Larry Rubin
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Larry Rubin posted a message on Twitter
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Paul Buchheit posted a link
July 31 at 9:35 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link
Great story. - Paul Buchheit via Bookmarklet
It reads like a tragedy. Things are going fine in the beginning, but you know it's going to end badly. - Chris White
Paul, good find! - imabonehead
OMG this guy totally fell for the loser salesguy ...how sad! - Susan Beebe
hiring decisions can kill your firm - Bill Sodeman
Really enjoyed this, though felt bad of course for the author. Really shows that doing as much legwork/homework/digging up front as possible is a good thing and well worth the time put in - Eric Berlin
While reading this, I kept thinking about your job titles "senior executive vice director of VP coordination & vision".... funny - but sad article. - Erin
Similar experience: My employer hired a supposed "expert" from a BIG 5 consulting firm. This person was a Global Manager and was going to come to our 30 person IT shop and do us right! Boy, that hiring manager was sooo excited! I about died when I learned that person was coming on board to be my new boss. Long story short: She left 90 days later with her tail between her legs when it was abundantly clear that she completely lacked requisite skills for her position. Couldn't even use PPT or email! - Susan Beebe
we need a salesperson for our business and this is exactly why we haven't hired anyone over the past 4 years. we're terror-frozen. - Faboo Mama
Interesting story. Thanks for sharing Paul. The hardest thing for an entrepreneur is to ask the hard questions. - Edwin Khodabakchian
Lesson 5: A turkey was chatting with a bull. 'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.' 'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients.' The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree. Moral of the story: Bull Shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.. - Alan Cheslow
This is why I'm not usually impressed by resumes/titles. I want to see real work. Then I'm impressed. It can be a catch-22 though hiring people (for a guy, like getting a date with a beautiful lady - how do you have conversations, until you've had some). "Consultant" can be for real...or mean that someone is "out of work". - Mitchell Tsai
As a 19-yr-old college grad, how did we get clients that $500 million companies couldn't get? Well, the experienced CEOs know that McKinsey and other consultants just hire sharp (but inexperienced) people from Harvard, Stanford, etc..., and it's a total crap-shoot who you get (for $500-1,000/hr). If we did a good job for CEO of X company, he told VP friend at Y company, and we got the work. There are so many fly-by-nights in this world. Experience isn't worth much if it's "bad experience". - Mitchell Tsai
Another example of how people with great charisma but no skills can be promoted far beyond where they should be. Another great example is a guy who will be leaving his current job on Jan. 20th. - Robert Felty
This is really sad isn't it. So difficult to get it right, yet it is the most important success/fail factor for any company. It starts with great people. - Alexander van Elsas
Dang, that story was rough. I mean did you even proof read it? (LOL) - Drew Lucas
man, this could've been taken straight out of the E-myth revisited. Definitely a book that guy should read. - Vincent van Wylick
i just wish i couldn't tell so many similar stories of hiring senior execs w/ great looking experience, resumes, and references who turned out to be completely incompetent - Deva Hazarika
Actually he was lucky that the guy was so obviously lame and came clean in the end, and that his business wasn't destroyed. What's far worse is a somewhat competent person with great political skills. Much harder to detect and so they have time to do a lot more subtle and potentially fatal damage to the fabric of an company. - Robin Barooah
"$25K in stuff he said we absolutely needed -- slick brochures, sponsor some conference, ads in the trade journal, coffee mugs, pens with our logo -- I readily paid for." This entrepreneur should have been tipped off right then. Mugs? Brochures? Everyone knows you close the most business with T-shirts. - Ginger Makela
It raises an important question... how long do you need to wait for your hire to deliver. This guy had to wait for an year, since most startup founders dont have time to baby-sit their employees... how long do they wait before concluding, that they have a bad-hire. Is it 1 month, 3 months, 6 months ( sounds too much for a startup ) - Krishna Gade
FriendFeed
Chris Baskind posted a link
'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution - MIT News Office
'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution - MIT News Office
'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution - MIT News Office
July 31 at 7:52 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link
I want to marry you, MIT. Maybe not the guy in the photo. But MIT, in general. - Chris Baskind via Bookmarklet
I love Solar energy!! bring it!! - Susan Beebe
Really, Chris? That handsome beard is not doing anything for you? - Mark Trapp
Thanks for shedding light on this important subject. Heh, see what I did there? - Jim Stanger
Jim You caused a bulb to go off in my head..oh wait,it was only a blood vessel. - Mark Forman
A fine beard, I must admit. - Chris Baskind
wow, possibly breaking the storage constraint? This is BIG. - Casey
Yeah -- if it's efficient, it's a revolution. It would change the world. - Chris Baskind
Where can I start investing ? :D - Mo Kargas
I wonder how Rockefellers feel about this? - Igor The Troll
Why are the news stories on this all focusing on the solar aspect? The breakthrough doesn't have anything to do with solar per se, as near as I can tell. Nocera's just come up with a cheap, easy (possibly highly efficient) way to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. That hydrogen can go straight into your electric fuel cell vehicle. - Karim
Probably because it mates with PV so well. But -- yes -- it could supply any kind of fuel cell. I wanna hear more about this. - Chris Baskind
Seems like batteries and ultracapacitors would be better for storing charge if that's all you want to do... but since they haven't announced the efficiency of the new process, it's hard to say. "We don't need gasoline anymore" sounds like a less misleading headline than "Solar energy might just work now" ;-) - Karim
I believe that investing in innovation of alternative energies and other sustainability factors will help bring the US back to #1 (if it's not already there) in terms of technology. - imabonehead
Hydrogen is going to be a more stable energy storage and transport medium than batteries and transmission lines. The reason everyone is mentioning solar energy is that this could be a way to get around transmission line bottlenecks. Store hydrogen at the massive solar power plant in the desert, transport it to your home fuel cell (and fill up your hydrogen car while you're at it). And of course, if you're in a sunny place, you can skip several of the intermediate steps I just mentioned. - Jason Wehmhoener
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Chris Baskind bookmarked a page on delicious
July 29 at 10:47 pm - Link
A great list of tutorials - Chris Baskind
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Paul Buchheit liked a story on Reddit
June 24 at 12:15 am - Link
Great quote - "It's very, very difficult to wear both the developer and the evangelist hats at the same time: being a developer requires that you be very pessimistic, so you can see and fix all the problems in your design, while being an evangelist requires that you be very optimistic, so others can feed off your passion. I suspect that if I tried to do both, the cost would be my sanity" - Eric Kerr
"Linux started as a terminal emulator".. !!!? Or not. - Nick Lothian
Definitely a lot of points that rang true for me, especially the "Chicken and Egg" point. - Adam Thorsen
I myself have worked on two start-up concepts and a revitalization effort, each of which bombed, but each one taught me something different. I finally threw in the towel on my last start-up and picked up a full-time day-job because I couldn't find anyone willing to share hats. We were already incorporated, so I was the CEO, book keeper, technology evangelist, sales guy, support tech, development lead, and development team. Needless to say I fried myself within a year and nearly went off the deep end. On a happy note, I'm loving my work now and haven't given up the entrepreneurial bug yet; I'm preparing myself to be the best co-founder in the world, knowing that the time will be right when the right team comes together to solve the right problem. - Chris Stewart via twhirl
Haven't read the article yet, Nick, but Linux didn't start out as a terminal emulator. Linus Torvalds deliberately started working on implementing a "practice OS" called "Minix" from a book, and it grew from there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... - Phil Glockner
@J. Phil - exactly my point. - Nick Lothian
FriendFeed
l0ckergn0me posted a link
Air Hockey Robot
Play
June 23 at 11:46 pm - via Reshare - Link
Computers beating humans at chess and checkers is ok - but Air Hockey is a sacred flesh-only sport! - Craig Thomler
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Chris Weige favorited a video on YouTube
George Carlin - Modern Man
Play
June 23 at 1:22 pm - Link
Just awesome. - Jason Wehmhoener
OK... I'm going to say this and then I'll duck.... But I had to really search around on the networks to find news of Carlin's death when you couldn't avoid news about the passing of Tim Russert. Now I'm a big Russert fan as well, but I would argue that Carlin's death was felt by far more people than Russert's was.... Self-serving media? Discus...... - Chris Reed
Well, they were mourning an active member of the news and politics community. Someone they all knew and interacted with on a regular basis. Sure, it was still self-serving but it's understandable, because it hit close to home. - Ňicķ
But they're not supposed to be self-serving. It's tough, but journalists need to be practically Vulcan-like in putting their own emotions and feelings aside. We have unfortunately, very much lost that. How would we have been served if instead of their calm delivery of a national tragedy on 9/11, folks like Aaron Brown, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw came on the yelling, "It's the end of the world! Run for your lives!" - Chris Reed
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Robert Scoble posted a message on Twitter
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Nick O'Neill dugg a story on Digg
June 20 at 10:18 am - Link
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Mike Doeff posted a message on Twitter
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Loic Le Meur posted a message on Twitter
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June 18 at 4:10 pm - Link
Created by one of the lead engineers of Microsoft's Virtual Earth and a few other people (I met Chandu back when he worked at Microsoft -- he quit to do this). This is an interesting new site that lets you plan events, dinners, and stuff. We have a long conversation about this and a whole bunch of stuff. Travel, integration, etc. - Robert Scoble
http://www.centerd.com/ this is a very long video, but you'll learn a lot about the space and see what they aren't doing well. Interesting how sites like these are springing up trying to add value by gluing services together. - Robert Scoble
I've been playing around with it. Seems pretty promising. Though my local taco shop had some inexplicable tags such as "crab house", "wedding restaurant", "japanese food" etc. - Frankie Warren
Frankie - thanks for the feedback - yes, this is a "known" issue :P - will be fixing soon - Chandu Thota
these are great videos...thanks for putting them up - raincloudcat
Sounds like they really understand the problem space. I should look into this! - Eric Hamilton
Are you using this thing? Is it a good solution for you? My calendar books out months and months in advance, and I'm constantly trying to coordinate events, meetings, etc... should I care about this? - Eric Hamilton
Hahaha! Windows Mobile phone on the floor. I bought an i760 I'm constantly tempted to throw at a wall. I love the hardware - HATE the OS. - Eric Hamilton
Eric: I'm trying it out, but based on my interview they have a lot of rough edges that I'd like to see smoothed out first. - Robert Scoble
Robert, we have margaritas in SLC. You just need to find the right restaraunt. Some of them are really fantastic, actually! =) - Eric Hamilton
That was a great video. I admire the courage of the Center'd folks opening themselves up to the Scoble firing line. More noise about alternatives to Evite is good for everyone in the space. - Larry Rubin
Thanks Larry. Funny my battery on the cell phone died right at the end. 39 minutes. Whew! - Robert Scoble
The idea and implementation is pretty nice. It also allows you to try it out before signing up which is a plus.. too bad center'd thinks I'm from the US when I am not and I am not able to change this setting. Nice app anyway! - lezionidistile
lezionidistile: sorry for the issue - we will be fixing that bug shortly. - Chandu Thota
FriendFeed
Louis Gray posted a link
Poll: Obama leads McCain in swing states - CNN.com
June 18 at 11:01 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link
Sen. Barack Obama is leading Sen. John McCain in the crucial swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, according to a new survey. - Louis Gray
Are you a swinger, baby - yeah! - l0ckergn0me
FriendFeed
Bret Taylor posted a message
“You can now expand Likes to see all the people who liked an entry”
You can now expand Likes to see all the people who liked an entry
June 18 at 8:45 pm - Link
great! - K.D.
Once enough people "like" this entry, the demo will come with the post :) - Bret Taylor
Awesome! Great feature guys! - Hutch Carpenter
Thank you! - Robert Seidman
I am doing my part to contribute. - Louis Gray
Weird, doesn't seem to work in Fluid. Clicking the link quickly shows the loading circle on the right, then does nothing. Works fine in Safari 3.1, though. - Mark Trapp
Liked just so people see my name when they test it out. - DeWitt Clinton
awesomesauce! able to see it in action now. nicely done! - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
always wanted to know who the others were - BCK
Yay! Wasn't this enabled a few months ago too? - Phil Glockner
Nice! - Evan Sims
What is the sort order before and after expanded? - Andrew Smith
Andrew: it puts people you are subscribed to first, but reverse ordered by the time of like other than that. - Bret Taylor
awesomeness! - Thomas Hawk
I notice another change. "You" is the first name listed for all the things I've liked in the past. Even those where I haven't clicked on the expand Likes link. This wasn't previously the case. A bit of work on the Likes sort methodology? - Hutch Carpenter
Noticed that too, Hutch: do you think it's sorting based on order of likes now? Obviously, with "You" always being first and outside the order. - Mark Trapp
Mark - definitely putting "you" out front is a change. I still don't know the basis for ranking the other Likes. Maybe the guys will comment here. Or blog it. - Hutch Carpenter
Great new features everyday! - Aaron Myers
Hutch/Mark: Bret already said how it's ordered. :P - Daniel Bruce
Ah, I see it. That'll teach me to respond to a specific comment before reading the entire thread! - Mark Trapp
@Daniel - ah...so there it is. Thanks. - Hutch Carpenter
woot, don't need the script anymore - Andrew Dobrow
I like this addition. Clean, intuitive, simple, perfect. - Tsega Dinka
a long list of names isn't too useful; why dont you bold the ones that are my friends? - peter
peter: all your friends are listed first. - Bret Taylor
More recent likes come first, so as new friends "Like" things, you see them. - Bret Taylor
Peter, bolding is a great idea, not just here, but in general. It would be an easy way to find friends that you have not yet subscribed to. - Scott Beale
+1 for bolding names that I'm already subscribed to. - Mike Doeff
I tweaked the sort order to put "you" first, but apparently I forgot to tell Bret. - Jim Norris
nice touch - Steven Hodson
Like about "Like" :) - Igor Poltavskiy
friendfeed keeps listening to the feedback - Dobromir Hadzhiev
thankyou - Duncan Riley
Would be nice if you could collapse them again. - Alex Mendes da Costa
I'd like to second that. It would be great if I could collapse them again. - David Adam
Alex, David - Refreshing the page will do that for you. - Slippy Lane
awesome! - Sarah Perez
Another greasemonkey script bites the dust - Shey
Indeed Shey, http://ffapps.com/showlikes/ is no longer required. Seeing a list of people who liked a particular entry is a great way to explore and discover users who share similar interests. - Aviv
چه قدر سریع,ایده اش همین صبح مطرح شد,اسمایلی جیمبووووووووووووووووووو:))ه - shandiz
Expanding shows a lot of Likes up in this post! - Joe Dawson
wow. Nice! - felix
Yay, my nick is in the screenshot, and now it's in the demo. :D - possible248
Is this the most liked post of all time? - Mike Reynolds
Is this in the API? - Yuvi
Mike - This one has "and 213 other people". http://friendfeed.com/e/f3782a... - Russellreno
Excellent improvement guys! - Mark Dykeman
I Like this feature and see that 208 other people do too!! Thanks Bret and team! - Susan Beebe
now I need a feature that permits me to "be-friend" all of them that 'liked' a post. :)- - Peter Dawson
Fantastic. One step closer to not needing Greasemonkey at all. - Cyvros/fyc
گفتم از شاندیز و امین عقب نمونم :D - DSaad69
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Larry Rubin posted a message on Twitter
delicious
Brian Chaikelson bookmarked a page on delicious
June 10 at 3:48 pm - Link
Great news! The only reason I've held onto my blackberry is because pre-native app iphones couldn't store RSS feeds on disk for offline access. - Brian Chaikelson
Blog
michael arrington posted an entry on TechCrunch
June 10 at 4:50 am - Link
Man, I keep criticizing Microsoft for offering their executive board's appearances on some proprietary formats as AVI, Silverlight, whatever. But Apple is no better. Struggling with QuickTime though it is installed on my PC. Steve, please open up to viral marketing and set up a YouTube channel for the Rest of Us! - Harald Felgner
i agree. actually, the apps--the centralized store, games, customized for enterprise, etc. was as important as the 3G announcement (maybe over time more important). 3G was inevitable. the apps are the game changer. - Pokai
The IPhone is the first platform that is more computer like than phone like. The simplicity and now flexibility breaks with the other phone based platforms. With the 3G iPhone we are at the cusp of a new revolution like Windows 3.0 or the original Mac. There is more to come than we can imagine.... - Robin Whitson
FriendFeed
Jeremiah Owyang posted a link
June 10 at 8:44 am - Link
I too am watching the impacts about Friendfeed, but for every new tool that comes around, we claim it's a game changer, in reality, it's just evolutionary, and sometimes we even devolve. Do we have to go through this exercise yet again? - Jeremiah Owyang
Surely it's up to us technologists to provide tools that integrate with whatever the current vogue in social apps happens to be, non-tech PR people shouldn't need to stay on top of what's cool in the geekosphere just in case it breaks through into the mainstream. - Dave Kinsella
Actually I said it could fade. However what it has birthed is a game changer. Stay tuned! - Steve Rubel via fftogo
Also didn't say it would fade marketing and PR. In fact I think it amplifies it. - Steve Rubel via fftogo
@jer, i like how you sent the permalink of the discussion. for me it makes it more interactive if i don't have any other noise on the screen instead of the conversation at hand. it has its own tab and i'm more likely to come back and add more to the conversation. - Tyler Gillies
I'm enjoying FriendFeed too, but as a marketing strategist I don't believe it's a big deal yet. Maybe one day, but not yet. - Jeremy Toeman
my friend uses friendfeed, we live on an island in the middle of the ocean. i didn't tell him about it. so i consider it officially mainstream - Tyler Gillies
Obviously the genre that FriendFeed fits in is here to stay, like blogging. However, which one of these presence/microblogging/etc. services (friendfeed, twitter, jaiku, pownce, plurk, or YOUR COMPANY HERE) will be the john the baptist of the new genre is TBA. - Leif Hansen
people are often afraid of what they don't understand ..i think that steve didn't mean that exactly..i see some very cool apps for friendfeed that haven't been built yet.. noice level is high but tools and filters *will* come me thinks.. - John Furrier
One of the questions, possibly, is what kind of second order knowledge can we derive from the use of the new tool. Web pages gave us 'relevance' based search, blogs and comments gave us 'authoritative' conversation snippets. What is going to be the new concept introducedby microblogging tools is not clear yet. Lifestreaming needs to find its own utility function, and only than it will be able to maximize it. - David Orban
The fate of FF in the long-run is irrelevant. I think the important thing is that people will crave some type of life stream in order to be able to keep up. Just as people crave a Twitter alternative when it's down. I can follow FF alone and still catch most of the latest news/info I'm interested in. I barely touch my RSS reader anymore. - Rah™
@STEVERUBEL I think the big game changer is we can do away with the Social Media Press Release now. - Jeremiah Owyang
@rahsheen, friendfeed _is_ my rss reader now - Tyler Gillies
Can we keep the SMR if it incorporates FriendFeed? Just been at a seminar this morning where we had to explain blogs to PR people as a precursor to SMRs - Dave Kinsella
the big game changer would be if any of this stuff matterred. It doesn't - Dennis Howlett via twhirl
At Forrester we define a Groundswell as: A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations. - Jeremiah Owyang
He says "It's a recommendation engine that surfaces content (both pro and amateur) via your peers." It provides me a level of connection and insight (depth and breadth) that is the next step in instantaneous, open conversation. - This coming from a relative amateur - Paul Jonas
strikes me this is just another medium for PR/marketing - I can't see PR/marketing going away as long as companies need to get their products/services in front of people. - riaz
What Twitter, FF and others offer is simultaneously incredibly retro and oddly futuristic: word of mouth advocacy that can be instantly verified. When I hear about a new product or service from a trusted person on Twitter or FF, I can Google it and see how well it fits my needs. The role of advertising and PR is somewhat diminished, but fundamentally unchanged. The job is to coax people into making quick, emotional decisions *without* much due diligence, because they trust the brand. - Tom Cunniff
It took Steve a while before he made a post like this. He tends to be careful. I was happy to see it - Charlie Anzman
Tom Cunnif: "The job is to coax people into making quick, emotional decisions *without* much due diligence" -#ethics? - Leif Hansen
Absolutely fantabulous linkbait. You're just grumpy you didn't think of it first. ;-) - Chris Baskind
@Chris I just follow Jeremiah. - Steve Rubel via fftogo
I'm tending to side with Dennis Howlett today, he's bigger --and grumpier, then most, that's why we love him. - Jeremiah Owyang
After all the discussion I've seen in the blogosphere about FriendFeed, I decided to check it out finally. I'm still getting the hang of it--if at all-- but I'm willing to guess that as with all other social media platforms, FF might take some time before its use for marketing and PR is fully determined. They've not mastered social media quite yet, after all, and FF is only an avenue where all forms of social media congregate. - Evette
Leif Hansen - Ethics are very important to me, as I'm sure they are to you. IMHO, there is no ethical boundary being crossed here. Advertising and PR are both sales functions. The job of a salesperson is to make the most compelling case possible for the product he or she is selling. He or she is not obligated to provide an objective summary of all possible alternatives. As long as the sales info provided is truthful about what the product or service will actually deliver, I don't see an ethical problem. - Tom Cunniff
Yeah yeah. Being online didn't matter much in 1985, and the web wasn't wide spread in 1995. But a lot of us were praising the virtues. I agree it doesn't matter today. But like Steve, I believe that receiving info/communicating in this style will matter a lot in 10 years. I could be wrong :-) - Robert Seidman
@Evette, not even all forms, yet. There are other aggregators that offer more complete coverage but haven't gotten as much of a boost from the A-listers - Steve Lynch via Alert Thingy
Tom Cunniff -Thanks for the come back. I guess its hard for me to see the compatibility of the objectives of providing "truthful sales info" and "coaxing people into making quick, emotional decisions without much due diligence" Hopefully tools like friendfeed actually empower deeper investigation and public accountability into the claims made by various marketeers... - Leif Hansen
Leif Hansen - I agree it's a difficult balance to maintain. Most companies who have millions to spend on advertising consistently make very good, worthy products. But, it's a competitive world, and so it's impossible to *always* have the very best product with the very best reviews. You still gotta sell what you made, though. You have to make the best claims you can, and position it in a way so that the customer who buys it feels good about the purchase. There's no long-term business in lying to people. - Tom Cunniff
I think every generation of kids thinks they invented sex. Bloviating about every new web 2.0 gimmick is no different. It reminds me of Lewis Grizzard's quote about being a newspaper columnist. "Being a newspaper columnist is like being married to a nymphomaniac. It’s great for the first two weeks." Twitter, Friendfeed, and whatever gets thrown at us tomorrow are fun while the "cool kids" are there and just another roiling pot of spamvertisements when everyone else finally arrives. - Phil Yanov
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Larry Rubin posted a message on Twitter
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Louis Gray shared an item on Google Reader
June 9 at 8:36 pm - Link
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Robert Seidman posted a link
June 7 at 5:05 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link
"(06-07) 16:51 PDT Duanesburg, N.Y. (AP) -- A 29-year-old man leaped out of a plane at 10,000 feet with a camera but no parachute Saturday. His body was found next to a house with a damaged roof, police said. Sloan Carafello of Schenectady, who was observing on the flight, followed an instructor, student and videographer out the door, wearing no skydiving gear, officials said" - Robert Seidman
Give that man a Darwin Award. - Jack Carlson
that ap copy editor has a good sense of humor - edythe
This had Onion written all over it. But no! - Larry Rubin
♫ Humidity is rising - Barometer's getting low / According to all sources, the street's the place to go / 'Cause tonight for the first time / Just about half-past ten / For the first time in history / It's gonna start raining men ♫ -