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         "The eight-game contest comes five years after IBM computer
         Deep Blue beat then-world champion Garry Kasparov -- the
         first time since the invention of a chess program in 1958
         that a machine had beaten a human."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/10/03/bahrain.chess/index.html
      - all those games you lost against GNU Chess? It was *cheating*.

                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                unwilling dupes

         It was Eldred vs Elder Gods this week, with the US Supreme
         Court mulling whether to remove intolerable copyright
         extensions. It's not entirely clear how we'd do the same in
         the current Europe: Copyright law is becoming more and more
         a EU-wide issue, and there's precious few areas where people
         can protest against European legislation (we'll mention one
         next week, hopefully). So in the UK, for now, we are forced
         to indulge in civil disobedience. Clearly frustrated by the
         diminished public domain, it was left to BBC News24's "Click
         Online" presenters last week to publicise www.etextz.com, a
         brave holdout in copyright liberation. You "can't help but
         find a good read in its database", they marvelled.
         Including, they didn't add, many previously costly works
         written by Douglas Adams, Neal Stephenson and William
         Burroughs. Some small technical error appears to have caused
         the BBC to remove its glowing review from the Website - but
         thank God they've still maintained the link to the other
         legitimate business practice covered, that of selling chunks
         of lunar real estate online.
         http://eldred.cc/ 
         - still running the remains of his library from a cablemodem
http://www.eldritchpress.org/
                - after the copyright extension gutted the collection
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/02/click_online/03oct.ramn
                                                      - 19 minutes in
http://www.bbcworld.com/content/template_clickonline.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=6 
                                                  - as watched by ...
         http://www.linux.org.uk/~telsa/Diary/diary.html
                                          - ... Telsa and four others

         Hanging around TV's "cruel and shallow money trench" a little
         while longer: BIG BROTHER and FAME ACADEMY are both made by
         the production company Endemol - Big Brother for Channel 4,
         the current Fame Academy for BBC1. They both involve wannabe
         celebrities being watched 24 hours a day in a some kind of
         controlled secure environment. We're entirely prepared to
         concede the benefits of outsourcing the websites for these
         kinds of shows and reusing as much back end software as
         possible. But doesn't it suggest you're recycling a very
         similar show format if you also reuse the same test data?
         http://www.bbc.co.uk/fameacademy/news/newsitem80.shtml
vs http://www.channel4.com/apps26/search/index.jsp?searchQuery=Xchange
         http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohfame1.gif
         http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohfame2.gif
                      - and this is where you start paying... in GIFs


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         K-19: fact? http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohk19pt1.png or
         fiction? http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohk19pt2.png ...
         who will claim responsibility for MORE INAPPROPRIATE BANNER-ADS?
         http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohxfire.jpg ... Rangers games
         getting more violent: http://www.ntk.net/2002/10/11/dohfirm.jpg
         http://www.tesco.com/entertainment/help.htm#expresscheckout -
         TESCO goes existential... Feds react to WIRED NEWS redesign:
         http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55342,00.html ...
         Irish Bishops younger, smaller, more female than previously
         thought: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2311025.stm ...
         alright, you get just *one* more PUERILE GOOGLE SEARCH:
         http://www.google.com/search?q=interfeces ... one thing is
         clear - the number of times "clear" used in this piece:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-10-07-afghan-lessons_x.htm
         ... horse asks BBC's graphic designers: why the long faces?
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/2302853.stm ...


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

         You can prove anything with Google, and it's easy enough to
         show that Sir Clive "ZX" Sinclair has a brother called Iain
         who was born in 1943 - the very same year as the *other* Iain
         "Radon Daughters" Sinclair. Coincidence - or symptomatic of
         some deeper psychogeographic geek resonance whose significance
         we cannot currently comprehend? These, and other, issues will
         no doubt be pondered at Strange Attractor's MEGALITHOMANIA!
         (from 10am tomorrow Sat 2002-10-12, Conway Hall, London WC1R,
         UKP20), featuring Sinclair on "The M25, London's Stone
         Circle", "Psychedelic Archaeology", "Megaliths in Movies"
         (hopefully "Quatermass" and "Children Of The Stones"), plus
         "rocking" (sorry) accompaniment from the likes of Wigwam,
         Mount Vernon Astral Temple, Gorodisch, and Coil. But no
         heckling Iain's talk by asking if the ZX81 and Spectrum
         casings were inspired by the 2001 monoliths, OK?
         http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/megalithomania3.html
                                                         - it's mega!
         http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/sinclair/life_of_clive.htm
            - vs http://www.complete-review.com/authors/sinclairi.htm
         http://www.youhavebeenwatched.org.uk/pressrelease/artpr.html
             - also tomorrow: CCTV movie art at London's Isle of Dogs


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         After only a month's development, Phoenix, the Mozilla.org
         skunkworks' rewrite of Moz, has tabs, a sidebar, and support
         for extensions like mouse gestures and ting. Some of the dev
         team is already talking of finishing up, doing a brief
         ticker-tape parade, and moving onto creating a slimlined
         mail client called THUNDERBIRD. So where does stately
         MOZILLA trunk, with its sprawling skyscrapers of XUL, go
         now? In some pretty intriguing directions, judging by the
         scrabbles in Bugzilla and checkins on the nightly builds.
         The latest Mozilla builds now have typeahead. Bounce on the
         keyboard while browsing, and Moz will search through the
         current page for a link with the same text as what you type.
         Hit return and it'll open the link. It's a browser usability
         no-brainer that only took six years to hit upon - for
         keyboard fiends, it makes navigating Moz faster than lynx.
         Next up: CONTENT EDITABLE - a mimic of the IE feature that
         lets you edit sections of an HTML page in place. And after
         that, the crowd demands: PGP support and for all you pr0n
         fiends, yyenc decoding in the newsreader. Lizard's not dead
         yet.
         http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/
                                                       - traans-mute!
         http://www.mozilla.org/projects/ui/accessibility/typeaheadfind.html
                           - just available in nightly builds for now
         http://www.geocities.com/pratiksolanki/
                              - secret preference settings of the gods


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/

         still pretty funny, even if it is fake (requires Flash,
         sorry): http://www.247365.com.au/extras/enrique.html ... when
         AUDIOPHILES STRIKE BACK: http://www.vinylvideo.com/ ... and 
         the all-time "great movies" of this endearingly free-thinking
         individualist include Blade Runner, The Matrix, Fight Club: 
         http://www.chrisworth.com/ME/about_me.html ... where "M2A" =
         "Mouth to Anus"?: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2319249.stm ...
         highlighted in any colour you like, though it defaults to red:
         http://mencal.kyberdigi.cz/english.html ... Castrol GTX - good
         safety tip: http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/natinduc.html
         ... keeping http://www.mulatta.org/Thaielephantorch.html away
         from http://www.gemueseorchester.org/anfang_e.htm ... no
         "certain death"?: http://www.cheapflights.com/misc/space.html
         vs http://www.adventureplanet.com/ap_home/ap_trips_tcr.asp ...
         and the best adaptation of http://www.blogjam.com/ntk.not/ to
         http://www.thefridaything.co.uk/demo.txt wins a t-shirt...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> the (brief) Anna Friel/ Ewan McGregor nudity in ROGUE
         TRADER (9pm, Fri, ITV) is over in time to catch the Molly
         Shannon guest-starring double-bill of WILL AND GRACE (9.30pm,
         Fri, C4)... Saffron "Deep Blue Sea" Burrows weekend begins
         with baffling videogame adaptation WING COMMANDER (12.15am,
         Fri, BBC2) and continues with rom-com HOTEL DE LOVE (11.50pm,
         Sat, C5)... and Mia "24/ Not Another Teen Movie" plays a
         stripper in Atom Egoyan arthouser EXOTICA (12.10am, Sat,
         BBC2)... there's an uninterrupted cross-channel triple bill of
         quirky nonsense in the form of CGI snake chase ANACONDA
         (9.35pm, Sat, C4), Adam Sandler idiot-fest BILLY MADISON
         (11.25pm, Sat, BBC1) and unacclaimed Larry "Seinfeld" David
         bitterness vendetta SOUR GRAPES (1.40am, Sat, C5)... Sunday
         night unfortunately appears to be rapist night, thanks to
         police procedural drama SIRENS (9pm, Sun, ITV), botched-heist
         thriller BEST LAID PLANS (10.30pm, Sun, BBC2) and of course
         overrated Kubrick wide-angle brainwashing semi-sci-fi A
         CLOCKWORK ORANGE (10pm, Sun, C4)... plus more Kubrick tedium
         on Tue in piano-soundtracked plodder EYES WIDE SHUT (10.05pm,
         Tue, C5) - http://www.google.com/search?q=%22eyes+wide+shit%22
         more like... a corporate lawyer takes on the greatest
         challenge of his career - pretending to be a garage MC - in
         another bloody FAKING IT (9pm, Wed, C4)... DOWNLOADING SEX
         (11.40pm, Thu, C5) gives you a free password to view behind
         the scenes at nerve.com... and apologies for missing last
         week's debut of both BBC Micro-featuring schools-programme
         spoof LOOK AROUND YOU (9.50pm, Thu, BBC2) and the heavily
         Charlie Brooker voice-overed THE BEST OF TV GO HOME (11.55pm,
         Thu, C4)...

         FILM>> with the real Will Graham off running the CSI team in
         Las Vegas, tormented office junior Ed Norton leads soulless
         exposition-heavy student-drama-style "Manhunter" remake RED
         DRAGON ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Red+Dragon :
         there are again some very clear butt shots, glimpses of [Ralph
         Fiennes'] big cock and balls dangling between his legs and
         some shadowed full frontal views; My g/f loves this guy so she
         was really looking)... nonetheless, original Hannibal Lecter
         Brian Cox seems to be keeping busy, this week appearing in
         both Dennis Quaid "Fields Of Dreams" baseball dud THE ROOKIE
         ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/the_rookie.html : We see
         [Quaid] in bed, shirtless [...] as well as [Rachel Griffith's]
         bare shoulders - with the sheets pulled around her chest) - in
         addition to gross-out stoner police slapstick SUPER TROOPERS
       ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Super+Troopers+%282002%29 :
         lengthy views of [a] big, fat, very unsexy butt and a brief
         view of [a] tiny penis; if you are into big fake boobs, then
         enjoy)... otherwise, that "Hackers/ Swimfan" guy is back in
         juvenile Jonathan Frakes time-freezing sci-fi CLOCKSTOPPERS
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/clockstoppers.htm :
         deceitful advertising; irresponsible cycling; teen assuming
         "command" of father; adult in underwear; planning to take
         advantage of technology to see nakedness)...


                               >> 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
                             "like the Daily Mail"
               http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/27442.html


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