nutate

I feel like with the rash of computers* at this price point, I'm waiting for something at $9.99 before I get excited.

*for some value of computer

I can think of a word that rhymes with patriot for this guy.

That said it was great to hear the congress and the heads of the departments agreeing that the entire process deserves review. There was zero animosity, etc at the finance committee meeting today. Very cool to see when the government is working, a dialog is happening, etc.

But this guy is the ultimate sophomore, and if you ask me he was turned by China or just by some dreams of entering into some 31337 hax0r club illuminati.

All for leaking a powerpoint detailing what was codified in law over the past decade.

In many ways the most illegal thing you can do with prism is blackmail, right? But with swift boating and birther stuff it's easy to see that it takes a lot less effort to just lie. Actual prosecution of citizens under such a wiretap for domestic crimes would be illegal even under FISAAA but as far as I know that hasn't been tested in court.

Quick search for telecom immunity shows me that hn forgot that Verizon, et al are exempt from such prosecutions after the GOP pushed for said immunity in the late aughts. That was a good fight the dems put up against this sort of thing, but alas. Not to mention the fact that no laws seem to have been broken, only the heart of a libertarian redditor.

Compared to the 300 things I could get sued for daily, I think I'm probably doing just fine odds wise.

Bitstampoer on github already does a Verizon of this.

https://github.com/newell-purdue/bitstamper

.

I grew up there from 79 to 97. My mom was mayor and a ton of my friends live there. I've since gone to school and lived in NYC, LA and now DC. Jamestown is still one of my favorite places on the planet. Cheap housing is just a bonus.

It's incredible how far your money will go there: http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/2055-Willar...

The question is how to get the money... :) probably contribute to your community. Err I mean contribute a new app idea to the community of angel investors. Whatever. ;)

My mom was mayor of Jamestown for a couple years. Most houses that were maintained have kept their value. We just have a twisted sense of how housing value should work.

Even around Chautauqua lake, where the best real estate is in that county, the max is probably around $3mil for houses that would make an $3mil house around here (DC) look like a cottage.

Location, location, location. I can drive there in under seven hours these days. Straight through central PA which makes central Jamestown look like London.

Derp, my girlfriend was at that conference with her macbook air. I feel like I should put a condom on mine now.

I had an ATM card eaten in London on vacation because I couldn't recall the PIN.

That was a weird moment.

I do the same thing. It helped when I did get skimmed. Looking back the card slot was slightly wobbly. Now I always check. My credit union contacted me the same day, hours after the skimmage and everything was taken care of practically instantly.

"poor dear" isn't the worst she's been called w/r/t this bit of budgetary honesty coming to light. Nor has she read all that much of the commentary. She has read the pieces by Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein, etc.

The most recent one on Al Jazeera really pissed her off though, because that person had written for cheap or for free for the Atlantic in the past. Which seems disingenuous at best.

Some of her writings for the Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/sarah-kendzior/

Her article for Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/20133111642...

I think Sarah is trying to make a point about wage stagnation, but it is lost in a mist of links and appeals to our better selves. If money wasn't being actively redistributed towards the super wealthy there would be more money for individuals to pay for good writing. I think we can all agree on that.

But in the mean time, you take what you can get and work with what you have.

My Dad was a musician his entire life. He's had other side jobs, but that was always his dream and big plan.

I decided to go to engineering school and do music on the side.

That has been much more successful for me money wise and in a way music wise as well. I've never had to compromise my (crappy) music to make a buck.

Being an established writer and a couple bucks will buy you a coffee.

She asked, he said no, that would normally be the end of such an interaction. But he decided to publicize the fact that his writing was worth $0 and original writing would be worth $100.

Quite a drop from the $350k he got paid by ABC for his pol pot interview in '87. He then sued them in 2002 for ~$20million, no idea how that case went, but I imagine not that well or else he'd probably be set.

I'm that poor dear's boyfriend so I've obsessed over this odd case for a few days now. :D

Oddly the Atlantic is doing pretty well. If Nate Thayer wasn't resting on the laurels of his 1987 Pol Pot interview he probably would've caught onto the joys of ePub tie ins, etc.

heheh. Olga is my girlfriend, she needs just about zero white-knighting.

I told her she should write about it (I just created this account, she doesn't know I'm commenting on it here) ...

If she had asked him for an interview on the topic (for free obviously) this would've been a non-issue. But she thought she would give him a byline, not knowing of his fame.

He became famous for interviewing pol pot when she was about a year old, and although he is well known in south east asia circles, he's not exactly a household name. The article is freely available now (if you care to read about basketball in NK), she just wanted to offer a wider audience with near zero extra work on his part. With the offer of $100 for a future online effort.

So she asked and got put on blast.

It's interesting how that works. It was a weird way to wake up this morning though.

TO YOUR POINT ON MICROPAYMENTS:

Yes, I think there is a per transaction fee for credit cards. Bitcoin couldn't work flat out because it only supports 350,000 total transactions a day and piddly little tips would eventually crush the blockchain. I think paypal could do it if you just tipped out of your paypal balance. Dwolla.com does do it... but no one has an account.

I have to say I agree with the people who argue people should be doing a lot of this for the love, but love doesn't pay the bills. I really like Stewart Lee's take on it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqMA4YRQCk

Long listen, but he advocates for a lot of government funding for the arts. Likewise a lot of in the trenches journalism is sponsored by small orgs (pro publica, xyz foundations, etc) The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, etc just chip in a bit extra to publish some of that work.

This specific case was about already written, already available content.

If this was huffpo they would've just thrown quotes around it and put it up with a little link.

/rant

Good on you, that is a good looking site and it fills a niche for people like you and I who pay for content. I really hope there can be a tip system (bitcoin, ripple, paypal, dwolla) that can be a click at the end of a good article. I could imagine dropping $0.25 on 4 good articles a day.

Like TV, video, music, books, if you give the people an extremely convenient way to pay for your content, a good number of them will.

Little known fact, my gf is a journalist, an editor, at a certain publication named after a body of water, who may or may not be in her second week on the job and already embroiled in a bit of controversy. :-o

Actually story this post is about: 3 tweets 5 facebook likes.

This story: 2K tweets 3K facebook likes.

Seems like people are about 1000 times more interested in behind the scenes of freelancing than his research into NK basketball.

> I will not just be a passive observer in all of this.

What journalism outlets do you pay money to subscribe to?

Which came first, that's the question, right?

Ya, the middle man is getting cut out, but when a site like the Atlantic can publish your content, give you a byline, and a wider audience, you can do a lot with that exposure.

Or you can write a bitchy blog post and keep writing for nknews.com

That offer was a decade ago, not a few years ago.

You could just not renew your subscription I suppose.

Exactly. Ad revenue of newspapers slipped over 50% during that time. The whole market got eaten up and destroyed, worse than the music industry could've ever dreamed.

There is still a great bunch of journalism out there, like Vice (who actually did the original reporting) and then there are folks like this guy who wishes for days of yore. The Atlantic puts out plenty of great content from great writers who get little cash for their efforts.

The market changed drastically on this guy and he hopes he can get more PR from this free blog post than a free byline on theatlantic.com

Good luck to him.

(tried to post this on his site, but it is awaiting moderation)

I guess it always hurts to find out the going rate for your writing is $0. How much did the venerable NK News pay him I wonder.

A 6 figure offer a few years ago? Sadly 2003 (when that Atlantic editor died) is not a few years back, it’s a decade ago. Journalism has changed and the freely accessible article on NK News would’ve gained slightly more traction on the Atlantic with less typing than he spent on this blog post.

That doesn't add up, does it?