Need To Know 1998-06-19

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"You have to treat them as you would a spoiled child. You have to decide, do I spank them or give them some candy?" - Sun's JOHN CAGE on Microsoft or ask the government to spank the candy out of them >> HARD NEWS << private views Since the Net is supposed to be populated exclusively by peeping toms, evil hackers and sociopathic stalkers, it's surprising how few commercial Net sites there are for this burgeoning demographic. Well, fret no more. This week, CAMEO opened for business - a fully searchable online database of the entire UK Electoral Register. Find long lost friends - or the location of familiar enemies! Uncover names and addresses for future false identities! Bulk download the details of whole towns for real-world spam! The site also generously offers a free trial period, so you can browse for free, and you can register as often as you like - ironically, in relative anonymity. Our own research into the NTK readership reveals that you're all poll tax dodgers, so no hits there, but we're surprised none of the Proper Media have picked up on the self-evident potential for abuse. Except, of course, that the Proper Media's marketing people have had access to this info in convenient CD-ROM form since 1995. And we trusted *them*, didn't we? http://cameo.bvdep.com/ - only an appallingly clunky NT server can save us now! http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/10.61.html#subj2 - there was a time when people gave a damn We all know how hard domain registration companies work. You've got to check the DNS server doesn't come unplugged: you've got to make sure the Webserver is still cashing credit card orders (securely, mind!) And there's always one more scary letter to write, informing companies that their "mrs-miggins-pies" trademark is dangerously unregistered in the Christmas Islands domain. Up until now, NOMINET (the organisation that - quite literally - "nominally" oversees the .uk domain) has been a loose confederation of these domain naming registries, all working characteristically selflessly to ensure that everyone has the chance to buy a domain off their members. Now, though, it's time to get organised. Last week, Nominet's Council of Management sent around proposals for a new voting system. Curiously, for such a charitable group, the proposals weren't a variant of "one domain, one vote". They weren't even "one registry, one vote". No - to preserve *absolute* fairness for all, the ballot was carefully biased to give the top 5% of registries a majority. That, says the current Council, makes it proportionate to the "relative commercial involvement in the UK Domain Name service". So, who gets how many votes? That's "commercially sensitive information", say the Council. And how do you state an interest in the .uk domain? Well, unless you're a domain salesman, you haven't got one. Better get sending out the scary letters. http://www.mrs-miggins-pies.cx/ - oops! too late! http://www.netnames.com/ - Largest name registry (prop. Ivan Pope, Nominet Councillor) There's bugs, there are features - and then there are the real showstoppers. SECRET WRITER'S SOCIETY is a educational game for seven to nine year olds. In the words of its publishers, Panasonic Interactive Media, it "puts the 'fun' into learning about writing fundamentals". Just how much fun that can be became apparent when the SuperKids Website decided gave it to a panel of kid reviewers. What those children learnt that day changed their lives forever. Now, click on... http://www.superkids.com/aweb/pages/reviews/writing/1/sws/merge.shtml - why beta-testing is important http://www.panakids.com/phase3/html/body_swsrelease.html - Panasonic learn a few lessons themselves! >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious DISNEY buy INFOSEEK, fittingly the Mickey Mouse search engine... "Homeless man has Web page business", reports NANDO... SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK to reform - on Net... MARIMBA to disappear from Navigator: Kim Polese to be airbrushed from FAST COMPANY back issues... LOUIS ROSSETTO wins "Ditherati Quote of the Year"... PERSIL TABLETS in legal battle with AERIAL DISCS... PAT ROBERTSON suggests "Gay Days" at Disneyland may bring Florida "earthquakes... possibly a meteor" - Infoseek deal seen as portent... FUTUREVISION "demo" turns out to be bunch of men dressed in balaclavas... bad karma at FREE TIBET gig in US: punters struck by lightning... audio CDs can be "copied onto ordinary CD-ROM disks", uncovers RICHARD BARRY... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Is it just us, or is there actually *less* fuss about the World Cup this time? Or is it now so ubiquitous that it's bizarrely easier to ignore? Anyway, here's a tip if you're desperate to avoid football/tennis/"Glasto"/whatever: just *do whatever you would do normally* - which in our case would mean: alcopop ad star JULIAN BARRATT continues "monkeying around with your insides" in his Edinburgh tryout show on Mon 22/06 at the Hen And Chickens theatre bar, London N1, UKP4, followed by similarly booze-themed "pub landlord" AL MURRAY, and (perhaps later this week) NTK stand-up fave STEWART LEE... when we checked this morning, there were still tickets left for departed sitcom god JERRY SEINFELD at the London Palladium on 12/07, maybe 'cos they're priced UKP30-45... the Real Audio at last seems to be working for non-stop temporary-license limited-range "radio art event" RESONANCE 107.3 FM (until 05/07), somehow linked with John Peel's Meltdown Festival. And it's not just meaningful bursts of static alternating with Tuvan throat-singing: this week has the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (10pm, Sat), "new music enthusiast" Stew Lee (4pm, Sun), the KLF (7.30pm, Sun), that Scanner bloke, and a breakfast show hosted by samplin' pranksters Negativland (8am, Fri)... something of a London bias so far, which we heartily correct with the unashamedly mainstream outdoor picnic concert tour A SYMPHONY UNDER THE STARS: 27/06 High Wycombe, 04/07 Hitchin, 11/07 Elstree, 18/07 Wokingham, 25/07 Alcester, 01/08 Peterborough, UKP16, booking on 0500 66 1812. The leaflet looks a bit like that Trek convention that went bust, but the live orchestra/ fireworks present all the outer-space classical greats, including Holst's The Planets, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Moonlight Sonata, and - of course - Star Wars. Incredibly, it's hosted by Patrick Moore, who promises both "star gazing" and his "own composition on xylophone". http://www.londonfringe.demon.co.uk/Venues/henachk.htm - an "action packed woodland bonanza" http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk - Seinfeld "popular event"; won't let you book it online http://www.l-m-c.org.uk/resonance.htm - like Radio 3, but with a show called "Shit Happens" If you've popped along to our NTK live events and you're gay or something, you'll sure to have fallen in love with our Viewdata-obsessed Internet Weatherman, JAMES COATES. He's not just a pretty face, however: next Friday 26/06/98, he's hosting his own club night at Smithy's, Leeke Street WC1X (bloody London again). And the spurious Net connection is...? Well, the tickets are available from Webshack... and we're sure it'll be filled with the beautiful people of the British online community. Such as they are. http://www.bettyfjords.com/ - anything else we can do for you James? And if *that* wasn't enough for you, Phil Agre's excellent Red Rock Eater mailing list points out the following exhibitions, *all* happening on 23/06/98 - 25/06/98: Bournemouth, England sees the DERA -organized "International Chemical Warfare Demilitarization Conference (CWD98)", Shrivenham stakes out the Royal Military College of Science (RMCS)'s "European Guns, Mortars and Ammunition Symposium", while in London, Nexus Information Technology is organizing the "Undersea Defence Technology Europe" conference. We have no idea what any of these shows will be like. We just like imagining what would happen if they took a dislike to one another. http://communication.ucsd.edu/pagre/rre.html - Shrivenham to go on to the quarter-finals >> TRACKING << net tucker man We had planned to weigh you down with a couple of *fascinating* new Net standards, courtesy of the W3C - SMIL, which is worth a flick through if you're into synchronised multimedia extravaganzas, and the WEB ACCESSIBILITY INITIATIVE, so you don't screw the people for whom multimedia is a tad less multi. But at the last moment we were drawn away by THE WORLD'S FIRST QUAKE POETRY COMPETITION. The prize, offered by Loki's Minions, is a Voodoo 1 card, but that's not the point. The true reward is seeing your work appreciated by the toughest literary critics of all - the Clans of Planet Quake. Note: the poem must incorporate two references to classical or Norse mythology, demonstrate the "elements of love, betrayal, and honor involved in multiplayer first-person shooters" - and contain only words beginning with "L" and "M". What's wrong? Not MAN enough to take the challenge? http://www.w3c.org/ - the new Academy http://planetquake.com/lmctf/ - for the new Athens >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista first GATES buys Cliveden, haunt of Oswald Mosely - and then - http://pes.eunet.cz/billy.jpg ... does WESTWOOD's new DUNE 2000 take place 9000 years before the previous one?... BITBOYS Oy!... HAIKU is the PalmPilot killer app... bootleg WORLD CUP feeds... Computers as Theatre: http://www.puppettime.com/ ... SRL at Web 98: stand well back... BSD most reliable, Windows stingiest, MacOS most over-rated: it's an OS WAR AGAINST CYSTIC FIBROSIS at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/5601/ ... "sinister-smurfing"... get an adult to help you with http://www.xeromag.com/fvtoys.html ...URBAN OUTFITTERS (quit sniggering, US readers - they only just arrived here)... http://www.ideosphere.com/main.html ... SONIC BINGO... about:jwz - http://themes.org/totd/guest/ ... better (and unclaimed) name than "portsurfer" for a hacking zine: THE LISTENER... Duke Nukem to use UNREAL now... >> GEEK MEDIA << may contain strongly-typed language TV>> the irrepressibly excellent FRASIER (10pm, Fri, C4) elegantly bows out of Friday nights for now, possibly leaving a gap ready for the first series of SOUTH PARK, currently squelching to an end on satellite (10pm, Sat; 11pm, Sun, Sky1)... 5 new drivers, 5 talking cars; so surely TEAM KNIGHT RIDER (5.25pm, Sat, ITV) can only be 5 times worse than the original... serious-voiced Heather Couper closes THE SCI-FI FILES (8pm, Sat, C4) with - surprise! - a look at the future: ie clips from Things To Come, Stepford Wives, and Blade Runner... followed by interminable Mark E Smith drinking anecdotes in LEGENDS OF THE FALL (9pm, Sat, C4)... invite your approaching-30 pals round for the dull movie version of LOGAN'S RUN (8pm, Sun, BBC2); its second showing in 10 months, by the way... "features three-in-a-bed sex, full frontal nudity and lots of swearing", "warns" The Radio Times about Anna Friel/ Joely Richardson cult romp THE TRIBE (10pm, Sun, BBC2)... while "features Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze and Lori Petty" should be the warning on daft Pepsi Max "thriller" POINT BREAK (10pm, Sun, C4)... hmm, not quite *enough* gratuitous nudity in Bo Derek's TARZAN, THE APE MAN (11.40pm, Sun, BBC1)... and, as an ironic counterpoint to all the Tarzan stuff on terrestrial (what's going on?), it's Sky monkey movies week, including Wednesday's fantastically titled, but sadly terrible, LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS ON THE PLANET OF THE APES (around 1pm, Mon-Thu, Sky Movies 1)... 3 degrees of Kevin Bacon commence with FLATLINERS (11.15pm, Mon, most ITV), linking to cool worm chaser TREMORS (10.45pm, Tue, BBC1), then PYRATES (12.15am, Tue, BBC1) where the focus is on involuntary firestarting rather than copyright violation... "men and women biologically different", uncovers hard- hitting pop biology in WHY MEN DON'T IRON (9pm, Tue, C4)... gangland-style execution too good for Lynda LaPlante's new BELLA MAFIA (8pm, Tue, C5)... tasty-gorgeous product placement when the TELETUBBIES (10am, Thu, BBC2) enjoy "Becky's Flake Cakes"?... and here's hoping schedules don't overrun with the controversial "dying man" episode of THE HUMAN BODY (10pm, Thu, BBC1) confusingly followed by footage of a 61 year-old "base jumper" parachutist in THE MAN WHO JUMPED TO EARTH (10.50pm, Thu, BBC1)... MOVIES>> CITY OF ANGELS (imdb: romance / drama / angel / swimming / death / medical / religion) is - of course - a funnier remake of Wim Wenders' Wings Of Desire, rather than say, The Crow II: City Of Angels. And it's directed by the bloke who made the appalling film of Casper The Friendly Ghost. As with many Meg Ryan films, not as bad as you'd think. But still pretty bad... otherwise a choice of two hipster beat dudes, daddio: DREAM WITH THE FISHES (imdb: drama / comedy / voyeur / fish / fantasy / bowling / buddy / suicide-attempt / euthanasia / drugs / twist-in-the-end / black-comedy / suicide / terminal-illness / drama / drug- trip / lottery) gets a slightly wider release (and more laughs?) than the Keanu Reeves-featuring THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE (imdb: drama / beatnik)... or take your pick of harrowing violence with '60s Lee Marvin beat-'em-up POINT BLANK (imdb: thriller) - nothing to do with the Namco arcade game of the same name - or Oliver Stone-produced former-Yugoslav war saga SAVIOR (MPAA rated: R "for strong violence including brutal war atrocities, and for language" - well, there's mispelling "Saviour", for a start)... BOOKS>> A pair of writers, outwardly different but with peculiarly similar backgrounds - it's either the plot or the biographical blurb for Iain "M" Banks' new INVERSIONS (hardback, UKP16.99) - good to see the requisite plot-twist down to two words... just out in paperback, LONGITUDE (UKP6.99) may be the dullest pop-science bestseller since the appalling Sophie's World, reading like a naval history textbook without any diagrams of how any of all these interesting nav systems worked... Ellen Ullman's CLOSE TO THE MACHINE (paperback, UKP10.99) combines cool you-are- there coding anecdotes with - uh-oh - social responsibility, and the best bits are all online at http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/feature/1997/10/cov_09ullman.html ... people have been recommending Katherine Dunn's GEEK LOVE (paperback, UKP7.99, some special offers) - but - it's about carnival geeks, not computer ones... still not much sign of the enticingly titled VIRTUAL LOVE (paperback, UKP5.99), from the author of TV potboiler "Real Women". And we quote: "Virt-E-Go have developed a virtual reality interactive sex machine that fulfils your dreams... while the all-male management can't rise to the challenge... step forward the secretaries... all desperate to prove that mechanical mating can make them money, even if it'll never beat old fashioned rumpy-pumpy"... roll on Danielle Steel's THE KLONE AND I, that's all we can say ... >> 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 "educational" 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, VENUS INTERNET 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.