_   _ _____ _  __               11/07/97   NEED TO KNOW NOW
| \ | |_   _| |/ /   _ __   _____      __ o Apple resignations!
|  \| | | | | ' /   | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / o Microsoft shenanigans!
| |\  | | | | . \   | | | | (_) \ V  V /  o Shatner marriages:
|_| \_| |_| |_|\_\  |_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/   o The same old news.


            "Hey, Teens : Don't Hack Web Sites, Enter This Contest!"
                             - www.microsoft.com front page headline
            not quite the MS server security patch we were expecting


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                               easy conclusions

         There it goes again: two weeks before installing MacOS 8,
         and APPLE reboots once more. The board still insist it's an
         incompatibility issue - the extensions removed from the
         control panel this time are CEO GIL AMELIO and Tech Vice
         President ELLEN HANCOCK. Results for third quarter should
         show next Wednesday: in the meantime, A.C. Markkula and the
         usual suspects will be scoping remote galaxies for CEOs who
         *still* don't know what they're letting themselves in for.
         http://www5.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/spec9.html
         - Jobs certainly sold up at just the right time, didn't he?

         That hot property for Christmas '96, HERMANN HAUSER'S much-
         delayed NETSTATION Web TV, is to premiere next week. The
         device includes an Acorn design, an ARM processor, and
         content from www.esi.co.uk and Entertainment OnLine. It
         will be priced at just under 300UKP with a subscription of
         14.95UKP a month, plugs straight into the TV and is firmly
         aimed at the consumer FOR GOD' SAKE IT'S NOT GOING TO SELL.
         IT WILL NOT SELL. CAN'T YOU SEE THAT? IT'LL BE THE NEXT
         SINCLAIR C5, WE'LL BE THE LAUGHING STOCK OF EUROPE, YOU'RE
         ALL DOOM- sorry, panicked for a moment there.
         http://www.netstation.co.uk/        best of British, chaps!

         After losing its battle with AMSTRAD PLC in the High
         Courts, SEAGATE has learnt that it must pay over 85 million
         pounds compensation after being found liable for that 1990
         Amstrad PC product recall (remember?). Sold-up CEO Alan
         Sugar, aware of a good revenue stream when he sees it, has
         threatened to take the case to the US courts. Seagate must
         love that kind of talk, especially following low earning
         predictions, an unexpected tax bill of $55 million, and $25
         million down the drain thanks to the devaluation of the
         Thai Baht. Moral: if you can't beat US competition, try and
         take it down with you.
         http://www.seagate.com/ don't bother: as if they'd cover it
         http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cliff.lawson/index.htm
                - now for corporate Websites, *this* is worth seeing

         Looks like the beginning of the end for the Department of
         Trade and Industry's Trusted Third Party encryption dreams.
         NETWORK NEWS reports that the NHS has demanded exemption
         from legislation which would require a key to encrypted
         data be placed with a licensed authority. The NHS say that
         this destroys the confidentiality of the medical data it
         stores. And if the NHS thinks that, what should the rest of
         us think about the government requiring access to our
         files?
         http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/ukpriva.htm
         we should *disapprove*. Follow the cypherpunk rhetoric, man
         
         Right, we've done crypto. What's the other worthy geek
         topic? Censorship? Okay - and this time, it's Microsoft
         doing the "editing". Sites thought to have been stomped by
         Gates' lawyers recently include the undocumented Windows NT
         site www.ntinternals.com, which was merrily releasing the
         security flaws in NT faster than MS could catch them, and a
         bunch of Geocities ranters. Site owners say that while
         direct legal action is rare, the standard MS tactics (Fear,
         Uncertainty and Doubt) seem to scare Web hosting companies
         sufficiently. Of course, it would be a crying shame if this
         kind of behaviour was to lead to even more links to the
         anti-Microsoft material...
         http://192.215.107.71/wire/news/jul/0704microsoft.html
         http://www.winternals.com/          remnants of the NT site
         http://www.vcnet.com/bms/default.html       boycott MS site
         http://members.tripod.com/~antiMicrosoft/        UK anti-MS


                               >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                            news we knew you knew

         "OS/2 dead as consumer product", says IBM... whois
         RESISTANCE-IS-FUTILE.COM... Canter disbarred in second US
         state... nothing happens at Euro government Net conference:
         participants say they need "more meetings"... MSN re-
         launching again... harsh German laws to restrict cyber-
         liberties... Microsoft to introduce Windows to Fords,
         Daimlers... harsh German laws restrict laptop use in
         aeroplanes (2 years imprisonment)... Sega Saturn now
         chasing "younger market"... "only 10% of top companies
         realise that billing for multiple taxes and currencies will
         be the key to success for international Internet-enabled
         commerce" - IT Informer... whois WESHALLPREVAIL.COM...
         German hackers evade harsh security, drive into Berlin
         airport (using a Daimler)... ITN claims "100 million users
         logged into mars sites"... whois BILL-IS-LORD.COM...


                                >> CULTURE <<
                                  your cult

         Congratulations to WILLIAM "CAPTAIN KIRK" SHATNER, who is
         due to marry in the near future (insert your own joke about
         "Engage" here). His future wife is the daughter of a famous
         Federation scientist who went missing many years ago -
         first she was repulsed by Kirk's primitive ways, but soon
         found herself unable to resist his Terran charms etc etc.
         Commiserations are also due as we only found this out
         because Shatner is due to guest-star in Channel 4's new
         sci-fi quiz game SPACE CADETS (6pm, Tue; repeated 10.20pm,
         Wed) which also features regulars Greg Proops, Bill Bailey,
         and (oh god) Craig Charles.
         http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/spacecadets/
         - features Klingon Real Audio. Laughing at or with, Craig?

         Friends teasing you for being "too geeky"? Then take them
         along to BEN MOOR's one-man quirky comedy TWELVE (Hen &
         Chickens Theatre, Highbury Corner; 8pm; until 2/8/97, not
         Mondays : some tour dates) and give them some real
         perspective. Gangling genius Moor, a long-time friend of
         NTK, describes his work as "a conceptual safari, featuring
         midget pope clones, a Spanish table festival, and nuisance
         phone calls". Pun-packing entertainment for all ages: and
         watch the skies for previews of his next particle-physics
         extravaganza, A SUPERCOLLIDER FOR THE FAMILY at the
         Edinburgh Fringe.
         http://www.edfringe.com/f97/grp/grp01855.html#01855003
                           - "Oddly eloquent". Emphasis on the "odd"
         
         Wired Ventures (whom we hate) are foisting their HARD WIRED
         range of books on an unsuspecting British public this
         month. Our favourite title is MIND GRENADES, an expensive
         reprint of all that incomprehensible pre-contents bollocks
         you mistook for a Smirnoff advert in the original mag. Or
         perhaps you'll enjoy "Digerati : Encounters with the Cyber
         Elite": an elite that we note includes both Wired publisher
         Louis Rossetto ('the Buccaneer') and Wired exec editor
         Kevin Kelly ('the Saint'). Perhaps we'll just re-read our
         copy of the original Hardwired, the genuinely excellent
         1986 novel by sci-fi author Walter Jon Williams. An author,
         that Wired Ventures lawyers are currently asserting owns no
         right to the Hardwired title, and presently has no
         publisher in this country. Sigh.
         http://www.hardwired.com take a bow for the digital revolution
         http://www.thuntek.net/~walter/ and don't get fooled again


                                >> TRACKING <<
                 Your Pocket Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer

         Wired contributor Gareth Branwyn : okay in our book, not
         least because of his new Web venture WWW.STREETTECH.COM.
         "It's like talking to your cool friend who knows about new
         products as opposed to reading a stilted review," they say,
         and who would want to miss that? A Swiss Army Stim we think
         you'll like.
         http://www.streettech.com
                            - that didn't sound too stilted, did it?
         http://www.jargonwatch.com
                   - he did this for Hard Wired and still he's loved

         Computer Trade Weekly gives QUAKE II 5/1 odds for the
         Christmas number one slot, with Tomb Raider 2 leading the
         pack at 2/1 (it's exactly what you'd expect from a sequel
         to Tomb Raider, but here's hoping you can't walk through
         the dead animals this time.) DAIKATANA, the profile title
         from former id designer John Romero, hangs in there at
         33/1, so it's looking like there were a few improvements to
         be added to the original Quake engine (on which Daikatana
         is based) after all.
         http://www.idsoftware.com/quake2/
         - 'pparently Romero's a bit of a deathmatch pushover, too

         High, medium and low techiness: SWING, the new set of
         foundation classes from JavaSoft hit the streets last week.
         Features include a nice graphics library and a lot of stuff
         to tidy up the GUI. I'm told to say 'lightweight
         components' a lot at this point. Speaking of lightweights -
         a second preview for VISUAL JAVASCRIPT, Netscape's drag-
         and-drop programming package for wimps is out there now.
         And for you HTML weenies, the World Wide Web Consortium
         released an advance draft of HTML 4.0, which includes such
         goodies as enhanced forms (nice looking buttons) and a
         tidying-up of that whole 'frames' nastiness.
         http://developer.javasoft.com                high techiness
         ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/visualjs/pr2/ cheaty visual coders
         http://www.w3.org                           and 'designers'


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                        what's hawking, what's dawkins


         Band-X... www.rizla.com... what do BT research labs *do*
         exactly?... all the decent techies leaving GCHQ they say...
         death of the outdoor rock festival... wake up - do the
         'Monster Pan'... is that thrash metal we hear or Demon's
         routers?... buy Easynet! Buy Easynet!... putting "extreme"
         in front of inappropriate words ("beauty",
         "Ghostbusters")... all the decent techies leaving PIPEX
         they say... www.rebol.com... death of DEFCON...
         TeleTubbyHouse... Israel govt says US pressured them to
         pass crypto laws... Mars landing : News sites :: Gulf War :
         CNN... Return to Silent Running... reports of haddock's
         death exaggerated...


                               >> MO' MEDIA <<
                     evade your real-life responsibilites

         TV >> You've seen John Hughes' sloppy geekfest WEIRD
         SCIENCE (9pm, Fri, BBC2) once too many times already, so
         flip over for more sophisticated surrealism from the fresh
         series of FRASIER (10pm, Fri, C4), closely followed by
         David Lynch's insane ERASERHEAD (11.05pm, Fri, C4), which
         should put you right off sticking tadpoles in your
         radiator, if you know what I mean... OK, we forgot the
         late-night repeats of excellent software sitcom DWEEBS
         (5.05am, Sat pm/Sun am, C4) but you haven't missed many so
         far... John Wayne's classic TRUE GRIT (9.40pm, Sat, BBC2)
         surprisingly triumphs over Jean-Claude Van Damme in HARD
         TARGET (10pm, Sat, BBC1) - John Woo has made some cool
         action movies, but this ain't one of them... top kids'
         director plugs his latest dino-tedium in THE RETURN OF
         STEVEN SPIELBERG (2.20pm, Sun, BBC2) then intros a (frankly
         funnier) sequel, BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (2.50pm, Sun,
         BBC2)... THE WORKS (8.55pm, Sun, BBC2) double-bills Arthur
         C Clarke with yet another weird sci-fi edition of THE OUTER
         LIMITS (9.25pm, Sun, BBC2)... NEIGHBOURS FROM HELL (9pm,
         Mon, ITV) provide the latest in nightmarish camcorder docu-
         drama entertainment... Stewart Brand patronises the
         creativity of the poorly housed in HOW BUILDINGS LEARN
         (7.30pm, BBC2, Thu) so, instead, be sure to tape those new
         rendering gimmicks in the third series of deeply fantastic
         CGI cartoon REBOOT (4.40pm, Thu, ITV)...

         MOVIES >> SWINGERS (no-one you've heard of) is low-budget,
         fast-talking blokes hanging round in bars and failing to
         chat up women, and apparently completely brilliant...
         UNFORGETTABLE (Ray Liotta, Linda Fiorentino) sees John "The
         Last Seduction" Dahl re-teaming with Fiorentino to mangle
         an over-complicated memory-transplant murder plot...
         deviant Londoners can enjoy the NFT's short-but-vivid DAVID
         CRONENBERG season (all July); we say go for the crazed
         Canuck's early, funny films (Shivers, Videodrome) rather
         than the arty stuff (Rabid, The Brood)...

         IMPORTED PRINT >> The new 21*C, the stylish Australian
         cybermag published by stuffy academic press Gordon + Breach
         has reached our shores: contents in #23 include the Gibson-
         Sterling hybrid praising John Shirley plus Prions, Cancer,
         NASA and Mark Dery choking back his pessimism long enough
         to interview Vernor Vinge... CINEFEX #70, the goddam sexy
         film FX mag is (briefly) on shelves of the specialist shops
         - features on NTK fave The Fifth Element, Men in Black, and
         some dino flick... FILM THREAT has got money troubles and
         has suspended publication until they're sorted out,
         publisher CHRIS GORE weeps. Going "subscription only" a
         couple of months back was maybe a strong hint: check
         www.filmthreat.com for details... meanwhile, SCI-FI
         UNIVERSE, Gore's moneyspinner for ex-employers IDG
         Publications, has been sold to the coincidentally-named
         SCI-FI CHANNEL... and in final act of media injustice,
         funny, moral San Fran mag MIGHT MAGAZINE is no more.
         Unless, that is, the hints in the "Are Black People Cooler
         Than White People?" issue are *another* prank...


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