pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/text_message-surgery-2.jpg" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" width="600" height="399" style="display:block;" /Using text message instructions from a colleague, a British surgeon in the Congo successfully amputated the gangrenous collarbone and shoulder blade of an unfortunate teenager who had his arms torn off in an accident./p pThe surgeon, David Nott, texted his colleague back in the UK as he was far more knowledgeable about the procedures required for such a delicate operation. The colleague, Meirion Thomas, responded with ten steps he needed to follow in order to carry out the procedure properly. Then signed off with a simple "Easy! Good luck!"/p pPersonally, I would have felt better having him on a regular cellphone call, but heymdash;the procedure went off without a hitch. Nott claimed it was as if he had a "guardian angel on my left shoulder showing me what to do." Indeed, a little cellphone-shaped angel. [a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/12/04/text.message.operation/index.html?eref=rss_tech"CNN/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=b37a0bc67023747525d2e31b8bf8cfc7p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=b37a0bc67023747525d2e31b8bf8cfc7p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=b37a0bc67023747525d2e31b8bf8cfc7" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=It2EyJh1"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=9WLkKI1N"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=aHb3Pcth"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=aHb3Pcth" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=ycs4xSKG"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=ycs4xSKG" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/X-l0WJFY33E" height="1" width="1"/

Using text message instructions from a colleague, a British surgeon in the Congo successfully amputated the gangrenous collarbone and shoulder blade of an unfortunate teenager who had his arms torn...

Seen here is a 2700-year-old stash of marijuana, found in a Gobi Desert grave near Turpan, China. Ethan Russo, a visiting professor at the Chinese Acadmy of Scineces, and his colleagues report the discovery in the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany (abstract). From Discovery News: The size of seeds mixed in with the leaves, along with their color and other characteristics, indicate the marijuana came from a cultivated strain. Before the burial, someone had carefully picked out all of the male plant parts, which are less psychoactive, so Russo and his team believe there is little doubt as to why the cannabis was grown. What is in question, however, is how the marijuana was administered, since no pipes or other objects associated with smoking were found in the grave. "Perhaps it was ingested orally," Russo said. "It might also have been fumigated, as the Scythian tribes to the north did subsequently." Oldest Marijuana Stash Found (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8a2f2dffcd7b695667417f8390f7ad2dp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=8a2f2dffcd7b695667417f8390f7ad2dp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=8a2f2dffcd7b695667417f8390f7ad2d" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner is a pioneer in the study of an emotion known as "elevation," characterized by a "a feeling of spreading, liquid warmth in the chest and a lump in the throat." (Not be confused with heartburn.) Triggering that emotion in the lab is challenging. His research group's latest approach though is to play their subjects Barack Obama's victory speech. (My IFTF colleague Jason Tester has dubbed the impact of Obama on people's brains "neurobama.") Slate has a great profile of "elevation" research, including the work of moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis. I also look forward to reading Keltner's forthcoming book on the subject of "elevation," titled Born To Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life (which is not an Obama biography). From Slate: Elevation has always existed but has just moved out of the realm of philosophy and religion and been recognized as a distinct emotional state and a subject for psychological study. Psychology has long focused on what goes wrong, but in the past decade there has been an explosion of interest in "positive psychology"—what makes us feel good and why. University of Virginia moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who coined the term elevation, writes, "Powerful moments of elevation sometimes seem to push a mental 'reset button,' wiping out feelings of cynicism and replacing them with feelings of hope, love, and optimism, and a sense of moral inspiration...." We come to elevation, Haidt writes, through observing others—their strength of character, virtue, or "moral beauty." Elevation evokes in us "a desire to become a better person, or to lead a better life." "Obama in Your Heart" (Slate), Buy "Born To Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life" (Amazon), Buy "The Happiness Hypothesis" (Amazon)...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=26e20096747314259a7e32045fa2ec27p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=26e20096747314259a7e32045fa2ec27p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=26e20096747314259a7e32045fa2ec27" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

div style="FLOAT: right"img title="Annoy-a-tron 2.0 Debuts" alt="Annoy-a-tron 2.0 Debuts" hspace="5" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/annoyatron-v2.jpg" vspace="5" border="0" //div pRemember the a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2006/11/annoyatron_drives_people_mad.html"original Annoy-a-tron/a? Well, like nearly everything else on the Web, it has moved to a href="http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/b278/"version 2.0/a. With this new iteration, you have half a dozen sound choices to choose from, including volume control to heckle at your colleague(s) in the office. These new "tunes" include :- p ul li15kHz (Mosquito tone - young folks can hear it, older folks cannot!) (full volume)/li liCricket chirping (medium/low volume)/li liIM Doorbell (low volume)/li liGrating Electronic noise (full volume)/li liTypical Electronic Beep (medium volume)/li/ul p/pIt would be interesting to see how people handle the cricket sound, since they would most probably check out the ground first. Guess placing the Annoy-a-tron 2.0 several feet or more above the ground would do the trick. The Annoy-a-tron 2.0 is powered by a solitary CR2450 battery and will retail for a href="http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/b278/"$12.99/a. p/p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/annoyatron_20_debuts.html"Annoy-a-tron 2.0 Debuts/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081204091049" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081204091049?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081204091049" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081204091049amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fannoyatron_20_debuts.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/TMo5bJdIzqIvj79KTZCCEdqBMXk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/TMo5bJdIzqIvj79KTZCCEdqBMXk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=U6OzmOgL"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=LOst8sAo"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=LOst8sAo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=bdYq2YuX"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=gQlTofFL"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=gQlTofFL" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=d3iMi1yD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=d3iMi1yD" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/2gVwrnv7Kg0" height="1" width="1"/

Chris Matthews is dead serious about running for the Senate in Pennsylvania, according to NBC colleagues, political operatives, and friends, reports the Politico.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=Blauo"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=Blauo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=xOLJO"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=xOLJO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=npB0o"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=npB0o" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=j9qWo"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=j9qWo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=pPgoO"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=pPgoO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=gcsiO"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=gcsiO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsMain/~4/474791561" height="1" width="1"/

img class=face src=http://planet.ubuntu.com/heads/launchpad-heading.png alt= pHate bugs? Want to make it easier for free software projects to fight them? If so, there may be a place on the Launchpad team for you./p pWe#8217;re looking for a developer to join the team that works on a href=https://bugs.launchpad.net/Launchpad#8217;s bug tracker/a. There are a few things we#8217;re looking for in our new team-mate. Most importantly, you should be passionate both about free software and helping projects find better ways to track bugs./p pOne of the existing Launchpad Bugs developers mdash; a href=http://news.launchpad.net/meet-the-devs/meet-graham-binnsGraham Binns/a mdash; has a good way of summarising what he#8217;d like to see in his new colleague:/p blockquotepI#8217;d rather work with someone who looks at a feature and says #8220;that#8217;s cool but it will cause these problems for our users#8221; than with someone who says #8220;wow, that must have been complex to code, cool#8221;./p/blockquote pIf you live and breath Python, love free software, have strong experience hacking on bug trackers and have a string of successful projects behind you, take a look at the a href=http://webapps.ubuntu.com/employment/canonical_LBAE/full job description/a. If you#8217;re successful, you#8217;ll be a joining fun, skilled and highly motivated team. You#8217;ll also get a grilling from me for our a href=http://news.launchpad.net/category/meet-the-devsemMeet the devs/em/a feature img src=http://news.launchpad.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif alt=:) class=wp-smiley / /p

pIn another sign of the times, Viacom (a href="http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?Page=QUOTETicker=VIA" class="ticker" title="VIA"NYSE: VIA/a) will cut roughly 850 jobs, approximately 7 percent of the company's workforce across all divisions during yet another overhaul of the company's structure. The company also will write down assets and programming. Viacom estimates that the combination of write downs and restructuring will result in Q408 pre-tax charge of $400-$450 million—and pre-tax savings of $200-$250 million in 2009. Senior-level management pay raises have been suspended for 2009 (no mention of bonuses). /p p bUpdate/b: I've confirmed that the layoffs, which are being made now, not only cut across divisions but run at least as high as EVP—possibly higher—and are meant to be global and domestic. No official numbers by division but MTVN is likely to take the biggest hit. This isn't a corporate restructuring and a spokesperson said "how it is playing out is being determined by each division." Viacom has been working on the plans for at least a month, causing intense speculation. Those affected are being notified "right away" and will remain on the payroll at least through year's end; severance will kick in after that. /p p We have the bfull memo, embedded below/b: /p p "Dear Colleagues: /p p With less than a month until the close of 2008, our entire organization continues to do everything possible to anticipate and adapt to the unprecedented changes affecting all our businesses.nbsp; We know it hasn't been easy and we couldn't be more proud or more appreciative of how you have risen to the challenge. bLots more after the jump..../b /ppDear Colleagues: /p p With less than a month until the close of 2008, our entire organization continues to do everything possible to anticipate and adapt to the unprecedented changes affecting all our businesses.nbsp; We know it hasn't been easy and we couldn't be more proud or more appreciative of how you have risen to the challenge. /p p Even in these tough economic times, Viacom has a strong hand to play. We have a broad stable of outstanding brands, diverse revenue streams and an impressive global footprint, backed up by exceptional financial strength.nbsp; Added to that we have talented employees, extremely able leaders and a creative ingenuity that runs deep. /p p Unfortunately, our advantages and best efforts can't completely protect Viacom from the very serious and broad-based challenges of this economic recession.nbsp; Viacom's long-term health will depend on our shared commitment to adapt, to innovate and to make difficult choices. To compete and thrive, we need to create an organization and a cost structure that are in step with the evolving economic environment. /p p Today, we are announcing a company-wide restructuring plan that includes staffing reductions in all divisions.nbsp; This will result in a reduction of our worldwide workforce of approximately 7 percent, or about 850 positions. We are also suspending salary increases for the Company's senior level management in 2009.nbsp; In addition, after a comprehensive review of our operations, we will write down certain programming and other assets.nbsp; These three actions will bring us significant cost savings and other efficiencies. /p p Top managers at every part of the company worked thoughtfully, carefully and compassionately to create a leaner, more focused organization.nbsp; It was not an easy task, but it was an essential step that will keep Viacom at the competitive forefront today and tomorrow. Department heads and supervisors will provide you with more information about the changes that will be taking place in your division. /p p Saying goodbye to friends and colleagues is always difficult, particularly when we have shared so much. Those of you who will be leaving should be proud of your contributions, which we will always respect and appreciate.nbsp; We thank you and we wish you the best. /p p The true measure of an organization is how it deals with change and overcomes challenges.nbsp; We know that you are up to the task and that together we will push through the difficulties ahead and go on to even greater achievements. /p p We truly appreciate your continued commitment and hard work and we thank you for everything you do each day.nbsp; /p p Sincerely, /p p Philippe and Tom /p piSocial Media Deals Report: This 199-page report, filled with charts and data, examines the categories, number and size of VC and MA deal in social media from 2007 through 2008. stronga href="http://www.paidcontent.org/reports/"Visit the ContentNext Reports page/a/strongi/p pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?a=DDI0Ks"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?i=DDI0Ks" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=MttVO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=MttVO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=60rAO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=60rAO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=IJrIo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=IJrIo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=4YpMO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=4YpMO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=KGthO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=KGthO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pcorg/~4/474721465" height="1" width="1"/

br /What it doesbr /br /In a nutshell, IMVOCAL is a solution that enables any mobile or phone user to dial into an Internet user without having to download any tool or application or pay anything. Basically, all you have to do is create an account and choose a 9-digit unique Internet call-in identifier. This becomes your VOCAL ID phone number, and from that point onwards any friend can call you and even leave a voice mail in the event you are not online. br brThis service has the added advantage of letting you be reachable without having to reveal your telephone number, so if there is a need for secrecy this service will do just fine for you. br brMoreover, a flash “call me” widget can be easily created and placed on blogs and related online resources to be instantly reachable. br brAs far as the supported countries go, these include the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and several Asian territories. It will be interesting to see which ones are added next. If you have any thoughts on that respect, make sure to drop the team a line and let them know. brbr /br /In their own wordsbr /br /“IMVOCAL lets you connect with friends, relatives, service providers and business colleagues all the time protecting your online identity.”br /br /Why it might be a killerbr /br /It is a solution that takes advantage of the latest advances in the field of communication and puts them to ready use.br /br /Some questionsbr /br /What information has to be furnished when creating an account? How do you choose the VOCAL ID number itself?br /br /Link: a href='http://www.imvocal.com'http://www.imvocal.com/abr /Our Review: a href='http://www.killerstartups.com/Comm/imvocal-com-give-your-im-a-phone-number'http://www.killerstartups.com/Comm/imvocal-com-give-your-im-a-phone-number/abr /br / nbsp;div class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=46PDEUf0"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=5GRL1Tur"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=3jjQzlKW"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?i=3jjQzlKW" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=xfqjebdG"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?i=xfqjebdG" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=ynW9UJP4"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?d=43" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=vxnouEM2"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?i=vxnouEM2" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/killerstartups/BkQV/~4/_rLnDIeCun4" height="1" width="1"/

The Politico:
Matthews advised to quit MSNBC  —  Chris Matthews is dead serious about running for the Senate in Pennsylvania - and shopping for a house in the state and privately discussing quitting MSNBC as proof of his intense interest, according to NBC colleagues, political operatives and friends.

pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=480f41a9796c7ac00075f76amaxX=220maxY=168" border="0" alt="viacom_logo.jpg" title="viacom_logo.jpg" width="220" height="168" /Viacom (VIA) will cut its workforce by 7% or about 850 jobs as part of "restructuring plans designed to better align its organization and overall cost structure with evolving economic conditions," according to a release. The company will also freeze wages for senior management and "write down certain programming and other assets."/p pTotal costs of the write-down and restructuring will be $400 million to $450 million in Q4. It's all supposed to save Viacom between $250 million and $250 million in 2009./p pCEO Philippe Dauman's memo, a href="http://gawker.com/5101825/the-dreaded-viacom-layoffs-850-people"via Gawker/a:/p blockquote pDear Colleagues:/p pWith less than a month until the close of 2008, our entire organization continues to do everything possible to anticipate and adapt to the unprecedented changes affecting all our businesses. We know it hasn't been easy and we couldn't be more proud or more appreciative of how you have risen to the challenge./p pEven in these tough economic times, Viacom has a strong hand to play. We have a broad stable of outstanding brands, diverse revenue streams and an impressive global footprint, backed up by exceptional financial strength. Added to that we have talented employees, extremely able leaders and a creative ingenuity that runs deep./p pUnfortunately, our advantages and best efforts can't completely protect Viacom from the very serious and broad-based challenges of this economic recession. Viacom's long-term health will depend on our shared commitment to adapt, to innovate and to make difficult choices. To compete and thrive, we need to create an organization and a cost structure that are in step with the evolving economic environment./p pToday, we are announcing a company-wide restructuring plan that includes staffing reductions in all divisions. This will result in a reduction of our worldwide workforce of approximately 7 percent, or about 850 positions. We are also suspending salary increases for the Company's senior level management in 2009. In addition, after a comprehensive review of our operations, we will write down certain programming and other assets. These three actions will bring us significant cost savings and other efficiencies./p pTop managers at every part of the company worked thoughtfully, carefully and compassionately to create a leaner, more focused organization. It was not an easy task, but it was an essential step that will keep Viacom at the competitive forefront today and tomorrow. Department heads and supervisors will provide you with more information about the changes that will be taking place in your division./p pSaying goodbye to friends and colleagues is always difficult, particularly when we have shared so much. Those of you who will be leaving should be proud of your contributions, which we will always respect and appreciate. We thank you and we wish you the best./p pThe true measure of an organization is how it deals with change and overcomes challenges. We know that you are up to the task and that together we will push through the difficulties ahead and go on to even greater achievements./p pWe truly appreciate your continued commitment and hard work and we thank you for everything you do each day./p pSincerely,/p pPhilippe and Tom/p /blockquote pstrongSee Also:/strongbr /a href="../../2008/11/viacom-media-revenues-grow-6-ad-sales-down-2-"Viacom Media Revenues Grow 6%, Ad Sales Down 2%/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/kCEB9O48axiLUqnS8Ti4G14o74w/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/kCEB9O48axiLUqnS8Ti4G14o74w/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=MnuAiReK"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=MnuAiReK" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=qMrVHFVz"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=bCzGMphm"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=GsUI4hbr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=GsUI4hbr" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=EyfiXIH0"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=tnZ5PNg5"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=6jJB5Ob3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=APwpLaXJ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/Oo7XVKBH6u8" height="1" width="1"/

Readers from waaaay back may recall an event I helped out with a few years ago, bringing together scientists, philosophers, and our resident IDist to discuss evolution and intelligent design. One of the speakers was University of Iowa professor Mark Blumberg, a colleague in the Department of Psychology. Dr. Blumberg also happens to be a prolific author, and has just released his third book in 4 years: “Freaks of Nature: What Anomalies Tell us About...

The Blog of Less Renown, celebrating under-appreciated unusual, unique, sick or strange Singers, Songwriters and Songs nbsp; nbsp; a HREF=http://illfolks.blogspot.com/2008/10/heftis-bag-more-than-odd-couple-batman.htmlObituary (+ mp3 links) to Neil Hefti - like his jumpy-cadenced colleague Burt Bacharach, Hefti's most creative era was the 60's, when his unique jazz-pop rhythms enlivened many movie and TV soundtracks. Of course the two numbers that leap to mind would be the silly and cartoonishly discordant Batman theme and the dippy and splashy theme for The Odd Couple./a nbsp; nbsp; nsfw due to an entry called 'A Two-Tune Salute to SARAH PALIN'

A WELSH surgeon volunteering in war-torn Congo performed a life-saving amputation on a teenager using text message instructions from a colleague 3,000 miles away. nbsp; The extraordinary surgery was performed by Carmarthen-born David Nott after a 16-year-old boy was rushed to hospital after his arm was bitten off by a hippo and became severely infected. nbsp; But despite his extensive experience as a cardiovascular surgeon, Mr Nott was not familiar with the operation and had to call on his colleague Meirion Thomas for advice.

!-- pageType= magazinesmall slug= st_kia section= techbiz subsection= people headline= Mr. Know-It-All: Call-Center Etiquette, Offensive Podcasts, Awkward Transactions authorName= Brendan I. Koerner creditType= illustration credit= Christoph Niemann -- p strong Dear Mr. Know-It-All, is it cool to ask call-center operators what country they're in? I'm not a bigot or opposed to outsourcing, but I like to know who I'm dealing with./strong /p pFire away with the geolocation query, but be wary of how you broach the topic. Call-center operators deal with countless xenophobic jerks, who typically follow the "Where are you located?" question with a stream of invective. An operator may thus turn defensive in anticipation of the same treatment from youmdash;unless you're careful with your tone and timing. "If the very first thing out of your mouth is, 'Hey, what country are you in,' I think that's rude," says a href="http://www.kathleenpeterson.com/"Kathleen Peterson/a, founder of PowerHouse Consulting, which advises call-center operations. Resolve your business first, then feel free to ask about location when there's a natural lull in the conversation. At that point, make sure your voice exudes affability, as if you were simply inquiring about the weather in Omaha./p pAnd, should you learn you're on the horn with someone on the planet's flip side, go easy on the inane chitchat. "A call-center agent has a job to do and probably doesn't want to answer questions about the population of Bangalore," says a href="http://www.globaltelesourcing.com/exper-colton.htm"Bill Colton/a, president of Global Telesourcing, a call-center service provider./p pThe operator may decline to answer your question or try to convince you that he's in Kansas even though his accent screams Ukraine. Such deception indicates that a company either wants to hide the fact that it's outsourcing or doesn't think too highly of its customersmdash;make a mental note of it./p pstrongI've been helping my nongeek friend build a Flash-intensive Web site. It's gotten to the point where I'm spending a dozen hours a week on it. How should I ask for compensation?/strong/p pYour pal surely didn't intend to exploit you. Odds are he doesn't know how much work goes into codingmdash;an impression you encouraged by not demanding dough up front./p pAssuming you want this relationship to survive, bring up the problem without making your friend feel like a total heel. a href="http://www.negotiatingwithgiants.com/introduction.html"Peter D. Johnston/a, the author of emNegotiating with Giants/em, recommends telling him that a sudden influx of paying gigs precludes you from doing more work, but you'd be happy to point him to a replacement. "That approach can get the issue of time and payment out on the table in a nonthreatening way," Johnston says. Presuming he's hesitant to switch horses midstream, your pal should offer to make his project worth your while./p pRefrain from pressing for back pay, however, or you're likely to look like a greedy ass. Those hours you've already spent slaving away in the digital mines? Consider them a lesson in the veracity of an age-old maxim: "Never mix business with pleasure."/p p div id="embed" div id="pic"img src="http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1612/st_kia2_f.jpg" alt="" / div id="caption"emIllustration: Christoph Niemann/em/div /div /div strongEveryone in my office has sharing enabled on iTunes. One of my coworker's libraries contains several podcasts of sermons I find highly offensivemdash;they contain lots of antigay blather. Should I confront her?/strong/p pIt depends on how you gleaned those sermons' content. If you couldn't help noticing incendiary titles along the lines of "Fags Go to Hell," then a little indirect confrontation is in ordermdash;tell a manager, pronto./p pBut if the titles were innocuous, and you thus had to listen to the podcasts in order to be offended, pause a moment before taking action. You may have a valid case, but you'll have to decide whether this fight can ever yield anything more than a Pyrrhic victory./p pIt would be one thing if your colleague was blasting these sermons through her speakers for all to hearmdash;or, for that matter, telling everyone around the watercooler about the Lord's contempt for sodomites. But a shared iTunes environment such as yours is strictly opt-inmdash;you can easily avoid listening to the offensive content./p pThe best meatspace parallel is a coworker who keeps a small stack of religious pamphlets in plain view, which you can just ignore. True, there have been cases in which employers have been successfully sued for writing Bible verses on paychecks or broadcasting prayers over public address systems. But those situations were a lot more in-your-face than what's going on heremdash;in part because they involved bosses rather than colleagues, but also because the employees couldn't escape the proselytizing./p pAn aggressive lawyer could still argue that the mere presence of those tracks on the network creates a hostile workplace. But that strikes Mr. Know-It-All as making a sermon on the mount out of a sermon on a molehill, especially considering that the suit could very well be a losermdash;you might be hard-pressed to prove that the screeds, tucked away in an iTunes library, are severe or pervasive enough to constitute harassment./p pAs odious as you might find your coworker's views, it's probably best to give her a pass. Look on the bright sidemdash;now you know who to avoid at the office holiday party./p pemNeed help navigating life in the 21st century? Email us at /ema href="mailto:mrknowitall@wiredmag.com"mrknowitall@wiredmag.com/a./pbr style="clear: both;"/ a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:20d0f30c717b55767a97d16ab4484e9d:g1tf9adfc25jpXgkH8uKhMR%2BngoXs%2BDFLKAaS7SFOP%2FLsmDz%2BdZ%2F6fQrx2gCko%2FwpvWvkl9QfvTDow%3D%3D'img border='0' title='Add to Facebook' alt='Add to Facebook' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:f0a383436fbc6fa75c537e470d5de6dc:bFugwmegC8RftsXvM3wKBIF5b9LsYeK6cuDyo3RWg0hgPOsFGY%2B8JjdAtvTrVLTKC%2FVJddTgKHOM'img border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:c162596b45dd2aaf4f1644ef15064491:jxJd6gkLweGPjQ7tNdPUOWCP%2F2ZdfPQ6SO9V2ASSUZdHik%2FrWfaAfshSTEVebcxTQ36rF1lguDCm'img border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:02ff51d0d029db5fc136e971b6cd6b84:rcQ6Cotybfh21x45NhbpE%2BXMhW0EYpHhwkXIVs87B7yA%2BVfjzP4jvUE6g5CDDOwgoWK94X7Lmgct'img border='0' title='Add to Google' alt='Add to Google' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png'//a br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=b2cecfe46439f19c1186d417c1984534p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=b2cecfe46439f19c1186d417c1984534p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=b2cecfe46439f19c1186d417c1984534" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/ pa href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?a=2ZiwRz"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?i=2ZiwRz" border="0"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~4/474334199" height="1" width="1"/

!-- pageType= magazinesmall slug= ff_blodget section= techbiz subsection= people headline= Financial Industry Scapegoat Reinvents Himself as Financial Reporter authorName= Daniel Roth creditType= photo credit= Mike McGregor caption= Henry Blodgetis back, and his straight-talking analysis of the Web world is earning him new fans. -- pstrongHenry Blodget/strong has never gotten used to the chorus of hate that follows his every move. He's merely learned to live with it. When he started his personal blog in 2005, the comments a href="http://www.internetoutsider.com/2005/10/welcomeand_than.html"dripped with disgust/a. "You are a boldface liar," a reader wrote. "Give me one reason why I should believe what you are writing," said another. And that was just in response to Blodget's innocuous first entry. /ppDuring his years as a star Wall Street analyst, his pronouncements were welcomed and celebrated; now he couldn't say hello without getting savaged. Just last August, TechCrunch mentioned that Blodget would be one of more than two dozen tech celebrities a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/15/4-new-experts-henry-blodget-josh-kopelman-tim-o%E2%80%99reilly-robert-scoble-join-techcrunch50/"judging a contest/a for startups. Blodget knew what was coming, even if his hosts didn't. "Blodget is scum.... He is no longer the arrogant prick we saw in the '90s, but he's still scum," someone wrote. "A lot of people lost money listening to this dirtbag." "Blodget is a Web 1.0, bubble-creating has-been." "He is unethical." "He's as crooked as they come."/p pI meet a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/henry_blodget.html"Blodget/a at the offices of his new business, a year-old site called a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/"Silicon Alley Insider/a, shortly after the TechCrunch beat-down. Alley Insider is one of many tech business blogs that feed news, earnings info, and rumors to investors and corporate insiders. But Alley Insider has one thing that others don't. Blodget. He's smart, he's skeptical, and he's got the kind of self-assured voice that sells well in the blogosphere. As the market sinks, his opinions are even more in demand, though he's still hated by a large portion of his prospective audience./p pThe site shares two floors of a Manhattan office building with programmers and business staff for some of Alley Insider's sister companies, all of which were started by former DoubleClick CEO a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/kevin_ryan"Kevin Ryan/a. Blodget works in a double-wide cubicle near a window, separated by a low wall from the site's two other editors. They spend their days crawling Twitter and RSS feeds, calling sources, and pumping out about a dozen daily takes on the business world, most with Digg-friendly headlines (no easy accomplishment with bone-dry business stories). "Is Facebook Distracting Us From Porn? No" is a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/is-facebook-distracting-us-from-porn-no"typical/a, or "a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/googles_ginormous_food_budget_7530_per_googler"Google's Ginormous Food Budget/a: $7,530 Per Googler, $72 Million a Year." Blodget tells his team to think of the site as talk radio: He wants readers to feel compelled to check in several times a day to get the Alley Insider view on everything going on in their world./p pFor privacy, we duck into a small conference room, and Blodget, tall and skinny, sinks into a ridiculously deep leather chair. His floppy dirty-blond hair gives him a youthful, almost carefree air, but the deep circles that ring his eyes tell a different story. He's managing a 24-hour news startup. It's midday and he's been posting since 5 am. And then there's the burden that comes with being Henry Blodget, digital punching bag./p p"There are obviously a lot of folks who say, 'Now wait a minute, isn't that the guy who....'" He lets the thought trail off. He's legally barred from talking about the incidents that led to his vilification. "To them, I'm emthat/em Henry Blodget. There's not much more I can say. I still can't address specific points. So it's like, 'OK, here's my face. Throw the fruit. When you want to stop throwing the fruit, if you want to listen, great. If you don't, fine.'"/p pIt's been almost a decade since the impulse to greet him with rotten mangos first struck. Back in 1998, as a 32-year-old analyst with investment bank CIBC, he a href="http://www.thestreet.com/markets/analystrankings/977502.html"declared/a that the stock price of Amazon.com would nearly double to $400. Three weeks later it did, and Blodget was a hero. Soon he packed up his spreadsheets mdash; he's never more comfortable than when he is lining up numbers in rows and columns and teasing out their secrets mdash; and moved to Merrill Lynch./p pInvestors followed the new oracle's every utterance, and bankers wanted Blodget to bless the stocks of companies they were hoping to do business with. The lines on his graphs always seemed to point one way mdash; steeply up and to the right. He wasn't just predicting profits, he was selling a revolution: The old metrics didn't apply. Blodget may have counseled people to own only a small percentage of Internet stocks mdash; 10 percent at the most mdash; but nobody listened./p !-- pagebreak -- div id="embed" style="width:370px;" div id="pic" style="width:350px;" img style="width:350px;" src="http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1612/ff_blodget3_f.jpg" alt=""/ div id="caption" Launched in 2007, Silicon Alley Insider is gaining on some of its established rivals. br/ emSource: Compete/em /div /div /div pThen came the crash. Five trillion dollars in wealth vaporized in 24 months, leaving behind unquantifiable amounts of rage among the masses of day traders who had believed briefly that they, too, were market savants. When the bubble burst, so did Blodget's aura./p pStill, it wasn't the crash alone that crushed him. It took Eliot Spitzer to turn Henry Blodget into emthat/em Henry Blodget. Spitzer, then New York's crusading attorney general, investigated Merrill in 2001 for conflicts of interest. He discovered a clutch of emails from the young analyst showing that while talking up certain stocks to clients, he was trashing them internally. Companies like 24/7 Media, Excite@Home, and InfoSpace mdash; firms Merrill was publicly cheering mdash; in private were deemed by Blodget to be "shit," "crap," and "junk" (respectively). According to Spitzer's findings, Blodget would have pulled in $12 million in 2001 mdash; quadruple his earnings in 1999 mdash; if he hadn't accepted a buyout that year. In 2003, Merrill's boy genius agreed to pay a $4 million fine and accepted a lifetime ban from working in the securities industry./p pPublic disgrace usually drives a person into hiding, or at least into a different career. Jerry Levin, the brains behind the disastrous AOL-Time Warner merger, today runs a href="http://moonviewsanctuary.com/staff"Moonview Sanctuary/a, his wife's spa; Spitzer, forced to resign as governor last summer, is currently discovering the a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2008/06/10/spitzers-next-act-distressed-real-estate/"joys of real estate management/a; Health South CEO Richard Scrushy, while on trial for accounting fraud, a href="http://www.richardmscrushy.com/biography.aspx"became a televangelist/a. Not Blodget./p pOne former colleague says Blodget spent the months when he was being investigated trying to grasp why he was singled out for something that was commonplace in the industry. He figured the controversy would blow over once the public realized his conduct was not unusual. "He was incredulous that the investigation got traction; he said it was silly," a friend says. But there was too much anger in the wake of the bubble, and Blodget's embarrassing emails made him an easy scapegoat. Later, when he was inclined to argue his case, the settlement terms prevented it./p pSo Blodget did what came naturally. He began writing about the companies he used to cover, a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2104656/"first for Slate/a, then on his own blog, a href="http://www.internetoutsider.com/"Internet Outsider/a. Was this journalism mdash; or was it therapy? Rather than hide, he started saying in public what he had once said only in private, using the same brutally frank voice that got him in trouble with Spitzer. He marketed his notoriety to a new Web readership hungry for smart, independent analysis./p pWhen Ryan, an Internet Outsider reader, approached him about starting an industry news site, Blodget jumped at the prospect of a bigger stage. Before working on Wall Street, he'd been a freelance writer; now he could combine the two vocations, borrowing freely from both journalism and equity research./p pThrough Alley Insider, Blodget is trying to erase, post by post, Spitzer's portrait of him as a duplicitous, money-grubbing shill for big business. Blodget has always believed that the Internet changed everything, so naturally he believes it has the power to change the world's perception of him. The venue offers all Henry, all the time (and even when his other writers are posting, it's clear they're channeling him). The result is a unique blend of x-ray analysis and tech evangelism./p pAs we talk, Blodget gets up from his chair, antsy to return to his laptop. I ask him if he understands what he's up against. If the hate has lasted this long, why expect it ever to fade away? "If all I knew about me was what I read during that period," he says, "I'd probably have the same reaction."/p pstrongOn a late summer morning/strong, Blodget waits in the lobby of the Nasdaq building in midtown Manhattan. He's all banker today: blue suit, red tie, black cap-toed Oxfords, his shirt so deeply pressed there are creases down the sleeves. It's 10 am and, ready for his second breakfast, he pries open the plastic case of a turkey and Swiss sandwich and starts wolfing it down. In a few minutes he is supposed to conduct a video interview for Yahoo's Tech Ticker finance site. As soon as Blodget started appearing as a regular host in February, the Furies a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/650/Jerry-Yang-Strikes-Back;-Here%27s-Microsoft%27s-Next-Move?tickers=yhoo,msft"reemerged/a. "Did you not find any other decent, credible guy than Henry Blodget?" one of the first comments read. "Why spoil this new feature with such a scum and spoil the Yahoo reputation?"/p pAs producers prepare to tape the show, Blodget wipes his crumbs off the table. He explains the guiding vision behind Alley Insider. "We don't want to do things we don't care about," he says. "It's nice to say theoretically we're the judge of what's important and what's not, but come on, give readers credit. They'll tell you immediately what they want, and that drives coverage. People are fanatically interested in Apple, Google, Microsoft. It wasn't a tough call to know what to write about."/p pBlodget's focus on content is matched by his apparent indifference to the look of the site. Alley Insider employs a cookie-cutter template of scrolling headlines and thumbnail photos dragged off the Web. But design limitations notwithstanding, by September the site was getting nearly 500,000 visitors a month, rivaling a href="http://allthingsd.com/"AllThingsDigital.com/a, the citeWall Street Journal/cite blog edited by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Since the beginning of the year, traffic to the site has more than doubled, and Blodget's words now carry surprising weight. When a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/apple-s-steve-jobs-rushed-to-er-after-heart-attack-says-cnn-citizen-journalist"he reported/a early this fall that Steve Jobs may have been rushed to the hospital after a heart attack mdash; citing an anonymous (and, as it turns out, fraudulent) post on a minor user-generated news site run by CNN called iReport mdash; Apple's a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/technology/apple/"stock dropped/a nearly 10 percent. Critics blamed Alley Insider./p p"I read citeThe New York Times/cite, citeThe Economist/cite, and Alley Insider," says a href="http://www.firebrandpartners.com/principals/index.html"Scott Galloway/a, head of investment equity firm Firebrand Partners, who is best known for his successful public fight to get on the board of citeThe New York Times/cite. "Henry takes a no-mercy, no-malice approach to Web business and media." Valleywag recently called him "the disgraced stock analyst everyone now listens to."/p !-- pagebreak -- div class="wide_img" img src="http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1612/ff_blodget2_f.jpg" alt="" div class="wide_caption" div class="wide_caption_txt" The team at Silicon Alley Insider (left to right): senior editor Dan Frommer, COO Julie Hansen, cofounder Kevin Ryan, and editor in chief Blodget. br/ emPhoto: Mike McGregor/em /div /div /div br/ br/ pFor all the success today, it took Blodget amp; Co. some time to figure out a winning formula. When Ryan, a New Yorker, launched the site in 2007, he wanted to cover the local startup and media scene. Blodget signed on as CEO and editor in chief, bought a minority stake, and hired citeForbes/cite journalists a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/peter_kafka"Peter Kafka/a and a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/dan_frommer"Dan Frommer/a to help him develop content (Kafka was later hired away by AllThingsD). The first few weeks, the site read like a tourist's guide to spotting B-list Internet companies in the big city, with each firm's location prominently announced: "NoHo-based Meetup has quietly launched a Facebook application"; "Flatiron-based YellowJacket Software has raised $1.25 million." Blodget branched out, taking on the bigger names himself mdash; Apple, Dow Jones, NBC, JP Morgan. It quickly became clear to him that New York's tech industry was too small an arena to contain the ambition of the site. And nearly half the readers were in California anyway./p pAlley Insider soon dropped its Silicon Alley focus but stuck with the moniker. And Blodget began to draw more heavily on his research experience. He created financial models of the companies he was talking about and posted the spreadsheets as Google docs so anyone could download and toy with them. He analyzed the potential revenue YouTube could bring to Google, mapping out his assumptions about viewership and ads watched, and offering a clear bottom-line conclusion. Readers weighed in with their critiques, which Blodget used to sharpen the model. He figured he wouldn't just write about Wall Street, he would also usurp part of Wall Street's business by providing high-quality research, the kind brokerage customers used to prize./p pBut visitors to the site wanted more than analytics. They also craved the edgier Henry of the Spitzer emails. Blodget obliged. In one post, a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/1/ben_stein_is_an_idiot"Blodget declares/a citeNew York Times/cite economics columnist Ben Stein to be either "an idiot" or possibly just "delusional." He suggests that the anonymous sources cited by archrival TechCrunch in its reporting on Microsoft's attempt to purchase Yahoo "a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/yahoo_stock_fades_as_techcrunch_microsoft_takeover_sources_sober_up"must have been drunk/a." And in November 2007, when E-Trade lost $9 billion in value as its risky mortgage bets turned to dust, Blodget offered only one piece of advice to the company's shareholders: "a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/11/etrade_etfc_total_cost_of_screwup_9_billion"Cry/a."/p p"On Wall Street, I'd consistently submit a report that would say, 'This is going to be roadkill,' and it would come back rewritten as 'We see some weakness,'" Blodget says. "Now I can say, 'It's going to be roadkill.' That's very satisfying."/p pBut even as he delights in railing against corporate giants, he's still disciplined enough to run the underlying numbers mdash; Blodget loves the drama, but he loves the spreadsheets just as much. One post about craigslist should have been something only an accountant could love: a complex set of assumptions and analyses to determine what the company might be worth. Yet Blodget wrote the whole exercise as if it were a mystery plot, parceling out details and stringing the reader along until the very end./p pWhen Yahoo announced this summer that it had hired Bain amp; Co., a consulting firm usually brought in when a company is about to start swinging the ax, Blodget a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/yahoo-fat-farm-how-many-people-does-yahoo-need-to-fire-to-get-fit-"sharpened his own pencil/a. "We're mad as hell ... especially now that Yahoo's wasting millions on Bain." He offered his own, free advice (spreadsheet attached) cataloging how many people Yahoo should fire in each division mdash; 1,804 from its "positively obese" sales and marketing arm alone mdash; in order to goose operating margins to a "more respectable" 20 percent from its current 7 percent. "He pushed us early on to ask, 'What does this mean for profits? How does any news affect a company's numbers?'" Frommer says. "It's great if it makes a company look bad or look good, but is this really going to affect the numbers?"/p pBlodget is also trying things that no mainstream-journalism-trained blogger like Swisher or GigaOm's a href="http://gigaom.com/"Om Malik/a would ever dare. He makes serious-sounding offers to buy companies that he wants to demonstrate are significantly undervalued. It's pure showmanship, but with Blodget's background in finance and his ties to folks up and down Wall Street, no one knows just how far he will take the joke./p pHis first target was CNET. With the a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/12/announcing_our_friendly_takeover_offer_for_cnet"slightest of winks/a, he wrote a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/1/cnet_update_on_our_offer_and_restructuring_plan_part_1"post after post/a explaining how he'd a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/jana_here_s_our_plan_for_cnet"purchase the company/a. At first he proposed a sort of reverse merger, with CNET buying Alley Insider for $50 million in stock, at which point Blodget's team would take over every aspect of the company. Then he detailed the operational changes he would make./p !-- pagebreak -- pRyan got nervous about Blodget's new direction. Blodget's deal with the government forbade him from giving individual research advice, but it didn't say anything about jumping into the private-equity space. Still, there might be legal issues. "Look, why don't we run this by a lawyer just to make sure, because we're getting into securities stuff here," he said to Blodget. When the lawyer asked them "Is this a real offer?" there was a brief silence. For the first time the two really thought about it./p p"You know, yes," Ryan replied. "If they said yes, we would accept $50 million at that time to buy them. So it is a real offer. But we're actually asking them to buy us." The lawyer signed off on the convoluted reasoning./p pAfter Blodget's taunting posts went up, investment firm JANA Partners announced a hostile takeover attempt of CNET. It failed, but by spring 2008 CBS a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/cbs_buying_cnet_for_1_8_billion"stepped in to buy/a the company for $1.8 billion./p pFor one CNET executive, memories of Blodget's unwanted attentions still rankle. "The way you make a big name for yourself on the Web today is to make, for lack of a better word, ridiculous statements," says Zander Lurie, former senior VP of strategy and development at CNET and now CFO of CBS Interactive. Lurie found himself reassuring employees who sent him Blodget's postings and wondered whether their company was at risk. "Everyone knew there was nothing in the offering: He didn't have the capital, the expertise, or any specific insight into our business," Lurie says. "He makes the ridiculous statement and it gets sent all around, and then he claims credit when there's an event the following year, which obviously he had nothing to do with. Less than zero to do with. We all have reputations. And his track record is well known."/p pBlodget has been a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/how-the-new-york-times-nyt-can-save-itself"waging another/a half-serious acquisition fight, this time for the New York Times Company. All he wants is the Web site mdash; the print side is dead, he says. He thinks the paper needs to cut about 80 percent of its costs, at which point it would be the perfect size to be the digital paper of record for a long time to come. "It's a serious offer from our perspective, but it hasn't been taken seriously," Blodget says./p pstrongIn the wake of Wall Street's latest meltdown/strong, Blodget finds himself in even greater demand. He's doing regular TV appearances and is posting again on Slate. When NPR wanted someone to talk about the Wall Street culture of greed, they a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94667073"brought in Blodget/a. The reporter introduced him by pointing out that Merrill is now gone, "and Henry Blodget is gone, too; he's banned from Wall Street after being charged with fraud."/p p"Thanks," Blodget said, stuttering for a second, "especially for that horrific introduction." They both laughed. But by the end, the host was treating Blodget like an elder statesman./p pRecently Blodget has been expanding his franchise. He and Ryan have launched two sister sites: a href="http://www.clusterstock.com/"Clusterstock/a, which will compile and analyze Wall Street research on a much wider range of industries, and a href="http://www.businesssheet.com/"the Business Sheet/a, which will focus on corporate scandals. A third is in the works. For each new site, Blodget provides the bulk of the early posts, seeding the new enterprise with the Blodget touch./p pBlodget is broadening beyond tech to get ready for what he sees as a coming shakeout in the news-blog industry. He says he might even start making acquisitions if the price is right. Ryan's suite of companies has raised $50 million in the past few years, possibly enough to buy out some other interesting small blogs. The winning formula for this new kind of business remains elusive: It's a matter of finding the balance between gossip and analysis, between aggregating news from other sources and doing original reporting. Revenue models that go beyond basic advertising have also been slow in coming. "If you look at the development of every new medium, there's been a new form of journalism that has been made possible by it, and there has always been this period of transition," Blodget says. "There is collective experimentation as people figure out what works and what doesn't, and usually you have some very important publications that are built."/p pAnother way to expand is to sell to a larger media company. Blodget says he'd consider an offer, but Alley Insider is still defined almost entirely by one man. If he left, the value would plummet. Also, some media institutions mdash; the