Need To Know 1998-11-13

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"We worked with [the movie's creators] to make the AOL experience that you'll see in the movie something that our members will see as realistic as possible" - AOL's Wendy Goldberg on Hanks/Ryan vehicle YOU'VE GOT MAIL http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28358,00.html?st.ne.1.head ...though maybe "Sling Blade" is a slightly closer metaphor... >> HARD NEWS << nothing to lose All the .com's disappeared again this Wednesday, but this time NETWORK SOLUTIONS had an explanation. According to David Holtzmann, NSI vice president of engineering, it wasn't their fault: it was the "F" root nameserver that went rogue. And that's run by Net legend, Paul Vixie. Unfortunately, Holtzmann seems to have been confusing Vixie's "F" rootserver, f.root-servers.net, and NSI's own "F" rootserver, f.gtld-servers.net, which they recently installed in Palo Alto (right next to Vixie's) to considerable fanfare. As it happens, Vixie's server *was* corrupted (NSI's machines messed up the file transfer), but correctly told DNS servers that it was down. Unfortunately, NSI's F, J, or K servers were snafu'd too, and were proudly insisting to the world that they were fine, just fine, and, by the way, did you know every .com in the universe just vanished? It's still not clear why NSI called their server "F" after the same letter as Vixie's long-established machine: some cynical voices suggested at the time that they were trying to squeeze out the old boys. Or maybe they just haven't got the hang of this whole "naming" business yet. http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28664,00.html - update! original article may have regurgitated NSI line http://www.merit.edu/~nanog/ - ratio of journo to sysadmins on NANOG now 2:1 Big surprise: JUSTIN PETERSEN, aka Agent Steal, aka Agent Squeal, aka the one-legged guy with the big hair who informed on Kevin Mitnick, has done a bunk. FBI marshalls have been checking his usual haunts on Sunset Boulevard, nervous that the running man won't be returning for his star witness appearance in the Mitnick trial. Mail to 2600 mag's Emmanuel Goldstein purporting to be from Petersen, claims he's skipped the country to work for some "CIA-funded black ops". Well, aren't we all? And will he be back for Mitnick? "Let lying dogs sleep" says the... uh, unconfirmed report. Meanwhile, we're wondering - wasn't it the *other* guy who had an arm missing in the Fugitive? http://www.zdnet.com/zdtv/cybercrime/chaostheory/story/0,3700,2163907,00.html - the "other Kevin" reports http://www.justinpetersen.com/ - pay your domain name bills before you go TOMMY FLOWERS sounds like something from a Captain Britain comic: the cheerful engineer sidekick of Turing and the Bletchley Park eggheads. In reality, he was Dr Flowers, - the man behind the design of Colossus, the electronic processor that helped break German encrypted messages in WWII. Colossus, if not the first computer, certainly counts as one of the first electronic hacks: it was constructed almost entirely from standard telephone parts. Flowers also tweaked the cutting edge: he insisted on using fragile vacuum tubes, rather than relays - his experience at the GPO told him that if they just kept his machine turned on, the tubes would rarely blow. Oh, and Flowers upped the speed of the Colossus fivefold in two years, beating Moore's Law before it even began. Dr Flowers was 92 when he passed away earlier this month. http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/ccc/bpark/colossus.htm - geek days out http://www.dejanews.com/=dnt_lk/getdoc.xp?AN=407669146 - "the most brilliant engineer" >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious oh God, JON KATZ has found Slashdot... WIRED "interactive" news at http://www.ntk.net/doh/wired981109.html ... looks like WEBMONKEY is learning on the job, too - http://fuchs.stanford.edu/schtuff/monkey.gif ... BRITISH PATENT "search engine" shows no hits for "Dyson".. DAVID BRAKE now promoted to BBC OBITUARIES DEPARTMENT... "Sun-Microsoft rivalry one of dislike", reveals USA TODAY... REVOLUT!ON asks its online directory members to update their details - by fax... AntiNews of the Year: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/981106/wa_amazon__2.html ... GEOFF BOYCOTT's "Hit For Six" game cancelled after he beat up his partner, reckons THE SUN... ROBERT X CRINGELY fakes professorship from Stanford: hell, next they'll be saying he made up the name... BBC ad for Website suggests that a good cure for running out of memory is to "close some of the programs, and reboot" - what, just some of the programs?... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Oh, those swanky West Coast WEBZINE 98 guests may be living the high life this weekend, quaffing the complimentary Chardonnet and waving to their adoring crowds from their large, specially-commissioned floats, but we know our roots. We'll eating simpler fare at the ATARI COMPUTING CONVENTION at Bingley Hall, The Staffordshire Show Centre, Stafford, this Saturday 14/11/98 (1000-1600GMT). The simple bran of the monochrome Atari ST: the healthy spring water of its still cheery exponents. And we'll be breaking bread with the Atari's traditional enemies, too. By a happy coincidence the Atari Convention takes place at *exactly* the same time and place as the ALL COMPUTER SHOW, which will be chock-a-block with ageing Sinclair fans, Einstein enthusiasts, Coleco Adam advocates and, we're sure, the occasional Amiga loser. Entrance fee UKP3, and bring your boots. There's still time for one more kicking. http://www.sharward.co.uk/sproms.html - "but I've *OOF* got a *OOF* blitter *OOF*" http://www.webzine98.com/ - Freaks. GET A JOB!! >> TRACKING << making good use of the things that we find JOHN WALKER is one of those luminaries who you know, even if you don't recognise the name: his DEMORONISER is a program that fixes symptoms you'll recognise even if you've never known the disease. This Perl hack fixes HTML generated with programs like PowerPoint and Microsoft Word, dropping back the apostrophes and smart quotes which the apps otherwise knacker beyond belief. As Walker points out, if you don't fix the code, Web readers using Macs or Unix will think you're an ungrammatical idiot or - worse - suspect you own PowerPoint and Microsoft Word. Walker was also the founder of AutoCad, and the guy in Rudy Rucker's THE HACKER AND THE ANTS who tries to take over the world using an army of super-intelligent ants hatched from his secret Switzerland base. Allegedly. http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/demoroniser/ - don't let the domain name put you off, little hacker http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/top10.html - ...he's one of us >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista offshore GORE PATCH for Carma players, all ages: http://www.carpocalypse.com/ppfiles.htm ... now, this is shit: http://www.doodie.com/ ... China recognises "MAGIC: THE GATHERING" as an "official non-Olympic mind sport"... http://www.scottmccloud.com/ ... random ICQ numbers in your .sig, just to annoy people... they've got your number: http://telephonesex.net/ ... EPISODE ONE trailer US debuts next week - FRANK "Yoda" OZ comments: "Fucking incredible [it is]"... tragic floods in CHINA delay delivery of BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD action figure collectibles... http://www.leeandherring.com live tryouts start at Riverside Studios next Thu 19/11... unfortunate title-bar typo of the year: http://www.nukeproof.com/ ... SISTERS OF MURPHYS ads annoy Irish goth tribute band of same name, reports uk.people.gothic ... Brighton KILLER NET house burns down, police suspect arson - by TV fans... IEE NEWS warns RF streetlight interference "likely" - story has been on and off so many times, it's causing interference of its own... >> GEEK MEDIA << may contain strongly-typed language TV>> very average character sketches/ spoofs that really would have you muttering GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME (10pm, Fri, BBC2) - if they weren't so excitingly, adventurously Asian... but at least they haven't scheduled it against the increasingly excellent sibling ribaldry of FRASIER (10pm, Fri, C4)... plus plenty of self-confessed "macho bullshit" - and a weirdly camp villain - in early Arnie guns-and-puns fest COMMANDO (10.25pm, Fri, BBC1) - "I let him go!"... not officially "girl power" night on the SciFi Channel, but clearly something's fuelling immortal-female spin-off HIGHLANDER: THE RAVEN (8.30pm, Fri, SciFi), the TOMB RAIDER SPECIAL (9.30pm, Fri, SciFi), and that other post-feminist (post-watchable?) icon TANK GIRL (10pm, Fri, SciFi)... desperate Cilla tries to find *any romance at all* in the lives of ex-contestants on THE BLIND DATE EXCLUSIVE (6.45pm, Sat, ITV)... *surely* Iranian hostages docu 444 DAYS (10pm, Sat, BBC2) will touch on the theory that Bush kept them there till Carter lost to Reagan... and, inexplicably, C4 is re-showing DARK SKIES (12.20am, Sat, C4; 11.50pm, Sun, C4)... visible wires, painted f/x, straight-faced Leslie Nielsen fail to detract from archetypal sci-fi classic FORBIDDEN PLANET (5.20pm, Sun, C4)... a comprehensive look back at the highlights of a month's digital TV in NOUGHTS AND ONE (8.50pm-9pm, Sun, BBC2)... seen John Dahl's neo-noirs Red Rock West or The Last Seduction? Then no need to KILL ME AGAIN (10pm, Sun, C4)... especially when Luc Besson is lamenting the uselessness of work experience placements in rapid-fire assassin assignment LEON (10.10pm, Sun, BBC2)... why should C5 viewers have all the fun, ask competing channels with completely educational, not at all sensation-seeking VICE - THE SEX TRADE (9pm, Mon, ITV), and - just after, on the same night! - ANATOMY OF DESIRE (10pm, Mon, C4)... 60 years of cereal box evolution compressed into 10 mins of brand-nostalgia 6-parter WRAPPERS (10.20pm, Tue, BBC2) - part two free inside!... and it's rubbish sci-fi rip-off week on C5 - again - with The Relic-alike DNA (9pm, Tue, C5), and scary black contact-lens ad THE SILENCERS (9pm, Wed, C5)... has Davina McCall *killed* Gaby Roslin to take over all her old jobs, like THE REAL HOLIDAY SHOW (8.30pm, Wed, C4)?... and, for comparison's sake, CARRY ON CAMPING (11.15pm, Wed, BBC1) is followed by the second-worst British sex comedy of all time, pseudo-sci-fi penis-transplant sequel PERCY'S PROGRESS (12.40am, Wed, BBC1)... FILM>> Buffy, Ultraviolet, Razor Blade Smile, John Carpenter, and now Wesley Snipes in frenetic beat-'em-up BLADE (imdb: based-on-comic / vampire) - just what have people got against the undead again all of sudden? "The whole film is bad right through," said the Jamaican Film Board, then banned it... lovely Sandra Bullock plays the local "Queen of Corn", directed by "King of Corn" Forest Whitaker, in chick-flick by numbers HOPE FLOATS (imdb: divorce / mother-daughter / old-age / photography / small-town / talk-show) - and if she'd seen The Philadelphia Experiment, she'd know not to trust that guy this time... Matthau and Lemmon together again - like they ever work with anyone else - in tottering THE ODD COUPLE II (imdb: divorce / marriage / odd-couple / road-trip / sequel) - imagine "Home Alone" with OAPs... and battle for the most vomit-packed movie of the week: is it Hal Hartley's limited-release touching scatological poetry web-publishing romp HENRY FOOL (imdb: drama/ comedy) - sounds oddly like John Waters' upcoming Pecker... or Terry Gilliam's nauseating f/x fest - with Benicio "Bakersfield PD" Del Toro, and Johnny Depp as what looks like a '70s Elton John - to elicit both FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (imdb: 1970s / drugs / las-vegas / sequel). As Ben Moor puts it: To describe it as 'Gonzo' journalism is to ignore the influence of all the other muppets... DEAD TREE MEDIA>> yeah, we know, we did "magazines" recently, but we had to get the word out to someone: issue 1 of much-trumpeted Future Publishing multi-format mag ARCADE (UKP1 launch price, due Tue 17/11/98) is, reportedly, "awful". Symptoms include Total Film design, ultra-impenetrable text (2000 words/page?), only 2 (out of 73) games getting "below average" scores, 20 pages of tips, and a big cover close-up of Lara Croft's head with headline "The New Face Of Videogames" - clearly not a usage of "New" that we were previously familiar with. Intriguingly, the press ads - a charming tableau of two blokes playing games, chomping pizza, while bored girls look on - supports our long-standing claim that the mag was going to be called "Arcadia", as this is written on one of the joypads in black marker pen, presumably to prevent them from being nicked from the office... apparently the makers of Edge, OPM, Frontiers, Decoration Cake and the (perhaps too literal) Redline are also planning a "technology lifestyle mag", called CODE, described as "like Wired - but not so up its own arse" (and where did we hear that disclaimer before?)... in more encouraging news, http://www.salonmagazine.com reported that West Coast uberzine MIGHT is reincarnating as MCSWEENEY'S, helmed by David Eggers, author of "Never Fucked Anyone", the best bit in the Might book by far. Further info now online at http://www.mcsweeneys.net ... oh, and http://www.obscurestore.com is currently sheltering ultimate temp nomad updates DISHWASHER #14 and #15... thanks to everyone who pointed out that LLOYD MANGRAM not only never edited Crash, but was also a made-up pseudonym who never even existed... heck, even the ex-ed of Horticulture Week can find themselves running a REVOLUT!ON nowadays: http://www.demon.co.uk/eurojournalism/stovin/etcv.html ... >> 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 "on time, for once in our lives" 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? 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