Wow... half a month... how sad. But, the good thing? I've been incredibly busy. Home life is wonderful, work has been full. A independent contractor, I had been getting about 20 hours a week. Last week I was able to put in over 40 billable hours. Exciting. It's almost like having a real job again. And there's lots more still to be done.

Anyhow, I thought this was very cool, and wish I were really rich. Because I'm incredibly impressionable and now I want to do this... The Landmark Trust - they buy landmarks, fix them up, and then rent them out. People go and stay in them and the rent keeps the landmarks preserved.

I know I haven't had anything new in awhile. But there's been nothing that I thought any of you would find interesting. Trust me, you probably think most of my posts are boring. So if this stuff bored me, be glad I didn't pass it on...

The media titans still don't get it...
This is a great article. If only media titans would read it. But then, they might not understand it, either. They might think it mean, or too long and ask someone who understands even less to summarize it for them. But take the time to read it. It's good stuff.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/08/13/media_titans/index.html

This is your brain on drugs. Don't do drugs, or you might offer something stupid in an eBay auction like this guy has. Check this out.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ViewItem&item=1755695895

I missed it because I got confused by all the abbreviations, but the DOJ has joined the SEC in taking a look at AOL's books.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/788017.asp

Also, briefly, AT&T and AOL Time Warner asked Banc of America to _not_ tell them how much Time Warner Entertainment is worth. But, AOL has secured an additional 10 billion (million? not sure) in financing, some see it as possibly what they'll use to buy the AT&T portion of TWE.

Identity Theft - One guy's investigation into his own identity theft leads him down a path so easy to follow that he could quickly steal other stolen identities if he wanted.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/785533.asp

Umm... us guys hate popups, too - iVillage pledges to stop serving popups on its sites
http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsId=163405

Sprint PCS sucks
Pittsburgh: http://www.epinions.com/content_71509839492
San Jose: http://www.epinions.com/content_71159811716
Orlando: http://www.epinions.com/content_71553224324
Los Angeles: http://www.epinions.com/content_71964987012
Charlotte: http://www.epinions.com/content_72105758340
New York: http://www.epinions.com/content_67697086084
Cleveland: http://www.epinions.com/content_72015842948

Heroes of flight 93 - Using stories and recordings, a bigger picture is painted of just how many heroes were aboard this plane. Neat story.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/787018.asp?0st=N61

Robots in Combat - Using robots in Afghanistan to save lives. Well, American lives, that is.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/787608.asp

When Dreamcasts Attack - I couldn't come up with a better headline. Basically, if you can gain physical access to a corporation for even just a few minutes, one of these hacked game systems will be your ticket back in over their network for as long as it can remain hidden. Pretty slick.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/26478.html

scary - I forgot about this... the pilot from the short-lived FOX series "The Lone Gunmen" in which terrorists were trying to fly a plane into the World Trade Center. (Real Media Clip)
http://www.thelawparty.com/RealPlayer/Moviesthatreflectreality/LoneGunmanClip.ram

Popups during TV shows - even more evil, these don't have a close button. TNT's been experimenting with ads during shows. Text-based ads relevant to the movie they're playing. (For instance, an ad for American Express that says "Having a baby? We can help." and lists a phone number during "Father of the Bride II")
http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsId=177018

AOL-PurchasePro deal in question - Sell our software, we'll give you warrants to buy our stock really cheaply.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/789039.asp

Why buying the S&P 500 might be a bad idea - With all the changes that the S&P's been making, it might not be indicative of the overall market.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/788612.asp

Tyco's CFO stepped down. Does this mean bankruptcy's around the corner? No link, just wondering.

MSNBC dropping message boards in favor of blogs. Does this mean competition for my two readers? Or is just one now?
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2002/0803nj_colgan.htm

This link is two funny stories! (1) Trafficant might not be allowed to wear his toupee in prison, though he's still not admitting he's wearing one. (2) A supreme court justice is complaining about a cartoon in a national magazine. The artist? His son.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/style/columns/reliablesource/A34556-2002Aug2.html

Don't go to Burger King... they're recording people for their commercials.
http://money.excite.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt.jsp?news_id=reu-n31163790

Crop circles - Lori don't read this!
About the Movie "Signs" and people who make crop circles: http://www.msnbc.com/news/787696.asp
A collection of crop circle photographs: http://home.clara.net/lucypringle/photos/2002/Jun.html

Hire me! - So the government was expecting 75,000 new jobs to be created last month. Only 6,000 actually were. That can't be good.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/789169.asp

ExpiredDomainNames.com - A look at what people once thought they might be able to make money off of... (like BuyClamsOnline.com)
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/08/03/deleteddomains/index.html

Putting the fun back into hacking - A hacking competition. The new way to keep hackers off the streets? Or something like that.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-948404.html

Ha ha ha! Spiderman wins. - A while back I reported that the building owners in Times Square were suing because Sony had altered the buildings for the movie. They had removed certain advertisers' banners and put up some of their own. I thought this was incredibly lame of the building owners. We're talking about a movie in which a guy swings around on web that shoots out of his wrists. And grows microscopic fibers on his hands on feet that let him climb walls, even though he's wearing gloves and shoes. Anyhow, a judge threw the case out, said it was free speech. Finally, a judge with some intelligence.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-948441.html

This is one I'm kind of interested in... See, AOL Time Warner owns some cable companies. It also owns most of a company called Time Warner Entertainment. That company is also partially owned by AT&T, who owns a lot of cable companies. Well TWE owns more cable companies, along with Warner Bros. and HBO. But A&T is merging its cable companies with Comcast's cable companies to create a new cable company, AT&T Comcast. But the government says that AT&T has to get rid of its stake in TWE. But the price it's offering AOL Time Warner wants is less than AOL Time Warner thinks it's worth. AOL Time Warner has no urgency, it's in AT&T's court. But, there are other cable companies that AOL Time Warner only owns part of. The people that own the other part of those cable systems are upset with AOL Time Warner's stock price. What's worse, if AT&T can't get a price they're happy with for their share in TWE, they're threatening to take the shares public and let anyone buy them. AOL Time Warner really doesn't want that. So, it's thinking about taking Warner Bros. and HBO and moving them to AOL Time Warner and taking the non-TWE cable systems and moving them to TWE. Then they want to make TWE its own company (made up entirely of cable companies) and that would make everyone happy. But the hard part is understanding how much all that's worth for all the people who own little private pieces of it. Confused? It's like a bad soap opera.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/783813.asp

"Feature by Sony" rejected by CBS Marketwatch after being rejected by NYTimes.com recently...
http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsId=162769

AOL backing away from IM interoperability pledges
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-945909.html

Don't dump AOL yet.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_30/b3793062.htm

Yeah, AOL made a profit. But, in order to keep my stock options from ever being worth anything, they quickly added that they're being investigated by the SEC.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-946145.html

WorldCom Executives will probably be arrested.
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/breakingnews.asp?ArticleID=36549

Broadband by plane... this is interesting, using a circling plane to provide internet connectivity...
http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=8261275

Also interesting... a device that will help you remember people's names by recording snippets of your conversations with them...
http://www.msnbc.com/news/784071.asp

Stop letting baseball be a monopoly!
http://www.msnbc.com/news/782826.asp

Sprint PCS sucks in Houston
http://www.epinions.com/content_70300438148

Woo hoo! AOL lawsuits. Go get 'em. And get me some money!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32454-2002Jul19.html

Who would want to run AOL? I'll do it. Of course, they wouldn't like my style. First thing I'd do is make nice with Microsoft. Then Apple. And THEN I'd go back and start kissing some Time Warner cable butts. Then I would start calling it America Online again and try to get as many people to connect to it as possible, even through their own dialups elsewhere. Kind of do sort of a cable TV model like Real's done. No one's accusing Real of a monopoly despite having content only available there. And I'd get rid of the horid "Welcome" and "AOL Today" screens.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-945203.html

Now this is cool... I've posted links about this before, but they're getting closer and closer to TV's and computer monitors printed on pieces of plastic only millionths of an inch thick. They say 2004-2005ish...
http://msnbc.com/news/782800.asp

And maybe you want a camera to go along with that? Check out Sony's new digital camera... smaller than a credit card.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-945074.html

What's the future hold for Yahoo! And how's it doing? An interesting piece from someone at the Washington Posts who asks questions like these.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21833-2002Jul17.html

Yellow no more.. ABC goes blue... and red... and green... kinda peacock like? Maybe. Expect lots of circles.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/17/television.abc.reut/index.html

This morning... Apparently AOL's been using questionable methods to keep its stock up. And Pittman's in the middle of it. I'm not surprised (though bummed considering all the underwater options I own)... basically recording all kinds of stuff as ad sales that really shouldn't have been.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21983-2002Jul17.html

This afternoon... and Pittman resigns.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/782119.asp