Clinton's State of the Union speech made no mention of science, for the second year in a row. Robert L. Park says that basic science isn't under attack, it's just not controversial. Science funding is being vetoed only because it's embedded in controversial appropriations bills. [WHAT'S NEW, 1/26/96.] (NSF is under another continuing resolution, until 3/15/96.)

Capitol Hill received more than 2,000 contacts from physicists in four days, after a call to action from the APS. Several other societies also prodded their memberships to act. "Surprised Appropriations Committee staff said that no one from NSF or OSTP had made them aware of the severity of the problem." [Robert L. Park, WHAT'S NEW, 1/26/96.]

NSF is holding fast to deadlines that fell during recent shutdowns, but later deadlines may be extended. NATO Postdoctoral Fellowships in Science and Engineering including Special Fellowship Opportunities for Visiting Scientists from Cooperation Partner Countries (NSF 96-9) has been extended from 1/22/96 to 2/22/96. For other extension announcements, see (NSF Post-Shutdown Information) or the February/March NSF Bulletin. Or contact your program officer. [Jean I. Feldman , grants, 1/29/96.]

NSF has revised its announcements for Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (NSF 95-112); International Opportunities for Scientists and Engineers (NSF 96-14); Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NSF 96-31); and Management of Technological Innovation (NSF 96-27). [grants, 1/29/96.] (You can FTP them from stis.nsf.gov.)

NSF's New Technologies Program (ASC), Microelectronics Systems Architecture Program (MIPS), and Computer Systems Program (CCR), in collaboration with ARPA and NASA, are soliciting proposals for "point design" studies of high- performance computing environments. Point design refers to a proposed architecture plus programming environment. Six to eight grants of up to $100K each will be awarded for studies of 100 TeraOps systems feasible in a decade or so. Proposals are due 4/1/96. Grantees are expected to attend the PetaFlops architecture workshop (Oxnard, CA, 4/96), and the PetaFlops software summer study (Bodega Bay, CA, 6/96), and to submit a final written point design by 11/1/96. Foreign scientists visiting US academic institutions may apply, and proposals involving academic/industry collaborations are especially welcome. John Van Rosendale, , (703) 306-1962, (703) 306-0632 Fax. [ciselist, 1/26/96.]

Apple has hired Heidi Roizen, 37, as VP of Developer Relations. She's a developer herself, co-founder (with her brother) of T/Maker -- the Mountain View company that made it big in Mac/PC clip art, fonts, desktop publishing software, and children's CD ROMs. She has a Stanford MBA and was president of the Software Publishers Association for several years. "After running T/Maker for 13 years, I was ready to do something new." Roizen is . [DaveNet, 1/25/96. Also SJM, 1/26/96, 1C.] (T/Maker has been sold to a check-printing company, and will continue under marketer John Tompane. The corporation has about 100 employees.)

Dave Winer has put up source code for MacBird Runtime and a new manual for the Frontier scripting language on his website, . Code contributions from Mac hackers are welcome. [, DaveNet, 1/28/96.] (He and Guy Kawasaki are excited about having someone at Apple who understands and cares about independent developers. A renaissance is possible.)

Rumors have been flying about Apple possibly being sold to Sun for $4B. Cooperative ventures would make more sense for Sun, though. It's likely that Sun offered $23/share and Apple is insisting on at least the current market value of $33/share -- after having turned down IBM's offer of $40/share two years ago. Sony might bid higher than Sun, but there's really no reason for the company to be up for sale. Apple has twice the revenues of Sun, and great prospects. 10% market share isn't bad for a premium product, demand is ahead of supply, disappointment with Windows 95 is spreading, and Apple's bad quarter (or year, or two) is hardly unusual for high-tech companies. Mercedes had a much worse year, and it's not for sale.

A 4,000-person survey by Government Computer News (1/8/96) rated MacOS 7.5 above MS DOS and Windows alternatives in compatibility, power/speed, ease of use, memory use, installation, documentation, interface, CD ROM customization, and enhancements. Windows 95 was rated superior only in multitasking and price. [Chris Habig , MacWay, 1/16/96.] (Macs can transfer files in a background window while you get work done in another, but not all web browsers have implemented the capability. The chief advantage of preemptive multitasking is keeping a CPU running when one of its processes wedges. Anyway, Macs should have it in another year.)

MacUser is archiving a reduced version of EvangeList, at . The MacUser site also offers a Utility of the Month, Editor's Choice Awards (), and articles from the magazine. . For notification of new content, send a "subscribe" subject line or message to . [Jason Snell , MacWay, 12/14/95.]

Macworld magazine has eliminated sign-in requirements for many of its website services, including current and back issues of Macworld. (The message boards and vendor areas still gather demographic data for advertisers.) . [GD, TidBITS, 10/30/95.]

Macworld UK Online is updated biweekly. . [Liz W. Tompkins , newjour, 12/23/95.]

MacSense can be found at . A PCSense should also be available now. [Roy Chartier , net-hap, 10/18/95.]

The Windows 95 QAID (Question - Answer - Information - Database) is a large collection of Windows 95 information. . [, net-hap, 12/19/95.]

PC Today includes reviews and thousands of products for comparison shopping. . [, newjour, 12/27/95.]

Newsbytes now has online archives and subscription service at , plus free daily top stories from Newsbytes, MacWeek, PC Week, and other Ziff publications. $24.95 for 3 months (individual). A Japanese version is at the Newsbytes Pacifica Web site, . [Network News, 10/29/95.]

Internet Business Journal is offering its 2/96 issue free at . This includes guides to demographic surveys, advertising costs, and the Pegasus mailer. [Aneurin Bosley , net-hap, 1/16/96.]

The Online Column is Steve Kelley's weekly newspaper column covering books, shareware, and online services issues. See , or write to for email subscriptions. [newjour, 11/5/95.] (His Halloween column was very good. I'll bet he does another for Valentine's Day.)

To find other computer/software magazine websites, visit the Top 100 list at . [Liz W. Tompkins , net-hap, 12/13/95.]

Windows NT has passed OS/2 in 1995 server sales, with Netware losing customers. [IDC. SNS, 1/28/96.]

Microsoft has found Windows 95 sales somewhat slow, with companies waiting until hardware upgrades are needed for other reasons. Many will then upgrade to NT instead of 95, since users are reporting problems configuring Windows 95. [MacWay, 1/31/96.]

Computer memory chip prices are finally dropping. That will help bring down computer prices as well. Investors in chip plants are worried, though. [Dean Takahashi, SJM, 1/22/96, 1E.]

C|Net offers a review of more than 40 Pentium-class PCs on . Use search criteria to select the reviews you need, from . [Network News, 12/30/95.]

Intel is giving about $700K in "computer gear" to Cal Tech for its EE department, Center for Neuromorphic Systems Engineering, and an NSF engineering research center. [IBD, 1/15/96, A6. EDUPAGE.]

IBM is abandoning its 3-year effort to port OS/2 to the PowerPC chip. "Demand hasn't developed." IBM will still develop OS/2 products for Intel chips. [WSJ, 1/26/96, B3. EDUPAGE.] (That leaves the PowerPC to Mac OS, for now. If Mac OS is ported to Sun's RISC chips, Motorola could lose market share.)

Novell has sold its WordPerfect unit to Corel, the Canadian paint software company. [SNS, 1/28/96.] (The WordPerfect editor for Macintosh has been getting good reviews.)

"There's a club, here in Silicon Valley, of people with great stage presence, people with interesting names, or interesting backgrounds, who make sense to investors and CEOs of big companies. They run software ventures. Usually they run them right into the ground! They're all white. They're all boys. They make huge money. They get in the way. They contribute nothing. They know how to manage large things. (Not!) They speak at industry conferences. They get quoted a lot. Press releases are written about them. They form alliances. They buy things they don't understand. They move into something that's hot, and make it cold. ... And they make shitloads of money doing this." -- Dave Winer, DaveNet, 12/22/95.

"Companies are not people, and companies are not happy places. They emit what they have. Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt! ... To the users -- wake up! You can't depend on the business press and trade weeklies to keep you informed on technological developments on the Internet. They're caught up in a huge trance, they believe this FUD crap really means something." -- Dave Winer , DaveNet, 12/8/95.

Dave Winer notes that the culture surrounding Java is changing, to require managers and personnel departments and meetings. Developers Kim Polese, Arthur van Hoff, Sami Shaio, and Jonathan Payne are pulling out to form "one of the hottest startups that Silicon Valley has ever seen," still unnamed. Polese, , will be the CEO of the Java-related company. The story was reported on , an interesting and irreverent "insider" publication. [, DaveNet, 1/26/96.]

Virtual companies -- fluid alliances of smaller organizations -- can be flexible, responsive, and cheap to pull together, but they don't work well for "systemic" innovations that must be integrated to form a new product line. IBM's PC business shows that you also need to control design (e.g., patents) or manufacturing so that other virtual companies can't compete. [Henry W. Chesbrough and David J. Teece, Harvard Business Review, 1/96, p. 65. NewtNews, 1/23/96.] (Intel is strong today partly because it didn't hollow out when other US chip makers did. Intel needed in-house chip production to guarantee quality and delivery schedules. For start-ups, though, alliances and contract work can make a lot of sense.)

Eric Schmidt, CTO at Sun Microsystems, believes that companies should be formed from large numbers of small teams. "Unix was developed by two people. Java was done by a team of less than five, Mosaic was done by two to four people, and the Mac system was done by about 12 people. Even DOS was actually developed by only two people." [IBD, 1/17/96, A1. EDUPAGE.]

ECLiPSe: expert system using constraint handling rules.

Sugal 2.1: genetic algorithms package.

"Intelligent Agents II": book ed. by Wooldridge, Mueller, and Tambe.

"Intelligent Systems for Finance and Business": book ed. by Goonatilake and Treleaven.

AgentNews: agent technology newsletter from Tim Finin, UMBC.

Eliza: simulated psychologist, with Mac speech I/O.

FS-ATC 3.1: AI-based air traffic control for Microsoft Flight Simulator Macintosh 4.0, with speech I/O.

KeepTalking: WWW chat service for individuals or groups.

NTK 1.6: Newton Toolkit for the Mac.

SquareNote 3.5: note organization and retrieval, for PCs.

CyberSearch 2.0: CD ROM of the Lycos website database.

HTML Reference Library 2.1: documentation of HTML syntax.

"It's hard to love an engineer/scientist. Sometimes it feels like trying to love your vacuum cleaner. It does the job. It is steady. It is reliable. It doesn't dazzle, polish, pet, or make you feel squishy." -- Jean Hollands, "The Silicon Syndrome: How to Survive a High-Tech Relationship."

Need Valentine's Day items? is ready for you. [, net-hap, 1/17/96.]

Online cards for Valentine's Day and other holidays are free on The Pad, from George A. Dillon. Also sound files and audio-visual effects, and links to other sites. . [, c.i.www.announce, 12/19/95. net-hap.] (Looks best with Netscape.)

Create a free valentine with a cartoon cat or dog. . [, net-hap, 1/19/96.]

Webcards sends customized greeting cards over the Internet. . [, net-hap, 1/27/96.]

You can leave Valentine messages, propose marriage, or download music from the VALENTINES FOREVER site, . [Eric Manno , net-hap, 1/25/96.]

Or browse expressions of love in poetry, images, and sounds at . [, net-hap, 1/26/96.]

-- Ken