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        "You shouldn't be worried just about numbers for these kinds 
         of programmes. They bring in very upmarket, male audiences 
         that are very desirable to advertisers. The Hitler fixation 
         will serve television channels very well in the future."
 - Nazi shows may lose ratings battle, explains Adam Smith, Zenith Media...
           [ http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,66-112635,00.html ]
                                           ...but zey vill vin - ZE WAR!

         
                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                             3 cock-a-doodle-doos

         The Easter story: it begins with death, despair, betrayal
         and ends with - well, we never could fathom that last bit,
         so let's stick with those well-worn topics for this week's
         grep of regret. Noted financier Death made THE INDUSTRY
         STANDARD EUROPE a market proposition it couldn't refuse, in
         accordance with NTK - and, we admit, anyone with an ounce of
         sense's - prophecy. Factoring in his previous WIRED UK
         success, we extrapolate JOHN "tops out at 30,000" BATTELLE's
         next foray into the British market may last as long as three
         weeks. Or seven issues, whichever comes first.
         http://www.subbie.freeisp.co.uk/strategicpartner.html
- internal gossip sheet incisively parodies those long, unreadable articles
         http://www.mediaguardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,471727,00.html
            - it's always the Guardian that puts the boot in. And us.

         DESPAIR for remaining BIGFOOT users, whose "free e-mail
         forwarding for life" looks to have an expectancy of somewhat
         less than five years. "Times have gotten tough for Internet
         companies such as ours", the company weasels, and goes on to
         say they're spreading that "tough" sensation by limiting
         mail forwarding to 25 messages a day. And even then,
         subscribers have to provide "demographic information"
         before the forwarding restarts. Given that most people
         receive about that much mail in "GREAT INKJET DEALS" alone,
         you can understand that the company would introduce this
         change gently. But, so far, as far as we can tell, they
         haven't mailed users, or put the policy change on its
         Website - they just stuck it in the autoresponder FAQ at
         help@bigfoot.com. How stealthily desperate can you get?
         http://www.bigfoot.com/
                                    - Website oddly stuck in 1996 too

         Better postpone answering that until after the BETRAYAL
         section. Not one, but two previous NTK picks - stealth
         Napster-beater AUDIOGALAXY and Gnapster-sorter BEARSHARE -
         have bartered away some of their coolness for a mess of
         piggybacked spyware. Bearshare, which always carried OnFlow,
         a doomed banner-ad plugin, now offers SaveNow!, a useless
         online shopping helper app in its installation options.
         Audiogalaxy more silently installs WEBHANCER, some
         satanic instrument for measuring end-users' network speed.
         The Audiogalaxy Linux client is unaffected, thank the good
         Lord. We don't have massively strong opinions about these
         scummy little apps, but we do feel a little implicated if
         you found them on your machine. So if you haven't spotted
         them already, it's probably time you had an easter-egg hunt.
         We'd recommend Lavasoft's ADAWARE as a good way of deleting
         them, but now we're stricken with doubt. What's *it*
         installing behind our backs?
         http://www.spychecker.com/
      - nothing, according to Spychecker. But who's paying *them* off?
         http://lavasoft.de/aaw/
                                           - ok, ok, lavasoft's legit

         
                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         must be getting too old for this groovy EXTREME SPORTS lingo: 
         http://www.mountainbike.co.uk/reviews.html (features and news 
         equally informative)... "Welcome to **SITENAME**t" greets 
         http://dvddirect.safeserver.com/mainpage.php ... whois 
         fuckedcompany.co.uk - could it be CEO of GAMEPLAY?... HIGGS 
         "BOSUN" ahoy: http://www.ntk.net/2001/04/13/dohhiggs.jpg ... 
         BUSH petition breaks server: http://www.magnetbox.com/sorry/ 
         ... "Calm yourself", indeed - RADIO TIMES offers 28-foot TV: 
    http://www.radiotimes.com/film/win_win_win/quizzes/entertainment_system/
         ... worst ever HELENA CHRISTIANSEN pics - with her plumber!: 
         http://www.hm.com/design/habib/showpic.asp ... 1000g of "HOT 
         PEANUS": http://www.foxitalia.com/arachidi_eng.html ... one 
         conversion where the C64's lack of greyscales won't be a 
         problem: http://www.ntk.net/2001/04/13/doh64.gif ... what does 
         HENSON want 'em for? http://www.jenerator.org/jimhenson.htm ... 
         http://PopMusicWorld.com launching "biggest and best Pop Music 
         Web Site in the World" around May/June 2000... a *lot* of BT 
         ADSL modems: http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2001-08.html 
         ... http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/babytrade/ imitates 
         http://www.martian.fm/ebaby.htm , a good 3 months later... 
         despite appearances, not the output of a dialectizer CGI: 
www.nicensus2001.gov.uk/censuslanguages/pdf/Census%202001%20UlsterScots.pdf


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

         "This week, we reflect upon the Crucifixion. How uncivilised 
         1st Century Palestine seems compared to our own society, with 
         its religious tolerance and No More Nails adhesive", writes 
         the current MARTIAN.FM newsletter (though no doubt they'll go 
         rubbish like all the others now that we've linked to them). 
         Anyway, we'd hoped to re-emphasise the "countryside open for 
         business" message this Easter weekend, though irritatingly 
         major anti-GM protest the HARBURY PICNIC has been cancelled 
         due to Foot and Mouth. Still, presumably there's less chance 
         of contamination at the LANGUAGE OF WATER CONFERENCE (from Tue 
         2001-04-17, in Bath, appropriately enough), which makes such 
         appealingly psychotic sounding claims as "At a time when we 
         are celebrating our discovery of the language of genes, we 
         need to appreciate that that language can only make sense in 
         the context of the Language of Water". For those of our 
         readers over on the North American subcontinent, that's the 
         same day as DIY geek movie night 20 SIDED DICE (8pm, Tue, 
         2001-04-17, "Art System", Toronto), featuring a screening of 
         Jim Munroe's "Interactive", a 7-minute meditation asking which 
         is better: text adventure gaming, or real life?
         http://nomediakings.org/20.gif 
 - INSTALL QUICKTIME; EXAMINE http://nomediakings.org/interactive.htm 
         http://www.languageofwater.com/
      - no joke here; just like saying "water: nature's polar solvent"
         http://freespace.virgin.net/harbury.picnic
           - GM trials being cancelled too; karmic balance maintained
         http://www.bfss.org/fmd/010401urgent.htm
               - Captive bolt humane killers! Your country needs you!


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                              oogle that google

         MODERN HUMORIST sells soul to MS, takes aim at obvious target: 
         http://www.officeclippy.com/ ... FOOT-N-MOUTH-scale viral PR 
         campaign: http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=8659 
         ...twentythree.co.uk / Mark Thomas List ask: so no-one's offered
         POPBITCH any free server space?... VIDEO TOASTER not far away: 
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1264000/1264205.stm
         ... everyone chortling over JEDI CENSUS email, fails to notice 
         that UK data processing is being carried out by Dark Knights 
         Of The US Military Industrial Complex, LOCKHEED MARTIN... fun 
         bank holiday things to do: convert SGI from webserver to beer 
         server: http://home.planet.nl/~mourits/koelkast/ ... build 
         SOUTH AMERICAN ZX81: http://zx81.grok.co.uk/kitinfo.html - 
         arriba!... (experts only) construct MECHANICAL HIT COUNTER: 
         http://www.embeddedether.net/mhc.html ... enter CAPTION COMPO: 
http://www.political.co.uk/annwiddecombe/gal.asp?ref=gal006.jpg&caption=oink!
         (mail your entries to us, not Anne Widdecombe)... find porn 
         "APRICOT": http://www.jump.org.uk/milky/apricot.jpg ... oh, 
         and have a good EASTER: http://www.a-h.net/~jon/Ei.jpg ... 


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> Good Friday marks the demise of quality cinema in the 
         form of: SHORT CIRCUIT 2 (7pm, Fri, C5); an inexplicably late 
         showing for THE ADDAMS FAMILY (11pm, Fri, BBC1) - a film 
         largely intolerable to anyone over the age of 6; and Renee 
         Zellweger, Debi "Space Truckers" Mazar, and Liv "Armageddon" 
         Tyler in funnier-than-High-Fidelity-though-what-isn't? music 
         store riot EMPIRE RECORDS (1.15am, Fri, BBC2)... handily, this 
         segues seamlessly into a cross-channel Julia Roberts telethon, 
         featuring deranged Woody Allen musical EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE 
         YOU (10.50pm, Sat, BBC2), cod Oirish IRA period piece MICHAEL 
         COLLINS (10.55pm, Sat, ITV), giant eyebrow nightmare MYSTIC 
         PIZZA (10.50pm, Mon, C4) and Cameron Diaz abomination MY BEST 
         FRIEND'S WEDDING (8.40pm, Sun, C4)... the psychedelia episode 
         of SF:UK (12.35am, Sat, C4) is the first of two featuring Alan 
         Moore, and may (or may not) include the phrase "Bonnie fucking 
         Langford"... while Easter Sunday rounds off with some kick-ass 
         alternatives to Christianity with Hilary "Boys Don't Cry" 
         Swank in THE NEXT KARATE KID (5pm, Sun, C5), Jean-Claude Van 
         Damme's KICKBOXER (10pm, Sun, C5), and Clint Eastwood's 
         entertainingly hellish HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (10.20pm, Sun, 
         BBC1)... things pick up on Mon with FLASH GORDON (12.10pm, 
         Mon, C4) and THE GREAT ESCAPE (1.55pm, Mon, ITV), then get 
         tangled in the barbed wire at the border with the Broderick 
         GODZILLA (8.45pm, Mon, BBC1) and Michael Lehmann's Janeane 
         Garofalo misfire THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS (9.30pm, Mon, 
         BBC2)... C4 perversely celebrates the fact that women in the 
         workplace are still underpaid and under-represented at board 
         level with BALL BREAKERS ON THE BOX (8.45pm, Mon, C4)... 
         modern DJing is so easy, argues FAKING IT (10pm, Tue, C4), 
         that even posh classical musicians can do it... expect the 
         usual Pagan complaints after resolutely one-sided wiccan 
         dismissal MAGIC - ART OF DARKNESS (9pm, Thu, BBC2)... while 
         the week's earlier themes - Roland "Godzilla" Emmerich, Jean-
         Claude "Kickboxer" Van Damme - arise once more in bus-plunge 
         "Terminator" knock-off UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (9pm, Thu, C5)...
         
         FILM>> the poster looks like Renee Zellweger's holding her 
         nose to avoid a nasty smell, but fortunately the film ditches 
         lots of the book's whinier elements for a rollicking US-
         market-aren't-British-people-quirky?-repackaged-Notting-Hill 
         version of BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY (http://www.cndb.com: "Renee 
         shows a lot of cleavage, but that's it [...] she beefed up for 
         the role [...] her breasts look a lot bigger, like she was a B 
         cup instead of an A cup"). Oh, and Sally Phillips is in it: 
         http://www.bbc.co.uk/grandtours/popup.shtml?sallyphillips ... 
         intermittent stunt casting - George Clooney, Teri Hatcher, 
         Mike "Beavis and Butthead" Judge, Richard "Slacker" Linklater 
         - enlivens Robert "The Faculty" Rodriguez's gadget spectacular 
         SPY KIDS (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/spy_kids.html : 
         phrases: "Freak," "You little brat," "Meat head," "Booger 
         breath," "Diaper baby," "Oh shiitake mushrooms")... or there's 
         rubbish-by-even-teen-slasher-standards - but it has Denise 
         "Starship Troopers" and David "Angel" Boreanaz in it - horror 
         VALENTINE (http://screenit.com/movies/2001/valentine.html : 
         DANIEL COSGROVE plays [Jessica Capshaw's] friend/lover who 
         apparently fails at trying to have sex with her. He moves into 
         her home after sinking all his money into an Internet startup; 
         several [women] - most notably [Denise Richards] - wear tight-
         fitting tank tops that accentuate their large breasts)... 


                               >> 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
                 "bringing Freenet to Theodore Hong's attention"
     (O'Reilly's Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing Disruptive Technologies, p241)
  
                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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