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  • NTK 2007
  • NTK 2006
  • NTK 2005
  • NTK 2004
  • NTK 2003
  • NTK 2002
  • NTK 2001
  • NTK 2000
  • 31/12/99
    #127
    Backspace deleted, Icke vs Illuminati, Quiz Apocalypse '99
  • 24/12/99
    #126
    Unusually resentful Newtonmas edition
  • 17/12/99
    #125
    Tomb Raider - The Worst Revelation, Saving "Crazynet", Party like it's 2600
  • 10/12/99
    #124
    BT "Lollipop" licked, Dreamcast porn, ICA ice-cream
  • 03/12/99
    #123
    agency.com go "public", NSI return to form, retro round-up
  • 26/11/99
    #122
    Sinclair "mare", Reclaim the First Class Carriage, HARRIXOS!
  • 19/11/99
    #121
    Early Edition
  • 12/11/99
    #120
    Bill's new friends, countdown to Napster lawsuits, mondo retro
  • 05/11/99
    #119
    into the valley of death rode the 0800, penny for the GIF, out of Clinky
  • 29/10/99
    #118
    CSS Hissing, 0800 YAH-RIGHT, Neal S exported
  • 22/10/99
    #117
    Stray Ducks, Eggs, Marbles and Mutts
  • 15/10/99
    #116
    ICA hosts more than just fancy parties, give yourself over to the "dark" break
  • 08/10/99
    #115
    NCIS pushes "made-up drug", ritualistic Apple-bashing, and all new NTK live
  • 01/10/99
    #114
    Grey day steals idea of "grey days", quantum uncertainty, Gibson on the streets
  • 24/09/99
    #113
    Scrambling spooks, Aussie proxies, and nothing but the Knuth
  • 17/09/99
    #112
    Nethead is Deadhead, Elite Final Conflict, text browser wars
  • 10/09/99
    #111
    Getting medieval on your math, Space 1999 - '99
  • 03/09/99
    #110
    Hotmail hot water, Matthew Smith found alive, celebrity wrangling
  • 27/08/99
    #109
    Open Scores, the "." in L. Ron, and Mad Magazine
  • 20/08/99
    #108
    God hates Demon, everyone loves the QL, Russian Roulette goes edible
  • 13/08/99
    #107
    Red Hat rising, Martlesham woes, DNS the Secondary
  • 06/08/99
    #106
    Info drought, ancient arcades, and Edinburgh
  • 30/07/99
    #105
    Bloody hell it's ADSL, pan-European Adams-Pratchett wars, K&R warez
  • 23/07/99
    #104
    Nic nic, Freebieserve, Amiga non Amigo
  • 16/07/99
    #103
    DefCon, Moon shots, more D&D than usual
  • 09/07/99
    #102
    Local loopy nuts are we, CU (Amiga) in court, Phantom Menace non-special
  • 02/07/99
    #101
    The gong shows, Virtual depravity, Fear of a Black Hat
  • 25/06/99
    #100
    Special anniversary DTI moan, Sarcastic Bastard of The Year, rubber band massacres
  • 18/06/99
    #99
    You got an 'ology, BSA busted, Space 1999 '99
  • 11/06/99
    #98
    ADSL RSN, Microsoft is wormfood, and sweaty Palms
  • 04/06/99
    #97
    Last year's bits, everyone quits, The FAST Show
  • 28/05/99
    #96
    BT going free?, Kevin Mitnick isn't, Atari Teenage Riot Tryout
  • 21/05/99
    #95
    Russian ruling roulette, whinnying Winn Schwartau, ASCII Star Wars
  • 14/05/99
    #94
    Not-so secret agents, mystery Falco, IP on the radio
  • 07/05/99
    #93
    Clive's Linux, Live Linux, Jive The Phantom Menace
  • 30/04/99
    #92
    Acorn dead again, "Susan" "Blackmore", and more anon
  • 23/04/99
    #91
    anon, gratis and unconventional
  • 16/04/99
    #90
    Crypto Careers, Krause Carouses, Clubbing for Kosovo
  • 09/04/99
    #89
    General public licence to kill, dirty ISPs, and Star Wars lego, hoorah
  • 02/04/99
    #88
    April Fools, Norton Futilities, and Hairy PalmPilots
  • 26/03/99
    #87
    AOL Churls, "Be" jwz, Dumb IE5 tricks
  • 19/03/99
    #86
    Open Mac, Email Alack, Stallman's back!
  • 12/03/99
    #85
    Putting the "ow" in Escrow, Krazy Kubrick Konspiracies!
  • 05/03/99
    #84
    Sat hack hoax, .com con, Virus The Musical
  • 26/02/99
    #83
    Damn it Janet, Amazin' planes, That cheatin' Heat
  • 19/02/99
    #82
    EU fools, sci-fi rules, it ain't COOL news
  • 12/02/99
    #81
    Spice Girls outsmart the EC, OTT anti-artist ranting, and the usual skeptic jokes
  • 05/02/99
    #80
    Demo wars, Superweeds and Hotmail to Pop
  • 29/01/99
    #79
    NCIS, N64 Emus, and roaming POP access
  • 22/01/99
    #78
    Freeserve again, NSI again, and Linux 2.2
  • 15/01/99
    #77
    Undercurrents, Element -snigger- 14, and ESR
  • 08/01/99
    #76
    Green apples, Nightmare at Milton Keynes, C64
  • NTK 1998
  • NTK 1997
  • HARD NEWS
  • ANTI-NEWS
  • EVENT QUEUE
  • TRACKING
  • MEMEPOOL
  • GEEK MEDIA
  • SMALL PRINT
 _   _ _____ _  __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the uk>
| \ | |_   _| |/ / _ __   __1999-03-26_ o join! mail 'subscribe ntknow'
|  \| | | | | ' / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / o  to majordomo@lists.ntk.net
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|_| \_| |_| |_|\_\|_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/   o     http://www.ntk.net/


         "I have the equivalent of a PalmPilot installed neurally."
                           - ERIC S RAYMOND, New York Times, 1999-03-25
               ...although I wouldn't like to say where it was inserted
                                    
       *** STOP-PRESS TRIBUTE ISSUE: GOOD LUCK IN YOUR NEW JOB, jwz! ***
                                            
                                    
                             >> HARD NEWS <<
                             collecting dues
                                    
         It was only a matter of time before requests to "whois
         internic.net" met with the reply: "We're NETWORK SOLUTIONS.
         Who the hell are you?". This week, NSI did the next best
         thing. Visitors to the previously neutral (and useful)
         Internic site were redirected to networksolutions.com, NSI's
         commercial site - not at all the sort of thing that Eugene
         Kashpureff faced 5 years' jail for [NTK 1997-11-07].
         Remarkably, the usual locations for ftp'ing registration
         forms, accessing the whois server, and generally doing
         anything useful without paying for the nose for it, vanished.
         Reactions from the sysadmins on NANOG list were predictably
         withering: given that the Internic was a US government
         trademark, suggested one, couldn't they sue NetSol for domain
         squatting? And if this is what they do when they're being
         public-spirited, imagine what they're going to be like when
         their monopoly ends, and they're going to have to start
         *competing*.
         http://webdeveloper.com/noname/noname_032599.html
           - careful what you say - whois knows where your office is...
         http://www.cctec.com/maillists/nanog/current/maillist.html
                                    - NANOG mumbles as loud as they can
         
         We could probably grab some much needed kudos from *not* being
         invited to Monday's closed-doors meeting between civil rights
         campaigners and ISP orgs - given the LINX's rather pointed
         comments in the invite about unhelpful muck-raking
         journalists. Sadly, we *were* invited, but overslept. The
         deliberations were covered by "Chatham House Rules"
         (translation: we'd have to append "but I couldn't possibly
         comment" to every quote people sent us), but we *can* report
         that it seemed a darn sight friendlier than the next day's
         SCRAMBLING FOR SAFETY. There, the annual DTI Spokesman Gets
         Chewed Up And Spat Out competition smashed even previous
         year's records, and various mauled civil servants broke with
         tradition to say that it *wasn't* their fault that the crypto
         proposals were late/wrong/deluded or mad. No, it was everyone
         else's fault for whinging too much. And they're not late/
         wrong/deluded/mad, they're just "under consultation", and thus
         eminently fixable. Until next week, that is, when the April
         1st deadline passes, and the government representatives begin
         an entirely new phase of going "Wah Wah Wah! Not listening!"
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_302000/302233.stm
                              - thank god TV's Chris has an alarm clock
         
         Usually we'd be tempted to side with plucky Essex online girl
         band AOL GIRLS - currently pursued by America Online for
         inadvertently appropriating their subscribers' popular search
         term (and clarion mating call?). After all, both The Guardian
         and BBC Online were convinced that the Girls' $9.95 monthly
         membership ("discreetly appears" on your credit-card statement
         as "DMR") offers merely "Exclusive Pics" and "Saucy Secrets",
         rather than, say, some dodgy porn scam. However: a quick visit
         to "Dr whois" shows aol-girls.com is owned by obvious domain
         speculators photoagency.com - also behind adolfhitler.com,
         18andnew.com, nazigirl.com - while AltaVista reveals the
         Stalin-esque "disappearance" of three previous members,
         apparently after "animal sex", "big tits", and "nasa starcraft
         movies" appeared in their <meta> tags.
         http://www.aol-girls.com/girlcarly/carly.html
                - that guy who wrote moaning about our "adult links"...
         http://www.aol-girls.com/sarah/sarah.html
                               - ...please don't "View Source" on these
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3839669,00.html
                 - Did they test the $9.95 subscription? Did they hell.
     http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_301000/301543.stm
             - E17's Tony Mortimer was "head of music" at their school?
                                    
                                    
                             >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                           special IE5 edition
                                    
         "Internet To Change The Face Of The PC World", reports
         LYCOS... UK ONLINE goes free... IE5 "smart search" goes to
         http://auto.search.msn.com/default.asp - NT4 Option Pack
         default page... "One in Five US Households Is Convergent",
         finds SHOWTIMEONLINE - that's "convergent" defined as
         "simultaneously accessing the Internet and viewing
         television"... DEMON compo discriminates against non-IE5
         users: http://www.demon.net/win/ie5/ (well, only ones who
         don't use "View Source")... THE EDITOR's favourite titlebar
         typo: http://www.libertynet.org/artguide/new.html ... no, we
         meant the resignation of Virgin Net MD DAVID CLARKE - not the
         car crash guy... John Sculley uses PALMPILOT... (temporary)
         MEDIA JUSTICE!: http://www.ntk.net/doh/pin990326.jpg ...
         BECKS "pull out half way through" sponsorship of QUEER
         AS FOLK... IE5 mail filters NINFOMANIA as "junk", NTK as
         valid - oh well... Brit ROYAL FAMILY still use Apache/1.2b7
   http://www.netcraft.com/cgi-bin/Survey/whats?host=www.royal.gov.uk
                                    
                                    
                            >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                      goto's considered non-harmful
                                    
         "3 solid days of LAN Quake gaming" is the Wireplay-sponsored
         promise of bring-your-own-PC party INSOMNIA '99 (from 9am Fri
         today, in an "old Army theatre" outside Bicester Army Base,
         UKP40): not just Quake 2 but also Starcraft, Quake World, and
         Total Annihilation - a bit like a Scandinavian demo party but
         without all that late-night video projection and last-
         minute coding nonsense. Speaking of which, Norway's THE
         GATHERING (from Wed 1999-03-31, The Viking Ship, Hamar, NOK
         425) is of course the real thing: 5 full days of Quake, Quake
         2, Half Life and Starcraft leavened with the very cutting
         edge of Amiga / Commodore 64 / BeBox apologists. Insomnia has
         a bar, alcohol is forbidden at The Gathering ("We don't have
         any minimum age requirements, but we expect attendees to be
         able to feed themselves"); both ban "water boiling equipment"
         so nor will you be able to survive on melted snow. Hell, go
         to both and make an 10-day session of it.
         http://www.multiplay.co.uk/insomnia/
           - programme: "Bar opens", "Bar closes", "Bar opens" (repeat)
         http://www.gathering.org/
          - Last year we tipped Amiga winners Nerve Axis UK. As a joke.
                                                  
                                    
                             >> TRACKING <<
                     look what the mouse dragged in
                                    
         "Yes, it's buggy and slow and awkward but IT'S JUST SO
         COOL", gushes our favourite browserwatcher about the new
         "dogfood-ready" Mozilla release, SeaMonkey. The work-in-
         progress browser from Netscape is *just* about usable, and
         beta-victims everywhere now have a smashing new opportunity
         to crash their machines in the pursuit of open source quality
         control. Is it worth it? Well, our correspondent writes: "It
         took me five minutes to work out how to add a button with my
         face on it to the main toolbar. I guess you can do a lot of
         this customisation stuff with IE5 .hta's as well. BUT THEY'RE
         NOT AS COOL." Further fun lies in writing informative yet
         bitingly sarcastic bug reports to Bugzilla, especially when
         you get e-mails back with Netscape's engineers equally bitchy
         comments appended. Now *you* could "be" jwz!
       http://www.mozilla.org/quality/bug-writing-guidelines.html [sic]
                        - hope Microsoft don't subpoena these mails too
         http://www.eeggs.com/pc/apps/egg_412.html
                       - hmm. plenty bitching fun over the IE5 codebase
         http://cinepad.com/mslex.htm
         - "eating your own dogfood": lovely imagination, those MS boys

                                    
                             >> MEMEPOOL <<
                           hasta la altavista
                                    
         http://www.rodhull.com/ ... ARMY (ever topical) to launch
         "range of branded clothes"... GREG EGAN'S Teranesia... PLANCK
         FROTH... PIRACY hurts fans as well as studios - just another
         good reason for it: http://saginaw.simplenet.com/rrmvpira.htm
         ... PALMPILOT beam spamming... LINEONE moving from Wapping to
         Covent Garden - literally *and* metaphorically?... WHEN
         BASTARDS ATTACK, pt2: http://www.spacebastards.com/vote ...
         WINSTAR snag 38GHz, plan wireless broadband rollout in London
         this year... can ANYONE work http://www.smallfish.co.uk ?...
         fake "Vonnegut" SUNSCREEN speech now a major US dance hit...
         Clash tribute album BURNING LONDON... new, beard-free PR:
         http://pringle.oaktree.co.uk/~jbaker/pics/0wn.jpg ... call
         the COPS: http://warhammer.mcc.virginia.edu/cars/radio.html
         ... well, have *you* seen any official merch with THE PHANTOM
         MENACE printed on it? Ahhhh... WATCHMEN coming true at last:
 http://www.msss.com/mars/global_surveyor/camera/images/3_11_99_happy/
                                    
                                    
                            >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                              get out less
                                    
         TV>> noted non-geek Janet Street-Porter pursues a totally un-
         obsessive 350 mile walk in a (largely) straight line,
         helpfully titled AS THE CROW FLIES (8pm, Fri, BBC2)... Steven
         "Press Gang" Moffat wrote this MURDER MOST HORRID (9pm, Fri,
         BBC2), which may make Dawn French's constant mugging more
         tolerable... and following When Eagles Dare three weeks ago,
         Friday is Eastwood WW2 night again with zany tank heist caper
         KELLY'S HEROES (10.30pm, Fri, BBC1)... oh, cruel fate that
         saw Kubrick die merely *weeks* before a major BBC2
         retrospective of his work: in particular, DR STRANGELOVE
         (10.35pm, Sat, BBC2) hasn't been on terrestrial since the far-
         off days of last November... anyone who didn't get the
         "SkyNet" gags in NTK 1999-03-05 is advised to pay attention
         this time to THE TERMINATOR (9.05pm, Sat, ITV)... DEADLY
         INVASION: THE KILLER BEE NIGHTMARE (9pm, Sat, C5) isn't a
         sensational "When Insects Attack" docu but just the start of
         many dreadful looking monster movies - culminating in non-
         Alan-Moore Heather Locklear GMO parable THE RETURN OF SWAMP
         THING (9.55pm, Sun, C5)... and no wonder Arlington Road's
         Jeff Bridges is paranoid after Tommy Lee Jones's Mousetrap-
         inspired IRA bombs leave him feeling BLOWN AWAY (12midnight,
         Sat, ITV)... Sandra Bullock's THE NET (10pm, Sun, C4) creates
         a more convincing sense of social isolation than it does of
         lethal hacker-viruses - largely by not casting any other
         characters... post-Reboot CGI romp SHADOW RAIDERS (nee "War
         Planets") shows twice every day this week (10am; 4.30pm, Mon-
         Fri, SkyOne)... and god, not the rubbish Abel Ferrara version
         of BODY SNATCHERS *again* (10pm, Mon, C4)... psychic animals
         rescue humans, redecorate each other's homes in predictable
         cross-genre combination SUPERNATURAL (8.30pm, Tue, BBC1)...
         remember the '70s? weren't they *hilarious?* inquires hideous
         New Romantic comedy HUNTING VENUS (9pm, Wed, ITV) - unlikely
         to touch those excellent TOP TENS (9.30pm, Sat, C4)... while
         mock-French restaurant chain Pierre Victoire's appearance on
         TROUBLE AT THE TOP (9.30pm, Wed, BBC2) confirms suspicions of
         diners who thought their "3 course meal for 5.95" offer was
         slightly too good to be true...
         
         FILM>> of course, cuddly monster movie MIGHTY JOE (MPAA:
         Rated PG for some menacing action violence and mild language)
         really does need a surname to avoid confusion with MEET JOE
         [BLACK] - see NTK 1999-03-19 (the largely appalling CineZine
         argues Joe shouldn't be forced to use the "slave name" of his
         human "wife", Charlize "2 Days In The Valley" Theron)...
         whatever the X stands for in vicious message-heavy Romper-
         Stomper-inspired skinhead saga AMERICAN HISTORY X (imdb:
         based-on-novel / neo-nazism / racism / white-supremacists),
         it doesn't seem to be the removed credit of director Tony
         Kaye (and no, you don't need to have seen American History I-
         IX to understand it)... those who prefer their violence a
         little more morally motivated should cheer Mel Gibson's semi-
         comic table-turning Point Blank-remake PAYBACK (imdb: robbery
         / money / narrative / revenge / doublecross / based-on-novel
         / prostitution / black-comedy / twist-in-the-end / pickpocket
         / blood / s&m / drugs / crooked / organized-crime /
         kidnapping / torture) - re-teams Mel with Conspiracy Theory/
         LA Confidential writer Brian Helgeland (who Mel then fired),
         plus Deborah Kara Unger from "The Game"... NTK's pre-school
         readers will know that nappy-filling golden shower THE
         RUGRATS MOVIE (imdb: based-on-tv-series / kids-and-family /
         sequel) picks up from the end of season 7 cliffhanger to
         extend many of the major plot arcs previously raised in the
         Rugrats "mythos" - but is it showing with the "CatDog" short
         as seen on US screens?... and no Oscars but plenty of
         exposure for more gay, less camp version of "Ed Wood" GODS
         AND MONSTERS (imdb: not to be confused with "The Crow 3:
         World of Gods and Monsters") - a more sensitive look at
         horror films and unrequited love than the same director's
         "Candyman II: Farewell to the Flesh"...
         
         MUSICAL THEATRE [WITH YOUR HOST, THE "BUTCHER OF BROADBAND",
         CHARLIE BROOKER] - Review of Virus The Musical, as requested
         in NTK 1999-03-05: SAM FOX was "indisposed" and replaced by
         her understudy. JACK WILD - Artful Dodger in the 1968 movie
         of "Oliver!" - plays a mouse. He has to wear a costume with
         two buttons on his chest. His arse is the rollerball. He does
         a little jig and sings a song called "Double Click". There's
         another song called "You're Going To Get Your Interface
         Kicked In" and a touching sequence in which a 3.5" floppy
         sings of her unrequited love for a hard drive... in one early
         scene, a character explains the advantages of file
         compression; adult dancers in silver catsuits ("files") climb
         into a mysterious box-like machine, and reappear through a
         hole in the base - as children. "FILE MANAGER" and his
         cronies go on to sing about the joys of conserving hard disk
         space. By this point I was slack-jawed with astonishment,
         like someone watching the opening sequence of Saving Private
         Ryan for the first time... the programme includes a glossary
         of computer terms "for the unsure, the uninitiated, and
         parents", and peppered with typos ("countrys", "Chernobyll",
         "beetamax", "miniturized"). I sat in on a matinee and was
         surrounded by schoolchildren who seemed to be enjoying
         themselves. Still, they were probably all on crack or
         something... to cap off the weirdness, it's all being backed
         by LEE TAYLOR-RYAN, the guy who won 6.5m on the lottery, then
         had to serve time for dealing in stolen cars. He was
         apparently so impressed by the cast's "will to succeed" that
         he agreed to save the show from financial apocalypse. There
         is currently no news of their planned "national tour"...
         [ Hear Charlie's audio report about 7 minutes in - plus our
         other shared obsession, those sexy, sassy AOL Girls - at
         http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onair_extra/media/digital.ram ]
         
         [ This review appears in place of our scheduled Richard
         Stallman report by NTK's full-time Katz-hater, which was so
         darned heartfelt we couldn't bring ourselves to cut it:
         http://www.dejanews.com/[ST_rn=qs]/getdoc.xp?AN=459219329 ]
                                    
                                    
                            >> 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 "like Wired in its early days"
                    (overheard in Guardian New Media Lab)


                                NEED TO KNOW
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  • HARD NEWS
  • ANTI-NEWS
  • EVENT QUEUE
  • TRACKING
  • MEMEPOOL
  • GEEK MEDIA
  • SMALL PRINT