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Tips, news & gossip to tips@spesh.com - with NTK in subject line, cheers.

         
          Ian Harris, deputy editor of MacFormat, a British Mac 
          magazine, said he regularly runs Spymac-inspired features, 
          and finds the site indispensable for getting story ideas and 
          taking the pulse of the Mac community. "Thank God for Spymac," 
          he said. "I don't know what I'd do without it..."
                    http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,64217,00.html
                                                ..."journalism", maybe?


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                                cinema queues

          All is proceeding as planned: the legal beating recently 
          handed out to MATTHEW SOMERVILLE has merely made a "martyr" 
          out of the mild-mannered usability vigilante, with gangs of 
          young men (all, in some bizarre tribal allegiance, calling 
          themselves "Iain") now roaming cinema listings sites with 
          armfuls of precious Odeon schedules "liberated" by ad-hoc Perl 
          scripts of their own. (Though, speaking personally, we've 
          never had too many problems with www.scoot.co.uk/cinemafinder 
          - as long as you sidestep its most heinous interface problem 
          by entering high-digit postcodes like "N6" rather than the 
          "N1" it diligently interprets as "You are searching for BEFORE 
          SUNSET in N1. Please select one of the following: N1, London. 
          N10, London. N11, London. N12, London...", and so on.) On a 
          related note, the POST OFFICE seem strangely reluctant to give 
          their visitors access to mutually beneficial information such 
          as *the postcode of the person you're writing to*, with the 
          closure of the no-registration-required postcode database 
          "back door" revealed in NTK 2004-04-16. Please let us know if 
          you've spotted where it's disappeared to this time - or must 
          the public take the law into their own hands once again?
          http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/20/letters_2007/
              - just some concerned Iains doing their bit (scroll down)
          http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/access/OdeonTheMissedOpportunity 
          - "31%" of Odeon traffic, claims outraged blog mathematician
          http://www.ntk.net/2004/04/16/
                  - almost like they want you to give up and use email
          http://www.bleb.org/tv/all.html?c=bbc1+bbc2+itv1+ch4+five
          - not perfect TV info, but miles better than everything else
          http://natrail.sourceforge.net/
            - come hackers, free the schedules/ then you'll be free...
        

                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

          [ OK, http://www.dohthehumanity.com/ isn't quite there yet - 
          maybe a rating system instead of comments? - but is an easier 
          way to scroll through the Dohs instead of having to link to 
          each one individually. Still, can't believe we missed this one 
          (final para): http://whatnottodo.org/junk/yahoo.news.html ]... 
          MP3 players "set to become the must-have gadget for music 
          fans", muses: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3916811.stm - "must-have 
          gadget" for music haters = a soundproof room?... apparently 
          filling the brief "list some films you can think of that have 
          robots in": http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3906257.stm ... much-
          safer-for-work-than-you-actually-expected double URL-tendres: 
          http://www.adamsexhibitions.co.uk/ , http://vintageswank.com/ 
          and - paradoxically - http://www.nsfw.org/ ... Widdy of week: 
    http://www.majesticmortgages.co.uk/keyword.asp?Keyword=a%20total%20ripoff


                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                         GOTOs considered non-harmful

          The UK's first "E-FESTIVAL" ("putting the fun back into 
          computer events!") - deferred until 2005. CLASSIC GAMING EXPO 
          UK (featuring Matthew "Manic Miner" Smith, a C5, MAME 
          cabinets, a raffle) - happening this weekend (10am-6pm, Sat 
          and Sun 2004-07-24/25, Fairfield Halls, Croydon, UKP7.50, 5.00 
          concessions). But of course the real action will be "going 
          down" at the annual UKUUG conference LINUX 2004 (from next 
          Thu to Sun 2004-08-05/08, tutorial and conference fees from 
          UKP70.00, 15.00 concessions) - at time of writing, it's not 
          clear from the site where in Leeds it's going to take place, 
          though let's not rule out the possibility that the entire town 
          centre may be given over to celebrating open source operating 
          systems, Athens Olympics-style, culminating with the glorious 
          "Parade of the Sysadmins" through the gaily decorated city.
          http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2004/
          - or perhaps just Clarence Dock Hall of Residence, Leeds Uni
          http://www.cgexpo-uk.com/
           - + rare showing of "WarGames" (taped off ITV last weekend?)
          http://www.e-fest.co.uk/
          - at Stoneleigh Park, home of the Royal Agricultural Society
          http://www.dampassassins.net/
                      - tomorrow: MMS, waterpistols, Hoxton, Nathanity!
          http://www.privacyinternational.org/bigbrother/uk2004
                - and next Wednesday: 6th Annual UK Big Brother Awards
          

                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

          PERLPAD brings a Perl sensibility to the Mac - especially
          the bits of the Mac you'd think were too bleachy clean to
          sully. Invading the Mac's vestigial NeXT Services menu, it
          lets you take text in any Cocoa app window, and run it as a
          Perl program with a Command-and-a-shift-and-a-big-letter-E.
          Or you can select text, hit Command-Shift-R and feed it as
          STDIN to your own foul Perl one-liners. To add to the
          ambience, PerlPad's interface is inpenetrable, and it's
          almost impossible to install. Taking the "more than one way
          to do it" thing a *little* too far, PerlPad requires you to
          download a .dmg, install CocoaBones using Mac's metapackage
          weirdness, *and* make Devel::SymDump using CPAN. We
          estimate that's every way to install something on the Mac
          without using fink and/or downloading it from Ceefax. And
          the Services menu is greyed out in Mozilla, Vim and Emacs 
          on Aqua, so what's the bloody point? The point, as ever with
          Perl, is that it's there when you reallly badly need it. And
          you will. Oh yes.
          http://freshmeat.net/projects/perl-pad/
            - he suffered for his artistic licence, now it's your turn


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

          the scandal Stuart Campbell came to know - as "Driv3rgate": 
        http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/drivergate/drivergate.htm 
          ... Worst Photoshopped Cover Ever? (dig that Kevin Smith page 
          curl!): http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=11719 
          ... reverse casemodding - dismantling all your household 
          appliances, and putting them in the cases of desktop PCs... 
          search results "slam" BBC News for excessive tabloid-ese: 
          http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=slam 
          ... http://www.10eastern.com/foundphotos.html stumbles onto: 
      http://www.10eastern.com/images/FoundPhotos/images/6-30/im000086.jpg
          - Rupert Goodwins! ... taunt a curmudgeonly numismatist: 
          http://www.24carat.co.uk/questionstheyaskus.html ... quite the 
          most unexpected "one of these not safe for work" for a while:  
          http://images.google.com/images?q=%22what+is+rss%22&safe=off ...
         

                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

          TV>> look forward to a fair chunk of Jonas Akerlund's oeuvre 
          - plus, the trailers imply, N*E*R*D's enthusiastically 
          gratuitous "Lapdance" - in an extended version of what they 
          show late-night on MTV practically every day, X-RATED: THE 
          VIDEOS THEY TRIED TO BAN (10pm, Sat, C4)... word is that the 
          new "Thunderbirds" movie is, impressively, even lamer than the 
          original THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO! (1.45pm, Sun, C5)... and these 
          aren't really five different remixes of the theme from THE 
          INVADERS http://www.the-invaders.com/invaders_audiomix.htm 
          (4.20am, Sat, C5) - but we're sure one of these sites posits 
          the theory that architect David Vincent is actually one of 
          "them" himself, secretly put on Earth to test the population's 
          (in)credulity... here's hoping it's the special "Director's 
          Cut" of ALIENS (10pm, Mon, C5), if only because that "restored 
          sequence" with Newt and her parents in the cab of the truck is 
          bloody awful... whenever we hear Grub Smith voiceovering 
          something like urban legend trawl 101 EMBARRASSING SEXUAL 
          ACCIDENTS (10.50pm, Mon, C4), we assume it's actually someone 
          pastiching ["Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" narrator] 
          Alan Ford... and middle- and working-class families remain 
          literally astonished at their differing lifestyles when WIFE 
          SWAP (9pm, Tue, C4) introduces a "fitness fanatic" to an 
          "internet addict", and I'M ALRIGHT JACK (sic - 9pm, Thu, 
          BBC2) makes a City "high-flyer" work in a hostel for the 
          homeless... Stew Lee gets 15 minutes out of his "Owl And The 
          Pussycat" material in INNER VOICES (11.15pm, Wed, Radio4)... 
          the inspiration behind Tony Blair's recent outburst is 
          revealed in BBC4 repeat I HATE THE '60S (11.20pm, Tue, BBC2) 
          ... and C4 follows three couples considering another popular 
          midlife-crisis makeover in handy how-to guide SLEEPING WITH 
          THE AU PAIR (9pm, Wed, C4)... 
          
          AD MUSIC FOR SIX PEOPLE>> inevitably, we've been forced to 
          bring this rarely-popular feature back from "Blade Runner"-
          style retirement by no less than 3 of you writing in to note 
          that, as ANDY LAWN put it, "The Danone Shape yoghurt advert 
          uses a tune that's an imitation of The Orb's 'Little Fluffy 
          Clouds' - and not the sincerely flattering kind of imitation 
          either", a crime compounded by not using INTERNETSDAIRY's 
          suggested tagline "You might still see that in the dessert": 
          http://www.livejournal.com/users/internetsdairy/106921.html . 
          DAN PEARCE ventured to get "a tad more obscure" by claiming 
          that "the music for the Magnum ad with people painting bulls 
          or somesuch is trying very hard to be Alphawezen's 'Into the 
          Stars'. At least that's the tune I think it's going for - it's 
          2 tracks before the 10CC/ Destiny's Child mix on that 2 Many 
          DJs album. Worth waiting for, I'm sure", while we'd just like 
          to mention in passing that next week's release of KING ARTHUR 
          is now the third film to feature Clint Poppie's "Requiem For A 
          Dream" theme in its trailers, the others being "Lord Of The 
          Rings 2: The Two Ronnies", and, er, the original "Requiem For 
          A Dream"? http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-01-03&l=239#l 
          ... in the broader world of soundalikes, CARL MORRIS neglected 
          to tell us the name of "the new single by Modest Mouse" which 
          he alleges "sounds very reminiscent of 'Star' by James. You 
          can sing 'Star' on top of it, or even hum it if you don't know 
          the words" - though it should be fairly easy to spot from that 
          description. And if you can't be bothered to download the new 
          "Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned" Prodigy album from the 
          P2P nets where it so tenaciously resides, then you could 
          always listen to "The Fat Of The Land" again but with the 
          tracks in a different order - apart from (the next single?) 
          "Girls", which is just as good as when it was previously 
          released as "We Have Explosive" by The Future Sound Of London 
          ... so, just to wrap up this week's 1990s UK acid house 
          retrospective, NICK BARTON devised the ideal product placement 
          for arguably the highlight of Orbital's output, explaining: 
          "Picture the scene: A young woman leaves her house to play 
          outside on a sunny day, without a thought for sunscreen or 
          anything else. Then, the scene switches: years later, the same 
          woman, now middle-aged, has deep wrinkles, liver spots and 
          skin like Tom Jones's jockstrap. Over the top of this we hear 
          the familiar words of: 'Well son, the funny thing about regret 
          is that it's better to regret something you have done than to 
          regret something that you haven't done. And by the way, if you 
          see your mom this weekend, will you be sure and tell her: 
          SOLTAN!! SOLTAN!! SOLTAN!!'"...

              

                               >> 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
             "Se violi questo limite metti il tuo paese a rischio"
 http://www.google.com/groups?selm=hFIBc.360741%24hc5.15686769%40news3.tin.it


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