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                  Kidney Blunder Patient Is "Critical"
                  -- http://uk.news.yahoo.com/000127/2/dxhg.html
                         ..."Critical"? I'd be fricking furious!


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                 full of abuse 
                                 
         The REGISTER (who do proper research, with telephones and
         insider contacts and astrological charts and everything)
         found out this week that the Conservative Party's ISP, hosted at
         tory.org, have managed to attract a total of 1200
         subscribers. That may *sound* like a defeat to you, but
         these mid-term service providers typically have a much lower
         turnout, and don't reflect what would happen nationally in a
         real general election. Besides, those figures hide what is
         an booming trend at tory.org: the hoardes of small
         businessman who are returning to the Party, thanks to its
         innovative "open relay" policy at smtp.tory.org. Despite
         *months* of warnings, and an appearance in the
         occasionally-right ORBS blacklist, anyone, anywhere can use
         the Tory party's own mailserver to send out spam. We
         understand the Conservatives are the listening party: maybe
         if the Socialist Workers took up their exciting offer,
         they'd learn to listen a bit harder.
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/000127-000009.html
                     - who *wouldn't* want a tory.org e-mail address?
         http://www.orbs.org/verify.cgi?address=212.67.133.2 
                                  - helping people to help themselves
         http://www.magee.demon.co.uk/ 
                       - is this what they mean by "the Great Satan"?

         Great news for you work-shy thickie students, with your
         subsidised fat pipes and pretentious hats! Readers of the
         BBC News site will already know of www.student-net.co.uk,
         which, the Beeb reported, recently sold out to the American
         "International Media Products Group" for an amazing ten
         million pounds. We're always ready to believe in credulity
         of venture capitalists (particularly regarding our own
         chances), but something about this rang alarm bells. Even in
         this dumbass-friendly investment frenzy, ten mill for a
         "What's new in Nottingham" site seems a little
         over-optimistic. Also: no mention on the curiously spelt
         Website of their massive win. Additionally, as diarist and
         man of letters LESLIE BUNDER noticed, International Media
         Products doesn't appear to exist. Could it be that the BBC
         have fell for a "rag jape"?
         http://www.student-net.co.uk/
                  - but what if it's true. Have we blown our chances?
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid%5F618000/618268.stm 
                      - well, at least someone's gullible around here

         It's not always just the evil censors who have problems with
         bad regexps. In one of the most moving newsgroup RFDs for
         some time, the beleagured citizens of UK.LOCAL.ESSEX
         (including the "increasing popular Lakeside regional
         shopping centre") complain that some 50% of new postings are now
         "predominantly advertising adult material or websites",
         mainly due to spammers cross-posting to any newsgroup with
         "(.*)sex(.*)" in it. The good people of Essex are now attempting to
         rename their newsgroup uk.local.essx to combat this, and
         hopefully get the sex content back to the correct ratio for
         local county discussion. Like 90%-95%. Ahahha.
         http://www.deja.com/=dnc/viewthread.xp?AN=577914160 
                              - (.*) not an ASCII breast, by the way.


                                >> ANTI-NEWS << 
                             berating the obvious

         GUARDIAN Online "Webwatch" column reports "legal battle ...
         has broken out over the domain name etoy.com", on day when
         2-month conflict is finally resolved ...  public display is
         mandatory: http://www.uksearcher.com/award.gif ... MISS BOO
         sacks seventy workers, promises viewable site in March ...
         machines in TELEHOUSE TF3 now reading 33C at the inlet,
         water seen pouring from AC units ... anything less than 21"
         is a toy: http://www.ntk.net/2000/01/28/dohqxl.gif  ... we
         found where the MARS POLAR LANDER crashed:
         http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/marsnews/mpl/status/ ... YAHOO
         politics news being run by THE AVENGERS
         http://uk.news.yahoo.com/000125/2/duym.html ... "This
         security flaw is not the first for Microsoft," reveals
         WILL KNIGHT: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/3/ns-12942.html ...
         

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

         Fuelling speculation that those weirdos he interviews on
         Channel4's "Disinfo Nation" are just a load of his mates, the
         guest-list for Richard Metzger's "FIND THE OTHERS" DISINFO.CON
         may sound oddly familiar: Robert "Illuminatus" Anton Wilson,
         Genesis "Psychic TV" P Orridge, Howard "The Lucifer Principle"
         Bloom, Douglas "Oh, *do* shut up" Rushkoff, and - in keeping
         with that whole Mondo 2000 retro ambience - who else but RU
         Sirius. The whole 11-hour Reality Studio-storming performance-
         art/ lysergic-lecture shenanigan runs from 11am, Sat 2000-02-
         19, in the Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, just a short walk
         from the city's prestigious Port Authority Bus Station.
         http://con2000.disinfo.com
         - nothing on this week, and you might have to book a flight


                                >> TRACKING <<
                sufficiently advanced technology: the gathering

         We opened a can of worms with our pre-Christmas [NTK
         1999-12-24] plug of DOMINIC MORRIS's Z88 TCP/IP stack. Word
         on the ( slow but picturesque) 8-bit streets is that MARK
         RISON is miffed that we didn't mention his stack for the
         Amstrad CPC first. So, for those of you who have one of
         those machines sitting in a wardrobe, just *waiting* to
         transform into a glorious PPP-compatible HTTP/0.9 Webserver
         and telnet client, do check out CPCIP. A few features are
         understandably missing (packet fragmentation, streaming
         RealVideo, that kind of thing), and you'll need a Linux box
         to cram the Z80-assembler into your old friend's tired
         bones, but otherwise - it's with Amstrad into the future!
         http://www.nenie.org/cpcip/ 
         - Z88 vs CPC? Christ. How did we miss that platform war?
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=archive99/now1224.txt&line=155#l
         - in case you missed it


                                >> MEMEPOOL << 
                              hasta la altavista

         pronouncing "meme" like Roadrunner does in the cartoon ...
         Mac users: check out billgate's IDISK ... monthly pylon
         flying circus http://www.pylonofthemonth.co.uk/ ... tackles
         TVGOHOME withdrawal http://listen.to/swearing/ ... bouncy
         media magnates: http://www.orgnet.com/netindustry.html ...
         COMPUSERVE forums to be open to Web public in April: *now*
         we'll see how great they are ... real-time ZX81 application:
         http://members.xoom.com/windycom/zx81app.html ... hello?
         IWF? we'd like to report http://www.internet-police.co.uk
         for impersonating a police officer ... opt out of Double
         Click, double quick: http://www.doubleclick.net/optout/ ...
         http://www.latimes.com/news/front/20000125/t000007947.html
         "God is so much bigger than religion has portrayed him") vs
         http://www.thoughtshop.com/fundiemania.htm (trolling for
         Jesus) ... some benchmarks are more useless than others:
         http://www.tuatha.org/~mpk/devnull.html ... rare, funny
         site sighting: http://www.emporiumoffruit.co.uk/ ...


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

         TV>> yeah, the underground base is pretty cool, but two-hours-
         plus of filtering Michael Crichton's alien microbes is, indeed 
         something of an ANDROMEDA STRAIN (12.15am, Fri, BBC1)... ITV 
         continues its intermittent Woody Allen season with wry Michael 
         Caine romance HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (10.55pm, Sat, ITV)... 
         BBC2 schedules George Romero's debut zombie chiller NIGHT OF 
         THE LIVING DEAD (1.15am, Sat, BBC2) at a time when only the 
         undead will be watching - not to be confused with potentially 
         back-from-the-grave corpse comedy WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S II 
         (12am, Wed, ITV)... and C5 seems oddly pleased with its 
         acquisition of the first Christopher Reeve SUPERMAN (4.30pm, 
         Sun, C5), despite ITV having shown it at Christmas... an 
         unofficial cross-channel junior Jodie Foster strand starts up 
         with car-crash body-swapper FREAKY FRIDAY (3.30pm, Sun, BBC1), 
         followed later in the week by the similarly auto-themed TAXI 
         DRIVER (11.15pm, Tue, C4)... Aussie kids' filth-com ROUND THE 
         TWIST (4.35pm, Mon, BBC1) ventures into virtual reality, 
         following an episode last week in which a kid used his dick as 
         a propeller in a swimming contest... and they missed a chance 
         to combine this week's two Sidney Lumet / Al Pacino 
         collaborations - SERPICO (9.05pm, Sat, BBC2) and DOG DAY 
         AFTERNOON (9.35pm, Tue, C5) - into what could have been an 
         excellent "Dog Day Afternoon Afternoon"...
         
         FILM>> just when you thought you'd had enough of the suburban 
         underbelly, along comes hackneyed but professional "Reality 
         Bites" meets "The Simpsons" laff riot AMERICAN BEAUTY 
         (http://www.cndb.com : Kevin Spacey - "you could see his balls 
         swing between his legs"; Mena Suvari - "I happen to like large 
         nipples, and her pair really impressed me"; Wes Bentley - 
         "brief buns while filming Thora Birch"; Thora Birch - "large, 
         adolescent breasts, full and pendulous, with large nipples and 
         a huge aureole that seems to cover a third of her ample 
         bosoms"). Capalert reports some additional "Internet nudity", 
         Spacey plays his usual comedy creepy guy... weary old Tommy 
         Lee Jones sets off after nudity-prone Ashley "Heat" Judd in 
         chick-friendly "The Fugitive" retread DOUBLE JEOPARDY 
         (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : open mouth kissing; 
         insults of parents; child participation in illegal games for 
         money; husband staging his fake murder; reckless endangerment 
         and destruction of private property to escape lawful 
         prosecution), when in fact they should be chasing Ashley's 
         lawyer - the actual legal principle is that you can't be tried 
         twice for the same crime *committed at the same time and 
         place*... the odds don't look good for lame Sharon Stone 
         horsey Sam Shepard adaptation SIMPATICO (imdb: drama / 
         comedy), but there's always African-American hybrid of adult / 
         teen "Now And Then" and "American Pie" coming-of-ager THE WOOD 
         (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : series of muffled foul 
         language; references to gender-specific anatomy; tell-tale 
         signs of unmarried cohabitation; robbery at gunpoint - without 
         consequences) - an "African-American Pie", if you will... 

         DEAD TREE PUBLISHING>> yes, that time of year when many of us
         start looking for fresh newsstand fodder, particularly now
         that both David Brake *and* Nick Rosen are believed to be
         writing for REVOLUT!ON... fans of ex-OFFICIAL PLAYSTATION
         staffer Stephen Pierce's uniquely turgid writing style will be
         pleased to see him resurfacing on new "PlayStations and
         lifestyle" mag PSW (UKP2.99 with free memory card), in a
         feature about visiting Dixons. Hey, maybe the rest of the team
         - including ex-EMAPper David "UpchURCH!" Upchurch - will let
         him "edit" the letters page... PLAYSTATION POWER hit back with
         their own, 20p cheaper, covermounted RAM card (for WH Smiths
         customers only), plus the news that they're ditching the
         "Playstation" part of their name, no doubt in preparation for
         when the bottom drops out of the non-PS2 market in about 9
         months' time... James Wallis reports that CRAZYNET is likely
         to be coming back, though probably without him, and that its
         (sole) UK issue - a British version of French mag "MicroDingo"
         - was so crazily successful they're thinking of launching it
         in France as well... members of ever-vigilant community
         robotics monitoring group KEVIN WARWICK WATCH were swift to
         alert us to the cyborg-master's moodily-lit appearance on the
         latest cover of WIRED, "looking like Spock's brother or
         something". Hope his real-life implants work better than the
         lenticular lens gimmick... lively goings-on at PARAGON
         PUBLISHING too (home of Practical Internet, Internet Made
         Easy, Web Pages Made Easy, Mac Made Easy), as they
         inadvertently made it all-too easy to mail their entire "Total
         Games Network News" list while trying to unsubscribe,
         resulting in a stock-crash-style vicious circle of users
         sending "Why do I keep getting all these mails! Unsubscribe!"
         to everyone else, inevitably provoking them to do the same...
         and finally, thanks to everyone who sent in A Albert's recent
         letter from the normally sane ECONOMIST, in which he lucidly
         points out that "The numeral six corresponds to the Hebrew
         letter 'Vav' or 'Waw', typically rendered as 'w' in the Latin
         alphabet", and concludes that "www=666", giving a new
         interpretation to that Revelations "number of the beast" quote
         - "And that no man might buy or sell save he that had the
         mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name" -
         in the light of the recent boom in .com advertising...


                               >> 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 "failing to cater to the entrepreneur"

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