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         "British English and American English are EXTREMELY
         different. Considering that the assumption was that one
         version of each language was sufficient, problems cropped up
         and some of the perfectly normal British English stuff ended
         up being very offensive in the US."
                             - TRISTAN LOUIS learns from his Boo time 
                       http://www.tnl.net/newsletter/2000/boobust.asp
         ...you know, we'd pay good money for those expressions, Boo


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                blinking rules

         These days, we mainly we log on to Cix ("the nerds, the
         rebels, the cosmopolites" - (c) 1991 Howard Rheingold) when
         we don't have enough spam to read on our other mail
         accounts. This week, though, the place was... jumping. Well,
         as jumping as Cix gets: the pipe-smoking, free-thinking,
         and in their own words rather curmudgeonly raconteurs have
         been sent their new terms and conditions - and aren't 
         pleased. Under their noses, Cix has nicked the right to
         reproduce any content posted to the conferencing system (or
         Website), forbade them from using any Cix trademarks (making
         a little tricky, for instance, to give out their cix.co.uk
         e-mail addresses), and promised to terminate their contract
         if they ever thought of violating the new terms and
         conditions. Now, if there's one thing that the average Cixen
         knows (apart from the wingspans of every post-war prop
         aircraft, which Radio 4 comedy shows are objectively
         amusing, and why you should not be wanting to do that with
         your shelf units), it's their consumer rights. Several
         million postings of a precise, discursive, and rivetingly
         pedantic nature later, the management relented. They have
         now - in true Cix fashion - set up a user committee to
         investigate the matter further. We await the next
         rip-roaring episode with ill-disguised glee.
         http://www.cix.co.uk/
         - like the Well, but with the sex and drugs replaced with
                                      motorbicycling enthusiasts

         Changing the tone: Last week, we implied that the
         "Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?" piece
         at SMEG.CO.UK may have been based on a slightly better-known
         near-identical article from THE ONION. But, in an
         exceptional case of Life Imitating The Onion - Imitating The
         Onion - Smeg's editor revealed: "I'm afraid you are wrong! I
         actually wrote the original version 3 years ago - it caused
         quite a stir - quite unlike anything my friends had ever
         seen." Smeg joshes that the piece "travelled quite a
         distance by email" before the Onion "took it and changed
         several parts to make it 'sound' american", and says they're
         "currently in a legal battle with Ken Artis, their lawyers"
         - if you've seen anything pre-dating the Onion's version of
         October 1998, do get in touch, because Smeg have yet to
         provide us with any substantiating evidence or witnesses. In
         a tone entertainingly reminiscent of the "Why is this *keep*
         happening to me?" original, Smeg refers to "an increasing
         number of webmasters who [The Onion] have done this to" and
         believes "[The Onion] have also taken other items from our
         site" - including, presumably, the only other remotely funny
         piece on the Smeg page, the familiar-sounding "Ford
         introduce new instant-win airbag competition".
         http://www.smeg.co.uk/news3.htm
              - at least it's not - oh, our sides - an angry agony aunt!
         http://www.theonion.com/onion3013/airbag.html
            - published 1996-11-06 ("The Onion's Finest News Reporting")

         Finally, it's occasionally nice to hear from companies that
         take their security seriously. When NTK subscriber GEORGE
         WRIGHT heard from MONEYGATOR.COM that they had "the best
         Internet security in the world", he had every right to
         expect amazing things of them. Unfortunately, he'd already
         had his share of amazements - he'd just been telephoned out of
         the blue by a stranger, who told him "I've read your
         phone number on Moneygator.com. And your account numbers,
         bank, and mother's maiden name." Turns out that the
         registration form at Moneygator tended to preserve the data
         entered for a little longer than planned: long enough for
         the next user to read it. It's fixed now, says the CEO,
         (well, George reports him saying "we're pretty sure
         it's fixed"), and has reassured Mr Wright by telling him "when
         breaches like this happen, it makes the Internet safer".
         Absolutely: and when we stop hitting ourselves with this
         cricket bat, we're more comfortable too.
         http://www.moneygator.com/
         - the scary thing is, we're probably giving them more publicity


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         premier BT ADSL site http://www.bt.com/adsl/ touts chief
         benefit as "CD-quality jazz from a radio station in Chicago"
         ... German lawyers say filtering out virus attachments at
         ISP level "punishable with up to two years imprisonment" ... TV
         doh from Look North http://www.ntk.net/2000/05/26/dohlooknorth.jpg 
         ... that "unique blend of whispering and dove's coo" - Falco!
         http://www.sneeze.dircon.co.uk/cart.html ... press report
         Dando suspect is "Loner", "Freddie Mercury Oddball" ...
         poor BBC's MARK WARD says "I did ask the http://totl.net/Spud/ 
         folks if it was fake and they said no", while the
         meticulously researched REGISTER sets itself up nicely:
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/000525-000013.html ... 
         http://www.deuceofclubs.com/moj/mojave.htm - Falco!... CRAZYNET 2.0
         - Falco! ... LOOKING GLASS - Falco! ... with "successes" like these:
         http://www.sun.co.uk/dot-com/ready/ready3_print.html ... cover 
         of new BUSINESS 2.0 magazine looks exactly like AMIGA SHOPPER ...
         William Hill fix loophole; www.victorchandler.com still working! 


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

         In accordance with prophecy [NTK 1999-08-06 and most of
         October], BAFTA have been forced to ditch the "comedy"
         category award altogether, rather than give it to us. But
         there's still time to get your entries in for the equally
         corporate-sponsored (but rather less heavily contested, if you
         know what we mean) NET MEDIA EUROPEAN ONLINE JOURNALISM AWARDS
         (deadline 2000-05-31). Hilariously ironic categories include
         the "Netimperative Award for Best News Story" (what, them
         going bust, for instance?) and the "Shell Award for Best
         Investigative Reporting", while the judging panel features
         such luminaries as beardie Bill Thompson, Ben "Ed" Rooney
         (formerly of The Telegraph Connected), plus no less than *two*
         "Mike Brackens". Plus, they're simultaneously running an
         "Autistic Web Design Contest" (like there's any other kind),
         sponsored by Sega Dreamcast. Don't get your entries mixed up!
         http://www.bafta.org/bafta/5_ie/5_AWARDS_cat.htm
                  - no, really, one of the judges told us that was why
         http://www.net-media.co.uk/eolja/judges.html
               - otherwise they'll just give them to each other. Again.
         http://www.ntk.net/2000/05/26/dohnetimp.gif
                                            - more banner advertomancy


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         What with ESR's religious-war-by-the-backdoor plans to make
         Kernel configuration dependent on Python, Tom Christiansen's
         slow descent into Kurtz-esque insanity on the
         perl5porters list and Segfault's recent revelation that all
         Perl core development is to end because Larry says 
         "a language is syntactically complete when you find a use for
         every bit of the keyboard", it's not been a good Spring for Perl.
         But the camel has many humps, and if all else fails, the
         loyal mongers can alway hack up an escape route. Easing the
         transition to the promised land is LANGUAGE::BASIC, a new Perl
         module that provides complete emulation of the latest BASIC
         dialects - if your real time clock stopped around 1980, that
         is. Special features: ON... GOSUB and DEF FN. Free code to
         "Hunt the Wumpus" included! Let's go!
         http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Language-Basic
                                 - no RESTORE statement though. damn.
         http://www.segfault.org/story.phtml?mode=2&id=3905b40e-05c0a760
                                            - oh, Perl's always funny


                                >> MEMEPOOL << 
                              hasta la altavista

         meta tags at http://www.sinclair-research.co.uk/ imply
         existence of "ZX 79" ... http://www.pumpgirls.com/ unlikely
         to cover "Sugar, Sugar" ... searching for "eyes only" on
         http://www.open.gov.uk/search/search.htm ... recognise
         anyone? YOURSELF? http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html ... 
         rats on coke ... also, pretend it's a tricorder:
         http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2000/May00/StarTrekPR.asp
         the "FIST OF FUN makes me *mad with power*" guy and E3:
         http://www.dailyradar.com/features/showbiz_feature_page_84_1.html
         the ill-advised http://www.postboo.com/ blacklist versus the
         genius of http://www.k10k.net/issues/issue073/ ... kill 'em with KLM:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_320000/320576.stm


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> apart from the BUFFY vs "Adam" season finale on Sky (8pm, 
         Sky1, Fri & Sun), a god-awful selection on the Bank Holiday, 
         with potential "highlights" restricted to the "skeet surfing" 
         sequence near the start of Abrahams/ Zucker/ Zucker WW2 spoof 
         TOP SECRET (11.50pm, Sun, BBC1)... two blokes on a sofa, 
         talking - the radical premise for BADDIEL AND SKINNER 
         UNPLANNED (10.30pm, Sun-Wed, ITV) - Skinner presumably won't 
         be emulating his live BBC1 show by spoofing the show that 
         comes before, in this case Daniela Nardini's hard-hitting 
         military rape drama, "Rough Treatment"... while THE DAY THE 
         WORLD TOOK OFF (8pm, Sun, C4) promises a "fresh look at the 
         Industrial Revolution"... BBC MUSIC LIVE (all day, Mon, BBC1 & 
         2) proposes the terrifying prospect of televised toddlers 
         banging tin trays across the land... Ralph Fiennes whistle-
         blower QUIZ SHOW (10.10pm, Mon, BBC2) harks back to a pre-"Who 
         Wants To Be A Millionaire" era of more diligent contestant-
         vetting ... Sharon Stone CCTVer SLIVER (10.30pm, Mon, BBC1) 
         features a murderous C programmer... and the makers of "TFI 
         Friday" set a dangerous precedent for the TV spin-off of 
         class-tourism gangster fetishisation LOCK, STOCK, ETC (9pm, 
         Mon, C4) by subtitling the first one "And Four Stolen Hooves" 
         - can't wait for "Lock, Stock, And The Twenty Rings Of 
         Mordor"... CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT (8.30pm, Tue, C4) revels in 
         "Why Don't You?" irony by making its first deprivation TV 
         itself... the director's cut of TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY 
         (9.30pm, Wed, BBC1) gets its second outing in about six 
         months... while, combining Robot Wars with The Great Egg Race, 
         we'd like to see the Medieval trebuchet-constructors in 
         MYSTERIES OF LOST EMPIRES (9pm, Thu, C4) take on the ill-armed 
         castaways of ROUGH SCIENCE (7.30pm, Fri, BBC2)...

         FILM>> the makers of Adam Sandler's "Big Daddy" reshoot "Ace
         Ventura: Pet Detective" in post-Farrelly bad-taste feel-gooder
         DEUCE BIGALOW: MALE GIGOLO (imdb: aquarium), with former Judge
         Dredd sidekick "man-whore" Rob Schneider poking affectionate
         fun at amputees, Tourette's syndrome, the blind etc... STIR OF
         ECHOES (imdb: bagpipe / murder / independent-film / ghost /
         hypnotism) attempts to mesmerise viewers into enjoying a
         grown-up Kevin Bacon remake of "The Sixth Sense"... three-
         quarters of "All Saints" contribute to half-baked sub-Austin
         Powers '60s crime caper HONEST (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ :
         passed '18' for infrequent strong sex and drug use, and
         occasional strong violence) - directed by the multi-talented
         Dave "Hackers" Stewart, though we'd rather find out what
         happened to his previously web-touted sitcom collaboration
         with Carrie Fisher, set in a "nail salon"... and, bizarrely,
         it's not Anna Friel examining her armpit on the poster for
         limited-release arthouse French-a-thon GIRL ON THE BRIDGE
         (imdb: suicide-attempt / gambling / knife-thrower) but her
         Gallic '90s sex-kitten equivalent, Vanessa Paradis...

         FERROUS PARTICLES' DAY OFF>> our irregular soundalike music
         slot returns next week - get your "uncanny resemblances" in
         now - but for the moment, a special one-off bootleg report
         from DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION AND THE MUSIC INDUSTRY at Olympia
         earlier this week, in the company of NTK's fully anonymous
         correspondent... PAUL SCHATZKIN (CEO, songs.com) admits he
         owns an illegal Alanis Morrissette MP3, provoking heckle of
         the day(from myself): "That's Ironic!"... SCOTT MOSKOWITZ
         (Blue Spike geezer and top SDMI encryption dude) gets
         starstruck on his panel (Security of Digital Distribution or
         some such arse) and piles on the rhetoric. "Music should be
         free!" he opines, and then comes a cropper when some geek in
         the audience asks him about Blue Spike's open source policy
         - or lack of one... several execs are reported leaving the
         building with "tears in their eyes" after being "thrown to
         the lions" on their panels... no such shame for one
         executive from [a major TV production company] who admits
         she knows nothing about the music or internet industries.
         Over canapes she surprises everyone at the table by turning
         to me and asking "What's a Napster?" Audible coughs and
         raised eyebrows all round - I smile calmly and tell her it's
         a major e-commerce site. No-one says anything... there is,
         of course, a "no recording" embargo during FRANK "METALLICA"
         HALL'S speech - annoyingly, as he was excellent. If you're
         going to be a webmaster, (and presumably, some people have
         to be), then you may as well have the added advantage of
         being a 50 year-old, Irish ex-squaddie... extended metaphor
         of the show came from JIM GRIFFIN (Evolab and "Internet
         Guru"), who recommends that future business models should
         "feminise" their thinking. He likens the current way we sell
         CDs as a violating, penetrative experience and says we're
         only interested in "the fuck" (I'm paraphrasing here). What
         we should be doing is modelling ourselves more on Amazon,
         where it is the relationship after the fuck that is more
         important than the fuck itself. Griffin wants to cut off our
         dicks!... at this, Iain Lawson of Universal Music UK
         audibly snorts and crosses his legs. Don't expect any change
         in Universal's blanket ban on video streaming any time
         soon...


                               >> 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 very very late 
        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 "pii!"
    http://pikachize.eye-of-newt.com/pika.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ntk.net


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