"The Internet is extending the United States' thinking and
principles. If anybody benefits, the United States does -
but I think it is good for every other country, too."
- DON HEATH, Internet Society President
today president of the internet society,
...tomorrow, president of the WORLD!
>> HARD NEWS <<
easy jibes
Osteopathy and spinal tap treatments continue on the UK's
creaking Internet backbone. At midnight this Saturday, deep
down in the chock-a-block Docklands Telehouse where all the
UK ISP spaghetti meets, someone will have the unenviable
task of unplugging the beating heart of the British Net,
the LINX, manhandling it into a side-room which isn't quite
as knee-high in cables, and then try and put it back
together again. Nothing will go wrong. Of course, if
something did go wrong, you wouldn't know about it, because
with the LINX dead, practically every bit of UK traffic
would back up through those oh-so-expansive US connections
your ISP has been promising to improve, and the whole thing
would freeze like ... well, it did last time the LINX blew
a fuse, two months ago. But that won't happen again. Trust
us. Not even an atomic bomb can destroy the Net, remember?
http://www.spesh.com/cgi-bin/now?b=archive97/now0509.txt&l=40#l
- or a nasty mains spike
http://www.linx.net/moveinfo.html
- or a well placed banana skin
LINX is what is defiantly *not* known on the Net as a
"single point of failure". Good news then, that the other
bit of Net surgery this week was the insertion of a second
UK ...err, point of failure. The Manchester Network Access
Point was launched this week by a group of northern ISPs as
a "major step towards building an ultra reliable UK
Internet". Unfortunately, there's just six of them (because
someone forgot to ask the 'southerner' ISPs, even though
most of them have some connectivity in Manchester), and
they haven't got a .uk nameserver (which is a bit vital in
a LINX-crashing scenario). Still, g'luck - and see you on
Sunday, right? Right? Hello? HELLO?
http://www.manap.net/
- hey, what happened to that i-exchange peering point?
- hello? HELLO?
Anti-virus programmers - they're the good guys, yes? Not if
you listen the cuss-words from SYMANTEC and MCAFEE these
past few months. First Symantec (that's Norton Utilities
Inc) rudely accused McAfee of nicking their code and using
it in the McAfee PC Medic 97 program. Pause for out-of-
court negotiations. This week, Symantec spotted the same
(allegedly) nicked code in loads of other McAfee programs,
did a comedy double-take and formally accused McAfee of
*taking the piss*. Full war recommenced this week with
McAfee countersuing for defamation. Moral? Well, casting no
aspersions, but if there are companies whose code you
shouldn't rip off, it's probably the ones whose software is
*specifically designed* to scan executables. (Hilariously,
both companies are also being sued by TREND MICRO, who say
they patented this whole idea of catching Net virii, and
whoever *is* writing this stuff better own up soon so they
can send them all to jail.)
http://www.symantec.com what next? Peter Norton didn't
http://www.mcafee.com really write all of Norton
http://www.trendmicro.com Utilities? NooooOOOooO!
It's not often that anyone escapes Microsoft alive. ALEX
ST. JOHN did, and, boy, is he living to tell the tale. Alex
used to be the official MS "games evangelist" for DirectX,
the Windows 95 games programming API. Chief opposition to
DirectX (the 3D bit of it) is OpenGL, already kicking the
DirectX butt in the PC 3D cards biz, and backed by the
mighty Thor-like John Carmack, creator of Quake, Ur-Lord of
Doom. Alex St. John's job was to persuade people that
Carmack was wrong, and Bill was right. Last month, St. John
was abruptly sacked from MS. This week, he revealed why:
"In my opinion John Carmack", St. John the ex-evangelist
repented, "is a God, and has my complete respect. In theory
John is absolutely right about OGL, but in practice it will
never be for reasons that have little to do with technical
purity, and a lot to do with cold market forces, politics,
and NDA's." Ouch: Microsoft fails to put the pin back in.
http://www.bootnet.com/aliveandwell.html
- disgruntled ex-employee. Armed with Super Nail Gun.
http://www.melgir.demon.co.uk/lrp/labyrinthe/alex.html
- the same ASJ? Who cares? Funny dressing-up picture!
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
news we knew you knew
NETSCAPE announce profits : shares drop 18%... UK Home PC
market "saturated", fear DIXONS... T3 still pondering
"what's better, Mac or PC?"... FUTURENET claim best ABC Web
figures (out of two sites audited so far)... CYBORGANIC
"having financial problems"... EXCITE launch international
edition... COMPUSERVE to "exploit" pornographic forums...
EXCITE launches free Web-based e-mail service... Olivetti
sells ACORN shares... ACCLAIM loses $100m, *despite* Turok:
Dinosaur Hunter... EXCITE launch "pay us to wash your
laundry" service... ZILOG bought by Texans... "Most users
do not need push technology", study reveals... COMPUTER
CHANNEL "looking for new presenters"... Inkjet printers
count for 25% of Hewlett-Packard profit, says NEWSWEEK...
new INTERNET EXPLORER 4.0pr2 does not work with AOL,
CompuServe - or MSN...
ANTI-NEWS INTERACTIVE >> NTK readers spread the obvious via
poorly-filtered letters pages: in TIME OUT LONDON, Jem
Stone (sub#120) reveals Web-columnist Spyder to be
"idiot"... in TELEGRAPH CONNECTED, Adrian Mulder (sub#48)
questions sanity of game journo Steve Boxer... Over to
you...
>> CULTURE <<
dialing your Penfield to 888 - and leaving it there
Brighton goes bot mad next week when the FOURTH EUROPEAN
CONFERENCE ON ARTIFICIAL LIFE bandwagon hits town.
Registration costs an out-of-control UKP350, but there's
plenty of free sideshows for rubbernecking boid 'n' droid
fans: public lectures on evolution by Robin Dunbar and
Lewis Wolpert, bot art by the usual suspects (Latham,
Stelarc, and the aptly-named Karl Sims) and the always
enthusiastically spasticated robot football tournament. Our
pick, though, has to be the promised demo of a bot that
"mimics the behaviour of a pre-Cambrian creature, laying
trails (using toilet paper) just like those found in
fossils of the period."
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ecal97/
- "Andrex puppy 5 billion years older than previous estimate"
Form reflects content in a *very real sense* for ALEXEI
SHULGIN, Russian curator and benefactor of humanity. He's
offering a thousand dollars to the designer of the best
piece of Web art to consist only of HTML form elements -
buttons, checkboxes, text areas and pull down menus. Yes,
we'll wait while you re-read that sentence. A GRAND FOR ONE
HTML PAGE: better than even the most confused ad agency
pays. The artwork created (and it must be art, not a search
form or something crass like that) should be publically
accessible, the winner will be announced at the Ars
Electronica festival in September, and the deadline is
31/8/97, so get *your* arts over to:
http://www.c3.hu/hyper3/form/ Submit... submit...
http://www.roline.ru/sp/cp/shulgin.html
- Not to be confused with LSD guru Alexander Shulgin. Altho...
>> TRACKING <<
like the Cylons had on their forehead (only in text)
Don't forget the Mac, writes one reader - presumably an
altruistic Amiga fan. How could we, in the week when
MacOS8, the super giant "Aaron" extension, hit the shelves?
Extensive Internet support, a multi-threaded PowerPC
finder, some great features ripped off Windows 95, and they
killed that stupid Quickdraw GX printer rubbish, so that's
a relief. Also out from Apple is a beta of Java 1.5
runtime, which, they say, runs Net apps "up to 10 times
faster" than the instructions-per-fortnight Java 1.0.
Brings a whole new meaning to "Just in Time", doesn't it?
http://www.apple.com motto: STILL HERE
http://applejava.apple.com
- calm down, ladies, it's only SDK 1.0.2 compatible
Much more hardcore a Mac user than that? Curious to check
out the Unixy future of the platform (and who'd have
imagined *that* migration path)? Too stingy to splash out
on a NeXT box? Alors! Voila Jean-Louis Gassee, making like
Linus Torvalds and giving away a free preview release of
BeOS on the cover of the August MacUser. C'est magnifique!
http://www.be.com and soon to be as rich as Mr Torvalds,too
Locate any computer shop in the UK! Well, technically it's
find any Europress supplier, but with their Oasis
Interactive Songbook shifting 28,000 units since launch
("Fantastic for this time of year" - a company spokesman),
that's going to be most of them. The parser ain't exactly
AltaVista, but combine it with the "Where's My Nearest
Tandy Branch?" CGI and suddenly shopping is fun again.
http://www.unipower.co.uk/es/wwdistrib.nsf/sales
- Unipower also offer "competitor intelligence". Which is nice.
http://www.internexus.co.uk/tandystores/search.htm
- And what do they do with all *our* postcodes?
We're having fun with ALEXA, a freebie PC Net tool that's
so close to being useful that it's only a matter of time
before Microsoft rips it off and makes a packet. Alexa lets
you publicly annotate Websites, publicly vote for Websites,
and generally confer with other surfers as to the
suckability of the URL you're viewing. Fatal flaw: the vast
possibilities for spamming popular site with adult XXX
links. There's also a bizarro ability to connect to a tape
backup archive of the entire Internet: we suspect this is
the Alexa designers' Great Work. Sadly, like all Great
Works, it doesn't. Yet. But it's fun.
http://www.alexa.com
- based in San Fran. I think you know what we're saying
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la Altavista
Life imitates Tap: Christopher "NIGEL TUFFNELL" Guest takes
seat in House of Lords... majordomo hacking... why aren't
the Medellin cartel sponsoring Impro comedy clubs?...
www.spesh.com/nanoguitar/... Oh, Mr Kawasaki? SHUT UP...
Oh, *sure* you "stepped down", ROSSETTO... Yemeni
martians... crypt newsletter... FIREFLY should do tapes for
its friends... nanog flamewars... ICQlones... AIX ping o'
root... "The witch is late"... www.spacewriter.com... Nick
Rosen : the new Rasputin... PLAYSTATION pushes rental
market - anathema to Nintendo... www.milde.no/mars/...
prepare never to forget: the Ben Hur scene in the STAR WARS
prequel...
>> MO' MEDIA <<
the vicarious lifestyle of choice
TV >> Remark how quickly modern comedy dates, as BBC2
showcases the first ever episode of BOTTOM (9pm, Fri,
BBC2), the "Sick" episode of THE YOUNG ONES (9.30pm, Fri,
BBC2), followed by a compilation of the "best bits" of
NEVER MIND THE BUZZCOCKS (10pm, Fri, BBC2)... torment
yourself further with the devil's own movie dilemma of
Clive Barker's sado-machismo HELLRAISER (10.30pm, Fri, C4)
vs Joe Eszterhas's FLASHDANCE dancing welder (11.25pm, Fri,
BBC1) vs Robert Mitchum's tour de force NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
(11.55pm, Fri, BBC2)... Clive Sinclair is one of several
experts chatting professional (rather than technical)
HYPOTHETICALS (7.10pm, Sat, BBC2) for sixty minutes, but
just half an hour in the company of design poseurs TOMATO
(1.50am, Sat pm/Sun am, C4) is still half an hour too
long... despite Thunderbirds-style F/X and stunt casting
(Rutger Hauer, Martin Sheen) nuke-sub drama HOSTILE WATERS
(9pm, Sat, BBC1) goes edge-of-seat like Edge Of Darkness,
but all ITV has to retaliate is a double-bill of POLICE
ACADEMY 7: MISSION TO MOSCOW (8.15pm, Sat, LWT - watch for
the Tetris allegory) and - almost certainly - their rubbish
grainy print of 9.5 WEEKS (10pm, Sat, LWT)... these hard
s/f OUTER LIMITS (9.35pm, Sun, BBC2) really are an
improvement, but don't miss the remarkable non-revelations
in the dramatised ROSWELL (10pm, Sun, C4) or repeated docu
THE ROSWELL INCIDENT straight after (declassified after 50
years? Yeah, right)... the evil-looking Carol Smillie
promotes house-swap vandalism in CHANGING ROOMS (9pm, Mon,
BBC2) - the newest of many shows proclaiming "Wake up -
time to DIY"... while historical sitcom fans should lap up
the first-ever ROSEANNE (6.30pm, Tue, C4), THE GOOD LIFE
SELECTION BOX (8.15pm, Wed, BBC1), the last ever (?)
NORTHERN EXPOSURE (10.35pm, Thu, C4) and PILGRIMS REST
(8.30pm, Thu, BBC1) - set in an isolated transport cafe,
here's hoping it's more than just a terrible Brit version
of Cheers...
MOVIES >> Another of those lean, blockbuster-between weeks
- PALOOKAVILLE (no-one we'd heard of) may well be yet
another post-Tarantino failed-heister, but it's got a
genuine warmth and sense of humour... otherwise WARRIORS OF
VIRTUE (kung-fu kangaroos) is bizarre mass merchandising
mayhem, like Teenage Mutant Martial Arts Wallabies, and
PORTRAITS CHINOIS (Helena Bonham-Carter) is an elaborate
ensemble romance, like Friends - but in French! We'll take
the kangas...
HOLIDAY READS >> Disappointingly, we didn't hate digital
travelogue HARD SOFT & WET (Melanie McGrath, Harper
Collins, UKP16.99) anyway near as much as we wanted to -
sure, it's overwritten and full of lamers, but it feels
right, has an honest directness, and Dave makes a brief
cameo on page 230... conversely, Po Bronson's net-top box
novel THE FIRST $20M IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST (Secker &
Warburg, UKP 5.99) is much *worse* than anyone imagined -
if we wanted patronising tech explanations, we'd be buying
net mags (see also Po's very defensive AOL Website)... Hard
Drive sequel OVERDRIVE - BILL GATES AND THE RACE TO CONTROL
CYBERSPACE (James Wallace, John Wiley, UKP 16.99) is - just
- worth ploughing through pages of monopoly legalities for
Bill's tell-all personal details... despite the subhead
"Popular Science And Sex In America" NASA/TREK (Constance
Penley, Verso, UKP 11) is for cult-studies obscurists -
lovely jacket design, though... Edward Tenure's WHY THINGS
BITE BACK (Technology And The Revenge Of Unintended
Consequences) (Fourth Estate, UKP 8) seems to have
transferred to paperback with few dramatic side-effects...
and, as you sit in the sun, spare a thought for occasional
NTK music columnist JAMES FLINT, rumoured to be getting a
six-figure advance for forthcoming cyber-novel - so Jim,
guess you won't be doing this for the free CDs any more...
>> 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 "affiliated with joke-a-day".
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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