_   _ _____ _  __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the UK>
| \ | |_   _| |/ / _ __   ____31/10/97_ o Join! Mail 'subscribe ntknow'
|  \| | | | | ' / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / o  to majordomo@unfortu.net
| |\  | | | | . \ | | | | (_) \ V  V /  o Website (+ archive) lives at:
|_| \_| |_| |_|\_\|_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/   o     http://www.ntk.net/


         "Positive effects include increased hand-eye co-ordination,
         attention span, motivation, a sense of mastery and control and
         a reduction in other youth problems due to addictive interest
         in games."
         - Dr Mark Griffiths on the up-side of video games/net addiction
                     also works if you replace the word "games" with "crack"


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                                soft wariness

         Looks like the cradle rocks both ways. DIGITAL, American
         nanny for British Advanced RISC Machine's infant StrongARM
         processor, casually swung the poor babe over to INTEL this
         week as part of an out-of-court patent settlement. Intel
         get full development rights to the processor, in a deal
         that also involved buying up Digital's fab plants, and
         getting Digital to develop Intel-based servers. Digital
         deny dropping the fledgling (despite a lot of concerned
         mutterings from its own dev team), and have stated that
         spending time with Intel will only help the child.
         Commentators agree that it would be criminally negligent of
         INTEL to let the chip languish, especially when it had such
         a promising future in Oracle's Network Computer design, a
         system intended to destroy Intel's monopoly of the personal
         comput... uh-oh. Butterfingers.
         http://www.arm.com/                  you did WHAT with WHO?
         http://www.intel.com/             more zero-RISC strategies

         It's unclear whether geek sharpshooters are now due an
         amnesty after CLASS 3 LASER POINTERS were banned from sale
         by Consumer Affairs minister Nigel Griffiths. Sure, maybe
         the "heckling lecturer with gunsight on forehead" gag was
         wearing thin, or, if you'd prefer a pro-privacy conspiracy
         theory: exactly how good were laser pointers at taking out
         CCTV cams? Maybe it's time to switch to those invisible
         wavelengths, like Jan Eric Herr's new "phaser", a UV laser
         that creates an ionised air plasma beam down which taser-
         esque electric currents can be sent to stun your victim. As
         the inventor himself told NEW SCIENTIST "any technically
         competent person [can] build [one]".
         http://www.laserinfo.com/mesh_500.htm
                         - "do not stare at beam with remaining eye"
         http://patents.uspto.gov/access/search-num.html
          - pat.no.5675103. See also this Xmas' Innovation catalogue

         With job cuts, top-level resignations and a fast viewpoint
         change in company direction, flash workstation makers
         SILICON GRAPHICS would clearly much prefer to be associated
         with the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park rather than the ones in
         their current product line. Forget what the good guys use
         in movies like The Peacemaker, Twister, and Disclosure -
         Windows NT boxes may not be sexy, but have outperformed
         desktop SGI kit for some time now (at least in terms of
         millions of polygons per second vs $millions of loss per
         quarter). SGI are now moving towards making souped-up 300-
         MHz+ Pentium II machines, keeping their exotic Irix/MIPS
         combo for high-end graphics and server apps. Hopefully
         this'll shut up lazy games mags who continue using the term
         "SGI rendered" to describe anything more sophisticated than
         Battlezone.
         http://reality.sgi.com/ariel/sgi-myths.html
         - still, everyone loves 'em (for all the good that did Apple)

         You can talk chaos theory until you're sick (and we've been
         to those parties too), but the fact remains - no-one knows
         what caused the stock market to crash. Or do they? Here's
         the story going around the *entirely reputable* Brit
         hacking underground: Bill Gates used "clandestine
         technology and hidden currency assets" to massage the Hong
         Kong exchange as a warning to the Clinton administration.
         The clues? Trader Websites all over the world slowed to a
         crawl on the day - a classic Gates hallmark. Microsoft
         employees were reported to be "unconcerned" by the turmoil.
         Apple stocks remained entirely unaffected. And the
         clincher: on Monday, Larry Ellison was made to lose $666
         million. And if that's not the sign of the Beast at work...
         http://www.connix.com/~rzs/humor/666.html
                 - great timing to launch http://finance.yahoo.co.uk


                               >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         CANADIAN TEENS are "injecting beer into their veins"; it
         gives a "faster rush" and "leaves very little odour" (plus
         "a sense of mastery and control"?)... new ST: VOYAGER
         character called "Annorax"... new EDGE boldly addresses
         sexism in video games, complete with lavish
         illustrations... JUPITER on-line experts at London
         conference refer to UK's "free local calls"...  TimeOut ad
         for LONDON ELECTRONIC ARTS ignores own URL, instead links
         to Lutheran Education Association... AMIGA FORMAT boasts
         readership is 99.7% male... Cornell prof Ken Birman boasts
         that hospital monitors, air-traffic control systems will
         all run Win95, as his PC PowerPoint keeps crashing...
         ALTAVISTA.COM is linked by 35,000 Web sites - according to
         the *real* Altavista at altavista.digital.com ... STEVE
         JOBS caught parking in Apple disabled space... irony of new
         HOTWIRED STYLE book on Web design rivals even "Create This
         Hideous Cover Image At Home!" headlines in COMPUTER ARTS...


                              >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                          places to be, pizzas to go

         SCI-FI CON 2.0? STARSHIP TROOPERS CON, more like!
         Admittedly, the Sci-Fi Channel has suited up a couple of
         other celebs for their all-weekend online "convention", but
         it's probably Paul Verhfuhruhurroeven (and his other bug-
         blasting comrades - including RoboCop/Troopers writer Ed
         Neumeier) that'll get the rookies signing up in droves.
         Other Federal credits include a "dramatic reading" of
         HG Wells' First Men In The Moon by LEONARD NIMOY (let's
         hope it's as "dramatic" as Bill Shatner would have made
         it), plus RealVideo showings of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE
         3000. It could be a pleasant off-world alternative to Radio
         1's special "Spice Girls" weekend (haven't they heard?
         everyone's *officially* bored of them now), though Radio 4
         may tempt you back to Earth (so to speak) with their
         adaptation of Arthur C Clarke's first-contact cracker,
         CHILDHOOD'S END (2.30pm, Sun; repeated 2pm, Fri).
         http://www.scifi.com/scifi.con/
          - nice of them to do GMT times, rather than just stardates
         http://www.starshiptroopers.com
             - what's scarier: giant insects or this much Shockwave?

         Two places not to wear your Microsoft baseball cap: this
         weekend's ACORN WORLD 97 (Wembley, 31/10/97-02/11/97) will
         be one of the first places you can buy their new "Network
         Computers" (only UKP300!), while next week's APPLE EXPO 97
         (Olympia, 05/11/97-07/11/97) will be one of the few places
         you can still buy their "Macintosh Computers". Haha, only
         kidding, we *love* those tiny user community get-togethers.
         http://www.argonet.co.uk/acornworld97/


                                >> TRACKING <<
                                   ftp asap

         If you just watch CNN for James Earl Jones, or, in Europe,
         the entertaining "watch us at these fine hotels" breaks,
         we've got a better excuse. CNN has running a Vxtreme stream
         of its US channel on its Website for some weeks now. Long
         enough for them to forget to turn off the feed during the
         ad breaks. You've missed most of the jokes made by
         presenters about the Louise Woodward case, but we're
         hopeful they'll continue their "special commentary" into
         even more distasteful waters.
         http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/live.video/
         - that hack who said "nice tits" during the Diana coverage
                                           what *did* happen to him?

         Just when you thought THE SANTA CRUZ OPERATION was going to
         end with the death of the patient, they come up with
         frankly rather astounding TARANTELLA system. It's an X-
         Windows, Windows, and 3270 client for Java browsers, and
         the demo on the site (which is all we're interested in)
         let's you indulge in such delights as running Xclock,
         Tetris, Excel and Powerpoint - on SCO's own machine! Forget
         the security loopholes - feel the refresh.
         http://tarantella.sco.com/
                                  - it'll slow to a crawl now, natch

         Cyber-philosophy art mag MUTE is soliciting for
         contributions to their next "Art News" listings page. Now,
         we like to think of Mute as Whizzer to our Chips (in so
         many ways), so we were initially tempted to smuggle in our
         list of made-up techno installations ("Jan 3rd, ICA: Dr
         Garina Kildall will be performing 'Server-LAN', a
         performance piece in which ex-members of the Blake's 7 cast
         mime the CORBA client-server API.", that kind of thing).
         But they do say that "the word 'Art' has been very broadly
         interpreted in the past", so it may be that your real-life
         Quakefest might fit the bill. Send 60 words or less to
         <mute@easynet.co.uk>. Your happening should take place
         after January, and should incorporate the words "fractal",
         "virtual" and/or "vectored art phase-space" in the title.
         http://www.metamute.com        ASCII is the new avant-garde


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                              hasta la altavista

         www.rageboy.com ... Uni-ball pens... ICQ port for Amiga?...
         www.phunhaus.com/ugly/ ... giddyup, Namco's FINAL
         FURLONG... whatever next, the Commemorative Princess Diana
         Edition of MINESWEEPER FOR WINDOWS?... SUNDAY TIMES
         contains more info than a 17th Century person would have
         been read in a whole lifetime - about as accurate, too...
         www.phoenixnewtimes.com/extra/gilstrap/jesus.html ... the
         fluffy "LINUX PENGUINE" (sic)... quake II game prompt: GIVE
         ALL... upcoming DAILY STAR "Virtual Girlfriend" CD-ROM -
         user: "joanne", password: "guest"... www.d-b.net/dti/
         Virgin Interactive: management buy-out... Webmedia's Ivan
         Pope diversifying like crazy... best suggestion at recent
         Y2K conference - grow your own food...


                               >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                            obsession as a weapon

         TV >> revealed - how people made bombs before the Net came
         along: DIY techno-christ (on a bike!) Adam Hart-Davis
         salutes Britain's pyro-pioneers in EXPLODING HEROES (8pm,
         Fri, BBC2)... over on C4, Monica dates a software mogul in
         FRIENDS (9pm, Fri); Roz wants her own show in FRASIER
         (10pm); and Victor Lewis-Smith - www.lewis-smith.com -
         tries to out-Morris Chris in one-off TV OFFAL (11.10pm)...
         another bizarre clash of the theme evenings on Sat: BBC2's
         Abigail's Party Night (9pm-11.35pm) vs the start of C4's
         Abortion Week (9pm-12.50am)... infuriate fans by claiming
         you preferred From Dusk Till Dawn to PULP FICTION (10.15pm,
         Sun, BBC2), and that you've "heard that theme tune
         somewhere before"... almost worth popping round to your
         satellite-owning "friends", as DEEP SPACE NINE (8pm, Mon,
         Sky 1) inserts its cast into the Star Trek: TOS episode,
         The Trouble With Tribbles - with hilarious consequences...
         Steve Coogan's other characters were all getting pretty
         similar anyway, so good to see him back declaring I'M ALAN
         PARTRIDGE (10pm, Mon, BBC2)... oh, and MODERN TIMES (9pm,
         Wed, BBC2) examines bystander intervention (or the lack of
         it) when people are attacked in public - which is kind of
         rich coming from a fly-on-the-wall documentary team...

         MOVIES >> they say LA CONFIDENTIAL (imdb: crime / mystery /
         thriller / police / police-brutality / porn-makers /
         corruption / prostitution) "isn't as good as the novel" (by
         James Ellroy), raising the question: jesus, how good is the
         novel? Anyway, the film's a neat twisty-turny noir-ish
         drama about call-girls plastic-surgeried to look like film
         stars (including Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, and Guy Pearce
         - the former Neighbours star, that is, not the UK PR guy
         for Sony Computer Entertainment)... you cannot kill what
         does not live - AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS (imdb:
         thriller / horror / werewolf) is more a remake of the '80s
         bio-morph classic than a sequel, but does have Julie Delpy,
         a Ghostbusters-style CGI creature, and the shocker-skills
         of director Anthony "Mute Witness" Waller... wrap up warm
         for the bleak whodunnit of SMILLA'S FEELING FOR SNOW (imdb:
         sci-fi / thriller / action / psychic) - the "sci-fi"
         element, by the way, doesn't just refer to Julia Ormond's
         (by her standards) unusually modern-looking haircut... so:
         is FOOLS RUSH IN (imdb: romance / comedy / drama / las-
         vegas) just another tame date movie? Apply our two-point
         checklist! 1. Member of Friends cast playing weak version
         of familiar role: Check (here, Matthew "Chandler" Perry).
         2. Romantic comedy named after pop song (see also Addicted
         To Love, One Fine Day): Check. 2/2. You do the math...

         MAGS >> AREA 51 is a new mag devoted to what it calls
         "sci-fi collecting", but what we like to think of "crashed
         saucer merchandise"; probably all the encouragement they
         need to once again re-shuffle all their regular features
         over at SFX... best-of-the-rest compilation COVER magazine
         is now on its second issue, and has turned out like an
         unusually interesting in-flight magazine (and there's
         surely no higher recommendation than that)... is the new
         Arts Council-sponsored fake Net tabloid THE MULE really
         named after the guy in Asimov's FOUNDATION books?... never
         mind the blokey gadget mags, for UKP 3.45, you can still
         get 1400 pages of detailed tech specs in the '97/'98
         MAPLINS CATALOGUE (from large branches of WH Smiths) -
         though it's never been quite the same since they got rid of
         the sci-fi cover pics and stories about "What Maplins Will
         Be Like In The 25th Century"...


                                 >> COMPO <<
                      where search engines fear to tread

         Powerups awarded to reader David Hudson (of www.rewired.com
         fame), who correctly solved last week's mystery URL, and
         consequently receives a Marylin Manson album that someone
         has drawn on with a biro, a "Fuck The Millennium" car
         sticker, and an electronic pocket Tetris game. This week's
         modified site takes the form www.xxxxx.co.uk/now.html,
         where xxxxx is the word you obtain from this lively game of
         TEXT CHARADES:

         "OK, one word, four syllables. First syllable: go! open!
         walking, entering... OK, forget that: drinking, lots of
         drinking, paying money... pub! Like a pub? Right, second
         syllable: sounds like, hole, looking down... never mind -
         still second syllable: man, person, chopping hands, Edward
         Scissorhands! big eyes, scissorhands man? No? Oh well,
         third syllable: stop, freeze, die? come to a stop? finish?
         Move on... fourth syllable: big, person, arms, tree! Giant
         walking tree creature from Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings!
         Okay, okay: the whole thing? Newspaper! Yes? Yes! Oh, I
         give up, sorry."

         A slightly clearer explanation for the whole competition is
         still at http://www.ntk.net/compo/ . Next week: clues in
         MIME-formatted braille.


                              >> SMALL PRINT <<

    Need to Know Now 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.
     It is registered at the Post Office as "DOS/DESQview/X compatible".

                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
                        Archive - http://www.ntk.net/
                     Excuses - http://www.spesh.com/ntk/

      Unsubscribe? Mail majordomo@unfortu.net with 'unsubscribe ntknow'.
        Subscribe? Mail majordomo@unfortu.net with 'subscribe ntknow'.
       NTK now is helped by VIRGIN NET, VENUS INTERNET and UNFORTU.NET.
             They worry about us, but we don't worry about them.

           (C) 1997 Special Projects. Non-business copying is fine,
                       but retain SMALL PRINT. Contact
               terry@spesh.com for commercial license details.

                   Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com.