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         "...it was just the best fun ever. Keep your dreams alive,
         your hearts open, and your hands on the keyboard... cuz even
         on the web, Girls Do Rule!"
                      - "games for girls" company PURPLE MOON signs off
                                           (http://www.purple-moon.com)
         ...and you know, after that summer, I was never the same again
                                    
                                    
                             >> HARD NEWS <<
                             garbled  adieus
                                    
         Sunday, and somewhere off the coast of Iceland, a Teleglobe
         cable snapped like taffy. And while mostly everyone
         blundered through with only a few DNS slowdowns, JANET, the
         academic network, treated the damage as permanent, and
         rooted around for some excuses. Could have happened to
         anyone, of course (anyone who hadn't forked out for some
         redundant backup), but there's a special irony for JANET
         users, who have are among the few to pay a per-byte charge
         for transatlantic data transfer. Guaranteed quality of
         service - wasn't that the billing everyone gives for priced
         bandwidth? 
         http://www.teleglobe.com/media/index.html
                            - Russian connectivity to MIRnet? Uh-oh...
         http://www.ja.net/press_release/charging.html
               - how come we never get student sit-ins for this stuff?
         
         Eagerly awaited PlayStation game METAL GEAR SOLID sneaks
         into our British retail installations today, a sprightly 6
         months after its Japanese release - and surely of interest
         to anyone who hasn't already been forced to get a pirate
         copy following Konami's grey import clampdown. We know the
         game is supposed to take things cautiously, but this is
         ridiculous: Sony blame "localisation" for the delay, but
         were able to launch a complete English language version for
         the US market within two months of the Japanese original
         - a fact conveniently ignored by the Brit magazines that all
         but pleaded with you to wait for the official UK one.
         http://eagle.ca/~cadams/mgsout.html
         - yeah, admittedly, there's NTSC to PAL recoding in there too
         http://www.consolecity.com/metalgear/fanart.htm
          - but the art still looks like those terrible Zzap!64 covers   
            that were done by a relative of the publisher or something
                                                                      
         And draconian Euro ISP-bashing is one thing, but when it's
         combined with hilarious mistranslation humour, how *could*
         we resist? THE REGISTER reports that Valentin Lacambre,
         owner of French webspace provider Altern.Org, has chosen to
         "return his apron" after legal actions taken against him for
         copyrights infringed by members' pages, including nude pics
         of model Estelle Halliday. A typically gallic tiff over a
         beautiful woman, perhaps: Lacambre's Babelfish-translated
         statement swiftly descends into a heart-rending description
         of how his 48,000 accounts will either have to "go
         disparaitre" or "transform itself into bibendum advertising
         elsewhere". Though oddly, when you go to his site, his
         English isn't that bad...
         http://195.89.1.232/990225-000010.html
              - is that why don't they link to http://www.altern.org ?
         http://www.ntk.net/aus/
            - meanwhile some Aussie ISPs want more than just caller ID
                                    
                                    
                             >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                          berating the obvious

         new BRITNEY SPEARS album includes "godawful ballad" titled
         EMAIL MY HEART... http://www.lloydsbank.co.uk won't let you
         use numbers or symbols in password... this week's pointless
         email campaign: http://www.bpm.ai/~sameer/ - but don't go too
         far: http://www.imrg.org/survey/questions/virgin.htm ...
         maddest Y2K quote: "The DNS serial number is the key to the
         problem, as many dates only use six digits to represent the
         year in a byte with eight digits, the other two digits being
         used to represent a negative or positive number. This means
         that in 2000 several years will disappear, as they will no
         longer exist" ("INS", NetworkNews) *or* "In the year 2000,
         your computer will literally go back in time 100 years!" (BBC
         kids' show "Short Change")... why are ISPA's press releases
         always the worst formatted?... average monthly wage for
         trainee coder in Moldova: UKP10... webmaster at
         http://www.elonex.co.uk might not have spotted that
         http://www.gvsystems.com/home/ took his gifs, till the
         borrowed links showed up in his referrer logs...
                                    
                                    
                            >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                      goto's considered non-harmful
                                    
         Last we checked, Michael Moore's "culture jamming workshop"
         at Channel 4 (Tue 1999-03-02, UKP10) was all sold out and,
         let's face it, Jerry Springer "ringmastering" the stuck-up
         weirdos at the Oxford Union (also Tue 1999-03-02, 8.30pm)
         could get a bit *too* freaky. Fans of the adage "When I hear
         the word 'culture', I reach for my gun" are instead directed
         to Chris Burden's WHEN ROBOTS RULE: THE TWO MINUTE AIRPLANE
         FACTORY at the (ahem) Tate Gallery, London SW1 - a "fully
         automated assembly line manufacturing rubber-band-powered
         aeroplanes from tissue paper, plastic and balsa wood". The
         guy appears to be for real, a cross between Tim "The
         Rudiments Of Wisdom" Hunkin and William "oops I just killed
         my wife" Burroughs: his previous works include standing in
         an art gallery and getting a friend to shoot him in the arm.
         Entrance (from Tue 1999-03-02) is free; assistants will be
         catching the planes as they're launched and selling them to
         punters for UKP5. And at least if you happen to get in the
         way, there's less muzzle velocity this time.
         Michael Moore info: bcu@spanner.org, voice: 0171 247 8881
                 - you could always stand outside dressed as a chicken
         http://www.oxford-union.org/
            - not quite the voice of the disenfranchised working class
         http://www.ntk.net/planes/
                 - anyone know what happened to that lego car factory?
                                                                      
         We're always skeptical of events claiming to be "the biggest
         thing to hit the European Quake scene" (that would be
         "puberty", surely?) but we're assured that EUROQUAKE - The
         "defacto European Quake Championships" are the real deal.
         The actual UK team, not some goofs off Wireplay, will be
         taking on Clan 9, who took down Thresh's clan, Death Row,
         and it's all on LAN, so no whingeing about international
         ping time.
         http://www.theplayingfields.co.uk/home/990220-08.htm
           - no moaning about the puberty joke, either. Where's yAARGH
                                       
                               
                           >> TRACKING <<
                    look what the mouse dragged in
                                    
         Until recently, if you wanted a Windows secure shell
         connection to your Unix box, correct medicinal procedure was
         to download the official Data Fellows software, use it until
         the trial period expired, try to crack it, fail, then give
         up and install Linux. Nowadays, even that doesn't work,
         because those same fellows of Data are trying to encourage
         everyone to upgrade to their new SSH2 protocol (special
         powers include ultra-secure complete-incompatibility-with-
         the-ssh-your-Unix-box-uses mode), and only the most
         outrageous warez dudes can find their original, working,
         software. Thus, the sudden renaissance of TERATERM PRO, an
         ancient Windows terminal program that has the singular
         advantage of having an ssh plug-in. Okay, it's not new,
         exactly, but one day soon you'll need to find it, and
         careful observers will note that no new software has been
         invented since Netscape 1.1N. And even that was just
         Hypercard with a glowing 'N', right?
         http://www.zip.com.au/~roca/ttssh.html
             - caution, Americans! RSA don't want our stinking foreign
                                                      code in your PCs
         http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.html
                       - Japan, too. Smacks of World Government to me.
                                    
                                    
                             >> MEMEPOOL <<
                           hasta la altavista
                                    
         EBAY's lucrative slave-trade: http://208.169.218.91/kids.html
         ... this stuff gives us a headache: http://www.hedweb.com/ ...
         new KFC ad set in heart of rival franchise territory,
         SHEPHERD'S BUSH... justify that most tempting bugfix of all:
         http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n58272 ...
         AMAZON files Michael Marshall Smith's "One Of Us" under
         "Family & Health"... this week's monkey-themed Brit ONION
         http://www.gorillagorillagorilla.freeserve.co.uk/ ... forget
         "steps", it's the EMACS workout: http://www.bilbo.com/ (to
         http://www.broadcast.com/shows/loosebrucekerr/Y2K/ ?)
         ...subscribing to http://slab.org/void.html and checking
         headers - higher X-MAILER to Outlook/AOL ratio, the better...
         filth *everywhere*: http://www.global-image.com/eXonizer/ ...
         http://www.boxing.com/live-event/delahoya-quartey/round_0.html
                                    
                                    
                            >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                              get out less
                                    
         TV>> THE NEW ADDAMS FAMILY (5.40pm, Sat, ITV) will really have
         to try to be as bad as The New Munsters ("We went to sleep
         many years ago/ Now we're back with a brand new show!")... the
         phrase CRIMSON TIDE (9pm, Sat, ITV) makes useful shorthand for
         any office authority face-off situation, we find... "Make
         Room! Make Room!" on your video for dullish Harry Harrison
         Charlton Heston future euthanasia weepie SOYLENT GREEN (9pm,
         Sat, C4)... apparently there's a massive Dr Who subtext in
         repeated new gay soap QUEER AS FOLK (11.15pm, Sat, C4)...
         4LATER is, perhaps unsurprisingly, "on drugs" (from 12.30am,
         Sat, C4), featuring THE TRIP (2.50am, Sat, C4): space techno
         footage compiled by the guy who does the club page in some
         editions of The Guardian Guide, plus timeless student-pleaser
         THE CLANGERS (3.25am, Sat, C4)... otherwise provide your own
         MST3K comments for BBC1's showing of TERROR FROM THE YEAR 5000
         (1.45am, Sat, BBC1)... just after DWEEBS, LABYRINTH (2:55am,
         Sun, C4) is a black and white Czech movie - and not the Bowie
         Muppet-fest of the same name... Christian Slater is oddly
         proud of his work in teen pirate DJ romp PUMP UP THE VOLUME
         (10pm, Mon, C4) - oh dear... and NTK ed Danny O'Brien
         inexplicably pops up presenting wacky new weekend travelogue
         DOORS TO MANUAL (8.30pm, Wed, C4) - he assures us that the
         title is what they say on planes when they land, and not a
         Trek reference at all... the political comedy continues with
         MICHAEL MOORE: THE AWFUL TRUTH (10.30pm, Wed, C4) - hopefully
         TV Nation in all but name... followed by past-its-sell-by-date
         MARK THOMAS COMEDY PRODUCT (11pm, Wed, C4)... complemented by
         Sly Stallone's one-man eviction of the Russians from
         Afghanistan in RAMBO III (10.10pm, Wed, C5)... oh, and there's
         obviously an echo when you're standing on the hastily
         scheduled EDGE OF ETERNITY (1.45pm, Fri, C4) - Radio Times
         lists it as: "to come come come come come come come come come
         come come"...
         
         FILM>> you've guessed it, Nora Ephron's low-tech cyber-romance
         YOU'VE GOT MAIL (imdb: internet / new-york / bookstore ) is
         indeed packed with sappy soppy stupidity that only an AOL user
         could love. And *what is* shameful-looking Tom "rhyming slang"
         Hanks fiddling with under the table in the ubiquitous press ad
         and poster?... UL reference-spotting, Alicia Witt (Cybill's
         sarcastic daughter), and "inventive death scenes" are the
         memorable bits of latest production-line Scream-alike URBAN
         LEGEND (imdb: serial-killer / teen / urban-legend / splatter)
         - better than I Know What You Did Last Summer, if only 'cos
         the killer wears a giant Adrian Mole-style coat... along with
         George Clooney, John Travolta, and the rest of the world,
         Jared Leto also appears for a minute or more among the near-3
         hours of determinedly unconventional great-looking dreamy
         nature-parable photo-poem THE THIN RED LINE (imdb: based-on-
         novel / wwii), believed to be the first arty war flick for
         chicks. Shame Krzysztof "Three Colours" Kieslowski isn't
         around any more - what with this and Errol Morris's 1998
         miscarriage of justice docu The Thin Blue Line
         (unsatisfactorily adapted into Ben Elton's 1998 sitcom), he
         could have finished off the whole epically wide-ranging
         trilogy...
         
         MAGS>> we're enjoying our free subscription to INTERNET.WORKS
         http://www.futurenet.com/internetworks/regcard.asp enormously
         - where else can you learn that WebObjects were designed by
         the ever-prescient Steve Jobs in "the 1980s" (p33), and that
         "over 8000 orders were taken [by UK AOL ecommerce] during the
         Christmas period, with an average cost of UKP35 per item. The
         total amount taken has yet to be calculated but it will
         certainly be in the millions" (editorial, p5). Almost exactly
         UKP 0.28m, according to those figures and a grasp of basic
         multiplication... despite a cover featuring Lara "Annabel"
         Croft and being racked with the games mags in some newsagents,
         ACE *isn't* the return of "Advanced Computer Entertainment"
         that your father might recall, but rather a games/footie/etc
         mag that's "great for boys" - great for boys whose mums won't
         let them buy Front, perhaps... the "Music For The Rollcage
         Generation" music CD on the front of PLAYSTATION POWER crams
         12 Peel Show-standard drum and bassy bits into its
         disappointing all-one-track 27-minute runtime. Still, unlike
         OFFICIAL PLAYSTATION MAGAZINE, at least the mag isn't half-
         written in bad fake Japanese English, nor does it devote its
         letters page to patronising its - apparently numerous - 12
         year-old readers... issue 7.03 of WIRED completes its decline
         into a new-jobs-list for men in suits, pix of the hottest new
         desktop calculators, and fashion spreads of models dressed in
         fanfold paper. Only reason to buy is Chuck D promising to
         "ride the MP3 like a mutha-fuckin' cowboy" - "if you pirate
         something of mine, I just have to make sure to do nine or ten
         new things. I mean, you can't download me". There. Saved you
         four quid... sadly, after they were so nice to us last month,
         the new EDGE is largely tolerable, interviewing self-made DMA
         games theorist Gary Penn, plus a bland Amiga retrospective.
         Don't know the difference between Dune and Dune 2, though
         (p55)... and the early ardour of "ENTERTAINMENT" HEAT now
         seems to have cooled - apparently banned from reading (and
         scooping) EMAP's monthlies, they seem to be seeking
         inspiration elsewhere: http://www.ntk.net/heat/ . They do,
         however, remain in the running for "Poorest Video-Grabs In A
         Mass-Market Publication", going on to meet the winner of RADIO
         TIMES vs TOTAL FILM...
                                    
                                    
                            >> 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 "most important [wrong URL]".
                      (Computer Weekly's "Alan Smithee")

                                NEED TO KNOW
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