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        "Film and computer superheroes, such as Keanu Reeves in the 
         Matrix, may not help either. Girls may want to go out with 
         Reeves but they don't necessarily want to fight interplanetary 
         wars for a living. Another factor could be the increasing move 
         towards hiring IT staff with computer science degrees..."
              - lack of women in IT blamed on unwillingness to "fight 
            interplanetary wars", choice of degree also a possibility?
         http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1205146,00.html


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                               bubbling fondues
 
         Mr Blunkett's publicity campaign to gee Britons to get
         inky-fingered, red-eyed and funky with their biometric
         entitlement cards continued this week. "This is about true
         identity," he said on Breakfast with Frost, in an apparent
         attempt to win over the Vernor Vinge fans. "Being known,
         being checkable, being used in order to ensure we know who's
         in the country, what they're entitled to and whether they're
         up to no good". And if that first mention of the cards'
         unique "Santa Claus" capability to discern moral failings
         in carriers isn't terrifying enough, you really should read
         the government's new 160 page opus on how they'll be running
         the show. It's not about the ID cards: it's about the huge
         centralised biometric database the government is planning to
         smuggle in on the back of it. Couldn't they just put the
         biometrics on the card where we can see them, and then store
         a comparison hash or some other translucent database
         technique centrally? Of course not. Terrorists would win.
         Feel free to add your own comments to the consultation,
         which requires replies by July 20th. And we're *so* sure
         they'll count all the responses correctly this time.
         http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs3/identitycardsconsult.pdf
                - consultation. "Vindicated" by bomb plot, apparently:
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3607141.stm
              - vs http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/000251.html
http://www.libdems.org.uk/index.cfm/page.homepage/section.home/article.6599
               - why not print them out + carry with you at all times?

         Regarding February's revelations about eBay-advertised pyramid 
         schemes: "Hi wonderful NTK people, Just read your article on 
         matrix scams", writes a reader whose name we'll omit for the 
         time being. "It's a Ponzi scheme. They're illegal. End of", he 
         continues (in fact, pyramid selling and other "endless chains" 
         don't seem to be illegal in the UK yet, though they are in 
         California), before kind of spoiling the whole thing by asking 
         "Why aren't lawmakers getting ebay to remove these ads? Decent 
         people working in legitimate network marketing companies (for 
         instance me) are getting tarred with the same brush as these 
         bastards". "Legitimate network marketing companies"? We really 
         don't want to know. 
         http://qwer.org/ebayUKiPodsByPrice.html
        - a lot less of them nowadays, due to possible eBay clampdown?
       http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?query=positive+feedback
        - also: guaranteed "positive feedback" from only 99c. Bargain.
         http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994783
          - in other recent story updates: Nanniebots - terminated...
         http://www.fairplay-campaign.co.uk/fruit/news.htm
             - ...fruit machines now slightly fairer than ever before?


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         flu-like symptoms are "just flu", Chinese astronauts maintain: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/30/dohsars.gif ... "I'm Halle 
         Berry, and as the first black woman to win 'Best Actress', my 
         PDA has to be": http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/30/dohberry.gif ... 
         http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/30/dohrolf.gif - who's a clever pet 
         then? *who's* a clever pet?... "perfect" cat clone still some 
         way off: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/30/dohlou.gif ... Widdy of 
         the week - if only fade-in text (top right) said "News from 
         the...": http://www.itvregions.com/index.php?region=Genital 
         ... one way to pacify that "hairier and heavier foe": 
         http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/30/dohfoe.gif ... not all that
         Mr Sterling can get on one page from the looks of things: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/30/dohbru.gif ... another satisfied 
         customer: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/30/dohc++.gif ... mmm, 
         crunchy: http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/30/dohcoal.gif ... 
         

                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                         GOTOs considered non-harmful

         Slightly fewer "unofficial" May Day demonstrations this year, 
         possibly to avoid one of those awkward "Which should I go to?" 
         clashes with appearances by former Computer Shopper columnist/ 
         Perl programmer turned sci-fi author CHARLIE STROSS (plus the 
         now living in the UK CORY DOCTOROW) at "fannish" SF con PLOTKA 
         3.0 (from 11am Sat-Mon 2004-05-01/03, Chequers Hotel, Newbury 
         RG14, day membership from UKP10). Hopefully remaining outside 
         the realms of science fiction, however, are plans to launch a 
         a tethered "cloud" of helium balloons under the curious name 
         of SKY EAR (7pm, Tue 2004-05-04, Maritime Museum, London SE10, 
         free?) - balloons which you can contact via your mobile phone 
         and which change colour according to the electromagnetic 
         environment. In other words, all the ingredients (with the 
         possible addition of an unexpected bolt of lightning) for the 
         creation of humanity's first self-aware electromagnetic flying 
         brain-swarm, which will then proceed to hunt down horrified 
         onlookers like the sentinels in "The Prisoner" or something. 
         http://www.schnews.org.uk/pap/guide.htm#may 
                          - "genuinely just an anti-capitalist picnic"
         http://www.plokta.com/plokta.con/programme.html
             - plus Belly Dancing/ Dance Dance Revolution masterclass
         http://www.haque.co.uk/skyear/information.html
             - just hope those carbon fibre tethers are strong enough
         http://www.corsair-records.com/
              - free boot-friendly label launch in East London on Sat


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         DIRAC looks to be the BBC equivalent of a skunkworks
         operation: hidden away, hardly documented - yet public
         service and, in its own way, rather subversive. It's an
         experimental video codec released by Beeb R&D onto a
         sourceforge site under a GPL-compatible license. Now, what 
         we know about video encoding could be compressed into
         a negative size bytestream, so we can't speak for its
         viability. Off the top of our heads, its mention of
         arithmetic coding is worrying, given how patent-encumbered
         that area is. But still, an open source streaming protocol
         with an eye to production video, and even a hint of a chance
         of being adopted by a large media organisation *cough*.
         If could even give Ogg Theora a bit of a kick, and that's 
         got to be a worthy way of spending your license fee.
         http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/dirac
                                  - well compared to "Pet TV", anyway
         http://xparam.sf.net/
          - you'll need this (it's getopt on OOP steroids) to compile
         http://www.theora.org/
                                         - due last year, coming soon!


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

         usecrime in progress - British Sign Language for the 
         *extremely dedicated*: http://www.learnbsl.org/index2.html ... 
         US orchestras not playing at Proms this year - because BBC 
         couldn't clear webcast rights?... one for the "tinfoil wallet" 
         brigade: http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/000198.html - 
         more to the point, how many previous journeys can newsagents 
         read off your Oystercard?... the ultimate goal of all true 
         revolutionaries - dental insurance *everyone* can afford: 
         http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/political+activism 
         ... double URL-tendres of the month: http://bendertimes.com/ 
         http://www.muffinfilms.com/ , http://www.munters.at/ , 
         http://www.labia.co.za/ ... more seamless Beeb photoshoppery: 
     http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/features/2004/01/gervais_streetname.shtml
         ... swap http://www.skip.org.uk/ hardware for the interface of  
     http://www.localliberty.com/swap/TubeSearch.aspx?cityName=London&cityID=1
         

                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less
         
         TV>> amount spent promoting healthy eating in the UK = less 
         than individual food companies' annual advertising budgets, 
         reveals the "Fat Pushers" edition of new current affairs slot 
         30 MINUTES (6pm, Sat, C4)... C4 follows a repeat of its 100 
         GREATEST SEXY MOMENTS (9pm, Sat, C4) with number 64 entry 
         CRASH (1am, Sat, C4) - beating off Bollywood taboo-breaker 
         "Jism" at number 92... and then appears to be cynically 
         targeting its own viewers with I LIKE TO WATCH (11.05pm, Thu, 
         C4), a hard-hitting documentary on all forms of voyeurism... 
         Rome wasn't built in a day, but London can be cobbled together 
         in a couple of hours, argues part-CGI reconstruction LONDON: 
         THE GREATEST CITY (4.05pm, Mon, C4)... the D-Day landings were 
         conveniently scheduled over the Bank Holiday weekend, imply 
         anniversary showings of D-DAY: THE ULTIMATE CONFLICT (9pm, 
         Mon, C5), DESTINATION D-DAY (8pm, Wed, BBC1) and Michael Bay's 
         vacuous yet visually entertaining PEARL HARBOUR (8.30pm, Mon, 
         BBC1)... or there's a double bill of talking canine companions 
         in Chris Morris' MY WRONGS #8245-8249 & 117 (2.30am, Mon, C4) 
         and Don Johnson's post-apocalyptic A BOY AND HIS DOG (2.45am, 
         Mon, C4)... estate agents, banks - and self-righteous 
         investigative reporters? - are among the main objections of 
         BRASSED OFF BRITAIN (7pm, Tue & Thu, BBC1)... child hothousing 
         horrorshow IN SEARCH OF GENIUS (9pm & 11.20pm, Wed, BBC2) is 
         hosted by Tony Buzan - almost the UK's own Edward de Bono, and 
         not in a good way... and among the means examined of obtaining 
         REVENGE: GETTING EVEN WITH YOUR EX (10pm, Wed, C5) is what the 
         Radio Times can only describe as "a repulsive pie"...
         
         FILM>> Michel Gondry extracts convincing performances from 
         Winslet and Carrey, wheels out the best of his mind-boggling 
         video effects http://www.director-file.com/gondry/D.html in 
         heartfelt Charlie Kaufman romantic head trip ETERNAL SUNSHINE 
         OF THE SPOTLESS MIND ( http://www.cndb.com/ : [Kirsten Dunst] 
         dancing in a see through white shirt and in pink panties; 
         [Mark Ruffalo] puts on his underwear but the shot is always 
         cut to give us no more than the top part. Perhaps we'll get a 
         better view in the widescreen version on DVD)... nothing else 
         even comes close this week, though word is that Stephen King 
         got the rights to "Kingdom Hospital" in some sort of "swap" 
         for 12A-cert Johnny Depp short story adaptation SECRET WINDOW 
         ( http://www.ahafilm.info/movies/moviereviews.phtml?fid=7565 : 
         includes a morbid depiction of violence against an animal as 
         well as mild action involving a mouse and a squirrel)... it's 
         Orlando "Legolas" Bloom, Ronni "Big Impression" Ancona, and 
         Billie "bloody" Piper - together at last! - in Brit fish-out-
         of-water comedy THE CALCIUM KID ( imdb keywords: milkman/ 
         boxer/ boxing/ champion/ england/ mockumentary)... while Drew 
         "50 First Dates" Barrymore and Ben "Along Came Polly" Stiller 
         are imaginatively teamed in fortunately-not-based-on-the-
         Madness-song mad old nightmare neighbour contrivance OUR HOUSE 
         ( http://www.ahafilm.info/movies/moviereviews.phtml?fid=7538 : 
         a scene of mild action involving dogs and one with a mouse)... 

     

                               >> 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
               "using the exclusive NTK Science Scoring System"
       http://www.peerview-institute.org/ntk/ntk.nsf/html/ntkscience.html
        

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