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         Research suggests that while computer-mad pupils were once
         considered boring by their peers, they are now thought of as
         "friendly and fun".
               - BBC News on NOP's too-late-to-help-anyone-here study
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/education/newsid_793000/793983.stm 
                          ...never too young to start being sarcastic


                                >> HARD NEWS <
                                 lost ma trews

         Well, it looks like Marc Andreessen couldn't make it to give
         his backing to DOT NET, Microsoft's new direction, as
         originally planned. Apparently he was caught trying to climb
         out the toilet window just before the demo, and had to be
         beaten to death. Still, Gates and Ballmer did okay on their
         own, explaining how their renamed NGWS, as well as being an
         engine of an instant lawsuit with Future Publishing, was the
         embodiment of Gate's new Net-as-OS plans. Terrifyingly, it
         also seems to show that Redmond really does believe its own
         publicity. Not only are they attempting to introduce a whole
         raft of new pseudo-standards (note to editors: supporting
         XML as a transport is as much following industry standards
         as supporting eight bit binary), but they're also planning
         to redo the desktop, re-route around the browser, and - once
         again, introduce another definitely-not-a-Java-killer, a
         proprietary language called C#. The ambition, as ever, is
         breathtaking: if this all works as planned, Gates 
         indicated, MS will be in a monopoly position at almost every
         level of Net business. And wouldn't that be cool, he
         grinned - as though everyone, including the Supreme Court
         would grin back. Meanwhile, in Australia, we have MS
         claiming that the new National Privacy Principles "may
         unnecessarily restrict our ability to investigate and
         enforce our intellectual property rights". Ah, hell,
         let's give them their own courts and a police force
         and have done with it.
         http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/topics/f2k/whitepaper/default.asp
  - fortunately, what they don't know is they can't innovate for shit
http://www.australianit.com.au/common/storyPage/0,3811,829441%255E1286,00.html
      - tick yes if you would like to receive future prison sentences

         A defender for RIP! John Carr has been quick to come to the
         defence of the new bill, telling the OBSERVER newspaper that
         "Children, consumers, trading companies and financial
         institutions have all been targeted and harmed, some very
         seriously" by the evil cyberterrorists that the bill will
         thwart. He does this, of course, in his role as
         outspokensman for NCH Action for Children - and certainly
         not as the husband of Baroness Thornton, the peer most keen
         in the house get the industry to pay for RIP. The government
         may want to cast an eye over Carr's other suggestions,
         however. An enthusiastic advocate of censorware (and
         advocate of a 5p tax on every Net user to fund his
         obligatory Web ratings system), he was less than happy when
         Burger King gave out free copies of the Net Nanny filtering
         prog this month. It turned out that those innocent children
         were grabbing the free CDs to get hold of the list of banned
         pr0n sites that Nanny displays during the install. "A
         complete mess", he sighed. Which is what happens when
         you act without thinking these things through, John.
         http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/0,6903,333563,00.html
                                   - "doing nothing is not an option"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000112801049925&pg=/et/00/6/22/ecnburg22.html
                                      - when we can do far worse

         So the new look, new stupid, Deja decided to killfile five
         years of Usenet archiving to concentrate on its
         comparison-shopping core incompentency ("only 10% of our
         traffic is to postings older than a year", says the company,
         neatly decimating their user base in one swoop). But surely
         Usenet is the best shopping guide there is? Take the healthy
         exchange of opinions across the alt.digitiser newsfroup this
         week on WACKY RACES, the new Mario-kartalike from Gremlin
         software. Some say it appears to be "fun" and "looks great".
         Others disagree ("pile of poo","shit"). But who do you
         trust? At first glance, the fact that all the positive
         reviews come from disposable dejanews accounts looks a
         little suspect. But then, as MARK WILLIAMSON spotted, a
         quick perusal of the headers show they *are* experts:
         they all originate from Gremlin's own network. And if anyone
         knew it was shit and needed a bit of fake grassroots
         propping-up, it'd be Gremlin's PR team, right?
         http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=637607540
                                          - l33t haXX0rs j0\/rn8l1st3
         http://faq.fearsatan.cjb.net/
                                                          - who am ge
         http://www.salon.com/tech/log/2000/06/20/deja/
                             - additional reporting by Andrew Leonard


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         T-babe is "world's first virtual pop artist" chortles
         DOT.COM TELEGRAPH (apart from Japan's Kyoko Date, featured
         by Telegraph 1996-05-20)... brave stab at world's most FAQ:
         http://support.euro.dell.com/uk/en/kb/document.asp?DN=FA1014246
         ... whois dot.net ... the usual preamble to this joke is:
         "ouch!" http://www.ntk.net/2000/06/23/compudoh.png ... so
         when is FIRST TUESDAY going to organise a whip-round? ...
         ... http://www.liftshare.com/ shares a certain resemblance,
         "online services" with http://www.rac.co.uk/ ... hold on:
         you mean different countries have different "CHANNEL FOURs?"
         http://uk.imdb.com/Title?0239164 ... very early stage of
         "its way": http://www.ntk.net/2000/06/23/dohlargest.gif ...
         http://nav.webring.org/hub?ring=incident&id=89;next5 - See?
         They admit it: "The Columbine Incident made possible by WebRing"
         ... http://members.spree.com/business/vitaldomains/ :
         stapleextractors.co.uk will be the big money-spinner I'm sure ... 
         new UK internet start-up chooses to represent itself
         with instantly recognisable image of electronic competency
         http://www.servista.com/ ... RSI caused by pirates:
         http://www.sky.com/news/technology/story11.htm (see final para) ...
         this week's Nathan, courtesy of THE REGISTER: 
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/35/11556.html ...


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

         As pre-advertised last week, the UK crypto community get
         together to tell the *real* story of cracking Enigma (among
         other things) in Cambridge all day Sat 2000-06-24 (Whit
         Diffie's co-"organised" it, but will he be there in person?).
         Continuing the retro theme, 8-bit get-together BRITMEET 3 will
         be clashing the attributes from Saturday morning onwards -
         and, further to our observation that these events always seem
         to take place in a village hall somewhere in Hertfordshire,
         that's exactly where they're holding it.
         http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/bshm/meetings.html#crypt
               - Ross Anderson says the whole gang's going to be there
         http://www.britmeet.co.uk/attendees.html
                                        - trade "wares"! take a guest!
http://www.clickto.com/coinop/game.html/{867BA7E2-947B-487D-91C3-5FD72958A50D}
                        - and look out for this odd-sounding CIA troll

         You know, we're really going to miss the daft-tastic TECH
         NICKS "computer arts" conference (for a start, it's meant 3
         weeks of easy material). Latest is that Alexei Shulgin's
         hilarious underclocked cyber-rock 386DX had to be cancelled
         due to a "misclassification" - but fear not, music fans,
         because, in an event that's almost *too* self-consciously
         TVGoHome in its billing, none other than HARI KUNZRU will be
         spinning "cutting edge electronic tracks in a lounge-y
         environment while videos of nuclear weapons tests are
         projected onto the gallery windows in film gathered by the
         Land Use Interpretation Centre". This from 8pm Sat 2000-06-24,
         Hoxton Sq, London, while RTMark tout their same old anti-
         corporate "victories" from 2pm Sun, same venue.
         http://www.noaltgirls.org/tech_nicks/
            - and what's a "no alt girl"? A few "alt tags" might help...


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         He's not one for the "suck it down" school of gaming
         celebrity, but Jason Jones, the coder behind such Mac 3D
         smashes as MARATHON, MYTH, and the expectantly-awaited HALO
         has his own clan o'fans. Enthusiastic Mac advocates, mainly,
         who still appreciate how his company, Bungie, stuck with the
         platform through thick and thin. In their eyes, the
         MacCarmack can truly can do no wrong. Unless they, say, sold
         the whole company to Microsoft for an undisclosed sum, and
         bunked out of Chicago to darkest Redmond to work on the
         X-Box. Like Bungie did last week. Oops. Anyway, before the
         entire community exploded into pro and anti MicroBung
         factions, the gift that keeps on giving was given unto them:
         a GPLed source archive of Marathon II. Now, as their master,
         his eyes blinded by the Seattle mind-control lasers, screams
         "AZAG-THOTH TA ARDATA! IA MARDUK! IA MARDUK!" in the frozen
         wastes, an elite band of Mac free softwarers keep the flame
         alive. Mainly by writing a mini-app for the MacOS that lets
         you shut down applications by shooting at them with a .44
         Magnum. But that's open source for you. It's called Aleph 1
         Resource Manager.
         http://source.bungie.org/
                      - "Microsoft's Very Own Open Source Initiative"


                                >> MEMEPOOL << 
                              hasta la altavista

         we want Moebius cars!: http://itsf.spaceart.net/ ... 
         clearly a huge demand for swearing versions of *everything*
         http://www.searchbastard.com/ ... now, who could you get to
         sponsor http://www.nikemissile.org/ ... if anything not
         obscure *enough*: http://www.mono211.com/drfetid/ ...
         http://www.geocities.com/agenttyrone/Bushell.html vs
         http://www.garybushell.com/ ... sing-a-longa-tom's-testicula
         http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=628683274 ...
         inevitably, it's the Germans behind QUAKE KLUX KLAN
         http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dungeon/2329/ ... has
         "when hell freezes over" been taken yet?
         http://www.actuality.co.uk/adsluk/sweepstake.shtml ... and,
         at the grown-up's end of the memepool: http://www.lpsg.org ;
         if you spend too long hanging out at Channel Five
         http://s11.sexshare.com/~pal/deep.htm ; or indeed at Channel
         Four: http://www.geocities.com/cypherpunk2000/bitsgirls.mpg
         and, finally, a 1Gb drive you can stick up a celebrity's bum
         http://imaging-resource.com/NPICS1/1GBMICRODRIVE_1_S.JPG ...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                 get out less

         TV>> BBC2 fields some serious competition to C5's truncated
         repeats of KNIGHT RIDER (10am, Sat, C5), with Richard Dawkins
         "recalling his sci-fi inspiration" - uh-oh - in MIND BITES
         (10am, Sat, BBC2), plus GLOBAL FANTASY 2 - THE IRRESISTABLE
         RISE OF THE COMPUTER GAME? (10.05am, Sat, BBC2), trotting out
         the usual chestnut "games market worth more than movies - but
         why doesn't anybody *care*?"... Julian "The Teardrop Explodes"
         Cope, aka THE MODERN ANTIQUARIAN (7pm, Sat, BBC2), tries to
         find a new angle on the well-worn subject of stone circles, to
         a haunting folk soundtrack of his '80s hits "World Shut Your
         Mouth" and "Trampoline"... squeezed between football and
         imminent tennis, half-decent movies include: ropey Stallone
         sound-stage shoot-em-up CLIFFHANGER (9.50ish, Sat, BBC1),
         slasher-in-space vs girl-in-pants favourite ALIEN (12.10ish,
         Sat, ITV), and Kim "Sex In The City" Cattrall's shower-scene
         classic PORKY'S (Sat, 10pm, C4) - which was, staggeringly,
         adapted into an Atari 2600 video game... the Radio Times,
         unencouragingly, believes the 1997 movie of DC's JUSTICE
         LEAGUE OF AMERICA (5.20pm, Sun, C5) to be a Mystery Men-style
         spoof... Will Smith and Michael "The Rock" Bay pay blistering
         homage to Miami Vice in BAD BOYS (10pm, Sun, C4)... and C5 and
         C4 join forces to commemorate the film career of Pamela
         Anderson, in NAKED SOULS (10pm, Sun, C5) and Casablanca knock-
         off BARB WIRE (10pm, Wed, C4)... that post-news "Virtual Me"
         website slot has been swiftly replaced by IT'S UP TO YOU, BOYS
         (7.55pm, Mon-Wed, C4), a similarly in-depth celebration of
         condoms... irritating Alan Davies cheats on Simone "Space
         Precinct" Bendix in avoidable new sitcom A MANY SPLINTERED
         THING (10.20pm, Tue, BBC1)... and Adam Hart-Davis - who
         apparently lives with Susan "The Meme Machine" Blackmore -
         attempts to seed the minds of young pioneers everywhere by
         cobbling together the last in this series of LOCAL HEROES
         (8.30pm, Tue, BBC2) from inventions *you* have sent in...

         FILM>> another fantastic week for conoisseurs of low-rent
         action trash, with Peter "Scooper from the Double Deckers"
         Firth, Skeet "Scream" Ulrich, and Cuba Gooding Jr - together
         *at last*! - in temperature-sensitive "Wages Of Fear"/ "Speed"
         knock-off CHILL FACTOR (http://www.capalert.com/ : dog attack;
         high speed antics; human flesh disintegrating; porno
         background music; dressing to maximize the female form)...
         after last week's "Supernova", Lou Diamond Phillips is back,
         in the company of Dina "Starship Troopers, Johnny Mnemonic"
         Meyer and thousands of computer-generated BATS (imdb: mad-
         scientist / independent-film)... and will dulling down the
         name from "Reindeer Games" make anyone want to go see mistimed
         snowy Yuletide Ben Affleck mistaken-identity crime clunker
         DECEPTION? (http://www.cndb.com/ : Charlize Theron - "small
         but perky, orange-size knockers--very cute. On the Charlize
         Nudity Scale, not as good as 2 Days In The Valley but better
         than Devil's Advocate and much better than Cider House
         [Rules]"; http://www.capalert.com/ : Christmas without
         Jesus)... otherwise a selection of camp cross-dressing farces:
         Jeanne "Waterworld, Basic Instinct" Tripplehorn's Noel Coward
         costumer RELATIVE VALUES (http://www.bbfc.co.uk : passed 'PG'
         for infrequent mild language)... Martin "Bad Boys" Lawrence's
         "Nutty Professor 2" spoiler BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE (imdb: black /
         overweight / southern-baptist / southern-u.s. / surprise-
         birthday-party / surveillance-camera / surveillance /
         undercover / disguise / escaped-convict / fbi / gender-
         disguise / mask / mother-son)... and Madonna's famously poor
         remake of Terminator 2's surrogate-father subtext THE NEXT
         BEST THING (http://www.capalert.com/ : smelting pot of
         sexually immoral issues; pathetic disregard for sex, gender,
         birth, parenthood; pregnancy out of wedlock; presentation of
         yoga; two men speaking of relationships in a traditionally
         "female" style)...

         HARD LIT>> it's been a while since our last "books" round-up,
         but in that time, the excessively-detailed all-new NTK
         BESTSELLERS CHART http://www.ntk.net/books/ has started
         delivering the kind of hard-hitting demographic info that   
         hopefully *scares the hell* out of marketing people: the
         average NTK subscriber buys 0.0384 of a book (or CD or video)
         per year, and is primarily interested in gay sex, contemporary
         fiction, Linux programming, and cartoons... in a surprise
         turnaround, THE STAR WARS COOKBOOK and THE NUDIST ON THE
         LATESHIFT have just joined CRYPTONOMICON and, provably the
         most mathematically rigorous s/f novel ever, PERMUTATION CITY
         at number 1 (and Permutation City isn't even on sale any
         more), while Paul Auster holds onto the number 2 slot with NEW
         YORK TRILOGY, and The Onion, Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen, KW
         Jeter, Bill Gibson, O'Reilly's EVIL GENIUSES IN A NUTSHELL,
         plus THE RUNNER'S HANDBOOK (some sort of keep-fit manual,
         rather than a Logan's Run episode guide) battle it out for
         number 3 with a staggering *2* sales each... bubbling under
         are this month's non-fiction recommendation - John Allen
         Paulos' ONCE UPON A NUMBER: THE HIDDEN MATHEMATICAL LOGIC OF
         STORIES (featuring an all-too convincing computational
         analysis of humour), and Steven "Guardian" Poole's pretentious
         Edge-fodder TRIGGER HAPPY: THE INNER LIFE OF VIDEOGAMES - a
         mildly more insightful version of JC Herz's "Joystick Nation"
         (and not in a good way)... not much in the way of reader
         reviews so far: IAN HOLMES wanted people to know that Rudy
         Rucker's REALWARE is "out soon" (or now, in fact, in the US -
         maybe he mailed us a while ago); the ubiquitous ALAN CONNOR   
         noted that our chart mentions books he's ordered but that   
         Amazon "have no intention of sending me because they can't
         find them or they don't exist"; and, finally, several people
         sent us an elaborate pseudo-pyramid scam exploiting Amazon's
         current UKP5 press-ad voucher scheme... basically, you use the
         voucher to buy Wilbur Smith's MONSOON (UKP1.99, current sales
         rank: 42) - or anything else which, plus p&p, comes to less
         than UKP5 - then persuade 20 of your friends to do the same
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/subst/partners/friends/access.html
         and end up with UKP100 gift vouchers to spend on something
         worth reading. Loathsome chain-letter? Revenge on Amazon? Or
         just some mad Wilbur Smith viral marketing? You decide...


                               >> 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
                   "flawed in some way" (unlike PC FORMAT!)
     http://131.111.136.3/~dyh21/content/images/pcformat/pcformat_britblog.jpg


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