December 8, 1999

Not since Hal 9000 toyed so brazenly with Keir Dullea in ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' has a demented product of the computer world posed such a diabolical threat to humankind. In Arthur Kopit's grim and tedious ''Y2K,'' however, it's a mousepad, not a launch pad, that sets the evildoing in motion and the instigator this time is a flesh-and-blood computer geek rather than a collection of circuits gone haywire. The villain of Mr. Kopit's slender play is, in fact, quite a twisted piece of humanity, a hacker who goes by the name of Costa Astrakhan and gets his jollies by breaking into the computer files of a successful New York couple.

Cendant to Pay $2.8 Billion To Settle Shareholder Suit Cendant has agreed to pay its stockholders $2.8 billion to settle accusations of accounting fraud that wiped out billions in the company's market value. The settlement is the largest ever in a securities class-action suit.

A streamlining process designed to add value for consumers of content by reducing their comprehension experience is currently being efforted by public-sector entities and bleeding-edge corporations. Huh?

THERE is a changing rhythm in the workplace, a new dance between employer and employee. Workers are proclaiming that their lives count, and managers are responding with everything from job sharing to on-site lactation rooms. I am a beneficiary of this evolution, and a champion of it. But I never stopped to focus on how it looks like from the other side -- the boss's side -- until my baby sitter had a baby. That little girl was two months old when her mother broke the news that she had decided to shorten her workweek to four days, from five. I was racing to finish a book at the time, and I needed her eight days a week, not four. But I adored this woman. More important, my sons adored her. She had been picking them up at school since before they could remember, and they so loved their afternoons at her house that they periodically asked to move in.

With the biotechnology industry repeatedly denounced as the creators of ''Frankenfoods,'' at least one company is working behind the scenes to get groups of church members, union workers and the elderly to speak in favor of genetically engineered foods. Last week, the Monsanto Company helped pay for a demonstration in Washington by about 100 members of a Baptist church, according to an organizer of the protest. The church's members marched around a group of anti-biotechnology advocates who were dressed as giant monarch butterflies.