Mud Stops Fans Headed to Phish Farewell (AP)

Grok Headline matches for Mud Stops Fans Headed to Phish Farewell (AP)

Jam Band Phish Takes Stage to Bid
Farewell (AP)

Jam Band Phish Takes Stage to Bid
Farewell (AP) 08/14/2004 10:49 PM
AP - Tens of thousands of fans screamed and danced Saturday in a fantasyscape of upside-down trees and silver sculptures for the first in a series of farewell concerts by the jam band Phish.

Fans bid farewell to Ray Charles

Fans bid farewell to Ray Charles 06/17/2004 09:09 PM
The body of musician Ray Charles lays on display to allow thousands of his fans to pay their respects.

Fans say farewell to diva Fassie

Fans say farewell to diva Fassie 05/22/2004 11:19 AM
Thousands of fans converge on a Cape Town stadium to pay their respects to the South African singer, Brenda Fassie.

A Small Victory - Lefties, Red Sox fans,
Mets fans - Get Your Money On!

A Small Victory - Lefties, Red Sox fans,
Mets fans - Get Your Money On! 04/23/2004 01:34 PM
SPIRIT OF AMERICA BLOGGER CHALLENGE: .. Lefties, Red Sox fans, and Mets fans .. offered a challenge .. Michele .. Mchele

asmallvictory.net/archives/006539.html
track this site | 6 links

the end of phish

the end of phish 05/25/2004 04:12 PM
Phish to break up, according to CNN.

Phish :: News

Phish :: News 05/26/2004 01:23 AM
An announcement from Trey: .. decided to call it quits .. Trey's note

phish.com/news/index.php?year=2004#story182
track this site | 4 links

Would You Get Caught? Go Phish!

Would You Get Caught? Go Phish! 04/12/2005 06:10 AM
A week ago, MailFrontier launched an online phishing IQ test to see just how many users would get caught out by e-mails they received. The results of the first week make scary reading. So far, nearly 12,000 people have tried the test - and 92% of them got at least one wrong answer.

In a similar US version, taken by more than 300,000 people, the average score was under 70%, The average UK user got seven out of ten - just 7% got them all right. In America, 96% got at least one answer wrong.

A MailFrontier spokesman said: "The 10 test emails are all real-life examples caught by our users. This means that, had they appeared in people's email systems in real life, a significant number would not be able to tell a real email from a fraudulent one."

View: MailFrontier | Take the UK test | Take the US test
View: VNUNet Coverage

Read full story...

Chromeless Phish

Chromeless Phish 06/16/2004 09:14 PM

When I built the visual spoofing demo, I could have done it in several ways including chromeless window but I went for the simplest way.  It turns out that some smart phisher recently launched a chromeless window-based phishing attack.  Following is screenshot of the browser window showing the phishing site which was still active at 11:51AM.

The webpage and the URL portion of the addressbar is fake.  What's happening is that the phishing site opened a chromeless window to overlay the fake URL over the real address which can be discerned by dragging another window over.  It's using a IE 5.5 specific feature to float the fake URL over everything.  The interesting thing about this trick is that it can potentially defeat many phishmark implementations such as my own 9-block phishmark.  PassMark and background-based phishmarks are still effective though.

the official phish.com

the official phish.com 05/27/2004 12:12 AM
Phish

phish.com
track this site | 3 links

Other News: Google Phish

Other News: Google Phish 09/16/2004 09:42 AM
"Gmail" is the latest hot word for "phishing" scammers.

Phish calls it quits?

Phish calls it quits? 05/25/2004 04:12 PM
An announcement from Trey: "So Coventry will be the final Phish show...For the sake of clarity, I should say that this is not like the hiatus, which was our last attempt to revitalize ourselves. We're done. It's been an amazing and incredible journey."

Cringely : Phish or Cut Bait

Cringely : Phish or Cut Bait 06/05/2005 11:27 PM
"Is the government now going to be telling me I'm sending too much e-mail? How much mail is too much? And what are they doing monitoring my e-mail, anyway? Will they next be clamping down on my unhealthy propensity for forwarding Jenna Bush jokes?"

MSNBC - Consumers still falling for
phish

MSNBC - Consumers still falling for
phish 07/30/2004 01:20 AM
Would those 28% please get offline and make room for smarter users? .. Fake e-mails fool users 28 percent of the time, study finds .. a lot of people .. MSNBC

msnbc.msn.com/id/5519990
track this site | 4 links

Zombie PCs phish, spam, harass on the
sly

Zombie PCs phish, spam, harass on the
sly 09/09/2004 07:05 AM
USA Today Sep 9 2004 11:36AM GMT

GeoTrust aims to get you off the phish
hook

GeoTrust aims to get you off the phish
hook 09/24/2004 03:41 AM
After the rather heavy discussions of policy over the past few weeks, I wanted to hang a "gone fishing" sign on my office door and take a break. Unfortunately, too many people, it seems, have "gone phishing" recently and it's time we at Identity Management Central took notice of it.

Users Find Too Many Phish in the
Internet Sea

Users Find Too Many Phish in the
Internet Sea 09/19/2004 09:09 PM
New York Times Sep 20 2004 0:40AM GMT

Tickets Sell Out for Phish Festival (AP)

Tickets Sell Out for Phish Festival (AP) 06/19/2004 07:35 PM
AP - Tickets for Phish's "Coventry" festival — the popular jam band's last concert — are sold out.

Phish Scams Fooling 28% of Users

Phish Scams Fooling 28% of Users 07/28/2004 04:45 PM

Companies Team Up To Catch Some Phish

Companies Team Up To Catch Some Phish 06/15/2004 09:08 PM
Anti-phishing software is not new. We wrote about it a couple months ago, when it looked like individual sites such as eBay were coming out with their own anti-phishing tools. For the most part, these were only helpful for very specific phishing scams (i.e., those directed at eBay users) and no one is interested in downloading a separate anti-phishing app for each and every site they visit. So, now, a group of tech companies and retailers are teaming up to come up with a standard method of fighting phishing scams. They call it the the Trusted Electronic Communications Forum (TECF) and hope to come up with a more standardized way of fighting phishing scams. Of course, since phishing is mostly a social engineering scam, it's unclear how much help a bit of technology will be in stopping it. The group admits that their goal isn't just to come up with technology solutions, but best practices and techniques to better track down the scammers. In other words, the goal is really just to educate both law enforcement and users about the risks of phishing scams. Of course, if Nigerian 419 scams are any example, it will be quite some time before they can reach those who are most vulnerable to these types of scams.

Con artists phish for campaign donors

Con artists phish for campaign donors 08/03/2004 07:49 PM
When that e-mail asks for a political contribution, make sure it's your candidate who's getting the money.

Zombie PCs phish, spam, harass

Zombie PCs phish, spam, harass 09/10/2004 01:44 AM
Usatoday.com - Thu Sep 9, 08:52 pm GMT

For lawmakers, identity theft a kettle
of phish

For lawmakers, identity theft a kettle
of phish 07/15/2004 06:53 AM
President Bush is set to sign into law a bill that mandates minimum sentences for ID fraudsters, including Net-reliant "phishers."

Zombie PCs spam, phish, harass on the
sly (USATODAY.com)

Zombie PCs spam, phish, harass on the
sly (USATODAY.com) 09/08/2004 12:26 PM
USATODAY.com - Criminals deploy zombies herded into netwoks of a few hundred to more than half a million compromised PCs. Uses vary from the simply annoying (spam attacks) to the unsavory and criminal.

The Register says Microsoft "phish" bug
remains officially patchless

The Register says Microsoft "phish" bug
remains officially patchless 01/22/2004 02:12 AM
The Register reports that "over one month after its discovery, there is no official patch available for a bug in Internet Explorer that lets swindlers pass off counterfeit websites as the real thing." I listened to this morning's monthly Microsoft...

Farewell

Farewell 03/26/2005 12:56 PM
Last night I cancelled my Tivo service. Like most companies, Tivo forces you to call them to cancel. I hate...

Farewell To Eyes Above And Below

Farewell To Eyes Above And Below 08/07/2004 10:42 AM

Farewell to Gravity

Farewell to Gravity 09/17/2004 06:08 AM
Wired News Sep 17 2004 9:54AM GMT

Farewell to Friends

Farewell to Friends 05/07/2004 08:57 AM
The hit NBC show moves on but parent company General Electric will fill the shoes capably.

Farewell HyperCard

Farewell HyperCard 04/21/2004 11:54 PM
More than 16 years since its original debut, HyperCard was pulled from Apple's site towards the end of last month (March 2004). Created by Bill Atkinson of the original Macintosh team, HyperCard was a kind of easy-to-use, visual database system / programming environment that put custom application development into the hands of the average person. It was one of the very first applications to implement the concept of hypertext / hyperlinking / hypermedia. Originally offered freely to all Mac users, HyperCard was embraced by so many and became the vehicle of so much custom development that even the author was taken aback.

A farewell to foams

A farewell to foams 07/28/2004 06:10 AM
USA Today Jul 28 2004 9:50AM GMT

'Friends' Set to Say Farewell on NBC
(AP)

'Friends' Set to Say Farewell on NBC
(AP) 05/06/2004 08:13 PM
AP - The fate of television's favorite on-again, off-again couple, Ross and Rachel, was headed for a resolution Thursday on the final episode of "Friends."

Vietnam and Farewell

Vietnam and Farewell 12/19/2004 03:40 PM
Thanks, again, for all the terrific comments on the O'Reilly show. I've learned a lot from them. I may write an op-ed about the experience. But for now, a few words about Vietnam. By the time we got to 1968, it was no longer possible to imagine a criminal prosecution of Gene McCarthy for opposing the war. Constitutional law and American culture had progressed to the point that it would have been unthinkable for the Johnson or Nixon administration to have treated antiwar leaders the way we once treated people like Matthew Lyon, Clement Vallandigham and Eugene Debs. But this doesn't mean the government couldn't find other ways to attack dissent. Prosecutions for draft-card burning, flag burning, and the public use of offensive language were frequently directed against antiwar protestors, not because the "crimes" were worth punishing, but because it was a way of "getting" those who offended government officials. More important, the government initiated an aggressive series of undercover programs -- COINTELPRO ("counterintelligence programs) designed to "expose, disrupt, and neutralize" the antiwar movement. FBI agents and confidential informants infiltrated antiwar organizations at every level to gather the names of those who opposed the nation's policy. When all was said and done, the government had compiled dossiers on half-a-million Americans. But the goal was not just to create files. It was to act against those who had the temerity to challenge the government. The Nixon administration launched IRS audits of those who contributed to antiwar organizations, the FBI sent letters to the landlords of antiwar activists informing them that their tenant was a "Communist," it sent anonymous letters to colleges and universities accusing antiwar activists of drug violations, it encouraged local police agencies to arrest war opponents for traffic and other offenses, and so on. The FBI also sent anonymous letters to members of antiwar organizations accusing other members of embezzling the organization's fund, sleeping with the partners of other members, and even being FBI agents. The goal was to confuse, demoralize, distract, and discredit those who opposed the war, without doing anything that could be seen. None of this was known to the public until 1972. Finally, a word about the Supreme Court. As we saw, in World War I, the Court upheld the convictions of antiwar protestors under the Espionage and Sedition Act. During World War II, the Court upheld the Japanese internment in Korematsu v. United States. During the Cold War, the Court in Dennis v. United States, decided in 1951, upheld the convictions of the leaders of the Communist Party of the United States on a charge that they had "conspired to advocate" the violent overthrow of government. As Justice Douglas put the point at the time, the Court had decided to "run with the wolves." This is not a very happy record. Indeed, the conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court will never resist the executive branch in wartime. This is overstated. During World War II, the Court held unconstitutional the efforts of the Roosevelt administration to deport American fascists; during the second half of the Cold War the Court took a strong stand against McCarthyism; during the Vietnam War, the Court rejected the Nixon administration's effort to enjoin the publication of the Pentagon Papers and rejected its claim that it had a constitutional power to engage in national security wiretaps without a warrant. Most recently, the Court rejected the extreme claims of the Bush administration with respect to the rights of the Guantanamo Bay detainees and the rights of American citizens held as "enemy combatants" by the United States military. We should not expect too little of the Supreme Court. Ultimately, though, the protection of civil liberties depends on an informed, determined, and courageous public. As Louis Brandeis once observed, "courage is the secret of liberty." May you all have the courage of your convictions. As Larry said when he introduced me, this is my virgin blog. It was great fun for me, and I hope he'll invite me back again sometime. I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year. Geof Stone

Farewell, my lovely...

Farewell, my lovely... 12/05/2003 11:27 AM

And so with a deep sigh I have consigned my beautiful Powerbook (which has been with me a such a very little time) back to the welcoming arms of Mother Apple. My child needs to be fixed. The strange mottling blotchiness of his screen had become worse and worse as the days passed by until they resembled nothing so much as a pair of staring blank eyes - evil eyes - that hovered in front of every piece of work I did, every movie I watched, every e-mail I sent. It's so difficult with beautiful computers - you love them (like a child), training and working with them until you operate as one (like a family) until eventually they betray you (like a child all over again). But when they turn sour that good feeling stays with you for longer - it's so difficult to do what must be done but do it you must. They must be sent off to faraway scientists who'll open them up with strange devices, rooting around in everything that makes them what they are and forcing their silicon biology back to standards that their parents can live with. They must be brought back to civilised behaviour whatever the cost.

Data may be lost - I accept that. The Powerbook that I gave to the rather nice-looking man from UPS may not feel or be quite the same when it returns. It will have been changed, fixed, broken and reformed. But when it returns it will work - and work it must - for I have typing to do.

A Fond Farewell

A Fond Farewell 03/06/2004 02:03 AM

Farewell to 2004

Farewell to 2004 12/24/2004 12:10 PM

Another year of gaming goodness has passed us by and another is on its way. It’ll be tough for 2005 to top 2004, what with Half Life 2, World of Warcraft, Halo 2 and Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War being only a few of the great titles we’ve had to choose from. Have we been spoiled? Can 2005 possibly match 2004? All we can do is wait and see. So, until next year, here’s some recent news and a few looks back at the past 12 months.

"his farewell speech as President"

"his farewell speech as President" 06/12/2004 03:16 AM

farewell, mister scott

farewell, mister scott 08/30/2004 05:45 PM
Over the years, I've had a few moments when I've been able to "touch" how influential Star Trek is, but nothing has ever been like Jimmy's Farewell Dinner. I'm honored that I got to be a part of both.

Read the entire entry @ WWdN.

Greece set for Games farewell

Greece set for Games farewell 08/29/2004 07:28 AM
Greece will bid farewell to the 2004 Olympic Games at Sunday's closing ceremony.

Friends bid farewell to Keating

Friends bid farewell to Keating 04/20/2004 09:58 AM
Gloria Hunniford, Sir Cliff Richard and Ant and Dec are among the mourners at the funeral of TV presenter Caron Keating.
Grok Description matches for Mud Stops Fans Headed to Phish Farewell (AP)
GrokA matches for Mud Stops Fans Headed to Phish Farewell (AP)

Stuck with a PIN

Stuck with a PIN 03/06/2004 02:08 AM
"Ah, yes. I had had the same brain system failure that Chris described - staring at the ATM and just not remembering that PIN! So now I write the PIN number on the back of each card, in the signature box. WAIT! No, I don't write the actual PIN. I use one 'formula' for all cards. For example, a formula could be to add 3333 to the actual numbers of your PIN. The new TOTAL is then written on the card. If this was your formula, you only have to subtract 3333 from the PIN written on the back of any card, and you will have the actual PIN for that card. Now, does anybody remember where I left my wallet?" (A. John Gallant)...

Help! I'm stuck in a TTL, and I can't
get out!

Help! I'm stuck in a TTL, and I can't
get out! 07/27/2004 09:38 PM
ZDNet Jul 28 2004 2:02AM GMT

Stuck On The iPod

Stuck On The iPod 02/19/2004 06:04 PM
Steve Jobs just made me buy another iPod. And that ticks me off. By Patrick Regnier (Money Magazine via MyAppleMenu)

Stuck on Chuck E.

Stuck on Chuck E. 02/19/2004 10:06 AM
CEC Entertainment proves that there's money to be made in catering to kids.

Stuck Like Chuck

Stuck Like Chuck 02/05/2005 09:02 PM
Stuck Like Chuck - A Philadelphia writer's sad, brief but captivating observations of another's seemingly constant return to self-destruction; in turn, unflinchingly relating his own struggle.

MCI Stuck on Verizon

MCI Stuck on Verizon 04/06/2005 11:49 AM
TheStreet.com Apr 6 2005 3:21PM GMT

Stuck in the middle?

Stuck in the middle? 04/15/2005 09:45 AM
CNET Asia Apr 15 2005 2:19PM GMT

Fisherman Saves Man Stuck in Mud in S.C.
(AP)

Fisherman Saves Man Stuck in Mud in S.C.
(AP) 04/14/2004 10:33 AM
AP - A man bass fishing ended up a hero Monday, saving a man who was stuck in the mud up to his chest in Lake Conestee.

W.Va. Woman Gets Stuck in Two Sinkholes
(AP)

W.Va. Woman Gets Stuck in Two Sinkholes
(AP) 07/27/2004 07:55 PM
AP - Carolyn Roby hit the gas when a sinkhole suddenly appeared and enveloped her car. She escaped that trap, only to confront another sinkhole that was even deeper.

"Fingers stuck up at the Serbs"

"Fingers stuck up at the Serbs" 09/01/2004 11:50 AM
Survivors of a concentration camp in Bosnia return to commemorate the dead, hoping for signs of remorse, if not reconciliation.

Is the European 3G-juggernaut stuck in a
rut?

Is the European 3G-juggernaut stuck in a
rut? 06/02/2004 06:32 PM
DMeurope.com Jun 2 2004 10:35PM GMT

At Grand Central, Stuck After 1:30 A.M.

At Grand Central, Stuck After 1:30 A.M. 06/10/2004 10:23 PM
New York may be the city that never sleeps, but late night commuters have discovered that such truisms do not apply at Grand Central Terminal.

Passengers stuck on ferry

Passengers stuck on ferry 09/25/2004 07:17 AM
More than 70 people are stuck on a ferry which is unable to dock in Belfast because its doors will not open.

Dude, You're Getting Stuck With Spyware

Dude, You're Getting Stuck With Spyware 12/03/2003 01:48 AM
Submitted by John and also seen on Slashdot is the fairly insane news that Dell has told its tech support staff not to tell people about spyware removal products like Spybot Search & Destroy or Adaware - even if it's clear that the problems they're experiencing with their Dell machines are due to resource hogging spyware. Dell tech support has been told they're not even allowed to point the user towards potentially helpful resources on how to remove spyware. Dell's reasoning for this is hard to comprehend, but appears to be that removing spyware may go against some license agreements. Isn't that for the end-user who owns the computer to figure out on their own? Besides, if that's really what's causing the problem on the machine, isn't it the responsibility of Dell's tech support to suggest the proper solution? There's also an open letter to Dell asking them to reconsider their position on this matter.

Stuck With the Bill (washingtonpost.com)

Stuck With the Bill (washingtonpost.com) 02/18/2004 10:49 AM
washingtonpost.com - Wall Street may be busy celebrating the $41 billion marriage of Cingular Wireless LLC and AT&T Wireless, but did anyone remember to invite wireless telephone consumers to the reception?

Blogging: A world stuck on itself

Blogging: A world stuck on itself 07/21/2004 07:37 AM
Venture capitalist David Hornik warns that the Web logging world is inadvertently getting caught up in a trap of its own design.

Calif. Boy, 11, Gets Stuck in Chimney
(AP)

Calif. Boy, 11, Gets Stuck in Chimney
(AP) 06/30/2004 09:25 AM
AP - An 11-year-old boy had to be rescued by firefighters after he got stuck in a chimney while trying to get into his friend's locked house.

IT salaries stuck in the middle

IT salaries stuck in the middle 06/29/2004 08:16 PM
Study finds compensation drops for IT middle managers, rises modestly for execs and staff.

Virus Writers Stuck In A Rut?

Virus Writers Stuck In A Rut? 11/03/2003 12:21 PM
Anti-virus companies love to get people worked up into a lather about all the virus threats out there, because it helps them sell more product. So, it wasn't much of a surprise that, following the "big" virus and trojan horse problems in August, the anti-virus "experts" started warning that this was just a prelude to something worse, and that we should expect even more virus problems as soon as the current viruses died out. While it is good to keep users vigilant about virus things, these announcements served more to make people ignore the real problem: the anti-virus companies failed. Of course, you don't hear them speaking up now about the fact that their original predictions of "the next wave" of viruses immediately following the last wave appears not to have come true. Especially with the SoBig virus, we were told that the next version was supposed to appear in September sometime, but that never happened. Of course, it's good when we don't have virus outbreaks - and I have no doubt that they will come again - but once again we have a situation where the anti-virus folks seemed to hype things up beyond necessary.

Two Men Fleeing Police Get Stuck in Mud
(AP)

Two Men Fleeing Police Get Stuck in Mud
(AP) 01/26/2004 05:22 PM
AP - Two men fleeing police were captured after they ran across a muddy lake bed, lost their shoes and got mired in the muck.

N Gage QD GPRS HELP! PLEASE PLEASE HELP!
SO STUCK!

N Gage QD GPRS HELP! PLEASE PLEASE HELP!
SO STUCK! 12/28/2004 07:42 PM
All About Symbian Dec 28 2004 10:43PM GMT

getting stuck in salami and beer

getting stuck in salami and beer 12/19/2004 03:48 PM

I watched My Coolest Years: The Geeks with Anne and the kids last night. I thought the show was fantastic, and I was honored to be in such great company. Open note to The Cool Guy who tormented Jessi Klein or the girls from The Donnas: Dude, wherever you are, you are a loser.

Biggest surprise of the show: John Tesh is hellafunny! I remember that he played a Klingon for a day on Next Generation in the episode "The Icarus Factor." Well, "played a Klingon" is probably a little too much . . . he was sort of a featured extra in a line of about twenty guys who wore Klingon makeup and costumes, and snarled while they zapped Worf with painsticks. (Back then, a metric ton of celebrities wanted to be on the show, and they usually ended up wearing crazy alien make-up. Mick Fleetwood was this weird fish-looking thing, for example.)

I remember that he was really friendly, and seemed to be getting a HUGE kick out of the whole thing, but I don't remember him being as funny as he was on My Coolest Years last night.

Best moment of the show: When I saw that they titled me "Wil Wheaton: Author of Just A Geek" (which reminds me: Just A Geek has been recommended by Quint, from Ain't It Cool News! I am in incredibly good company over there, too. Thanks, Quint!) instead of That Other Thing.

That's a big deal to me, you know. Though I personally feel that I'm finally emerging from the shadow of America's Favorite Acting Ensign And Starfleet Academy Classmate Killing Cadet, I wonder if I'll ever do that in the eyes of the entertainment industry. This morning's Dork Tower gives a funny-because-it's-true view of how that effort is playing out in fandom.

. . . and in casting too, now that I really think about it . . . but that's okay. The Path I'm currently wandering is a good one.

Absolute coolest moment in the show: They put up a picture of me with my überhot wife as part of the "Geeks Ultimately Win, So Bite It, You Cool Kids" portion of the show. Ryan just about died when he saw Anne, in the coolest "I'm fifteen and I'm so proud of my mom" way. (Apparently, the kids on his baseball team tried to torment him by singing "Ryan's mom has got it goin' on" to the tune of "Stacey's Mom," and he silenced them by replying, "Yeah. My mom's hot. So what?" Sweet.)

Tonight, VH1 gives us My Coolest Years: The Dirty Hippies, which should be hilarious. It looks like My Coolest Years could end up being as great as I Love The 80s, or maybe even better. Go Generation X! Rock! Yeah! \m/

If anyone from VH1 reads this: I had a blast, you guys. Thanks for making me look cool. I'd love to work with you some more.

Woman Using Liquid Bandage Gets Stuck
(AP)

Woman Using Liquid Bandage Gets Stuck
(AP) 07/21/2004 08:11 PM
AP - When Joyce Stewart sits down to her daily cup of coffee, she likely won't attempt first aid on herself again. On Monday morning, Stewart used Minnesota-based 3M's liquid bandage to treat a crack on her heel and within minutes her foot was glued to the floor. It took three paramedics over an hour and a bottle of baby oil to free her.

Risky Mines Stuck in Stone Age

Risky Mines Stuck in Stone Age 07/27/2004 06:16 AM
Thousands of miners die each year, but most of those deaths could be prevented if mine operators stopped using 19th-century technology. By John Gartner.

4 Hurt in Balloon Stuck Over Baltimore
(AP)

4 Hurt in Balloon Stuck Over Baltimore
(AP) 07/17/2004 07:25 PM
AP - A balloon ride turned into a scary ordeal for 20 people Saturday when the aircraft got stuck high above the city, then was tossed around by high wind like a pinata for an hour and a half before rescuers brought it down.

A step back in time gets stuck in mud

A step back in time gets stuck in mud 07/31/2004 08:40 AM
Chicago Tribune Jul 31 2004 12:11PM GMT

Deliveryman Stuck in Elevator for Days
(AP)

Deliveryman Stuck in Elevator for Days
(AP) 04/05/2005 11:52 PM
AP - A deliveryman who vanished after taking Chinese food to a Bronx high-rise apartment building was found alive Tuesday after apparently spending more than three days trapped in an elevator that had become stuck between floors.

Stuck in the Middle: The Role of
Infomediaries

Stuck in the Middle: The Role of
Infomediaries 04/03/2005 06:06 PM

The Idea: Information intermediaries are facing revolutionary changes and threats, but the energy behind these changes is not new technologies, but a broad dissatisfaction by readers and viewers with the end-product, and with the lack of value added by intermediaries. This article suggests some answers. We live in an age of 'disintermediation' -- the cutting out of the middleman. We do bank transactions without tellers, we browse libraries without librarians, we learn without teachers. Those who used to know their role in our society often find themselves reinventing those roles before they simply disappear. One such group struggling with their role are 'infomediaries' -- the people who stand (or used to stand) between you and the information you consume. The chain is shown in the illustration at right. To some extent blogging is an attempt to disintermediate this chain. Some in the mainstream media would like to see us as just another link in the chain, at the very end between the channels and readers, adding little or no value other than links to related stories, high-tech cataloguers. But online journalism can incorporate all six of these intermediary roles, and, in fact, bloggers can be newsmakers in their own right -- like when they break major stories that the legacy media miss, or undertake investigative reporting that the legacy media no longer have.much appetite for. At the same time, search tools and social networking software are providing additional channels and ways to aggregate information, working to some extent hand in glove with bloggers to create entirely new ways to connect Following are some comments from reader Wendy Siegelman, who works for a major infomediary,  from a recent e-mail exchange on this subject: I think that intermediaries are perhaps underappreciated because there isn't a recognized name for the role they have. Maybe these information intermediaries are missing an important element - branding.  Without the proper branding, intermediaries that take, find, gather and make information usable, accessible, meaningful - are not properly valued.  I think there is a relatively high value placed on the concept of 'good communication'. There's the content being communicated, the communicator, and the receiver of information.  But, there's also the element of how the info is communicated.  I think that the value is usually placed on the what and who, but not the how.  [Politicians and others with vested interests use information to] measure and try to influence opinion and policy. Unfortunately, they have made the science of gathering, sorting and adding value and meaning to information appear to be a negative, opportunistic process. Intermediaries that do the same thing for productive and positive ends aren't properly recognized or valued. The critical issue for the future of all intermediaries is, as Wendy implies: What value are you, or could you be, adding? Fail to add enough and you'll be gobbled up by others along the chain or circumvented entirely. Add a lot of value and you can actually 'reintermediate' information flow that had ostensibly been disintermediated -- like some of the best librarians have done, reinventing themselves as researchers, analysts and report-writers filtering, compiling, analyzing, organizing, adding insight and producing crisp and concise documents ready for end-customers. It is that very lack of value-added that has caused disintermediation in the first place. Reporters are too often underfunded and lazy -- so they wait for news to break and ambulance-chase, and add nothing to the propagandist commercial 'press releases' issued by governments and corporations. Most analysts are paid by stock brokers, governments, biotech companies, corporate-sponsored think-tanks, and other vested-interest groups, to help 'sell' their products and suppress information and opinions to the contrary, as James Surowiecki has eloquently demonstrated in his weekly New Yorker column, and as many recent scandals involving analysts who were fired for not towing the line show. Likewise, editors are paid to reflect the editorial stance of the publisher, and legacy publishers are beholden to shareholders who only want them to publish what sells simply and in large quantity. Aggregators then try to pull this 'dumbed down' and censored content together, but are having the rug pulled out from under them by increasingly sophisticated free aggregation tools that channel companies like Google and Bloglines provide. And the mainstream media channels are finding their audience increasingly splintered, demanding and dissatisfied with the poverty of truly informative or useful content they push out. So readers and viewers have been open to disintermediation, not because of cost (which continues to drop precipitously) but because of the poor quality of intermediated content and the lack of value added by intermediaries. What could information intermediaries do to be more valuable? Here are a few ideas from a presentation I made a few years ago to a conference of intermediaries: Make the content more useful, more actionable, or at least more interesting. The limits of attention span and bandwidth often cause intermediaries to strip out content that provides valuable context to the reader or viewer -- tells them not only who, what, when, where, why and how, but also what does it mean? Study how to write great stories, so that those further along the information channel will be disinclined to pare them down and reduce the value you have incorporated in the story. Focus on information that's important, rather than urgent. Too much of the content reaching the reader and viewer today is 'sold' as urgent, when all it is is new. Not enough is important. Follow up. We squander reader/viewer interest and trust when we get them worked up about today's story and then never tell them what happened later. Be conversational. Let the reader/viewer see the person behind the point of view. And don't pretend to be objective -- your audience knows better. Help people deal with information overload. If people hope to be able to give more attention to important stories and issues, they need the rest of the crap filtered out. Search engines, blogrolls, eProfiles and other filtering mechanisms are woefully imprecise. The tools need to be much better, and intermediaries need to find a new role filtering the firehose of daily 'news' in a way that will probably never be possible even with the best tool. There are huge opportunities here. Get out more. Intermediaries need to learn the value of doing their own primary research (interviewing and direct observation), and not merely working with the content flowing though the chain to them. If that's not in your job description -- add it. Read broadly. It gives you perspective. And it has a lot of other benefits as well. Learn a disciplined approach to research and analysis. I like the Pyramid Principle, but there are lots of others. This will make your thinking sharper, allow you to appreciate how your readers will 'see' what you're providing them with, and provide a 'trail' that will make your arguments more compelling and allow you (or others) to understand and check your logic. Take some chances. The disintermediation that is overwhelming the information industries came about because the technology industries were bold, and didn't constrain their products to doing just what other technologies had done before them. Talk to readers and viewers about what is possible, think them ahead to imagine how they could use an intermediary product or service that doesn't even exist today. Level of 'customer satisfaction' with the legacy media is extremely low, and that dissatisfaction has many causes, and suggests many needs that are not being met. Find a need and fill it.

Stuck for auto-responder ideas?

Stuck for auto-responder ideas? 03/30/2005 05:47 PM
We've all heard "the money is in the list", but once you've got them signed up, how do you keep them subscribed and opening the mailings? Here's how some of the experts make their lists anxious to get each new mailing. Collect leads with your autoresponder. You will get an e-mail digest of everyone's e-mail [...]

Is The Public Stuck With The Broadcast
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Is The Public Stuck With The Broadcast
Flag? 09/26/2004 03:29 PM

Mud Stops Fans Headed to Phish Farewell (AP)

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