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          "The Genius, like the other store sales staff, is not your
          typical retail employee, Johnson emphasized. The workers
          must have 'Apple-Mac in their bones,' a 'sincere service
          orientation' and 'interesting hobbies,' he said."
 - RON JOHNSON, on Apple's bid to be the swanky, unprofitable Dixons
                    http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-5938890.html
                                 ...SIMON QUINLANK, KING OF MACINTOSH


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                  postage due

         Back into the Useless Net Awards season - tellingly muted
         this year, as sponsors, nominees, and award-giving bodies
         pray to remain solvent until the ceremonies. Especially
         quiet this year is NEW MEDIA AGE, whose effectiveness awards
         have been made a bit less effective by that 78UKP fee, it
         seems. A battered LESLIE BUNDER protested on UKNM that not
         only did they not tell him he wasn't nominated, they're not
         telling *anyone* who the shortlists are, because "the judges
         felt ... that some of the entries were very weak and that
         having a shortlist in advance will give away who the winners
         are". But we all know on the Internet, information wants to
         be free (or at the very least, a bit bloody cheaper than
         78UKP). Have you been nominated by NEW MEDIA AGE? Let us
         know, and we'll publish the full list ourselves, dammit. And
         if it's as obvious as they say, we'll give out the awards
         early too. Then you can ask for your money back...
         http://www.nma.co.uk/
                                     - it's probably here *somewhere*
         http://www.bunderlife.com/
                        - Leslie, of course, provides value for money

         While we whine and gripe, others go off and do. Or moan and
         gripe at the right people, anyway. JASON KITCAT, disturbed
         as we by GATEWAY.GOV.UK's Unix-hippy-refusing policy [NTK
         2001-02-23], applied under the Freedom of Information Act to
         discover the reason. As is often the case with these
         requests, though, we're left with more questions than when
         we started. Excluding Unix machines continues to be a little
         odd (no API for accessing X.509 certificates on
         non-Windows/Mac platforms? Hunh?). Yet, while the fancy
         digital signature bit won't work with open source browsers,
         it turns out there was no reason to exclude them from the
         whole site, especially as that bit isn't working much yet
         anyway. "This [restriction] will be relaxed shortly", they
         say  - how shortly?. Meanwhile, the document reveals,
         there's now one more govt. sanctioned Public Key
         Infrastructure provider - Equifax. Yeah, the credit agency.
         We can't work out if they're evilly escrowing keys like the
         other official PKI, Entrust, yet. But we do know that for
         twenty-five quid, they'll id you for the government by
         grabbing your personal details, and cross-referencing them
         with your credit record. Not a sentence with many of our
         favourite words in it, that. The other (better) bit of news
         is the e-envoy is looking for an open source alternative to
         both these companies. Those nice netproject people got the
         contract to research this: Doc Andrew Findlay has the helm,
         if you'd like to get involved.
         http://www.free-project.org/writings/foia-1.html
                                         - full story on Jason's site
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=2001/now0223.txt&l=40#l
                  - we know this is dull: think of it like those bits
         http://www.andrew.findlay.org/
                         - about Lockerbie in the back of Private Eye

         Not to be confused with NESTLE'S KITCAT of course, one of the
         multinational brands indirectly causing trouble for Bristol-
         based "video activists" I-CONTACT. In a posting to noted agit-
         prop forum The Mark Thomas Mailing List, someone claiming to
         be from I-Contact says they were promised "full editorial
         control" over a short film they were making for Channel4 -
         control which did not, however, appear to extend to annoying
         specific corporations or encouraging breaking the law. Since
         the film covered Adbusters-style subvertising and billboard
         modification, that counted out their planned coverage of the
         likes of http://www.subvertise.org/politics/spol0012m.html ,
         http://www.subvertise.org/corporations/scor0010m.html , or
         even http://www.subvertise.org/revolution/grev0019m.html ,
         plus footage of a billboard being pulled down, and ultimately
         led to I-Contact's withdrawal of the film (or whatever was
         left of it). What puzzles us is why they didn't follow the
         example of the BAFTA-award-winning "So Graham Norton" who,
         when faced with a mildly contentious or hard-to-clear website,
         ingeniously faked their entire coverage of it.
         http://www.videonetwork.org/
         - last updated in those heady days of January 2000
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=archive99/now0402.txt&line=44#l
         - yeah, still going on about this; apparently that's not all...


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         for news of the Oscars - and people called Oscar too!
         http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/photos/o/oscars.html ... Liam finds
         new direction: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/18/dohasis.jpg ...
         "funny" election sites now outnumber registered voters ...
         tested it: do we get the job? http://www.bbc.co.uk/jobs/e50235.shtml
         ... all the smart money's in biotech these days, they say:
         http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/18/dohbio.gif ... SUNDAY TIMES showing
         slight pre-election bias: http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/18/dohbias.jpg
         ... use a MOREOVER feed, make your site more attractive to tourists!
         http://www.ntk.net/2001/05/18/dohtour.jpg ... picture library
         has it in for http://uk.imdb.com/Name?Cobain,+Kurt ... but
         what if my official title is "Supreme Overlord"?:
         https://www.britishairways.com/execclub/yourdetails_row.jsp ...
         Scotland now in different time zone from  - Liverpool?
         http://www.circ.uab.edu/nypldr/1time/standard.htm#2 ... putting "no"
       into nokia: http://page.auctions.yahoo.com/uk/show/qanda?aID=50933065


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

         As predicted last week, this year's ARTHUR C CLARKE UK
         SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL AWARDS (from 2pm, Sat 2001-05-19,
         the Science Museum, UKP7.95, free after 4.30pm), will have
         slightly more of a campaigning element, as nominees and
         interested parties (including Stephen Baxter, Ken MacLeod,
         Paul McAuley, Roz Kaveney and Jon Courtenay Grimwood) will be
         joining core NTK personnel in order to analyse and apportion
         blame for the precise shortfalls between the tech-level
         depicted in the movie 2001 and the actual year 2001 that we
         live in. Who's to blame? Clarke? Kubrick? Sci-fi authors in
         general? An undemanding public? Those lazy grant-obsessed
         boffins for not building more space stations? Or, as event
         organiser Pat Cadigan theorises, the star-people themselves,
         for hiding the first two monoliths so successfully that we
         (and our monkey ancestors) never found either of them?
         http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitors/scifi_festival.asp
                           - my god, it's full of (literary) stars...
         http://www.csrc.lse.ac.uk/cambridge.htm
                        - annoying clash with CSRC Cambridge roadshow
         http://c-level.cc/tekken/
               - as well as world's first "Tekken Torture Tournament"
         http://www.wlv.ac.uk/no-future
    - what if there was *no* future (and we're already living in it)?


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         It's sickening but no surprise to us that MINDGUARD, the
         handy anti-psychotronic warfare utility, has finally caught
         the eye of the Powers That Be. That said, we *had* expected
         retaliatory strikes from liberati-controlled IR-enabled
         spy-satellites, not a sniffy letter from lawyers of Kortech,
         current commercial exploiters of the Roswell-derived
         mind-control ray patent. However "softee softee catchee
         monkee" the hegemony strikes, it's still only a matter of
         time before the NANOG Cabal take down Zapato's original
         distribution. Accordingly, we can only hope that someone
         mirrors this program, which remeains the only Amiga and Unix
         app for deciphering, jamming - and potentially, hackers,
         rebroadcasting - beamed messages from the UN, CIA, FBI, and
         the Antartic Relay, as well as signals from the transmitter
         array occupying the apparent territory of the non-existent
         "decoy" state of Belgium (independently-minded Douglas Adams
         fans mourning his seemingly accidental death: thinker
         harder, you gulls). Source is available under Mindguard's
         own MPL: potential redistributors should audit the Mindguard
         program carefully, not only for signs of tampering, but also
         amazing revelations about the true nature of the 'rand()'
         function.
         http://zapatopi.net/mindguard.html
                                           - get this to Mojo Nation!


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                              hasta la altavista

         GEORGE LUCAS to retaliate with his "funny version" of DOGMA:
         http://www.theforce.net/episode1/index.html#10575 ... so,
         under the data protection act, BT could find out what their
         nickname is? http://www.geocities.com/videonetwrk/censor.html
         ... not the WAKEYWAKEY.COM tribute site we'd been hoping for:
         http://www.wankywanky.com ... FLASH-free Prescott satire - at
         last!: http://www.urbanreflex.com/prescott.html ... reality,
         as ever, even stranger than satire - SINN FEIN, I choose YOU!:
         http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/election/factfiles/votemon.shtml
         vs "Blair Witch" http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010515/80/bq3r8.html
         ... more creative CYBERSQUATTING: http://www.sunglasseshut.com
         ... http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/amihotornot_20breeder vs
         http://www.crankymediaguy.com/ ... shut up I'm TRYING TO READ:
         http://users.aber.ac.uk/sdt8/dissertation/contents.html ...
         the new BONSAIKITTENS: http://www.boring.ch/childsoldiers/ ,
         http://www.banbreastfeeding.com/ ... yes, what price MONKEYS
         nowadays?: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_294723.html vs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1311000/1311090.stm
         ... http://www.cubanboys.co.uk/ BATTLE OF THE PLANETS mix...
         GIRLS proven evil: http://www.nyx.net/~keking/girls.jpg ...
         plus, to make matters worse, "The pornography you are looking
         for is currently unavailable": http://www.phancy.com/404.html ...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                 get out less

         TV>> it's a relaxing end to the week with "Happiness"-style
         sick French farce SITCOM (12.05am, Fri, C4), plus Charles
         Bronson's "Gladiator"-inspiration DEATH WISH (11.10pm, Fri,
         BBC1)... people behave exactly as experimenters predict when
         all normal context is removed, reveals pop-psych fakery HUMAN
         ZOO (10.30pm, Fri, ITV)... while Saturdays now kick off with
         "Dawson's Creek" spinoff YOUNG AMERICANS (5.55pm, Sat, C5) -
         based on neither the Danny Cannon movie nor the David Bowie
         song of the same name - plus ARE YOU CAPTAIN CORELLI, OR NOT?
         (7pm, Sat, BBC2)... Willis battles deteriorating trilogy
         quality in DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER (9pm, Sat, ITV)... Alan
         Rickman reappears as RASPUTIN (10.30pm, Sat, BBC2) - based on
         neither the Boney M song nor the Richard Herring musical of
         the same name... and, with a new album out soon, what better
         time to celebrate the sub-standard solo output of one of The
         Beatles' less talented members, in PAUL MCCARTNEY: WINGSPAN
         (10pm, Sat, C4)... the slightly freakier side of cybersex is
         explored in SEX, LIES AND CYBERSPACE (11.35pm, Sat, C4)... the
         success of director Boaz Yakin's recent "Remember The Titans"
         prompts a revival of his scorchingly amoral teen chess
         gangsterfest FRESH (2.10am, Sat, C4)... and Sunday is Nazi
         conspiracy night once again, with THE SECRET RULERS OF THE
         WORLD (9pm, Sun, C4), two-part war trial reconstruction
         NUREMBERG (10pm, Sun, C4), and 'Nam MK-Ultra thriller JACOB'S
         LADDER (12.20am, Sun, ITV)... now-yearly showings of Arnie's
         THE RUNNING MAN (9pm, Mon, C5) provide a useful yardstick for
         just how closely real gameshows are coming to resemble it...
         Jeri "Seven of Nine" Ryan graces the pilot of new US sci-fi
         Timecop/ Quantum Leap hybrid SEVEN DAYS (6pm, Tue, BBC2) - not
         based around the Craig David song of the same name... Brett
         "Lawnmower Man" Leonard returns to cyberspace in RS232 killer
         VIRTUOSITY (10.40pm, Tue, BBC1)... and John "WarGames" Badham
         makes a gimmicky real-time kidnap thriller when he could have
         depicted an intergalactic prison planet populated with Daleks,
         cybermen and other Gallifreyan arch-enemies, and called it:
         Dr Who And The NICK OF TIME (10.50pm, Wed, BBC1)...

         FILM>> The Rock, Rachel Weisz's usual sounds-fake-but-is-
         actually-her-real-accent, and more Patricia Velazquez body-
         paint nudity enliven extended CGI showreel sequel THE MUMMY
         RETURNS (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/mummyreturns.htm :
         not a particularly sexual movie; John Hannah appears to be
         using a woman as a sex toy; a couple of flashes of posterior
         flesh in the combat between Nefertiri and Anck-Su-Namun; many
         unholy manifestations; open mouth kissing between a woman and
         a decayed body)... otherwise we can't imagine a widespread
         release for any out of: Joel Schumacher's unknown-actors "Full
         Metal Jacket" remake TIGERLAND (http://www.cndb.com : the head
         of this nice-looking [Clifton Collins Jr's] penis is shown; we
         see exactly how hot [Colin "Ballykissangel" Farrell's] butt
         is)... critcally acclaimed dog-based sex-Mex farce AMORES
         PERROS (http://www.cndb.com : There are two shots of [Vanessa
         Bauche's] breasts during a sex scene. Both shots are quite
         brief, but they're very clear and close up)... or indeed
         Johnny Ball, Philippa Forrester and Sarah "Neighbours,
         Hollyoaks, Fully Booked" Vandenbergh - together at last! - in
         low-budget digi-video "The Young Ones" campus catastrophe
         INBETWEENERS (imdb: not, from the looks of things, based on
         the Sleeper song of nearly the same name)...

         THE WORSE YOU DRESS, THE SMARTER THEY'LL THINK YOU ARE>> and
         the exciting news is that leisurewear-starved US citizens can
         now purchase official NTK merchandise from our intermittently
         updated http://www.ntkmart.com/ e-commerce site, a process
         which has been nominally beta-tested by Geekpride Bostonian
         TIM MCEACHERN (or "Foot and Mouth Tim", as he now expects to
         be known). Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans can
         confidently expect to be next in our international expansion -
         though isn't it winter over there or something? Wrap up warm,
         for heaven's sake!... admittedly, we've fallen slightly behind
         on our intended "new t-shirt every month" schedule - for a
         start, we had to punish Cybercandy for that nasty accidental
         spamming incident - but we aim to make up for that with the
         first competition winner in our SUMMER COLLECTION 2001: the
         face of "a well-known usability guru", wearing glasses and a
         beret, with the word "Usability!" graffitied underneath
         (really, it makes more sense when you see it), as submitted by
         famed Yahoo Serious lookalike (without the afro) MATT JONES
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1334000/1334092.stm .
         Matt has nobly offered to donate his UKP2 royalty from each
         shirt to an organisation that promotes web accessibility and
         usability, but we haven't heard back from them yet about
         whether they're OK with their name appearing on the site, so
         you'll have to trust us on that one. Incidentally, we've
         already raised more than UKP400 for the Redundant Technology
         Initiative through sales of the "Elite" and "ILoveYou.VBS"
         designs, part of which they want to spend on printing some
         shirts of their own, of which more later... completely missing
         the point (but in a good way), CHRISTIAN PINDER wrote to say
         "thanks for creating an Elite - The New Kind (Elite-TNK)
         t-shirt", referring of course to his similarly acronymed C
         port: http://home.clara.net/cjpinder/elite.html , while MARTIN
         RODGERS wanted to know if we were "using sweatshops" to
         produce any of our products, and did not seem reassured by our
         initial response that they're all made by the respected US
         brand Fruit Of The Loom, so "No worries there!". Though this
         helped: http://www.umn.edu/humanrts/links/fruitoftheloom.html
         ... finally, keep your entries coming, both for the "Buy One,
         Subvert The Mass Media, Get One Free" competition (full round-
         up coming soon), as well as the "Design Your Own Merchandise"
         contest, and let us know if you particularly like any out of:
         http://www.nepalesetemple.com/ntk/ript2.gif (by "PETE") - the
         idea is sound, but could be more a bit more visual we reckon;
         a whole bunch of sometimes sketchy concepts (VARIOUS ARTISTS)
         for a Redundant Technology Initiative "Skip Raider" t-shirt
         http://www.daveg.dial.pipex.com/images/skip.html ; or ANDY
         MCFARLAND's pithy (and currently text-only) "I Spend All Day
         Bitching About You On IRC Channels You Can't See". Truly, this
         is consumer e-democracy in action...



                               >> 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 
                     "concerned with the Internet itself"
 http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:3AF17197.FD503DF0%40ee.ed.ac.uk


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