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  • NTK 2007
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  • NTK 1999
  • 25/12/98
    Holiday Special #8
    Christmas InDin with all the trimmings
  • 18/12/98
    #75
    politic, politics, quake fragfests, politics
  • 11/12/98
    #74
    making a stand, cyberstrikes and proof of a CONSPIRACY
  • 04/12/98
    #73
    Wassenaar, Flavor Flav, Zope!
  • 27/11/98
    #72
    Netscape dies, Cliffilms, Chocolata
  • 20/11/98
    #71
    Phantom Menace, Patches as Art, and Wiki
  • 13/11/98
    #70
    Domains, Ataris, and Tommy Flowers
  • 06/11/98
    #69
    Mark thingy, Christian whatsisname, and Scawen scary name
  • 30/10/98
    #68
    HipCrime, Tron and Halloweeeeen
  • 23/10/98
    #67
    More Tales From The Crypt, Sunbather Falco and Roobarb
  • 16/10/98
    #66
    ADSL, John Prescott, and the Anarchist Bookfair
  • 09/10/98
    #65
    DVD 1 Industry 0, XFM, and Funny Food
  • 02/10/98
    #64
    Sky Digitalis, Clickety-Click
  • 25/09/98
    #63
    Dixons Docks, Orwell Knocks, but Flash gets it clean
  • 18/09/98
    #62
    ISP trust, RISC PC busts, and homeless IT bosses
  • 11/09/98
    #61
    Starr networks, Ya Basta Blasters, token Windows software
  • 04/09/98
    #60
    Explorer runs out of memories, PGP 6, and Pat
  • 28/08/98
    #59
    Whose whois, Gameboy hacking, San Francisco
  • 21/08/98
    Holiday Special #7
    BT Highway Robbery, Bab5 Wrap Party,
    CU Amiga RIP
  • 14/08/98
    Holiday Special #6
    Strange Customs, OpenSource Meet, Victorian Net
  • 07/08/98
    #58
    Microsoft doublethink, Beebisms, Resfest
  • 31/07/98
    #57
    Net myths, Spy cams, and Hartley Hare
  • 24/07/98
    #56
    Beeb Falco, Millions Lost, and Dave "King Stupid" Green
  • 17/07/98
    #55
    Apple booms, DES doomed, DEFCON reaches VI
  • 10/07/98
    #54
    iMacs, Script Kiddies, and Is He Serious?
  • 03/07/98
    #53
    Ireland, Italy, and the End of The World
  • 26/06/98
    #52
    Net censors, Psion, and dead as a SOHO
  • 19/06/98
    #51
    Nominaughtiness, databastardery, and Patrick Moore event
  • 12/06/98
    #50
    BT goes cheap, Doc Solomon goes West, and ICQ goes downmarket
  • 05/06/98
    #49
    No news, street news, sweet news
  • 29/05/98
    #48
    @Home, Ross' Foundation, Power Renames
  • 22/05/98
    #47
    Gateswar!, Open Source flightsim, and a happy birthday
  • 15/05/98
    #46
    MacOS X, Anarchist Studies, and bloody Killer Net
  • 08/05/98
    #45
    Red Buses, Apple iMacs, more Killer Net
  • 01/05/98
    #44
    Crypto policy, IMDB sales, MP3 in your car
  • 24/04/98
    #43
    Falcomania, ICA knobbled, Spacewar!
  • 17/04/98
    #42
    BIB rumours, Intel downturn, and Dougie Coupland
  • 10/04/98
    #41
    RIPE.NET, Microsoft bribes, Richard 'Trek Wars' Barry
  • 03/04/98
    #40
    Demon sales, USENET wars, MOZILLA!
  • 27/03/98
    #39
    JavaOne, Edge Dunderheads, Virtual Turntables
  • 20/03/98
    #38
    LineOne, Scallywag, and Fete de l'Internet
  • 13/03/98
    #37
    Crypto, Technorealists, Crypto-Technorealists
  • 06/03/98
    #36
    Gates and the Senators, IWF takes their PICS, Bull Electronic
  • 27/02/98
    #35
    BIB backtracking, Hacker witch hunts, UKCAC
  • 20/02/98
    #34
    Crypto shenanigans, Alledged Jobs nuttiness, Action SuperCross
  • 13/02/98
    #33
    Key escrow, Tempest spooks, XML
  • 06/02/98
    #32
    Bill flanned, Postel goes postal, mealy MILIA melee
  • 30/01/98
    #31
    Compaq gobble DEC, Bill damage-limits, Time Crisis 2
  • 23/01/98
    #30
    Netscape lose the source,
    CU Amiga "sucks dogs", Pinker speaks!
  • 16/01/98
    #29
    Excite gets kids, Dennis has kittens, Webmedia kicks bucket
  • 09/01/98
    #28
    Microsoft mad, Apple make money, the zine scene
  • NTK 1997
  • HARD NEWS
  • MORE ANTI-NEWS
  • EVENT QUEUE
  • TRACKING
  • MEMEPOOL
  • GEEK MEDIA
  • SMALL PRINT

 _   _ _____ _  __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the UK>
| \ | |_   _| |/ / _ __   ____05/06/98_ o Join! Mail 'subscribe ntknow'
|  \| | | | | ' / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / o  to majordomo@unfortu.net
| |\  | | | | . \ | | | | (_) \ V  V /  o Website (+ archive) lives at:
|_| \_| |_| |_|\_\|_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/   o     http://www.ntk.net/

            "There's really not much in the way of news here. People
           point out security issues with the product all the time."
                                     - NT product manager KEVIN KEAN
              on the phone, in the pub, from my own admin account...


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                                in garish hues

         No news at all this week. Well, we presume there wasn't -
         every time we tried to find out, our e-mails got sucked
         into the anti-spamming Black Hole that descended onto PIPEX
         users over the weekend. Paul Vixies' ruthlessly efficient
         Mail Abuse Protection System meant that a sizeable chunk of
         Pipex's outgoing mail and a few slivers of incoming were
         forwarded to /dev/null until the sysadmins promised to be
         good. Like they did last time Pipex got blacklisted.
         http://www.vix.com/
                           - like an author of "cron" is going to forget

         Any remaining news, we suspect, was destroyed in collision
         with the purest anti-news made by VIRGIN NET on Tuesday.
         Whispers over the weekend intimated that the ISP was going
         to announce an entirely free dial-up service that was going
         to "revolutionize the UK Internet industry". Well, up to a
         point. Virgin Net, is indeed, waiving their twelve quid a
         month charge - if you have account with partner Citibank.
         And have two grand in it. And have an income of over thirty
         thousand a year. And they're only waiving it for 12 months
         (of which three months would have been free anyway). So
         that's revolutionary in the sense of redefining "free", then.
         http://www.virgin.net/
             - we're only running this because everyone said we wouldn't

         ICE-style security software that comes back down the phone
         line to attack hackers' computers? Just how closely did the
         LA Times, CNN, and New Scientist question the FUTUREVISION
         GROUP about their supposedly quantum-based "self-healing"
         Lightning Server? Well, it "debuts" at next week's TechNet
         '98 show in Washington - hey, maybe it really is a genuine
         breakthrough cleverly disguised by an appalling website
         (you naturally assume it's an art student prank) plus
         impenetrable journo-frightening jargon ("Using the UGEM
         generalization of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, precisely
         partition any continuous NP-Complete problem into
         decideable [sic] and undecidable components" - yeah,
         *right*). Oh, and we know this was on slashdot a while
         back, but they gave it quite an easy ride, with comments
         like (paraphrase): "Hmm, a revolutionary new non-local
         computing paradigm and security implementation? Well it
         won't affect me, I run Linux..."
         http://www.newscientist.com/ns/980530/nhackback.html
                      - and they fell for the Nortel story too! Chortle!
         http://www.fvg.com/PublicHtml/UGEM-C.HTM
                                           - sexy brochure pictures, too
         http://www.afcea.com/TECHNET98/
                  - from the (scary) folks who also brought you milcom98


                             >> MORE ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         DEJANEWS beta-tests it all - www.ntk.net/doh/deja980605.gif
         ... WIRED strapline: "The New Economy" (again)... "Videos
         good for children" - says DISNEY... TELETUBBIES outselling
         Godzilla merchandise 3-1... open government site features
         BT banner ads - http://www.open.gov.uk/index/orgindex.htm
         ... Times INTERFACE runs article on "the Lara Croft
         phenomenon"... NEGROPONTE's column still e-mailed to
         "lr@wired.com" - does he have to forward it every month?...
         POURNELLE estimates Byte column would cost $500,000 to fund
         independently; $1,000,000 ensures he'll never write it
         again - http://home.earthlink.net/~jerryp/fiasco.html ...
         applicants may "attribute desirable characteristics or deny
         undesirable ones" during interviews, scientists reveal...


                              >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                        goto's considered non-harmful

         Can one play Gran Turismo and still party on down at
         London's RECLAIM THE STREETS on Sat 6/6/98? Well, yes - as
         long as you don't ask for a lift home afterwards. Dancing,
         singing, brightly coloured banner-waving and other forms of
         anti-democratic aggravated trespass will be conducted, in
         an attempt to persuade motorists that air-conditioning
         isn't an optional extra for everyone else. Meet in front of
         the Ritzy, Brixton or Euston Station at noon, and follow
         the instructions of your decentralised anarchist leaders.
         http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/campaigns/RTS/local.htm
                                       - say you prefer "Street Fighter"


                                >> TRACKING <<
                             head up! load down!

         Remember when you first ran a retro-gaming emulator? Meta-
         nostalgics have a chance to re-re-live that moment, with
         the 0.1 release of MESS, which is kind of the Exidy
         Sorcerer to MAME's Pong, or something. Perhaps a better
         description would be a NES, Sega Genesis (nee MegaDrive),
         TRS-80, Colour Genie, and Colecovision emulator for Mac,
         DOS and (retro upon retro) ARM processors. Freenix versions
         are promised soon. The MESS license explicitly prevents
         distribution of ROM images with the emulator, cough, cough,
         so you'll have to dig those out for yourself. Although you
         will go to Hell if you do. You know that, don't you?
         http://internetter.com/titan/mess/
                - if only Ally McBeal had shown the TRS-80 Dancing Demon
         http://members.tripod.com/~piters/zx.htm
                   - Ironic inversion: Speccy users get an IDE interface

         Mmmm, text files. For the million or so Web years that
         we've been hitting the Internet Movie Database (from back
         when everyone used to call it the Cardiff Movie Database,
         and you could legitimately kill them for their ignorance),
         we never realised you could download the *whole database*
         in plaintext for local searching. And as well as interfaces
         for Unix, OS/2, DOS and Amiga (spot the missing platform),
         there's now a Newton book version, for the too-sexy-for-
         your-Psion brigade. So Barry Norman can bog off to Sky now.
         See if we care.
         http://uk.imdb.com/interfaces
         - with UGEM, you could use this to predict future films...
         http://www.magma.ca/~sheppard/IMDb/
         - "I'll look that up in my - oh have I not shown you this?"


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                              hasta la altavista

         the Brian Hook/Alan St John mudfight... ONION back on form:
         http://www.theonion.com/onion3321/windows98.html ...
         DAIKATANA "boring"... DEER HUNTER RSAC rating - "Violence:
         3 out of 4. Rewards injuring non-threating animals"...
         Pnickies! ... CARBON for Intel... "Your computer's so slow"
         jokes... DIY H-Bombs using staged Z-pinch... American filth
         exposed at http://lemur.ecs.soton.ac.uk/VisibleMars ... do
         Spice Girls tribute acts now have to fire all their
         "Gingers"? Not the Thai transsexual version, SPICE GAYS...
         Tom Hanks in - THE APPLE STORY... funny SUN fart humour at
         http://cnn.com/TECH/space/9806/04/kamikaze.comets/ ...which
         Brit games PR company "guarantees" at least 70% review
         scores? (and don't most get 90%+ automatically?)... SOUTH
         PARK remix MP3s... VIC REEVES for next Doctor Who...


                               >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                           fluoresce with the best

         TV>> Friday still a science/sci-fi minefield, with X-Philes
         fan profile LOST IN SPACE (7.15pm, Fri, BBC2), car ad
         spokesman Steve Jones ecstatic about evolution in QUANTUM
         LEAPS (7.30pm, Fri, BBC2), and the interminably ponderous
         INVASION: EARTH (9.30pm, Fri, BBC1) - so why not make it a
         "Darwin Awards" theme night with THE WORLD'S DUMBEST
         DRIVERS (9pm, Fri, ITV)?... hosting a singles party in his
         flat, it sounds like a good episode of FRASIER, too (10pm,
         Fri, C4)... THE SCI-FI FILES (8pm, Sat, C4) looks at
         "Spaceships And Aliens" - which go together like
         international co-productions and earth-shattering
         boredom... then spice up your life with David Lynch's
         great-looking star-studded DUNE (9pm, Sat, C4) - in many
         ways (eg, the "weirding modules") actually *nuttier than
         the book*... else it's Sam Peckinpah's classic ultraviolent
         Nam-metaphor Western THE WILD BUNCH (9pm, Sat, BBC2)...
         satellite schedules collide with two early '80s shockers:
         Doug Trumbull's BRAINSTORM (11.45pm, Sat, TNT) and
         Cronenberg's VIDEODROME (12.55am, Sat, UK Gold)... Paul
         Newman barely represses chain-gang lust in COOL HAND LUKE
         (2.30pm, Sun, BBC2)... and those Victorian antipodean
         ladies *love* it when you steal their musical instruments,
         and will then show you their underwear, implies THE PIANO
         (10pm, Sun, C4)... with this week's white-water
         bodysurfing, THEY WHO DARE (7.15pm, Mon, BBC2) is still the
         scariest 15 minutes around... the most terminal thing about
         TERMINAL VELOCITY (9pm, Mon, ITV) was Charlie Sheen's
         career... and the erratically entertaining STRESSED ERIC
         (10pm, Mon, BBC2) finally keels over at last...  offsetting
         that whole Computers Don't Bite nonsense comes drama-docu
         DISASTER: THE MILLENIUM TIME BOMB (6.50pm, Tue, BBC2)...
         Chris Morris pops up in repeated I'M ALAN PARTRIDGE (10pm,
         Tue, BBC2)... and gorgeous futuristic cannibal delights in
         DELICATESSEN (10.55pm, Tue, C4) - as recommended by Firefly
         if you say you like Terry Gilliam's Brazil... ah, NASA may
         well be able to deal with an asteroid on collision course
         with Earth, but what if there was also an *alien monster*
         that dwelled WITHIN THE ROCK (9.45pm, Wed, C5)?... and
         rounding off the week, a coupla "Oirish" filums, to be
         sure: CIRCLE OF FRIENDS (9pm, Thu, C4) with Minnie Driver
         and Chris O'Donnell, followed by THE FIELD (10.55pm, Thu,
         C4) - and also mostly starring Brits and Americans...

         FILM>> it's half-price "National Cinema Day" this Sunday
         with (for once) at least a couple of things worth seeing -
         and we don't mean previews of MIMIC or CITY OF ANGELS...
         disbelieve the lame trailer for cracking 1980s karaoke
         romance THE WEDDING SINGER (imdb: "Anachronisms - At
         Robbie's nephew's house, some pieces of LEGO are visible.
         The red bottom half arch (like from model 6099) was not
         produced until after 1985")... like John Woo before him,
         Chow Yun-Fat makes a fun-but-flawed attempt to go Hollywood
         as one of THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS (imdb: action / thriller
         / murder / police) - and, disappointingly, he's not trying
         to kill '80s US post-punkers, The Replacements... in the
         race to create the ultimate "fruit corner" yoghurt, Richard
         "The Gerbil" Gere goes on implausible trial in anti-Chinese
         nonsense RED CORNER (imdb: thriller / crime / drama /
         cultural-revolution / torture / murder / assassination-
         attempt / bamboo / pond / corruption / pipa / law /
         courtroom / human-rights / courage / china / separation-of-
         powers / frame-up / television-industry / prison / embassy
         / political / controversial)... seriously, could *you* sit
         through Patrick Stewart's performance in Brit crime caper
         DAD SAVAGE (imdb: thriller) without yelling "HOLODECK
         MALFUNCTION!!!"?... an equally small-scale release for
         bizarro Gen-X saga NOWHERE (imdb: drama / apocalypse / rape
         / alien-abduction / gay / idol / drugs / satire / youth)...
         though in fact we'd plump for similarly grungey Kids-style
         drama HURRICANE STREETS (MPAA rated: R for "language,
         violence and drug use involving teens") - and that's
         *despite* the fact that NOWHERE's got Traci Lords, Shannon
         Doherty and (possibly) Christina Applegate being vapourised
         by a UFO...

         CONFECTIONS>> [With two guest reviewers - first, TV's BEN
         MOOR, on "lollies":] WALLS have attacked the summer thirst
         with a new logo that looks like the symbol of a bizarre
         Christian cult or something. Or a political party. Or,
         side-on, simply an ear. But the proof of the lolly is in
         the licking and, boy, they lick good this year... SURFER's
         bubblegum and vanilla flavour has to be the taste of the
         season, with fab colours - the extreme blue and white
         ripple is sensational - and two bonus candy chews on top.
         The wrapper calls them 'hand' and 'foot' but to me they
         looked more like a useless surfer separated from his board.
         I, like Jaws, ate them, with my jaws, and was happy... the
         crazy and triangular TRICKY LICKY has four fruit flavours
         and tastes like all the MR MEN lollies in one... the
         fruits-of-the-forest stripe through the new MAGNUM EGO is
         promising, but then they stuck what look like roasted
         rabbit droppings on it (and what happened to the Dirty
         Harry-style TV ads?)... CALIPPO SHOTS try to be the new way
         to enjoy frozen ice, but *I can't find them anywhere*...
         and how long will it be before we get alco-ice-pops? A
         summer? Two? Till then, TONY'S FREEZER COCKTAILS with the
         phoney US sitcom commercials are pretty good. I had a
         margarita at Christmas and it was a little taste of
         summer... [Thanks Ben. Now over to NTK staffer LEE MAGUIRE,
         at the "sweets" desk:] CADBURY has a new white choc/milk
         choc bar out: MARBLE. Is summer really the best time to
         lauch new chocs? Mine was just a gooey mess - or maybe it's
         supposed to be... the packaging of POLO SUPER MINT suggests
         that yes, this is one huge hotel-soap-sized Polo. But
         really it's just a plastic container for about 50 tiny tiny
         ones. I wanted to indulge my "Honey I Shrunk The Kids"
         fantasies, yet was stuck with "Honey I Blew Up The Baby"...
         and finally from the Cads: a thin finger of choc-covered
         krispy cereal/caramel called NOBBLE (ho ho ho). Packaging
         reads: "Nobble makes Nobble bars to 'Nobble your hunger'.
         He works so hard that no one in Cadbury Land has ever
         caught more than a glimpse of him. You've seen his friends
         like Chomp, Fudge and Curly Wurly; what do you think Nobble
         looks like? Send your drawings to:" Lee and Herring
         perhaps?...


                              >> 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
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  • HARD NEWS
  • MORE ANTI-NEWS
  • EVENT QUEUE
  • TRACKING
  • MEMEPOOL
  • GEEK MEDIA
  • SMALL PRINT