Need To Know 1999-10-08

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"And as we were lying there after, falling slowly asleep, pressed close to each other in the twin size bed, I whispered the words I had been waiting our whole trip, the whole night to say, 'I love you.' There was a moment of silence, and I heard his reply whispered back. 'I know.'" - http://www.jennicam.org/~jenni/journal/1003.html ...Jenni Jennicam dating man who THINKS HE'S HAN SOLO! >> HARD NEWS << sick views Only a few months to go before the definitive "Most mind-bogglingly confused Internet story of the Millennium" can be awarded - and from nowhere, THE OBSERVER leaps into the lead. Judge's checklist at the ready, everyone! Ulterior-agenda touting source, check: "At an FBI-sponsored gathering of international law enforcement agencies in Germany last month, one National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) officer claimed that criminals ... were now developing a new generation of drugs, the effects of which could be experienced without actually possessing them.". Pseudo-scientific justification straight outa Snowcrash, check: "digital stimulants and hallucinogens, transmitted across the Internet... could create new forms of addiction rivalling heroin and cocaine". Extra bonus for gratuitous Kevin Warwick appearence: "'The question is not whether virtual-reality narcotics can be created, but how soon they can be put on the market.' said Professor Warwick". And finally, dry online dismissal from saner counsel: "I can see John Abbott [head of NCIS] holding up a microchip to the next Select Committee session saying 'This is what we're up against - The nam-shub of Enki'. " - Caspar Bowden, FIPR. Who can possibly beat this? http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/observer/uk_news/story/0,3879,88419,00.html - Jonathan U-T? Are you out there? http://www.hyperreal.org/intersection/tools/msdos/graphics/eye_candy/pc-dope.txt - we're so there, dude Lots of finger-twiddling and money-wasting in the moribund ISP market these day. VIRGIN NET, always eager for a bit of publicity, abandoned their plans for a call centre just a few days before it was due to open, gathering some great "Branson puts 150 people out of work" headlines on HTV and the local press. The company has sworn to re-employ all the staff: which should be pretty simple, given the number of vacancies that have cropped up ever since new MD ALEX HEATH arrived. Demon's grouchy scottish step-father, SCOTTISH TELECOM, also conducted some curiously counter-productive rebranding, naming themselves with great fanfare (and too much bloody Flash), "Thus". And thus, it came to be that disgruntled Demon employees provided their own coverage of the launch (see below). In an unfortunate turn of events, Demon's MD Chris Goodall was caught in the Paddington train disaster: and no, we're not going to make any "off the rails" jokes here. http://www.let-it-be-thus.com/ - it crashes Navigator. Still no jokes. http://www.what-is-the-fuss.com/ - oh, yeah, Demon users love this kind of spending http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,89634,00.html - a soupcon of perspective, please http://www.great-western-trains.co.uk/news/pressrelease/template/ - now do your own damage limitation campaign "No, no! I said rip *off* the iMac fans!" screams STEVE JOBS, but it's too late: The new Apple machines are leaving the factory, and the new low low price point of $999 is already in place. It only leaves Steve to give his usual, crowd-pleasing launch speech, rich with ironies for those too bitter and twisted to concede how well Apple's doing these days. Steve proudly declares Mac OS as the best multimedia OS around, minutes after the live Webcast has ground to a halt with too many users. And he ends with moving tribute to the families of employees, praising them for their tolerance as their loved ones are worked into states of nervous exhaustion to obey his commands. He's still refusing to reveal were the bodies are buried, though. http://www.ntk.net/doh/19991008jobs.jpg - good to see Steve one inch shorter: but that "integrated vent" worries us >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious SPRINGFIELD massacre family sues Kinkel parents for giving Kip a gun... canny telcos start raising local call charges... EASYEVERYTHING blocks access to www.2600.com and www.hackernews.com ... EIDOS "unhappy" about new URWIRED ad campaign... DREAMCAST TITLE WATCH: new releases: "Seaman", "Soul Calibur", and the gripping "Let's Make A Professional J-League Soccer Club"... REGISTER moves into post-modern critique: http://www.theregister.co.uk/991007-000015.html ... SPRINGFIELD massacre family's son shoots brother dead in hunting accident... MICROSOFT adds bloat to abbreviations: http://www.ntk.net/doh/19991008ms.jpg ... Pee-Wee Herman to host TV gameshow of YOU DON'T KNOW JACK... "THESHARE.COM, an online brokerage, has tried to do something new in four key technical areas." - FINANCIAL TIMES, : one being the look of their Website, http://www.theshare.com/ ... "Dartmouth College is offering a $100,000 prize to the first programmer that can pass the Turing Test.", says SLASHDOT: guess Hemos isn't up to it... "If I do cowboy novels I'll be Iain Z. Banks. And Iain X. Banks for pornography." - and we thought Z was for the erotic vampire stories ... http://www.google.com/search?q=more+clueless+than+Slashdot+posters uncovers the complete JON KATZ archive... Unfortunate lead sentence: http://cnn.com/US/9910/06/legalizing.drugs.01/index.html ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful "When, oh, when," you asked us, "are you planning on doing another NTK LIVE? That combination of obscure technical jokes read out in nervous middle-class voices plus overlong 'comedy' sketches was surely one of the webcast highlights of 1998!" Fortunately, we've assembled a rather more varied line-up for our next online audio outing, with something of a musical theme: duelling theremins, ALEXEI SHULGIN's singing 386DX, squealing miked-up vegetables, the unveiling of our electro-acoustic "hacker filk" project LAMER VS KRAMER, Free Software square dancing, plus a yet-to-be-confirmed mystery guest who "may have had something to do with the KLF". We're currently aiming for (mid? late?) evening on Wed 1999-10-20, at The Foundry, nr Hoxton Square, London EC2 (Old St tube); admission is free but numbers are limited so mail advance@spesh.com to be sure of getting in. http://www.ntk.net/live/ - no, not Tammy Wynette. She's dead. http://www.audiorom.com/presence/ - should be more laughs than these guys, anyway >> TRACKING << making good use of the things that we find In this, the final, most decadent phase of the Retrocomputing Era, we see two mannerist tendencies emerge. There is the school of the remake: re-implementing classic games from scratch to take advantage of the latest PCs. More than two colours per character space is encouraged. Haunting MIDI reinterpretations are composed. Three-D, fully-rendered intros are willfully inserted. Disgusted by the betrayal, purists turn inward to their final refuge: implementing a UNIX game server for the ZX Spectrum that lets the user download emu game dumps, and then pipes them back into the original hardware by simulating a ZX Spectrum tape-recorder. Questions: Which is the perfection of reality? Who are the true inheritors? And when's Mire Mare due? http://remakes.wax.nu/ - how retro-fitting http://www.philosys.de/~kunze/zxlink/ - for those that prefer the real thing http://www.multimedia.lth.se/~m96mma/donkey2/ - or the really real thing >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista I think you underestimate the power of http://www.microsith.com/ ... "Some environmental issues." at http://www.missilebases.com./ ... voices from the L0pht http://www.theconnection.org/connection/archive/1999/10/1007a.shtml ... for tabloid readers who'd rather not read any more: http://www.dailynewspix.com/ ... fully GPL-compliant Tux at http://rio.dhs.org/penguin.html ... Slashcix! D. Evnull hosts http://www.waitstate.com/ ... LART, San Fran style http://www.srl.org/machines/pitching/index.html ... gibber: http://www.linas.org/linux/i370.html ... the puppet love of http://bak.spc.org/radio/datacide.ram ... Hurray, James: we only have ten minutes of battery life left ! http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/1999/09-27bond.htm >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> biggest surprise of THE NATION'S FAVOURITE SONG LYRIC (10.20pm, Fri, BBC1) will be if the voting public don't confuse it with a) their favourite *song* - "Imagine", "Bridge Over Troubled Water" etc, and/or b) their favourite tune from the last 18 months... the ever-excellent POP-UP VIDEO UK (1.15am, Fri, C4) promises "popped" versions of promos from UK artists - as opposed to, say, Sting And The Police http://www.spinthebottle.com/pop_stop3.asp ... and following last-week's Arnie double-whammy, ITV wheels out a patchy Harrison Ford on-the-run double bill, with the ace THE FUGITIVE (9pm, Fri, ITV) lamely pursused by Euro- nonsense FRANTIC (10.55pm, Sat, ITV)... "overrated at the time", "still embarrassingly smug" unlikely to be among the plaudits in yet another BBC tribute to one of their own sodding shows, MONTY PYTHON NIGHT (8.55pm, Sat, BBC2) - do you have to sit through the whole thing to see the South Park "This Kenny is dead" sketch?... C5 at least stays true to its roots with toe-tapping glam-trash celebration ABBA DAY (from 12.30pm, Sun, C5) - unlikely to trouble the "Nation's Favourite Song Lyric" unless there's a category for "Oddest Imagery By Scandinavians Using English As A Second Language"... and there's three dire blockbusters to see you through the rest of the week: Kenneth Branagh creating a frickin' monster in MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN (10pm, Sun, C4)... Geena Davis' dull chick action-flick "Total Recall" retread, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT (9pm, Tue, C5)... and the appallingly episodic recent Bond effort TOMORROW NEVER DIES (8pm, Wed, ITV), in which the quick-thinking secret agent tackles an in-cockpit villain garroting him from behind by activating the bad guy's ejector seat - a course of action which would surely have torn his own head off... FILM>> yup, the trailer does show all the best bits of well- meaning dweeb smut AMERICAN PIE (imdb: masturbation-scene / diarrhoea / sperm / pie / vomit - too much "ingominy" to be listed at http://www.capalert.com/capreports/) - but oddly that doesn't spoil its endearingly filthy hilarity. As usual, it's not particularly based around the popular song of the same name, but you can always amuse yourself trying to work out whether the lead looks more like Matt Jones or Yoz Grahame... vying with "Mickey Blue Eyes" for the "Most Photoshopped-looking Poster Of The Year" comes Richard "OAP" Gere and Julia "oddly wide mouth" Roberts in RUNAWAY BRIDE (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : reckless driving; sexual comments, printed and spoken, some by a grandmother; dialogue of a topless photo, no visuals; "The beast is in her heart" in a background song) - both Roberts' head and pose look very odd, with Gere's boots apparently sticking out of her ass... and while we searched frantically for a female perspective on controversial French degradation drama ROMANCE (imdb: sex), reader Vicky Clarke fortuitously alerted us to the verdict of Marie-Claire magazine: "should be banned for pomposity, not sex"... FEEBDACK>> thanks to everyone who wrote in supporting last week's "Grey Day vs Gray Day" campaign [NTK 1999-10-01]; even http://www.cometosilver.com/please.html ("Look But Don't Steal!) replaced its clueless reference to that famously in-copyright author, William Shakespeare, with a link to the New York Times - but then neglected to change the now-incongruous comment "Lets (sic) go back to Shakespeare" later on... helpfully providing a variation on our "it's 'Yankee Doodle' on the TRS-80 all over again - again" tagline, "I take it when I heard 'The William Tell Overture' on an ASR-33 (that was the teletype we used with the PDP-8), you hadn't been been born yet", remarked JON SHEMITZ, nostalgically adding "Paper tape. Feh. You're lucky you missed it"... while MARTIN WARD focused on the (equally important) job of saving humanity, pointing out that the flowchart for the transactional barcode tattoo http://www.patents.ibm.com/cgi-bin/viewpat.cmd/US05878155__ [NTK 1999-09-17] puts "the CPU" in an infinite loop if the tattoo is not in the database - "a single point of failure with a trivially simple denial-of-service attack". Phew, that's the events of "Revelations" postponed for another applications round, at least... an individual known only as "MINDBREAKER" leapt to the defence of semi-syndicated Canadian action show "La Femme Nikita", harshly dismissed in NTK 1999-10-01, unreservedly recommending its "staggeringly lethal office politics" in addition to "gunplay and explosions" and the fact that the lead is "a fresh-faced, 6-foot looker from Down Under"... but most alarming bits of TV feedback ever are (unconfirmed) reports that child-genius composer DANIEL PEMBERTON, skimming NTK's regular gag that the film "Young Einstein" features new media's very own Yahoo Serious lookalike Matt Jones, *actually rang Matt up* to inquire if they really were making a film of his life, and (presumably) could he do the soundtrack? Well, obviously we were joking - but if Davey Winder reckons he can get funding for his life-story, why not Matt Jones? Eh? Eh?... >> 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 "search engines, in general, more evil than satan" http://www.ntk.net/doh/19991008ntk.gif NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Unsubscribe? Mail ntknow-unsubscribe@lists.ntk.net Subscribe? Mail ntknow-subscribe@lists.ntk.net 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. 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