Robotech_Master writes "For a long time, A Fire Upon the Deep has been one of my favorite books. Combining interesting technological prognostication, fascinating concepts, amusing characters, and an enthralling story, this novel brings together science fiction and present-day science fact in a deeply compelling read. For a long time, this book had been available in electronic form from Palm Digital Media, and it was the first e-book I ever bought for my Palm PDA. Recently a new 'special edition' of the book was published electronically, containing the annotations that had previously only been available on the 1993 Hugo/Nebula CDROM, and I knew I had to make the purchase--and then, since I couldn't dig up any other mention of it on Slashdot, review it." Robotech Master warns that his (lengthy) review below of the updated version "contains some minor spoilers for plot, but not for ending."

Christina Schulman writes " Quicksilver, Volume One of the Baroque Cycle, is the new doorstop from Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon . It's set in late-seventeenth-century Europe, and while it has a few links to Cryptonomicon, you don't need to read Cryptonomicon first. A bit of background reading about the English Civil War wouldn't hurt, though." Schulman's review (below) is enough to whet the appetite, without major spoilers -- perfect for those of us who've been waiting since the end of Cryptonomicon for another 900 pages.

Today we present Piers Anthony's responses to Slashdot questions about topics ranging from Linux shortcomings to female sexuality. Piers asked us, in a followup email after we received his answers, if we considered them "too feisty." Hah! Is there such a thing as "too feisty" for Slashdot?

Slashback has updates tonight on nuclear-safe hosting facilities, the temporary return of Metricom's Ricochet service, and a possible problem with Apple's newest upgrade for anyone using Xfree86 under Mac OS X.

How will the new President affect the tech universe? In short: Fat times in the Corporate Republic, and possible abandonment of the Microsoft prosecution. Big media, telcom and chip-maker CEO's: go out and play, boys. The feds may go after "hackers" again, as Bush I did. Digital civil liberties issues will heat up as the Net Culture Wars return with a vengeance. Scientific research and politics will mix, as with RU-486 and some gene mapping issues. Open, de-centralized, bottom-up Net media will mushroom. Good times for tech defense workers and the makers of blocking software. Jump in with your own predictions.

Details of the Napster-Bertelsmann deal have been dribbling out all week, and they're interesting. Micro-payment subscription models are now the talk of drooling CEOs everywhere, many of whom think that Bertelsmann head Thomas Middlehoff has saved the idea of profitable intellectual property. Bertelsmann is clearly mulling the possibilities of open-media business models as well. Has Middlehoff found the perfect compromise, or has he jumped into the Big Muddy? (First in a series.)

There's been quite a number of "incidents" over the last year with web hosting companies that haven't lived up to their end of the bargin, or have had other problems. The most recent was the CiHost Drama, which is now, happily, finished. One of many people affected by that outage wrote a short piece for us - but I'm interested in what everyone thinks about web hosting. What's the good places? What's the bad? What pointers can you offer to everyone else? Click below to add your thoughts.

On November 10th 1999, Ramsey Electronics of Victor, New York, was raided by the United States Customs Service for allegedly manufacturing and distributing 'Electronic Surreptitious Intercept Devices' as defined by Title 18 USC, Section 2512. We spoke to both Ramsey Electronics President John Ramsey and Joel Violanti, the federal prosecutor on the case, to find out exactly what happened, and why. (Click below for more.)