"We're not looking ahead as to how we might possibly
increase human brainpower. So really that's the direction
I've been going -- with a view to maybe save the world."
- PROF KEVIN WARWICK, http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/10/20/cyborg/
...or just get my name in the papers. Whichever seems easier.
>> HARD NEWS <<
some win, some lose
Even by this industry's high standards, the crowds were ugly
this week. At BIG BROTHER awards, cyber-rights proles
screamed abuse at videoscreens filled with the images of
Jack Straw, and the Borders Police force (cited for their
over-enthusiastic use of DNA testing on all suspects). The
BAFTA's flailed helplessly in the quicksands of New Media
naivety with yet another bloody bird-watching site scamming
an award by default, while Lara Croft creators TOBY GARD and
PAUL DOUGLAS swung in to snatch the Tim Berners Lee award -
despite the best attempts of EIDOS lawyers to shoot them
down. Best overheard quote: one elderly BAFTA stalwart
asking "Who *are* Berners Lee? What do they make?". Even NTK
lived down to its own reputation, as our own anti-BAFTA
Ge3kn1ght collapsed under its own weight into a grim
trashpit of exploding laser power-supplies, indoor
incendiaries, grenade launcher show and tells, uncontrolled
moshing to Alexei Shulgin's voice-synthesis-and-MIDI rock
and roll, and the inspiring sight of Richard M. Stallman
signing the collar-bones of scantily-clad geek girls. *Not* pretty.
http://www.bigbrotherawards.org/winners_uk_1999.html
- watching us, watching you, watching Big Brother, watching...
http://www.bafta.co.uk/
- one day. one day we'll win, and then they'll be sorry
Anyone pitched into a deep coma of anticipation by
STRAYDUCK's teaser campaign can now awake: as predicted
(kinda), the 0800 ISP is turning out to be another - well,
dead duck. Rumours have it that Stray Duck will be largely
local-calls based, with the freephone service only available
if you've already paid an arm and a leg for calls earlier in
the month. An AOL-style cheaper rate phoneline will be
available for heavy duty users: but the latest thinking is
that you'll have to use an X-Streamish ad-crippled browser
to access the service. Jesus: the free ISP market is
beginning to make BT's billing scheme a model of simplicity.
http://www.strayduck.com/
- and what *is* it with this bird-watching obsession?
Of course, Stray Duck only goes to demonstrate what might be
termed the "Let It Be Thus" effect - the sillier the name
chosen by the marketeers, the cruddier the service. Witness
the newly rolled-out (tee hee) MARBLES credit card (from the
idiots who brought you that other intuitively-branded
plastic, Goldfish). "Amazing 128-bit security!" boasts their
site, reassuringly. Or it would be, if they'd used a
certificate that actually enabled 128-bit security on the
browsers that implemented it. Or hadn't dumped a bunch of
bad links and half-finished pages onto the https: server
without noticing. Still, not quite as bad as the equally
dumbly named EGG whose customer support sent one
friend-of-a-subscriber their credit card number - in the
subject line of the e-mail. Looking forward to the security
phuck-ups at SMILE...
http://www.marbles.com/
- it's just because they can get these domain names cheap,
http://www.egg.co.uk/
- right?
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
POWERGEN decide to become ISP - neglect to tell own IT
department... DIXONS open high-profile stores at midnight to
sell Dreamcasts - shift three machines: after last week,
target sales now only 5,999,996,997 away... guess who's been
emailing the BOFH columnist for a telephone contact number
(despite New Zealand's 12-hour time difference)? Step
forward, RICHARD BARRY... ICA *haven't* spotted warez server
[see last week's NTK] - they just keep turning off the
machine at night: ftp://ftp:joshua@pc8.newmediacentre.com
... TIMES INTERFACE reveals that UK royal and open.gov sites
run on "five Dell 2300 Dual Pentium II 450 machines, each
with 512k of RAM" - guess Gates was right about that 640KB
limit... meanwhile, NETWORK SOLUTIONS deny existence of
entire country: http://www.ntk.net/doh/991022netsol.jpg ...
ICA looking for temporary sysadmin... less tempting than
ARGOS deal: http://www.ntk.net/doh/991022combat.jpg ... "SMU
Geophysicists Discover Large Blob Deep In The Earth", says
Science Daily: plan to dump it in the Arctic after cornering
it in cinema... "Mars 2001 Landing Sites Reduced To Two",
says http://www.spacer.com/spacecast/news/mars2001-99b.html
- ie: 1. miss Mars, or, 2. smack right into it...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
goto's considered non-harmful
Most of our heroes don't appear on no stamps, but if they
did, we bet LOCAL HEROES' Adam Hart-Davis would be the one
printing them by hand using a patented stamp press made that
day from bits of old stick. Or something. Adam, who isn't
generally very local to London, will be stepping out to
stage three performances at the Royal Institution on
Thursday, 1999-10-28, with shows aimed at proto-geeks under
seven in the morning, and groups of engineering groupies and
the general public in the afternoon and evening. Tickets
cost between 9 and 12UKP, although it'd probably be a good
idea to call before hand to check availability.
http://www.screenhouse.co.uk/screenhouse/ri.htm
- couldn't he have built them a secure server?
http://www.ri.ac.uk/contact.html
- an RI isn't just for Christmas
http://www.newmediacentre.com/live/soon.html
- or get thee to a Munnery!
>> TRACKING <<
making good use of the things that we find
It doesn't schedule, it doesn't Web browse, it doesn't
filter, and it doesn't get much bigger than a 1.5MB tar
download. It's our mail-reading client of choice, and now
it's at version 1.0. MUTT, the infinitely configurable
mailer with the motto "Yes it can. Read The Fucking
Manual, again, backwards this time" is ready for your
pleasure.
http://www.mutt.org/download.html
- grabba the Mutt
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
WIMPY to launch KFC-alike with equally counterproductive
name: DR BEAKS... ECHELON keeps watch for "BUBBA THE LOVE
SPONGE"? http://www.attrition.org/attrition/keywords.html
... everybody rip off GAP - http://www.gamesculture.co.uk/
... "brain in a vat" thought experiments - for real!
http://www.edgeco.com/cgi-bin/catalog/BRN-400?aJNoXNhR;;20
... faking mythical SPECTRUM programs by "aging" C12
cassettes... don't think we're in Kansas anymore :
http://us.imdb.com/CommentsAuthor?Don+T.+Dorkerson ...
PETER MANDELSON moonlighting as on-screen assistant:
http://www.wizzardsoftware.com/Affiliate1/main.asp ...
http://www.thistothat.com/gom/current.shtml - for the
solvent abuser in your playground... http://www.segaweb.com
vs http://www.adamweb.co.uk ... getting in touch with your
"inner script kiddies"... http://www.statusquo.co.uk/ vs
http://www.smashstatusquo.com/ ... INTEL composer outed:
http://www.latimes.com/print/business/19991020/t000094886.html
... http://www.freeserve.net/highspeedtrial/ADSL.htm - 60UKP
a month as "free" as ADSL gets...
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> high-tech shoot-outs enliven preposterous airborne
Arnie thriller ERASER (8.55pm, Sat, ITV), in which a railgun
with a muzzle velocity "approaching the speed of light"
fails to observe the conservation of momentum, as the recoil
would propel the shooter several miles into the air... Meat
Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell takes its rightful place as the
foremost of the CLASSIC ALBUMS of all time (11pm, Sat ITV),
with contributions from not exactly unsung rock god Jim
Steinman... and Halloween comes supernaturally early to C4,
in an intriguingly unpublicised witch-based theme night,
including Mark "Sontaran" Kermode's docu THE BLAIR WITCH
PHENOMENON (9.30pm, Sat, ITV) - not to be confused with
authentic mythos-extending making-of THE CURSE OF THE BLAIR
WITCH (9pm, Fri, Sky One), and nothing to do with Disney
telekinetic teen sequel RETURN FROM WITCH MOUNTAIN (2.25pm,
Sun, BBC1)... Mel Brooks, Leslie Nielsen team up at last in
truly dire vampire spoof DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT (10pm,
Sun, C4)... "amusing consumer queries" were among the fresh
attractions promised by Daisy Donovan for the clearly
not-at-all-desperate 11 O'CLOCK SHOW (11pm, Tue-Thu, C4)
when we bumped into her outside Waitrose last week... "Have
you tried looking down the back of the sofa?" ought to be
the first advice offered by well-meaning reuniting-public-
with-lost items/ relatives etc show THE SEARCH (8pm, Wed,
BBC1)... and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (6.45pm, Thu, BBC2)
picks up the remains of season 2, with an "extended" (ie
more violent) repeat scheduled for Sunday evenings...
FILM>>> the "con is on", indeed: a pop at Scientology and
occasionally strong casting (Maryann from Cybill, the geek
from Scream) almost - but not quite - salvage Steve Martin's
laboured, toothless high-concept La-la-land satire BOWFINGER
(imdb: accountant / actor / film-producer / hollywood /
secret-filming) - never mind whether Heather Graham is
supposed to "be" Martin's former girlfriend, Anne Heche; are
Martin and Eddie Murphy (as a has-been producer-director and
washed-up action star), in a twist of far greater poignancy,
supposed to be *playing themselves*?... "Tarzan's - alive?!"
unlikely to be among Brian Blessed's lines in fake-3D Phil
Collins-scored "deep canvas" Disney barrel-scraper TARZAN
(http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : parental arguing;
implications and references to Darwinian evolution;
skimpy dress throughout, ie "exposure of the curvature of
Tarzan's glutemous maximi and other pelvic and crotch
areas")... otherwise, a couple of teen trash romps: Sarah
Michelle Gellar cops off with former Young Indiana Jones
Sean Patrick Flanery in resistable extended "Cookeen" advert
SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ :
sexual innuendo, references (some vulgar), and suggestion;
adult underwear; throwing plates endangering guests; sexual
wish; suggestive eye movements; implied sexual intercourse;
knife thrown, nearly missing a man)... while Ed "T2" Furlong
struggles to make you care about his sub-Wayne's World
attempts to attend a '70s KISS concert in the barf-packed
DETROIT ROCK CITY (imdb: concert / product-placement /
rock'n'roll / teen)... so our tip, if you're not in the
catchment area for previews of hyped hand-held horror "The
Blair Witch Project" (of which more next week): hyper-
kinetic MTV-style trick-shot video game RUN LOLA RUN (imdb:
part-animated / adultery / alternate-reality / bank / casino
/ money / robbery / running) - not based around the Kinks
song of nearly the same name...
SHINY ENTERTAINMENT [A "ZINES, COMIC-BOOKS AND BOOK-ZINES
SPECIAL" WITH GUEST FANBOY, BEN MOOR]>> Currently the X-MEN
suck (coming soon: X-BABIES REBORN - it's that bad), but the
X-MEN movie will be fantastic. OK, they've got rid of the
guy who was Wolverine, and Darth Maul is playing the Toad
(the what? Yeah, the Toad!), but Bryan Singer will direct so
Keyser Sose may turn up as guest villain. If you want to be
reminded why you ever liked them (and you will, because the
movie will be brilliant and everyone else will say they
always liked them and you will squrim) check out Joe Casey
and Steve Rude's CHILDREN OF THE ATOM... Chris Claremont is
definitely back on the X-Men comics next year, but what of
the guy who kind of replaced him? Scott Lobdell is writing
BALL AND CHAIN (funny couple at the end of their marriage
gain superpowers that they can only use when they're
together) and HELLHOLE (demons and cops; not as good as US
TV's GvsE, but then, what is?). Obviously got an eye and a
half on his screenwriting career, but darn it, they're good
comics too... Other good things: FINALS (American college
run on Strength Through Study); Paul Pope's HEAVY LIQUID
(trippy sci-fi, like eye valium); THE AUTHORITY (big
superheroes fighting)... if you can find it, you must buy
perfect-bound TIMOTHY MCSWEENEY'S WINDFALL REPUBLIC (US$10,
8UKP at Borders, http://www.mcsweeneys.net for subscriptions)
- the most fun you can have with a Hotmail account. Also
look out for a piece by ex-Might genius and McSweeneys
maestro Dave Eggers in the current NEW YORKER. You should
buy this issue anyway as it has a giant robot on the
cover... closest UK equivalent may just be the now equally
book-sized THE IDLER. Mixing drugs, gardening and politics,
despite its highly active cover price (UKP10), the case for
idleness is won again. And now - you can rest...
>> 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 "yet another namespace pile-up"
( http://www.eduprise.com/ )
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.
Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.
