__  __ _2006-09-29   _________  __
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Tips, news & gossip to tips@spesh.com - with NTK in subject line, cheers.


                               >> BARELY NEWS <<
                            oh, those Event Queues

        "I know that change is inevitable, but I really miss the old 
         days when NTK actually had news about IT related matters. 
         Nowadays, it seems like the entire issue is devoted to EVENT 
         QUEUEs. Your heyday was a few years back when pointing out the 
         hijinks over at SCO, or mocking some underhanded move by 
         Microsoft. Any chance of returning to your glory days?"
                                                             - Jeff Winn
                                                 Los Angeles, California
         

         Not to infuriate you any further Jeff, but there'll be plenty 
         of mocking Microsoft and, er, Nintendo at... a session we've 
         been putting together for next week's London Games Festival 
         Fringe, belligerently entitled GAMES YOU SHOULD HAVE PLAYED 
         (6.30-8.30pm, Mon 2006-10-02, 01zero-one, Hopkins St, London 
         W1F 0HS, free but mail insync@westking.ac.uk to say you're 
         coming to reserve your place). Pitched somewhere between 
         "obvious stuff - The Sims, Tetris, Asteroids - that everyone 
         knows about" and "obscure Japanese imports of interest only to 
         Edge readers", the aim is to suggest a range of innovative 
         interactive experiences for gamers of every level of ability, 
         with the lively assistance of NTK reader Simon "Muttley" 
         Wistow and Nick Gillett from the Guardian Guide. There should 
         be the usual selection of drinks and snacks included in your 
         admission, making it all the more vital that you - and anyone 
         else you tell about it - RSVP to that insync@westking.ac.uk 
         address before turning up, lest you are excluded from the 
         proceedings and have to watch them from outside, "in sad 
         silence, as a ruined man looks through the windows at people 
         dining in his old house".
         http://londongamesfestival.co.uk/Custom/EventDetail.aspx?ID=97
                                    - that's Simon Wistow, NTK reader...
         http://thegestalt.org/simon/ps2rant.html
                         - ...and noted apologist for the Sega Dreamcast
         http://www.xpt.com/uk/category/news/
           - on Wed, Tim "XPT" Wright's lego-powered mission to the moon
         http://www.londongamesfringe.com/
           - more here, though perhaps not for more delicate browsers...
         
         
         There's nothing we like more than when partisan campaigning 
         comes complete with handy consumer advice - and, according to 
         No2ID, you should be able to save up to UKP15 on your next 
         passport if you apply for a new one before Thu 2006-10-05. 
         That's UKP15 that you could then spend on a ticket to No2ID's 
         jam-packed WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? comedy benefit night this 
         Sunday (7.30pm, 2006-10-01, Hackney Empire, 291 Mare Street, 
         London E8 1EJ, UKP12.50, concessions UKP10) - and, no, the 
         performers won't "probably need ID cards" for you to be able 
         to recognise them, as they include the likes of former Xcom 
         2002 keynote speaker Gary Le Strange, Kevin "Simon Quinlank" 
         Eldon (hopefully doing some of his poetry) and co-organiser 
         Lucy Porter, who Rob Brydon humorously pretended not to know 
         who she was in "Annually Retentive" recently.
         http://www.no2id.net/news/events.php
                               - see also http://www.renewforfreedom.org/
         http://www.garylestrange.co.uk/
                     - back with experimental new album, "Beef Scarecrow"
         http://www.brum2600.net/brumcon6/
          - elsewhere: the Midlands' top "blackhat thinktank", Sat Oct 7
         http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/os_user_groups/losug/
                   - London OpenSolaris User Group reconvenes Wed Oct 18
         http://ironfire.org/takebacktheweb/
                - and in Brighton, Oct 28: no, not *that* Chris Anderson
         
         
                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less
                  
         TV SPECIAL>> despite the evidence of both the 1979 movie "Time 
         After Time" and the "Tempus Fugitive" episode of The New 
         Adventures of Superman, HG Wells was a real person who never 
         completed a working time machine, reveals HG WELLS: WAR WITH 
         THE WORLD (9.10pm, Sat, BBC2)... all the listings we've seen 
         still show Top Gear's Richard Hammond hosting BATTLE OF THE 
         GEEKS (8pm, Sun, BBC2), a transatlantic contest to blast an 
         egg across a Namibian canyon without putting anyone in 
         hospital... and a one-off episode of Robbie Coltrane's CRACKER 
         (9pm, Sun, ITV) sees the chubby crime-fighter taking on the 
         maddest, most smooth-talking murderers he's ever encountered - 
         George Bush and Tony Blair!... 
         
         Over on digital, our mild disappointment with ENTOURAGE (10pm, 
         Sun, ITV2) is tempered by the fact that it's followed by the 
         genuinely intriguing US version of THE OFFICE: AN AMERICAN 
         WORKPLACE (10.35pm, Sun, ITV2) and - later in the week - 
         perfunctorily performed ex-"Saturday Night Live"-er vehicle 
         NORM (7pm, Tue, ITV4)... in other comedy, you can at least 
         catch the final episode of NTK reader Alan Connor's 
         surprisingly endearing prostitute sit-com RESPECTABLE 
         (10.30pm, Wed, five)... while THAT MITCHELL AND WEBB LOOK 
         (9.30pm, Thu, BBC2) seems to be improving at exactly the same 
         rate as EXTRAS (9pm, Thu, BBC2) is running out of ideas...
         
         For less intentionally humorous subject-matter, THE OUTSIDERS 
         (9pm, Tue, ITV1) is squarely aimed at audiences who find the 
         BBC's SPOOKS "much too realistic"... THE MOON (7pm, Wed, BBC2) 
         muses that landing on the moon again might somehow be useful 
         or constructive, not a complete waste of time like you thought 
         ... ironically, the TV spin-off series of LOGAN'S RUN (9pm, 
         Fri, Sci-Fi: http://youtube.com/watch?v=IGDO2g5K3pc ) failed 
         to be "renewed" after 14 episodes... and you've got to admit 
         that, in the light of DRAGONS' DEN: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (8pm, 
         next Sun, BBC2), it's tempting to apply for the next series 
         with a business plan based around "Dragon's Den" BDSM erotic 
         fiction, utilising both the safe-word codephrase "I'm out", 
         plus the host's dire warnings that "entrepreneurs" must leave
         "empty-handed", unless they get "at least what they asked for"... 
         
          
                               >> SMALL PRINT <<

       Need to Know is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that
         happened last month or might happen next month. 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           
            "somehow I managed to miss the namecheck at the time"
                  http://martylog.livejournal.com/223397.html

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