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                "We do more for our Mac customers 
                 because Mac customers appreciate that."
                                           - MICROSOFT's Irving Kwong
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/Digital/Features/2000-02/design280200.shtml
     ... PC users, on the other hand, take the most amazing amount of
                                                 wait, is this microphone on?


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                  zarro boogs

         On Monday, the REGULATION OF INVESTIGATORY POWERS BILL will
         get its second reading in the Commons. Then it goes to
         committee, then it becomes law, and then you'll never hear
         from it again, because talking about most of its powers will
         get you five years in prison. So, when the police ask your
         ISP to put a tap on your mail, you won't hear about it. When
         your local trades and standards officer decides to take a
         look at your browser log for the last month, you won't hear
         about it. And when they come and get your private encryption
         key so that can read your friend's mails, you won't be able
         to tell your friend - or us - that it happened. Hell, you
         won't even be able to change your key if that might give us
         a clue. Given that it's all going to get so quiet so soon,
         STAND thought it might be an idea to let our MPs know that
         we're still here. So, with mild and belated fanfare, please
         welcome - STAND's Open Web to MP fax gateway. Peruse the
         bloody-long-but-not-as-long-as-the-bill STAND Guide to RIP,
         then send your comments on the Bill direct to your
         constituency MP's office with just a few clicks. But please
         be quick - MPs have only ten days from Monday to
         propose their amendments. At the very least, we should get
         an anti-spam statute out of it.
         http://www.stand.org.uk/
    - may be a few bugs. but, hey, there's bugs everywhere these days
         http://www.stand.org.uk/ripnotes/
          - liberty requires eternal vigilance (and magnifying glass)

         The CONSUMER PROJECT ON TECHNOLOGY's proposal to ICANN that
         the .union top level domain be introduced, as well as
         .isnotfair, .isnotgreen, and .sucks (for official AOL-haters
         sites, and the like) sounds like a joke. Well, that's
         because it is. Or at least, its serious intent is mainly in
         seeing what ICANN's response will be. Previously, ICANN has
         insisted that its function was principally technical: the
         anti-corporate stand taken by these domains is partially an
         attempt to see just how far ICANN can toe the line before
         throwing up their hands and going "Okay, we're molls of the
         international business community, what can we say?". Of
         course, what *might* happen is they'll create those domains,
         AOL et al will buy them all up and then we'll have to pay
         them millions to slag off their own companies. This would
         fit the pattern we're seeing.
         http://www.cptech.org/ecom/icann/tlds-march1-2000.html
  - would Esther sue over dyson.sucks - even if www.dyson.com owned it?

         So what's the latest group to fell afoul of the US
         government's still-twitching export controls on downloading
         128-bit secure browsers? Might it have been - the US
         government, whose own justice department had to obtain a
         sworn affidavit that they weren't Iraq or something before
         they could ftp Netscape's domestic browser across? A lot of
         effort for a few bits: especially when, in a parallel
         mess-up, MICROSOFT were offering the same product for
         download at www.microsoft.com. A 19.7MB installation guide
         for Exchange 2000 released this week included 1.7 megs of
         documents - and 18 megs of Netscape 4.7. Taunt that DOJ with
         your warez pr0w3ss, Bill!
         http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/prodinfo/2000/PlanInstall.htm
                - fixed now. still, nice to know they use it in-house


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         whois format changes *again* ... used NEWTONs cost more than
         they did new - say Newton users ... unfortunate ticker
         truths: http://www.ntk.net/2000/03/03/bbcdoh.gif ... sure,
         save the water-based lifeforms on Europa, but does anyone
         care about the sentient gas-bags in Jupiter's atmosphere?
         Nooooo ... Falco! Oracle's NETWORK COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
         site: http://www.oracle.com/nca/ ... a little too late for
         literacy tests: http://www.ntk.net/2000/03/03/abcdoh.gif ...
         "interactive pizza" fails to show: geeks starve in their
         thousands http://www.ntk.net/2000/03/03/domindoh.gif ...
         NEGROPONTE says he chose Ireland for the new media lab
         because "the Irish are mad": mad enough to give him money,
         certainly ... "'The message is clear.' The judge tells
         everybody, 'Don't go too far with the Internet, because you
         are going to pass Go and go to jail,'", reports WIRED,
         showing judges misunderstand both the Net and Monopoly ...
         2099 proving to be quite a year for album releases:
   http://www.audiostreet.infront.co.uk/cgi-bin/show?Key=audio-4321360392


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

         If we've timed this right, you'll already have missed the
         new media rubbish at onedotzero's retrospective at the Lux
         Cinema in Hoxton Square, London tonight - but you can still
         tag along for 2100GMT's cinema showing of videos by Spike
         Jonze, Hexstatic and Chris Cunningham. And if you really are
         the sort of person who thinks the FMV inserts in games are
         "the best bit", the whole shebang is showing again at,
         inevitably, Brighton's Cinematheque on March 16th.          
         http:///www.onedotzero.com/
         - "as close to the future as you're likely to get" says the
                                             Guardian, threateningly.


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         For those of you who have waited an eponymous duration for
         the Eternity network, FREENET may provide some solace. Both
         have similar aims: a network of machines that provide
         permanent access to anonymously-uploaded documents which
         might otherwise be censored by having servers shut down, or
         the original source traced. Freenet works using a genuinely
         non-hierachical set of nodes which have limited knowledge
         about each other. Send your file to one of them, and
         eventually most of the nodes will be able to relay your file
         to anyone who knows its name. Once the server numbers have
         reached a critical mass over a number of political domains,
         it'll be almost impossible to censor anyone. Server numbers
         is, naturally, where you come in. The first version of the
         GPL'd software is now available for beta-testing: if you
         have a machine permanently connected to the Net and running
         Java 1.1, you too can take place in the first network
         trials. Obligatory strong crypto is to come shortly. And not
         a moment too soon, it would seem.
         http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
         - you just know it's going to filled with Gilmore dox for
                                               the first month or two
         http://www.kolej.mff.cuni.cz/~eternity/
                                   - your very own home from cryptome
         http://www.gotlinux.org/~jasta/gnapster.html 
                        - not putting ideas into your head or anything
         

                                >> MEMEPOOL << 
                              hasta la altavista

         cannabis destroys brain tumours: MO MOWLAM vindicated ... no
         catch caches at http://proxys4all.cgi.net/ ... pope vs pope:
         http://www.truecatholic.org/ ... spams from Evel Knieval ...
         DAVE WINER patents anti-patent rhetoric ... Clinton imitates
         Onion: http://news.excite.com/news/r/000301/10/odd-computers
         ... "Not that we're bitter" vs "Life imitates Onion" -
       http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_659000/659685.stm
         ... GPL RPGs ... Mecha no! http://www.earleshouse.com/mps.html 
         ... much more interesting when you can't see the ad
         campaign: http://www.ilovecheese.com/ ... are these people on
         *drugs*? http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/story/99.html ...
      http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=269771110
         vs http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=590984602 ... expedite
         *this*! http://www.sentient.com/%7Epcm2/action_item.gif ...
         when Denial Of Service gets really harsh:
         http://www.af.mil/news/Feb2000/n20000229_000305.html ... JWZ
         + MP3 = GRONK : http://www.jwz.org/gronk/ ...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                 get out less 

         FILMS>> Dave's still away, and our deeply held beliefs
         prevent us from staring too long at Satan's Lantern, so not
         much in the way of films this week. Still, in case you
         didn't already know, director du jour Spike Jonze is the
         serf erased from the publicity for THREE KINGS
         (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : Wanton Violence/Crime
         - field impalement to relieve collapsed lung) - what appears
         to be an unnecessary field upgrade of the old Clint Eastwood
         comedy "Kelly's Heroes", sending the message to America's
         "CNN generation" that the Gulf War wasn't just about that
         one laser guided missile zooming down a chimney. No, there
         were the soldiers on the ground doing the real dirty work -
         like performing rectal searches on POWs...  

         TV>> those bastards finally did it - they scheduled a
         widescreen run for THE PLANET OF THE APES movies.  But,
         since you already know the twist, we advise that the only
         way to watch "the Apes" is in chronological order - so tape
         the original (Sat, 20:05, C4) and "BENEATH THE" (Sat, 23:10,
         C4) then watch pseudo-prequel "ESCAPE FROM" (Sun night,
         00:00, C4) and wait for C4 to schedule "BATTLE FOR" and
         "CONQUEST OF" first... it's fairly obvious that scripts for
         the "classics" of TWILIGHT ZONE: ROD STERLING'S LOST
         CLASSICS (Sat night, 00:20, BBC1) were probably "lost" in
         the conical metal "Twilight Zone" in Rod's office...
         continuing Channel 5's perpetual bullshit season: Gilliam's
         THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (Sun, 16:40, C5) another
         movie cursed by evil, clean-shaven Robin Williams - set
         loose yet again for period stand-up routine GOOD MORNING
         VIETNAM (Mon, 22:00, C4) ... CLONED (Mon, 21:00, C5) is not
         quite the hilarious sci-fi comedy you might have expected
         from the name, then again neither is the similarly titled
         SNL-spinoff CONEHEADS (Tue, 23:55, BBC1) nor indeed the
         hideously misleading FUNNY GAMES (Tue, 23:00, C4) ... and
         more scheduling hilarity as THE X-FILES (Wed, 22:20, BBC1)
         airs against decidedly non-paranormal relationship-docu THE
         EX-FILES (Wed, 22:30, C4) possibly in a bid for that coveted
         "got confused when setting the video-timer" audience-share...

         BOOKZ>> With our Uncharacteristically Generous Literary
         Correspondent, Mr Ben Moor: "Toby Litt has written a cracking
         thriller in CORPSING. Anything that opens in an editing
         suite for the Discovery Channel's Shark Week knows from
         cool. Contains: the best descriptions of bullet trajectories
         since the heyday of Kennedy Assassination literature, and
         great tips on how to ruin Shakespeare at the Barbican...
         Dave Egger's impressively self aware memoir of bringing up
         his 8 year old brother after both his parents died is called
         A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS and you kind of
         feel obliged to make some funny comment on the title. He's
         the guy behind Might magazine (which for us defined the
         midearly and then the earlymid nineties) and McSweeneys (
         http://www.mcsweeneys.net/ ) and could be the Tom Wolfe of
         the 21st century if he feels like it. But he probably won't.
         Whatever. Contains: a great stapler drawing... knowing a new
         book by Douglas Coupland is on the way is like being about
         to win at pass the parcel. You're enjoying the suspense of
         waiting, but what if the thing is rubbish? MISS WYOMING
         luckily is very not. There's a very neatly structured story
         that takes you from the madness of child beauty pageants to
         the relative sanity of a movie executive who decides to
         'walk the earth.'... and Dave Barry's BIG TROUBLE is a total
         hoot. If PG Wodehouse had used more and bigger weapons in
         his stories, they'd still only be about half as funny as
         this. Psychedelic toads, water pistols, former Soviet
         armaments, it's got everything a Miami novel needs. Plus
         snakes..."


                               >> 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 "DIY"
          http://www.brunching.com/cgi/toy-acronymer.cgi?acronym=NTK

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