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         "And then people won't buy my records. And how will 
         I pay for my daughter's schooling?"
         - MADONNA vs Napster in this month's The Face (p4), 
           shortly before buying a UKP10m house in Belgravia (p8)
...ironically, with the money saved on CDs, our children are going private


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                              slipping the noose 

         First, the bad news: RIP got Royal Assent a few hours ago.
         The good news? It's all futile anyway. As a valued NTK
         subscriber, we know you value your privacy. We also know you
         are some sort of international cocaine smuggler (How do we
         know? Cookies, my friend, cookies). So you won't need us to
         remind you that you can bypass the twenty million pounds
         plus worth of surveillance technology that the government is
         foisting onto the ISP industry with a nifty combo of
         PGP/GnuGP, an offshore ssh shell account, and maybe a
         subscription to ZeroKnowledge's Freedom. Of course, if
         they're really suspicious, the authorities could come and
         demand the passphrase for all of these from you: but at
         least you'll know about it then, rather than have to play a
         guessing game as to whether you're being picked up on the
         mass surveillance powers provided by the Act. I mean, what
         was the point? To somehow tweak the ears of people who start
         hyperventilating the moment "security breaches" are even
         hinted at to work on moving the Net out of simple
         plain-text transmission protocols, and onto something a bit
         more secure and scaleable, like IPv6? Oh. Oh, we get it now.
         Thanks, Mr Blair! Thank you so fricking much. Mwah.
         http://www.fipr.org/rip/RIPcountermeasures.htm 
                                                   - a few more ideas

         And now, the other bad news: NAPSTER ate the judicial
         bullet, as if you hadn't heard. And, hey, it's futile too!
         Even if Gnutella and Freenet still don't, ahem, actually
         work very well, we're sure somebody will have the smart idea
         to use them as systems to pass around a simple text file of
         the new, free, Napster server IPs. That should keep things
         going after Napigator gets shut down, or the RIAA starts
         cutting out the middle man and shooting its customers
         direct.  And then there's sure to be someone writing a
         simple search program to iterate through all those servers.
         Or, dammit, why not just code up a front-end for IRC which
         is where all of this stuff would have stayed, out of the way
         of all you damn college kids and in the hands of the
         slightly-more-obsessive college kids who've been trading for
         years. 
         http://www.napigator.com/
                           - sorry, it's all a bit antinews this week
 http://interactive.wsj.com/public/current/articles/SB964562968421509497.htm
            - on the other hand, glad they died, proprietary bastards
         http://www.tapster.com/
                  - coming out of their shells a little late as usual

         It's amazing what happens when you breathe; but don't hold
         your breath too long, or we'll cut off your oxygen, freak.
         BREATHE, you may remember, was offering a "internet
         connection for life", free from sub or dial-up costs, for
         50UKP. Not if they're "heavy breathers", though: who this
         week received a mail announcing that they'd been sucking at
         the rate Breathe pipe just a little to long, and, oh, bye.
         Any chance of getting the fifty quid back, though? Kinda:
         you get a fifty quid pay-back if you return to using their
         standard dial-up lines. Incredibly, Breathe managed to spin
         this to the proper media as "surfer abuse"."When we said
         unmetered we didn't mean that people could leave their PCs
         on seven days a week, 24 hours a day", said their COO. Uh,
         isn't that the *point* of unmetered connectivity? 
         http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/29/ns-16920.html
                                                   - bad breathe, bad puns 


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         http://www.rubberburner.com , http://www.supergreg.com ,
         http://www.borntodestroy.com - all fake MAHIR cults registered
         by viral marketeers... ironic use of famously unpatented GIFs:
         http://petition.eurolinux.org/signatures.html ... CERBERUS
         bought by L0pht^H^H^H^H^H@STAKE - l0pht not as l33t as once
         thought?: http://www.starwarskids.com/arena/r2d2/index.jsp ...
         EMILY POST http://www.emilypost.com/etiquette.htm suddenly
         advises calling email "amyl" [nitrate?] half-way through...
         BIG BROTHER working title was "Slags In New Age Forest Drama"?
         http://bigbrother.terra.com/gossip/news_tabloid_old.html ...
         Redhat CFO jumps ship to - *SGI*? Man's a falco-hound... .EXE
         magazine to close "as of August issue" - unless *you* can save
         it... JWZ wants to hear from "cute chicks", not "fanboys"...
         Peter WEIR to direct PATRICK O'BRIAN film: dull historical
         accuracy ahoy!... whois CONCORDCRASH.COM (sic) ... BOO
         staff trying to claw back unpaid wages any damn way they can:
     http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=389867138 
         ... Yup, "Selecting Blendolini Causes CHOCO-BANANA SHAKE HANG":
         http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q157/6/68.asp


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

         Not too much for the much-beleagured "Amiga Nation" to look 
         forward to nowadays, perhaps, with the exception of Finland's 
         top demo-party, THE ASSEMBLY (from 2000-08-03) - and, of 
         course, the (US) Amiga West Coast Show, AMIWEST 2000 (2000-07-
         29, Sacramento, California) where, in order to compete with 
         the kinky thrills of DEFCON (happening now, Las Vegas), you 
         can pay good money to watch an Eyetech Next Generation Amiga 
         Development Machine "coupled with a Classic A1200".
         http://www.assembly.org/
               - now features Playstation demos and overclocking compos
         http://uk.amigasoc.org/news/woa2000start.html
         - "Don't book your holidays!" advises UK rival, optimistically
         http://www.dnscon.org/dns2000/
                   - unless of course you'll be swinging by Blackpool...

         And finally, this week's short-range Nathan Forecast features 
         one of the more ill-favoured alignments of the year, the 
         "Arena For The Millennial Age Of Global Urban Culture" 
         HEADRUSH (until 2000-07-30, central London). Largely based at 
         the ICA? Check! Attendees include Mute Magazine, Hari Kunzru, 
         Kodwo Eshun, and Normski? Check! Flyer promises, seemingly
         without irony, "a supra-consciousness of 'Binary Soul' 
         inviting the intellectual, the b-boy, the glamour girl 
         and the PhD on a digital and analogue exploration of our 
         soulful Selves and the 'Futurenow'"? Check, check, CHECK!
         http://www.mannafest.net/
           - oh, and Chuck D. Is "Urban" maybe a euphemism for "Black"?
         http://yapc.org/Europe/
                   - even YAPC::Europe now tainted by "the Art of Perl"


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         VAR'AQ is a stack-based, Forth-ish language, with Lispish
         data structures, and an object-verb-structure grammar
         designed for use by Klingons. Ah, yes: There's little to say
         that you haven't already guessed: written in Perl, minimal
         documentation, Linux-oriented, no *real* working Klingons on
         the standards committee. There is example code, however,
         including the usual "What do you want, Universe?" program.
         The leader of the project, Brian/B'Rian Connors/C'onnarrghs
         expectorates: "If you are afraid to tread in hostile
         territory like this, you might want to hold off on playing
         with var'aq for a while." But then, maybe you are weak, and
         dishonour us all with your cowardice, toDSaH!
         http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq/
         - calling it loSDIch (Klingon for "Fourth") "would be silly"
         http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/tarpit/
           - but no Klingon could face the terrifyingly real BANCstar


                                >> MEMEPOOL << 
                              hasta la altavista

         moodily tasteful "go towards the light" bereavement e-cards:
         http://www.british-airways.com/concorde/spirit/ - not quite
         the "arrive before you take off" that AIR FRANCE had in
         mind... Soundscapes For Compromising A Remote Host [By]:
         http://www.musicforhackers.com ... When TVGoHome Fans Go Bad
         (#1): http://www.planetvom.co.uk/amazon/ ... Here's WALDOES:
         http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er_er/html/robonaut/robonaut.html
         ... pics of RICHARD STILGOE reveal shadowy influence of SATAN:
         http://www.boreham.co.uk/surrey2000/Sherrif.htm ... When
         TVGoHome Fans Go Bad #2 - And The Robots That Trust Them:
         http://www.uberworld.org/robots.cgi?subject=&person=paean ...
         http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~dmb/IHPRS.html - Mad About
         *Something*... open software's very own MAGINOT LINE:
         http://www.iloquent.nl/signs/ ... life imitates CRYPTONOMICON:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_849000/849090.stm
         ... Of/By/For The People: http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/
         ... http://www.lehmans.com - best viewed with a non-electric
         web browser... so fake, even THE GUARDIAN saw through it:
         http://download.theforce.net/theater/episode2/ep2_large.mov ...
         concluding our CONCORDE coverage: http://www.amigoingdown.com/ ...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                  the less sold-out www.tvgohome.com . yeah.

         TV>> Tim Berners-Lee grabs the prestigious OU Saturday am
         technoslot, enquiring WHOSE WEB IS IT ANYWAY? (9.35am, Sat,
         BBC2)... you can while away the dull bits of MAD MAX 3: BEYOND
         THUNDERDOME (11.20pm, Sat, ITV) trying to spot the samples
         used in The Messiah's techno track of the same name... Robbie
         Williams' flesh-stripping ROCK DJ: UNCUT (1.20am, Sat, C4) now
         seems to last an entire half-hour... and the walking-on-their-
         hands amputee robots of '70s eco sci-fi SILENT RUNNING
         (12.35am, Sat, BBC2) trundle back for their second showing
         since July 1999... something of a treat for fans of kid-
         friendly animatronic sci-fi, with back-to-back showings of
         PROJECT: ALF (5.20pm, Sun, C5) and JURASSIC PARK (7pm, Sun,
         BBC1)... Gene Hackman auditions for his "Enemy Of The State"
         role in comparatively thrill-free wiretap-obsessed prequel THE
         CONVERSATION (11.40pm, Sun, BBC2)... and, even if you don't
         buy Cameron "Singles" Crowe's extended men's-weepie schtick,
         there's always the "Spy Who Shagged Me"-inspiring catchphrases
         of JERRY MAGUIRE (9pm, Sun, C4)... though we can't remember
         them showing the original "Law And Order" series, Sky still
         seems oddly keen on its Homicide Life On The Street-alike sex-
         crimes spin-off SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT (9pm, Mon, Sky1)...
         presumably celebrating the "stay up as late as you like" start
         of the school holidays, comes an out-of-nowhere showing of
         ROBOCOP (12.30am, Mon, ITV) - last shown on ITV this April...
         and, after appearing in god-awful knock-offs of both "Mad
         About You", and "The Larry Sanders Show", Tracy-Ann Oberman
         completes the set with "one-off" (read: uncommissioned pilot)
         newsroom spoof THE WAY IT IS (11.35pm, Thu, BBC1) - hey, if
         Hat Trick aren't going to make any more episodes of "Drop The
         Dead Donkey", why shouldn't someone else?...

         FILM>> It's "Das Boot" - but on a boat! - as Mark "-y Mark"
         Wahlberg re-teams with his "Three Kings" pal George Clooney
         and his "Boogie Nights" sidekick in Wolfgang "Air Force One"
         Petersen's air-sea-rescue weather-porn THE PERFECT STORM
         (http://www.capalert.com : graphic scenery of gutting and
         butchering fish; coldness at a man's death; adult woman in
         short nightwear; talk of intercourse with aftermath imagery;
         suggestion of psychic communication; tattoos) - blistering
         Twister-style CGI f/x eventually triumph over salty Captain
         Birds-Eye stereotypes and a Disney-alike score from James
         "Titanic" Horner... Stephen "The Usual Suspects" Baldwin ends
         fevered speculation on the "Flintstones" fan sites over who'd
         play "Young Barney Rubble" (before he turned to the dark side
         and his eyes became tiny black dots) in live-action slapstick
         stage-setter VIVA ROCK VEGAS (imdb: modern-stone-age-humor /
         love / prequel / rich-poor / rivalry / romantic-rivalry /
         based-on-cartoon / casino / flintstones / frame-up)... and
         never mind life "After Earth", there wasn't any future for
         20th Century Fox's in-house animation dept after Don "Dragon's
         Lair" Bluth's sci-fi toon flop TITAN AE (http://www.cndb.com:
         "Matt Damon - provides the voice for Cale, a cute guy with a
         very buff body... we briefly see [on two occasions] his bare
         butt") - extensively trailed on TV with the incongruous poster
         quote "Titan AE *is* Star Wars", from otherwise respected US
         mag Entertainment Weekly. Handily, EW have just ditched all
         that Time-Warner Pathfinder crap and made all their back
         issues searchable on-line, meaning you can swiftly establish
         http://www.ew.com/ew/review/0,1683,1363,00.html that the full
         quote was in fact "Titan AE is Star Wars - pulped and mashed
         into flavorless kiddie corn"...

         CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> no major upheavals at the moment,
         though reader DERYCK RAWLINGS took the no-prize for first
         confirmed sighting of CADBURY'S SHUSH (15p), describing his
         reaction as "disappointed - hardly a Milky Way killer. The
         fact that you can now get different flavoured Milky Ways (the
         strawberry ones rule!) just shows that Mr Cadbury has been
         asleep at the wheel." Del further advises sensation-seeking
         Bristolians that "new confectionary always shows up at the
         newsagent around the corner from Redcliff Street, next to the
         1 Redcliff Street Building and the CompuServe Call Centre"...
         so thanks again to our friends at http://www.cybercandy.co.uk/
         for enabling us to extensively sample their range of US and
         Australian exotica - pausing only to note the irony that
         Cinammon and Wintergreen Altoids (UKP2.35/tin) are actually
         made in the UK, but not sold here, unless they've been
         exported to the US then re-imported again... standouts from
         the Aussie selection were, as ever, the indigenous chocolate
         bars, despite an alarming enthusiasm for making them out of
         malted milk powders, as in the surprisingly palatable
         compressed Ovaltine-tablets OVALTEENIES (45p/packet), and the
         almost unpleasantly raw-cocoa-effect MILO BAR (UKP1.29)... our
         top three: the solid-chocolate FREDDO (49p) - with biscuit
         bits inside!; the Finger-Of-Fudge-meets-Dairy-Crunch titling
         triumph CHOKITO (UKP1.29) - less novelty, but more substance
         than the POLLY WAFFLE's "Choc-coated marshmallow filled wafer"
         (UKP1.10); and, Bar Of The Month, the NESTLE VIOLET CRUMBLE
         (UKP1.29), a giant-sized Crunchie with smaller air-bubbles and
         the slogan "It's The Way It Shatters That Matters"... also
         available from the same source, an international selection of
         the latest in "extreme candies", from the US's semi-sour WONKA
         "Feel the *Power*" SHOCK TARTS (78p/pack) to Australia's super-
         hot WARHEADS (7p each, various flavours), rivalled only by two
         (unintentionally?) hard-to-swallow down-under variants of LIFE
         SAVERS, as immortalised in Paul Lukas' superb "Inconspicuous
         Consumption" book http://www.core77.com/inconspicuous/ :
         Citrus-Polo-alike "Thirst" flavour ("makes a flavour out of an
         *abstract condition*... suggests a whole series: Hunger,
         Restlessness, Drowsiness, Pain, Indifference"), and the
         perfumed, justly notorious "Musk" - Lukas again: "Initial
         sensation is extremely sweet... soon gives way to... raw meat"
         - a flavour which then "repeats" on you for up to several
         hours, the perfect reminder of the original unpleasantness...


                               >> 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 "Want Be the cause of Be certain!"
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