Poor dude.

The New Yorker listed the article in their “Weekend Reading” recommendation and calls it one of the “Best Magazine Stories of the Week.”

Boing Boing picked up the article calling it, and “Incredibly Detailed Look at Internet Marketing Scams.” A quote:

The Verge‘s Joseph L. Flatley delves into the world of Internet marketing scams (those stupid spam pitches you get for “lead generation” and such) in eye-watering detail. Fundamentally, these things are exactly what they appear to be: con artists who suck money out of desperate people by lying to them about the money they can make with “work from home” businesses.

Finally, Andrew Sullivan over at The Daily Beast calls the video a, “long but excellent video.”

Very cool. If you haven’t seen the article or vid, head over to The Verge.

Instead of being a conduit for help, the internet was just one more part of a complicated trap — a trap which perverts intimacy and turns it into money. The disembodied voice that identified itself as Ron Martino was able to single out Joseph, fabricate a bond, and then exploit that trust for financial gain. And after he had Joseph’s money, Martino simply vanished. Almost like he never really existed.

Interesting stuff. Here’s the vid if you’re so inclined:

So far so good. Other than gumming up the keyoard with fingerprints, my inability to find the apostrophe key, evidently fat fingers and slow onscreen typing, all is well. So far.

I have entered the 21 century, kicking and screaming.

Omward amd upward.

Link here.

Surf here to read all about it.

Can’t fool me more than once… twice… er, never mind.

This from Minnesota Daily: “Exploding pig farms?” Seems some funky bacteria (?) from factory farm hog enclosures is… well… look for yourself. Won’t be long, I’m sure, until this spreads.

Here are some pics as well as video.