Need To Know 1998-09-25

archive

"The computer industry is creatively bankrupt... with speed and performance being the only things and mattered. We knew the iMac was fast. We didn't need to make it ugly." - JONATHAN IVES, iMac Designer ...but then we thought, why not? >> HARD NEWS << win a cruise! After almost a year of playing chicken with zero charge Net provision, somebody went and did it. And, with the a combination of technical know-how and traditional shoddiness that can only be compared to a deBeers-Ratners joint, Energis and Dixons were the people to do it. So what's it like? Well, for what you pay for, it is, so far, very good. 5MB Web, infinite e-mails, nice registration, and a good unflashy portal site. Charging for support seems, initially, a bit of an own-goal: DIXONS fans would instinctively let a grandsworth of PC rot in the attic than pay one extra quid for any non-porno call; and what value would you put on a minute spent with their legendarily quick-witted sales assistants? But then, this may be the canniest part of the Dixons deal. Whatever money was made by ISPs back in the Bad Olde Days was forever sucked back by prohibitive tech support costs. By trading on the Dixons=Morons meme, and by making the punters believe that they're pulling a fast one by never calling, Dixons will be able to throttle the most unscaleable bit of the whole operation. Meanwhile, partners Energis keep getting the Telco interconnect payments of all those callers, and Dixons get the portal. With rumours saying that by Thursday, they were up to 12,000 accounts with 10 joining every *second*, Energis/Planet's apparent over-spec for 250,000 users by Christmas better stand up to the strain. http://www.ntk.net/freeserve/ - logging on without the CD http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit19980924.html - the best things are life are free. as is Robert X. Criiingley http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=archive97/now0926.txt&line=82#l - I want money. That's what I want. Our spies at Privacy International (no secrets from us there) inform us that Simon Davies and the lads are planning a new set of awards, to be handed out in October. These Big Brother awards will be given "to the government and private sector organisations that have done the most to invade personal privacy+in Britain." Launched 50 years after the writing of Orwell's 1984, and featuring a charming statuette of the iron boot stamping on a head, they are sure to be the envy of all your fellow surveillance co-conspiracists. Nominations are being accepted from members of the public, So if you've ever got a thrill from secretly informing to a quasi-autonomous body who - unbeknownst to their victims - is compiling a database of suspected "criminals" for a show-trial in abstentia... Hold on, this isn't coming out right. There are also some "Winstons" for people who helped privacy. We're not sure what they look like... a ratcage, or something? http://www.privacy.org/pi/bigbrother/ - oh, what the hell. Fun's fun, right As you know, we've followed RICHARD BARRY'S career with almost grandmotherly concern so we were as delighted as anyone when he got his exclusive ZD Net interview with the CEO of Intel, Craig... um, thing. Even if, for now, Intel's own PR didn't seem to share our happiness. Starr-like, Barry chose to put the whole transcript on a heavily plugged ZD Net special: a fair barter, as he'd also obtained most of his questions from the readers. But, sources suggest, he *said* he was doing it for the Guardian. Ah, no, we think - he's still on holiday from there, isn't he? http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1998/38/ns-5556.html - Craig: Ha! /Barry: Haha!/Craig: Ha!/Barry: Well, time's up >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious "Football is the new rock and roll", uncover ZDNET UK, approximately a decade late... WIRED compared to Third Reich on Well... http://www.conf.labour.org.uk/ gets our block vote - as the shittiest site *ever*... handwriting of DOCTORS worse than controls, reveal BMJ... BRITISH ASTRONOMER helped find some more planets but they're not bloody M-Class, the idiot... "personal involvement in the leadership" expected at the Whitehouse intern initiative http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH_Fellows/ ... OFTEL punishes BT's use of Friend & Family to sell Click to ISP users - by admonishing them in a slightly raised voice... ELECTRONIC TELEGRAPH puts positive spin on killing "etcetera" section... we're sure that http://www.bmw.co.uk/ checked with their lawyers before putting "mercedes", "jaguar" and "daewoo" into those meta-tags... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Nope, London-based low-budget film fest VOLCANO isn't extinct (26/09-03/10/98, various venues, box office: 0171 582 7680), though it does look like they're spending even less on their website than they are on their movies. Based on what we can piece together from the evidence, this year's attempts to prove that "independent" cinema is now *even more* experimental (unwatchable?) following Hollywood's inevitable co-opting of the term. Contributors will hopefully include chop-socky connoisseurs (and retro gaming fans) SHAOLIN, plus multimedia cabaret CINERGY, though apparently they've never been as good since former host The Word's Alan Connor left to finish his PhD on 20th Century superstitions... http://www.backspace.org/volcano/ - at last, a film site without Shockwave... http://www.backspace.org/volcano/shaolin/shaolin.html - ...or any non-broken GIFs! http://www.amulation.co.uk/cinergy/exposition/ - hmm, black text on brown: *tres* avant-garde >> TRACKING << making good use of the things that we find Like you, we got were thrilled when we found the super-slim 1MB browser, OPERA. And, no, we can't remember when it made the transition from ultra-cool speed-monster to dull and ugly piece of Taskbar lint, either. It's not that it's changed - not for the worse, anyway, with the latest beta promising Java support, super W3C standard obeyance, and a multiplicity of fledgling ports (although only the BeOS boys appear to have escaped parallel fits of ennui). Maybe we just grew to loathe its previously endearing quirks - like that yucky Borland circa 1994 interface, or its impenetrable - and yet, oddly useless - configurability. All that's known is we uninstalled the last beta within five minutes. And we sleep in different beds now. http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/98/05/index0a.html?tw=browsers - browser de jour, but they *never* mention it again... Linux users, hithertofore deprived of the marvellous beauty of Macromedia plug-ins, have developed compensatory abilities in their other senses: their sense of injustice, their sense that some Web designers should be strung up by their piercings, and so on. Now those powers could fade, with the first stirrings of a Oliver Debon's FLASH Netscape plugin FOR LINUX. It's not all there yet, but at least Flash-"enabled" sites (we prefer the term "differently platformed") are blurrily viewable (if not yet audible). And Linuxen have the chance to see for the first time exotic fonts appear, get big, then move left off the screen, while spinning around in a thrilling and startlingly original spiral manner. http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Labyrinth/5084/flash.html - if you run, you can still avoid the Shockwave "games" "original" >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista 30 Years of PLANET OF THE APES ruined by news of Roddy McDowall's terminal illness - although we do get to mention http://www.nobeige.com/articles/why_apes_dont_drive.asp ... http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/realtime/JTRACK/3d/JTrack3d.html ... follow the course of HURRICANE GEORGES by pinging Florida servers... Japanese teaser ads for DREAMCAST feature Sega MD chased by kids going "Sega sucks! Playstation rules" (new 'Station due in 6 months, according to CVG rumours)... gentler, more nurturing form of Y2K panic-mongering at http://www.y2kwomen.com/archives/samples.html ... and what is http://www.noreferer.org/ ?... never hear from your haxx0r pals again with the forthcoming ANONYMOUS CALLER REJECT feature... "You're in a maze of twisty little Java VMs, all different"... "more snow more snow more snow" - IRIDIUM experiences difficulties at the North Pole with http://www.icetrek.org/live.htm ... can you find the snuff animated GIF at http://www.moderntv.com/ ? ... guess we can give up now there's http://www.memepool.com/ *and* http://www.mrslander.com/ ... >> GEEK MEDIA << may contain strongly-typed language TV>> SOUTH PARK (11.05pm, Fri, C4) pays combined tribute to Barbara Streisand, The Cure, and Godzilla movies - as only it knows how... tonight's may well be the terrible failed hot-air-balloon edition of BEAT THAT EINSTEIN (4.40am, Fri, C4)... but the worth-waiting-for highlight is the Lilith Returns first-series episode of FRASIER (10pm, Fri, C4) - togther now: "This is a *mistake*!"... sorry, even we didn't anticipate quite how dull everything-must-be-explained net history GLORY OF THE GEEKS (8pm, Sat, C4) was going to be... casting coup of THE FRESHMAN (11pm, Sat, ITV) is of course Marlon Brando playing mentor to Matthew "War Games" Broderick - a film student studying "The Godfather"... you've got to wonder: does Pete McCarthy really get any personal fulfilment out of mocking UFO freaks in third series of DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING (7.30pm, Sun, C4)?... while Mark "Moviedrome" Cousins strokes himself into a frenzy over original blaxploitation fave SHAFT (10.45pm, Sun, BBC2)... wouldn't it be interesting if the producers of thought-provoking life-swap show BREAKING THE RULES (11.20pm, Mon, BBC2) swapped roles with the producers of thought-provoking life-swap show LIVING WITH THE ENEMY (9pm, Wed, BBC2)? Just an idea!... promisingly, EQUINOX (9pm, Tue, C4) gives detailed lift/drag coefficients for monster Russian seaplane prototypes... while Leslie Nielsen helms an arguably more airworthy effort in the first-ever AIRPLANE! (10.35pm, Tue, BBC1)... ironically titled arts docu CLOSE UP (9.30pm, Wed, BBC2) gets nowhere near cult Napoleonic author Patrick O'Brien... some funny ideas, but a tendency to go on too long spoiled the pilot we saw of topical Daily Show ripoff THE 11 O'CLOCK SHOW (10.55pm, Wed-Fri, C4)... HORIZON (9.25pm, Thu, BBC2) asks what happens to chimps used in military experiments (could they pose a security hazard, and defect?)... and, in still the best of Woody Allen's post-Mia Farrow '90s movies, John Cusack and a hilarious Dianne Wiest dodge the BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (9pm, Thu, C4)... FILM>> it's "hip to be square" chortle glowing reviews for London-only extended-Twilight-Zone-episode containment drama CUBE (imdb: Canadian) - including, as far as we know, Harry "Ain't It Knowles" News' first poster quote. Unfortunately, they've printed the "L" and the "I" a bit close together, so "The Most Intense, Claustrophobic Sci-Fi Flick I've Seen In A Long Time" (Harry Knowles) looks more like "The Most Intense, Claustrophobic Sci-Fi *Fuck* I've Seen In A Long Time" - which some may find all too believable... steel yourself for the pioneeringly tasteless romantic comedy THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY (imbd: blockbuster / masturbation / hitch-hiking / masturbation-scene), with the *five* semi-playable games at http://www.aboutmary.com , all of which use the world's most appropriately disgusting plug-in, Shockwave... and finally, the biggest surprise in all-at-sea when-squids-attack DEEP RISING (imdb: lovecraft / ship / black-comedy / boat / luxury / thief / jewels) is that at no point do any of the characters say, "Hang on, I know what to do - I saw exactly the same thing happen in Aliens / Hard Rain / Beyond The Poseidon Adventure"... BUMPER BONERS>> thanks to everyone - DAN SUMPTION, for instance - who pointed out the US/UK date confusion in our picture link for BT's goofed Home Highway page [NTK 11/09/98] (both fixed now, unfortunately). Also, the UK's premier "Star Wars/South Park" page is still at http://www.citysun.ac.uk/klawler/sp.htm ... MALCOLM PACK questioned last week's Finsbury Square IT SLEEPOUT story [NTK 18/09/98], specifically the bit where we said: "Unfortunately they won't be able to pop into nearby disused Aldwych tube station". The two locations, he adds, "aren't even close on the London Underground map, never mind Real Life. Are our NTK editors *Northerners* or summat?" Well, no, though we kind of wish we were, if only to balance the ridiculous London bias of the rest of the media. We maintain that Aldwych is *fairly* near Finsbury Square - at least from the perspective of America, the Moon, or a cold and hungry IT CEO sheltering in an orange plastic body bag... we're sorry we didn't credit CNN's excellent JOHN HOLLIMAN for the Russian life support system story [NTK 11/09/98], if only because he died in a car crash the next day (please note respectful lack of joke)... we've now read Martin Millar's MELODY PARADISE and can confirm it *is* as "quite good" as he says... popular figure of hacker scorn (and star of other fave tome, THE GREAT MAMBO CHICKEN) CAROLYN MEINEL wrote to demolish our DEFCON HERF gun story [NTK 07/08/98] : sadly, none of Carolyn's somewhat personal accusations stood up, apart from that, yep, it wasn't so much high-energy RF as *targetted* RF. But it still messed up shit, CM, and that's what counts at DEFCON... US crypto mavens wrote in to say that the "Doorbell" physical backdoor to routers mentioned in NTK 18/09/98 was an ingenious political manoevre to split the law-enforcement and security camps in the US: yah we knew that, but we still think moving the battle to the ISP is opening a whole new can of worms... and finally, a model third party apology from Irish TV show TechTV, as the sysop explains *exactly* what happened - http://www.ntk.net/apology/ - now that's presidential... >> 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 "a big smut jamboree on the internet" http://www.denizine.com/features/starr/ NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. 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