"It's an expectation, not a deadline."
- Spokesman KATIE COTTON on Apple's "CEO by end of '97" promise
"Bust by '99" - it's an expectation, Apple, not a deadline
>> HARD NEWS <<
win/lose
MICROSOFT responded to last week's court ruling (that they
should unbundle Internet Explorer and Windows 95) with all
the care and attention of their own technical support
staff. First, they denied it was possible. Then they said,
airily, that you *could* try and delete the Explorer files,
but that would probably crash the OS: they really weren't
sure. Finally, they grudgingly suggested formatting the
hard disk and re-installing the original (Summer 1995)
version of Win '95. Maybe that'll work, they said. Given
Microsoft's clear intention to wind up the DOJ (and their
superlative experience at doing that to everyone else), we
were hoping for something a little more creative. Maybe
they should deny that Windows '95 is an OS at all, but a
"special sort of Internet Explorer for hard drives".
Scarily, that's close to what MS seem to be saying about
Windows '98: it and IE4.0, they say, are essentially the
same thing. Which is interesting when you remember that
Microsoft also promised that Explorer would be always be
free. Wow! Free Windows! It's what we always wanted!
www.yahoo.com/headlines/971218/tech/stories/browser_2.html
- well, we'd have preferred socks, but never mind
Of course the point at which it'll get truly scary is when
the DOJ announces a "strategic partnership agreement" with
Gates to "develop and improve... the legislative process".
This inevitably happens to any enemy of MICROSOFT,
generally four months just before they disappear entirely.
SGI's just announced such a deal over OpenGL++, or
FAHRENHEIT, as the co-development is now called. Presumably
the name is meant to convey the chilly reception SGI's die-
hard fans gave it - or perhaps it's a hint to HP (who
thought *they* were doing the 3D stuff for Microsoft) that
they're now out in the cold. Or maybe it's just a reference
to those OpenGL developers now burning their old manuals at
451 degrees, and trying to learn the new order.
http://www.sgi.com/ hold on, didn't we run this deal last week?
http://www.apple.com/ or the time before that?
http://www.ibm.com/ or the time before that?
Bill Clinton - the US President, equivalent of the Queen in
this country - signed the "NO ELECTRONIC THEFT ACT" this
week. The new law closed the loophole that let Americans
give away copies of copyrighted data even if they didn't
make a profit out of it (refusing to profiteer is already a
capital offence in most American states). Now the tricky
part: enforcement. Latest copy protection to unravel: the
Digital Watermarking system in PHOTOSHOP. Look out for
un%ign, a cross-platform utility to remove those
watermarks, including the "Adult picture" rating flags.
Even more mischievous, cracker Frogs_Print's new Photoshop
patch allows perps to replace the original copyright with
their own, letting them sue those capitalists right back.
http://www.digimarc.com/im_page.html
- like the Titanic, "uncrackable"
In the week's other news: an ESCAPED LION rampaged through
Disneyworld - Florida tourists were warned it was "not an
attraction"; a virulent Hong Kong contagion crossed the
species barrier from CHICKENS to humans; NINTENDO denied
responsibility for an anime show that triggered epileptic
seizures in 600 Japanese children; and a METEOR blasted a
15 megaton crater in the heart of Greenland. That's the
nightmare futuristic news round-up with me, William Gibson.
Next up: Bruce Sterling with the heavy weather.
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
imagine your surprise
WIRED 6.01 is special "how lunatic are we?"
retrospective... Chris Morris' BLUE JAM does Diana re-edit,
is abruptly replaced with repeat... "Partners Show Little
Sympathy For Microsoft" reveals NET INSIDER... COREL
reports loss... XS4ALL in legal trouble... SLATE to charge
subscriptions "next year" (bye, Slate)... APPLE stock at
10-year low... RACING GAMES may encourage (nay, reward)
dangerous driving, manufacturers admit... BRITISH BOFFINS
discovered strong crypto before anyone else, did nothing
with it ( www.cesg.gov.uk/cnellis.htm ) ... "Internet does
not hold key to World peace", JON KATZ concedes... 87% of
young people believe themselves "invulnerable to AIDS",
study shows... SCOTLAND to encourage "Silicon Glen". Again.
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
where "time out" isn't an error message
From the people who brought you something to read on a Friday
afternoon if you've got nothing better to do (ie NTK, you
dummy) comes something to do from 8pm this Saturday evening
(20/12/97) - if you've got nothing better etc etc. Yes, you are
*all* invited to the NTK XMAS "DON'T" at London Bridge-area
people's cybercafe Backspace (free drink! and entertainment
that costs only self-esteem!). RSVP to tips@spesh.com, and note
that you do have to be a subscriber to attend, so make sure you
know the email address that your NTK gets sent to. Your
domain's not down, you're not coming in. Got that?
http://www.backspace.org/clink - a new kind of entertainment...
http://www.primenet.com/~kennyb/top.htm - ...a new kind of war
"Freedom Of Information consultation process kept under
wraps". What would Mr Rory Bremner and his satirical chums
make of that? Well, the secret's out: UK Citizens Online
Democracy (UKCOD) have set up a site (in loose co-operation
with the govt) to collect submissions from the public on
the new White Paper. It's only until 11/2/98 - which is
why, technically, it's an event. Yeah, we know, but it's
actually quite a smart site, with a lot of impartial data
on the proposals, chats with the relevant officials, and a
respectable mail/Web discussion forum. It'd be nice if the
FOI Act didn't mess up completely, and judging by the DTI's
similar set-up with their crypto proposals, these sites can
at least serve as a source of acute embarrassment when they
try to ignore the collected opinions. Which they will. Oh,
what's the point?
http://foi.democracy.org/ a more optimistic slant. For now.
>> TRACKING <<
if it moves, ftp it
If you're (rightfully) disappointed by "teaser" trailers like
the one for the X Files movie, then *why not render your own*?
That's the self-reliant philosophy of the young Jedis at
SKYSTATION, who've unofficially CGI'd and video-hacked both a
20 meg tease and a 13 meg trail for STAR WARS EPISODE I,
currently due for cinema release May 1999. Back on the "real"
film, there are unconfirmed reports that Liam Neeson "stormed
off" during his first lightsabre duel with Ewan McGregor, as
the crew collapsed laughing. George Lucas walks over to
McGregor, completely straight-faced. "Ewan", he says, "Don't
make the noises."
http://www.thex-files.com/video/xfmov70.mov
- exciting, yet disturbing, possibilities...
http://theforce.net/Skystation/holoscrn.html
- ...I mean, didn't this sort of thing lead to Babylon 5?
A couple of updates to end the year with. There's a new
version of mIRC, Khaled Mardam-Bey's irrepressible IRC
client for Windows. It's worth upgrading, partly because
it's always fun to install new software, partly because
there's a host of new features (nick completion, find text
in window, scripting extensions), and partly because there
was a not inconsiderable security hole in the last one.
http://www.mirc.co.uk/ no, we're not saying what it was
http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/mirc/si.html
- okay, you talked us into it
And ooh! A new Java Development Kit 1.2 beta! Drag and drop!
Almost-working-Swing pluggable components! Vague control
over the stupid garbage collector! A halfway-decent
Collection class! Something to hack when you're hiding
upstairs from the relatives! Doesn't run on any browsers
yet! Who cares! It's cutting edge! Mmmm!
http://java.sun.com/
- the URL reads like a Class. Is that some kind of joke?
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
SHOOTBACK BART vs Explodroid... translating English->French
on ALTAVISTA - then translating back... GEOCITIES IPO? ...
"Vulnerabilities in ICQ"... Coolest checkbox ever - "make
noise if new Mersenne prime found" - www.mersenne.org ...
seasonal overclocking at www.kryotech.com ... BBC have just
started casting THE INVISIBLES, reveals GRANT MORRISON...
meanwhile NEAL GAIMAN reveals a NEVERWHERE film in the
pipeline (where it belongs)... www.mafia.spb.ru ... Prince
Nazeem vs Kevin Kelly?!... SONY to remake THUNDERBALL
*again*, with Sean Connery, and ID4's Dean Devlin, Roland
Emmerich... Free the ONE IN A MILLION two!...
http://sero.org/Sero/game.html ... don't go here (really):
www.euronet.nl/~highman/prison2.htm
>> CORRIGENDA <<
goofing off
We said that DEMON's nameserver had been hacked last week.
We were wrong - it was, in fact, a customer of Demon,
www.netalia.com. NTK regrets the error: guess someone must
have been playing with *our* "name" servers! Ahahaha. Just
our little joke. Go on Cliff, please laugh.
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
it's a wonderful no-life
WIDE TV>> Linda "Sarah Connor" Hamilton guests in the last
in this series of FRASIER (10pm, Fri, C4), though "He'll be
back" - in two weeks... the only way we can describe LEXX:
THE DARK ZONE STORIES (12.10am, Fri, C5) is - "like Dune
remade by the people who did Space Precinct so as to
resemble an unofficial sequel to Blake's 7" - but in a good
way, of course... rivalling even previous bizarro theme
nights, the evening devoted to the choices (and output) of
cross-dressing comic EDDIE IZZARD (9pm, Sat, C4) includes
Woody Allen's hit-and-miss sci-fi spoof SLEEPER (11.55pm,
Sat, C4) and hopefully the cracking "best of" episode of
KIDS IN THE HALL (11.10pm, Sat, C4)... Doug Trumbull's
proto-Strange Days VR-thriller BRAINSTORM (11.45pm, Sat,
BBC2) is actually far better than Strange Days but, then
again, *what isn't*? - a theme intriguingly echoed by the
CHARLIE BROWN AND SNOOPY SHOW (11.20am, Sun, BBC2) in which
"the kids go to a computer camp where the games come to
life" (Radio Times)... www.dianabear.com won't be appearing
in the first of many docus wallowing in MEMORIES OF DIANA
(6.30pm, Sun, BBC1)... it's hard to imagine the horror of
being trapped on board Mir day after day after day - well,
that is until you've heard "Brit-born" astronaut Michael
Foale go on about it for an hour on EQUINOX (9pm, Mon,
C4)... Phil Cornwell's impressions of ageing celebs on
STELLA STREET (11.15pm, Mon-Tue, BBC2) should be tragically
less funny than his Steve Wright show stuff... bunk off
early for the cool sci-fi F/X compilation of MOVIE MAGIC:
FINAL FRONTIER (3.10pm, Tue, ITV) - probably a big
improvement on Harrison Ford yawn-athon CLEAR AND PRESENT
DANGER (9.30pm, Tue, BBC1)... Xmas Eve taunts devotees of
the Formulaic Film Titles Of Steven Spielberg, with RAIDERS
OF THE LOST ARK (2.50pm, Wed, BBC1) vs CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF
THE THIRD KIND (2.05pm, Wed, ITV)... Drebin is back (just
accept it) in NAKED GUN 33 1/3 (9pm, Wed, BBC1), while
MODERN TIMES (9pm, Wed, BBC2) plays with toys... on the big
day itself, the MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL (3.10pm, ITV, Thu)
and THE MASK (6.50pm, Thu, BBC1) are the best of the
regular kiddie-crap (The Flintstones? Honey I Shrunk The
Kids? Home Alone 2???)... and C4 continues its 15th-
anniversary retrospective with A SPLICE OF LIFE (10.15pm,
Thu, C4), featuring clips from seasonal Film On Four fare
like Shallow Grave, The Crying Game, The Madness Of King
George and - of course - Trainspotting...
FILM>> GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE (imdb: comedy / jungle / based-
on-cartoon / based-on-tv-series) is perhaps the least
despicable of this week's child-oriented offerings, with
Brendan "Encino Man" Fraser imitating the tree-slamming
doofus originally devised by Jay Ward Productions - who
also made Rocky And Bullwinkle, Tom Slick, Peabody's
Improbable History, yet astonishingly *not* Roger Ramjet or
Batfink... uh-oh: crypto-Arthurian romp PRINCE VALIANT
(imdb: adventure / based-on-comic) is an UK/ Irish/ German
co-production and features characters called "Pechet" and
"Thagnar"... it's got four villains instead of two, and may
yet be the best Home Alone movie ever made - but still take
care stepping over the threshold of HOME ALONE 3 (MPAA
rated: PG for "slapstick violence, language and mild
sensuality" - whatever *that* means)... in other movie
news, MEN OF CRISIS is a recently uncovered 1971 Woody
Allen short that satirises the Nixon government - as Film
Threat Weekly reports: "unlike his last 15 movies, the film
DOES NOT feature a sub-plot about Allen involved in a May-
September romance"...
>> COMPO <<
open the envelope - you may already have lost your job!
http://www.ntk.net/compo/
It's the last week of our Christmas competition, and we're
pleased to say that we finally shook off all those "another
easy one, mate!" e-mails. Only one contestant sent us the
correct URL for last week's clue. Unfortunately, he sent it
as a reply to the 17/10/97 competition, and is therefore
disqualified. The correct answer, was, of course,
http://www.virgin.net/now.html - the "extra dot" being the
one we slipped into our sponsor list at the bottom of the
e-mail. Just goes to show how much attention people pay to
banner ads, doesn't it?
Anyway, here it is, your last chance to win fame and
fortune. The URL is in the form www.**********.com/now.html
and your starter for ten is:
GNU homo art
The full list of "hacked" URLs (and we use those quotes
advisedly) will be announced at the .NOT Awards early next
year, where we'll also be giving the prize for the best URL
submitted (a bumper box of goodies and a free dinner date
with the Scotland Yard's Computer Crime Unit). We might
also give a sneak preview of the list at tomorrow's party:
it depends how desperately we need to make friends. And,
let's face it, we come across as pretty desperate, don't
we?
>> 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.
It is registered at the Post Office as "worryingly well clued-in".
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.
(K) 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.
>> even smaller print <<
NTK will return on Sat 27/12/97 in a special double-issue
(ie there probably won't be one the week after that).
Normal transmissions will resume on 9/1/98.
In the meantime, have a very merry Newtonmas and a great
New Year.