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         [ The answers to last week's quiz, in as horrific a text
         formatting as we could muster in the time available. ]

                               >> BLOCK QUOTE <<
                            who said this about what?

         "So what's worse than a rich guy who creates format
         protocols that are sticky, has a high flow weblog, and a
         fellowship at Harvard? Not much."
      A. DAVE WINER, a rich guy who creates format protocols that are
         sticky, has a high flow weblog and a fellowship at Harvard,
         being uncontroversial for once.
         http://archive.scripting.com/2003/05/07#When:5:41:06PM

         "An alcoholic, a BigCo employee and a 16 year old kid"
      A. DAVE WINER again - answering, it seems, his own question. The
         expression - which refers to "Dive Into Python" author Mark
         Pilgrim, XML guru Sam Ruby, and, uh, 16 year old kid Aaron
         Swartz, popped up in a piece Dave wrote, attacking Pilgrim
         and others for "stalking" him by automatically tracking
         his continuous and invisible re-writes of his articles.
         A while later, Dave re-edited the piece, deleting the
         phrase. So we guess he didn't say it at all. Our goof.
         http://essaysfromexodus.scripting.com/stories/storyReader$2108

         "Most Brits that I spoke with had never used the Internet"
      A. Ars (snigger) Digita chief mourner PHIL GREENSPUN,
         complaining that the $300 a night hotels he stayed in didn't have Net
         access. Of course, a lot of people in those hotels haven't used a bus
         either, so what does that prove, you big mobile-spurning ninny?
         http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2003/06/04#a459

         "What are they going to do next? Start putting chips in
         people to make sure we are eating properly?"
      A. Top Seventies DJ TONY BLACKBURN, temporarily standing in as
         the Sunday Times' privacy expert. Either that, or pulling
         quotes from Classic Gold when you're on the way to the office
         counts as research.
         http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-790512,00.html

         "Then for whatever reason the pictures then became part of
         the desktop and filled up the whole screen. Then I started
         to panic, thinking the pictures would perhaps go anywhere
         else on the computer that they shouldn't."
      A. The aptly named EAMONN GALL, who claimed that all the pr0n
         his wife found on their PC had come from the brand-new digital camera
         he'd just bought. What-ever.
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/2997317.stm

         "I'd be there too, but my head would be a casio keyboard and
         when I got angry it would play the demo."
      A. STRONGBAD, discussing his kah-razy cartoon. Cuppin' Cakes.
         (You see, you can't Google for all of these. Especially when we badly
         paraphrase the quote.)
         http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail72.html

         "Whenever someone thinks that they can replace SSL/SSH with
         something much better that they designed this morning over
         coffee, their computer speakers should generate some sort of
         penis-shaped sound wave and plunge it repeatedly into their
         skulls until they achieve enlightenment."
      A. PETER GUTMANN, in... wait, hold the keyboard! Jamie Zawinksi writes:
         "While it is true that Mr. Gutmann used that phrase in a
         message to the cryptography mailing list in Sep 2003 --
         http://www.mit.edu:8008/bloom-picayune/crypto/14238 -- he
         lifted it from a comment made by Mr. Makali in my
         LiveJournal in Dec 2002 --
         http://www.livejournal.com/users/jwz/123070.html#t521918 --
         which entered the wider vernacular when my page
         http://www.jwz.org/doc/linuxvideo.html was Slashdotted in Jan
         2003 -- http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/24/1440207
         The original formation was
         makali: 'Whenever a programmer thinks, "Hey, skins, what a
                  cool idea", their computer's speakers should create some
                  sort of cock-shaped soundwave and plunge it repeatedly
                  through their skulls.'
         jwz: 'I fully support your proposed audio-cock technology.'"

         So now you know.

         "It was a girl who answered! They know our weakness!"
      A. Penny Arcade, who evilly tried to bury an entire children's
         hospital in toys this Christmas like some Batman
         arch-criminal or something, indulge in some geek-on-geek
         violence with the Linux weenies.
         http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-06-30&res=l

         "You got your STM/ over 1310/ You got your SRP/ which is DPT"
      A. Our favourite sysadmin filk since http://www.kiai.org/ssh/ :
         http://etabeta.noc.seabone.net/inutilities/gigflapping.mp3

         "Peter Jackson?...  Who do you think you are, you fucking
         hack? ... SHAME ON YOU!"
      A. Smeagol/Gollum, ungratefully accepting an MTV award on
         behalf of his programmers. Well, at least it's not Gandalf
         talking about gay porn again.
         http://www.theonering.net/scrapbook/view/6856
http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=24507#gandalf
                               - Gandalf talking about gay porn again

         "That's all right Caucasians, your time is coming"
      A. The TV in the background of the PARIS HILTON tape. Still no
         news of the alleged full 45-minute version, signalling perhaps
         that the 3.5 minute leak was merely a CGI demo tape. We have a
         t-shirt waiting for the first person to redub the Hilton
         tape onto a blurry Gollum/Nazgul machinima re-enactment.
         http://www.geocities.com/hipechik34/stuff/blowbyblow.html

                                >> ANTI-GONE <<
        to which dearly departed do these falco euphemisms refer?

         Dispatched, is now out.
      A. Before the Register, before Suck, before Netly News, before
         the invention of the teletype, there was Brock Meek's
         "Cyberwire Despatch": the original Net investigative
         journalist newsletter. On hiatus since 1999 (while its
         author struggled with some horrid family matters), Meeks
         finally put the Dispatch to rest, with his standard .sig:
         "Meeks out". Mr Meeks, we salute you!
http://www.politechbot.com/pipermail/politech/2004-January/000297.html

         A Friend of Dead
      A. Peer Information, publishers of Wrox Press and the
         Alcoholics Anonymous of tech support, Friends of Ed, died like a dog
         this year. Thank God everyone downloaded the ripped PDFs of their 
         works before they disappeared from the shops, hey?
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-03-21&l=11#l

         Has vanished below "erotic furries" in the hierarchy.
      A. The Brunching Shuttlecocks, creators of Evil Overmom and the
         Geek Hierarchy, had the periodicity of their updates
         approach asymptotically to infinity.
         http://www.brunching.com/evilovermom.html
         http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html

         Now more luggable than ever.
      A. Adam Osborne, inventor of the Osbourne I barely-liftable
         laptop (took fifteen people to carry the pall, etc). You got
         extra points if you quibbled with George Morrow, developer
         of the S100 bus, and creator of a short-lived competitor to
         the Ozzy, who also suspiciously died. We think somebody is
         trying to kill off everybody who knew CP/M. That person may
         be God.
         http://www.bricklin.com/adamosborne.htm
         http://news.com.com/2100-1008-1000732.html

         He has been inserted into a higher table.
      A. Ted Codd, inventor of the relational database. He'll never
         be replaced. Or if he is, it should only be in one place,
         and be performed atomically through a single known SQL
         front-end.

         Still winning those continually outdated web page awards.
      A. D.A. Barham, old friend of NTK, and creator of the
         Continually Outdated Webpage Award Testimonial
         (C.O.W.P.A.T.). It was her kind of joke.


                                >> TRACKING <<
                             where would you find:

         A game whose idea is "to perform various moves on breasts?"
      A. "Frontal Assault", http://fa.xmunkki.org/, placed fourth at
         Assembly '03. Extra point for knowing that the winner was
         "Truck Dismount", the sequel to the hyper-addictive
         falling-down-stairs game, Dismount. http://jet.ro/dismount/

         A "Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity"
      A. The Rapture Index - which has declined a few points
         recently. Hey, things are looking up! Well, if you're not a
         fundamentalist Christian. Or the anti-christ.
         http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html

         At least two notations for describing sexual positions.
      A. This is the sort of reader correspondence that makes life
         worth living.
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-08-15&l=264#l

         A place to ask (futilely) how to melt wood and polos?
      A. news://bionet.biophysics - failing to come up with the goods
         since 1994.
         http://groups.google.com/groups?th=34e75e612afff39b&rnum=1

         A Spectrum emulator for the ZX 81?
      A. Somebody really needs to implement a Shark-Jumping game for this:
         http://www.chuntey.com/SP81/

         A book explaining how Microsoft is an instrument of God?
      A. "With an even deeper joy I clearly saw that this event was
         not an isolated one:  every major experience throughout my
         entire Microsoft career had profound spiritual significance!
         ... And far from being a waste, my years in the halls of
         high technology were utterly essential to my spiritual growth!"
         - from "Mystic Microsoft", by Kraig Brockschmidt, "former
         Microsoft developer and author of the bestselling book,
         Inside OLE". The clue here is the phrase "far from being a
         waste".
         http://www.anandasangha.net/mysticmicrosoft/Prologue.htm

                               >> MEME SILAGE <<
                              what was (or were)?

         Splastic?
      A. "Splastic: The bouncing putty compound [...] that can be
         twisted, stretched and molded": 
     http://www.finanz-nachrichten.de/nachrichten/artikel-1788522.asp

         Spazz?
      A. "With its simple design and clean lines not only will you
         look good in your 'Spazz' but your maneuverability will be
         unsurpassed". It's a wheelchair.
         http://www.sportaid.com/catalog/page16.htm

         Spackers?
      A. "Call them spackers -- they're the new breed of computer
         crackers who earn a living in cahoots with spammers."
         http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60747,00.html

         Mugwhump Jism?
      A. The protocol signature for WASTE, Nullsoft's "accidentally
         released" anonymous file-sharing utility.
         http://grazzy.mjoelkbar.net/waste/

         Ginny, or Ninny, or "Peter's Peg"?
      A. Calcium, from the "Look Around You" team's original short
         film, now available on DVD as:
         http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000AISIY

         EDOOFUS and EBUTTHEAD
      A. Rejected names for a FreeBSD error return constant,
         after Apple complained of the source code impropriety.
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-05-16&l=69#l

         root@10.2.2.2's password?
      A. Z10N0101, according to Matrix Reloaded. Remember when you
         were actually looking forward to the Matrix sequels? That's
         what a year does to you. It's what it does to us all.
         http://www.cs.auc.dk/~fleury/matrix.html


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> MOVING TO MARS (8pm, Fri, C5) explores the feasibility - 
         though not whether there's actually any point - of colonising 
         other planets - as Sterling says, why not the Gobi Desert? 
      http://engaged.well.com/engaged/engaged.cgi?a=r&c=inkwell.vue&t=204
         ... Timewatch reopens BRITAIN'S X-FILES (9pm, Fri, BBC2)... 
         and for a bit of light-hearted escapism, C5 are rerunning the 
         extraordinary first series of THE SHIELD (11.10pm, Fri, C5)... 
         former underwear model Holly Willoughby leaves Fame Academy to 
         cohost new ITV Sat show MINISTRY OF MAYHEM (9.25am, Sat, ITV) 
         ... BBC2 pads its Saturday evening schedules for months to 
         come with BRITAIN'S BEST SITCOM (9pm, Sat, BBC2) - "Press 
         Gang" sadly overlooked as usual: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sitcom/ 
         ... and the urge to impregnate provides the subtext to both 
         "Alien" knockoff INSEMINOID (12.25am, Sat, BBC1) and SWINGERS 
         (11.45pm, Sat, C4)... we're looking forward to some of James 
         Nesbitt's zany Yellow Pages ads appearing in the breaks in his 
         hard-hitting crime drama WALL OF SILENCE (9pm, Mon, ITV)... C4 
         accidentally shows an evening of C5's programming, in the form 
         of World's Fastest Fascist docu NAZI GRAND PRIX (8pm, Mon, 
         C4), "CSI"-alike WITHOUT A TRACE (10pm, Mon, C4) and flightsim 
         recreation SPITFIRE ACE (9pm, Mon, C4) - but how would modern 
         pilots cope with the challenges of Amiga F/A 18 Interceptor? 
         http://radish.hosted.doosh.net/steiny/mt/archives/000027.html 
         ... while C5's GREAT SCIENTISTS (7.30pm, Mon, C5) kicks off 
         with Aristotle, followed by the world's largest unexploded 
         bomb in ULTIMATE EXPLOSIONS (8pm, Mon, C5)... hidden camera 
         shocker THE SACK RACE (9.30pm, Mon, BBC2) sounds like a 
         workplace reversioning of "My New Best Friend"... Anna "Lost 
         In Translation" Faris helms better-than-you'd-think trashy 
         "Scream" spoof SCARY MOVIE (10.30pm, Wed, ITV)... Jeremy 
         Clarkson celebrates a different form of lethal metalwork - the 
         gun - in INVENTIONS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD (8pm, Thu, BBC2)... 
         and it's Val Kilmer, Terence "General Zod" Stamp and Carrie-
         Anne Moss - together at last! - in rambling "whatever next?" 
         scifi B-movie RED PLANET (8pm, Thu, C5)... 

         FILM>> Tom Cruise remakes "Jerry Maguire" - with a Yul Brynner 
         lookalike as Cuba Gooding Jr - in anti-American Victorian-
         Japanese technology arms-race triumph (whatever ESR says: 
         http://www.ibiblio.org/esrblog/?m=200312#137 ) THE LAST 
         SAMURAI ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/lastsamurai.htm : 
         sensuality surrounding bathing; many deaths by arrow, gunfire, 
         cannon fire, sword, incineration and spear; The Japanese 
         culture of the time was seriously involved in worshiping a 
         false god, false in accordance with the Word of God)... while 
         Bill Murray and Scarlett "Ghost World" Johansson remake "Adam 
         And Joe Go Tokyo" - Murray as Adam, natch - in semi-aimless 
         contemporary crosscultural confusion LOST IN TRANSLATION 
       ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/lost_in_translation.html#sn : 
         We see a stationary shot of [Johansson's] midsection as she 
         lies sideways on a bed [...] wearing partially transparent 
         panties; We see [Johansson] in her panties and a shirt; We see 
         [Johansson] in her panties - and see lots of thigh; We see 
         [Johansson] in her panties)...


                               >> 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
                "the web's number 2 source of hot kitchen info" 
    http://www.kitchens-on-the-web.co.uk/stats/usage_200312.html#TOPREFS

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