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        "My theory is that the (Internet) industry was started in
         large part by technologists rather than media people..."
            - Robin Webster, President, Interactive Advertising Bureau
                     http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6523029.html
              ...of course, if we "media people" were smart enough to use 
                        search engines, or books, we'd be able to check...


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                   you lose

         Good to see MICROSOFT offering to "disappear" IE5.0 from
         OEM's desktops should they want to (but not Media Player,
         which actually still has a modicum of competition). Of 
         course, nobody has any choice now, so the offer is moot: an
         official announcement of the end of the Browser War if ever
         we saw one. Of course, there are still a few backwoodsmen
         fighting the good fight. Perfectly timed, the Microsoft Free
         Friday campaign was announced last week (as so many major
         projects are these days, by Dave Winer randomly talking in
         his sleep). It includes a module for Apache that bounces IE
         users off your Website, encouraging them to never return
         again^W^W^W try alternate browsers like Opera or, maybe
         telnetting to port 80. But while these squabbles go on and
         on, by the end of tonight, it'll be clear who won the real
         Browser War. It's Jamie Zawinski, who - although it was a
         close race - managed to ship his nightclub before Mozilla 1.0.
         http://unlikely.org/mike/hacks/mod_msff.c
                     - we just use courier to achieve the same effect
         http://www.dnalounge.com/
            - needed an extra couple of months to design easter eggs

         Apologies to the DIRECT MARKETING ASSOCIATION for drawing
         attention to the member's contact details database on their
         Website last week. The security lapse is now fixed, which
         should mark the end of the story. Unless someone plans to
         anonymously place the list online elsewhere and then mail us
         the URL, that is. Still, perhaps the DMA can comfort itself
         that they're not the only ones to leak valuable strategic
         data out to the wider world. Thanks to the classic "I said
         *Bcc:* the membership list!" error, exclusive subscription
         service NETIMPERATIVE.COM inadvertently published what we
         assume to be its the entire list of 50UKp a year paying
         member. And what a star-studded list it is! Martha Lane-Fox,
         Jon Thingie at Lateral, Steve Bowbrick, Leslie Bunder - the
         list goes on and - then stops, abruptly, after 184 subs. Is
         Netimperative really running on 9 grand a year, excluding
         banner ad revenue? And is its often press release-led content 
         at all swayed by the high number of PR flacks among its
         paying audience? And not to imply that the Netimperative 184
         are a soft touch, but maybe the DMA would like to buy this
         list off them too?
         http://www.netimperative.com/
                   - of course, it's nine grand more than most of us

         OK, not exactly up to the minute news, but it took us a while 
         to realise what's actually going on here: HARVEY BALL, widely 
         believed to have invented the "smiley face" logo in 1963, died 
         earlier this year (that's the circular yellow countercultural 
         icon, not the :-) emoticon whose variants once padded out the 
         pages of oh so many internet magazines). Ball, to his credit, 
         never applied for a trademark or copyright on the design; the 
         small print for the movie "Evolution", on the other hand, 
         believes it to be "a registered trademark of Franklin Loufrani 
         and Smiley Licensing Corporation" - a French guy who says he 
         devised the design in 1968 and "has made millions" since 
         internationally registering it in 1971. Just a couple of 
         questions: Wasn't anyone aware of any "prior art" on this one 
         (we always thought it came from the simplest graphics that 
         newborn infants would recognise as a face)? Is Loufrani now 
         planning to sue, say, anyone manufacturing or using a device 
         which utilises the IBM PC character set, in which this symbol 
         occupies positions 1 and 2? And, entirely hypothetically, what 
         if some highly distributed open source Gnutella or Freenet-
         style project appropriated it as its "official" logo? Would it 
         be possible for the public domain to actively steal it back?
         http://www.s-t.com/daily/04-01/04-14-01/a04wn028.htm
          - vs http://www.cnn.com/US/9807/07/fringe.smiley.face.off/
         http://www.evolution-themovie.co.uk/index0.html
    - and don't get us started on "Transmetropolitan" and "Watchmen"


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         "end of video censorship" celebration in August issue of 
         LOADED abruptly truncated by page 75/76 being torn out of 
         every issue... top product placement: http://www.pgsql.com/ , 
         http://www.ntk.net/2001/07/13/dohexpo.gif ... BBC refuse to 
         give up hope: http://www.ntk.net/2001/07/13/dohhen.gif ... 
         BT research centre finally hits on guaranteed money-spinner: 
         http://www.adastralpark.com/ ... mythical test data spotted: 
         http://www.s1play.com/query/s1play/htdocs/stn_id_7/index.jsp 
         ... this week's "case of the missing millions" (stop, please): 
         http://www.ntk.net/2001/07/13/doh100.gif ... "and they're not 
         the only ones": http://www.ntk.net/2001/07/13/dohskills.gif 
         ... with a reassuring "420" visitors (as of Friday lunchtime): 
         http://www.legaldirectuk.com/home.asp ... this week's "truth 
         in search engines": http://www.google.com/search?q=bt+cellnet 
         ... brands not queueing up to sponsor high-profile G8 summit: 
         http://www.genoa-g8.it/eng/summit/sponsor.html ... defunct 
         dotcom selling shirts, skirts, socks off employee's backs?: 
         http://www.frankgbowen.co.uk/back5.htm ... "senior" salaries 
         hit: http://www.ntk.net/2001/07/13/dohpound.gif ; minimum 
         weekly wage: http://www.ntk.net/2001/07/13/dohcheapo.gif ; 
         ESTATE AGENTS meanwhile now officially "taking the piss": 
         http://www.ntk.net/2001/07/13/dohwee.gif ... International 
         Space Station to receive thorough "dicking" via "front door":
         http://www.ntk.net/2001/07/13/dohdick.gif ...


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

         In general, we don't like art - but we know what we like, and 
         it's pictures of spacecraft and exotic women-creatures on the 
         front of sci-fi novels, the implied subject-matter of THE SF 
         AND FANTASY ART EXHIBITION (from Sat 2001-07-14 to 2001-08-11, 
         Foyles Bookshop, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, free). 
         Admittedly, the only exhibitors we've heard of are airbrush 
         maestro Jim "Traveller" Burns, and SMS - whose idiosyncratic 
         pencilling style on 2000AD's "ABC Warriors" made such a break 
         from Simon Bisley's florid interpretations. Oh, and Alligator 
         Descartes, author of the O'Reilly classic "Programming the 
         Perl DBI". 
         http://www.sflink.net/events/artgallery/
            - but where are the biro drawings of Psi Judge Anderson?
         http://meets.gblogs.org.uk/partyinthepark.htm
         - next week: non-dead non-fictitious bloggers' get-together


                                >> TRACKING <<
                 sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Can we make the funny joke about hash becoming legal? For 
         - do you see? - it is because digital *hashes* of binary 
         files are being used by *legal* companies to automatically
         identify copyright-infringing MP3s on file-sharing services.
         No, we cannot? Very well: a rather better use of hashes is
         being pursued by BITZI.COM. They've opened up what is,
         effectively, an Open Directory of bits. You run the open 
         source BITCOLLIDER program on your local files. It generates
         a hash value for each one, and, for MP3 and Ogg Vorbis 
         files, sends that to the Bitzi server with all the
         metainformation it can deduce (artist, track, album, yada
         yada yada). Now anyone with that file can grab all the juicy 
         meta-info, without having to mess around listening to the
         song. There's precious little infrastructure for Bitzi right 
         now, but it's likeable because the license is currently 
         fairly sensible (Dmoz.org-esque, rather than scary cddb-ish),
         and because - hey, with excessive automated information 
         gathering on arbitrary binary data, what's not to like?
         http://www.bitzi.com/
           - can't believe some people think NTK is incomprehensible
    http://www.openp2p.com/p2p/conference/graphics/friday/zeros_and_ones.jpg
          - can't believe this employee thought this was a good idea


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                              oogle that google

         ON DIGITAL unveil low-cost upgrade path - that really works!: 
         http://www.broadbandbananas.com/stickers.jpg ... REEFER MADNESS 
         at http://www.filmspeed.com/reefer/ - part of evil plan to get 
         kids hooked on WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 7... kicking STAR DUDES' 
         ass: http://download.theforce.net/theater/gangsta/starwarz.html 
         ... like running a weblog wasn't enough of a "cry for help": 
         http://www.daign.com/girls/stacy/bio.html ... when superhero 
         parodies go bad: http://www.proudrobot.com/hembeck/robin.html 
         ... or, when TVGOHOME fans go spectacularly off the rails: 
         http://tv.cream.org/buchan/ ... "Private, what is your MAJOR 
         MALFUNCTION?" http://www.explosiontoys.com/store/ult081.html 
         ... when oh when will the public tire of TV catchphrase 
         double-entendres over piss-poor home-made techno tracks? 
         http://www.cubanboys.co.uk/ ... "Customers who bought music by 
         Ultimate Sound Effects Library also bought music by DAVID 
         GRAY": http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000AG79/ 
         ... disappointingly, doesn't monitor its own popularity (yet): 
         http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html ... life imitates 
         SNOW CRASH: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010710/80/bxtb6.html 
         (c'mon, how long before refugees attach rafts to it and turn 
         it into a huge floating city?)... and DOGBERT is Leon Trotsky: 
         http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~dmb/dilbert.html ... this week, we 
         have been mainly choosing the (easier?) right-hand paths on: 
         http://www.konami.co.uk/latest/soon/may01/sscopex/ ... hasn't 
         quite got the hang of that whole "thou shalt not kill" thing: 
         http://www.christiangallery.com/hill3.html ... Claudia 
         "Babylon 5" Christian to sing in AREA 51: THE MUSICAL: 
         http://www.area51show.co.uk/Synopsis/Act_1.htm (NB: different 
         Dan O'Brien)... the *cheapest* tickets to low-earth orbit: 
         http://www.cheapflights.com/cgi-bin/reload/misc/space.html ... 
         new EMINEM song describes indigestion brought on by over-eager
         mountaineering: http://www.ntk.net/2001/07/13/purple.txt ... 


                                >> GEEK MEDIA << 
                                  get out less

         TV>> possibly hoping to snag some more of that lucrative lager 
         advertising, Mark Little presents an otherwise inexplicably 
         Australian-themed British Grand Prix NO WORRIES WEEKEND (from 
         11pm-ish, Fri-Sun, ITV), featuring Nathan-Barley-style porn 
         trawl 24 HOURS IN SOHO (11.35pm, Fri, ITV), CGI-free James 
         Garner race movie GRAND PRIX (around 3am, Fri-Sun, ITV), cult 
         car crash musical THE BLUES BROTHERS (11.10pm, Sat, ITV), and 
         culminating - on an entirely different channel - with Matt 
         Jones lookalike classic YOUNG EINSTEIN (4.20pm, Sun, C5): 
       http://www.channel5.co.uk/movies/blockbusters/young_einstein.php
  vs http://matthau.yoz.com/cam/20010705/images/29_mattj_jason_dave.jpg
         ... other movie highlights include the Woody Allen bit of NEW 
         YORK STORIES (12.45am, Fri, C5), the recently postponed-for-
         some-reason SUTURE (12.50am, Sat, BBC2), Christopher Walken 
         gangster arthouser THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD 
         (10pm, Sun, C4) plus Jack Lemmon back-catalogue like THE ODD 
         COUPLE (2.10pm, Sat, BBC2) and the slightly more expletive-
         packed actor-fest GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (11.40pm, Sun, BBC2) - 
         but not sodden Morgan Freeman/ Minnie Driver heist yawn HARD 
         RAIN (9pm, Sat, BBC1), or frantically unhilarious John Cleese 
         farce CLOCKWISE (4.45pm, Sun, C4)... John Diamond cancer drama 
         A LUMP IN MY THROAT (9pm, Sun, BBC2) hopefully won't put you 
         off his wife's delicious-looking recipes in the concluding 
         edition of NIGELLA BITES (8.30pm, Wed, C4)... like we always 
         say, DEAD CALM (9pm, Tue, C5) is "Alien" on a boat... and, 
         apparently, during the era portrayed in the notoriously 
         anachronistic BRAVEHEART (9pm, Tue, BBC1), they didn't even 
         have film or movie cameras!... John Sayle's Tex-Mex epic LONE 
         STAR (12.35am, Tue, C4) and Joe Queenan's THE MAFIA'S TEN 
         COMMANDMENTS (1.10am, Thu, C4) are both ignominiously shunted 
         off to post-midnight slots... "Danger is my middle name" is 
         not the explanation for low-budget Kathy Ireland schlocker 
         DANGER ISLAND (9pm, Wed, C5)... John Pilger traces the web of 
         power concealing THE NEW RULERS OF THE WORLD (10.40pm, Wed, 
         ITV) to discover, controlling everything from his secret 
         underground base - Jon Ronson!... hopefully, every time they 
         show that TROUBLE AT THE TOP (11.20pm, Wed, BBC2), it knocks 
         5-10 million quid off the value of Benjamin Cohen's dot-com... 
         while "comin' at cha" on Fri is the terrestrial debut of all-
         girl sci-fi CLEOPATRA 2525 (7pm, Fri, C5) - or "Porno-looking 
         whores on a violent rampage in futuristic nonsense plots" as 
     http://libercratic.government.directnic.com/Journal/culture/TV.htm
         enticingly describes it...

         FILM>> an unusually undistinguished line-up clogging the 
         multiplexes this week, with Keanu Reeves providing his 
         traditional "woah, dude" moment in unintentionally hilarious 
         Charlize Theron terminal illness romance remake SWEET NOVEMBER 
         (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/sweetnovember.htm: "More 
         cleavage" command; suggestion that kinky is acceptable; 
         cohabitation, repeated; face on clothed breasts; transvestism 
         and additional homosexual presences; two men undressing woman; 
         book on understanding transvestism)... following the long-
         running "James Bond" template, Ash et al pursue yet another 
         previously undiscovered species of supervillain in POKEMON 3 
         (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/pokemon_3_the_movie.html :
         in the 22-minute short that precedes the main film, a Pokemon 
         character swats his own rear end and sticks out his tongue, 
         both directed at another Pokemon character in something of a 
         taunting fashion)... and the "feature-length Saturday Night 
         Live character spin-off" concept once again fails to translate 
         into box-office gold in afro-powered womanising comedy THE 
         LADIES MAN (http://www.cndb.com/ : you can see [Sofia Milos'] 
         bare breasts. The only problem is she's wearing obvious white 
         pasties over her nipples which completely ruins the scene)... 
         sex-farce fans are equally ill-served by limited-release fare 
         including Amanda "Jack And Jill" Peet in WHIPPED (imdb: 
         independent-film/ bar/ basketball/ brooklyn-bridge/ condom/ 
         dating/ diner/ flashback-sequence/ guitar/ homosexual-slur/ 
         manhattan/ menage-a-trois/ new-york-city/ nightclub/ one-
         night-stand/ sex/ statue-of-liberty/ subway/ threesome/ times-
         square/ twist-in-the-end/ urination-scene/ vibrator/ 
         vulgarity/ womanizer/ yanked-off-bikini-top/ remake)... or for 
         that matter Canadian Tilda Swinton alternate-reality play-
         adaptation POSSIBLE WORLDS (imdb: mystery/ sci-fi)...

         CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> no sooner had we issued our APB over 
         CADBURY CRUNCHIE NUGGETS [NTK 2001-06-15] than reader "ADAM" 
         was offered some, by a Cadbury-Trebor-Bassett representative, 
         in a pub. The nuggets are much as you'd expect, he reports (a 
         little *too* chewily crunchy, if you ask us); more exciting, 
         he contends, are the equally new MAYNARDS WINE PASTILLES (also 
         UKP1.25 for 225g bag): "Wine Gums meet Fruit Pastilles in port 
         flavoured jelly and sugar dust-up. Bloody lovely". Slightly 
         odd flavours, too - "and there's still no wine in them!", the 
         packet endearingly proclaims... PHILIP ROWLANDS spotted would-
         be "Jelly Belly" rival ROWNTREE'S MEGABEANS in Terminal 4 of 
         Heathrow Airport, describing the experience as "mostly 
         pleasing; a standard fruity jelly bean, coated with that 
         acidic 'tangy' sugar. Chewier than most, could be mistaken for 
         microwaved fruit pastilles gone wrong". He felt unable to 
         confirm their advertised "thirst quenching" or "Oingy Boingy!" 
         properties, as JOSH ROULSTON pondered their transformation 
         from "fruity gum-beans with bite!" (on the front of the 
         packet), to the more prosaic "fruit flavoured chewy beans in a 
         tangy shell" (on the back)... in other product-testing news, 
         MARS have been trial marketing "M&Ms CRISPS" in Australia, 
         "halfway in size between regular and peanut (approx size of 
         the US peanut butter versions)", according to NTK reader 
         "MIKE", with "a malted biscuit, almost Malteser-like in taste, 
         but more dense" in the centre. ADAM ATKINSON thought we'd like 
         to know that "M&M colour compositions change with consumer 
         tastes", the current mix being "30% brown, 20% red, yellow, 
         10% orange, blue, green", while KEVAN DAVIS, in the light of 
         the recent new, "crunchier" TWIXES (and CADBURY'S FINGERS) 
         wondered "Why do they make the automatic assumption that 
         increasing some arbitrary trait of a given confection makes it 
         better? Wrigley's Extra, which is now quite proudly 'Even 
         Mintier', borders on the burningly uneatable. What next - 'Now 
         With Extra-Laxative Sorbitol'?"... also this month look out 
         for SKITTLES SOURS (29p/bag), CADBURY'S STRAWBERRY BUTTONS 
         ("WITH REAL FRUIT"), STARBURST's MYSTERY "NAME THAT CHEW", 
         MATLOWS SPACE PEBBLES (described by ANONYMOUS TIPSTER as "the 
         first truly innovative sugar rich sweet for years" - and not, 
         of course, to be confused with the "Brilliant Pebbles" concept 
         of Ronald Reagan's original Star Wars plan) - plus the perhaps 
         all-too-identifiable "Extreme" range from NTK e-commerce 
         partners http://www.cybercandy.co.uk/ , boiled-sweet-style 
         lollies (from UKP2.60) with delicacies like bits of gold leaf, 
         rose petals, tequila worms and scorpions embedded in them. 
         Apparently if they're popular they'll look into getting the 
         chocolate-dipped cricket and chocolate ant nugget too...


                               >> 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
                 "aiming for 'funny XOR sarcastic', actually"
                    http://www.theinquirer.net/12070101.htm

  
                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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