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        "The company says that the software may accidentally block a 
         picture of a new born child, but it would permit facial shots 
         to go through..."
                     - Irish software house Telcotec launch their own 
                             sure-to-be-popular "adult content filter"
                        http://www.cellular-news.com/story/8805.shtml


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                             counting two by two

         You'd think that the government department hoping to
         maintain a database of all UK citizens would be a bit more
         careful about losing people. "The 2,000 responses we have
         received from individuals ... have been about 2:1 in favour
         of introducing [ID Cards]", said Beverley Hughes in
         Parliament on April 28th. Well, that's strange: we could
         have sworn that over 5000 replies were relayed by STAND's
         mail-your-consultation-comments Web form. What's happened to
         their comments? Do they count as one vote - a sort of giant
         Interweb representative? And if so, do we all get to use the
         same ID card? And do all the people who sent their replies
         in by post get represented by one giant Royal Mail vote?
         Inquiring minds not only want to know -they might want to
         mail Beverley Hughes directly at degayj@parliament.uk and
         ask - where did my comment end up? Oh, and if you cc:'d your
         MP on your submission, maybe you could ask him or her too.
         They must be around in Westminster *somewhere*.
         http://makeashorterlink.com/?M46652084
                              - we refer the correspondent to Hansard
         http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,9290,-2575,00.html
                       - our Minister for Citizenship and Immigration
         http://www.faxyourmp.com/
                                 - if they don't have email addresses

         Just as the TV CREAM website takes a nostalgic look back at 
         the television, music and foodstuffs of yesteryear, so we like 
         to fondly recall the "good old days" of last November, when 
         the Daily Mail would quote the TV Cream site without any 
         attribution. Because nowadays the Mail's sister paper, the 
         given-away-free-on-the-London-Underground METRO, casts its 
         Google searches a little wider. When Thursday's "Treats They 
         Took Away From Us" retro-sweets round-up described Pacers as 
         tasting "like a tube of toothpaste dissolved in a swimming 
         pool", we couldn't tell whether they were referencing TV 
         Cream's "like a tube of Colgate toothpaste dissolved in a 
         swimming pool" or the very same quote which appears on a 
         (rival?) site called Nostalgia Central. The Metro's text 
         ("Aztec bar: Cadbury's failed answer to the Mars bar. A basic 
         sausage of fudge, no chocolate, with peanuts stuck to the 
         outside") usually follows the phrasing of Nostalgia Central 
         ("Aztec: Cadbury's incorrect answer to the Mars bar - a simple 
         concept that didn't last. It was a sausage of fudge with 
         peanuts stuck to the outside"), itself easily confused with TV 
         Cream's "Aztec: Cadbury's incorrect, raisin-addled answer to 
         the Mars bar - a simple concept that didn't last". So, will TV 
         Cream be more annoyed about Associated Newspapers quoting them 
         without credit, or by the fact they've started going somewhere 
         else?
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/09/dohmet.jpg
                  - vs http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/pop/sweets.htm , 
                              vs http://www.tv.cream.org/arksweet.htm 
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02002-11-01&l=46#l
                                            - a simpler, happier time

         Concerned reader and diligent student JAMES SMITH voices the 
         hopes and fears of many by asking: "Are any plans for a repeat 
         EXTREME COMPUTING event this year?" And, if there are, he 
         pleads, could we contrive not to hold it "slap bang in the 
         middle" of his exams this time round? Well, it looks like 
         you're in luck, James, as we've neglected to plan anything at 
         all for the summer, in a pre-emptive bid to avoid clashes with 
         two other events which don't seem to have come together yet 
         either. Still, by way of consolation, here's a downloadable 
         version of the unofficial theme from last year's event. Yes, we 
         did make some disparaging comments about "vocal samples over 
         piss-poor [bedroom] techno" last week, but this appears to be 
         some anti-piracy proponent holding forth over the acid house 
         classic "Narcotic Influence" by Empirion. Which, we think 
         you'll agree, is really a different proposition altogether.
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/09/DownloadingLivesAway.mp3
                        - 1,900K 4-minute MP3. 100% nosebleed techno. 
         http://www.xcom2003.com/
                            - Nothing to see here. Please move along.


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         YAHOO surprisingly gung-ho about medical self-experimentation: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/09/dohgab.gif ... presumably the 
         Latin for "You Will Be Assimilated - Resistance Is Futile": 
         http://members.microsoft.com/partner/support.aspx ... position 
         of big, little hands: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/09/doh420.gif 
         (banner ad @ snopes.com)... artists confused over difference 
         between "infinite", 6: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3013959.stm ... 
         ... all the good domains have gone (#1 in an ongoing series): 
     http://revelation-bible-jesus-christ-revelation-bible-jesus-christ.com/
         ... unfortunate phonetic acronym ahoy: http://www.fcme.co.uk/ 
         ... URL targeting those who "cut down trees, wear high heels, 
         suspendies, and a bra"?: http://www.lumbermansexchange.com/ 
         ... and if we don't do Google Goofs we just end up with lame 
         dohs - 'cos there's nothing happier than a kid in a box: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/09/dohhappy.gif ... 


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

         The loosely London-based CARTOGRAPHIC CONGRESS appears to be 
         in full swing, with arguably its most comprehensible event so 
         far being WiFi scavenger hunt NODERUNNER LONDON (from 6.30pm, 
         Thu 2003-05-13, the "edge of Hackney", free but contestants 
         will require a digital camera, GPS unit, and wireless laptop 
         running Netstumbler or similar). Presumably you can join their 
         mailing list for details on this and other events, including 
         this weekend's Field Trip to Kennington Park and - even more 
         exotically - the opening of a "Northwest Passage" to Atlantis. 
         On the subject of abstract quests round East London, next 
         weekend's 2000AD/SFX magazine-sponsored LONDON EXPO (11am to 
         5pm, Sat & Sun 2003-05-17 & 18, Excel Centre, E16, from UKP6) 
         aims to satisfy almost every member of your local "Comic Book, 
         Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Role-Playing Club", with 
         guests from JAMES "Scotty from Star Trek" DOOHAN to MICHELLE 
         "Buffy's Sister" TRACHTENBERG. But, as the FAQ small print 
         points out, "All guests will be charging to autograph items, 
         the costs are set by the guest personally". 
         http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/CcSchedule
        - http://downlode.org/noderunner/ is an "aspect" of the above
         http://www.londonexpo.com/
            - we said: Robert Picardo *above* "Rimmer from Red Dwarf"
         http://www.cybersalon.org/
                      - yet more CyberSalon craziness over at the ICA
         http://www.ica.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=21
          - when they're not talking about the Arthur C Clarke awards


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         The Linux Bootable Business Card (LNX-BBC) is 40 megs of
         purest ISO image - just small enough to fit onto one of
         those Business Card CD-Rs, just big enough to boot into a
         reasonally fully-fledged Linux system without touching your
         hard drive. So far, so average emergency boot disk. What
         makes the LNX-BBC different is the level of heavyweight
         distro-engineering that's gone into that forty megs. Its
         home-grown dev system, GAR, is a full-featured
         BSD-ports-like system for Linux, good enough to become the
         GNOME2 beta-testers dev harness of choice. In its native
         environment, GAR's been used to reconfigure, strip down,
         relink and rebuild the entire Linux toolkit: Xwindows,
         ethereal, ogg vorbis, vnc, ssh, openssl, Perl and Python,
         ddate and cowsay are all there on the CD, in skinnier
         swimwear than they've ever dared wear, waving at you,
         beckoning, taunting. Version 2.1 has just shipped, with the
         latest versions of everything - although you should wait for
         a couple of days before the feast of downloadable add-on
         packages arrives. LNX-BBC 2.1 can be snatched from their
         site, via bittorrent if you're feeling generous. And if
         you're feeling ultra-generous, join the Free Software
         Foundation and receive one as your membership bribe.
         http://www.lnx-bbc.org/
       - well done, the BBC! (as people are always reported as saying 
                                                          by the BBC).
         http://member.fsf.org/benefits.html
- although apparently the 2.1 CD shipment may be delayed due to SARS (true)
         http://www.nog.net/~tony/warez/cowsay.shtml
                                                                - moo


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

         because fan fiction needs literary criticism more than most: 
         http://www.geocities.com/fractalforge/fractal_clich.htm ... 
         if b3ta hasn't animated it, it may be necessary to invent it: 
         http://www.petinventionco.com/Kitty%20Kaster%20Cat%20Toy.htm 
         ... GUARDIAN crossword now doubling as rude-word wordsearch: 
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/crossword/java/complete/0,7090,-5848,00.html
         ... really ought to be bundled with that "Microsoft toilet": 
  http://www.idealhomeshow.co.uk/content/attractions/content.asp?location=32 
         ... tornados, earthquakes are up, but false Christs are down: 
         http://www.raptureme.com/rap2.html ... when oh when will the 
         public tire of swearing ISPs: http://www.illfuckinghostit.com/ 
         ... hey, it's a Tony Blair that does what you want him to: 
         http://myfreecursors.com/ ... Jobs, Kamen drive WOZ to drink:
         http://www.woz.org/seg/images/SEGstory_01b.jpg ... 


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> it's late-night dystopia night with Cronenberg's laboured 
         videogame-acting spoof EXISTENZ (11.25pm, Fri, BBC1), Charlton 
         Heston recycling parable SOYLENT GREEN (1.05am, Fri, BBC1) and 
         George "Just Shoot Me!" Segal's neuro-implants turning him 
         into a murderer in Michael Crichton's THE TERMINAL MAN 
         (12.40am, Fri, C5)... Fred West, Peter Sutcliffe and Harold 
         Shipman face tough competition from the likes of Neil and 
         Christine Hamilton in the race to find the 100 WORST BRITONS 
         (8pm, Sat, C4)... and ITV2 moves from Woody Allen Bogart 
         homage PLAY IT AGAIN SAM (8.30pm, Sat, ITV2) to a different 
         kind of virtual character in THE MAKING OF THE MATRIX RELOADED 
         (10.20pm, Sat, ITV2)... TRON (1pm, Sun, BBC1) is inexplicably 
         postponed from a previous planned showing over the Easter 
         weekend... THE WORLD'S FIRST PREDATORS (7pm, Sun, C5) turn out 
         to be giant computer-generated insects ... MAGNETIC FLIP (8pm, 
         Sun, C4) shows the science behind recent pseudo-scifi hilarity 
         "The Core"... and flip between BREMNER, BIRD AND FORTUNE: 
         BEYOND IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE (9pm, Sun, C4) and Arabic behind-
         the-scenes AL-JAZEERA EXCLUSIVE (9pm, Sun, BBC2)... the 
         sequels are showing next week, but still aren't in quite the 
         same league as the original ALIEN (10pm, Sun, C4)... Joss 
         Whedon's FIREFLY (8pm, Mon, Sci-Fi) is basically a steampunk 
         Battlestar Galactica version of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" - 
         but in space, instead of a school. And not enough of the 
         character who's supposed to be "Willow"... and, even though 
         the competition is between Lockkeed and Boeing, the real 
         winner is always going to be the military industrial complex 
         in US-defence bid docu BATTLE OF THE X-PLANES (8pm, Mon, C4) - 
         contrast with the rather more contemporary terrorists-taking-
         over-theatres threat of TERROR IN MOSCOW (9pm, Mon, C4)... the 
         all-too-real horror of killer traffic jams is explored in 
         mockumentary THE DAY BRITAIN STOPPED (9pm, Tue, BBC2)... the 
         "Most Dangerous Man In Britain" gets a chance to perpetuate 
         his memes in PROFILE: RICHARD DAWKINS (11.20pm, Wed, BBC2)... 
         and maybe it's not too late for a terrestrial premier of 
         topical - though occasionally heavy-handed - Gulf War satire 
         THREE KINGS (9pm, Thu, C5)... 
         
         FILM>> Seann William "American Pie, Road Trip" Scott provides 
         his critical imprimatur in the form of a cameo appearance in 
         the unashamedly retrogressive frathouse gross-out OLD SCHOOL 
         ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Old+School+%282003%29 :
         Will ["Saturday Night Live" Ferrell] shows a lot of rear 
         nudity and even brief frontal nudity [...]; a couple of hot 
         sorority girls are topless in an oil wrestling competition 
         about halfway through the film, and the camera lingers on the 
         right areas for quite a while)... Emma "Anya from Buffy The 
         Vampire Slayer" Caulfield makes her big-screen debut in the 
         otherwise undistinguished small-town ghost-chaser DARKNESS 
         FALLS ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/darknessfalls.htm :
         bloody sputum; explosive startles with strong fright factor, 
         at least 17; excessive cleavage; graphically unholy presence, 
         repeatedly)... following the prophetic accuracy of "101 
         Dalmatians" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3009537.stm - producers 
         are falling over themselves to film Dodie Smith's other books, 
         starting with non-Quake-themed quirky 1930s romance I CAPTURE 
         THE CASTLE ( imdb: based-on-novel/ bohemian/ nudist)... else 
         it's just the unappealing prospect of another Heather Graham 
         turkey, this time co-starring Colin Firth in ill-judged 
         transatlantic rom-com HOPE SPRINGS ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk : 
         one use of strong language and mild sexual references)... 
         
         CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> much-valued http://www.snackspot.org/ 
         contributor JOSH ROULSTON emails to ask "So is NTK fragmenting 
         into lots of mini-sites which export XML data which is used 
         with a bit of XSLT to autogenerate NTK - or is it just a 'Lone 
         Gunmen' of a spin-off?" To be honest, Josh, a bit of both - in 
         the 6 short weeks since Snackspot's public unveiling, it's 
         seen things we wouldn't have previously believed: LIQUORICE 
         SKITTLES in a newsagent near Victoria station, Australian TIM 
         TAMS on the shelves of Tesco. And taken in such curiosities as 
         TOPPS JUICY DROP POP, WALKERS SHOTS, MCCAIN "SMOULDERING 
         VIBES" HOT CRISPS, and X-MEN 2: THE CEREAL along the way. 
         Following the popularity of VANILLA COKE, this month's most 
         controversial product was VANILLA ICE CREAM FLAVOUR MONSTER 
         MUNCH http://www.snackspot.org/thread.php?story=0304281608cas 
         - receiving accolades as varied as "not too sweet", "really 
         tastes like ice cream", "disgusting", and "simply hideous". 
         The title of Product Name Which Really Sounds Like It Ought To 
         Be A Double-Entendre passed from previous holder MR FUNNY'S 
         RUNNY HONEY to BOB THE BUILDER'S CHEESY TOOL BAG (also 
         available in "Bob's Pickled Onion" and "Bob's Prawn Cocktail" 
         varieties), while the hotly-contested "Taste Abomination" 
         award goes to BRITVIC FREEKEE SODA CARBONATED MILK DRINK, 
         largely on the strength of its "Is that a hint of Magic 
         Markers?" bouquet - just the strawberry flavour though, the 
         orange version is fine... something else we weren't expecting 
         was the high standard of international contributions, from the 
         sightings of TROPICAL SPRITE REMIX to astonishing revelations 
         about what the Australians came up with after the MAGNUM SEVEN 
         DEADLY SINS debacle - the "SIXTIES NINE" range of ostensibly 
         1960s-themed lollies, including "Jami Hendrix", "John Lemon" 
         and, bafflingly, "Choc Work Orange", an ice-cream inspired by 
         the ultraviolent Kubrick film which, BEN MOOR felt compelled 
         to point out, was actually released in 1971. Debate continues 
         at http://www.snackspot.org/thread.php?story=0302141653cpi ... 
         what's tested down under usually ends up here (eventually), 
         which means good news for fans of WHITE MALTESERS (due in the 
         UK before Christmas), or New Zealand's "Luxury" and "Noir" 
         versions of CADBURY'S FLAKE. But hopefully we won't have to 
         wait as long for the imminent (battery-flavoured?) MATRIX 
         RELOADED POWERADE, PRIVATE ENERGY DRINK (intended to enhance 
         "adult activities"), and STARBUCKS MOCHA COCONUT FRAPPUCCINO 
         - the US version of which contained 23 grams (an entire US 
         recommended daily allowance) of saturated fat, according to 
         http://www.cspinet.org/new/200210072.html . And there doesn't 
         seem to be any nutritional info on http://www.starbucks.com/ - 
         wonder why...


                               >> 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
              "PAYS WHORL NAG PIGEONHOLE. TRY AM'ED QUIETEST NO GINO"
http://www.crummy.com/devel/eater/eater.cgi/?url-EoM=www.ntk.net&eat-EoM=words

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