_   _ _____ _  __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the uk>
| \ | |_   _| |/ / _ __   __2003-02-14_ o join! mail an empty message to
|  \| | | | | ' / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / o ntknow-subscribe@lists.ntk.net
| |\  | | | | . \ | | | | (_) \ v  v /  o website (+ archive) lives at:
|_| \_| |_| |_|\_\|_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/   o     http://www.ntk.net/


        "The City Alert Texting System (Cats) will warn people where 
         [terrorist] attacks are taking place and pass on information 
         about what to do to people caught in an incident..."
                                  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/2757017.stm
                        ...CATS: U HAVE NO CHANCE 2 SURVIV MK YR TIME


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                               scooby dooby doos

         In the eve of conflict, right before we're all drafted to
         write shoot-'em-ups for our cool new military empire, all is
         quiet. Too quiet, we say. Where are the voices we've come 
         to depend on to pierce through the silence with their handy
         suggestions of how this war should *really* be run? More
         precisely: just where are JON KATZ and ERIC RAYMOND when
         their country needs them? Rent-a-blather JonKatz appears to
         have vanished from Slashdot some time last July (when he
         uttered, pointedly, that even H.L. Mencken "wouldn't be able
         to find work these days"). And while black-belt warlord ESR
         is reputedly working on his Art of Unix book, his old site
         at tuxedo.org has been transformed, in abstentia, into a
         disrespectful flickbook of redirects to peacenik backsliders
         like the Free Software Foundation and www.ethics.org. Could
         it be too much to hope that ESR and Jon Katz might have been
         the first casualties of war? Apparently so. From an
         undisclosed location, an all-too-lively Raymond reports that
         these Apache Weapons Of Mass Redirection are not his work,
         are undetectable from his home machine, and therefore, North
         Korean-fashion, DO NOT EXIST. Meanwhile, the reclusive JK
         has, it seems, abandoned geek politics and indeed humanity,
         having now tracked down a silent minority who don't talk
         back when he's trying to speak for them. Yes, Anonymous
         Cowards the world over will be relieved to know that JK now
         writes exclusively about dogs. And so those words of
         prophecy come home to haunt us all: "Human sacrifice, dogs
         - and Katz - living together, mass hysteria!"
         http://www.workingdogweb.com/Katz.htm
                                             - the center cannot hold
         http://www.catb.org/~esr/
                         - esr hides out in his cathedral of solitude
         http://www.tuxedo.org/
                                      - even RedirectPermanent is not

         Of course, marching round London is all very well, but what if 
         you really want to hit the military-industrial-entertainment 
         complex where it hurts? One ingenious - yet anonymous - NTK 
         reader may have an answer, in the form of a breathtakingly 
         realistic video cover he's created, pioneeringly depicting US 
         President George W Bush as a fish-out-of-water idiot who just 
         happens to find himself running the world's least accountable
         superpower. What's more, the 1614k jpg is exactly the right size 
         for responsibly-minded individuals to print it out in glossy 
         inkjet colour, slide it into an empty DVD sleeve, and leave it 
         in a prominent position in their local video library/ rental 
         superstore, where, our correspondent hopes, "it should confuse 
         and delight in equal measure". The section you leave it in - 
         Comedy? Action? True Crime? - is entirely up to you.
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/02/14/duhhhhv2.jpg
                   - yes, we think we know who might be behind it too

         Another sign we're hitting the end game - or the end of one
         game, at least. DAVID BRABEN finally dropped the other shoe,
         and obliged Christian Pinder to withdraw his meticulous
         re-engineering of Elite, The New Kind - and all derivatives
         (PocketPC, SGI, Linux, Windows, Palm, whatever) thereof. 
         Naturally, 1980s videogame re-enactment societies the
         world over were bereft. But amongst open brawling of the
         warez hawks and copyright-appeasers of alt.fan.elite, only
         Pinder emerges as a ruefully clear voice of sanity. Yes, he
         did devote n+1 months of his life to reverse-engineering
         Elite and implementing it in C. Yes, it is a shame that
         Braben has now required him to withdraw TNK from
         circulation. But no, the brave young coder doesn't have
         much of a legal leg to stand on, so he's not bitter.
         Besides, he's now working on a legacy-unencumbered Elite
         sequel with Ian Bell, fittingly titled "Darkness Falls".
         It's due out in March 2003 - if you can wait that long.
         http://frontiernews.alioth.net/
                                  - ooh, so that's what he looks like
         http://www.darkkind.com/
                          - or perhaps Elite IV will beat them to it?
         http://www.frontier.co.uk/press/release/darxide-emplaunch.html
     - Darxide versus Dark Kind. There's balance to the force for you


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         EVENING STANDARD will be paying congestion charge "when hell 
         freezes over": http://www.ntk.net/2003/02/14/dohcc.gif ... OCR 
         ahoy: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ancient+and+modem%22 
         ... no need for formality - it's just "Jess" to my friends: 
         http://www.google.com/search?q=%22jess+christ%22 ... CAROLINA 
         couples "rush to exchange vowels" (for what? consonants?): 
         http://rdu.news14.com/content/headlines/?ArID=22574 ... 
         tobacco ad irresponsibly advises spending UKP 416.00, saving 
         UKP417.20: http://www.mapman.co.uk/shopping/cigarettes.htm ... 
         unfortunate company names: http://www.geocities.com/condormob/ 
         ... hey, romance isn't dead (unlike most of the characters in 
         the film): http://www.ntk.net/2003/02/14/dohmoi.gif ... MS 
         recommend typing with one hand, while "training your staff" 
         with the other: http://www.ntk.net/2003/02/14/dohhand.gif ... 
 

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

         Yes, you've already missed the "Early Bird" discount for next 
         week's UK UNIX USER GROUP WINTER CONFERENCE (from 9.30am, Tue 
         2003-02-18, Institute of Physics, London W1, from UKP85 to 
         members of UKUUG or a recognised national Unix user group), 
         featuring Lindsay "Risks Digest" Marshall, a talk on "UK Law 
         And The System Administrator" (would-be BOFHs, please note!), 
         and hopefully some NTK t-shirts here and there. But if you (or 
         your company) have got that sort of money to throw around, why 
         not follow it up with a transatlantic trip to 2003's "premier 
         event for P2P, Cypherpunk, and network/security application 
         developers", CODECON 2.0 (from 12noon, Sat 2003-02-22, Club 
         NV, San Francisco, US$95 - or just US$80 if you pre-register 
         by the end of tomorrow, Sat 2003-02-15). It could be the only 
         place you're going to see the "AmIHotOrNot" guys and Dan 
         Kaminsky's Paketto Keiretsu on the same bill all year.
         http://www.ukuug.org/events/winter2003/
            - a slightly less rowdy event than the big summer blowout
         http://codecon.info/
              - vs http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02002-11-22&l=139#l
         http://www.dorkbot.org/dorkbotlondon/
                            - Dorkbot London back next Wed 2003-02-19
http://www.indiemagazine.co.uk/cgi-bin/news.cgi?id=1121&section=1
                        - next Fri: megastore mayhem for Miyamoto-san 


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Now that the Tivo UK is dead, what are you going to do with
         all that free time? Well, how about wasting it to build your
         own PVR out of a sub-100UKP video capture card, a 500Mhz
         Linux box and one of many open source digital recorder
         projects filling the (carefully orchestrated) timetables of
         idealistic young TV obsessives these days? Neither MYTHTV
         nor FREEVO are ready for rolling out onto your grandparents'
         settop boxen (unless your nan knows how to install MySql, or
         hand-edit dodgy XML and Python config files). Both suffer
         slightly from that post-Enlightenment open source
         development strategy of coding until you hit a cool enough
         screenshot, then moving on. But when you can get them to
         work, they *do* work. And there is something enticing about
         seeing live TV pause and rewind on your root window; seeing
         the week's TV guide construct itself from thin air, Ananova,
         and perl scripts; watching on-the-fly anti-aliased text fade
         majestically over your digitally recorded programmes; and
         controlling it all using your remote and serial-port IR
         adaptor. TV just looks better when you're processing it at 
         home.
         http://freevo.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html
                                     -  in TV land, it's all about...
         http://www.mythtv.org/#features
                                                - ... the screenshots


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

         BUSH encourages hunt for "space aliens", in secret hope that 
         they could be developing weapons of mass destruction as well: 
        http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/03/tech/main539116.shtml
         ... 404 humour: http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ vs 
         http://www.panix.com/~hncl/HectorsJournal/archives/000109.html 
         ... QVC channels must get more viewers than you'd thought: 
         http://groups.msn.com/TimGoodwinFanclub/ ... DoCoMo 3G service 
         FOMA: http://foma.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/fun/ imitates the 
         "lies", "harmless untruths" of Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle": 
         http://www.cs.uni.edu/%7Ewallingf/personal/bokonon.html#words 
         ... don't go breaking any more laws than absolutely necessary: 
         http://www.ksrevenue.org/perstaxtypesdrug.htm ... humour in 
         robots.txt: http://pigdog.org/robots.txt ... new "evirob" 
         KUBRICK is "another standard" "the essence of weird life", 
         "will make you too ill": http://www.evirob.org/ (needs Flash, 
         sorry)... 


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> Anglo-Caribbean tracing-your-roots docu MOTHERLAND - 
         A GENETIC JOURNEY (9pm, Fri, BBC2) provides an interesting 
         counterpoint to Mark Dacascos "Predator"-knockoff DNA (9pm, 
         Fri, C5)... surveillance week sees ever-topical Will Smith 
         CCTV thriller ENEMY OF THE STATE (9pm, Mon, C5) triumph over 
         irritatingly whimsical Carrey vehicle THE TRUMAN SHOW (9.50pm, 
         Sat, BBC1)... and it's unclear whether host Rhona Cameron will 
         herself be eligible for any of THE LUVVIES - THE AWARDS THE 
         STARS DON'T WANT (9.30pm, Sat, ITV)... Hugh Grant's romantic 
         comedy persona seems ill-suited to "Coma"-style medical drama 
         EXTREME MEASURES (9.30pm, Sat, C4)... a bunch of non X-Men 
         mutants take on Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer in Marvel's made-
         for-TV GENERATION X (1.25am, Sat, C5)... and it's Kirsten 
         Dunst and Allison "The West Wing" Janney - together at last! - 
         in grossout redneck beauty pageant spoof DROP DEAD GORGEOUS 
         (10.55pm, Sun, BBC1)... an NTK reader reports that he has 
         "started a weblog" http://www.24weblog.com/ for fans of the 
         frankly time-consuming 24 (10pm, Sun, BBC2), while contributor 
         Yoz Grahame hopes viewers in the London area may see an NTK 
         shirt displayed on his monitor during BBC LONDON NEWS (6.30pm, 
         Mon, BBC1)... you've a "95% chance of surviving" a crash if 
         your plane doesn't go and catch fire for some reason, reports 
         science and schadenfreude 3-parter AIRCRASH (9pm, Mon, C4)... 
         Christopher Lambert fails to perform the expected fatality on 
         largely successful videogame franchise MORTAL KOMBAT (12.25am, 
         Tue, ITV)... and Rich "Otis Lee Crenshaw" Hall is the guest on 
         inverted "Room 101" chatshow GOD ALMIGHTY (10.50pm, Tue, C5) 
         ... there's a reassuring double-bill of THE UK'S WORST PET 
         SHOP? (8pm, Wed, BBC1) with environmental health investigation 
         THE FOOD POLICE (8.30pm, Wed, BBC1)... TROUBLE AT THE TOP 
         (9.50pm, Thu, BBC2) revisits the well-trodden tale of the "New 
         Coke" disaster http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/newcoke.asp ... 
         not that they're spin-conscious or anything, but there was a 
         film crew covering the "Cherigate" events, reveals THE CONMAN, 
         HIS LOVER AND THE PRIME MINISTER'S WIFE (9pm, Thu, BBC1)... as 
         Famke "Deep Rising" Janssen and Ali "Final Destination" Larter 
         again find themselves battling B-movie monsters on an initially 
         social visit to THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (10pm, Thu, C5)... 
         
         FILM>> considerably darker, more comic-like, and nuttier than 
         "Spider-Man" - and introducing Frank Miller as "Man with pen 
         in head" - comes the perfunctorily competent adaptation of 
         DAREDEVIL ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/daredevil.html :
         [Jennifer "Alias" Garner] shows varying amounts of cleavage; 
         Bullseye loudly belches; Bullseye wildly swerves through 
         traffic on his motorcycle and then stands on top of it as it 
         goes down the road)... "Deuce Bigalow" man-pimp Eddie Griffin 
         plays blaxploitation "Citizen Smith" hero UNDERCOVER BROTHER 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/undercoverbrother.htm : 
         "Jesus Christ was a Black man"; strip fighting between 
         [Aunjanue Ellis and Denise Richards] with three men watching 
         for enjoyment; excessive cleavage throughout)... we might not 
         be seeing many more non-CGI animated features from Disney, 
         after the "curse of pirate movies" handicapped TREASURE PLANET 
         ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2002/treasure_planet.html : 
         [David Hyde Pierce] repeatedly sings, "Go Delbert, Go Delbert, 
         Go Delbert" while doing a little dance - kids might imitate 
         that by inserting their own name into the chant)... set in a 
         post-apocalyptic Liverpool - how can they tell? - there's an 
         unsurprisingly limited release for Alex "Repo Man" Cox's 
         Jacobean overacting-fest curio A REVENGER'S TRAGEDY (imdb: 
         Christopher Eccleston, Eddie Izzard, Derek Jacobi and Sophie 
         Dahl- together at last!)... while spotting the top character 
         actresses playing suicidal lesbians ought to while away THE 
         HOURS ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/hours_the.htm : 
         lifetime homosexual relationship; Virginia Woolf is portrayed 
         as being both severely depressed and lesbian; death viewed as 
         a release or escape, an ending rather than a beginning)... 
         
         BONERS: CORRECTIONS, CLARIFICATIONS, AND "INCORRECTLY REGARDED 
         AS GOOFS">> first up, apologies to all of you who were so 
         distressed by our faltering attempts at an FAQ earlier this 
         year. "When I was a lad, we didn't have any pansy crib-sheets 
         to NTK, no York Notes - we had to read the damn thing, and 
         decipher it ourselves", reminisced TOM ANDERSON; "This was the 
         most boring NTK ever. Not knowing what the fuck you're on 
         about is half (I lie: ALL) the fun!", agreed KARL DALLAS. And 
         "Stop with your sentimental self-aggrandizing", commanded 
         ADRIAN WARD, with just the lone voice of PAUL BLEZARD piping 
         up "PS: Grateful for all the useful explanations in this 
         week's edition". Once again, apologies (and especially to you, 
         Paul) - it won't happen again... further controversy raged as 
         JOSH ROULSTON pleaded "Stop it with the Google mis-spellings - 
         they're rubbish", though ALEC BOWMAN describes them as "the 
         best fun [he's] had for ages". The deciding vote - for now - 
         goes to FIPR's crypto guru (and co-author of Locoscript for 
         the Amstrad PCW) RICHARD CLAYTON, who gave the feature his 
         critical imprimatur with the statistical analysis that 
         http://www.google.com/search?q=cyrptographic is, at the moment, 
         by far the most popular misspelling of the word. Richard 
         went on to observe that, in a subtle variation on the "missing 
         millions" gag, the BBC seem to have added an extra 0 to the 
         number of CDs needed by AOL for data retention requirements 
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-01-31 , as you can see by 
         searching http://www.apig.org.uk/ispa_oral_evidence.htm for 
         "36"... virtually all our other errors so far this year seem 
         largely due to NTK's oh-so-parochial Britishness: DAVID THIEL 
         was the first of many to claim that Americans, with their 
         endearing literalism, "routinely refer" to stick insects as 
         "walking sticks": http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/17/dohwalk.gif ; 
         KATE MCDONNELL revealed "many Euro languages" use "biological" 
         the same way we use "organic", hence our misunderstanding 
         over: http://www.geocities.com/hotelannelies/ha2e.html - see 
         also http://www.google.com/search?q=%22biological+cooking%22 ; 
         SHARON DAVIDSON protested it was "Vancouver, Washington state" 
         in http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_011303_general.html 
         - not Vancouver in Canada; and - finally - "Can I be the first 
         to say that [NTK 2003-01-03] spelled Wehrmacht incorrectly?", 
         inquired WILLIAM WILES, before signing off with the intriguing 
         detail that he is "Chief sub-editor" of "Housing Today"... 
         

                               >> 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
                                  "reliable?"
     http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,892214,00.html
      

                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
                         Archive - http://www.ntk.net/
              Unsubscribe? Mail ntknow-unsubscribe@lists.ntk.net
                Subscribe? Mail ntknow-subscribe@lists.ntk.net
 NTK now is supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntkmart.com/

                          (K) 2003 Special Projects.
             Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/
         Full license at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0

                    Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com
             All communication is for publication, unless you beg.
              Press releases from naive PR people to pr@spesh.com
     Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material.
       Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention.
              Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.