Need To Know 1999-06-11

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"I guess it won't surprise anybody that because AT&T has put my life at risk to this harassment organization, I will be switching both Internet service providers and my long-distance service from AT&T..." - "Safe", the anti-scientology campaigner shopped by his telco ...every day, more and more people - under threat of death - are coming back to BT... >> HARD NEWS << petit coups In a post-Net Strike parliamentary debate on unmetered telecoms, Ian Bruce MP rather smugly declared that certain telecommunications companies had confided in his very important ear that they were going to go unmetered in a matter of weeks. Who could he mean? Well, fortunately we've been in the position of having somebody swear us to secrecy about this every twelve minutes for the last fortnight. And, on the assumption that once an MP realises something, it must be inches away from blindingly obvious, we might as well blab. So, big secret: it's BT, it's ADSL, it's coming in September, it's unmetered, it's always on and it'll cost c.30UKP a month. More predictions: they won't have enough installers so you'll have to wait ages, journalists will write scary articles about "portscanners", even more pisspoor TV people will enter the industry hoping to present "high-bandwidth video documentaries" online, the newsgroups will fill with people whinging that they only get 300Kb/s and want their money back. But none of us will care, because, you who want this *so* badly and have prayed for so long, you will be happy. http://www.unmetered.org.uk/news/news100699.htm - "someone leaked it, I'm afraid. Cancel the whole thing.." http://www.elite.dircon.co.uk/ADSL/ - gurus will be amazed that this isn't in full motion video "ISP casualties 'inevitable'", declared the BBC News site this week, as another zillion free ISPs sprang out of the telco woodwork, each adorned in its own freakish Cambrian-explosion branding. Up popped Dellnet, FreeWeb, TheMutual, ICLNet - and of course, "FreeBeeb", the BBC's own cloying entry into the market. FREEBEEB is a co-venture by Scottish "Demon" Telecom and BBC Worldwide. BBC Worldwide is the bit of the BBC that's allowed to be commercial and money-grubbing, in order to make money for the rest. Not too much money, though: it was they who killed fledgling ISP the BBC Networking Club back in December 1995. Why? Because, they said, it was clear there was no money in the ISP business. http://www.freebeeb.net/ - well, there isn't now http://www.bbc.com/ - hey, they got bbc.com back! A snip at a 100K! http://www.tv-l.co.uk/students.htm - better scare a few more students into coughing up Windows users faced a brand new threat this week, as a new virus spread from machine to machine, claiming to be the e-mail answer to a question nobody asked. But enough about OFFICE 2000 - how's about that worm? Well, we're sure everyone affected by the EXPLOREZIP trojan will extend their sympathies to those hit hardest - MICROSOFT UK, where the MD had his drive trashed as well as dozens of others at Reading HQ. In Microsoft's defence, the trojan does not exploit any security weakness in Windows: only users naive enough to click on a mailed executable are zapped. Guess that learned them. http://www.xciv.org/~meta/orifice2000.gif - some hidden clue here http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/23/ns-8460.html - oh, and I think those zipped files you're looking for are here >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious VNU NET become MSN UK's exclusive IT news source - celebrate by misspelling "Ballmer" throughout entire headline report: http://webserv.vnunet.com/www_user/plsql/pkg_vnu_news.right_frame?p_story=84939 http://www.carrera.co.uk launches new "recursive" range... US MICHAEL MOORE show omits "Teen Sniper School" segment... "moderated" forums on DOWNING STREET site: "not very" reports METRO... MS buys 10% of Borland, freezes Philippe Kahn in carbonite... that FSF's more viral than we thought: http://www.min.net/~douglas/gfx/msfsf.gif ... clearly not a BT front: http://members.tripod.com/vocaltel/ ... "There will be no white knuckle rides at BLETCHLEY PARK" says press release: ride the giant Colossus!... important personal message: http://www.ntk.net/doh/19990611nick.gif ... "UK corporates still failing to ensure their software is properly licensed", moan FEDERATION AGAINST SOFTWARE THEFT - ooh, but BSD-style or GPL?... ROMERO takes as long over his hair as over his releases: http://www.planetquake.com/mynx/dearromero.shtm ... NEAL STEPHENSON upgrades from EMACS - to pen... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Just a quick advisory that sci-fi musical RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET is stalking the land once more; the overlong cod-Shakespeare rock-and-roll show is on national tour for most of the year; see site for details. Expect rather fewer toe-tapping tunes in Philip K Dick play FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID (Oval House Theatre, 52 Kennington Oval, London SE11, 7.45pm, 1999-06-11/19 not Mon or Tue), adapted by Linda Hartinian who, says ANSIBLE, "appears in PKD's autobiographical "The Dark Haired Girl". Tickets (0171 582 7680) are UKP7.50; since it depicts "a future where people caught without official papers face years in labour camps" (Time Out), we'd advise taking your NUS card if you want the 4.50 concession. http://members.aol.com/dillyria/ - time for the "Rockabye Hamlet" revival? http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/flowmytears/ - "Dick, Dick, Dick" "How many Dicks is that?" "A lot" And a big shout goes out to the "Special Branch" posse, already rumoured to be taking an interest in the anti-corporate festivities of JUNE 18 (financial centres of many major cities, all day next Fri, 1999-06-18; duh). Maybe they're planning on partying along, Notting Hill Carnival-style, with the Reclaim The Streets-crowd revellers; maybe they'll be filming the participants purely to help out with the global webcasting of the alternative G8-summit activism. http://www.gn.apc.org/june18/ - or see the stickers on lamp-posts all over Brighton >> TRACKING << making good use of the things that we find Hey, if George Lucas doesn't want the world to pirate his STAR WARS films, why's he keep putting that camcorder-calibrating eyetest-chart at the beginning? Research suggests that the 1.3 gig VCD Phantom Menace currently circulating isn't full digital-to-digital "zero-day" warez, but in fact a (fairly good) cinema-camcorder job; near-identical to the knock-off copies shifting at your local street market for a fiver. Hallmarks include sudden improvement in sound quality at 0:30 mins; intermittent audio drop-out (mike clipping?) during pod race (1:00); and a "floating Z" at the edge of the screen. VCD has minor MPEG artefacts, some VHS versions have Chinese subtitles - handy for the ethnically stereotyped Trade Federation - and we don't hold out too much hope for the 800 meg AVI. Still, with all that CGI and dodgy eyelines, maybe the lower the resolution, the better. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/21/ns-8344.html - last seen on the server of a top UK university... http://www.villagevoice.com/features/9923/goldstein.shtml - c'mon, being in an "ate my balls" doesn't prove *nothing* Overclocking your Palm. No, you're lying: you'd *never* considered doing that. And even if you did consider it, you'd certainly weren't planning on cranking an 80% clock speed improvement for a standard IIIx or V. Oh, you did, huh? Well, I bet you'd never envisaged doing it in *software*, with a freeware Hackmaster mini-application, no assembly required? You did? Then you are Jean-Paul Gabini and I claim my five pounds. http://www.gavini.com/Public/ - oh! oh! check out his other impossible software packages >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista ZX Spectrum the new techno: http://yoyo.org/levine/load_screen.mp3 ... CLUETRAIN lands "phat book contract"... FREEMASONS sponsor neuroelectronic implants... "SETI@home: the second-best way to impress JODIE FOSTER"... show creator JOSS WHEDON instructs fans to bootleg banned BUFFY... any top-secret info that *isn't* online yet? http://jya.com/irish-war.htm ... taunting BOND fans by calling new film "Tomorrow's World Never Says Die Enough - Again"... PLAYING FIELDS to set up DREAMCAST network cafes (well, they should be able to get the hardware cheap, anyway)... WITCHBLADE in TOMB RAIDER 4?... CEE-NO-FAX: http://tvguardian.com/html/faq.html ... John Cleese *is* GEORGE WASHINGTON... "guys, look at us, fighting each other": http://www.attrition.org/negation/special/ ... *five* MATRIX movies? We're living in the wrong reality!... not quite the "affirmative action" they were hoping for: http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-occupiedgovernments-uk-media.html ... "I don't know about SPAMMERS, but they scare the hell out of me": http://www.robertstech.com/gallery.htm ... we want the Real DR EVIL as the Other Dr Evil (or maybe Mini Me): http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue112/cool.html ... ... not sure we've ever seen "anus" on a Japanese game: http://www.nationalgamereview.com/99.4.26/words/japan.html ... c'mon, "JAR JAR ate my balls" doesn't prove anything: http://www.villagevoice.com/features/9923/goldstein.shtml ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the less rude http://www.ntk.net/tvgohome/ TV>> an over-done double helping of FRASIER (10pm, Fri, C4) ... a rerun of oddly similar variations on "Alan Partridge" geekdom, in COOGAN'S RUN (10pm, Fri, BBC2)... plus PERVERSIONS OF SCIENCE? (9.30pm, Fri, Sci-Fi) - Perversions Of *Shatner*, more like, as Bill directs and guest-stars in the first of a brief bunch of tackily "erotic" space stories... a semi-cute cast almost pull nooveau-pulp THE ROCKETEER (2.45pm, Sat, ITV) out of its nosedive... Coogan's back, plus Lee And Herring, plus - uh-oh - the cast of "Big Train" - trying to pay off the Third World's overdraft on COMIC RELIEF: THE DEBT WISH SHOW (10.40pm, Sat, BBC1)... and Angus Deayton retaliates for ITV nicking his "Before They Were Famous" format by stealing their Oscar out-takes idea with NOT ANOTHER AWARDS SHOW (9.45pm, Sat, BBC1)... something of a theme-night on ITV, with Michael Barrymore reporting that ANIMALS DO THE FUNNIEST THINGS (6.50pm, Sat, ITV)... spreading lethal monkey germs, for instance, as documented later by OUTBREAK (9pm, Sat, ITV)... while inbetween, primates parade elaborate mating displays in MAN O MAN (7.50pm, Sat, ITV) - of course, they should do a more authentic, fighting-based show and call it "MANO A MANO"... it's the last of this series of THIS MORNING WITH RICHARD NOT JUDY (12.15pm, Sun, BBC2)... the clear inspiration for the Star Wars "trench" bit at the end of 633 SQUADRON (3pm, Sun, ITV)... and, again on satellite, we're hoping that the spin-off series of THE NET (10pm, Sun, Sci-Fi) sees the Sandra Bullock character having a different aspect of her identity erased each week, with hilarious consequences... C5's sensationalist barrel-scraping hits inevitable paranormal hokum STRANGER THAN FICTION (8pm, Mon, C5), then, yet more imaginatively, hospital docusoap A & E (8pm, Tue, C5)... the "Scared To Death" season aptly continues with BODY DOUBLE (10pm, Mon, C4), an erotic thriller - with Melanie Griffith! Aiieeee! ... and chubby DJ Carl Cox presides over no-doubt vastly embarrassing dance music show ACETATE (11.15pm, Mon, BBC2)... following "Holding The Baby", Sally Phillips' http://www.w2s.net/sally-phillips/ sitcom choices haven't improved, as she guests in KISS ME KATE (8.30pm, Tue, BBC1)... and a brief spate of new shows on Thu, with cookie-cutter Roddenberry alien nonsense EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT (8.05pm, Thu, C5), Ben Miller/ Dennis Pennis theatrecom COMING SOON (10.30pm, Thu, ITV), wacky barrister style show SLAVE (11.30pm, Thu, C4) - and, most puzzlingly of all, the new series of OZ (12midnight, Thu, C4), inexplicably described by Radio Times as a "Sci-fi prison drama"... FILM>> yes, it stars a hacker, and it's kind of about VR, but get over it: Keanu Reeves' thermodynamics-defying talk-heavy effects-lite trenchcoat shoot-em-up THE MATRIX (imdb: alternate-earth / cyberspace / shootout / martial- arts / slow-motion / training / artificial- intelligence / computers / cyberpunk / men-in-black) takes the best bits of The Terminator, Total Recall, and They Live and pisses them up the wall - to the accompaniment of the soundtrack from Spawn and, in one pivotal action scene, shameful Brit techno-novelty act The Propellerheads... still, you're probably going to ignore us and go see it anyway, considering what it's up against: long-unawaited offbeat nomadic Pete Postlethwaite pylon-painting love story AMONG GIANTS (imdb: romance)... re-released elderly Michael Caine caper GET CARTER (imdb: thriller) - from the director of "Flash Gordon" and "Morons From Outer Space"... or Jimmy "Cracker" McGovern's typically upbeat domestic violence transplant horror HEART (imdb: UK) - not particularly based around the 1988 Pet Shop Boys song - or the Seattle '80s girl-rock band - of the same name ( you know, the ones who had a hit with http://stat.tamu.edu/~sherman/KEOS/lyrics/sartre.html )... HARD LIT [ "buy now" links at http://www.ntk.net/books/ ]>> yes, even we couldn't be bothered to get into the online price- slashing for HANNIBAL (RRP 16.99 - yeah, right, Amazon 8.33), when branches of WH Smiths were serving it up for just UKP9.99... probably our closest to a half-price bestseller was latest cyber-romance nonsense SINGLE WHITE EMAIL (RRP 6.99, Amazon 5.59) - written by an Australian, which doesn't really explain why it's not nearly as bad as all the dire previous efforts in this ever-expanding genre... this month's token goatee-stroker is Steve Beard's inappropriately named "transmissions from the edge of style culture" compilation LOGIC BOMB (RRP 10.00, Amazon 8.00), which nonetheless has one of the good, early UK "otaku" articles - from a 1991 i-D... fighting it out in London's remainder bins are Mark Leyner's MY DREAM DATE WITH DI (RRP 6.99, Amazon 5.59, now 2.99), David Foster Wallace's INFINITE JEST (RRP 9.99, Amazon 7.99, now 4.99), and - pick of the bunch - Nicholson "Vox" Baker's hardback THE SIZE OF THOUGHTS (RRP 7.99, Amazon 6.39, now 4.99); hyper-focussed musings on model aircraft, card catalogues, and, on p232, the funniest ever "CD-ROM reviewed by trying to play it in a CD player"... but our "literally unputdownable" recommendation goes - no, not to Terry Pratchett's THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD (RRP 14.99, Amazon 8.99) - but to the "authors inbetween" who've said "Let's all meet up" in CTHULHU 2000 (RRP $12.95, Amazon 7.27); Bruce Sterling, Kim Newman, Harlan Ellison etc pay largely effective contemporary tribute to HP Lovecraft's mythos, which, as Jarvis Cocker feared, is indeed "strange" when they're all "fully grown"... we close with NTK's resident Matrix apologist pointing fans toward Neil Gaiman's spin-off story at http://www.whatisthematrix.com/cmp/neil_g.html ... and our admission that we haven't checked whether Neal Stephenson's glaring attribution of Cap'n Crunch to General Mills from "Disco 2000" http://www.scs.carleton.ca/~morin/misc/capn/ then made it into the final draft of CRYPTONOMICON (RRP 12.99, Amazon not in UK stock), when in fact Cap'n Crunch is, of course, made by Quaker Oats. (Hey, Stephenson, crypto, nitpicking and breakfast cereal - how could we resist?)... >> 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 http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Wednesday-Times/timintint01016.html?999 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@lists.ntk.net with 'unsubscribe ntknow'. Subscribe? Mail majordomo@lists.ntk.net with 'subscribe ntknow'. NTK now is supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntk.net/books/ (K) 1999 Special Projects. 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