"Positive effects include increased hand-eye co-ordination,
attention span, motivation, a sense of mastery and control and
a reduction in other youth problems due to addictive interest
in games."
- Dr Mark Griffiths on the up-side of video games/net addiction
also works if you replace the word "games" with "crack"
>> HARD NEWS <<
soft wariness
Looks like the cradle rocks both ways. DIGITAL, American
nanny for British Advanced RISC Machine's infant StrongARM
processor, casually swung the poor babe over to INTEL this
week as part of an out-of-court patent settlement. Intel
get full development rights to the processor, in a deal
that also involved buying up Digital's fab plants, and
getting Digital to develop Intel-based servers. Digital
deny dropping the fledgling (despite a lot of concerned
mutterings from its own dev team), and have stated that
spending time with Intel will only help the child.
Commentators agree that it would be criminally negligent of
INTEL to let the chip languish, especially when it had such
a promising future in Oracle's Network Computer design, a
system intended to destroy Intel's monopoly of the personal
comput... uh-oh. Butterfingers.
http://www.arm.com/ you did WHAT with WHO?
http://www.intel.com/ more zero-RISC strategies
It's unclear whether geek sharpshooters are now due an
amnesty after CLASS 3 LASER POINTERS were banned from sale
by Consumer Affairs minister Nigel Griffiths. Sure, maybe
the "heckling lecturer with gunsight on forehead" gag was
wearing thin, or, if you'd prefer a pro-privacy conspiracy
theory: exactly how good were laser pointers at taking out
CCTV cams? Maybe it's time to switch to those invisible
wavelengths, like Jan Eric Herr's new "phaser", a UV laser
that creates an ionised air plasma beam down which taser-
esque electric currents can be sent to stun your victim. As
the inventor himself told NEW SCIENTIST "any technically
competent person [can] build [one]".
http://www.laserinfo.com/mesh_500.htm
- "do not stare at beam with remaining eye"
http://patents.uspto.gov/access/search-num.html
- pat.no.5675103. See also this Xmas' Innovation catalogue
With job cuts, top-level resignations and a fast viewpoint
change in company direction, flash workstation makers
SILICON GRAPHICS would clearly much prefer to be associated
with the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park rather than the ones in
their current product line. Forget what the good guys use
in movies like The Peacemaker, Twister, and Disclosure -
Windows NT boxes may not be sexy, but have outperformed
desktop SGI kit for some time now (at least in terms of
millions of polygons per second vs $millions of loss per
quarter). SGI are now moving towards making souped-up 300-
MHz+ Pentium II machines, keeping their exotic Irix/MIPS
combo for high-end graphics and server apps. Hopefully
this'll shut up lazy games mags who continue using the term
"SGI rendered" to describe anything more sophisticated than
Battlezone.
http://reality.sgi.com/ariel/sgi-myths.html
- still, everyone loves 'em (for all the good that did Apple)
You can talk chaos theory until you're sick (and we've been
to those parties too), but the fact remains - no-one knows
what caused the stock market to crash. Or do they? Here's
the story going around the *entirely reputable* Brit
hacking underground: Bill Gates used "clandestine
technology and hidden currency assets" to massage the Hong
Kong exchange as a warning to the Clinton administration.
The clues? Trader Websites all over the world slowed to a
crawl on the day - a classic Gates hallmark. Microsoft
employees were reported to be "unconcerned" by the turmoil.
Apple stocks remained entirely unaffected. And the
clincher: on Monday, Larry Ellison was made to lose $666
million. And if that's not the sign of the Beast at work...
http://www.connix.com/~rzs/humor/666.html
- great timing to launch http://finance.yahoo.co.uk
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
CANADIAN TEENS are "injecting beer into their veins"; it
gives a "faster rush" and "leaves very little odour" (plus
"a sense of mastery and control"?)... new ST: VOYAGER
character called "Annorax"... new EDGE boldly addresses
sexism in video games, complete with lavish
illustrations... JUPITER on-line experts at London
conference refer to UK's "free local calls"... TimeOut ad
for LONDON ELECTRONIC ARTS ignores own URL, instead links
to Lutheran Education Association... AMIGA FORMAT boasts
readership is 99.7% male... Cornell prof Ken Birman boasts
that hospital monitors, air-traffic control systems will
all run Win95, as his PC PowerPoint keeps crashing...
ALTAVISTA.COM is linked by 35,000 Web sites - according to
the *real* Altavista at altavista.digital.com ... STEVE
JOBS caught parking in Apple disabled space... irony of new
HOTWIRED STYLE book on Web design rivals even "Create This
Hideous Cover Image At Home!" headlines in COMPUTER ARTS...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
places to be, pizzas to go
SCI-FI CON 2.0? STARSHIP TROOPERS CON, more like!
Admittedly, the Sci-Fi Channel has suited up a couple of
other celebs for their all-weekend online "convention", but
it's probably Paul Verhfuhruhurroeven (and his other bug-
blasting comrades - including RoboCop/Troopers writer Ed
Neumeier) that'll get the rookies signing up in droves.
Other Federal credits include a "dramatic reading" of
HG Wells' First Men In The Moon by LEONARD NIMOY (let's
hope it's as "dramatic" as Bill Shatner would have made
it), plus RealVideo showings of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE
3000. It could be a pleasant off-world alternative to Radio
1's special "Spice Girls" weekend (haven't they heard?
everyone's *officially* bored of them now), though Radio 4
may tempt you back to Earth (so to speak) with their
adaptation of Arthur C Clarke's first-contact cracker,
CHILDHOOD'S END (2.30pm, Sun; repeated 2pm, Fri).
http://www.scifi.com/scifi.con/
- nice of them to do GMT times, rather than just stardates
http://www.starshiptroopers.com
- what's scarier: giant insects or this much Shockwave?
Two places not to wear your Microsoft baseball cap: this
weekend's ACORN WORLD 97 (Wembley, 31/10/97-02/11/97) will
be one of the first places you can buy their new "Network
Computers" (only UKP300!), while next week's APPLE EXPO 97
(Olympia, 05/11/97-07/11/97) will be one of the few places
you can still buy their "Macintosh Computers". Haha, only
kidding, we *love* those tiny user community get-togethers.
http://www.argonet.co.uk/acornworld97/
>> TRACKING <<
ftp asap
If you just watch CNN for James Earl Jones, or, in Europe,
the entertaining "watch us at these fine hotels" breaks,
we've got a better excuse. CNN has running a Vxtreme stream
of its US channel on its Website for some weeks now. Long
enough for them to forget to turn off the feed during the
ad breaks. You've missed most of the jokes made by
presenters about the Louise Woodward case, but we're
hopeful they'll continue their "special commentary" into
even more distasteful waters.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/live.video/
- that hack who said "nice tits" during the Diana coverage
what *did* happen to him?
Just when you thought THE SANTA CRUZ OPERATION was going to
end with the death of the patient, they come up with
frankly rather astounding TARANTELLA system. It's an X-
Windows, Windows, and 3270 client for Java browsers, and
the demo on the site (which is all we're interested in)
let's you indulge in such delights as running Xclock,
Tetris, Excel and Powerpoint - on SCO's own machine! Forget
the security loopholes - feel the refresh.
http://tarantella.sco.com/
- it'll slow to a crawl now, natch
Cyber-philosophy art mag MUTE is soliciting for
contributions to their next "Art News" listings page. Now,
we like to think of Mute as Whizzer to our Chips (in so
many ways), so we were initially tempted to smuggle in our
list of made-up techno installations ("Jan 3rd, ICA: Dr
Garina Kildall will be performing 'Server-LAN', a
performance piece in which ex-members of the Blake's 7 cast
mime the CORBA client-server API.", that kind of thing).
But they do say that "the word 'Art' has been very broadly
interpreted in the past", so it may be that your real-life
Quakefest might fit the bill. Send 60 words or less to
<mute@easynet.co.uk>. Your happening should take place
after January, and should incorporate the words "fractal",
"virtual" and/or "vectored art phase-space" in the title.
http://www.metamute.com ASCII is the new avant-garde
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
www.rageboy.com ... Uni-ball pens... ICQ port for Amiga?...
www.phunhaus.com/ugly/ ... giddyup, Namco's FINAL
FURLONG... whatever next, the Commemorative Princess Diana
Edition of MINESWEEPER FOR WINDOWS?... SUNDAY TIMES
contains more info than a 17th Century person would have
been read in a whole lifetime - about as accurate, too...
www.phoenixnewtimes.com/extra/gilstrap/jesus.html ... the
fluffy "LINUX PENGUINE" (sic)... quake II game prompt: GIVE
ALL... upcoming DAILY STAR "Virtual Girlfriend" CD-ROM -
user: "joanne", password: "guest"... www.d-b.net/dti/
Virgin Interactive: management buy-out... Webmedia's Ivan
Pope diversifying like crazy... best suggestion at recent
Y2K conference - grow your own food...
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
obsession as a weapon
TV >> revealed - how people made bombs before the Net came
along: DIY techno-christ (on a bike!) Adam Hart-Davis
salutes Britain's pyro-pioneers in EXPLODING HEROES (8pm,
Fri, BBC2)... over on C4, Monica dates a software mogul in
FRIENDS (9pm, Fri); Roz wants her own show in FRASIER
(10pm); and Victor Lewis-Smith - www.lewis-smith.com -
tries to out-Morris Chris in one-off TV OFFAL (11.10pm)...
another bizarre clash of the theme evenings on Sat: BBC2's
Abigail's Party Night (9pm-11.35pm) vs the start of C4's
Abortion Week (9pm-12.50am)... infuriate fans by claiming
you preferred From Dusk Till Dawn to PULP FICTION (10.15pm,
Sun, BBC2), and that you've "heard that theme tune
somewhere before"... almost worth popping round to your
satellite-owning "friends", as DEEP SPACE NINE (8pm, Mon,
Sky 1) inserts its cast into the Star Trek: TOS episode,
The Trouble With Tribbles - with hilarious consequences...
Steve Coogan's other characters were all getting pretty
similar anyway, so good to see him back declaring I'M ALAN
PARTRIDGE (10pm, Mon, BBC2)... oh, and MODERN TIMES (9pm,
Wed, BBC2) examines bystander intervention (or the lack of
it) when people are attacked in public - which is kind of
rich coming from a fly-on-the-wall documentary team...
MOVIES >> they say LA CONFIDENTIAL (imdb: crime / mystery /
thriller / police / police-brutality / porn-makers /
corruption / prostitution) "isn't as good as the novel" (by
James Ellroy), raising the question: jesus, how good is the
novel? Anyway, the film's a neat twisty-turny noir-ish
drama about call-girls plastic-surgeried to look like film
stars (including Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, and Guy Pearce
- the former Neighbours star, that is, not the UK PR guy
for Sony Computer Entertainment)... you cannot kill what
does not live - AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS (imdb:
thriller / horror / werewolf) is more a remake of the '80s
bio-morph classic than a sequel, but does have Julie Delpy,
a Ghostbusters-style CGI creature, and the shocker-skills
of director Anthony "Mute Witness" Waller... wrap up warm
for the bleak whodunnit of SMILLA'S FEELING FOR SNOW (imdb:
sci-fi / thriller / action / psychic) - the "sci-fi"
element, by the way, doesn't just refer to Julia Ormond's
(by her standards) unusually modern-looking haircut... so:
is FOOLS RUSH IN (imdb: romance / comedy / drama / las-
vegas) just another tame date movie? Apply our two-point
checklist! 1. Member of Friends cast playing weak version
of familiar role: Check (here, Matthew "Chandler" Perry).
2. Romantic comedy named after pop song (see also Addicted
To Love, One Fine Day): Check. 2/2. You do the math...
MAGS >> AREA 51 is a new mag devoted to what it calls
"sci-fi collecting", but what we like to think of "crashed
saucer merchandise"; probably all the encouragement they
need to once again re-shuffle all their regular features
over at SFX... best-of-the-rest compilation COVER magazine
is now on its second issue, and has turned out like an
unusually interesting in-flight magazine (and there's
surely no higher recommendation than that)... is the new
Arts Council-sponsored fake Net tabloid THE MULE really
named after the guy in Asimov's FOUNDATION books?... never
mind the blokey gadget mags, for UKP 3.45, you can still
get 1400 pages of detailed tech specs in the '97/'98
MAPLINS CATALOGUE (from large branches of WH Smiths) -
though it's never been quite the same since they got rid of
the sci-fi cover pics and stories about "What Maplins Will
Be Like In The 25th Century"...
>> COMPO <<
where search engines fear to tread
Powerups awarded to reader David Hudson (of www.rewired.com
fame), who correctly solved last week's mystery URL, and
consequently receives a Marylin Manson album that someone
has drawn on with a biro, a "Fuck The Millennium" car
sticker, and an electronic pocket Tetris game. This week's
modified site takes the form www.xxxxx.co.uk/now.html,
where xxxxx is the word you obtain from this lively game of
TEXT CHARADES:
"OK, one word, four syllables. First syllable: go! open!
walking, entering... OK, forget that: drinking, lots of
drinking, paying money... pub! Like a pub? Right, second
syllable: sounds like, hole, looking down... never mind -
still second syllable: man, person, chopping hands, Edward
Scissorhands! big eyes, scissorhands man? No? Oh well,
third syllable: stop, freeze, die? come to a stop? finish?
Move on... fourth syllable: big, person, arms, tree! Giant
walking tree creature from Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings!
Okay, okay: the whole thing? Newspaper! Yes? Yes! Oh, I
give up, sorry."
A slightly clearer explanation for the whole competition is
still at http://www.ntk.net/compo/ . Next week: clues in
MIME-formatted braille.
>> 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 "DOS/DESQview/X compatible".
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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