archive
NTK '99
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 '97
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"Students are fundamentally opposed to something that locks
them in. They're not lulled into the promises of up-front
money"
- Apple's John Santaro, on Microsoft's "free software for
schools" drive
maybe if you offered them record vouchers...
>> HARD NEWS <<
we can't defuse
Expect a flurry of "Hoots, Demon!" jokes in the next few
days, when the news that Uncle Cliff finally flogged DEMON
INTERNET hits the headlines. For it was plucky, regional
SCOTTISH TELECOM who snapped the plucky, but getting a bit
bored of pluckiness, ISP from the sweaty hands of the
telephone giants. Weirdly, rumour has it that the big
telcos (names mentioned in the wooing were BT and NTL) were
actually offering more cash than the canny Scots, but,
idiosyncratic to the end, Demon went with the outsider. Now
all that remains is for the shares to be handed over. Which
presents a slight problem for the higher circles of the
inferno - what about all the share options owned by the
rest of the Demon staff? Current price offered: twenty quid
a share. But what if they all say "noo"?
http://www.demon.net/
- two months' Internet access per share? Three?
http://www.scottishtelecom.com/st_x3.htm
- "Virtual shopping lets you 'try on' clothes in your size"
The perfect April Fool's joke: upload 15MB of laughter
track WAVs to ftp.mozilla.org, then run like crazy. But no
- boring old NETSCAPE went and posted the complete source
to Navigator, as pledged, instead. Hysteria in the Free
Software community followed, mostly at Jamie Zawinski's
monster Mozilla party in downtown SF. NTK reporters were
there to watch JWZ "liberate" the rest of the commercial
software he had in his cubicle by throwing CD-ROMs at the
slavering audience, while huge monitors showed a cat of the
C/C++ code. Also noted: "more girls than you'd expect". Of
course, all the real fun was going on elsewhere - with the
Anglo-Australian transworld Cryptozilla coding tag-teams,
who, just fifteen hours after the code release, had plugged
back in the strong cryptography support that the US
government had demanded Netscape strip out. You see what
you miss if you waste your life partying?
http://www.winklerad.com/staff/jay/mozilla/psn00016.jpg
- more guys dressed as strawberries than you'd expect, too
http://mozilla-crypto.ssleay.org/press/19980401-02/
- Damn! When did these foreigners learn to program?
http://www.altmuehlnet.baynet.de/~carlica/bill/baddm.html
- dateline: 1976. Bill decides against GNU BASIC
USENET spammers were struck a near-fatal blow this week, as
the amassed forces of antispamdom (new word) got bored and
went home. From today, the cancelling anti-spam bots that
guard USENET from the more outrageous mass-mailers will be
turned off, allowing spam to flood the system as much as it
wants. It remains to be seen whether USENET will crash,
quite literally, in flames, or the spammers will notice
that no-one's listening anymore and move on to a more
effective medium, like jamming teletext broadcasts or
something. In the meantime, we recommend you retire to your
mailing-list bunkers until the fallout has cleared. This
has been a public service announcement.
http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=339705297.1
- run away! run away!
FALLLLLLCOOOOOOO! The bad, BAD thoughts of those predicting
the demise of Saatchi & Saatchi's favourite Web design
house AMX DIGITAL were vindicated Thursday when
"voluntarily liquidation" spontaneously occurred. Top Falco
goes to the anonymous source who sent an eerily prescient
tip back in mid-February. Of course, the ravings that
accompanied it - suggesting that the liquidation would be
followed by an instant reforming of the company under a
different name - must be discounted as wildest speculation.
But then, what do we know? We thought AMX were the guys who
did the mouse for the BBC Micro. And who is RealTime, and
why would they want 80% of the new company? Does anyone
know? No. Still, eh? Falcoooooooooo!
http://www.amxdigital.com/bob_d_1.html
- "you can't predict the unexpected"
http://www.artwalker.com/o/
- the AMX mouse people appear to have gone completely mad
http://www.picknmix.demon.co.uk/MrA.htm
- or maybe they always were: stories from the old AMX
http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=a98/now0213.txt&l=306#l
- and what is "Falco", please?
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
ANON.PENET.FI Scientology case finally closes - without a
prosecution... MIKE BATT writes letter to Music Week
warning of illicit Womble MP3 downloads... "Apple Board
Says Jobs Can Stay as Long as He Likes", reveals NEW YORK
TIMES... MAC OFFICE 98 bug tries to trash System folder
when you uninstall: Microsoft "recommends not using this
utility"... RES ROCKET now freeware... Microsoft, barred
from JAVA ONE, hang around outside with free T-shirts and
pizza coupons... "Internet Users Spend More Time, Money on
PCs", INTERNETNEWS.COM uncovers... CU AMIGA put System 7 on
their cover CD (3 times): didn't realise that Apple might
object... CHARLIE BROOKER inevitably gets his revenge on
Edge: http://www.ntk.net/edged/edge.ram ... AUSTRALIAN
CHESS CHAMPION claims opponent distracted him "with her
breasts"... controversial Oasis Webmaster DEREK GORMAN
takes break - for A-Levels...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
goto's considered non-harmful
DECADENT ACTION have been inappropriately busy again,
fussing us with press releases announcing this year's WORLD
PHONE IN SICK DAY on 6/4/98. To usher in the new financial
year, DA urge citizens to slack off, take a sickie, and
thus undermine the economy and bring about the collapse of
the state. We still think that actively reporting in sick
is too much bother, though. Why not get your mate to call,
so your boss *knows* you're faking it?
http://www.paranoia.com/~rtmark/daphoneinsick.html
- and what if I'm paid to be a medical research subject?
The geek-friendly way to celebrate Jesus Christ's
suspiciously convenient return from the dead: INTUITION,
the "1998 British National Science Fiction (SF) Convention
(Eastercon)", runs from next Fri [10/04/98] right through
to Monday, at the Jarvis Piccadilly and Britannia Hotels,
Manchester. Their site's oddly *counter*-intuitive, but the
strange attractors appear to include authors Connie Willis,
Ian McDonald and fanzine editor Martin Tudor, poetry, a
costumed masquerade, plus what sounds like a version of
Robot Wars which adheres rather more closely to Asimov's
Three Laws. Admission on the door depends when you attend,
or do all four days for just 40 of your Earth pounds.
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~acb/intuition/
- clearly somehow they kept it a secret from George Takei
Not to be confused with "The Quickening", in which
Highlander-style "Immortals" battle to try and cut each
other's heads off, THE GATHERING remains our favourite of
the giant Scandinavian demo parties, if only because it's
the only one we've ever been to. Like last year, it's held
in the Vikingskipet (Viking Ship) Olympic skating stadium,
Hamar, Norway (short train ride from Oslo), from Wed
08/04/98 to 12/04/98. Specialist compos include Amiga 64K
intro, Amiga 4K intro, PC 64K intro, PC 4K intro, PC Text-
mode demo, C64 Demo, Java demo, Useless utility and (our
favourite) the Totally Wild Compo.
http://www.gathering.org
- girls no longer get in free : this *is* an interesting trend
http://www.thegathering.org
- not to be confused with "The Gathering Of Men"
http://www.nirvana.it/home_int.htm
- Christopher Lambert's next effort: Tron for the '90s?
In Italian?
>> TRACKING <<
zzt ... zzt ... zzt... BLEEPEEPEEPEEPEEP BEEP
Microsoft and the Royal Mail, working together: just how
slow could you get? "None more slow," seems to be the
answer: their new RELAYONE service lets you send your e-
mail to a postal address, but it takes "up to" 24 hours to
get into the envelope - and that's before it enters the
uniformed routers of the PO's snailmail network. And none
more expensive, either: 1.50UKP for a single A4 sheet.
Messages can be sent to UK addresses only. Best bit:
"RelayOne takes the matter of security very seriously
indeed. That's why we use a sophisticated encryption system
to protect your credit card details." And then print out
your e-mail at our centre so that anyone can read it...
http://relayone.msn.com/
- "printed at 300dpi using professional industrial standard
laser printers"
Spidey sense tingling? Must be the cool US toys from
Christmas now filtering down to UK street level -
including, at last, the SPIDERMAN WEB BLASTER. Potentially
"the new nerf" of office geeks everywhere, this 15UKP arm-
mounted webslinger allows you shoot foam silly-string at
victims, while adopting the famous "wrist up" stance.
Thwip! Thwip! Concerned parents might like to know that the
Blaster has been nominated by "Top Ten Worst Toys" for its
"potential for face and eye injuries". Other nominees
include another Marvel-inspired death-trap, the
*fantastically* lethal-looking Wolverine "Awesome Arm". A
must for potential beserkers (ages 5 and up), this arm
attachment features "retractable striking claws" for "claw
striking excitement". Tell us if you spot it in Woolies.
http://www.swartzlaw.com/toy
- "Super Sock'em Boppers" sadly not a Rudy Rucker spin-off
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
special "return of the Extropians" memepack:
www.transhumanist.com/ ... Ayn Rand translated back into
Russian... http://members.aol.com/mattjasper/robotics/ ...
And even the smart Lego movement is getting out of control:
www.lego.com/technic/cybermaster/enhanced.asp ... Tetris
for Quake: http://members.xoom.com/phooky/q2tetris.html ...
MS NetShow 3 not to be RealAudio compatible; AOL prepares
their own streaming audio system... "International Symbol
of Victory": www.hi5arm.com/home2.html ... So how did Lycos
get that plug into OKTOBER?... The FAST SHOW renamed
"Brilliant!" for the US... Oh, and ftp://dk/ and
http://listen.the.longest.host.name.you.can.have.is.255.cha
racters.or.twohundredfiftyfive.if.you.want.to.see.it.in.its
.full.glory.therefore.the.longest.url.better.start.with.a.h
ost.name.which.is.precisely.two.hundred.fifty.five.characte
rs.long.ok.666.assurdo.com/my.url.is.longer.than.yours/ are
positively the last we have to say on this matter.
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
media junk for media junkies
TV>> Channel 5 launches its imaginatively titled "Sci-Five"
weekend with John Carpenter Jesus-weepie STARMAN (9pm, Sat,
C5) - spoiled by the fact that at no point in the film does
anyone say: "But you don't understand, Mrs Hayden: that
*thing* is no longer your husband!"... also showing:
classic '80s crypto-Nazi miniseries V (11.10pm, Sat, C5),
and the first-ever THE INVADERS (4.15am, Sat, C5), whose
titles strangely emphasise that a) it's a Quinn-Martin
production, and b) that lead character David Vincent is an
*architect*. Like that'd qualify him to do really detailed
3D sketches of UFO interiors or something... rather more
down-to-earth fun with Martin Scorsese in Dilbert nightmare
AFTER HOURS (1am, Sat, BBC2) plus TAXI DRIVER (9.30pm, Sat,
BBC2) - maybe the censors fell asleep and missed those last
five, ultraviolent minutes?... otherwise it's time for "NTK
readers plug their desperate stabs at fame": gangling Ben
Moor appears in *next* week's episode of The-Bill-on-BBC
cop drama CITY CENTRAL (8.10pm, Sat, BBC2)... precocious
child composer Daniel Pemberton claims to have written the
choons for gangster docu MOB LAW (9.30pm, Sat, C4)... it's
the last LEE AND HERRING'S THIS MORNING WITH RICHARD NOT
JUDY (12.15pm, Sun, BBC2), but their tour starts soon, info
at www.leeandherring.com/this/tour.html ... and, who knows,
even we might be vaguely funny (for once), abusing
Microsoft's Barney-bot in the last of THE NET (11.15pm,
Mon, BBC2)... the "Obsessions" dramas conclude with real-
trainspotter play adaptation ANORAK OF FIRE (9.55pm, Sun,
BBC2)... but plenty of the real thing in the Big Brother/
New World Order free-range chat on FOR THE LOVE OF
(12midnight, Mon, C4)... enhance your Easter week enjoyment
with classic Disney sci-fantasy: THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE
WORLD, THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD, THE SPACEMAN AND
KING ARTHUR, CONDORMAN, and 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
(10.30am-ish, Mon-Fri, BBC2)... Twin Peaks' Lara Flynn
Boyle is one of the oversexed roomsharing students working
through the permutations in THREESOME (10pm, Tue, C4)... a
NewTek Video Toaster (and T-shirt) briefly cameo in worthy
sequel WAYNE'S WORLD 2 (10pm, Wed, BBC1)... and watch for a
MacGyver in-joke, plus an evil Egyptian-robot alien
actually using the line "This one has *spirit!*", in
hilarious spinoff series STARGATE SG-1 (8pm, Wed, Sky1)...
FILM>> sorry, we goofed: SPHERE was postponed to this
(already crowded) week to avoid the not-quite-sunk-yet
Titanic, but it's *still* rubbish, even with the cameo
appearance by Xterm. NTK says: instead, wait to see what
possible twists Sharon Stone could encounter in Basic
Instinct 2... wrinkly beekeeper Peter Fonda fails to
explain exactly what Ulay (as in "Oil of Ulay") is as he
ingeniously battles hoodlums for ULEE'S GOLD (MPAA rated: R
for "language")... like an Australian tryout for his role
in the upcoming Avengers, Ralph Fiennes joins Cate
Blanchett as made-for-each other historical wackos in OSCAR
AND LUCINDA (imdb: romance / drama / based-on-novel /
gambling / obsession / 1800s)... Martin Scorsese teams with
the writer of ET for philosophical Tibetan ponderings in
KUNDUN (imdb: non-violence / buddhism / reverse-footage /
biographical / monastry / drama / slow-motion / historical
/ political / religion / stop-motion / sand / teacher-
student / dalai-lama / mandala)... Joe "Jagged Edge/ Basic
Instinct" Eszterhas seems to have avoided his usual "it's
not who you think - oh, it is" plot twist in autobiog
coming-of-ager TELLING LIES IN AMERICA (MPAA rated: PG-13
for "sex-related situations")... KILLER TONGUE (imdb:
Spain) sounds just like a Latin Tarantino/ Rodriguez desert
heist romance remake of Species... and finally, good to see
Nathan Lane and Lee Evans dwarfed by rodent special effects
in kiddie holiday fodder MOUSE HUNT (MPAA rated: PG for
"language, comic sensuality and mayhem")...
SKI-TEK>> Overwhelming urge to be your own Captain Nemo and
voyage to the bottom of the sea? Check out US Submarines'
Phoenix 1000, built _ a tad carelessly, perhaps - for a
multimillionaire who welched on the deal, and yours for a
mere $75 million: http://www.ussubs.com/ ... DIY fanatics
cut along to "human Battenburg Cake" Adam Hart-Davis's
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/local_heroes/makesub.htm
site to build a fully functional 18th-century Drebbel sub
for more like 75p... More ambitious? Try the Breakthrough
Physics Propulsion Research Workshop from NASA Lewis, which
should tell you all you need to know to build a fully-
functional star drive instead (well, nearly -- that last
little bit is the point of the workshop, after all):
www.lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/BPPWrkshp_STAIF_PrePrnt.htm ...
With the American Chemical Society meeting offering plastic
transistors for roll-up computer screens, buckyballs at a
bargain-basement $100/pound and a recipe for metallic glass
("transparent aluminium", anyone?), the Enterprise is
surely just around the corner... Quantum physicists seem
unperturbed by the return of the ether... Watch out for new
Mars Global Surveyor images of the Cydonian "Face on Mars",
mid-afternoon 6/4/98, or early hours 15/4/98, and deep-
frozen remains of plucky little Pathfinder a day or so
later... then chat live to oh-so-cool Apollo Flight
Director Chris Kraft at Yahoo 8-9PM ET on April 25th; he's
promoting an HBO mini-series, but who cares?... satellite-
linked GPS-controlled "liquid-manure applicator" under
development at Purdue University: "It used to be that a
farmer would go out and apply 20,000 gallons of manure
without having records of where he put it," they say _ how
unlike real life, then...
>> 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 "the pain in your office".
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
Archive - http://www.ntk.net/
Excuses - http://www.spesh.com/ntk/
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(K) 1998 Special Projects. Non-business copying is fine,
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Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com.
|| HARD NEWS || ANTI-NEWS || EVENT QUEUE || TRACKING || MEMEPOOL || GEEK MEDIA || SMALL PRINT ||
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