0

Now
Available

NOKIA

Cyber Spot reviews and Web site addresses are now on JN Online:

www.detroitjewishnews.corn

8860

Y2K Intrigue

Mix a Microsoft clone, world domination
and the Bible to achieve a story to save the Earth.

JOSHUA PAUL CANE
Web Producer

IC

Actual Size

THE NEW NOKIA 8860 PHONE IS A SEAMLESS BLEND OF
ART, DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY. SMALL ENOUGH TO BE
DISCREET, YET STYLISH ENOUGH TO BE NOTICED. IT'S
THE SMALL PHONE THAT MAKES QUITE A STATEMENT.
THE NOKIA 8860. PEOPLE WILL TALK.

JOSHUA LUTZ

PHONE

FAX

248.761.1111

248.543.1812

JOSH@PROWIRELESS.COM

AT&T Digital

AT&T

Authorized
Dealer

One

Rate"

600

1000

1400

MINUTES

MINUTES

MINUTES

$ 89" $ 119" $ 1149"

A MONTH *

A MONTH *

A MONTH *

No roaming or long distance charges across 50 states."

NOW YOU CAN TAKE YOUR WIRELESS PHONE FROM ONE SIDE OF

THE COUNTRY TO THE OTHER. WITH AT&T DIGITAL ONE RATE

, sm

ROAMING AND LONG DISTANCE ARE A THING OF THE PAST.
EVERY CALL IS LIKE A LOCAL CALL. IT'S SO SIMPLE, YOUR
WIRELESS PHONE MAY BECOME YOUR ONLY PHONE.
OTHER AT&T WIRELESS PCS SERVICES INCLUDE FAMILY PLANS,
GROUP CALLING AND PERSONAL NETWORK. CALL FOR INFORMATION!

* REQUIRES A NEW ANNUAL DIGITAL SERVICE AGREEMENT WITH
AT&T WIRELESS SERVICES. ACTIVATION REQUIRES DMN HARDWARE.
ONE RATE CUSTOMER MUST RESIDE WITHIN ONE RATE ELIGIBILITY
AREA. DOMESTIC CALLS ONLY. CREDIT CARD CALLS EXCLUDED.

10/29
1999

eep remind-
ing yourself
its fiction."
That's a nec-
essary caveat author
Edwin Black thoughtful-
ly included in his debut
novel about the much-
hyped and controversial
date: Jan. 1, 2000.
The Millennium Bug.
A computer industry
megalomaniac. An apoc-
alyptic showdown. Trifles for the read-
ers of Black's Format C: (Brookline
Books, $24.95). The novel's real-life
implications are far more alarming.
Gripping and satirical, this tech
adventure whisks you from Chicago to
Washington, D.C., to Jerusalem to
Har Megiddo for a final battle for
control of your computer and your
soul.
The story's impetus is Y2K, the
very real flaw of many computers,
which, if not corrected, will cause
them to misinterpret the double zero
of 2000 for 1900. Ben Hinnom, the
world's wealthiest man and founder of
the Seattle-based Hinnom
Computing, promises that his compa-
ny will solve the Millennium Bug
problem in time, despite being in the
midst of senatorial hearings that
charge him and his company with
monopolizing the industry.
Very quickly the reader learns of
Hinnom's cutthroat practices that have
left many rivals quashed, absorbed or
dead. And Hinnom has far more sinis-
ter plans for humanity. If he has his
way, the entire world will come to
depend on his new operating system,
Windgazer, which will be eternally
beta, requiring daily patches and
upgrades that Hinnom can choose to
withhold from individuals, businesses
and governments.
Determined to stop him are
investigative journalist Dan Levin,
his new techie girlfriend, Park, and
her adopted son and computer whiz,
Sal.
As they uncover the deeper and

deeper levels of
Hinnom's plans for the
next millennium, Sal
becomes a receiver of
ancient secrets that
spell out how to save
humanity.
Though Jan. 1, 2000,
is on the Christian cal-
endar, many of the
novel's themes are
uniquely Jewish.
Shadows of the
Holocaust loom in
Levin's mind. He's
haunted by his parents'
stories of their ordeals
in the Polish forests. Their past seems
the total of Levin's Jewish identity. His
secular lifestyle is disparaged by the
rebbes and Torah scholars in Israel.
The mysteries of kabbala and
numerology and the discovery of hid-
den scrolls are thrown in as prophetic
weapons against Hinnom.
But these twists come across as con-
trived. In fact, there are many places
in the novel where you must suspend
disbelief for the sake of continuance of
plot.
Still Format C: is an engrossing
story and makes a few frighteningly
plausible points. Mainly, how far will
we allow technology to control our
lives? And who is allowed to control
that technology in our office PCs, in
our cars, in our pacemakers?
Unfortunately, the author doesn't
flesh out these veins of thought. The
book becomes more of a biblical,
end-of-the-world cataclysm that is
far less likely than the already insidi-
ous nature of our technology, which
if suddenly withheld, could truly
spell our doom. 1-1

Edwin Black will speak at the
Jewish Book Fair 8 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 10, at the D.
Dan & Betty Kahn Jewish
Community Center in West
Bloomfield, co-sponsored by the
Greenspan, Hoffman and
Rosenberg Chapter, City of
Hope.

