"Reader's Responses" issue, kind of like an FAQ, but
without the jokes. For the benefit of any new-ish readers,
I guess I should emphasise that this still isn't the "real"
weekly Need To Know, which is still on holiday till around
mid-September. But you know, once you've got a taste for
sending out this sort of thing on a weekly basis, it's hard
to give up.]
[Hi, Dave again. Sorry this is a bit late, but I realised -
only at the very last minute - that I didn't know the email
address that I needed to send the finished copy to. See
what I mean about Danny being the technical one?]
__ __ _29/08/97 _ _ _____ _ __ <Nasty, British and Short>
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"Has anyone else noticed how the answering machines in
Babylon 5 sound like a super-futuristic version of BT's
Call Minder service: 'You have... THREE... Messages,
Message from, Mr Donald, Message from, Readers Digest,
Message from,...'"
- subscriber Russell Paterson, Milton Keynes
>> MINI NEWS <<
big questions
Q. What news would you have done this week then?
A. Hmm, tricky. I quite liked the sound of the Texas
company with the "theoretically unbreakable" private-key
email encryption system - who are offering a $1,000,000
prize to anyone who can crack a brief message in under a
year ( www.ultimateprivacy.com ). Be good to see them go up
against folks like http://rc5.distributed.net/ ... that
controversial Basque/pro-ETA terrorist site is back again,
this time on quite a cool Brit anti-Censorship/PICS site
( www.easynet.co.uk/cam/censorship/ehj/ehj.html )... then
there was "Whitehouse Sues Matt Drudge For $30 Million" and
"Netscape To Write All-Java Browser", though technically
those are both borderline Anti-News (see below)... Danny
was very keen on some nonsense about someone "patenting"
the word "Swampy" but I reckoned that was probably a spoof
- because, right, I can understand that you could register
it as an official trademark (for loads of cool Swampy
merchandise) but surely *patenting* would involve proving
that you had invented the whole idea of a boldly tunnelling
young man who captured the hearts of a nation... look, it's
been a slow news week, OK? Microsoft, where were you?
Q. What kind of news do you cover?
A. [OK, Dave, I'll take this one - Dan] *Interesting* news.
We cover a lot of technology/Net stuff (Microsoft vs Apple,
Microsoft vs Netscape, Microsoft vs Your Mother) because
our research indicates that NTK subscribers generally a)
have a computer, b) use the Internet, c) aren't clueless
newbies who think all of this stuff is "booring" and
"unimportant". We cover it from a UK point of view because
by doing so, as one reader described it, "[you] no longer
need to get wound up checking over-serious west coast tech
wank news sites". We do cover other news too - in the past,
we've written on surveillance, direct action events,
hacking law, Peter Snow's move to Tomorrow's World,
censorship, and other geek issues. But mostly, we just
bleat on about Microsoft. We try to avoid material that's
covered in the mainstream press - partly because you'll
have read it before, but mostly because it's completely
wrong.
Q. How do you support it? Why do you do it? Am very
curious.
(- Mike Butcher, News Editor, New Media Age)
A. Well, we get some support (use of computers, server
space etc) from our sponsors (see the end of the doc), but
essentially we do it for the hell of it. We've got about
700 subscribers so far, and that's not too bad considering
we haven't done much promotion yet, and are currently on
holiday. We haven't yet figured out any good ways of making
any money out of it, but at the moment that doesn't really
matter - I reckon that because we don't have any charges or
ads or lame registration systems, we can take on pretty
much anyone. Like Kevin Spacey says in The Usual Suspects:
"They realised that to be in power, you didn't need guns or
money or even numbers. You just needed the *will* to do
what the other guy wouldn't."
Q. Why do you hate Wired so much?
A. Another one for you, I think, Dan.
http://www.spesh.com/danny/wireduk/index.html
>> TINY ANTI-NEWS <<
no surprises there
Q. What are all these other sections about?
A. OK, let's take it bit by bit. First up, Anti-News is
supposed to be the antithesis of real news, and something
we thought up once when some PR company sent us a press
release touting the fact that The Shamen planned to put
their new single on the Internet. "This isn't news," I
exclaimed, incredulously. "This, in fact, is its diametric
opposite. If the Shamen *weren't* releasing their new
single on the Internet - now that would be news..."
So, for instance, among this week's Anti-News would have
been the remarkable revelation that US net mags are dying
like flies, with Internet Underground, The Net, NetGuide,
and "many, many more" either ceasing publication or going
on indefinite holiday. The best excuse comes from the
publisher of The Net, who shamefacedly confessed: "We were
sort of in the position of educating our readership not to
read the magazine. After 12 issues of the magazine they
knew enough about the Net so they could get most of what
they needed online." Damn those pesky readers, eh?
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9708/28/netly.news/index.html
>> MICRO CULTURE <<
places to visit - pizzas to go
Q. Pardon?
A. Yeah, this is like stuff you might want to do that (for
whatever reason) doesn't involve a computer. Personally,
I'm hugely excited about this KLF gig at the Barbican on
Tuesday, but if you can't make it along there, the mighty
Namco have just opened their latest "fun centre" down in
the old County Hall building in London (Westminster or
Waterloo tube, next to the Aquarium), and featuring the
still hard-to-find (and remarkably excellent) Sega Lost
World coin-op. NTK says: check it out.
Q We've seen what you put in - is there anything you leave
out?
A Hmm, how about this lively piece of sci-fi rock showbiz
gossip: "My friend (struggling cartoonist, designer) has
been commissioned by none other than Gary Numan's manager
to make a customised loo-seat as a present for Gary Numan's
forthcoming wedding. It depicts Gary in Star Trek gear
shooting a Borg with a phaser, as his bride-to-be swoons on
his arm, dressed in a leather catsuit."
>> TEENY TRACKING <<
it's in the room with us
Q. You really don't know anything about this bit, do you
Dave?
A. Well, no - as round-ups of the latest software/hardware
upgrades go, it's really not my speciality. Dan said I
should plug MTU-Speed ("enables you to change the
appropriate Windows 95 registry settings to maximize your
speed on downloads... can speed page and file downloads by
as much as 200 percent just by keeping packet size aligned
with the transfer unit size"). Well there you have it.
http://search.shareware.com/code/engine/Find?archive=cnet-
win95&search=mtuspeed.exe&and=&orfile=on&name=&hits=25
Next Yoz Grahame chips in with "I've found a new web
scripting language!" Apparently it's called Curl; Yoz
excitedly adds that it "looks like LISP (what else do you
expect from MIT?)" and that it may well turn out to be
"incomprehensible bollocks". You decide.
http://www.cag.lcs.mit.edu/curl/
Then I go and spoil it all with something lame like
"apparently the Game Boy Pocket is now out in five
different coloured cases, *including transparent*." Do
Nintendo know a lot about flogging you the same product
over and over again... or what?
>> KIDDIES MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
Q. What's Hawking/What's Dawkins?
A. Alright, we got a bit carried away that time, but
essentially this the latest buzzwords, cool sites and
random jargon to drop into conversations (or AltaVista,
whichever is more convenient). This week, among other
things, I would certainly have plumped for the Teletubbies
RPG ( www.mhairi.demon.co.uk/ttrpg.htm ), the news that many
N64 games won't ship till after Christmas ("Analysts say
Nintendo can still do well as long as its new Diddy Kong
Racing game and other major titles do not flop") and, well,
that MPEG3 clampdown clearly hasn't worked, has it?
>> MO' MEDIA <<
less attitude
[responding to NTK observation that the "Geek Like Me"
episode of Sabrina - The Teenage Witch was shown twice in
four days]
I hate to say it, but the word "incompetence" springs to
mind here. Remember that this is the channel which is
showing Sabrina reruns when they haven't even finished
showing the first run yet: there are still five unscreened
episodes left over from the run which finished in April.
They've also taken to censoring it: the "whammy fanny" song
lyrics have been cut out.
But for geekus ultimus you can't beat the authentic
portrayal we get in the character of Brian Krakow in the
series My So-Called Life (rerun of which has just finished
on C4).
- subscriber "Shez"
NTK: Thanks for your input Shez, though you Sabrina fans
should also look forward to for the eventual TV debut of
the Buffy The Vampire Slayer spin-off series, which is
almost exactly the same show, yet - incredibly - cuter and
more terrifying BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.
TV>> Sunday is BBC2 night, with STEPHEN HAWKING'S UNIVERSE
(7.45pm) leading up to the often entertaining OUTER LIMITS
(8.35pm), some stuff about bullying, then the wildly
underrated Winona Ryder movie REALITY BITES (10.10pm) -
tough competition for Tim Robbins as THE HUDSUCKER PROXY
(10pm, Sun, C4)... funny TV ads from other countries form
the highly original premise of RORY MCGRATH'S COMMERCIAL
BREAKDOWN (9.30pm, Tue, BBC1)... yet another relaunch for
clunky old TOMORROW'S WORLD (7.30pm, Wed, BBC1), now hosted
Scully-and-Mulder-style by Philippa Forester and Peter
Snow... still, the real X FILES are back (Wed, 9.30pm,
BBC1) with really quite a dull bee-keeping cliffhanger; we
prefer the repeats of SLIDERS (6.45pm, Wed/Thu, BBC2)...
oh, and most people would surely rather spend 10 years in a
futuristic prison than have to endure the similarly themed
tedium of NO ESCAPE (11.15pm, Thu, BBC1)...
MOVIES>> it's pretty much CONSPIRACY THEORY (action /
thriller / conspiracy / computers) vs THE FULL MONTY
(comedy / stripper)... Conspiracy Theory has Mel Gibson,
Julia Roberts, Patrick "Picard" Stewart, direction from
Richard "Lethal Weapon" Donner, and some nice references,
but ultimately a bit confused... The Full Monty is some
unemployed blokes (including the guy off Hamish Macbeth)
turning to erotic dancing; funnier than you'd think, but
not exactly undermining the theory that British cinema now
just means costume drama and smut comedies...
>> GENERAL KNOWLEDGE <<
local anaesthesia
Q. Why does the newsletter seem to have lots of different
names? What's all this about a real magazine?
A. For historical reasons, Need To Know is the new name for
Need To Know (Now) - Britain's Most Sarcastic Weekly
Technology News E-zine. Need To Know Review is the
forthcoming spin-off print publication of Need To Know
(previously known as Need To Know (Now)). In the (unlikely)
event of another publication contesting our claim to be
"Britain's Most Sarcastic Weekly Technology News E-zine",
NTK will partially retract the statement by claiming that,
the phrase, in itself, is intended to be sarcastic.
Logically, this therefore makes us the most sarcastic
again, and so on, to infinity.
Q. Where did you learn to do HTML like that? Dachau?
(- Stevan Keane, Managing Editor, Yahoo Internet Life)
A. Cheers Stevan. The web page is in fact designed to
operate efficiently with most browsers, and makes extensive
use of bold courier as an act of solidarity with the
legally troubled Drudge Report ( www.drudgereport.com/ ). We
are painfully aware that the URL script doesn't parse
tildes or terminating full stops correctly, and Danny will
be endeavouring to correct this as soon as he gets back
from having such a good time in the US, the bastard.
Q. I'm thinking of doing my "own" NTK? Where should I
start?
A. [Hi - Dan here again, ingeniously anticipating your
queries before I went away.] Well, obviously we don't
recommend it, but if you're that determined, here are some
of the sources that we use to liberate information, then
claim it as our own:
SITES:
http://www.newshub.com/ - Great automated news links site
http://www.teletext.co.uk/couk/new.htm
- The Award-winning Teletext site
http://www.bluesnews.com/
- Gossip and facts from the Quake Underground
http://www.zdnet.com/uk - Rupert Goodwin's pad
http://www.ditherati.com/ - Nice, snipy attitude. Where
we would steal our quotes, if we could get away with it
http://www.linkexchange.com/webnews.html
- The News in Links
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/yaman.htm
- Yaman's Cyber-Rights Page
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/ - Funny headlines
http://www.wired.com/
- The Bit Of Wired Ventures That Will Survive
http://browserwatch.internet.com/news/news-current.html
- Tracking Aid
http://www.gmsv.com/
- very American, but that's why we like it
MAILING LISTS:
http://www.computerwire.com
- insanely great UK news service
http://www.tipsworld.com - generic mailing list selector
http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ - mad Euro-artist rant zone
http://www.tbtf.com/ - "Tasty Bits From The Technological
Frontier": terrible name, great list
http://www.apacheweek.com/
- News about Apache, the freeware UNIX Webserver
http://www.blackdown.org/
- Home of 0xdeadbeef, the informative funny list
http://www.fringeware.com/msg/sub.html
- FringeWare News from Austin
http://snyside.sunnyside.com/home/
- Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
http://www.btwebworld.com/communities/newsite/crn/note1.htm
l - UK Communities Online
http://www.dis.org - The DEFCON mailing list
http://www.access.org.uk -
The Access All Areas Mailing List
http://www.educom.edu/web/pubs/pubHomeFrame.html - Edupage
AND FINALLY...
Q. What about Doug Hofstadter's research group in Indiana?
He's into machine implementation of woolly, fluid concepts
and stuff, only he uses very restricted domains so it often
looks like his programs are doing trivial shit. I was just
wondering whether he's taken seriously by the AI
mainstream...
- subscriber David Pape, via postcard, on holiday in Greece
A. Anyone? Anyone?
>> SMALL PRINT <<
Need to Know is (usually!) an 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.
Registered at the Post Office as "not usually this self-referential".
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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