Need To Know 1998-05-08

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"Such a policy would impede a process that leads to long- run growth in productivity and living standards. It would throw sand into the gears of human progress." - GREG MANKIW, Harvard economist, on what would happen if the US government delayed Windows 98 - this guy's been playing way too much Civilisation >> HARD NEWS << nobody lose? Free money! CLIFF STANFORD, ex-MD of Demon Internet, revealed his "secret future project" on Thursday, after selling up his share in Demon Internet for 33 million UKP (and, yes, the final price for the whole ISP was 66.6 million, IN ACCORDANCE WITH PROPHECY). Voila REDBUS INVESTMENTS, a fund of 15 million UKP for innovative start- ups. Cliff, as the new Hermann Hauser, will be "drawing on his entrepreneurial and commercial experience" to make your dreams come true. Hopefully, this will include advice on choosing the right name: we note that as soon as Demon sold out, Cliff's old accountancy software company Data Command slapped ScotCom with a demand for a million pounds for misuse of the Demon name, which they still own. Of course, there's no way the tiny Data Command could afford to fight the case: unless, that is, some of the thwarted Demon bidders decided to lend a hand... http://www.redbus.demon.co.uk/ - you've checked this out with London Transport, yeah, Cliff? http://www.redbus.com/ - or these Japanese ladies? Aspiring undergrads at the new Stanford University will be looking to Easynet old-boy KEITH TEARE for inspiration. His, ah, innovative idea of using plain words instead of URLs (see jokes passim) paid dividends when Altavista, of all people, snapped up the service. So it seems it *was* a clever idea, after all. And, while we're here, can we interest anyone in our idea to do a Java Web TV that lets you move around a VRML world using a VR headset and Pen Windows? Cliff? http://www.realnames.com/ - works for "ntk". That really hurts. In other news, APPLE used an early Neanderthal cheerleading chant, "Pro... go... whoa!", to launch a desktop machine, a laptop, and a playdough-coloured vacuum cleaner. No, hold on: it's actually the iMac, an Internet-ready Apple machine that upholds all the values of the original Mac - ie, the screen's too small, there's not enough RAM, you can't get a printer to work with it, and it's too much money. Runs very fast, mind - though not as fast as Jobs will if it bombs. http://www.apple.com/thinkdifferent/whoahw.html - and no floppy drive! Backups should be fun then... http://www.apple.com/ukstore/ - UK store launched too, but that didn't rhyme with "whoa" (unless you're Penelope Pitstop) >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious US NAVY hack UK dolphin charity - yeah, right... "INTERNIC.COM" fraudsters get busted... Monday: BBC NEWS RealVideo shows Neighbours instead of news... Microsoft's HOTMAIL runs on Solaris: port to NT bombed... Thursday: BBC NEWS RealVideo shows half an hour of football... entire WWW.EU.MICROSOFT.COM front page on Weds: "Welcome to Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack" - now *that's* product placement!... BBC ONLINE feedback TV ads involve writing to a PO Box number... the phrase "women know" has been trademarked - by TAMPAX... BADENOCH AND CLARK recruitment agency put out ad for "Y000 System Tester" - think we've spotted one bug already... US GUN PROTESTERS demand manufacturers "put prominent warning labels on guns"... and WIRED MAGAZINE sold to Conde Nast - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! >> EVENT QUEUE << gotos considered non-harmful Oops, sorry, just three days left of digital film festival ONEDOTZERO2, running until 10/05/98 at the recently workstation-free Institute Of Contemporary Arts, London SW1. Expect the usual blurry nonsense masquerading as both art and/or entertaiment, although, promisingly, there are cinema showings of videogame FMV sequences - your chance to see Tekken characters as god intended them: the size of a house. Plus: pop videos, PlayStation Yaroze demos, and the obligatory outing for cyber-philosophising manga romp, Ghost In The Shell. The name ONEDOTZERO2 is the logic- defying sequel to last year's ONEDOTZERO, by the way, (ONE- DOT-ONE too tricky for them?); in the belief that this is how we computer people talk, the press release adds that it's "always lowercase and all one word. Never capitalised." Oops again. http://www.onedotzero.com - now that's what we call case-sensitive http://thesync.com/indexposure/ - now that's what we call experimental film In the first five minutes of next week's KILLER NET (10pm, Tues, C4), they say: "According to .net magazine, 75 per cent of material on the Net is porn." This month's .net proudly proclaims (p17) that "We actually said 90 per cent, but the producers didn't want to make the programme too frightening." Twats. Take your chance to commend Lynda La Plante on her sterling research when she chats live Tues lunchtime (12/05/98) on the C4 site. Oh, and bear in mind that she presumably expects between 75 and 90 per cent of it to be sexually explicit... http://www.channel4.com/drama/ - "Where do you get your ideas? And take your top off." http://www.ntk.net/killer/ - kill -9 Oh, and it's INTERNET WORLD in London next week. Yawn. http://www.internetworld.co.uk/ - Erotica '98 came (and went) a little quickly this year... >> TRACKING << 85, 95 per cent complete - it's in the room with us! "Win a free trip" and "Space Shuttle Columbia" aren't phrases you see together enough. Sadly, the trip is only to see a launch in December 1998. To win it, you need to give the dull old ADVANCED X-RAY ASTROPHYSICS FACILITY (AXAF) X-ray space telescope a chirpier name. The winning entry should be the name of a place, thing, or fictional character or historical person (we'd have assumed "thing" would have covered all of these), who symbolises exploration of the universe. The first X-Ray satellite, launched from Kenya, was called Uhuru, so you can see what they're getting at (go on - try "Scotty"). Oh, and living persons are not permissible. So that rules out "Hank the Angry, Drunken Satellite". http://asc.harvard.edu/contest.html - you'll never guess that it's really called "Rumpelstiltskin" When will we stop plugging outdated DOS software? Well, now that Microsoft's officially dumping the poor little cash- cow, we'll tie things up by announcing the final beta of ARACHNE 1.4. Arachne, like you didn't already know and/or care, is the Web browser/PPP dialer/POP3 Mail client that can cope - via plugins - with GIFs, JPEGs, Quicktime movies, AVIs, MPEGs, Telnet - but not frames. It's what to get for your no-hoper friends who keep on whining about how they'd like to get online but have more sense than money. Oh, and they've dropped all that annoying crippleware stuff, so it's vaguely (non-commercially) usable. http://www.naf.cz/arachne/ - we like the Czenglish , also! http://www.caldera.com/dos/#drdos - you cannot kill that which does not live >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista PARANOIA.COM *is* dying, but maybe you can help: http://SORABJI.com/livewire/stalk/messages/1251/1251.html ... 1999 FIFA WOMEN'S WORLD CUP... "I do all my FLASH coding in Emacs"... Good News: Austin Powers director Jay Loach to direct HHGTTG movie - Bad News: he wants JIM CARREY for Beeblebrox... T1s in the US, E1s in the UK - is it really because of the spacing of the MANHOLE COVERS?... European Space Agency use GNU C compiler for their satellite systems... GROOVIUS... WINAMP skins... FEED oBo: www.fortunecity.com/roswell/quatermass/74/obo.html ... Open Source genetically-engineered COWS (no, really)... improve your speech recognition: speak with an AMERICAN ACCENT... domain asking for trouble - http://www.can-u-hack-it.com - and would it look any worse if you could? ... playing your own car in GRAN TURISMO... expect us to rip off www.mcs.net/~jorn/html/weblogs/weblog.html ... oh, and http://www.snoot.com/cgi-bin/wuss.cgi >> GEEK MEDIA << what the? listings *without* an impenetrable search form? TV>> yes, sci-fi fans, the BBC has rewarded your loyalty - with a *punishment gift*... first, LOST IN SPACE (7.15pm, Fri, BBC2) spins off from that show where X-Philes talked about their "obsession", this week mocking, er, we mean, celebrating avid viewers of Dr Who... then INVASION EARTH (9.30pm, Fri, BBC1) is the usual Sci-Fi Channel co- production CGI tosh - blah blah interdimensional conflict blah blah humanoid aliens blah blah SETI experts - but with RAF Tornados!... amazingly, still looking just like he did on The Young Ones, and amazingly, still going, it's ALEXEI SAYLE'S MERRY-GO-ROUND (9.30pm, Fri, BBC2)... filmed for peanuts, but after extensive re-mastering and marketing, doubtful whether indie low-budgeter EL MARIACHI (12.15am, Fri, BBC2) ever actually made any money... compulsory to make some sort of "nul points" joke about THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST (8pm, Sat, BBC1) - though we prefer complex statisical analysis at http://www.kolumbus.fi/jarpen ... otherwise, Mark and Lard's footy-bore FAN NIGHT (from 9pm, Sat, BBC2) doesn't seem to include Tom Cruise Vietnam wheelchair weepie BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (11.15pm, Sat, BBC2)... and stick a vibrating pager down your pants to fully enjoy William Castle schlock classic THE TINGLER (12.30am, Sat, C5)... clearly not as much fun - or as easy to control - as the laserdisc arcade version, Clint Eastwood must "think in Russian" to pilot FIREFOX (3.05pm, Sun, some ITV regions)... and when Jeff Fahey creates a virtual girlfriend in confusingly-titled TV movie ADDICTED TO LOVE (9pm, Sun, C5), he clearly didn't learn anything from when he played The Lawnmower Man... the debut "Breakaway" episode enlivens the (normally superslow) Gerry Anderson Y2K panic-mongering SPACE: 1999 (6.25pm, Mon, BBC2)... then followed by what looks like a thinly disguised rerun of last year's appallingly named Carol Vorderman tech-literacy vehicle, COMPUTERS DON'T BITE (7.30pm, Mon, BBC2)... did they deliberately call that Robson Green serial-killer-chiller TOUCHING EVIL (9pm, Thu, ITV) because it sounds a bit like "Touching Cloth"?... plus: weariness, nausea, boredom with docus like HORIZON (9.30pm, Thu, BBC2) and their "chemical cocktail" theories - all symptoms of what experts are now calling "Gulf War Syndrome Syndrome"... FILM>> due to some sort of administrative error, this week sees the release of a lot of home-grown/ foreign arty rubbish, instead of the usual blockbuster Hollywood rubbish. Fear not, normal service resumes next week... probably the worst "date movie" since The Company Of Men, yet Gary Glitter does not appear on the soundtrack to controversially dull kiddieporn LOLITA (imdb: romance / tragedy / sex-with-minor / drama / road / based-on-novel / paedophilia / love / obsession)... at last, a wacky Brit love story that looks like Friends for ugly people, with the rip-roaringly bland title of MARTHA, MEET FRANK, DANIEL AND LAURENCE (imdb: romance / comedy)... Rachel "Chain Reaction" Wiesz plays AMY FOSTER (MPAA rated: PG-13, for "elements of theme and some sensuality"), in Conrad- inspired craggy costume drama with unexpected gay undercurrents... it's a miraculous cancer recovery that's SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN (imdb: soundtrack by Lalo "theme from Mission: Impossible" Schifrin)... like Deconstructing Harry beforehand, not too many surprises from real-life Woody Allen in for-fans-only jazz tour docu WILD MAN BLUES (www.virgin.net/cinema/filmfinder: London only)... and it's a surprise Japanese Strictly-Ballroom-style hit that asks SHALL WE DANCE (Roger Ebert: "Ballroom dancing is regarded with great suspicion, in a country where couples don't go out hand in hand"). And it's - inevitably - hardly based at all on the song of the same name (off the soundtrack of The King And I, you dummies)... FEEDING>> KELLOGG's hit right back at the advance of instant cereal RUMBLERS [see NTK 06/03/98], with their own hastily bundled airline-style toilet-soundalike PORTA BOWLS, now available for Corn Flakes, Frosties etc. Slightly cheaper than Rumblers (but still about 80p), they include milk, sugar, and a napkin, but are ultimately let down by bland post-war design and a much less interesting spoon... sticking with cereals, do HEALTHWISE BRAN FLAKES actually taste worse than Bran Flakes Classic?... oh, and by the way, NTK still advocates punching the side out of variety pack boxes and pouring the milk in there... reader ADRIAN MOULDER contests our nomination of SPOONERS as last month's "taste abomination" [see NTK 24/04/98], claiming that fruity "vitamin B1&6-C enriched beverage" SUNNY DELIGHT "tastes so foul that it must be good for you - especially the strawberry one, which is disgusting"... but NTK regular CHARLIE BROOKER reckons he can beat it with SPRITZER's ZERO GRAVITY clear-can drinks, with "lots of little gelatine *balls* floating around inside". "It's disconcerting!" Charlie adds. "You have to drink the balls!" Sounds like the UK arrival of freaky US staple, ORBITZ [see NTK 13/06/97]?... bev-flash: ubiquitous US chain STARBUCKS to acquire growing UK presence THE SEATTLE COFFEE COMPANY... also headed here soon? - the ROBERT CRUMB DEVIL GIRL CHOCO-BAR ("It's *bad* for you!")... finally, we don't know what it is that McVITIE's are putting in their "crispy cracker snack" tubs CRACK POTS (various flavours, inc garlic & herb), but it makes them almost as addictive as their freebase cocaine namesake... still, they'll need something strong to take on the mini-Pringle stacks; like they say, "Once you've popped, you just can't stop" - a slogan (we believe) appropriated from sellers of amyl nitrate... >> 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's registered at the Post Office as "50 people you don't want to meet" NEED TO KNOW THEY SOLD OUR REVOLUTION TO CONDE NAST. NOW WE'RE HIRING 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) 1998 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.