Articles
Selected articles, book reviews, and interviews through the years.
Hacker Generations
By Richard Thieme This article was published simultaneously in the program for Def Con 11 (August 2003), on the hactivismo and Linux World (Australia) web sites, and in the Dutch information security magazine Informatiebeveiliging which is published by Genootschap...
A Review of “Intelligence” by Susan Hasler
Intelligence by Susan Hasler (Thomas Dunne Books. St. Martin’s Press: New York 2010) A review by Richard Thieme There is enough white-hot rage in this book to steam a skunk. Take that as a compliment. Twenty-one years at the CIA in diverse capacities would generate...
Straight Talk on Useability
Straight Talk I write an column called “Islands in the Clickstream” that is disseminated over the Internet. It’s about our interaction with new technologies and the larger issues of our lives that they raise. One reader wrote that more and more of my columns were...
Interview with David MacMichael, former CIA Analyst, US Marine and historian
Interview with David MacMichael by Richard Thieme David MacMichael is a former CIA Analyst, US Marine and historian. He was a senior estimates officer with special responsibility for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the CIA's National Intelligence Council from 1981 to...
We Are the Freedom People: An Interview with Jennifer Granick
We’re the Freedom People March 2001 An Interview with WITH JENNIFER GRANICK Attorney Jennifer Granick has made a career out of defending the "little guys"--a mission that takes on added dimension in her new post at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and...
Computer Power and the Power of God
originally published in The Christian Century Computer Power and the Power of God by Richard Thieme Four years ago, I wrote an essay on computer applications for spirituality. As I discussed specific applications, I realized that something more essential than the...
Computer Applications for Spirituality
By Richard Thieme This formal theological essay was originally written in 1988. It was quite dated when published by the Anglican Theological Review in 1993. The transition from a culture created by the technology of print to one created by electronic processing of...
The Future of Networks: the Future of the World
By Richard Thieme I am not a futurist, but I take solace in the knowledge that most futurists aren't either. Futurists usually describe the present, not the future. Since ninety-five per cent of us haven't arrived at the present yet, it sounds like the future. To talk...
It’s True What They Say About Aging
It's True What They Say About Aging by Richard Thieme There are lots of funny stories about the erosion of physical and mental processes as we age, and it's true that when I meet old friends near my age (73) or older, we often spend the first half of the conversation...
The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved by Judith Freeman
If you love Raymond Chandler ... Reading these seven prior reviews, it stands out that all of them are pretty much right. The strengths of this book are its strengths and the weaknesses are its weaknesses. But that isn’t the whole story. The Long Embrace is a...
The Stock Market, UFOs and Religious Experience
The Stock Market, UFOs and Religious Experience reflections on a speech I have given for investment analysts, religious seekers, and other interested parties ... As a consultant and public speaker, I address a variety of issues: leadership, the uses of power, and the...