Need To Know 1999-06-04

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"As usual, I'm living in a parallel universe - got tons of very intelligent, interesting, thoughful, e-mail about this column which, as usual, is being linked all over the place." - JON KATZ, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99/05/29/2049226&cid=1232 ...but in reality Jon is being used by aliens as a source of energy >> HARD NEWS << special moves R-r-r-rrunarahnd! This week's celebrity resignations: BRIAN HOOK, programmer at id software, chief architect of the 3DFX Glide API, and original singer of 911's "A Little Bit More"; RASTERMAN, creator of the Enlightenment Window manager, GNOME project employee, lyricist for the Wailers; NATHAN MYHRVOLD, head of Microsoft Research, no discernable achievements, inspiration for mid-seventies novelty hit "I'm Nathan Myhrvold And I Live in A Hole". Like everyone else, we assumed they were taking each others' jobs (".plan: this year, sink $5 billion R+D into new staff 'skins'"), but it isn't turning out that way. Brian's gone to Ultima rivals VERANT INTERACTIVE, Rasterman is taking some time off to plot the "disappearance" of his old Redhat manager, and Nathan... well, nobody's broken it to Nathan that he's going yet. Despite rock-hard sources inside and outside Microsoft saying that Ballmer's already put all his desktop dinosaurs into bin liners, Nathan's still convinced that he's just taking a few months holiday. Two points for Nathan to consider: a) wasn't that *exactly* what he told Stephen Hawking, just before he left him to work for Microsoft for 15 years? b) Doesn't he know Ballmer's sense of humour yet? http://www.edge.org/digerati/myhrvold/ - "The Chef": Hurdy Borg! Borg! Borg! http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2224955,00.html - c) look what happened to the other dead guy http://www.verantinteractive.com/ - strafe-hopping across the country You may recall UK publishers SAVOY pioneering the legal take on the graphic novel in 1992. Their comic MENG AND ECKER was banned principally "because it was luridly bound and therefore likely to attract attention from the less literate". They're also known for being the original sponsors of horror/sci-fi author M John Harrison, and publishers of avant garde art and erotica by Michael Moorcock, Sam Delany, and Charles "Silicon Man/ Anarchy Online" Platt. After a brief period free from hassle, Customs and Excise last month performed a suitably perverse impoundment: they've seized unsold copies of exported copies of Lord Horror, M&E, and their new abortion Reverbstorm, as they're returned to the UK. Yup, books written and printed in the UK, confiscated because they briefly re-crossed a border. Just thought you should know that no matter how bad it gets here on the Net, it's even crazier in the real world. http://www.abel.net.uk/~savoy/ - test cases in which people go to prison http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Misc/Charles_Platt/ - Net connection less tenuous than you thought Boo, Demon, boo! Boo for denying USENET access to anyone posting links to the infamous LAURENCE GODFREY fake postings [NTK 1999-03-12] - archived by, ahem, "a popular discussion group search engine". Of course, we'd feel a lot happier laying into this craven spinelessness if we hadn't done more or less the same thing, and heeded Laurence's sensible encouragement to remove all our links to defamatory postings about him three months ago. Our sympathies, then, lie with Demon. Unless it really is impossible for them to keep these links off the newsfeed: if indeed, attempting to cancel these messages just makes them spread further... http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/godfrey3.htm - hmm. well, *maybe* we can link to this http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=a99/now0312.txt&l=46#l - anyone for a Webring? >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious http://www.numberchange.org/who/index.html - those look a lot like old-style numbers to us... INTERNIC voicemail on 001 703 742 4777 refers users to "https: backslash backslash"... 20TH CENTURY FOX deny online Phantom Menace warez reached UK - not according to the downloaders we've heard from... TOTAL TELECOM send out Happy99.exe trojan, followed by effusive apology... AMERICANS "so discouraged" by Earth's environmental problems they have begun to "lose interest"... TOP SHOP to launch free-calls ISP on 1999-06-14... WIRED July: grrreat cover... NAVIGATOR and EXPLORER happily SSL with sites that have an (entirely insecure) RSA public key exponent of "1"... "MICROSOFT Joins Oasis" - hang on, that can't be right... and it's *not* goodbye from them: http://www.aolgirls.com/admin/db/Goodbye.txt ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful In perhaps an too-literal display of "doublethink", Simon Davies reports that he won't be celebrating the anniversary of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR next Tues (1999-06-08) after all. But there's still time to support Access All Areas stalwart Zap, who'll be running his anti-authority FREE KEVIN protest outside London's US Embassy (from 2pm Fri 1999-06-04, Grosvenor Square W1). More info on Zap's update page, which excitingly duplicates the "gotta go" terror of having the Feds hot on your tail... http://www.gold.ac.uk/~ma602da/ - 10 metres! 5 metres! They're in the room with us! Neatly coinciding with Sunday's International Telecoms Boycott (if someone rings up, and your answerphone gets it, do you call it a "scab"?), the UK PC GAMING CHAMPIONSHIPS get under way at the compulsory Playing Fields, London - and they've extended the Brummie deadline so Quake-loving Midlanders can have a pop at the big cash prizes... http://www.ukpcgc.com - LANs don't count, right? "Seen in the back of SFX classifieds" isn't usually a recommendation, but with a line-up promising Ray "Maul" Park, Warwick "ewok" Davis, and Gary "Empire" Kurtz, it might well be worth queuing up outside Wolsey Hall, Windmill Lane, Cheshunt (North London) for "EPISODE I - EMPIRE DAY" (Sun 1999-06-06, UKP10, "hotline" on 01908 671138), even though the location sounds more suited to a Women's Institute Bring-And-Buy Sale. The caravan of courage (TM) proceeds to Bristol on the 11th, and has not been "Lucas approved" - so maybe they'll show those Phantom Menace VCDs... http://www.google.com/search?q=wolsey+maul - cached at Google; may have been canned Oh, and "(Law)suits for you, sir" and "This week, I have been mainly shutting down: warez sites" will be the oft-repeated catchphrases at next week's FAST show, when the FEDERATION AGAINST SOFTWARE THEFT hold their annual conference in Bournemouth, 1999-06-09/10. Not too much to add to their basic stance on piracy (they're against it, apparently), but the session on NatWest's new "Magex" system might be entertaining: an e-commerce pay-per-view system that has so revolutionised intellectual property that they neglected to check if anyone else had registered magex.com, which they now *share* with an Italian construction company... http://www.fast.org.uk/ - does not use "warez" or "SNES ROMS" in its Meta tags http://www.magex.com - which is nice >> TRACKING << making good use of the things that we find If you've found yourself stuffing more and more apps into that little system tray on the bottom right of the WINDOWS TASKBAR, then you'll no doubt be considering one of those applications to tidy it all up. Alternatively, why not download this monster German applet that lets you bloat the box like an overstuffed turkey, with uptime readouts, system temperatures, logfiles, and all the usual tat crammed in there, plus parse Web pages using its own text-mauling language. All even extend it by running external parsers - "like REXX or PERL", the creators say helpfully. And then, if you've got any RAM left, you can maybe run Notepad in what's left of your screen. http://www.emtec.com/infotray/ - the emacs of systrays >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista http://members.tripod.com/serbad/ ... CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 1.0: http://www.2600.org.au/censorship-evasion.html ... BUTTER- flavoured crisps... Helen Mirren *is* AYN RAND... STUNT CAR RACER bounces back (and doesn't require Amiga with OpenGL card): http://www.wyatt100.freeserve.co.uk/download.htm ... hey, what happened to those WEBTV things?... complete FRIENDS Season 5 now up at http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Set/5799/ ... FALCO: the "No 6" gift shop in The Prisoner Village... slightly worrying GERMAN omission: http://ismb99.gmd.de/sol-eclipse.html ... Sir Christopher Cockerell dies: buried at sea *and* land... www.portal.com and www.frontofficenews.com/lycos.htm tie the WANKOMETER at 11.0; NTK regrets this correspondence is now closed... can you get out the way of the sign, please? http://www.juicymango.com/main/models/techsigngirls.html ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> a sniper holds 10,000 spectators hostage at a football game - unless NRA spokesman Charlton Heston can arm everyone else in the stadium given just a TWO MINUTE WARNING (11.25pm, Fri, BBC1)... there's Mute Witness, and now BLIND WITNESS (9pm, Fri, C5) - but no "Deaf-As-A-Post Witness", we note... and given Brian Yuzna's dire subsquent output, the odd flesh-melting orgy bits in SOCIETY (12.45am, Fri, BBC2) were probably fortituitous accidents... after last week's two-parter, SPACE: 1999 (3.55pm, Sat, BBC2) comes to an ignominious end in "The Dorcons"... set your TV on fire to properly enjoy HENDRIX NIGHT (9pm, Sat, BBC2)... regular Light Ent treat BEFORE THEY WERE FAMOUS (10pm, Sat, BBC1) has Arnie on Magpie; JUNIOR (8pm, Sat, BBC1) sees him bearing Emma Thompson's child - last shown approx 17 months ago on 1998-01-11... and going from the http://www.ntk.net/killer comments, they cut a lot out before showing the sensitive Australians KILLER NET (10pm, Sat, C4)... the repeat of this week's DAWSON'S CREEK (12.10pm, Sun, C4) has excellent life- imitates-art-imitating-life plot - plus Rachel "She's All That" Leigh Cook naked... the missing link between Dumb And Dumber and There's Something About Mary, bawdy bowling slapstick KINGPIN (10pm, Sun, C4) features Bill Murray, vile comb-overs and the "milking" of a bull... while ALWAYS AND EVERYONE (9pm, Mon, ITV) is - thank god - another hospital drama... interchangable international docu UNDER THE SUN (9.30pm, Tue, BBC2) combines a look at the traditional way of life of the Shaolin monks with martial-arts whupass action... Dolph Lundgren pops out of "where are they now?" file as THE PEACEKEEPER (9pm, Tue, C5)... Richard E Grant and Samantha "Broken Arrow" Mathis are the two unappealing losers and a baby in infantile feelgooder JACK & SARAH (10pm, Wed, C4)... will they place that annoying pizza ad in overrated Scorsese yawn GOODFELLAS (10pm, Wed, C5)?... and your licence fees continue to advertise the bizarre sexual services available on the streets of PADDINGTON GREEN (10.20pm, Wed, BBC1)... FILM>> double Donald Sutherland treat this week, with the last man left un-Bodysnatched battling lame cybernetic aliens and Jamie Lee Curtis aboard all-at-sea actioner VIRUS (imdb: based- on-comic / ship / electricity / typhoon / aliens / virus / computers) - hugely derivative, but that doesn't seem to have put anyone off "The Matrix"... dapper Don also pops up in extended Nike ad WITHOUT LIMITS (imdb: running / biographical / olympics) - "among the five finest movies about athletics ever made" says one imdb comment; high praise indeed... Michelle "who?" Pfeiffer's latest lost-child weepie sinks swiftly to THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN (imdb: based-on-novel) - not based around Chris Searle's job-swap TV show of nearly the same name... plus a (reluctant) plug for overhyped live-action rave cartoon HUMAN TRAFFIC (imdb: UK) - somehow we doubt it really is "The last great film of the 90s", unless you're a suspiciously thin leather-faced 80s casualty still convinced that "style culture" is in some way relevant or interesting... ONE YEAR ON>> last June, ISPs were *reeling* from the announcement of 1p/min BT CLICK [NTK 1998-06-12], while we pointed out that Oftel had virtually sanctioned the whole thing "on the understanding that the smarter ISPs would grab a Telco license, and undercut it with free IP provision when they started receiving telco-ish revenues from the phonecall charges". Christ, we're smug... in other '98 (anti) news: LABOUR's pre-election crypto policy "disappeared" from their site... AIN'T IT COOL NEWS admitted that claims that 40% of Star Wars 1 rushes were out-of-focus were "probably exaggerated"... and EDGE magazine's "continued pursuit of excellence" included the claim that the RIDGE RACER cabinet ran at "0.4FLOPS" - an incredible 4/10ths of a floating point operation per second... oh, that short, cruel summer: ftp clients strained under the weight of IE 5.0 Developer Release, Apache 1.3.0, and Real Network's Preview of RealPlayer G2... we reported rumours of Shatner rapping Julius Caesar in FREE ENTERPRISE, and TV NATION's "return to C4"... PANASONIC withdrew a kids' wordprocessing program that swore fluently... the UK tooled up with trade shows like the "International Chemical Warfare Demilitarization Conference", "European Guns, Mortars and Ammunition Symposium", and "Undersea Defence Technology Europe"... while, among the stuff that never troubled our mailfeed again were: The World's First QUAKE POETRY COMPETITION, Keanu Reeves' beatnik road movie THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE, and - presumably featuring George Dawes, Dennis Pennis, and the usual gang of idiots - Channel 4's "new cruelty" sketch show BARKING... >> 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 "never on a Sunday" ( http://www.unmetered.org.uk/ ) 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@lists.ntk.net with 'unsubscribe ntknow'. Subscribe? Mail majordomo@lists.ntk.net with 'subscribe ntknow'. NTK now is supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntk.net/books/ (K) 1999 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com - remember your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material. Remember: Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.