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         "The only thing that prevents people downloading whole
          movies on the Net is bandwidth in the local loop ... It is
          not technological issues that prevent it, it is business and
          political issues which slow it down."
         - PETER COCHRANE, Chief Technologist at BT
         http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2637274,00.html
         ...although we always *say* it's technological problems
                       otherwise Oftel would - hey, is this thing on?


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                carnage ensues

         Stuff the polls, ye sons of freedom! In a week when the
         www.voteauction.com moved offshore (a site almost as
         refreshingly honest as the Danish www.theburglar.com , but
         not quite as mercenary as its sister www.rentasoldier.com ),
         and George W Bush suggested that the Columbine murders were
         caused by a child's "heart turn[ing] dark as a result of
         being on the Internet", it's good to see one US-centric
         election approximate to decent result. Sure, the ICANN
         European poll was decidedly bent toward Germany and their
         candidate, Chaos Computer Club's ANDY MUELLER-MAGUHN, but
         the surprise hit in the West was KARL "I remember when this
         was all Arpanet" AUERBACH, who knocked out Lawrence Lessig
         in the final round. Possibly this was due to his arcane
         knowledge of pre-IP protocols, but we think mainly due to
         his incredibly commonsense approach to the whole DNS mess.
         Like the man says, this Net thing can bear *millions* of
         TLDs before it falls over, and the only way to smack the 
         value out of the few we fight over now is by opening the
         namespace floodgates. 'Course, that's not what the lawyers
         hired to keep the NSI et al's hoarded domains want to hear.
         But when they go "wah wah wah, not listening" in future 
         ICANN discussions, at least there's a chance that the
         meetings will be open enough for us to hear their wails.
         http://www.cavebear.com/ialc
                               - hmm. he does *look* kind of bearish.
         http://www.iol.ie/~kooltek/
                                - more polls that don't go as planned
         http://planetquake.com/politicalarena/
                                       - we want Karl and Andy skins!

         So, the NTK staff are settling down to watch the Saturday 
         afternoon transmission of "Team Knight Rider" when, in the 
         Carlton TV area at least, it's replaced by a kids' gameshow 
         called SWAP TEAM, where youngsters compete to win a futuristic 
         currency called SwapIts, in what seems to be a Metal Gear-
         themed redesign of "The Crystal Maze". Nothing untoward in 
         that, perhaps, unless these are the very same SwapIts that 
         are used to broker deals at newly launched toy-exchange site 
         http://www.swapitshop.com - a suspicion fuelled further by the 
         appearance of a Swapitshop link on the show's own site, 
         http://www.swap-team.co.uk/ , and, indeed, a Swapitshop ad 
         during the half-time break. Might that not be a direct 
         contravention of the ITC rule that "No undue prominence may be 
         given in any programme to a commercial product or service" - 
         whether in the form of conventional programme sponsorship, 
         paid product placement, or just promising to give them a 
         mention in return for a pair of boxing gloves and a bike?
     http://www.itc.org.uk/regulating/prog_reg/prog_code/section_10.asp
       - Ner-ner ner-ner ner! You've - got - an - undue - prominence!
         http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,16012,00.html
- "We are not in market for hype", says TIMES INTERFACE, in same issue that...
         http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,16028,00.html
- ...an all-in-one fax/copier/printer "could change the way we do business"

         The Observer, 2000-10-08. John Arlidge reports: "Ten years
         ago Berners-Lee wrote the electronic code that enables
         computers across the world to 'talk' to each-other down a
         telephone line. The internet was born and has grown from a
         single website to more than 800,000,000, with e-commerce,
         chatrooms and email transforming the way we work, shop, do
         business, socialise and relax." Okay, we know that sometimes
         we can be a bit picky about the technical details, so we'll
         cut this down to one question. Why the quotes around "talk"?
         Does this mean everything else (like "ten years ago",
         "electronic code", "down" a "telephone line", "internet was
         born", "grown from a single website", "more than
         800,000,000") *isn't* some over-stretched flight-of-fancy
         metaphor? Or is this weird quotation reversal, whereby
         actually "talk" is the only word that makes any kind of
         sense? Yep, it's time for another NTK competition. Send your
         the "best" "examples" of Internet "explanations" from the
         "proper" media, and win some kind of "prize".
         http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,379162,00.html
                                         - and no cheating, you hacks
 http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4070482,00.html
                                           - although mild plagiarism
http://www.salon.com/business/col/shalit/2000/09/30/olympic_ads/index1.html
                                                       - is permitted


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         SUNDAY TIMES journalists create creature "97% human, 3% pig":
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/10/08/stifgnaus01001.html 
         ... BUDWEISER spam 850 addresses with Blair Witch 2 ticket 
         offer - by pasting them all into "To:" field. No-one's (yet) 
         caused endless WHAZZUP? chain by hitting "Reply to all"... my 
         MIND - is GOING: http://www.ntk.net/2000/10/13/dohhal.jpg ... 
         THUS Ops manager complains about Scottish connectivity for 
         FREESERVE: http://x72.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=677159239 ... what 
         about the HUMAN RIGHT not to do *anything* we don't want to? 
         http://www.shout99.com/contractors/showarticle.pl?id=4574 ... 
         MP3 NEWS http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/m/mp3.html also includes 
         updates on Rio Tinto's DIAMOND MINE... http://uk.clust.com/ 
         product catalogue "goes live in August 2000" - waiting for all 
         the other buying clubs to go bust at the same time?... FALCO! 
         http://www.pheasnt.demon.co.uk/MUDGE/ISS25/INDEX25.HTM - who'd 
         have seen that coming, eh?... http://www.sonypsx2.com/ points 
         to... http://www.perlscripters.com/ ... MIR to IPO: one market 
         crash you don't want to see... backwards-compatibility, 
         MICROSOFT-style: http://www.ntk.net/2000/10/13/IE2_screen.gif 
         ... children's LAN parties: "there is blood", reports ABC: 
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/GoodMorningAmerica/GMA001009Computer_parties.html


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

         "Is There Anything New About The New Economy?" asks the (sold 
         out) GUARDIAN UNLIMITED debate on Tuesday, though we reckon 
         they'd get some rather more radical definitions of the phrase 
         "new economy" if they asked anyone at tomorrow's ANARCHIST 
         BOOKFAIR (Sat 2000-10-14, Conway Hall, London WC1). As well as 
         numerous slickly-organised Powerpoint presentations on direct 
         action and the like, there's Rob Newman doing some alternative 
         comedy ("You know the inherently expoloitative nature of 
         international globalisation? That's *you*, that is"), while 
         The Stewart Home Society [see NTK 2000-03-31] will attempt to 
         subvert the subversives by using the event to make "flaming 
         hats" and "sex dolls" out of bread.
         http://freespace.virgin.net/anarchist.bookfair/
           - assuming it's not blockaded by reactionary direct-action
         http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/
              - notorious troublemakers (even by anarchist standards)
         http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/neweconomy/
          - Smartarse answer: "Well, yes - it doesn't make any money"

         Don't you feel oddly violated when the ICA starts digging up 
         your most precious teenage memories, running a retro arcade, 
         blathering about how "Computer games are having a pervasive 
         impact on our culture", and making you want to visit their 
         stupid GAMES - INTO THE REAL conference (10am, Sat 2000-10-14, 
         London, UKP16) just to shout "No, games AREN'T cool - not 
         compared to the things I really did think were cool back then, 
         like Iron Maiden" in their goateed new-media faces? Anyway, 
         because they're looking at "work which originated from or was 
         influenced by computer games developments", there won't even 
         be any real programmers there, though the usual roll-call 
         includes the lovely JC "Joystick Nation" HERZ (like all three 
         "Bits" presenters rolled into one), EDWARD "Playing Fields" 
         WATSON, and famed publicity-shy recluse PETER "ex-Bullfrog" 
         MOLYNEUX. 
         http://www.ica.org.uk/newmedia/games/
         -  "composer of the music for Tomb Raider 1-3". Ta-da-DAAAA!
         http://www.ica.org.uk/talk/111179/
    - though Matt "Yahoo Serious" Jones recommends John Maeda, on Thu


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         What we should be doing this week is an in-depth review of
         BIND 9's new security features (with nifty DNS-based
         distributed key management) and Python 2.0b1 (with nifty new
         licensing). But instead, we'll just offload a backlog of
         Palm goodies, in the somewhat desperate hope that you
         haven't all traded them in for iPAQs yet. First up: the
         continuing saga of IMETRO, the underground route planner that
         includes every tube from Newcastle to Kyoto. Still has some
         weird bugs in it - NTK's Silicon Valley offices are nine
         minutes away from Berkeley, somehow - but probably worth the
         download in beam-trading potential alone. And for those of
         you who crave more Web-page-grabbers, and have already eaten
         up all the sites accessible via SITESCOOPER (the *official*
         NTK ripper), you might want to experiment with MALSYNC, an
         AvantGo compatible conduit for Unix, or the more general
         PLUCKER HTML reader which has been around for yonks and
         works on Windows and OS/2. Unless you're too busy playing
         with the multiple processor capabilities of Bind and porting
         all your old lisp code to Python, you big fat geek
         show-offs.
         http://sitescooper.org
           - hey, stick us in your man page and you'd be official too
         http://plucker.gnu-designs.com/
                       - so many grabbers, so few synonyms for "grab"
         http://home.worldnet.fr/~patriceb/Technique/iMetro/Metro-en.html
                                                - le metro est arrive


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                              hasta la altavista

         scary new candidate for seven-headed BEAST OF REVELATIONS: 
         http://darryn-reeds.tripod.com/S-Club-7-secrets.html ... JULIE 
         "First Tuesday" MEYER not the unfeeling Randian we implied: 
         http://users.ap.net/~sheva51/memory.html#m-o ... IDLER imitate 
         ONION: http://www.idler.co.uk/pc/html/dotcom.html ... BLAIR 
         WITCH SCHOOL PROJECT: http://surrealist.custard.org/lego/dead/ 
         ... foul language, body piercing, killing Christ - it's THE 
         BIBLE: http://shanmonster.bla-bla.com/rants/rant61b.html - vs 
         http://www.jokesonline.org/ ... never "show your working" 
         again: http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/projects/ISC/ISCmain.html ... 
         NIELSEN RATING: X - http://www.oasisproductions.net/jake/fear/ 
         ... http://www.whitelead.com/jrh/screenshots/ - SimDiana, 
         SimRodneyKing... new AIBO is PROGRAMMABLE UPSKIRT CAMERA: 
         http://www.aibo-europe.com/en/features/index03.html ... life 
         imitates TVGOHOME: http://www.365television.com/production/ 
         ... well, they sound just like typical ORACLE 8i applications 
         to us: http://www.ora.com/news/feuerstein_1000.html ... and 
         finally: that's no copyright symbol - it's an EYELESS SMILEY!: 
         http://freespace.virgin.net/nigel.ayers/eyeless.html ...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> exactly a year since its last showing, goof-riddled Bond 
         yawn TOMORROW NEVER DIES (8.55pm, Fri, ITV) goes up against 
         equally flawed HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING (10.30pm, Fri, 
         BBC1)... C4 steals the baton of Stuart Maconie's retro clip-
         shows back from the BBC's "I Love The '70s/ '80s", with a run 
         of four year-specific TOP TEN shows (9pm, Sat, C4), starting 
         with 1990... and, after last week's "The Specialist", this 
         week's Saturday night ITV "mad bomber" flick is the wildly 
         confusing SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL (9pm, Sat, ITV) - followed 
         by hotly unawaited Denis Leary/ Sandra Bullock love-on-the-run 
         rom-com STOLEN HEARTS (11.20pm, Sat, ITV)... BBC2 acquires 
         staggeringly badly-animated Sky1 refugee ROSWELL CONSPIRACIES 
         (10am, Sun, BBC2)... hopefully Robert "The Human Body" Winston 
         will be using a sufficiently vague definition of SUPERHUMAN 
         (9.10pm, Sun, BBC1) to include Kevin Warwick... pitting BBC1's 
         first-ever "News At Ten" in a cut-throat ratings battle with 
         undifferentiated martial arts Bond knock-off JACKIE CHAN'S 
         FIRST STRIKE (9pm, Sun, C5) and Woody Harrelson's porno-biopic 
         THE PEOPLE VS LARRY FLYNT (10.10pm, Sun, C4) - latest in the 
         epic saga of "Vs" films that began with "Kramer Vs Megalon"... 
         Sky1 are currently repeating the most recent BBC2 SEINFELD 
         episodes at the almost-less-contemptuous time of 3am in the 
         morning... the BBC's "Webwise" campaign staggers on, with the 
         baffling http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise site accompanied by 
         Vanessa Feltz's NET RESCUE (2.55pm, Mon-Fri, BBC1) and another 
         beardie Bill Thompson TOMORROW'S WORLD WEBWISE (7pm, Wed, 
         BBC1) - nicely counterpointed by ROBOCOP (10.15pm, Wed, C5), 
         even if ITV has already shown it twice in the last 6 months... 
         if you're posting comments like "Why are they suddenly all 
         talking with American accents and fighting lame CGI aliens?", 
         that's because you're watching MEN IN BLACK (8.30pm, Tue, 
         BBC1) instead of ATTACHMENTS (9pm, Tue, BBC2)... and it's 
         boffin-vs-boffin on Thu, as Clive Sinclair tries to win back 
         the R&D budget for future UK PC innovation in a new series of 
         LATE NIGHT POKER (12midnight, Thu, C4), and nuclear explosions 
         cause instant global warming in black-and-white suspenser THE 
         DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE (12.50am, Thu, BBC1)... 
         
         FILM>> there's only one place we want to see that "Stuart 
         Little" mouse guy, and that's in Tom Green's mouth - put on 
         your best Atari T-shirt for "American Pie"-style proctological 
         odyssey ROAD TRIP (http://www.cndb.com : [Amy Smart] take her 
         top off: she hasn't very big tits but she's wonderful; Hot 
         Scene! A must if you love tiny perfect breasts!; Interestingly 
         the director intended this scene to be the modern version of 
         Phoebe Cates' classic topless walk in Fast Times at Ridgemont 
         High - it doesn't even come close)... doesn't seem to be any 
         extra footage in this DVD-promoting re-release - like you need 
         an excuse to re-recite all the dialogue to THIS IS SPINAL TAP 
         (imdb: docu-drama /parody /spoof /heavy-metal /urban-legend 
         /independent-film /spontaneous-combustion /fake-documentary 
         /washed-out /fictional-band /music)... Disney combine "Walking 
         With Dinosaurs" and "The Lion King" in CGI-animated historo-
         travesty DINOSAUR (http://www.capalert.com : since the period 
         of Dinosaur is between Creation and the Garden of Eden, no one 
         knows for sure how predator/prey aggression manifested itself, 
         if at all; this movie may challenge or complicate your young 
         child's separation of fantasy and reality, [...] especially 
         when they try to separate fact from fiction with regards to 
         the theory of evolution)... Jet-Li doesn't exactly come across 
         as a younger, sprightlier Jackie Chan in straight-to-video-ish 
         pseudo-Hong-Kong wirework actioner ROMEO MUST DIE (imdb: afro-
         american / body-landing-on-car / chinese-american / helicopter 
         / jailbreak / gang / interracial-romance / hong-kong / san-
         francisco / impalement / interracial / x-rayed-skeleton / 
         chinese-mafia / video-game / asian-american / amazing-grace-
         hymn / betrayal / desert-eagle / martial-arts / real-estate / 
         murder / revenge)... and not much mirth, oddly, in tragic-love 
         period drama THE HOUSE OF MIRTH (http://www.bbfc.co.uk: Passed 
         'PG' for mild language, violence and drugs use): Dan Aykroyd, 
         Gillian "X Files" Anderson, and fellow ginger Eric Stoltz - 
         together at last!...
         
         FEAR OF A BLANK NAPSTER>> obviously the time comes when you've 
         downloaded every record you ever owned (or wanted to own) (or 
         just heard on the radio) (or whatever), so we've taken to 
         populating our "Hot List" with tracks that either weren't 
         released over here, or no-one heard of them when they did: 
         BELLATRIX's "Jediwannabe" - the Icelandic Star Wars-themed 
         hybrid of Hole's "Celebrity Skin" and Amii Stewart's "Knock On 
         Wood"; BT's ranting big-beat workout "Never Gonna Come Back 
         Down" from the soundtrack of "Gone In 60 Seconds"; DYNAMITE 
         HACK's acoustic cover of NWA's "Boys In The Hood"; and, in the 
         retro dept, BILLY BRAGG's 1986 B-side spoken word version of 
         "Don't Walk Away Renee". Oh, and if you want to hear ROBBIE 
         WILLIAMS say "sodomy", you need the 4:45 version of "Kids" - 
         not the 4:46 version from Kylie's album or the 3:32 edit from 
         what seems to be the US release... speaking of censorship, 
         it's a fine line between sexism and sexy: GEORGE OVERTON noted 
         that CYPRESS HILL "aren't allowed to say 'bitch' in their vid 
         of 'You Can't Get the Best of Me'", despite MEREDITH BROOKS 
         having had a major airplay hit in 1997 with a song with 
         "Bitch" as its title... Top Of The Pops didn't bleep Ali G's 
         "punani" from the beginning of MADONNA's "Music", even though 
         MTV did, implying that you need a certain degree of MTV-
         viewing sophistication to be offended by it... while MATHEW 
         "KUJI" BEVAN enthused that Radio 1 left "the umpteen 'Shit's 
         in" EMINEM's ace "Stan" (sample comes from Dido's "Thank-You", 
         3:45, not as good), even when playing at 10am - yet alleged 
         that MTV cut the word "trees" from WYCLIFFE AND THE ROCK's "It 
         Doesn't Matter", suspecting "garden full of trees" to be an 
         oblique drugs reference. He found the track's computer voice 
         saying 'It doesn't matter' "awfully reminiscent" of "the Amiga 
         speech synthesiser"... his mind warped by endless analogies 
         between our modern internet and the Victorian telegraph, TOM 
         STANDAGE proposed a variation on our usual soundalikes game, 
         arguing: "Lots of TV ads were obviously storyboarded with a 
         particular track, but when it came to getting permission to 
         use it, it was either too expensive or refused altogether. So 
         then the agency gets someone to throw together a similar-
         sounding rip-off at the same tempo that sounds the same to the 
         suits anyway". He cites such well-researched examples as "some 
         crappy car ad that was obviously supposed to have 'Kashmir' 
         (or PUFF DADDY's version thereof) but now has a rip-off 
         version instead; a cosmetics ad that used to have FIONA APPLE 
         but now has an imitation; and - well, no doubt you know of far 
         more examples than I do". Well, not off the top of our heads, 
         Tom, but we're open to suggestions - this could be the new 
         playing "Dark Side Of The Moon" over "The Wizard Of Oz"!... 
         and finally, Idler regular MATTHEW DE ABAITUA spotted child 
         techno-prodigy DANIEL PEMBERTON [see NTK 2000-09-08] "at this 
         year's Big Chill, gadding about clad in a white boiler suit, 
         decorated with hand-stencilled Ghostbusters logo. His DJ set 
         brought much-needed humour to the peaceful yet somewhat 
         earnest festival. When he fluffed a mix, he leapt three feet 
         in the air and yelped like a startled comedy cat". Have *you* 
         witnessed Daniel Pemberton - or Toby Slater, or David 
         McCandless even - in a novelty DJ performance, while dressed 
         as a 1980s film character? If so, let us know - we're ready 
         to believe you...


                               >> 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
    "popular in the smoking carriage of the 08:59 to Birmingham New Street" 
         

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