I sent this out by e-mail this morning to my Big List of Friends & Family — but on the off chance you’re not on that list, drop me a line so I can add you, and then read this — it’s something you should know about. You may or may not be familiar with […]

Watchfire Flips the Bird (April 28, 2003)

Here’s another example for the continuing saga of companies using EULAs to give their customers the shaft: Watchfire, the company behind the popular Bobby Web accessibility testing package, is using the EULA for their new Bobby 5.0 release to camouflage a major change to the way the software is licensed, and to deny refunds to […]

Where Leaders Fail, Part Three: Hubris (April 9, 2003)

An essay on the dangers of arrogance and overconfidence.

Where Leaders Fail, Part Two: Credibility Capital (March 6, 2003)

As a kid, I was a member of the Civil Air Patrol, the youth auxiliary of the Air Force. (At the time I thought I was going to grow up to be a fighter pilot… a not-terribly-unusual fantasy for an Air Force brat living in an Air Force town.) After a while I worked up […]

Dancing With the Devil (Cont.) (February 26, 2003)

After I posted my piece on Sy Hersh’s observations regarding Pakistan, I got to thinking about why I found them so provocative. After all, we all knew how much of a twisted little fellow Musharraf is, and how precarious his situation there is. (For those who don’t, all you need to know is that Musharraf […]

Where Leaders Fail, Part One: More Faster (February 21, 2003)

Probably the most common mistake I’ve seen leaders make under pressure is a dysfunction I call “More Faster” syndrome. To understand what I mean by this, picture a man on a treadmill. He’s running his poor little heart out, but he never seems to get anywhere. All that work and he’s not making any progress! […]

Rocket’s Red Glare (February 3, 2003)

You almost certainly by now have heard about Saturday’s catastrophic failure on board the Space Shuttle Columbia. The national conversation about this has already moved from the initial shock and grief into the deeper question of what this means for the Shuttle program specifically and U.S. manned space flight in particular. Here’s my two cents: […]

AOL Is Dead (January 14, 2003)

You’ve probably heard by now that Steve Case is leaving AOL/Time Warner. Naturally AOLTW shareholders are cheering, as they’re tired of watching their stock deflate, and they pin the blame on Case and his management of the merger. This is 100% wrong. Seeing Steve Case leave AOL should be a sad moment for anybody who […]

Airport Security: A Keystone Kops Production (December 31, 2002)

So I’m flying back to Washington, DC from Dayton, OH this evening after a nice, relaxing winter holiday, and when I arrive at the Dayton airport, I’m greeted with a bit of a surprise: they’ve got a new process for screening bags that you’re going to check in. Apparently the old way — handing the […]

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys (and Girls) Are Marching… (October 30, 2002)

So over the weekend I got talked into attending the big rally in downtown DC against war in Iraq. It was certainly a huge enough event; the organizers estimated 200,000 attendees, which I think is a little optimistic, but even so the sheer scale of the thing was impressive. I’ve written in this space before […]

The Case Against War (September 15, 2002)

Recently, a friend sent me an e-mail that made the case that anyone who was leery of launching a war against Iraq was motivated by ignorance, self-interest, or both. I know that now, with the war drums beating in the background, is probably not the ideal time to try and make the case for restraint. […]

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