hawaii-centric" for even our Tiki-Tiki lifestyle... MATT 
         BACON leapt to the defence of Denise Richards' "Lara Croft" 
         costume in NTK 1999-11-26, constructing an elaborate conspiracy 
         along the lines of "Lara Croft = big star on Playstation. 
         Playstation made by Sony. Sony recently been seen off by Ma 
         Broccoli in lawsuit to prevent them making another rival Bond 
         movie (the Thunderball/Never Say Never Kevin McLory factor). So 
         I'm thinking big in-joke about copyright in characters". For 
         those who don't know him, Matt *looks* a bit like a Bond villain, 
         too... and finally, LOCANDEZ cast doubt on NTK 1999-11-12's claim 
         of "canine erections" in the Lycos TV advert, though the whole 
         dog-pulling-car sequence does now seem to have been edited out. 
         "It's not an erection (if it was, you'd be looking at 5 inches of 
         red flesh)", explains Locandez, concluding with the all-purpose 
         conversational corker: "It's just a tuft of fur around his 
         sheath". Undeterred, reader TONY BLEWS picked up the baton with 
         this scan http://www.ntk.net/doh/991210dog.jpg from page 717 of 
         the current Argos Catalogue which, Argos insiders reveal, is "the 
         most complained about thing this month". NTK regrets that this 
         correspondence is now closed...


                               >> 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 "finest *and* most literate"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000111464113065&pg=/et/99/12/9/ecrimo09.html

                                 NEED TO KNOW
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