Need To Know 1999-09-10

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"...as any information coming to you via a television is regulated by the ITC, the Broadcasting Standards Commission and a wealth of committees and directives, you won't be able to get porn, read the word 'fuck' before 9pm or do anything illegal." - Josephine Munroe explains web-TV, "Time Out" magazine (p201) ...better stop reading alt.binaries.pictures.erotica on that Amiga, kid >> HARD NEWS << ongoing feuds NORWEB finally plonked their Net-over-mains-cables into the electric chair this week, citing problems finding either customers or investors for the innovative, plucky, British technology. The decision to kill the tech was, we're sure, completely unrelated to that whole "streetlamps dumping cartloads of RF interference" rumour that we - and New Scientist, and the Institute of Electrical Engineers - so callously spread back when they were being hailed as the new Edisons of the broadband revolution. Nonetheless - FALCO! http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990908S0006 - U-turns at 60 cycles per second At least we've got that ADSL rollout to look forward to, right? Yeah, well - despite all our fondest hopes, the law of lowered expectations is ruling this story too. Several ISPs have pointed out to us that BT's pricing of 40UKP-150UKP for the average home user doesn't quite add up. The wholesale price list for an ADSL link works out at around 160UKP per person for service providers. The service in question is called "IPstream Business" - despite being the bog-standard dynamic IP ADSL setup connection. Which begs the question, where's the cheapo consumer version gone? Could it be that those anti-ADSL forces within BT are have stopped a general roll-out until they can work out a way of sneaking more money from the punters? And would that explain why BT's ADSL triallists (whose trial was supposed to end weeks ago) are being sent Mondex cards to play with? Do we sniff a technology tie-in? Or even a technology lock-in? http://www.sinet.bt.com/ - SPIN012 spins the story And how surprising to read that SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE site was hacked to smithereens this week. Judging by the - actually pretty funny in parts - parody, the miscreants had been planning this for some time. Which, given DNScon put out the press release informing them (and everybody else) of the security flaws a good month ago, that isn't beyond the realms of probability. http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=archive99/now0820.txt&line=17#l - this is getting eerie http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/1999/09/08/www.scotland.gov.uk - in parts http://www.sinnfein.org.uk/ - somebody's asking for knee-capping >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious http://store.yahoo.com/vw/tracklink.html comments out "spamming" advice, still visible in source... "Women of the Web" picked by next SUNDAY BUSINESS includes founder of Gnash Communications, many of its clients... exhibit A in the ARGOS case: http://www.ntk.net/doh/990910cheaptv.gif ... http://webmaster.info.aol.com/email.html - "Send flawless e-mail, checked for grammer and spelling."... LINUX coders: flakey, but honest: http://www.ntk.net/doh/990910ds9.gif ... View Source, win a prize: http://promo.easyjet.com/ ... FEAR AND LOATHING spam ad includes 300KB .MOV file: big incentive... CAMPAIGN attempt lame "fake doh" - http://www.campaign.co.uk/ ... PLANET ONLINE tech support in mass resignation antinews... WANKOMETER clearly needs upgrading for these guys http://www.labyrinth.ie/approach.asp ... PSION listen to customer's needs: produce bigger, more expensive model... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Commemorating, yes, the *actual date* when the moon is blown out of the earth's orbit in SPACE: 1999 comes not one, but two sci-fi conventions - one made of anti-matter, each at opposite ends of the universe. Of the main cast, only shape-shifting Maya seems to have escaped BREAKAWAY CON (this weekend, Radisson Hotel, Los Angeles), citing family commitments back on planet Psychon; she does, however, appear at TELLY BREAKAWAY (next weekend, Pontin's Sand Bay Holiday Centre, Weston Super Mare), among such estimable thespians as Paul "Blake's 7" Darrow, Peter "Dr Who" Davison, two "Crusade" chicks, Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington (Paul Foster in "UFO"), and Hartley Hare from "Pipkins". http://www.breakaway-con.com/ - they could always rent a tiger instead http://www.cult-tv.freeserve.co.uk/tellybreakaway.html - two Dr Who assistants, one teacher from Grange Hill... http://www.britassoc.org.uk/festival/ - meanwhile, Britain's boffins continue their foolish "meddling" With the publishing of Simon Singh's THE CODE BOOK, looks like historical cryptography will replace "the natural history of Cod" as *the* cribbed dinner party conversation this Winter. This may, possibly, be a good thing. Help maintain your patronising superiority to these dilettantes by popping down to Harkness Hall, Birkbeck College next Friday (1999-09-17, 1800 BST), and intercepting the communications of Dr James Reeds of AT&T who will be decoding RENAISSANCE CRYPTOGRAPHY AND JOHANNES "Mr Steganographia" TRITHEMIUS. Or perhaps crib a few notes at Kellogg College, Oxford, who are offering to get "medieval on your maths" with their weekend of pre-modern mathematics. Forty groats to pay: telephone 01865 270380 or email PPDayweek@conted.ox.ac.uk for more info. http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/bshm/meetings.html#special - Johannes was into magick too. Gotta be californian. http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/bshm/meetings.html#medieval - ancient cyphers, invisible inks, current government policy >> TRACKING << making good use of the things that we find The spiritual warfare between Python and Perl gathers pace, as both sides add mystical Eastern skills to their armouries. PyChing is script which allows Python Ninjas to scry future Perl language developments via a graphical Tk I-Ching interpretation. But Perl users are nothing if not resourceful in religious battle. Turning their own weakness into a strength, the Coy.pm CPAN Perl module intercepts error messages and dynamically prefixes a calming haiku, to counteract any karmic damage. Expect a kill-at-a-distance XML-RPC module any day soon. http://www.cs.monash.edu.au/~damian/TPC/1999/Coy/ - the sound of one's stack crapping http://www.essemgee.xnot.com/pyching/ - my *ass*, no blame! http://www.elj.com/new/ - and when they have destroyed each other, Eiffel will rule! >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista RICHARD STEVENS drops his last packet... running Demon was licence to print money, found CLIFF STANFORD: http://www.ecb.int/change/images/fr200_v.jpg ... new Brit band called .CO.UK - but what the hell will they call their website? ... ungrateful granddaughter cam: http://www.stormloader.com/serrated/pop.html ... http://www.godhatesfigs.com/ ... we want meta-meta-meta- meta-moderation! (Score: -2)... HASBRO buy WIZARDS OF THE COAST: collect the set!... camp Blake's 7 villainess SERVALAN appearing in "Ooh Stick You" video by "Daphne & Celeste"... bonus question: how do you spell "Ms Pan Man" (sic)?: http://www.msnbc.com/modules/quizzes/pacman.asp ... proof - at last - we're living in THE MATRIX universe: http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/21641.html >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> MIRRORBALL (1.05am, Fri, C4) turns on terrifying Aphex Twin collaborator - and future Neuromancer director? - Chris Cunningham... Saturday night movie romps include OK-ish Woody Allen divorce-whine HUSBANDS AND WIVES (11pm, Sat, BBC2), "Springtime For Hitler" Mel Brooks farce THE PRODUCERS (12.45am, Sat, BBC2), Stallone/ Bullock sci-fi satire DEMOLITION MAN (10.20pm, Sat, ITV), plus '70s Hammer proto-Ghostbusters THE ASPHYX (12.30am, Sat, BBC1) - last shown almost exactly one year ago (give or take a month or two)... and if you're watching Graham Norton's 100 GREATEST TV MOMENTS (9pm, Sat, C4) and they all seem to be ultra-recent catchphrase comedy skits, then you've accidentally tuned to BBC2's FAST SHOW NIGHT instead (from 9pm, Sat, BBC2)... don't know if this is deliberate, but everyone says the ELVIS 1968 COMEBACK SPECIAL (11.50pm, Sun, C4) is, indeed, a milestone in TV pop history... Jonny Lee "Hackers" Miller heads up confusingly poetic WW1 Dr Who spin-off REGENERATION (10pm, Sun, BBC2)... and, as if last week's Mark "TV's The Crow" Dacascos cyber kung-fu beat-em-up wasn't enough like The Matrix, this week's one - SABOTAGE (9pm, Tue, C5) - even has Carrie-Anne "Trinity" Moss in it... FILM>> you know how your mind thinks EYES WIDE SHUT (imdb: christmas / based-on-novel / greenwich-village / drugs / infidelity / homosexuality / marital-crisis / orgy / sex) - but then you type "Eyes Wide *Shit*" instead? Well, you were right the first time - phenomenally dull plot-free ramblings of interest only to connoisseurs of semi-nude Kylie lookalikes. Kubrick probably died of shame but, hey, that one-note piano theme *rocks*... "MTV Movie Award: Best Breakthrough Male Performance" (for James Van Der Beek) chortles the poster for MTV-produced lively high-school gridiron cheese VARSITY BLUES ("entertainment ignominy" at http://www.capalert.com/capreports includes: kissing on school property; reckless vehicular activity; examining one's self in public; "playing like gods"; adult pat on the rear of a teen; adult underwear)... and the cannibal movie, er, eats itself in enthusiastically confused horror Western RAVENOUS (imdb: cannibalism / indian / reincarnation / windigo / california / manifest-destiny / mexican- american-war / satire / scottish / stew / westward-expansion / winter / cave / chaplain / fort / frontier / historical / horses) - featuring Robert Carlyle, Guy "Neighbours" Pearce, and - of course - Jeffrey Jones, aka Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off... both better bets than ancient overrated outdated stunt effort THE ITALIAN JOB (imdb:car)... RED BOOK AUDIO>> if muzak be the food of love, the current batch of free CDs belong in the supermarket: we're not quite sure who CROSSE AND BLACKWELL's SNACK STOP "Taste Of The UK Music Scene" disc is aimed at (UKP1.25 twin pack) - having lulled you with oldies from Cast, Ocean Colour Scene, Lighthouse Family and Shed Seven, it ups the tempo with System F's friendly hard-trance MP3 fave "Out Of The Blue"... still, at least the track listing's visible, unlike NESTLE GOLDEN GRAHAMS' optimistic "Best Album Of The Next Century Ever" (pts 1 and 2, UKP 1.79). #2 (the blue one) has a slight edge (as with all 3 CDs, <30 min running time); an intriguing compilation of slipstream future rock, largely from bands with one-word names - Space, Antenna, Trippa, Serum, Cable, Cuba, and Muse... oh, and the new issue of ARCADE magazine covermounts a Wipeout 3 megamix soundtrack CD, again only 30 minutes long... now even Puff Daddy's covered "Public Enemy No 1", is the world ready for a PUBLIC ENEMY tribute album, featuring that, Anthrax's "Bring The Noise", and - of course - Tricky's "Black Steel (In The Hour Of Chaos)"?... soundalike dept: a nameless tipster claims that S-CLUB 7's second single (tantalisingly named "S-Club Party", we believe) bears some resemblance to the Spice Girls' second single, "Say You'll Be There"; DOM "THE DOMINATOR" MCCLANE reports that the chorus of CAPRICE's "Oh Yeah" seems like it's about to lead into the chorus of "Bugs" by HEPBURN (a problem we have with that "Abercrombie and Fitch" song and Bran Van 3000); and, if you can tear yourself away from her appalling "bad girl" acting in the video, scientists confirm that you *can* sing "Addicted To Love" over SPORTY MEL C's "Going Down"... and finally, we note that, even after winning last night's "Viewer's Choice" MTV Video Award, those cheeky BACKSTREET BOYS have failed to provide any consistent lyrical interpretation of their "I Want It That Way" megahit, fuelling persistent net speculation that it "might be about anal sex"... >> 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 "thank Christ it's MiniNTK next week" 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. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com - remember your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material. Remember: Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.