Need To Know 2001-03-02

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"I've gotten into plenty of arguments with fans who just wanted to 'discuss' it. This poor girl in Atlanta, I made her cry. She felt money was evil. Why don't you go live in Canada or some socialist country?" http://www.playboy.com/magazine/current/interview03.html - METALLICA's JAMES HETFIELD on the NAPSTER "unpleasantness" ...a communist pirate datahaven with groupies and no Metallica? we're so there >> HARD NEWS << tighten the screws Normally we don't like to interfere in ecumenical matters, but when one of the battling padres is Bizarre/ Fortean Times contributor THE REVEREND JOE MCNALLY, we feel compelled to report on the fray. McNally has been forced by BISHOP SEAN MANCHESTER to remove a page from his site regarding a "phoney Nazi" hoax which appeared in the Borehamwood Post and was subsequently exposed by The Sunday People in 1977. Exactly what the significance of this might be, we're not entirely sure. Still, when not requesting the removal of 23 year-old news stories from the web, Bishop Manchester also runs the UK's "foremost investigation and advisory service on all matters pertaining to vampires and vampirism" - which makes you think that, as the "most authentic vampire hunter in the world today", he should at least be familiar with the power of "mirrors"... http://www.google.com/search?q=borehamwood+nazi - or indeed the blood-sucking "Cache o' the Google" http://www.flaneur.org.uk/ - click through the now-obligatory "All Your Base" gag, natch http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/ - and they say clerics don't make good fighters... Meanwhile on the misty, spooky Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, other wraiths stalk the night, and the shadowy presence of the Manx DATA PROTECTION REGISTRAR is felt throughout the land. It seems like that Isle's semi-independent govt is setting the place up as a sort of anti-data-haven, with their local Registrar hassling any site that has a mailto: e-mail contact address on it. In the end, one group decided to shut down its entire server rather than kowtow to the State menace, taking down the pages of the Isle of Man Electronic Arts Society, the Manx Nationalist Party, the Celtic League and the International Vampire Protec- oops, sorry, wrong story. Frankly, we're a bit divided on this one: we're usually sympathetic to DPP laws, and registration isn't that much of a hassle. But you know, thin end of the wedge, barcodes on foreheads, jumpers for goalposts, divvies in positions of responsibility. It must be stopped. http://www.manxman.co.im/ - cats without tails, three-legged thighs http://www.gov.im/infocentre/docs/odpr_26.02.01.html - actually, the UK DPP's made it pretty clear non-DB Websites are ok Oho, the run-up to the NEW STATESMAN NEW MEDIA AWARDS has begun, and we can hardly wait. After their shameful handling of the McSpotlight kids back in 1999 (when the group's work was edited out of the award proposals "because Ministers were present"), this year looks to be an absolute stormer - if only for the inspired choice of judges. David Shayler, currently being pursued by the government, put next to the irridescent Michael Fabricant? Lola Young, perhaps best known for her role as "Janey" in Metal Mickey, next to David Docherty, a man best known at the BBC Online for his "intriguing" politically incorrect stances? Oh, to be a fly on the wall at these judging sessions - if only for the shit that'll start flying around. http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/nma2001judges.htm - Bracken, and Howell: token knowledgeable people. Will get outvoted. http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/ - and their Website has actually grown *worse* >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious cruel streak of "Walking On Broken Glass" singer - revealed: http://amnesty.spanner.org/support/peacetour/gyatso.shtml ... "no commission. no estate agents. no hassle" - no kidding: http://www.easier.co.uk/ ... http://www.estherdyson.com/ - LIZARDS!... http://www.outrage.org.uk/Eminem2001d.htm vs http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1155000/images/_1155980_eminem_megapuf.gif ... AOL send *another* trial CD addressed to "Webmaster, Kingston Internet" - while satirising own price structure: http://www.ntk.net/2001/03/02/dohaol.jpg ... well, *make* time to fix the DSL: http://www.ntk.net/2001/03/02/dohdemon.gif ... Mirror imitates new TVGOHOME show "Medical Blundershit": http://www.mirror.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P29S1.shtml ... HIGHLANDER spawns "two sequels, a TV series" - and a keep-fit video: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000056QAG/ ... GLASGOW HERALD columnist dismisses "theory of evolution": http://www.theherald.co.uk/opinion/macleod/archive/27-2-19101-20-39-36.html ... http://www.halfkeyboard.com encourages "one-handed touch- typing *using your existing skills*" [their emphasis]... http://www.timesharedirect.co.uk vs http://www.lloydstsb.co.uk ... BA EXECUTIVE CLUB quiz reads all your answers back to you: http://www.britishairways.com/ecmag/bluetier/news/news3_23.shtml ... ATTACHMENTS "offensive and unnecessary", "went too far": http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/newsid_1193000/1193146.stm ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Obviously we wouldn't normally advise going to an art gallery unless you are really trying to impress someone - and/or it happens to be raining. But if either of those criteria apply over the next 3 months, you could probably do a lot worse than ducking into ART AND MONEY ONLINE at Tate Britain (London SW1, from Tue 2001-03-06, free), featuring some sort of stock market data projected onto an artificial life planetarium, as well as the Linux-powered video wall constructed by the REDUNDANT TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE (recipients of an NTK "iloveyou.vbs T-shirt" grant). Plus, hopefully, somewhere comfy where you can take the weight off your feet for a while. http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/artnwnet.htm - any ideas for a tech-recycling T-shirt, let us know And if you're inexplicably not as bored of London net.art events (at the ICA!) as we are, there's a moderately promising "Cybersalon" event there next Thu 2001-03-08. The topic is HACKTIVISTS: CYBERWARRIORS OR POLITICAL AGORAPHOBICS?, and speakers include Caroline Basset ("a regular columnist for MacUser who teaches at Sussex University" - don't they all?), plus Paul Taylor, that dude from the "Hackers In Wonderland" documentary on C4 who thought that "penetrating" systems might be some sort of "Freudian metaphor". http://www.ica.org.uk/talk/hacktivists/ - increasingly broken ICA site = metaphor for *something* >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Old, we know, but profoundly brainfucked programming languages are, we like to think, eternal: look at BASIC. Anyway: you know how "Functional Programming" is the Godel Sentence to most programmers: as soon as someone starts explaining it, spools of fried nuerones start oozing out of nearby C coders' heads? Well, just in case you're ever trapped on a coast-to-coast coach ride with a big Haskell fan, we think we've found the counter-meme. UNLAMBDA is the Intercal of funcky langs. elegant. As one fan says, "Intercal gets in your way, but Unlambda simply fails to help you." There are no variables. There are (as you might guess) no lambdas. There are no "numbers". There are only functions. Functions that return functions, and take only one argument: a function. In the future, all programs will be coded this way. You'll know when that future arrives, because by then, you will be a function, too. http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/madore/programs/unlambda/ - and anyway, Erlang's cooler than Haskell these days >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista do your own http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010227/80/b8h6s.html with http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/dialectp.cgi?dialect=cockney + http://www.worldenglishbible.org/bible/web/ ... CLAUDE SHANNON - buried in the noise... NASA imitates movie EVENT HORIZON: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010225.html ... I know you got SOULLESS: http://corporateanthems.raettig.org/ ... WARWICK - "I'm ready for a rematch!" - challenges PAXMAN: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/four_you/myradfour/4you_myradio4_1.shtml ... banned NAPSTER search o' the week: "Respect The Cock" by Phats and Small... for surfing "alt.binaries.up.the.gary": http://mews.org.uk/glitter/ ... http://www.onlythehot.com/ ... scariest clown around: http://www.ouchytheclown.com/ ... to sum up, WHO guitarist believes "won't get fooled again": http://www.petetownshend.com/press_release_diary_display.cfm?id=3961 ... SPACEDIVING: http://www.canadianarrow.com/spacediving.htm ... do your own funny translations - http://www.engrish.com/ , http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/9938/object.html - using: http://www.telalink.net/~carl/multibabel/ ... MS targets LENNY KRAVITZ fans called "Billy Bob" as early adopters for new OS: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/guide/newlook.asp ... "the floggings will continue until the morale improves": http://www.fuckedcompany.com/extras/psinetemail.cfm ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the less rude www.tvgohome.com TV>> Saturday night is WW2 night - again - on C4, with THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (7.10pm, Sat), handily transmitted just after an especially topical "Iraq may already have nuclear weapons" bombing-justification edition of CORRESPONDENT (6.15pm, Sat, BBC2)... Billy Bragg and pals pay tribute to THE LIFE AND LYRICS OF KIRSTY MACCOLL (8.05pm, Sat, BBC2) - though frankly we prefer his original version of "A New England"... while, despite being increasingly annoying in everything else, self- indulgently bearded Bill Bailey remains the ideal host for TOP TEN: PROGRESSIVE ROCK (10pm, Sat, C4)... Sky still seem to be showing the prophetic TRAIN WRECKS ("A look at the major devastation when trains crash" - 9pm, Sat, Sky1) as part of their "reality TV" strand... expect to see that sodding S-Club 7 ad a few times during HANGING ON THE PHONE: THE STORY OF BT (8pm, Sun, C4) - the kids live with *ET*, for fuck's sake: why are they so excited about a pop band?... a drunken bet with his flatmate - who happens to be a producer at the BBC - landed Dave Gorman a 6-part series to find some other people with the same name as him in THE DAVE GORMAN COLLECTION (10.45pm, Sun, BBC2), which anyone could do in 10 minutes with a search engine... and the weekend closes with Michael Douglas night in the form of WALL STREET (10.55pm, Sun, BBC1) and David "Fight Club" Fincher's quirky twist-in-the-tale THE GAME (10pm, Sun, C4)... scrabbling around to find a Rutger Hauer movie they haven't already used this year, C5 settle on Albert "Mean Guns" Pyun's OMEGA DOOM (10pm, Mon) - last shown June 2000... and the non-stop Nazi action continues with NAZI WOMEN (9pm, Mon, C4), Harrison Ford follow-up FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE (10pm, Mon, C4) and the Holocaust-metaphor episode of ANGEL (12.25am, Mon, C4)... Meg Ryan makes an unsuccessful foray from romantic comedy to military drama in COURAGE UNDER FIRE (9pm, Tue, C5)... while this week's autistic-spectrum appearances include a Cambridge student with Asperger's syndrome being mocked by John Cleese for poorly interpreting THE HUMAN FACE (9.10pm, Wed, BBC1)... plus some kids with behavioural disorders being "stripped of their identity" by a controversial treatment that, nonetheless, makes them more controllable by their parents in HORIZON (9pm, Thu, BBC2)... FILM>> this year's Keanu Reeves season kicks off with Sam Raimi's largely unappreciated THE GIFT, chiefly notable for a strong cast which also includes Cate "Elizabeth" Blanchett, Giovanni "Friends" Ribisi, Greg "Talk Soup" Kinnear and the big-screen debut of Katie "Dawson's Creek" Holmes' breasts: http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Gift%2C+The+%282000%29 ... NTK e-commerce associates http://www.cybercandy.co.uk/ are currently believed to be readying choc bars spiked with chilli - and other spices - to tie in with cliched Miramax Oscar-bait CHOCOLAT (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/chocolat.htm : violent pencil drawings; faith in supernatural forces; very wide neckline with push-up equipment; nude female figure made of chocolate; rusty tapwater; playing with an earthworm; very mild conformity in the beautification of man and woman). Also, it has Carrie-Anne Moss in it... or there's Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe and a tank in chemistry-free kidnap caper PROOF OF LIFE (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2000/proof_of_life.html : It's possible some kids could get the idea to kidnap someone for a ransom, hoping to make some quick and "easy" bucks doing so) ... frankly you'd have more fun with chubby limited-release "Zen and the art of seducing women" indie THE TAO OF STEVE (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2000/the_tao_of_steve.html : While standing at the refrigerator, Dex eats ice cream directly from the carton; Some males may try emulating Dex's philosophy about getting women into bed to see if it really works)... FERROUS PARTICLES' DAY OFF>> "Oi, when are you going to do another white book update?" inquires reader DEANS IN THE SPACE YEAR 2001. "I am talking of dodgy VCD releases," he elucidates. "Your hardy opinion would be well nice." Well, it's not been a great year for unauthorised Video CD releases so far, with trestle tables at street markets and computer fairs across the land groaning under the weight of unsold duplicates of Open Source let-down ANTITRUST (UKP5) - basically a surveillance-thriller by numbers, despite Claire "Press Gang" Forlani, Rachael Leigh "She's All That" Cook, and Tim Robbins doing a funny Bill Gates impression. Extras: just the usual Chinese subtitles, unsettlingly counterpointing the disc-change cliffhanger which freezeframes with the racist taunt "Die Chink!" highlighted on the screen... even worse is the breathtakingly dull HANNIBAL (three for UKP12). Extras: audience commentary (laughing at the gory bits); subtitles; and a rare attempt at a proper "widescreen" transfer, though the cinema camcorder has been set about 5 degrees off the horizontal, adding a nightmarish slant to the proceedings while at the same time ingeniously fitting slightly more of the action across the diagonal... though we did quite enjoy straight-to-video alien sex farce WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM? (UKP5). Just one joke - Garry "Larry Sanders" Shandling's alien penis buzzes whenever he's aroused - but it's a good one, with sterling support from Annette Bening, John Goodman, Greg Kinnear, Linda Fiorentino. Extras: no subtitles; capital "A" scrolling up and down screen; professional-looking inlay card (incorrectly) believes film is set in the year 2999... also better than we'd expected was Sandra Bullock's oddly watchable nerd-makeover movie MISS CONGENIALITY (three for UKP12). Extras: the letters "NB" floating half-way up the left-hand side of the screen; cheaply photocopied inlay fails to highlight occasional appearances by William Shatner; a Chinese cinema ad for "Tsing Tao" beer at the start... or, if you missed it on Sky, there's always the semi-legit grey import of Mike Judge's understated Jennifer Aniston Dilbert- swindle OFFICE SPACE (UKP8). Extras: none, though the jewel case does feature an intricate "certificate of authenticity" sticker, signed by none other than Malaysia's "Pengerusi Lembaga Penapis Filem" himself... >> 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 "Our new authoritative source: alt.usage.english" http://groups.google.com/groups?q=falco+ntk&rnum=1&seld=987382524&ic=1 NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Unsubscribe? Mail ntknow-unsubscribe@lists.ntk.net Subscribe? Mail ntknow-subscribe@lists.ntk.net NTK now is supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntkmart.com/ (K) 2001 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com Not tips@spesh.net or tips@spesh.org because Mr SpEsH is getting annoyed. All communication is for publication, unless you beg. Press releases from naive PR people to pr@spesh.com Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material. Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.