"A 15-year-old Protestant in Holland is not the same as a
15-year-old Muslim in an Arab country."
- David Kerr, Internet Watch Foundation, on rating porn sites
the quality of some of those GIFs, it's hard to tell
>> HARD NEWS <<
for hard drives
INTERNET CONNECTIVITY to the States took an early weekend
last week: a construction crew cut through one of the
principal NY-Washington cables around 3pm BST on Fri
27/6/97; routing was fritzed for the rest of the afternoon.
That's okay, though, because UUNET-Pipex customers were
recovering from repeatedly engaged dialup lines the day
before, and Demon customers were still wondering what
happened to their DNS server on Wednesday.
http://www.internetweather.com
- "The only fault-tolerant part of the Net is its users."
A bittersweet week if you had deadpool bets on Jimmy
Stewart, Robert Mitchum - or APPLE COMPUTER. On Thursday a
block of 1.5 million Apple shares were sold - just
coincidentally the same amount as Steve Jobs owns. Or
owned. Then Apple clone-maker Power Computing stated that
they'd be expanding into the PC market. You know things are
bad when no-one wants to even compete with you... Stock
prices are currently at an 11-year low. Find out whether it
was an insider Jobs deal on Monday, when the SEC releases
full details.
http://www.apple.com
Remember: somebody bought those shares. Probably Woz.
Stock evaporation closer to home with Hampshire-based
SUPERSCAPE. Shares in the perennial 3D tools provider have
been sliding over the last four months from c.400p to the
current c.80p. Superscape boss John Chiplin says this is
due to the stockmarket's current anti-VR vibes, and the
mistaken belief that the Scapesters have been betting
everything on the Net. As opposed to that booming immersive
3D environment market?
http://www.superscape.com
- a far cry from their promising early Dragon 32 work
As reported in NTK (and if we didn't, we should have done,
because everyone kept telling us about it), Web ad agencies
ONLINE MAGIC and AGENCY.COM have teamed up. Online Magic
was based in London with an NY office, and Agency.com was
NY with a London office. Now Agency.com own a substantial
chunk of OM, so we guess they'll centralise operations in
Bermuda. Ahaha. Upshot: They'll look more impressive,
they'll do some bigger corporate sites, and if you know
HTML, you'll probably end up working for them. Move along
now. Entertaining Web bankruptcies come later this year.
http://www.agency.com Look, just go read New Media Age
http://www.onlinemagic.com or something, okay? Sheesh.
WINDOWS 98 got its first beta to around 100,000 'carefully-
selected' sites. Because of non-disclosure agreements, no-
one revealed to us that the upgrade contains an improved
(FAT32) filing system, support for faster (USB, DVD)
interfaces and some mildly cool macro/scripting language
support. No-one did this and no-one cares, because Windows
98 is dull, dull, dull. Everyone's waiting for the new
Internet Explorer 4 beta. Which, some say, is *very* close.
http://browserwatch.internet.com/news/news-current.html
- you'll hear it here first
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
news we knew you knew
New NT server bug... 'Pol Pot in hiding in Sweden' just a
net.rumour... 'MICROSOFT buying CBS' just a net.rumour...
'"Caesar the Geezer" going to jail' not a rumour at all...
The Spot closes down... MATSUSHITA M2 game console
pulled... "The Web May Be Killing Old-Fashioned CD-ROMs" -
DAILY SCOOP... "A Million Intranet and Internet sites Need
Microsoft Site Server", estimate - MICROSOFT... IT Managers
don't read e-mails, says NETWORK NEWS... MEN IN BLACK movie
webverts will "give users the impression the site they are
visiting has been sabotaged"... "Majority of small firms
not on-line" reports UK survey... new DOUGLAS ADAMS game to
feature the "Wild Squid of Shrdlu" and (oh, our sides) the
"Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet Sprod"...
>> CULTURE <<
It's not often we'll cower from an expression of true geek
might but THE MIND SPORTS OLYMPIAD, taking over the Royal
Festival Hall from 17/8/97-24/8/97, has even us gibbering.
Imagine - eight days of continuous mental battle in the
ancient arts of Magic (the Gathering, that is), Continuo,
Hare and Tortoise, Mastermind, Stratego, and Twixt
(Twixt?). Also featured: challenges in Speed Reading and
Memory skills AND a computer programming contest with
categories for speed of writing, execution speed and code
compactness. Anyone can enter. There are special under-16
sections. We're leaving the country.
http://www.mindsports.co.uk/
- Who's got the TV rights? Don King must be kicking himself!
Not on our UK tellies yet but still worth looking forward
to: new US series of Egyptology-sci-fi STARGATE (featuring
Richard Dean "MacGyver" Anderson), TIMECOP, and Gene
Roddenberry's EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT (it's an old
Roddenberry script from before his death, not his Omen-
style return from beyond the grave). There's always a
downside, however, and this time it takes the form of a
fifth 22-episode season of BABYLON 5, plus *two* feature-
length spin-off movies next year. Like individual Bab-5
episodes weren't tough enough to follow...
How about this? We broke into Simon "Non-hacker, honest"
Gardner's mail account, ripped off this Saturday's ACCESS
ALL AREAS provisional running order, and posted it onto our
Website. Are we elite yet?
http://www.spesh.com/aaa/agenda.html
- will trade for cracked copy of mIRC
>> TRACKING <<
good bot - fetch!
We knew you like your PC AUDIO CD PLAYING SOFTWARE heavy on
the obsessive features (like play statistics and automatic
Internet CD database interrogation) so we knew you'll like
DiscPlay 4. What we also knew is that you knew that
DiscPlay has been crashing on CD database look-ups and
pissing off the CDDB overlords. Well, we knew that you knew
too, but we also knew that there was a new one out. And
*that's* why we're called Need to Knew New.
http://www.obvion.com/discplay/ or something
http://www.cddb.com
- and if you don't know what CDDB is, it's time you did
Dull public service announcements a-go-go: geek wonks may
like to check out our copy of the LAW SOCIETY's reaction to
the (awful) DTI Proposals on Crypto Key Escrow. Executive
summary for lazy busy folk: they don't like it, they don't
want it, and (subtext) they smell a big fat MI5 rat.
http://www.spesh.com/crypto/lawsoc.html
Got NETSCAPE 4? Bored mindless with what to do with it? Why
not quickly peruse the freebie dynamic font add-ons of
HexMac? Then, for an encore, why not begin worrying about
how really slow BitStream is, and how maybe fonts weren't
what your design lacked after all...
http://www.hexmac.com/
- although we're getting pretty tired of courier ourselves
>> MEMEPOOL <<
Meme meme meme... all we think about
Nissan Cars launch mobile phone division... vibrating
joysticks... US military say selling off of RF spectrum
means they don't have enough for war... Makers of Spam
intend to sue Sanford "Spamford" Wallace... Microsoft
Expedia will tie up with AT Mayes in the UK...
Tama*goth*i... No information without representation,
reckon webster.aip.org/physnews/preview/qinfo/...
Panasonic's latest Japan mobiles - 8 hours *talktime*,
32Kbps... Carmageddon developed on the peace-lovin' Mac...
Romana Machado stops charging; Jennicam starts... "Dream:
Le Magazine de la Micro Alternative"... Grant "Animal Man"
Morrison writing screenplay for LAWNMOWER MAN 3... Tasty
Buzz Taffy...
>> MO' MEDIA <<
caution! diversions ahead
TV >> ITV may have ventured Into The Unknown, but the BBC
goes one better with A WEEKEND ON MARS (from 6.10pm, Fri,
BBC2), with live news of the NASA Pathfinder landing hosted
by Clive Anderson, who'll presumably be making lots of
topical Mars-related gags and constantly referring to his
baldness... probable highlights include sci-fi round-up
FEAR OF A RED PLANET (9.15pm, Sat, BBC2), technicolor
classics THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (12noon, Sat, BBC2) and
INVADERS FROM MARS (12.35am, Sat, BBC2), Mars-astronaut
selection docu MARS: DEATH OR GLORY? (8.30pm, Sat, BBC2),
plus exobiology speculation in THE NATURAL HISTORY OF AN
ALIEN (8.55pm, Sun, BBC2)... of course, it could all be
faked, as they then tacitly admit by showing conspiracy
thriller CAPRICORN ONE (11.20pm, Sun, BBC2)... elsewhere,
there's further outer-space fun with that cheery sextet of
surrogate FRIENDS (9pm, Fri, C4), back with the start of
their third series and already looking like an improvement
on the patchy second one, as Ross confides his secret
fantasy involving Princess Leia... SECRET HISTORY (9pm,
Mon, C4) gets a bit more technical in its behind the scenes
gossip about breaking the sound barrier in the 1940s... and
Whole-Earther Stewart Brand gets all anthropomorphic about
bricks and mortar (to the accompaniment of, you've guessed
it, Brian Eno) as he explores HOW BUILDINGS LEARN (7.30pm,
Thu, BBC2)...
MOVIES >> One-man action spectacular Jackie Chan
commemorates the return of Hong Kong to mainland China the
only way he knows how - with a series of loosely connected,
farcically complicated and, (in one case) genuinely ankle-
busting stunt spectaculars in the limited release of RUMBLE
IN THE BRONX (thank you, The Onion -
www.theonion.com/onion3120/index3120.html )... PREACHING TO
THE PERVERTED (no-one you've heard of) is a Brit-made S&M
smut comedy, which takes its title from an old Pop Will Eat
Itself song - this is not a recommendation... while ONE
FINE DAY (Michelle Pfeiffer, George Clooney) brings you
formulaic screwball romance enlivened by snappy mobile-
phone swapping - and, intriguingly, continues the tradition
of adapting song titles into films: the above-mentioned
Preaching To The Perverted, Pretty Woman, The Gambler,
David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers (For Love)...
MARS! MARS! MARS! >> Whooooooosh... blat.......boiiiiing.
Yup, it's time for another landing on Mars. Twenty years
ago, Viking went to Mars the old-fashioned way, parking in
a nice sedate orbit and sending in a cute little lander.
Mars Pathfinder is bombing in, blazing a trail across the
darkened Martian sky and coming down on a parachute --
until, that is, it inflates a load of giant beach balls and
bounces to a stop across the rubbly Martian plain. We'll
know at about 6.30BST on Friday evening whether it's
survived touchdown, and the first pictures will be beamed
back to Ops Control (as they now seem to call it) at JPL by
about 11pm... Pathfinder has a dinky little six-wheel rover
aboard called Sojourner (crazy name, crazy 'bot) which will
wander around the neighbourhood zapping rocks with a laser
and using a spectrometer to sniff the debris. Lander and
rover are expected to last about a month on the Martian
surface, barring horrendous sandstorms or removal to the
trophy halls of Barsoom. Expect some GREAT stereo QTVRs
within days. What Clive won't tell you: Sojourner's running
on a 2Mhz 80C85 (like in the Tandy Model 100) with 576KB of
RAM, 176KB nonvolatile RAM, and 16KB ROM. And apparently
the original proposal was for a big Mars buggy: after a
baad funding meeting, the dejected lads at JPL came back,
stared at their 1/8th scale model - and said "Hold on...."
- mattb@spesh.com
http://www.audionet.com/events/nasa/mars/ live broadcasts
http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/webcams/marsroom.html- 'Ops' Cam
http://mpfwww.arc.nasa.gov/rover/faqs_sojourner.html
- FAQ with the really *tough* FAQs
- (like, what happens if it lands next to a huge rock?)
http://www.moron.com/~techno/model_100.html
>> SMALL PRINT <<
Need to Know Now 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 "increasingly self-indulgent".
(Get well soon, Z.R.)
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
http://www.spesh.com/ntk
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NTKnow is helped by VIRGIN MEDIA, VENUS INTERNET and FLIRBLE.ORG.
They worry about us, but we don't worry about them.
(K) 1997 Special Projects. Copy at will, but retain this SMALL PRINT.
Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com.