Need To Know 1999-02-19

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"Can we not take the things that are wonderful about C++ and marry them with an easier model?" - Microsoft's Greg Leake on COOL http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?990213.ehcool.htm ...Christ, it's already behaving like a rock star >> HARD NEWS << little to amuse Physics news: BRUCE PERENS, one of the co-creators of the Open Source(TM) movement, recanted this week, and announced in a burst of highly-energised e-mails that it *should* be called Free Software after all. Alarmingly, this means Bruce is now resigning from non-profit organisations faster than he can found them: a self-sustaining chain reaction that could well lead to him splitting his own body into its constituent atoms. Watch for the resultant explosion on the usual mailing lists: as ever, we're expecting a huge release of light, heat, sound, nervous energy - but strangely, no additional code. Which is odd, because that's what all these efforts was supposed to generate. http://slashdot.org/articles/99/02/18/0927202.shtml - yeah, we read slashdot, no need to send us all their links http://www.unicom.co.uk/press_release.htm - UKP495 +VAT: should be freer than that, anyway Pleasing largely for its sense of closure: you remember how the EU thought that storing someone's IP number might violate their data protection privacy? (Bad EU! No idea about networking!) And how DIXONS FREESERVE alarmed innocent users by demanding to see their CLIDs before letting them email? (Bad Dixons! Encouraged us to make numerous "CLID" jokes!) Yet two wrongs do seem to make a right: a new Australian ruling could forbid ISPs down under from collecting users' caller ID, stating that it represents an unacceptable intrusion. Well, if there's a worldwide flood of spam promoting Fosters and Vegemite, you know who to blame. http://technology.news.com.au/techno/4236090.htm - CIA (Connect Infobahn Australia)? Not sinister at all! http://www-union.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/research/surveillance/Schweik.html - rockin' for privacy If you weren't sufficiently amused by our coverage last week of the European Parliament's cache row - why not check out their own EP NEWS (free with today's Independent). A monthly round-up of all the EP has achieved (on *four* tabloid sides!). It identifies the threat from "portable double-deck copying machines" (swift reaction to technological change, there) and "sophisticated technical devices able to surf the net and download music files at the drop of a hat without so much as a thank-you to the recording artist" (generally we call them PCs). And that the levy on blank media is "not even a tax where the payer has no control how the money is spent". Euro MP Carole Tongue thinks the tax will help artists living on the breadline - ironic since unsigned musicians would probably receive less from the tax than they'd pay just to distribute their own demo cassettes. NTK is currently lobbying for a tax on fan-fold paper. http://www.europarl.eu.int/ - careful! no proxies! >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious consumers "confused" over difference between "organic" and GENETICALLY MODIFIED foods... MARIAH CAREY not *that* stupid: http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,4343,00.html ... BT "guarantee security" for "secure e-commerce solution" via trustwise.com - with 40-bit keys?... 'nother DEATH at DISNEY WORLD... "You are wasting your time with this old browser!" chortles http://www.wastewatch.org.uk at LYNX users... vote ADAM ANT at http://www.motm.co.uk/ ... COMPUTING illustrates Y2k with MAD MAX pics... get em young:... http://www.y2kculture.com/reactions/19990218.kids.html ... FORTUNECITY lose homepage drive *and* backup files... be prepared: http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/sorry.html ... BBC internal mail paralysed by "South Pole" ad, sent to 200k recipient list, many "replied to all"... "MICROSOFT to integrate Michael Kinsley into foundations of Bill Gates' house": http://www.slate.com/Readme/99-02-13/Readme.asp ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful See below for what we made of his new nano-thriller, but you can check out cheery New Scientist journo SIMON INGS in the "meat" at his various readings, speakings and signings around the country - often in friendly symbiosis with fellow Brit-sciffers Michael Marshall Smith and Stephen Baxter, and culminating in the terrifying-sounding "Fabulous Harbours" night at Heffers in Cambridge (1999-03- 10), which also features Kim Newman (Britain's own Jack Womack?) and Tom Holt (the poor man's Robert Rankin, if such a thing is possible). In an act of cranial-jack-like telepathy, when we asked Simon's press agent for any "coming events", she uploaded his entire itinerary: to discourage any cyber-stalkers out there, we've spared you his precise train schedule and details of "light supper with Steve Farrar of the Sunday Times". http://www.ntk.net/books/ings.html - ask Marshall Smith if his new paperback, "One Of Us"... http://www.fisheye.demon.co.uk/ - ...is based around the Abba song of the same name >> TRACKING << look what the mouse dragged in Another quiet day at the software cafe. Developers were slowly sipping their Java, when MICROSOFT started waving the J++ gun at them, loudly insisting "You're all gonna be like Fonzie. And what's Fonzie like?" Uh... COOL? MS dropping Java always seemed an empty threat while it was the only sane way of using their Component Object Model, but now plans for an alternative has reached that media- critical "code name" phase. Provisionally dubbed "C++ Object Oriented Language" (no, Bjarne Stroustrup didn't know what that implies about C++ either) it "makes C++ programming simpler". What? Messing with the one thing that keeps C++ coders above VB'ers in the programming pecking order? And how "simple" will it be persuading Java database-app developers to jump to a new language tied to a specific OS and object model? Hey, according to the plan, by the time Windows2000 gets deployed, that silly "cross-platform" concept will be moot anyway. http://www.activex.org/ - Haven't heard from you guys since '96. How's it going? http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/6/ns-7000.html - zero code, but already more evangelists than SmallTalk http://www.microsoft.com/com/ - we don't know what the language of the future will be, but we know it'll be called "K-RAD" >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista anticipating next MPEG standard by registering mp5.com, mp6.com, mp2k.com... http://www.snafu.de/~bigbang/poll.html ... CAPE CANAVERAL gets "321" area code - as assigned by division of Lockheed... desperate MAC owners building own peripherals: http://home.earthlink.net/%7Etomowad/legomac/ , http://www.freeverse.com/ivase/ ... who needs widescreen: http://www.simplecom.net/widefilm/flikfx/ ... DISNEY to buy APPLE rumours at http://www.appleinsider.com/ (oh, please)... alt.internet.providers.uk.free ... Y2K hampers ... big DEMON crypto thing soon... geek vs BOND at http://www.ntk.net/bond/ ... PLAYSTATION 2000 to shift 55m polygons/second vs Dreamcast's 6m... and stop sending us patent 5501650 - MICROSOFT now officially own yo' ass: http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05819372__&language=en >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> he isn't, but wouldn't it be weird if Kevin Bacon was in wacky Will Smith class comedy SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION (11.20pm, Fri, BBC2)?... the plot of LOOKER (2.55am, Fri, C5) involves surgery and powerful computers - you can guess the writer-director... and BBC2's Alan J Pakula tribute continues with unconvincing conspiracy guff ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (11:25, Sat, BBC2) - like, as if!... C4 wheels out more sex and gore pretending to be a "Censored" season - highlights: "groovy" EVIL DEAD II (11.50pm, Sat, C4) and Keitel's BAD LIEUTENANT (11.20pm, Sun, C4) - but nothing to touch psycho love-story THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (10.55pm, Sat, ITV)... SUB ZERO (11am, Sun, BBC2) is the new (20 min!) PC web-based "Adventure Game" for kids - presumably not sponsored by the alcoholic beverage of the same name - while fans of Sky's most homoerotic videogames show should watch for the inflatable-looking Andy Collins on PUMP IT UP (4.15pm, Fri, ITV)... Jan "Cally from Blake's 7" Chappell re-enacts the Stephen Lawrence enquiry in THE COLOUR OF JUSTICE (10.10pm, Sun, BBC2)... there's deliberately no laugh-track in gas ad spin-off MRS MERTON AND MALCOLM (8.30pm, Mon, BBC1) - so it's not that there just weren't any laughs... and SPACE: 1999 rebounds to its 6.40pm, Mon, BBC2 slot, though god knows what happened to the glowing rocks episode they were supposed to show last week - and where's the one with the whip-wielding cat- women?... Independence Day stole the beginning off V (11pm, Mon, C5), who stole it from Childhood's End... evil haxxor Ian Morrison (aka reflex, aka P Hampton-Forbes - see NTK 1998-07-17) pops up on WORKERS AT WAR (10.15pm, Tue, BBC1) - not to be confused with lame VR fest JOHNNY MNEMONIC (9pm, Tue, C5)... squeaky Gillian Anderson lookalike Julie Burchill fails to generate much controversy in CLOSE UP (9.30pm, Tue, BBC2)... the excellent stolen-whistle/Father Damo/crackwhores episode comes round again in FATHER TED (10pm, Tue, C4)... good title, geeky Willow plot, dumb effects and a nice closing scene in the "I Robot, You Jane" BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (6.40pm, Wed, BBC2)... and, distracted by a tolerably medieval Christian Slater performance, you never do get to find out THE NAME OF THE ROSE (9pm, Wed, C5)... FILM>> this week's ultrableak feelbad movie is like the Coen Brothers' snowbound Fargo crossed with John Sayles' Lone Star - but with fewer laughs than both put together, as bulky haggards Nick Nolte and James Coburn actor-wrassle to determine who has the gravest AFFLICTION (imdb: based-on- novel)... twenty-nothing Kathy Burke Camden wank THIS YEAR'S LOVE (imdb: drama) is actually quite emptily poignant, despite the damningly faint praise they've neglected to edit out of the press quotes: A "sort of" Four Weddings And A Funeral on acid - Tatler; "Could be" the suprise hit of the year - Express On Sunday... a script by the writer of Dead Poets Society directed by Stephen "Bill & Ted" Herek gives some idea of the message-heavy misconception of HOLY MAN (imdb: religion) - some funny Eddie Murphy, Jeff Goldblum, Kelly Preston, spoofing that super-obscure tricky comedy target, TV infomercials... SUPPORT AMAZON IN THEIR "CASH FOR RECOMMENDATIONS" SHAME [tacky "buy now!" links at http://www.ntk.net/books/ ]>> densest, darkest, most deeply disturbing sci-fi of the year (we hope): KW Jeter's NOIR (RRP 6.99, Amazon 4.79) chops out the still-thrashing nervous systems of his previous Dr Adder, Farewell Horizontal and mashes them in with the bits they wouldn't let him put in Blade Runner 2. Is he really proposing that warez doodz should be killed and have their brains put into hi-fi cables? Net searches reveal: yes he is... cutting himself a slice of that bestselling Rough Guide To The Internet pie, Jim McClellan's CD-sized GUARDIAN GUIDE TO THE INTERNET (RRP 6.99, Amazon 5.59) seems aimed at people who consider themselves too smart, liberal, or smooth for the "Rough" one. Occasionally FTP- obsessed, replete with authentic "Grauniad" typos ("url to follow" p27; "Net myths decontructed" p40; cyberpunk / cypherpunk confusion p51), but he plugs NTK at least 3 times (p38; p336, p428), so he must have some idea... Simon Ings' HEADLONG (RRP 5.99, Amazon 4.79) doesn't quite overcome its moon-based, ruined-London, Neuromancer- 'fluenced, Greg Egan-lite nano-gineering gimickry, but much better than this "early version" would had you believe http://www.omnimag.com/archives/fiction/openvein/ ... not much humour-to-page transfer in either Woody Allen's thick COLLECTED PROSE (RRP 7.99, Amazon 6.39) or Steve Martin's 128-page PURE DRIVEL (RRP 9.99, Amazon 7.99), while THE SEINFELD SCRIPTS (RRP 9.99, Amazon 7.99) are sadly limited to just first and second series; only really mastered its domain in seasons 3 and 4 (see - appallingly commented - samples at http://seinfeld.sogaard.com/episodes/scripts/ )... and finally, conflicting reports as to whether Gary Wolf's tell-all Wired story will be pro- or anti-Rossetto; promisingly, however, should be titled BENGALI TYPHOON... >> 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 "have-a-go super-heroes". http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/The_Paper/Daily/Story/0,3604,23756,00.html (nice to see guest / guest working fine) 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 supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntk.net/books/ (K) 1999 Special Projects. Non-business copying is fine, but retain SMALL PRINT. Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com. Cheers.