The demon spawn of AOL and "Weakest Link"?

Love her or hate her, NBC's "Weakest Link" host Anne Robinson has etched her signature, prim "Goodbye!" into our brains, if not our hearts.

A more succinct diss, there could not be. "Goodbye!"

There's only one other place you can hear that word uttered quite so memorably: America Online, which issues a chipper "Goodbye!" every time a user logs off. So, why not merge the two? NBC could run AOL ads on its network in exchange for Anne Robinson's voice replacing the current AOL signoff. For an extra few hundred mill, her scolding face could pop up on your final AOL screen to intone: "Goodbye!"

It's the perfect cross-marketing match made in hell: "The Weakest Link," brought to you by America Online, brought to you by "The Weakest Link," and so on.

All we ask is for a 5 percent cut of any deal. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [4:25 p.m. PDT, May 3, 2001]

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Workers of the World Wide Web, revolt! Or not.

In these mean times of mass layoffs with no notice or severance, it might seem to be a fertile time for labor organizing in Silicon Valley. Now that the promise of insta-wealth appears more and more chimerical, those 80-hour work-weeks just aren't as fun as they used to be.

Are the cube farms of Mountain View and the server rooms of Santa Clara rife with worker-revolt? Will the workers of the World Wide Web throw off their chains? We can hear the battle-cries now: Shut-down the white-collar sweatshop! Bring back the 40-hour work week! Vive la revolution!

Not so fast.

Judging from the latest announcement from the Northern California Human Resource Association, there's not a whole lot of fear and trembling going on among the human resources set about downtrodden tech employees banding together to further their lot.

The organization had planned a workshop called "Responding to Unionization: Technology Firms Managing Through Economic Downturns." The event would have given executives living in fear of employee rebellion an audience with a panel of labor attorneys who promised to "address legal and practical issues surrounding potential unionization of disgruntled technology workers."

But the workshop has been canceled for lack of interest. Only one would-be union-queller signed up. And since then, even this concerned executive has called off plans to attend.

Maybe it was because the event was to be held in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, Calif., far north of the core of the Valley action. Or, maybe it was because, sadly, with a few exceptions, old-fashioned worker-organizing is the least of the worries that tech companies are confronting right now. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [3:55 p.m. PDT, May 2, 2001]

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Social Security, Las Vegas-style

Want security in your old age? Have you considered betting on the stock market?

In these dog days for NASDAQ, touting the security that comes from stock market investing might seem like a cause best left to the terminally futile. But as we reported in "Social Security and the big bad bear" last month, the recent quavers in the stock market have not dampened President Bush's enthusiasm for putting some Social Security funds into the stock market. Quite the contrary --- the president is moving forward, full speed ahead.

Bush announced Wednesday his appointments to a commission that will recommend a redesign of the Social Security system. The appointees are largely proponents of privatization; they include commission co-chairs Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, and AOL Time Warner Inc. executive Richard Parsons, a Republican.

Privatization advocates argue that, for the long-term, putting some portion of retirement dollars in the market is a safer bet, but critics, like House minority leader Dick Gephardt expressed "shock," according to MSNBC, that the President could push such a plan given Wall Stret's recent woes. --Katharine Mieszkowski [12:15 p.m. PDT, May 2, 2001]

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Apple's new iBook: Born to be dirty

The folks at Apple really thought of everything when they were developing the new iBook, revelaed to the public for the first time by CEO Steve Jobs at a Tuesday press conference. The redesigned consumer laptop incorporates just about everything on your wish list: It's tiny (a mere 9 inches by 11 inches, marginally larger than a sheet of paper, and just 1.3 inches thick) and light (4.9 pounds). It has a fancy new display, which squeezes 60 percent more pixels into a 12-inch screen. It boasts FireWire, USB, Ethernet, a RGB video port, built-in AirPort wireless Internet access and a 56Kbps modem; and it comes with either a CD-ROM or DVD player, a CD burner or a fancy new DVD-CD burner combo drive. And it's cheap: Prices start at $1,299.

Best of all, the iBook has a sleek new design that closely resembles the Titanium G4 PowerBook's simple lines. As Jobs theatrically held the laptop up for press approval, he proudly boasted about the new look: "It's really clean."

Alas, this was soon proven to be not quite the case. And in fact, it's the one thing that Apple didn't really think through. See, the new iBook is white -- a lovely, snowy, glossy white plastic. And we all know how white plastic holds up under dirty fingers. After only a few of the press conference attendees had touched the laptop, the pristine white cover of the iBook was visibly smudged with greasy fingerprints.

Considering that these laptops are at the center of Apple's renewed education program -- Jobs was quick to boast that a Virginia school district had already ordered 23,000 iBooks -- it strikes this reporter that perhaps white wasn't the right color to choose. Perhaps red -- the color of ketchup and spaghetti sauce -- or brown -- the color of Snickers bars and Oreos -- would have been a wiser choice for a laptop intended for children. Or maybe Apple will wise up and ship the iBook with a new must-have laptop accessory: white cotton gloves. -- Janelle Brown [1:30 p.m. PDT, May 1, 2001]

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Why Napster can't count to 4

Last week, Napster apologized to its users for "overblocking" the service. In order to comply with the strict preliminary injunction, Napster was required to install filters that would also block legitimately traded music, the company explained.

Wondering just how stringent those filters are? Try searching Napster for anything with the number "4" in it. You won't find the band 4 Non Blondes, the album "4" by Foreigner, "I Would Die 4 U" by Prince, or volume 4 and track number 4 of any album. Any band that has the number 4 in its name or its music is now blocked from the service -- including bands that might want their music on Napster.

Why the sudden blocking of 4? Napster won't comment specifically, but a good guess is that too many wily Napster users were substituting the number 4 for the word "for": say, trying to nab Janet Jackson's "All For You" (the current No. 1 hit on the Billboard chart) by renaming it "All 4 you."

As Napster currently apologizes in a statement on their Web site's front door: "While many of the variations in artist and title names are the natural result of individuals naming their own files, some of the variations are deliberate attempts to evade the filters and share material over the Napster service that would otherwise be blocked." According to a company spokesperson, Napster hopes to reduce the filters as soon as they figure out the best system.

At the moment, you can still search for other numbers. But we wonder: How long the number "7" will survives as the band S Club 7 creeps up the Billboard charts? And of course, the success of the Beatles' album "1" may bode poorly for that number, too. It's truly a shame 4 all users. -- Janelle Brown [11:15 a.m. PDT, April 30, 2001]

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Fantasy Death Row: The game

Play with death. That seems to be the motto of a new Web site that's bound to offend some viewers -- and then maybe win them back, once they take a closer look.

Fantasy Death Row offers prizes to those players who successfully predict which inmates will be granted leave of their execution. It's essentially a spinoff of the fantasy football games popularized by ESPN: Players pick three inmates who are scheduled to die. If the inmates are killed, the house picks up points; if their sentence is stayed or postponed, the player collects. And on Dec. 31, the three highest-scoring players will be sent prizes that include "one $75 gift card from Bed, Bath and Beyond that has $68.34 left on it" and a ticket to Huntsville, Texas, home of the prison that's best known for putting people to death.

Who knows if the site's founders -- the comedians at Mouth Full of Liquor -- will ever actually cough up the goodies. But, oddly enough, once you get past the jokey format, the site has value on its own. It contains a wide array of useful links to death penalty information, including clemency patterns and a racial breakdown of Texas inmates on death row. Whether you're for or against capital punishment (the site owners claim to be neither), Fantasy Death Row is actually a good source of death penalty facts and figures. Who says comedians only care about getting a laugh? -- Damien Cave [2:10 p.m. PDT, April 26, 2001]

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