Randy Cassingham's Blog http://www.thisistrue.com/ en Copyright 2010 Sat, 03 Jul 2010 10:30:00 -0700 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.32-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Independence Day It's Independence Day weekend in the U.S., and I thought I'd share a couple of photos I took yesterday in the "real" Rural America.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/hs9BkCJlAj8/blog-independence_day.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-independence_day.html Away From Work Sat, 03 Jul 2010 10:30:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-independence_day.html Poor Taste? Not Offhand. I did get some complaints last week about the story of the guy who lost his arm when it became stuck in his furnace boiler. I have my own response to the complaints of "poor taste" and "NOT FUNNY!" I also have a reply from the reader I was thinking about when I wrote the story -- a Premium subscriber who is missing an arm.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/SWHOV-t4ALA/blog-poor_taste_not_offhand.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-poor_taste_not_offhand.html Reader Feedback Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-poor_taste_not_offhand.html My New Project: Mastermind Source I'm finally ready to unveil my new project. I've said I'm going to reveal the secret to my business success so that others might learn from it and be more successful too. Thus, I said, it's obviously "quite a departure from funny stuff or social commentary". It's not something that only works for online businesses, or even just entrepreneurs.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/OQACCn_cScM/blog-my_new_project_mastermind_source.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-my_new_project_mastermind_source.html Other Projects Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-my_new_project_mastermind_source.html FloriDuh People often try to tell me California is the weirdest state in the union. No way, I always reply: Florida is. I find more weird stories there than from any other state, even though California (with about 37 million residents) has twice the population as Florida (with about 18.5 million). One of their newspapers even has a recurring feature called "FloriDuh" -- they know the weirdness that permeates the state.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/1yRXg8Fou5A/blog-floriduh.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-floriduh.html Photo Mon, 24 May 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-floriduh.html Later Lyris: Arrived at AWeber This week marks the first issue sent solely to the new distribution list -- you might have noticed that it says at the top of this week's issue that it's "only" going out to 38,463 subscribers. After months of notice, I have shut down the Lyris-based list, even though well over half the subscribers didn't move to the new list, hosted by industry leader AWeber.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/Jn-FhKBbago/blog-later_lyris_arrived_at_aweber.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-later_lyris_arrived_at_aweber.html True Business Fri, 07 May 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-later_lyris_arrived_at_aweber.html GOOHFy Anniversary Oh! I just realized it's an anniversary! When I went to look up what was the best story from 10 years ago, I realized that there were really two: Mike the Headless Chicken, and the story that led a reader to tell me I was, positively and without doubt, going to hell.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/gNtf4dZou58/blog-goohfy_anniversary.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-goohfy_anniversary.html Other Projects Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-goohfy_anniversary.html Facebook Protest OK, I'm a crank. I like Facebook. I really do. But one of the things I hate about it is how all up-in-arms people get about nothing. Today, I got Yet Another "invitation" to join a group to protest Facebook's plans to start charging for using the service -- the variant I got was "NO! I WILL NOT PAY $3.99/MONTH TO USE FACEBOOK STARTING JULY 9, 2010! JOIN." Again.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/cVqv66-LWQQ/blog-facebook_protest.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-facebook_protest.html Away From Work Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-facebook_protest.html Robbing Peter to Pay Paul A few weeks ago I grumbled in a newsletter about the lousy ads I was getting on one of my sites, which were bringing a whopping 4.8 cents per click. I said "I may try Bing ads instead if Google doesn't get me better [ads] soon."

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/mhAs2lX3SLQ/blog-robbing_peter_to_pay_paul.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-robbing_peter_to_pay_paul.html Online Life Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-robbing_peter_to_pay_paul.html The Life You Save May Be... A special "extra" story this week. I've pulled it out separately because it doesn't "really" fit in with True's theme. While it is a bit weird, it's certainly not about someone doing something stupid.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/ZojYgBaJFUU/blog-the_life_you_save_may_be.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-the_life_you_save_may_be.html Update Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-the_life_you_save_may_be.html 1984 in 2010  

Update:

Example Photo Released

My recent blog post analyzing a Zero Tolerance case (Patrick Timoney's "Gun") showed just how crazy people can get trying to control others, and their desire to punish non-transgressions just the same as if the person was actually doing something wrong. Most people fully got the point. Others, to my shock, didn't. ]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/MDniUSXf0Kk/blog-1984_in_2010.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-1984_in_2010.html Rants Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-1984_in_2010.html Patrick Timoney's "Gun" The "zero tolerance" stories just don't stop, despite court decisions and legislators demanding "common sense". A 2" hunk of plastic isn't a gun, unless you're a hysterical grade school principal who demands that 9-year-olds in your care sign confessions when they bring a toy to school.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/hbyQaF-Y8OA/blog-patrick_timoneys_gun.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-patrick_timoneys_gun.html Zero Tolerance Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-patrick_timoneys_gun.html New Project: the Mug Shot Museum The last time I posted a police photo of someone I wrote about in True*, more than 10,000(!!) people went and looked.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/RiUlw-CGSZI/blog-new_project_the_mug_shot_museum.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-new_project_the_mug_shot_museum.html Other Projects Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:05:27 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-new_project_the_mug_shot_museum.html On Stage with Penn & Teller This is the sordid tale of my having been exposed to Teller's bodily fluids.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/jF3NDnNdAJE/blog-on_stage_with_penn_teller.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-on_stage_with_penn_teller.html Away From Work Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-on_stage_with_penn_teller.html Mystery Power Outage We have a pretty complex power system at our house in the country: critical systems (heat, fridge/freezer, and the office, including the computer network) are on backup power so we can run them for days in case of a power outage. The worst so far has been just a few hours, most recently when a pole on the edge of our property snapped when it was really, really cold (apparently the pole had rotted, and then couldn't take the cold). So I was really perplexed when I got an alert last night that the backed-up circuits had failed ...yet the rest of the house was on. Huh?!

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/c4lo49GDl_s/blog-mystery_power_outage.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-mystery_power_outage.html Away From Work Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-mystery_power_outage.html Ed Freeman and Political Manipulation I generally don't want suggestions for True's Honorary Unsubscribe feature; my usual problem is having far too many possibilities for the one slot each week. In July, a new trend started, and has not stopped (I got another last week): people wanting me to do an Honorary Unsubscribe write-up for Ed Freeman, a brave Vietnam War helicopter pilot who saved about 30 shot-up kids and was awarded the Medal of Honor -- the U.S.'s highest military decoration.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RandyCassinghamsBlog/~3/WdTop6yHDxY/blog-ed_freeman_and_political_manipulation.html http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-ed_freeman_and_political_manipulation.html Other Projects Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:00:00 -0700 http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-ed_freeman_and_political_manipulation.html