"Tromatize"? Like in Class Of Nuke 'Em High?
>> HARD NEWS <<
dole queues
What were the chances of One in a Million winning
against BT, Sainsbury's, Ladbrokes and Virgin? Zero, we
suppose, now that they've lost their High Court Appeal. But
that might not be the end of the *interminably* long domain
naming story. It seems that many of the larger businesses
aren't happy just winning one test case, and want to try out a few
more laws on unsuspecting domain name ... err, hobbyists.
Time to offload those humourous registrations - Or
just anything that shares the same initials as a multinational.
http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=archive97/now1205.txt&line=24#l
- also, Nick Rosen owns xfm.com: go Capital!
We don't usually accept Falco nominations for individuals
(for fear of never washing the blood from our hands) - but
ED BRIFFA has to be the exception. Merely the rumour of his
vanishing from head of BBC Online "and Interactive" was
enough to saturate our mailbox with upsettingly celebratory
e-mails. Calm *down* people. Firstly: you can't *all* win a
Falco. Secondly, we understand that, despite management
changes, BBC Online has no intention of changing its policies
regarding freelance Web contracts (especially the hidden
"use confused ex-TV producers to manage them, and make them
cry" clause), nor will is it planning to inject a gaseous
form of the mind-bending sex drug Ecstasy into the
Shepherds Bush offices. Which judging from these anonymous
mails, is the only way morale is going to be raised there
from its current Marianas Trench levels.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
- torturing Web designers: your license fee at work
mailto:tips@spesh.com
- send us your favourite "dumb
BBC management" quotes, and win a prize!
Finally, if you're struggling with Windows 98 and/or the
Demon Internet pack, pity the National Schizophrenia
Fellowship, who is struggling with everybody *else's* copy .
The charity's helpline unfortunately shares a local phone
number with Demons' COLT dial-up. That combined, with an
apparent misfeature in 98 that lops off the "0845" part of
Demon's number, means that local Demon subscribers are
buzzing the NSF's main regional helpline day and night. This
has the downside of making the helpline close to inoperable.
On a more positive note, it does also mean that hundreds of
Demon subscribers are hearing a little voice, seemingly
coming from their modem, asking them about their
schizophrenia...
http://www.demon.net/
- 666 ; the wrong number of the beast
http://www.nsf.org.uk/
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
after sheep, scientists clone mice - other already-
near-identical species to follow... oh yeah, suuure Brazil
threw the World Cup - who wouldn't? ... Robert Uhlig defends
claim that in new "digital" loudspeaker, "at no point is the
signal converted to analogue" [CONNECTED, p.5]...
RealNetworks go for Microsoft's jugular... Sega's FTP site
turned into warez den.. Microsoft division by zero error
cripples battleship... After threats by 3COM, Microsoft
changes name of its PalmPilot rip offs to - palm-size PC. Or
PPC for short... 3DLabs developer program pack has piccie of
their team - with Richard Huddle (who defected to NVidia)
cunningly removed...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
goto's considered non-harmful
Some cynics claim that NTK is just a cleverly designed
"wrapper" used to promote our own sinister side-projects -
you know, stuff like pre-Edinburgh previews of Ben Moor's
new one-man nonsense-fest, MY LAST WEEK WITH MODOLIA
(8.30pm, 29&31/07/98, Hackney Empire Studio Theatre, 291
Mare St, London E8; also 10.30pm, 30/07/98, Battersea Arts
Centre, Lavender Hill, London SW11) - a "romantic comedy"
which, we hope, will be a bit like Umberto Eco's Lolita
spoof where a young man falls unsuitably in love with a
geriatric woman. If you're concerned about NTK impartiality,
why not come and discuss it at the recordings of new Radio 4
panel game, KING STUPID (7.15pm, 26/07/98, Broadcasting
House Radio Theatre, Portland Place, London W1), with guests
Peter Baynham (off Fist Of Fun), Simon Pegg (off I'm Alan
Partridge), Sue Perkins (off Late Lunch) and - inexplicably
- NTK entertainment editor Dave Green. There's free tickets
set aside for the first 10 people who turn up claiming to be
"friends of Dave", or try emailing david@pozzitive.demon.co.uk
if there's more than 10 of you.
http://www.hackneyempire.co.uk/
- page denies Ben Moor exists; not the first to do so
http://www.bac.org.uk/
- page prefers not to include listings
http://www.bbc.co.uk/tickets/radioonoffer2.shtml#stupid
- minimum age is "is 14 for comedy, 16 for other programmes"
>> TRACKING <<
token Linuxism, while it's still cool
Well, clearly there's the new 5.005 release of PERL, but
that's getting disappointing reviews from angry free
software enthusiasts who put down their no-money expecting a
compiler that could optimise more than "Hello World", and
reliable threading first time. Give it a couple of weeks.
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/GSAR/perl5.005.tar.gz
- ooh, Tom Christiansen's gonna be mad at us.
So instead, we'll run with this simple kernel module for
Linux, which lets you save and play back anything sent to
the sound card. Looks like those music companies should be
switching to MP3 after all...
http://source.syr.edu/~jdimpson/proj/
- RealAudio's missing "save stream" option
http://www.mp3.com/
- after you, Alien Fashion show
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
Douglas "I am fully aware of what I am doing" Coupland's
Lara Croft book now available... looks like Nortel
Net-via-power-lines *is* interfering after all -- how long
can this go on?... are Friends scripts electric?
www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/6304/friends.html ... who
is after NetNames?... DiY Millennium Dome conspiracies at
http://www.postfun.com/pfp/sex/lolite/diagram.html ... my
filter software is blocking http://www.webwilly.com .. Sony
VAIO 505 coming to the UK... Hello Kitty! Laptops at
http://www.sanrio.co.jp/products/notepc/notepc.jpg ... the Church
of MC Hammer http://www.darktimes.org/hicks/sounds/rev22.mp3 ...
http://www.yahoo.co.uk/Entertainment/Music/Artists/ -
*whistlers*?... http://www.incline.co.uk/worldcup/kickham.html
... so did Microsoft really refuse to fix the Natwest bug?
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
may contain strongly-typed language
TV>> clear all channels - it's ill-conceived comedy-star
vehicle night, with hateful Eric Idle wrecking SPLITTING
HEIRS (9pm, Fri, BBC2), once-funny Lenny Henry reliving the
repeated shame of CHEF (10.20pm, Fri, BBC1), and -
presumably - Wendy "Butterflies" Craig in cradle-rocking
'60s thriller THE NANNY (2am, Fri, C4)... oh, and SPACE:
ABOVE AND BEYOND (1.30am, Fri, BBC2) flies off into its
unconvincing CGI sunset, saddening anyone with a taste for
Starship Troopers Lite... a "nerdy" video gamer (and the
girl off the Spirito di Punto ads) see right through THE
VANISHING MAN (7.45pm, Sat, BBC1)... Eastwood's
Viagra-fuelled HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (10.40pm, Sat, BBC1)
shoots out hippy yawn EASY RIDER (12midnight, Sat, BBC2) and
Woody Allen's criminally semi-funny CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS
(12.40am, Sat, C5)... *yet* another chance to see PR plug
MIAMI SPICE (12.10pm, Sun, C4) - seemingly now on every
weekend, at least till another one of them leaves... "a
suicidal singer [Sheena Easton] is confronted by a strange
force" - if it's Prince, it's a
more-autobiographical-than-usual episode of THE OUTER LIMITS
(1.15am, Sun, BBC2)... plus, Arnie fans: who loves you? and
who do you love? why, THE RUNNING MAN (12.15am, Sun, some
ITV)... Craig Charles reports from big Glasgow sci-fi
convention, guilty of using title BEAM ME UP SCOTTY (2.30am,
Mon, C4)... regular thrill-fest EQUINOX (9pm, Tue, C4) chats
with the "scientists" who verify miracles for the Pope...
plus a new series of QED (9.30pm, Wed, BBC1) breaks new
ground by *examining the science bit from some form of
popular entertainment* - this time, encephalitis lethargica,
as seen in the film Awakenings, as experienced by viewers of
QED...
FILM>> isn't there a law against yet more John Grisham
adaptations, especially ones starring *Kenneth Branagh?*
Fortunately, in this case it's Robert "Short Cuts" Altman
sinking his teeth into THE GINGERBREAD MAN (imdb: thriller /
cat / heritage / murder / ship / frame-up / law / hurricane
/ rain / courtroom)... "Beat" Takeshi Kitano shows how he
got his nickname as frenzied beatings punctuate the zen-like
calm of limited London-release arthouse copster HANA-BI
(imdb: crime / drama / comedy / marriage)... the posters
make it out to be the new Trainspotting, but thankfully
raucous road-romp THE DAYTRIPPERS (imdb: mystery / drama /
family / comedy / relationship / adultery / publisher) is
US-made - complete with now-obligatory indie role for Parker
Posey... otherwise, it's further kids' capers with a daft
CGI parrot in PAULIE (imdb: adventure / comedy) -
disappointingly, not voiced by foul-mouthed "Biodome"
porn-comedian Pauly Shore... or sub-Disney
cartooning-by-numbers dulling the cutting edge of THE MAGIC
SWORD: QUEST FOR CAMELOT (imdb: adventure / children's /
animation / blindness / fantasy / merlin-the-magician /
king-arthur / women-soldiers / dragon / sword)...
LIVE (VIA EMAIL) FROM SIGGRAPH '98>> the 25th anniversary
"electronic theatre" kicked off with that wacko audience
participation system (the only interesting bit in Kevin
Kelly's Out Of Control) where the audience hold up coloured
flags to play games on screen - cool, but the movies weren't
as good as last year... fringe tech highlights: the original
late '60s F/X hardware < http://scanimate.zfx.com/ > and
crazy arty guys from San Jose with radio-controlled
telepresence cars < http://c5.sjsu.edu/projects.html >...
the OpenGL pool party proved once and for all that engineers
and water don't mix, though there is some kind of health and
fitness show going on in the Orange County Convention Center
at the same time, equally entertaining and, ironically, with
exactly the opposite male/female attendance ratio...
- si@spesh.com
>> 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 "A-OK, Alan".
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
Archive - http://www.ntk.net/
Excuses - http://www.spesh.com/ntk/
Unsubscribe? Mail majordomo@unfortu.net with 'unsubscribe ntknow'.
Subscribe? Mail majordomo@unfortu.net with 'subscribe ntknow'.
NTK now is helped by VIRGIN NET, THE ILLUMINATI and UNFORTU.NET.
They worry about us, but we don't worry about them.
(K) 1998 Special Projects. Non-business copying is fine,
but retain SMALL PRINT. Contact
terry@spesh.com for commercial license details.
Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com.
