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        "Mr Blunkett launched an attack on rap musicians for 
         glamorising gun violence..."
         http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=367024
                               - government to invade Iraq using only 
                                        catapults and bows-and-arrows


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                              email billets-doux 

         Into the final days of the government's Great ID Card
         Consultation - and the Home Office couldn't be more excited.
         Lord Falconer continues to tell everyone who'll listen that
         over 1500 people have responded, and the majority of them
         were extremely positive on the idea.

         Now, given that they're proposing a massive IT project to
         introduce a universal identifier for all citizens, with a
         centralised database of personal details, kept accurate by
         making a new crime of withholding your current address from
         the government - well, we can't help but think that more
         people would a bit squeamish on the principle.

         And maybe they were. DAN BLANCHARD described what happened
         when he mailed the HO saying that he didn't think ID cards
         were necessary. Back came the reply from the Home Office:
         "Thank you for your e-mail of 13th December in support of
         the introduction of an entitlement/identity card scheme."

         Now, we're not saying that something fishy is going on here.
         Although, obviously, yes we are *implying* it. So to 
         double-check the government, and test the accuracy of the
         Lord Falconometer, the STAND folk have set up an easy-to-use 
         web form for those wanting to express their discontent (mild 
         or otherwise) with the Entitlement Card scheme. STAND'll 
         keep count of the number of contributions (in a giant,
         centralised database of biometric - nah, just kidding), and
         then compare that to the results that come from Lord
         Falconer next time. We're hoping to get close to the 1500
         entries already noted, perhaps even top it (that's only
         about 0.1 of a slashdotting after all). Because if the 
         government can't even keep their database of an simple
         e-mail consultation straight, maybe they shouldn't be 
         trusted with a universal database after all.
         http://www.stand.org.uk/
                                                 - slashdot the vote!
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/28783.html
           - remember that Minority Report/ Demolition Man workaround

         It's not *our* fault. No matter how little we try to write
         about space trading classic ELITE, the faster the tattered
         cargo cannisters come spinning into our fuel scoops. This
         week, it's the dramatic news that TILL HARBAUM has withdrawn 
         his port of Elite to the Palm, after creator DAVID BRABEN
         declined to give his blessing to the project. But as demand
         rises in the spaceports for the now illicit good, one lone
         trader dares to run the gauntlet. Hyperspacing in under the
         the vipers' nose in a commandeered Thargoid Mothership -
         it's IAN BELL, Elite co-creator, docking with 3kg of the
         proscribed units. The exhorbitant price for the binary: send
         him an email, completing the phrase "Preventing publication
         of PALM OS Elite is wrong because..." in no more than 42
         words. "Some entries may be featured on this site", says
         Ian, "libel laws permitting". 
         http://www.harbaum.org/till/palm/elite/
                                       - and no archive.org either...
         http://www.ibell.co.uk/elite/palm/
                                            - we're keeping out of it
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02001-08-10&l=159#l
                       - but we're still allowed one more Elite piece


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         trying to be less puerile for the New Year - the year 19103, 
         that is: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22january+19103%22 . 
         Then again: http://www.google.com/search?q=assing+switches ... 
         slow news at GRANADA: http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/10/dohgra.gif 
         vs big day at BBC: http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/10/dohport.gif ...
         http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?site=linuxworldexpo.com 
         - although, as http://www.london2600.org.uk/ point out: 
         http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/ is running MS IIS 4.0 - 
         honeypot to attract all those cyberspace cowboys?... The First 
         IBB Conference on Anti-Censorship Systems - "Notes removed at 
         the request of IBB": http://www.peek-a-booty.org/pbhtml/ ... 
         ... unshaven, bewildered Gates wearing his watch upside-down: 
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Jan03/01-08CES2003OverallPR.asp
         ... missing millions: http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/10/dohmus.gif 
         - while TESCO recycles Christmas cards each weighing almost half 
         a ton: http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/10/dohton.gif ... 
 

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

         Because they could theoretically support up to 340 trillion 
         trillion trillion delegates, you must pre-register to attend 
         IPV6 & THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET IN THE UK (from 6.15pm, Thu 
         2003-01-16, Cruciform Building, University College London 
         WC1E, free), so they'll have some idea of numbers for the 
         catering. On a slightly more whimsical note, cyberlife artiste 
         PAUL GRANJON announces that his latest generation of BBC-
         Micro-controlled robotic birds will be chorusing on and off 
         for a month from next Fri 2003-01-17 at the Laurent Delaye 
         Gallery, 11 Saville Row, London W1S (also appears to be free). 
         These are the "mini bonsai type for corporate lounge" 
         variants, Granjon adds (you'll have to imagine his magnificent 
         French accent), raising the tantalising possibility that 
         visitors to merchant banks could soon be greeted by a non-
         biodegradable version of his "Cybernetic Parrot Sausage" too.
         http://www.uk.ipv6tf.org/events/
                                      - UK IPv6 Task Force: assemble!
         http://www.laurentdelaye.com/exhibitions.forth.frameset.html
              - see also http://www.zprod.org/zLab/cybWurstFrame.html
         http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
          - pub night on Sat: http://www.schnews.org.uk/pap/guide.htm
         http://www.lonix.org.uk/tnet-cgi/Lonix?CODE=userMeetings
                 - also in London: Lonix goes "Loco" for Linux on Thu
         http://www.sci-fi-london.com/
                               - plus sci-fi film festival end of Jan


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Remember we said, sixty lines back, that we're allowed one
         more ELITE piece? Frontier: First Encounter was the
         Braben-led sequel to Elite, an ambitious, astronomically
         correct epic that suffered from a rather more "open-ended"
         gameplay than the kids like these days. These days, Braben's
         Elite Club offers a patched DOS version as shareware: but
         unfortunately, due to its use of Borland's DPMI memory
         manager, it doesn't work under Windows. Step forward John
         Jordan, who, in the true spirit of Elitedom, decompiled the
         binary, patched in a new memory manager, and then recompiled
         it. But that's not enough, is it? Now he's reworked it even
         more to use Allegro, the cross-platform games library. And
         ported it to Linux.
         http://www.jaj22.demon.co.uk/index.html
             ...a fine way to blow our last Elite allowance. For now.
         http://www.alioth.net/Fiction/index.html
                                     - Frontier fanfic while you wait


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

         ELVISH lives: http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Languages/Elvish/ 
         ... getting trickier to spot the spoof news stories nowadays: 
         http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0212/S00082.htm - vs 
        http://www.onlinecasinonews.com/ocn/article/article.asp?id=1508
         ... yup, fighting crime and dishing out justice ain't pretty: 
www.icra.org/cgi-bin/test.cgi?lang=EN&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.courtservice.gov.uk
         ... ANANOVA teams with SUN to find Britain's oldest household 
         appliance: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_735558.html , 
         http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_736608.html ... next step 
         in urban exploration: http://www.entrances2hell.co.uk/ ... not 
         to be confused with the home of the SubGenius Xists, though 
         has similar problem of imminent apocalyptic "sell-by date": 
         http://www.hiddenmysteries.com/blindsided/ ... Europop anthem: 
         http://www.deutschepost.de/dpag?lang=de_EN&xmlFile=33424 ... 
         just liked the name: http://www.euclid-hitachi.com/ ... pic of 
         mouse at: http://www.johnwilde.co.uk/ - operating the PC from 
         "the other side"?... 


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> Spielberg's Gray masters will be pleased indeed with his 
         latest piece of post-X-Files pro-abduction propaganda, TAKEN 
         (9pm, Sat, BBC2)... the psychiatric disturbances continue with 
         Ken Stott murder mystery MESSIAH 2 (9pm, Sat & Sun, BBC1) - 
         postponed from the week of the Soham killings; Mike Myers' 
         underrated SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER (9pm, Sat, C5); and 
         Jack Nicholson driven bonkers by all those trademark Kubrick 
         long-shots in THE SHINING (10.30pm, Sat, BBC2)... while David 
         Cronenberg stars in talky Canadian imminent-apocalypse 
         philoso-fest LAST NIGHT (12midnight, Sat, C4) - not based on 
         The Strokes' song of the same name... Kathleen "Event Horizon" 
         Quinlan Week begins with lame middleclass nightmare BREAKDOWN 
         (10pm, Sun, C4) and continues with ill-judged Billy Crystal 
         sizeism comedy MY GIANT (8pm, Mon, C5)... Timothy Hutton pops 
         up in distasteful military murder-rape investigation THE 
         GENERAL'S DAUGHTER (9pm, Sun, C5) and apparently hilarious 
         RoboCop knockoff DEAD BY MIDNIGHT (12.40am, Mon, BBC1)... as 
         only the glaring gun-related goofs mar the unexpectedly 
         amusing BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD DO AMERICA (11.45pm, Sun, BBC2) 
http://web.archive.org/web/19970605035547/www.recguns.com/MGM-BABDA.html
         ... that TVGoHome TV show bloke stars in local newspaper spoof 
         THE HARRINGHAM HARKER (11.20pm, Mon, BBC2)... BURIED (10.30pm, 
         Tue, C4) aspires to be a British version of brutal prison 
         drama "Oz", and is followed by Jan 2001's long-delayed season 
         8 of NYPD BLUE (11.35pm, Tue, C4)... Asia "XXX" Argento plays 
         a nudity-prone cat burglar in Brit crime romance B MONKEY 
         (11.55pm, Tue, C4)... Mel Gibson discovers that nothing 
         impresses girls so little as an intricate CONSPIRACY THEORY 
         (9pm, Wed, C5)... while a new generation of anti-narcolepsy 
         medicines ought to make it easier to stay awake during HORIZON 
         (9pm, Thu, BBC2)... 
         
         FILM>> Jennifer "Office Space" Aniston once again explores the 
         perils of workplace romance in grimily dark comedy THE GOOD 
         GIRL ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Good+Girl,+The : 
         the shadowy outline of [Aniston's] erect nipples. Even with 
         the poor light conditions, this is a glorious scene!)... to 
         paraphrase The Onion's Jackie Harvey, De Niro's career takes 
         an unexpected direction - playing either a mobster or a cop - 
         in atmospheric domestic drug-dealing tragedy CITY BY THE SEA 
         ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/city_by_the_sea.html : 
         [Eliza Dushku] lives near a peep show. We don't see anything 
         inside it, but do see the sign, and on one occasion hear feint 
         sexual sounds)... speaking of which, Martin Scorsese combines 
         many of his previous interests - period drama, New York, mobs, 
         fighting - into ponderous near-3-hour epic GANGS OF NEW YORK 
         ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/gangs_of_new_york.html :
         it's possible some kids could imitate the racist comments and 
         actions of [Daniel Day-Lewis]; [DiCaprio] and [Diaz] 
         passionately kiss and he wonders how to open her corset)... 
         while CGI, wirework, Chan's advancing age, and elementary 
         entomological errors undermine kung-fu buddy flick THE TUXEDO 
     ( http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2002/09/092705.html :
         There are about 500 species of gerrids in the world and, as 
         far as I know, not a single one is eusocial)...


                               >> 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
                "trolling for middle class BBC Micro Fauntleroys"
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                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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