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        "Even my DNA is held by the Police (voluntarily, I hasten to 
         add). If yours isn't, what precisely is your objection?" 
                             http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7157
          - Thinking about it, we have *no* objection to the police 
            holding Andrew Thomas's DNA. Nope, no objection at all...


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                               notions disabused

         When you left us last Friday: Lord Falconer, minister in 
         charge of ID cards, was claiming that his consultation was 
         showing a 2:1 majority in favour of them. By Monday, thanks to 
         your mails via stand.org.uk, the ratio must have been more 
         like 2:1 against. At time of writing, with over 4000 new 
         responses in one week, we'd estimate it's now something like 
         80% anti, 20% pro. David Blunkett, who was tipped to announce 
         growing public support for the project at a conference on 
         Wednesday, instead talked of cabinet splits, and "not wanting 
         a revolution" over the proposals. Isn't it always a surprise 
         when you log in to check your inbox after the weekend? 
         http://www.stand.org.uk/
                                                    - 4232 and rising 
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2657143.stm 
     http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=369646
                        - oh, you *say* you "don't want a revolution"
         
         All very good, but we're still left wondering - who were those 
         original correspondents that were so gung-ho for the ID card? 
         We suggest the curious check out next Thursday's ENTITLEMENT 
         CARDS CONFERENCE. It's sponsored - and we can't think why - by 
         top government IT contractors EDS, Fujitsu, IBM, Siemens, and 
         SchlumbergerSema, and organised by trade lobby INTELLECT UK. 
         Ministers and civil servants will be speaking to this select 
         few - and it's not the first time they've popped over for 
         a chat. Back in early 2002, Intellect was meeting regularly 
         with the government, helping them with a "pre-consultation 
         paper" on how best to introduce ID cards to the public. 
         Intellect recommended a three phase roll-out. In the first 
         stage, "there would be no requirement to produce the card" 
         (a la the current consultation proposals). In phase two, we'd 
         all get government-issued X509 certificates (just like in 
         Revelations). But it's phase three that where it gets really 
         fascinating. For example: as part of an integrated tax-
         reporting database, "an intelligent benefits payments system 
         could recognise when a citizen's circumstances have 
         deteriorated, and ensure benefit payment is made 
         expeditiously." So you're looking at not only real-time 
         government monitoring of bank and tax records, but a paperclip 
         that jumps up and says "So, it looks like you got canned. 
         Would you like some help?"
 http://www.cssa.co.uk/press/bulletins/weekly_bulletin/bully_10_12_02.asp
                                      - "endorsed by the Home Office" 
    http://www.intellectuk.org/publications/position_papers/intro.asp
      - bottom of the list (also warns that not telling public this will
             result in "negative press and more than a little mischief") 
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2662491.stm
  - you mean, inland revenue flogging private tax records-style mischief?
    http://www.btinternet.com/~robert.hinkley/opinion/congestion.html
           - and don't get us started on the congestion charge either

         Ah, the time-honoured traditions of "stepping down": gathering 
         the contents of your desk into a black bin-liner; being 
         escorted out of the building by the security guard; the 
         ceremonial deletion of your home page from the company's 
         servers. But, as the ever-vigilant AOLWATCH.COM has spotted, 
         schadenfreude fans can still smile at the youthful idealism 
         of outgoing AOL chairman STEVE CASE - thanks to the mission 
         statement still currently hosted on his AOL page. Here, Case 
         confessed to being "very excited" about the merger with Time 
         Warner, saying the new company will continue to be guided by 
         principles that include "encouraging responsibility" and 
         "leaving no one behind". As AOLWatch notes, this is already a 
         cut-down version of his January 2001 flight of fancy, when he 
         earnestly predicted that AOL Time Warner would be "the premier 
         global company" in some field or another. All these moments 
         will be lost, delinked from Steve's cheery homepage - which 
         now forwards to an old bio with no mention of the $60billion 
         write-down he's being encouraged to take responsibility for.
         http://aolwatch.com/mission.htm
          - by "leaving no one behind", I specifically meant "not me"
         http://web.archive.org/web/20010209025031/stevecase.aol.com/
                  - "and create an [accounting scandal] of your own!"


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         some actually quite revealing GOOGLE MISHAPS, for a change: 
         http://www.google.com/search?q=%22red%3Abig%20brother%22 , or 
         even "Index of /private" +"Last modified". But, then again: 
         http://www.google.com/search?q=%22degree+bums%22 ... "These 
         sticks were made for walking", genetics student proclaims: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/17/dohwalk.gif ... bit-of-politics 
         banner: http://www.asianjoke.com/pix/images/whendowelaunch.jpg 
         ... and the winner of the monster truck rally gets to live in 
         Israel: http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/17/dohplo.gif ... FIRST 
         TUESDAY SCOTLAND mails members with subject "Net Discunts UK" 
         ... for tax reasons, Virgin fleet consists of -10 aircraft: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/17/dohboe.gif ... good for alephs 
         0-5: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005ULQT/ 
         ... and working with monkeys can really take a toll on a young 
         lady's looks: http://home.earthlink.net/~lawjpa/ ... 
 

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

         Let no-one deny that the GREATER LONDON LINUX USER GROUP know 
         how to party, as tomorrow's large lecture theatre all-dayer 
         promises to feature "overhead projector debugging", a 90-min 
         MySQL magical mystery tour, and the return of their acclaimed 
         "Heckle Steve" session (from 12noon, Sat 2003-01-18, New 
         Cavendish Street campus, Westminster University, appears to be 
         free). You can also purchase CDs, pro-Linux PC badges and 
         Tuxwear from TV star John Winters of linuxemporium.co.uk, and 
         - as if that weren't enough - "If we're lucky", the organisers 
         confide, "the Refectory on the ground floor will have its food 
         and drinks machines restocked". It's all part of a literally 
         Linux-packed year ahead, of which you can find more details 
         over at OxLUG's site, although an insider sagely observes: "We 
         struggle to see how the UK can support 3 big Linux Expos in a 
         year, and guess that one or more of these will get 'postponed'".
         http://www.gllug.org.uk/meeting-20030118.html
- also handy for http://www.computermarket.com/cgi-bin/floorplan?vnu_id=18
         http://www.oxlug.org/majorevents.html
                       - what no http://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/code/ ?
         http://club.net-art.ws/#demo
                     - demo coders against the war in Brixton tonight 


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Everything on earth should have a latitude and longitude.
         What? Oh. Well. Put 'em all in a free, world-accessible
         database then, where they can be put to some good use. Yes,
         2003 will be the year of geospatial hype, and the first
         usable free apps to help usher it in are stumbling,
         head-down, toward their goals. GPSDRIVE is a German mapping
         app for Linux which bypasses the whole proprietary map
         business by downloading images on the fly from Expedia and
         Mapblast. It's still got that icky "smells like Tcl" Linux 
         UI, but is gearing up with neat features, including random
         speech synthesis, integration with WiFi AP sniffers, and 
         a "friendsd" daemon, which lets gpsdrive users find each
         other on a live updated map. To add to the stew is Dan
         "sweetcode.org" Egnor's 2002 Google Programming Contest
         winner GEOGRAPHIC SEARCH, which uses the TIGER census data
         (freed by Bruce Perens) to convert any US address into
         Lat/Long co-ordinates, scrape addresses from free text, and
         other textogeospatialomagico. Co-ord collectors in the rest
         of the world are still saddled with government-created
         mapping data that isn't freely distributable, worse luck.
         But things are getting better: Joshua "memepool.com"
         Schachter's new project GEOURL.ORG is collecting together
         freely accessible Lat/Long decoding sites, as well as
         pooling a few waypoints himself with his location-to-URL
         reverse directory. Geospace! It's where it's at!
         http://www.kraftvoll.at/software/index.shtml
- defaults to sticking you somewhere in Germany. Austria. Somewhere funny.
         http://ofb.net/~egnor/google.html
                                                            - schweet
         http://www.geourl.org/
                                                     - I'm over here!
         http://space.frot.org/
                                                      - London as MUD


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

         top hit on: http://www.google.com/search?q=Wayne+Hussey ... 
         "Phil Collin" does not send out CDs himself, reveals otherwise 
         meticulous FAQ: http://www.philcollins.co.uk/shop.htm - he's 
         busy playing this: http://www.pearldrum.com/dreamkit/ (needs 
         Flash, sorry)... which Pete Townshend story *didn't* make 
         Slashdot?: http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=townshend ... 
         http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003021955,00.html imitates 
       RAMBO IV: YOU UNGRATEFUL GETS http://www.lazycinema.com/0212.html
         - in its turn emulating "undetermined" Internet rumour at: 
         http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/rambo.htm ... spot the odd 
         review out: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553247786/ 
         ... where the army of Orcs had passed, only chaos was left: 
         http://books.dreambook.com/lilje/main.html ... Danger! Danger! 
         One Hit Wonder!: http://www.dude.ru/music/gigflapping.html ... 
         and the last we'll be hearing from the honourable member for 
         Scunthorpe: http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk/press/0301164.htm ...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> THE LAST STARFIGHTER (5.15pm, Sat, C5) is an upbeat 1980s 
         CGI wish-fulfilment version of Orson Scott Card's "Ender's 
         Game" http://www.hatrack.com/osc/stories/enders-game.shtml - 
         itself soon to be another major film, possibly starring Jake 
         "Anakin" Lloyd: http://www.angelfire.com/mo/Wiggin/Ender.html 
         ... Michael Bay technocrane treat ARMAGEDDON (9.20pm, Sat, 
         BBC1) cross-promotes an "Averting [Asteroid] Armageddon" 
         edition of HORIZON (9pm, Thu, BBC2)... while topical drama-doc 
         repeat SMALLPOX 2002 (11.25pm, Sat, BBC2) is cheerily preceded 
         by Al "The Pub Landlord" Murray in Glasgow-based "Saturday 
         Live" revival LIVE FLOOR SHOW (10.25pm, Sat, BBC2)... Daniel 
         Pemberton co-wrote *and* appears in another-chance-to-see 
         COMEDY LAB: SHOREDITCH TWAT (1.05am, Sat, C4)... removing 
         heads of state is this week's big movie theme, via black-and-
         white US nailbiter SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (3.55pm, Sun, C5), 
         assassination original THE DAY OF THE JACKAL (11.35pm, Tue, 
         BBC1), plus Watergate dramatisation ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN 
         (12.25am, Thu, BBC1)... and the scariest thing about Jan De 
         Bont's uninspired remake of THE HAUNTING (10.15pm, Sun, BBC1) 
         is that he was ever allowed to make it... Mel and Sue host the 
         new RI:SE (from 6.55am, Mon-Fri, C4), along with Iain "The 11 
         O'Clock Show" Lee, who always makes for entertaining live TV: 
     http://www.mediaguardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,557769,00.html 
         ... Zooey Deschanel plays Roz's cousin in FRASIER (10.35pm, 
         Mon, C4)... Spielberg's Gray masters are pleased once again by 
         his "please abduct me" propaganda in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 
         THIRD KIND (8pm, Mon, C5)... and Arnie spoofs himself in self-
         referential actioner LAST ACTION HERO (8pm, Wed, C5)... series 
         spinoff movies THE WILD WILD WEST REVISITED (3.40pm, Tue, C5) 
         and MORE WILD WILD WEST (3.40pm, Wed, C5) introduce recent 
         Will Smith atrocity WILD WILD WEST (8pm, Thu, C5)... BATTLE 
         STATIONS (8pm, Thu, C4) jets back to the *previous* Korean war 
         at the controls of a MiG-15... EASY MONEY (9.50pm, Thu, BBC2) 
         goes on location with porn-in-a-van couple Penthouse editor 
         Violet Storm and her partner Jim - perhaps best known as "Phil 
         McCavity"... and they should get Johnny "ITV Digital" Vegas to 
         announce the irrepressible English dubbing of Japanese TV show 
         of Chinese folklore MONKEY (12.35am, Thu, C4)... 
         
         FILM>> Kim Basinger *is* Dr Dre, as Eminem battles to overcome 
         crippling stagefright and his streetfightin' ways in good-by-
         musicians'-acting-standards semi-autobiography odyssey 8 MILE 
         ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=8+Mile : brief partial 
         glimpse of [Eminem's] butt; you can see [Kim Basinger's] ass; 
         it looked to me like [Britanny Murphy's] nipples popped out at 
         one point)... a Luc Besson writing credit and cast of unknowns 
         spell unsophisticated blow-'em-up action for THE TRANSPORTER 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/transporter.htm : woman 
         as toy; vulgar gesture; firearm threat to neck; "I hate you" 
         to father; father's order to kill daughter for failure to 
         comply)... otherwise it's just tuneless gangster musical 
         CHICAGO ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/chicago.html : 
         [Renee Zellweger] shows some cleavage; during various musical 
         numbers, we see a great deal of leg/upper thigh and partial 
         butt shots on many of the female performers who do some 
         suggestive dancing while some suggestive lyrics are present as 
         well)... or Dana "Garth" Carvey wasting his impersonating 
         abilities in juvenile spy fart-fest THE MASTER OF DISGUISE 
         ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Company chose to remove dangerous 
         imitable technique, a series of head butts, to gain a PG 
         category. A "12A" uncut was available to the distributor)... 
         
         CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> "No longer do I have to buy these wee 
         beauties on import from the Chinese shop in Oxford!", writes 
         someone we suspect to be reader PADDY ROBINSON-GRIFFIN, 
         referring of course to WRIGELY'S EXTRA THIN ICE (75p for pack 
         of 24 "stamp-sized vegetarian gel sheets", which release "a 
         powerful peppermint rush" when dissolved on your tongue, he 
         explains). The product appears to be "non-hallucinogenic", 
         Paddy clarifies - yet still qualifies as "awesome" in his 
         book. No word yet on how they measure against similarly sized 
         packs of LISTERINE ACTIVES or the more pharmaceutically potent 
         FINLAY'S SLIM MINTS (UKP2.95 for tin of 45), loaded with the 
         great taste of alleged appetite suppressants and metabolic 
         accelerants chromium polynicotinate and L-carnitine. And, by 
         international "functional food" standards, that's nothing - in 
         Canada, courtesy of BENYLIN, apparently you can buy MEDICATED 
         FREEZER POPS ... following last month's US taste-testing, 
         BARRY MCCAULEY reports they've been selling VANILLA COKE in a 
         newsagents near his work (Colindale, London NW9) for "quite a 
         few weeks now", although French writing on the can leads him 
         to suspect it could be a "grey import". DANIEL WILSON claims 
         he "picked up a bag of SMARTIES COOKIES in Reading Tesco's" 
         which, inexplicably, reminded him of his mum's Chilli Con 
         Carne "the night it rained cockroaches when we were on 
         holiday", while NTK's own LEE MAGUIRE was first to note the 
         re-emergence of WALKERS (nee SMITHS) SALT AND SHAKE CRISPS: 
         http://www.hexkey.co.uk/lee/log/2003/01/10/#1042195800 - in 
         new "matt packaging". Look out for their BAKED BEAN FLAVOURED 
         CRISPS to tie in with Comic Relief in Match, with multipacks 
         incorporating a whoopee cushion delightfully labelled either 
         "Wet & Windy", "Atom Bum" or "Sonic Boom"... and finally: "Why 
         not try all 3?" asks the back of the box for NESQUIK CEREAL 
         AND MILK BAR (referring to the Golden Grahams and Cheerios 
         variants), the obvious answer being "Because this Nesquik one 
         is disgusting". More promisingly, we await your comments on 
         KINDER MAXI BAR (19p), MARS "BISC &" BISCUITS (due early this 
         year), would-be rival to motorway service station staple 
         Peperami DOT BREAKS (comprising "15 Ready to eat Mini 
         Salami's", in flavours Spicy, Mustard and Original), plus 
         Oriental Express's long-awaited frozen version of traditional 
         Szechuan delicacy SPRING ROLL AND CHIPS (99p)...


                               >> 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
http://kevan.org/hiero.cgi?para=NTK+-+high-tech+sarcastic+update+for+the+uk
        

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