As the founder and owner of ComputerLand, William Millard, 53, built a billion-dollar business on an old-fashioned notion: it is better to be feared than loved. Since the firm's start in 1976, Millard has ruled his 1,100 employees and more than 800 franchisees with an autocrat's hand, making unilateral decisions and railing against anyone who challenged his judgment. Until recently, that style worked wonders. ComputerLand is the world's largest chain of computer stores, with 820 outlets in 24 countries, ...

Little kids still ring ryan Boatright's doorbell, wondering if the future University of Southern California point guard can come outside to play. During a recent family dinner at T.G.I. Friday's, as dessert crept dangerously close to the start of a movie at the mall, panic swept over Ryan's face. He looked as if he'd rather do a month's worth of dishes than spend another second of Saturday night with his family. In other words, Ryan Boatright is 14 years old. ...

LORI CROWN THOUGHT she was doing the right thing last year when she moved to a dryer climate in Bakersfield, California, after being plagued by asthma attacks during her six years in Hawaii. A few months later, Crown, 35, was suffering from severe headaches, a prolonged fever of 102 degreesF, swollen feet and painful bumps on her hands and legs. The diagnosis: "valley fever," or coccidioidomycosis, a dust-borne disease caused by the microscopic spores of a fungus, Coccidioides immitis. As ...

Although supercomputers are dazzling in their power and engineering virtuosity, hardware alone will only partly achieve the eventual goal of computer scientists: the creation of systems that can mimic the decision- making powers of human beings. This goal is called AI, for artificial intelligence, and it has eluded computer programmers for decades. Now, however, even as supercomputers open up new worlds of possibility, researchers are taking major strides toward making their machines both smarter and more versatile. Their work has ...

"I don't have a dad," says Megan, 8, a tiny blond child with a pixie nose who gazes up at a visitor and talks of her hunger. "Well, I do have a dad, ; but I don't know his name. I only know his first name, Bill." Just what is it that fathers do? "Love you. They kiss you and hug you when you need them. I had my mom's boyfriend for a while, but they broke up." Now Megan ...

When her husband Dominique Strauss-Kahn was preparing to run for President of France five years ago, Anne Sinclair told a Paris newspaper that she was "rather proud" of his reputation as a ladies' man, a chaud lapin nicknamed the Great Seducer. "It's important," she said, "for a man in politics to be able to seduce." Maybe it was pride that inspired French politicians and International Monetary Fund officials to look the other way as the rumors about "DSK" ...

Engaged. Helen Douglas Robinson, daughter of onetime Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Mrs. Theodore Douglas Robinson; and one John Arthur Hinckley; in Manhattan.Married. Bainbridge Colby, 59, Wilsonian Secretary of State; and a Mrs. Anne Von Ahlstrand Ely, 39, in Brooklyn. Last month he was divorced at Reno by Mrs. Nathalie Sedgwick Colby, from whom he had sought divorce in Paris; with whom he had a $1,500-per-month agreement to keep her from ridiculing him in her writings. Married. Weston R. Shipstead, 20, ...

ITEM: At a dinner party in New York's Westchester County, the dessert includes grapes. The hostess notices that her fellow suburbanites fall to with gusto; the guests from Manhattan unanimously abstain. ITEM: At St. Paul's, a fashionable New Hampshire prep school, grapes are the only part of the meal invariably left untouched. ITEM: In San Francisco, a Safeway official observes: "We have customers who come to the store for no other reason than to buy grapes. They'll load ...

Just a few years ago, Samsung was the brand you bought if you couldn't afford Sony or Toshiba. Suddenly it's the name that consumers all over the world--especially young ones--seek out for the most fun and stylish models of everything from cell phones to flat-panel plasma TVs. One of the driving forces behind that transformation is Eric Kim, who was reared by Korean parents in Southern California and returned to his homeland to work as head of global marketing for ...

As they do at countless collegiate parties everywhere, the couples wriggled to the watusi and gyrated to the jerk, while recorded drums and saxophones resounded in the dimly lit apartment of a University of California student in Berkeley. Unlike parties most anywhere, however, the boys and girls were naked. After a while some of the couples drifted into bedrooms. Some embraced in darkened corners. First it was free speech, then filthy speech. Now it is free love, as students, former ...