_   _ _____ _  __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the uk>
| \ | |_   _| |/ / _ __   __2003-03-21_ 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/


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                               les livres rouges

         We had our doubts about WROX PRESS' commercial nous, ever
         since they hit upon their uniquely unappealing book design
         of monochrome mugshots of tech author's faces over a lurid
         swollen red and yellow cover. But, despite the sheer reeling
         ugliness of their covers, Wrox did well. And entering any
         computer corner of American or British bookshops of the past
         few years, one would always be faced with shelf after shelf
         of the Prisoners Of Wrox. Well, now they're dead. Not the
         authors - no, they always looked like that. No, the parent
         company, Peer Information, has gone bust. Curiously, while it
         had dozens of spin-off imprints and Web ventures (Glasshaus,
         Friends of Ed, Wrox US, Wrox France, Wrox India, and so on)
         Peer Information turned out to be a family business run out
         of Birmingham ("albeit", writes one mourner, "the posh
         bit"). So, let us take a few minutes to salute this little
         known British success story, and like so many before them,
         hope they come out of receivership soon.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/1UUY0JNJHGCZG
                                - Look Inside My Badly Tonsured Head!
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/29790.html
                - that's Birmingham, England, not Birmingham, Alabama

         Now, back to the war: and we're only a few kilometers so
         into enemy territory, but we've already got the confirmed
         surrenders of two marketing companies. Well, maybe not
         surrender: but they're certainly co-operating. Following
         last week's look at dodgy spam from supposedly stately
         organisations, PHDiq (for the RSPCA) and i-level (for the BT
         Ignite spam) are looking into why their client's mailouts 
         got sent unsolicited to dodgy addresses via cowboy spammers.
         Both CEOs say they only deal in opt-in lists, legit mailers,
         and never, ever via unsecured boxes in Argentina. And they
         want to get to the bottom of these slip-ups. Heard it
         before? Maybe: but with the EU anti-spam legislation
         creeping into reality, the result of this ongoing
         investigation is going to be very telling. If these two, big
         name, reputable companies can't separate their prestigious
         clients from the seedy underside of dodgy offshore shell
         companies and Web-crawled email addresses, who can? In the
         meantime, we're still looking for any spammish messages
         from respectable companies (and thanks to the reader who
         sent us in a spam that appeared to be sponsored by the Met
         Police. It checks out, but you had us worried for a moment.)
         http://www.quicktopic.com/19/H/V5cPAqX7zhf
                                                - post your spam here


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         The GOOGLE scanner was used to assess the security of 282+ 
         hosts: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22nessus+report%22 - in 
         other oversights & misspellings: blog default "my funny motto" 
         plus a worrying top result for "first come, fist served"... 
         GOOGLE NEWS devises alternative epithet for "Coalition of the 
         willing": http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/21/dohgay.gif ... censor 
         yourself, advise FOX: http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/21/dohdo.gif 
         ... competing with AMAZON in the cut-throat e-commerce market: 
         http://www.ikea.co.uk/product_presentation/subcat.asp?id=3094  
         ... good availability: http://www.holswap.com/details_3209.htm 
         ... where application shall speak peace unto operating system: 
    http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbcworld.com
         ... <TITLE> tag remembers who created whole mess back in 1919: 
    http://multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?X=5000000&Y=3900000&coordsys=mercator
         ... "further purchases" to fully appreciate the wide-screen 
         experience: http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/21/dohplas.gif ... 
         "Sort by number of players" pessimistic about shrinking market 
         for NINTENDO: http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/21/dohtendo.gif ... 


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Ostensibly, WORKRAVE is an applet with the simplest of jobs:
         it tells you to take a period break from typing to save your
         poor wrists. In real life, it's like one of those "let's
         build an C++ application" documentation examples gone
         completely nuts. From its humble beginnings, it's now an
         excrutiatingly well-engineered taskbar applet that runs on
         GNOME and KDE. Oh, and Windows. It's got a statistics
         feature, so it can tell you how many miles you've moved your
         mouse. Yeah, yeah, we know - but it's also got a networked
         client-server facility. Built-in. So not only can you now
         never escape from its persistent "take a break" fascism, but
         you can gather facts on how many miles *all* your mice have
         moved, from your laptop to your desktop to your VNCed Win2K
         server. It's GPLed. The author has a cafepress shop where
         you can buy Workrave t-shirts. There's also a leaflet you
         can print out and hand to your non-cult friends. The name
         appears to be a play on a $55 commercial program that does a
         similiar job - but, Jesus, what else could that do for the
         money? Operate a little crane to lift your hands up and down
         on the keys?
         http://workrave.sourceforge.net/
       - I actually blew my tendons trying to change all the settings


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

         On hearing the rumour that next week's UK BIG BROTHER AWARDS 
         (Tue 2003-03-25, time and location currently secret) are being 
         held on a boat to dissuade infiltrators, it's hard not to be 
         reminded of Dr Johnson's comparison of being on board a ship 
         and being in jail (he said he'd prefer being in jail, because 
         ships were just "jail - with a chance of drowning"). Here's 
         hoping there'll be no need for either at the slightly more 
         accessible INQUIRER SECOND BIRTHDAY PARTY (from 6.30pm, Wed 
         2003-03-26, upstairs at the Coach and Horses, 1 Gt Marlborough 
         St, London W1F, free), followed on Thursday by another chance 
         to catch Simon "Big Brother" Davies at another of those SPIKED 
         ONLINE EVENTS on Trusted Computing (7pm, Thu 2003-03-27, Hill 
         and Knowlton, 35 Red Lion Square, London WC1, from UKP10) - 
         yes, we know that site editor Mick Hume isn't running "Living 
         Marxism" any more, but that still seems like a lot of money to 
         get in, eh comrades?
         http://www.privacyinternational.org/bigbrother/
                    - NTK has always been at war with The Register...
         http://www.fancyapint.com/thepubs/pub207.htm
                 - nearest thing The Inquirer has to an online invite
         http://www.spiked-online.com/events/
                       - plus in May: panic on the streets of Mayfair
         http://www.multiplay.co.uk/i15/
           - this weekend: UK's biggest LAN party (again), in Newbury 
         http://www.silicon-beach.com/events.html
                  - also on Thu: Palladium vs Open Source in Brighton
         http://www.cfp2003.org/
            - and in April: New York's Computers, Freedom and Privacy


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

         this week's http://www.theonion.com/ imitates - itself from a 
         year ago: http://www.theonion.com/onion3809/gulf_war_2.html , 
         http://www.theonion.com/onion3810/hilarious_hamlet_essay.html ,
       http://www.theonion.com/onion3805/holocaust_museum_cashier.html ,
         http://www.theonion.com/onion3808/hammurderer.html - see also: 
         http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php?memo_id=189
         ... and just in time - looks like TVGoHome fans were getting 
         pretty desperate: http://foof.myby.co.uk/tvghjoke.gif ... if 
         piracy funds criminal activity, legal music sales aren't much 
         better: http://www.justablip.co.uk/about/dodge.htm ... RIAA 
         facing yet *another* illicit digital downloading technology: 
         http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993488 ... 
         blogs playing popular "Which opportunistic right-wing leader 
         are you?" quiz: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm 
         (via http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/24436 )... all looking 
         good over at: http://www.iamintrouble.com/ ... BBC considering 
         "Bearded Lady" b3ta-style photoshopping-humour site... CHARLIE 
         DANIELS challenges Saddam, Sean Penn to Georgia fiddle showdown: 
         http://www.charliedaniels.com/soapbox/03/242.html ... 


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
         what you say? someone set us up a http://www.tvgohome.com/ ?

         TV>> far from being an elaborate trail for the new series of 
         BANZAI (10.30pm, Thu, E4), THE PEOPLE'S BOOK OF RECORDS 
         (9.30pm, Fri, C4) is the primetime debut of Zeppotron, the 
         folks behind other, less well-known successes, and TVGoHome: 
         http://www.revolutionmagazine.com/news/view.cfm?r=1&id=96482 
         ... the "Scotty" guy from "Galaxy Quest" plays TV's first 
         obsessive-compulsive detective in US import MONK (5.45pm, Sat, 
         BBC2) - made by "Mandeville Films", playground insult fans may 
         be pleased to hear... and what on earth will DESIGNING THE 
         DECADES (8pm, Sat, BBC2) find to say about the 1970s?... BBC3 
         brackets the final episode of TAKEN (9pm, Sat, BBC2) with a 
         special UFO night (from 8pm, Sat, BBC3), up against THE X 
         FILES: THE MOVIE (9pm, Sat, ITV2) - itself heralding the long-
         overdue conclusion of THE X FILES: THE TV SHOW (10.45pm, Sun, 
         BBC2), though the ever-popular monkey people get their own 
         spinoff in "When Gallaghers Ruled The Earth" unsubstantiated 
         hypothesising WALKING WITH CAVEMEN (8pm, Thu, BBC1)... Dawn 
         from "Buffy" shows an early aptitude for sleuthing as HARRIET 
         THE SPY (1.05pm, Sun, BBC1)... the embarrassment of being 
         associated with a delusionally unfashionable head of state is 
         explored by both MY DAD'S THE PRIME MINISTER (6.05pm, Sun, 
         BBC1) and THE WAR FOR OIL (7.30pm, Wed, BBC2)... Guy Ritchie 
         sets his sights on the slightly less ambitious project of 
         hidden-camera justice show SWAG (8.30pm, Sun, C5)... and Tim 
         from "The Office" and the girl from the Abbey National ads 
         reappear in Simon "Men Behaving Badly" Nye's workplace sitcom 
         HARDWARE (10.05pm, Sun, ITV) - not based around the 1990 
         cyberpunk film of the same name... for anyone who failed 
         Saturday's NATIONAL RELATIONSHIP TEST (9pm, Sat, BBC1), BBC2 
         helpfully provides a selection of 5 different WAYS TO LEAVE 
         YOUR LOVER (11.20pm, Tue, BBC2)... alternative applications of 
         nuclear explosions are examined in Nicole Kidman thriller THE 
         PEACEMAKER (9pm, Wed, BBC3) and Project Orion docu TO MARS BY 
         A-BOMB (9pm, Wed, BBC4)... and thanks to DELIVERANCE (10pm, 
         Wed, C5), humming the start of "Duelling Banjos" remains the 
         ideal way to indicate that a visit to the countryside isn't 
         going particularly well... 
         
         FILM>> Pierce "James Bond" Brosnan faces his most far-reaching 
         sinisterly secretive opponent so far - the Catholic Church! - 
         in Oirish orphanage custody-battler EVELYN (imdb: 1950s/ pub/ 
         based-on-true-story/ haircut/ dog-racing/ nun) - not based on 
         the Pop Will Eat Itself song of the same name... otherwise 
         there's Yet Another Beverly Hills Cop Remake NATIONAL SECURITY 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/nationalsecurity.htm : 
         sadomasochism with inappropriate touch; adult in underwear, 
         repeatedly; police cover-up/corruption, repeatedly; massive 
         tattoos, repeatedly)... or Brittany "8 Mile" Murphy, David 
         "Sledge Hammer" Rasche, the guy from "Dude, Where's My Car?" 
         - together at last! - in Euro-matrimonial mayhem JUST MARRIED 
         ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/just_married.html : 
         [Brittany Murphy] shows more cleavage while bent over and in 
         several other scenes; we see a flashback of [Ashton Kutcher] 
         and another young boy holding toy "Star Wars" light sabers at 
         their crotches like erect penises and thrashing them about)... 
         

                               >> 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
                          "depressingly non-compliant"
                          http://www.headstar.com/ten/        

                                 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.