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  • NTK 2007
  • NTK 2006
  • NTK 2005
  • NTK 2004
  • 2003-12-19
    #318
    I want to defy - the logic of your spam laws
  • 2003-12-12
    #317
    Mugabe - yes, ICANN - no
  • 2003-12-05
    #316
    Who's pirating the anti-piracy regulations?
  • 2003-11-28
    #315
    Download, where's your troosers?
  • 2003-11-21
    #314
    Not *now*, Cato!
  • 2003-11-14
    #313
    unusually bottom-obsessed doh special
  • 2003-11-07
    #312
    Kitcat snaps, merciless ming-boggling
  • 2003-10-31
    #311
    poorly Perl, Ripley's believe it or not
  • 2003-10-24
    #310
    RMS "friendly little monkey", Wyatt Erk
  • 2003-10-17
    #309
    M&S PANTS
  • 2003-10-10
    #308
    Do not press shift, go directly to jail
  • 2003-10-03
    #307
    ICANN SMASH!
  • 2003-09-26
    #306
    Free wine and nibbles at the opening
  • 2003-09-19
    #305
    Tlak lkie a tanrspsoed pritare day
  • 2003-09-12
    #304
    Target Mr Blaine's flying toilet
  • 2003-09-05
    #303
    Game poetry, patent remedies
  • 2003-08-29
    #302
    SCO selecta, Brussels rout
  • 2003-08-22
    #301
    Partyful dyslexia warrior; taste the destiny of Lara Croft
  • 2003-08-15
    #300
    Vigorous usability fights with tiny Gordon Freeman!
  • 2003-08-08
    #299
    Pleasure to be decived! For your enjoyable Newsletter life
  • 2003-08-01
    #298
    der-der-der, der der derrrr, der-der-der, der-der DER der
  • 2003-07-25
    #297
    The Nielsen Guerilla Army
  • 2003-07-18
    #296
    Stu Campbell and the Beautiful Irony of Spam
  • 2003-07-11
    MiniNTK #22
    OSCON AWOL
  • 2003-07-04
    MiniNTK #21
    Ding-dong, ezmlm is dead
  • 2003-06-27
    MiniNTK #20
    Super Summertime "Special"
  • 2003-06-20
    #295
    The Random Consultation Number Generator
  • 2003-06-13
    #294
    Come on Arlene
  • 2003-06-06
    #293
    Fruits machined, jargon filed
  • 2003-05-30
    #292
    suffering little children, SCO news like no news
  • 2003-05-23
    #291
    national elf service, murky dealings with Clear
  • 2003-05-16
    #290
    S'truth Names, Jane Austen in bondage gear
  • 2003-05-09
    #289
    TV Cream nostalgia, the WAN from Atlantis
  • 2003-05-02
    #288
    MSPs MOA, Bye DA
  • 2003-04-25
    #287
    The Orlowski Report
  • 2003-04-18
    MiniNTK #19
    Gone Blashphemin'
  • 2003-04-11
    #286
    fear of a googlebot planet
  • 2003-04-04
    #285
    upmystreet upforsale, unheavenly creatures
  • 2003-03-28
    #284
    spam, warez, spam, bugs and spam
  • 2003-03-21
    #283
    More spam, Wrox off
  • 2003-03-14
    #282
    Another great Viking victory
  • 2003-03-07
    #281
    MPs and MP3s, BBC and PDFs
  • 2003-02-28
    #280
    EMI wants more cash, libraries demand more cache
  • 2003-02-21
    #279
    menace of the phantom withdrawals, a weak link in the chain
  • 2003-02-14
    #278
    the calm before another storm
  • 2003-02-07
    #277
    banned or potentially offensive text
  • 2003-01-31
    #276
    Groundhog NTK... again
  • 2003-01-24
    #275
    Groundhog NTK, "non-geek" SF festival
  • 2003-01-17
    #274
    my voice is my passport, switch Case
  • 2003-01-10
    #273
    Stand back up, be counted
  • 2003-01-03
    #272
    Answer me too!
  • NTK 2002
  • NTK 2001
  • NTK 2000
  • NTK 1999
  • NTK 1998
  • NTK 1997
  • HARD NEWS
  • ANTI-NEWS
  • EVENT QUEUE
  • TRACKING
  • MEMEPOOL
  • GEEK MEDIA
  • SMALL PRINT
 _   _ _____ _  __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the uk>
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                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                              sender, returned to

         In the upper section of four-colour problem that is mainland
         Britain, Scotland's election has come to an end, and a new
         batch of MSPs sent to Holyrood. Well, actually, it's mostly
         the same batch of MSPs - but with one difference. This week,
         they won't have a backlog of email. In their infinite
         wisdom, when Parliament was dissolved back in April, all the
         MSP's (and their assistants) email accounts were deleted too
         - on the grounds that they were no longer MSPs. Mailing
         lists and personal mail alike have since received bounce
         errors, suggesting instead that you write them a letter or
         track down their personal email address yourself.
         Apparently, the same thing will happen at Westminster next
         election: Like Bagpuss, when the Parliaments disappear, all
         their mailhosting services disappear too. In the interest of
         keeping track of these people, wouldn't it be better to set
         up a forward to whatever lucrative city job politicians move
         on to? Or at least hold the mail for the 80% of politicians
         who just keep getting re-elected?
  http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2003-April/024968.html
  - ah, I appear to have been helpfully unsubscribed from everything

         We have a simple antispam filter at NTK: we only read mail
         with self-deprecating subject lines - "You've probably
         already seen this" and "Not very funny", as opposed to "The
         best invention ever" and "Offer you cannot refuse". It's
         worked for us so far - so it's been particularly upsetting
         to discover our Legitimate Corporation Spam Corpus
         collection turns out to be chockablock now with greedy nasty
         grasping multinational capitalists,  but meek little lovely
         charities. Following that first dark omen of the RSPCA, it
         turns out they're *all* at it: Oxfam (via France), the WWF
         (via Los Angeles), and Save the Children (via good old
         Florida and sent, according to the headers, using Pine on
         Mozilla via Outlook Express). What is going on here? Are
         charities more desperate than we thought? Are spammers now
         manipulating our guilt and our non-profits to get some sort
         of clickthrough reward for themselves? Is it possible to
         overclock being good so much you become evil again? We'll
         carry on looking into it, but we though we'd share being
         weirded out with you.
 http://as1.emv2.com/I?X=e6c375ca763f6a917da1223ee0c8911d 
             - points to Oxfam's email privacy policy. Which is nice.
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=1050807787.33.19116%40verence.noctua.org.uk
                                  - take action for a spamming planet
         http://www.sampleclub.net/children/
                                - don't click, it only encourages them

         Dave writes: Debbie Barham was the geekiest person I ever met.
         She stood up for me when Davey Winder flamed me on uk.media in
         1996. She wrote three books, at least one sitcom, gadget
         reviews for Wired UK, and god knows how many jokes for
         newspaper columns, and radio and TV shows. She came up with
         the NTK section heading "Confectionery Theory", and the first
         winning entry in our competition "Buy A T-shirt, Subvert The
         Mass Media, Get One Free". She died on April 20, of heart
         failure due to anorexia, aged 26. Deb didn't write about
         herself much - she preferred the classic one-liners - so
         here's her byline from her acclaimed dissection of the
         'Bridget Jones' genre: "Debbie Barham lives in London, where
         she works as a journalist and writes comedy for television.
         She has just finished her first novel and hopes to read
         another one soon."
         http://www.google.com/search?q=%22da+barham%22
            - see also "Debbie Barham" +Psion, +webloggers, and so on
         http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,946106,00.html
                                      - Debbie "DA" Barham, 1976-2003
         http://yourmedicalsource.com/library/anorexia/ANO_help.html
                                                       - just in case


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         bias-free: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/02/dohfoxiran.gif ...
         leading by example: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/02/dohroy.gif
         ... OK, trying to make the GOOGLE GOOFS a bit less puerile
         now: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22my+strenghts%22 (don't
         seem to include spelling), plus phrase "be pendantic" and
         ultimate OCR demo: http://www.google.com/search?q=Qmfice ...
         David Allan Serfozo, Tripod user, lists wisdom of - David
         Allan Serfozo: http://serfozo.tripod.com/dave/id24.html ...
         and the award for "Double-take Logo of the Week" goes to:
         http://www.janustraining.co.uk/ ... top test sites of the web:
     http://www.kenneymoore.co.uk/who.htm , http://www.globesprinkler.com/
         ... moneybags JK Rowling still wearing special warm cardigan:
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/02/dohjk.gif ... oh, those hormone
         treatments: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/02/dohtao.gif ... May
         1st issue of http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/02/dohzen.gif imitates
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-04-04&l=9#l , believes
         Barbelith to be ".com WebZine", goes on to fall for last
         month's Tom Watson MP "Yo, teens" page...


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

         Broadly, we're in agreement with SPIKED ONLINE that it's hard
         to get accurate assessments of how dangerous anything actually
         is, which is (loosely) the theme of their PANIC ATTACK all-day
         conference (10am, next Fri 2003-05-09, The Royal Institution,
         London W1S, from UKP20) featuring, among others, controversial
         Skeptical Environmentalist author BJORN LOMBORG, whose claims
         have been applauded as both "dishonest" and "clearly contrary
         to the standards of good scientific practice". Fortunately,
         we're also persuaded by the position of The Ecologist magazine
         - that ignoring the potential hazards of, say, genetically
         modified food just makes it look like you're in cahoots with
         Monsanto. For a somewhat less Pollyanna-ish view of the
         future, there's always SCRAMBLING FOR SAFETY 6 (1.30pm-5.30pm,
         The Hong Kong Theatre, LSE, London WC2, free but RSVP), the
         Foundation for Information Policy Research's almost-annual
         crypto get-together, this year looking at those hilarious
         data-retention proposals in the company of Simon "Privacy
         International" Davies, Duncan "Zircon" Campbell, et al.
         http://www.fipr.org/sfs6.html
       - not remarking on how practical and well-thought-out they are
         http://www.spiked-online.com/panicattack/
         vs http://www.bowblog.com/archives/000327.html#000327 ,
         http://www.forsk.dk/uvvu/nyt/udtaldebat/bl_decision.htm
         http://www.cures-not-wars.org/
         - cannabis weekend, vs http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/2995275.stm
         http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/CcSchedule
        - in London on Sat: sod the psychogeography, show me bunkers!


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         So you've got a friend and you've been telling them for
         years about how the Intarweb is going to transform society
         and change the way cities are designed. Only these days,
         they're stuck in the usual nightmare world of popup, ads and
         spam. You have one lunchtime to put things right without
         completely screwing up their Windows machine (again). What
         do you do? If your friend is using POP to pick up their
         mail, download SAProxy, a local free POP SpamAssassin proxy.
         It's good enough, and you won't have to bork too much with
         their mail client. Be prepared to fiddle around with
         exciting text config files, albeit wrapped in a sensible
         configuration UI. Moz Firebird does great popup handling, if
         you can cope with unzipping it somewhere safe. Or you can
         wait until 0.6 comes out, any day now.  Stick one of the
         userContent.css files mentioned in the slashdot discussion
         below into its chrome directory, and it'll CSS style away
         most banner ads too. If it's an XP machine, you can skin
         Firebird to use IE-a-like widgets with Christopher Cook's
         Luna skin. And, voila! The Internet like it's supposed to
         be, and a Windows machine perforated with destabilising Free
         Software!
         http://saproxy.bloomba.com/
           - pay no attention to the exhortations to download Bloomba
         http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/phoenix/nightly/latest-trunk/
         - okay, maybe a nightly isn't the best choice. Wait a week.
         http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=62583&cid=5846505&threshold=0
                                                  - flash or no flash
         http://www.intraplanar.net/projects/luna/
                   - for Firebird (or whatever it's called this week)
         http://pages.prodigy.net/zzxc/ieskin/
                               - or if sir prefers Win 98 and Mozilla


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

         Ain't It Cool News "reviewer" imitates The Onion's "The Star
         Wars" guy: http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=15110
         ... EVENING STANDARD joins in the b3ta-style photoshop fun:
         http://www.thememoryhole.org/media/evening-standard-crowd.htm
         ... when will the public tire of vocal samples over piss-poor
         ambient techno?: http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/6532 ...
         SARS imitates title sequence of 1970s SF thriller Survivors:
         http://web.ukonline.co.uk/jj20/l-z/clips/survivors1975.rm ...
         http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://validator.w3.org/check
         it's basically "extreme piercing": http://www.trepanning.tv/ ,
         http://www.trepan.com/people_personalities/coloringbook.pdf
         ... harder to spot those "50 Years Ago" stories in Georgia:
         http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,85737,00.html ... Japanese
         Nazis Party borrow poster from http://www.motherearth.org/ :
         http://www.nsjap.com/axis/english.html ... more Nazi consumer
         goofs: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_775737.html ...
         http://www.amcgltd.com/archives/002450.html#002450 - if so,
         the Kilroy team would like to hear from you...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> the squealing-and-pointing gesture remains the ideal way
         to highlight signs of human weakness, thanks to the second -
         and by far the scariest - version of INVASION OF THE BODY
         SNATCHERS (12.15am, Fri, BBC2)... the Bank Holiday is
         "Directed by Richard Lester" with both A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
         (3.25pm, Sat, BBC2) and SUPERMAN II (10.30pm, Mon, ITV)... as
         Fi Glover's debt documentary SPEND SPEND SPEND (7.15pm, Sat,
         BBC2) is intriguingly juxtaposed with a "Revised repeat" of
         THE 100 GREATEST TV ADS (7.30pm, Sat, C4)... "The Bill"
         spinoff M.I.T (9.15pm, Sat, ITV) appears to stand for "Murder
         Investigation Team" rather than "Massachusetts Institute of
         Technology"... get out the markers and the whiteboard for a
         double-bill of LAW AND ORDER (10pm, Sat, C5) plus the best
         abandoned-by-Channel4 cop show ever, HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE
         STREET (11pm, Sat, C5)... and who knows what Robinson and
         Schofield are hoping to find this time with the now-annual
         TEST THE NATION: THE NATIONAL IQ TEST (8pm, Sun, BBC1) - it
         probably won't have gone up, given that the trailers count
         Angelina Jolie among THE 100 GREATEST MOVIE STARS (9pm, Sun &
         Mon, C4)... it's movies, movies, movies on Bank Holiday
         Monday, with candlepowered Kubrick classic BARRY LYNDON
         (11.50am, Mon, BBC2), Robert Altman-style ensemble chase caper
         IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD (1.10pm, Mon, ITV), darker side
         of "Toy Story" semi-CGI satire SMALL SOLDIERS (6.20pm, Mon,
         BBC1), "The Fast And The Furious" - but with surfers instead
         of cars! - POINT BREAK (9pm, Mon, C5), plus De Niro beat-'em-
         up RAGING BULL (12.05am, Mon, C4)... fortunately, Sky and
         cable subscribers can maintain some sort of balance with a
         remorseless 12 hours of DALEK DAY (7.20am, Mon, UK Gold)...
         occupational makeover show HEADHUNTING THE HOMELESS (9.50pm,
         Wed, BBC2) is appositely preceded by management intervention
         I'LL SHOW THEM WHO'S BOSS (9pm, Wed, BBC2)... can't wait to
         see what earth-shattering revelations they've dug up for
         HEATHER MILLS: THE REAL MRS MCCARTNEY (10pm, Wed, C4) - she's
         not really an amputee? is actually a top arms dealer? killed
         and ate Linda McCartney?... while the ever-insightful Dave
         Gorman and girl band "neX-us" http://www.nex-us.tv/ discuss
         their lunch preferences on THE NATION'S FAVOURITE FOOD (8pm,
         Thu, BBC2)...

         FILM>> another perfunctory outing of obvious special effects,
         appalling dialogue, and mutants, mutants, mutants - including
         one which, if you're not paying attention, appears to go by
         the name of "Biro" - make up tame "Wrath of Khan"-template
         sequel X2 (imdb: fighting/ leader/ mutant/ sequel/ based-on-
         comic/ superhero/ marvel-entertainment/ mansion/ bigotry/
         hatred/ racism/ adamantium-claws/ adamantium/ marvel-comics/
         wolverine)... otherwise it seems to be a good week to dump
         potentially underperforming local projects, like THE HEART
         OF ME ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : contains moderate sex and
         nudity), HEARTLANDS ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains
         moderate sex and language)... or, continuing the "starts with
         an H" theme, Steven Seagal, Ja Rule and Claudia "Babylon 5"
         Christian - together at last! - in HALF PAST DEAD (imdb:
         helicopter/ machine-gun/ martial-arts/ prison/ body-landing-
         on-car)...


                               >> 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
                            "24 hour party people"
        http://www.craphound.com/images/etcon2003pix/etcon2003pix.html

                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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  • HARD NEWS
  • ANTI-NEWS
  • EVENT QUEUE
  • TRACKING
  • MEMEPOOL
  • GEEK MEDIA
  • SMALL PRINT