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                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                                junk from SW2

         There we were, getting our hopes up about the ALL PARTY
         INTERNET GROUP, watching them catch on that spam was a
         serious problem, seeing them beetle off to Washington to
         hobnob with experts on the matter, cheering on the boyish
         enthusiasm of chairman DEREK WYATT MP for the topic. Derek,
         unfortunately, appears to be fighting the good fight with
         the Shield of Wholesale Technical Misunderstanding and the
         U-Shaped Gun Of Shooting One's Own Mouth Off. This week, he
         sent out a press release announcing his own proposed
         solution to spam. Postcodes. No, no, hear him out: Wyatt
         proposes that every UK address have the postcode of the
         recipient prepended between the domain and the .co.uk. So,
         he explains, "derekwyatt@aol.com" would become
         "derekwyatt@aol.swiaoaa.co.uk". Those who don't want to
         give out their postcode could use a six-digit code ("plus a
         pin number which would be held by the Information
         Commissioner's Office"). "Addresses ending .com", he adds,
         as an afterthought, "would need to identify their country of
         origin, such as .com.uk". Yes. Yes, they would, Derek. Mr
         Wyatt is soliciting feedback at wyattd@parliament.uk. Could
         you do it? We're busy banging our heads against this tree.
         http://www.derekwyattmp.co.uk/dereks_work/viewtopic.php?t=201
                   - just in case you thought he was being joe-jobbed
         http://www.apig.org.uk/
                                - and it was all looking so promising
         http://www.hexkey.co.uk/lee/log/2003/05/22/
                                  - the NTK campaign to Save Our SMTP

         You wait all year for the some decent political Net hackery,
         and then three come along at once. First publicwhip - and
         now from the unlikely auspices of the BBC, iCan, their
         scarily large-scale political involvement engine. iCan looks
         to be Meetup meets Friendster meets Moveon meets those bits
         in the Archers where they used to give you useful
         agricultural advice - but in a good way. It's still in beta,
         so it's all empty pages and new website smell right now. But
         you should at least take a whack at it before the government
         shuts it all down. Or at least before all the cool low
         numbered campaigns fill up with be "fake-prop" ragweek
         silliness and hard-working organisations devoted to freeing
         the "testinghellotessting123".
         http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ican/
                                           - the third is yet to come


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         just one step up: http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/24/dohbin.gif ... 
         another of those seamless print-to-web publicity transitions: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/24/dohhut.gif ...net less resilient 
         than solutions: http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/24/dohresi.gif ... 
         Hewlett Packard monitors to survive nuclear conflict - but 
         still worth investing in post-apocalyptic next-day tech 
         support: http://www.dabs.com/uk/productView.htm?quicklinx=166J 
         ... demo crew just love the new ZX81 with 24-channel 44kHz 
         audio: http://www.trsi.org/machines/other.asp ... "Bowleg 
         throwing" appears to be even more viral than they'd thought: 
         http://www.lycos.co.uk/viral/ ... hey, better late than never: 
         http://www.latesaversfrance.co.uk/ ... in accordance with 
         prophecy, new comedy mag features - angry, unsympathetic agony 
         aunt!: http://www.sourmashmagazine.com/sourlives.html ...


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

         Triumphing over both a recently broken arm and user groups 
         which he can't speak to because they haven't used the proper 
         "GNU/Linux" designation in their names, RICHARD "RMS" STALLMAN 
         will be sampling the UK's native cuisine *and* speaking about 
         software patents (he's against them, apparently) this very 
         weekend (1pm Sat 2003-10-25, Stoddart building, Sheffield 
         Hallam University; 2.30pm, Sun 2003-10-26, Cavendish Campus, 
         University of Westminster, London, both free - as in "freedom" 
         - but pre-registration advised). For an arguably less 
         confrontational approach to solving the world's problems, you 
         need look no further than Canada's WORLD ROCK PAPER SCISSORS 
         CHAMPIONSHIPS (7.30pm, Sat 2003-10-25, Kool Haus 132 Queens 
         Quay East, Toronto, Spectator tickets $15 on the door), whose 
         UK contenders reveal - we hope not foolhardily - many of their 
         tactics on their own hastily assembled website, including such 
         gems as "You need nerves of steel to throw three papers in a 
         row, as it's regarded as the most docile move and is 
         particularly vulnerable to an opponent who's using the 
         'toolbox' gambit (three scissors)."
         http://www.ukrpsteam.com/
         - swiftly corporate-hijacked, just like with Extreme Ironing
         http://www.sheflug.co.uk/meeting.html
                       - claims RMS to be a "friendly little monkey"?
         http://www.nickhill.co.uk/rms-speech-status.html
           - Sheffield venue appears to be just down the road from...
         http://www.ntkmart.co.uk/images/
              - ...NTK t-shirt exhibition (*must* close next Friday!)
         http://homepage.ntlworld.com/speccyverse/orsam.htm
              - next weekend: Norwich's biggest Spectrum and SAM Show 


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         THE REGEX COACH is a utility for Windows and Linux for
         testing out and walking through Perl-style regular
         expressions. You can interactively try out regexs on test
         data, find out which bits of the expression match what, view
         a graphical version parse tree, and get a confusing
         rendition of what the expression does in convoluted english.
         It's a minor miracle for anyone learning regular
         expressions, and will be a frequent timesaver even for those
         who have slashes on each side of their brain. And, of
         course, it's written in Common Lisp. What *is* it with
         everyone taunting the Perl guys these days?
         http://www.weitz.de/regex-coach/
    - guess they drop the "p" in "regexp" because it's not a question
         http://dev.perl.org/perl6/exegesis/E05.html
                                            - cometh the perl6::rules


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                contains a source of http://snackspot.org/

         http://qwer.org/synth.html channels The Onion's Smoove B: 
         http://www.theonion.com/archive/archive_smooveb.php - "Demo 
         CDs may also be provided"... submitting comedy "Oxo tower" 
         reviews http://www.london-eating.co.uk/2252.htm (see 10/10/03) 
         is the new "Martin Wank prank Amazon writeups"... putting all 
         our old Google misspellings/ OCR artefacts ("bum victims" etc) 
         into Amazon.com's new full text search... not like the others 
         #17: http://images.google.com/images?q=%22deanna+troi%22 ... 
         increasing professionalism killing the amateur spirit of eBay: 
         http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2761443653
         ... roll d6 for muggings: http://www.chooseyourownny.com/ ... 
         the Guardian - giving you both sides of the very same story: 
        http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1067446,00.html vs
        http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,1067224,00.html
         

                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> inexplicably, all the published listings describe last 
         week's plot for tonight's last-in-this-series episode of PEEP 
         SHOW (10.40pm, Fri, C4)... Welsh "Jackass"-alike DIRTY SANCHEZ 
         (11.45pm, Fri, C4) is, one hopes, the rudest TV title of all 
         time... and nothing kicks Saturday night off with more of a 
         bang than 1970s assassination thriller THE DAY OF THE JACKAL 
         (6.45pm, Sat, BBC2)... comedian Jimmy Carr and former "body 
         of Darth Vader" Dave Prowse serve up C4 viewers' THE 100 
         GREATEST SCARY MOMENTS (9.05pm, Sat & Sun, C4) - in a week 
         of Halloween movies that includes unexpected influence on US 
         aerial-photo-interpretation THE OMEN (11.25pm, Sat, BBC1) 
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2003-10-24/pols_naked6.html ,
         German psycho-thriller THE EXPERIMENT (9pm, Sat, BBC4), arms-
         biz suburban nightmare FALLING DOWN (10.55pm, Sun, BBC1), plus 
         karaoke comedy DUETS (11.30pm, Sun, BBC2) - featuring Gwyneth 
         Paltrow butchering "Bette Davis Eyes"... yet another "Matrix 
         night" (from 9pm, Sun, C5) features both DECODED: THE MAKING 
         OF MATRIX REVOLUTIONS (11.40pm, Sun, C5) and enough clues in 
         ANIMATRIX: SECOND RENAISSANCE (12.10am, Sun, C5) to make the 
         "mother of all spoilers" oh *so* obvious to true devotees: 
http://www.netalive.org/stuff/matrix-revolutions_mother-of-all-spoilers.txt
         ... BBC2 fills an inconvenient gap in its regular snooker 
         coverage with the jumped-the-shark-in-the-musical last-ever 
         series of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (6.45pm, Tue-Thu, BBC2)... 
         and we still like this opening "Merlin" anecdote from the 
         director of revenge classic POINT BLANK (11.45pm, Tue, BBC1) 
       http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1040562,00.html
         ... the BBC's entirely unpatronising Asian season climaxes 
         with THE JOY OF CURRY (8pm, Wed, BBC2)... there's even an 
         Asian lead in one-sided mobile phone drama YOU'RE BREAKING UP 
         (11.20pm, Wed, BBC2)... but it's nuclear annihilation night on 
         digital with a triple-bill of APOCALYPSE NOW - AND THEN (10pm, 
         Wed, BBC4), tedious "protect and survive" counter-propaganda 
         THREADS (10.40pm, Wed, BBC4) and an-all-too literal Hiroshima 
         edition of DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (12.35pm, Wed, BBC4)... 
         
         FILM>> half-term arrives with junior David Lynch-style prison 
         weirdness HOLES ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/holes.htm :
         unsafe rock climbing; flatulence; rudeness to many; lies)... 
         outdoor Caine/ Duvall/ Osment family feelgooder SECONDHAND 
         LIONS ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Distributor chose to remove 
         sight of illegal weapons (flick knives) and instructional use 
         of knife)... or a somewhat limited release for extended Daft 
         Punk anime video INTERSTELLA 5555: THE 5TORY OF THE 5ECRET 
         5TAR 5YSTEM ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : contains mild fantasy 
         violence)... George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones attempt 
         to broaden the mainstream appeal of the intolerable Coen 
         brothers' still undeniably quirky rom-com INTOLERABLE CRUELTY 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/intolerablecruelty.htm : 
         lusting after nudity; series of sexual antics, including 
         perversion; multiple divorces; cheapening the wrongness of 
         adultery)... while hardly anywhere at all appears to be 
         showing Vin Diesel-free infidelity drama "XXX" prequel XX/XY 
         ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=XX%2FXY : we see Mark 
         [Ruffalo] swimming in a pool underwater, and the trunks he's 
         wearing are very very loose and pushed down very low at the 
         back with the pressure of the water thus revealing about 3/4 
         of his ass)... 
         
         AVAILABLE IN A WIDE RANGE OF BLACK, DESATURATED RED, AND DARK 
         GREY>> yes, muted earth tones are "in" to celebrate the 
         official arrival of autumn over at http://www.ntkmart.co.uk/ . 
         Hot this month: our mock Japanese writing design consisting of 
         semi-random kanji and katakana characters, interspersed with 
         English phrases like "random japanese text" and "computer 
         hobby", plus one of those one of those freaking Internet 
         Explorer alert boxes on top of the whole thing, advising "To 
         display this shirt correctly you need to download: Japanese 
         Text Display Support", and so on. It's available in black, 
         charcoal (dark grey) and steel (turquoise blue), 50p from each 
         sale goes to recent Japlish contest winner DAVID GENTLE (for 
         suggesting the phrases "tap-tap machine" and "Is 'grooved'? 
         Yes grooved!"), while reader RONAN WAIDE has already confirmed 
         that the big writing up at the top does seem to mean something 
         like "to know [something] thing" and/or "shiru (to know) 
         hitsuyousei (necessity)" - hey, as long as it's nothing rude: 
       http://www.engrish.com/category_index.php?category=Adult%20Engrish
         ... "Memes don't exist/ Tell your friends" is also back at 
         last, "404 /shirt/tie not found" is additionally available in 
         tan (light brown/ dark yellow) and cedar (desaturated red), 
         but new reader designs continue to tickle our fancy, including 
         NONEMORENEGATIVE's refreshingly baffling "jumper setting" gag: 
     http://www.nonemorenegative.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/jumpers/jumpers.asp .
         JON PETERSON appeared to be promoting a radically pro-blog 
         position in http://www.snowdrift.org/images/blog1.gif , JOHN 
         MORTON implied that Richard Stallman is the new Che Guevara 
         http://kaos.org.nz/misc/jshirts/index.php#gnu , but many of 
         this month's top submissions were in text-only form, including 
         LLOYD WOOD borrowing "yet another cynical goth programmer" 
         from http://www.livejournal.com/users/cyn_goth_prog/ , and 
         DANIEL BARLOW's yet-more-succinct "within$ ssh system shutdown 
         -i0 -g0 -y". Don't forget to vote for your favourites by 
         mailing us at the usual NTK address, ideally including the 
         disclaimer "I am not a friend or colleague of the person who 
         originally sent the design in, though obviously have no way of 
         proving this". Speaking of which, tune in next time for the 
         results of our ground-breaking competition to find the UK's 
         most convincing email impersonation of TV's very own IAIN LEE: 
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-08-29&l=291#l ... 
                  

                               >> 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
                "not quite the opinion we're forming over here"
          http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1661

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