Tracy Kidder is one of my role models, and part of the reason why I'm a writer. If I can come anywhere close to what he did with The Soul of a New Machine, I'll be happy. Now Kidder has written about Paul Farmer, who has done as much for Third World health care as anyone alive.

There are so many dissections of customer-hostile web sites that this one seems like piling on. Or would, if it weren't so accurate. AskTog: Top 10 Reasons to Not Shop On Line

You can't legislate culture. Many initiatives to encourage startups in areas dominated by big companies, even big technology companies, fail because no one wants to leave their secure big company job. Similarly, when communities try to prove how exciting and diverse they are, they usually demonstrate just the opposite. Culture is a bottom-up phenomenon; trying to create it from the top down doesn't work.