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                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                             it's Campbell, Stu's

         Everyone's got a friend who'll tell you that a particular 
         fruit machine is "on a cycle" and "nearly ready to pay out". 
         Then you dutifully explain to them that this is all in their 
         imagination, and it could be behaving completely randomly and 
         still win on percentages (like a roulette wheel), and then 
         they say well how come they never try to pay out more money 
         than they've actually got in them? The bad news - in a whole 
         variety of ways - is that that friend of yours appears to be 
         right: according to recent research by THE FAIRPLAY CAMPAIGN, 
         PC-emulated versions of a range of popular fruities appear to 
         follow completely predetermined sequences, with a pattern of 
         payouts designed to reward the victim just enough to keep them 
         playing. Now, this could just be an artefact of the emulation 
         process re-using the same pseudorandomness seed or something - 
         were it not for the fact that, FairPlay reports, at least one 
         machine also decides "gambles" in advance - if, when facing 
         a "High/ Low" value of 5 at one point, you select "High", the 
         machine will spin up a 3 and there go your winnings. If, on 
         the other hand, you select "Low", the machine will spin to a 
         9. Once again, you lose.
         http://www.fairplay-campaign.co.uk/fruit/
              - also a fun way to get your MP into the emulator scene

         Good to see the increasingly eccentric ERIC S RAYMOND keeping
         himself occupied these days. His latest tweaks: a version
         bump or two to the JARGON FILE, the ancient hacker bible of
         which he is current custodian. But how steady is his hand on
         the sacred tome? Worrying is esr's recent inclusion of
         unfamiliar terms like "Aunt Tillie" and "GandhiCon", which
         on closer search-engine examination, appear to have been used
         almost exclusively by Raymond himself. And esr's current
         expansions of hacker dialect is curious too. New terms
         include "fisking" - a term pretty much restricted to the
         warblogosphere, and defined by your impartial host as "Named
         after a Robert Fisk, a British journalist who was a frequent
         (and deserving) early target of such treatment". Also
         included is "anti-idiotarianism", as in Eric's
         Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto, a fascinating call to arms that
         implies "Anti-Idiotarian" means "To be against listening to
         anyone who would tell you you're sounding like an idiot
         these days". Finally (and not included in the changelogs),
         Eric has tweaked the Hacker Politics page, from its previous
         description as "vaguely liberal-moderate" to
         "moderate-to-neoconservative (hackers too were affected by
         the collapse of socialism)". Go tell that to the
         Kuro5hinners, Eric. Recalling Raymond's familiar defence of
         previous changes, "rather than complaining that I am
         'rewriting history', help me write it!", let it be noted
         that if someone did want to fork the Jargon File, now would
         be the time to do it. Raymond's previous googlejuice at
         tuxedo.org has been cast to the winds. A new, reformatted
         and popularly linked-to upstart could quickly seize the top
         Google slot. Ha, ha, as we apparently all say, only serious.
         http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/politics.html
                             - wouldn't everyone, from Eric's view...
         http://www.science.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/p/politics.html
 - be slowly changing into crypto-collectivist islamofascist sympathisers?
         http://kt.zork.net/kernel-traffic/kt20030413_213.html#8
                         - Aunt Tillie "figment of Erics imagination"
http://armedndangerous.blogspot.com/2002_10_13_armedndangerous_archive.html
                 - quoting H. Beam Piper's "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen"

         The tiniest of updates on the missing STAND ID card
         consultation: confusion reigns. On one hand, the government
         are saying that they'll all be counted (Kable report,
         below). On the other - other bits of government are saying
         ooooh we can't tell you until nothing we've told Parliament
         (BBC report, below). Which is a bit silly, because the only
         reason Parliament is asking is because at least one
         enterprising STANDee wrote to their MP to complain, and she
         - Anne McIntosh, MP for the Vale of York - decided to find
         out. Despite two BBC articles, two ZDNet pieces and
         increasing numbers of the proper media nibbling around this
         story, the Home Office still haven't clocked that the
         easiest way to deal with this would be just to mail us and
         explain what happened, so we can tell the people who wrote
         in. Heck, they can mail them themselves if they like -
         they've got the mail addresses. All this trying to re-route
         all communications via Parliament and the press just implies
         that there's no link between people and politicians anymore.
         And that couldn't possibly be true, could it?
         http://tinyurl.com/dmpu
                                   - Kable says Home Office in denial
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/2965984.stm
                                       - we say they're "a bit silly"


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         "Other products convert binary to hexadecimal, reducing the 
         number of characters, and convert hex to Ascii", marvels: 
    http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=122004
         ... interesting definition of "In No Way Related" to Paul 
         McCartney: http://www.mcbeatle.de/beatles/mail/paul.html ... 
         one way to make somebody's revision a bit more interesting: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/06/06/dohdiv.gif ... those hilarious 
         company names just keep, er, coming: http://www.cumstore.co.uk 
         vs http://www.perr.com/onanstore.html ... slack off - praise 
         "Bob": http://www.livedepartureboards.co.uk/ldb/badargs.html 
         ... this pic - is PANTS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/2966482.stm 
         ... URLs designed to look like the result of random typing: 
         http://www.zzhljx.com/gsjje.htm ... one for the RSPCA?: 
         http://www.petoffice.co.jp/catprin/english/ ... not what we 
         wanted to hear: http://www.ntk.net/2003/06/06/dohcamps.gif ... 


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

        Friends on IRC either sound like lamers or cool, sarcastic,
        twisted geniuses. Contrast that to pals mediated through
        instant message clients, who *always* sound like dorks. Now
        you can instantly improve your friends' standing,  by
        downloading BITLBEE, the incomprehensibly-named IM<->IRC
        bridge that lets you see your "buddies" using a standard IRC
        client. BitlBee runs as a fake local IRC server. Its sole
        real inhabitant is you. Its one faux channel is filled with
        your Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ and AOL colleagues, appearing and
        disappearing with the whims of their online status. As per
        informal IRC tradition, you can talk back by prefixing your
        message with their nick and a colon, or you can /msg them
        directly. BitlBee comes with a nice set of help commands,
        including a three step wizard that'll take you through your
        account set-up. There are a few rough edges (Bitlbee
        responded to an /away with a technically appropriate segfault
        and tends to smother comments from your AOL "friends" with
        unparsed HTML) but the logins themselves seem rock solid.
        Just don't mix it with Comic Chat, or you'll have to find a 
        whole new gang of online buddies.
        http://www.lintux.cx/bitlbee.html
       - IRCers come from command lines. IMers look like dialog boxes
        http://www.bash.org/
        - all those funny IRC quotes will be lost, like tears in rain


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/

         handy guide to speaking "smug bumhead" or "pig-faced warrior": 
         http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/lingo.html (also funny on 
         http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/heinlein.html )... just 
         liked the name: http://lists.burri.to/pipermail/geowanking/ 
         ... 'cos sometimes it takes a bigger country to say "we're 
         sorry": http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_269818,0005.htm 
         ... BUNDER has had "detractors", took "abuse in his stride": 
         http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,970300,00.html 
         - somewhat hard to believe, with killer content like this: 
         http://www.bunder.com/weblog_details.php?id=2003-3&mm=March 
         ... "Most Brits that I spoke with had never used the Internet" 
         - philg @ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2003/06/04#a459 
         ... "This is the voice of the DEPT FOR WORK AND PENSIONS": 
         http://www.targetingbenefitfraud.gov.uk/on_to_you_adverts.html
         - "We know that you can hear us, Earthmen"... 


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> Carol Vorderman presides over a Mind Olympics-style 
         contest to find Britain's highest-functioning autistic, GRAND 
         SLAM (8pm, Fri, C4)... we still have a soft spot for Anne 
         Heche-nudity traffic report obsession PIE IN THE SKY (1.15am, 
         Fri, BBC2)... and it's the bloody remastered special edition 
         of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE (6.45pm, Sat, ITV), ending 
         just in time to catch predictably toned-down Huey Lewis 
         chainsaw tribute AMERICAN PSYCHO (9.05pm, Sat, BBC2)... 4PLAY 
         (1.55am, Sat, C4) spends 15 mins in the company of DJ Shadow - 
         nearly enough for a whole song... reader GUY DAVIDSON - *and* 
         his wife - report themselves "very happy" that it's the 
         foppish ex-Smiths vocalist (rather than sitcom actor Neil) 
         profiled in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING MORRISSEY (11.15pm, Sun, 
         C4) http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-04-11&l=252#l ... the 
         Greater London edition of INSIDE OUT (7.30pm, Mon, BBC1) visits 
         "the capital's most dubious market", as recommended by us in
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-05-23&l=70#l ... and the 
         regular references to "what the coalition forces referred to 
         as 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'" suggest they've got an eye on 
         the international market for BATTLE STATIONS IRAQ (8pm, Mon, 
         C4), this week updating the "Black Hawk" helicopter episode 
         previously shown in Feb of this year... ANGEL (8pm, Mon, C5) 
         introduces the hilarious deadpan demon, Skip... the title of 
         THE DINNER PARTY INSPECTORS (8.30pm, Tue, C4) implies it's 
         only a matter of time before C4 goes the whole hog and employs 
         the Viz Bottom Inspectors as well... here's hoping Alan 
         Yentob's new occasional art strand IMAGINE (10.35pm, Wed, BBC1) 
         will do a slot on ITV's long-running middlebrow lookalike "The 
         South Bank Show"... and Thursday night is pron night, with 
         Adrian Chiles forcing himself to attend poledancing auditions 
         with the owner of Spearmint Rhino in SO WHAT DO YOU DO ALL 
         DAY? (7.30pm, Thu, BBC2), PLEASURE SEEKERS (11pm, Thu, ITV) 
         profiling "swingers", C4 cooking up TESTOSTERONE GEL (11.15pm, 
         Thu, C4), plus the last episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 
         (8pm, Thu, Sky1)... 
         
         FILM>> "a non-stop relentless unflinching assault" is promised 
         by the TV ads, as grizzled survival expert Tommy Lee Jones 
         finds himself hunting a new kind of fugitive when psychotic 
         animal rights activist Benicio Del Toro becomes THE HUNTED 
         ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/the_hunted.html : [Del 
         Toro] kills various people he claims have been sent to kill 
         him; he also steals a person's bike)... otherwise it's Adam 
         Sandler, Jack Nicholson, Marisa Tomei, and Jenna "Baywatch" 
         Avid - together at last! - in bullying comedy ANGER MANAGEMENT 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/angermanagement.htm : 
         lesbian kissing and other lesbian and homosexual presences 
         such as transvestism and snippets of stereotypical gayspeak) 
         ... plus a wider release than you might expect for Australian 
         "Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels" anti-American romp DIRTY 
         DEEDS ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : contains very strong language 
         and strong violence)... or indeed from-the-director-of-"Ringu" 
         subtitled Japanese chiller DARK WATER ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ :
         contains strong psychological horror)... 
         
         BONERS: CORRECTIONS, CLARIFICATIONS, AND "INCORRECTLY REGARDED 
         AS GOOFS">> "Sorry to act like a pesky colonial, kind sirs", 
         apologised reader RODNEY THAYER, "but 'WWF' [apparent source 
         of spam in NTK 2003-05-02] reads 'World Wrestling Federation' 
         to us email-ing fools on the left side of the pond. I trust 
         you meant 'World Wildlife Fund'?" Get with the program(me), 
         Rodney: the World Wildlife Fund became the only official WWF 
         http://www.olswang.com/ip/legal_news/wwf_initials.html nearly 
         two years ago, in a dispute settled by a cagefight deathmatch 
         between World Wrestling Federation owner Vince McMahon and 
         World Wildlife Fund champion Jerry "Giant Panda" Peterson 
         (catchphrase: "Now *you're* the endangered species!")... the 
         black-and-white controversies continued with NTK 2003-05-23's 
         suggestion to shout "Look, a can of Guinness!" when the IRA 
         satellite photos appear in the film "Patriot Games". "Bah! No 
         proper Irishman drinks Guinness out of a [fecking] can!", 
         objected PAUL DUNNE, apparently without realising that the 
         film depicts an extreme and "ultra-violent" faction of the IRA 
         - who, let's face it, might well be capable of *anything*... 
         and MIKE ROGERS happens "to know for a fact" that Google's 
         ranking system has "a filter list of Google-related words" - 
         googlebombing or googledancing, for instance - that "cause an 
         absolute demotion in the resulting pagerank of a page where 
         the terms are used", providing a perhaps less conspiratorial 
         explanation of Andrew Orlowski's semi-paranoid observations: 
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-04-11&l=21#l . NTK's 
         official position on this, and other Pagerank bleatings, is 
         that the ordering of (say) the top 40 results from a database 
         of *4 billion* might well be getting too complex for casual 
         human observers to comprehend - hey, they could code a special 
         case to deal with a million or so URLs and you might only see 
         it in 1 search in 4000... while finally, STEPHEN LAVELLE wrote 
         to express his gratified bafflement at all the "quite 
         unfathomable people" who suddenly materialised on his 
         unassuming "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?" page [NTK 
         2003-04-25], noting that he'd always found his - equally 
         rigorous - analysis of sexual positions "far more diverting": 
         http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~icecube/cgi-bin/index.php?page=sex 
         (please excuse the wobbly handwriting)... 
         

                               >> 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
           "still a good phrase to include in e-mail subject lines"
            http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59089,00.html

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