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02:33 pm
Pop Culture
David Lynch
Jack Smith
Jonny Perl
Jonny Mugwump
Monster Zero
Robert Conroy
Komodo Dragons
kenneth Anger
Robert Conroy has the voice of an angel - an angel who's lived a season in hell.
Conroy is one half of the exquisite pop duo, Misty Roses, whose beautiful and ethereal voice is married to the dramatic and mesmeric music of Jonny Perl. From when they first met, they understood each other. Call it synchronicity. Call it good taste.
Together they are Misty Roses - the most startlingly original and brilliant group of the past 5 years.
In an exclusive interview with Dangerous Minds, Misty Roses, Conroy and Perl, explain the who's, what's, why's and wherefores of their music.
Robert: 'I met Jonny in late 2002, when he was still living in Brooklyn. We had a mutual friend and, in passing, I mentioned to that mutual friend that I was obsessed with Scott Walker and Julie London. To which he said "There is only ONE other person ON EARTH who is obsessed with Scott Walker AND Julie London! That's this English guy I know, Jonny Perl!" And I found out he was a musician, and I was intrigued - so I got Jonny's number and I called him. We met soon afterwards, and we just realized very quickly that we were on very similar frequencies. I mean, after our first rehearsal - which was three hours long, maybe - I think we came away with working demos of three or four songs that ended up on our first LP. We understood each other - musically - from the get-go.'
Born and raised in NYC, Robert had performed with a range of bands "post-punk, goth, electronic" over the years, and says he "was lucky enough to have a front row seat for a lot what happened musically over last decade or two." The range of experience only confirmed his talents and focused his ambitions.
Robert: First and foremost, I am a singer - I've trained with some serious vocal coaches, in my day. And I like a lot of different kinds of music. So if I dig the people and I dig how they write songs and they dig how I write songs, then I'm game.'
British born Jonny has always been musically gifted, as a child he learned to play the cello, piano, and saxophone. Before Misty Roses he had played in a variety of combos, and was playing with a surf band in NYC when the conversation about Julie London brought him to Robert.
Jonny: 'The synergies between our musical interests seemed so strong that we both figured it was worth giving it a shot.'
Together, they create music that is the perfect fusion of cabaret and cinema, of torch song and widescreen. You are listening to the score for a dream by Kenneth Anger or Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Douglas Sirk or David Lynch.
Robert: 'We have been described as Lynchian - which we take as a great compliment. (And we did cover a David Lynch/Angelo Badalamenti song on our disc Komodo Dragons - so it sort of fits, don't it?) But we both love the way Mr. Lynch takes something seemingly innocuous and pretty - such as a song like "Sixteen Reasons" or "Blue Velvet" - and discovers all these inherently disturbing elements beneath its surface. I hope we create a similar kind of frisson with our best songs.
'Musically, we are deeply influenced by non-rock popular music from the later half of the Twentieth Century. Soundtrack composers like Ennio Morricone, John Barry and Jerry Goldsmith, exotica, bossa nova and tropicalia records, dub and a lot recordings of jazz and vocal standards - Ellington, Julie London, Peggy Lee, Nina Simone and such like.
'Likewise, the work of people we like to call "middle-of-the-road mavericks"- artists who were able to create music that was both very accessible and deeply idiosyncratic and more than a little odd. People like Scott Walker, Serge Gainsbourg, Bacharach and David, Dionne Warwick, Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra, Dusty Springfield, Jimmy Webb, Bobbie Gentry, etc. And these influences get filtered further through the "rock" music we like, which is primarily the "artier" end of the spectrum. Stuff like the Velvet Underground and its alumni, Bowie, Roxy Music, Sparks, Joy Division, The Banshees, The Associates, Soft Cell, The Smiths, The Pet Shop Boys, Suede, Broadcast, Goldfrapp, etc.
'Jonny described our sound as "glamorous easy listening music" initially. I loved that. Jonny and I are really attracted to glamorous sounds. We love orchestrations - strings sections, and french horns and flutes. We dig those gleaming, cold textures of synthesizers from the 1970's.
All the things that you're supposed to reject if you're into music that is "true" and "real". We dig artifice.'
Jonny: 'Yes - we had pretty much all these things in common as interests from the start. I will never shake off the Smiths/Postcard/C86 influences I had when I started to play guitar, but there has always been cross-fertilization - from playing in orchestras and ensembles to collecting old easy listening, Latin and Brazilian records.'
Robert: 'And our music tends to drift into the shadows, as it were. Traditionally - until the last century, really - "glamour" was an occult term. Its a synonym for "spell". One casts a glamour. And that connection to magic also suggests a sense of mystery - I think. Nothing can be truly glamorous without an element of darkness or strangeness. All my favorite music has some eerie, even creepy, aspect. And I find a lot of classic horror and science fictions films - like Forbidden Planet or Suspiria or The Bride of Frankenstein - wildly glamorous. Star Trek and Space: 1999 likewise.'
Their first performance as Misty Roses took place in an old East Village Buddhist tea house. Jonny played guitar and backing tracks, while Robert "channeled Dusty Springfield". For both, it was a moment of magic, and the promise of greater things seemed almost within reach. Almost….
"Starry Wisdom" from 'Villainess' by Misty Roses
More from the fabulous Misty Roses, plus bonus tracks, after the jump…


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District Attorney Gregory Newman said Wednesday he will not seek an indictment against a Pisgah Forest woman whose 4-year-old grandson was found dead after being left in the back of her van in May.
Shirley Strickland called 911 after she found her grandson, Lance Duncan, unresponsive on May 15. Under mounting financial pressures, police say Strickland, who was helping to raise her four grandchildren and had suffered medical problems related to stress, returned to work that day after taking her grandchildren to school.
Lance had fallen asleep in his seat and was found several hours later when Strickland prepared to pick up her grandchildren from school.
His cause of death was determined to be heat stroke, Newman said in a news release. National Weather Service records show that the high temperature on May 15 in Transylvania County was 87 degrees. The historical average temperature range for that time of year is 70-75 degrees, the release says.
Temperatures can rise almost 20 degrees within the first 10 minutes inside a closed car, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's website.
An investigation by Transylvania County Sheriff David Mahoney revealed that Strickland left her Pisgah Forest home at about 7:15 a.m. to take her four grandchildren to school and day care. She dropped one child off at Rosman High and another child at Rosman Elementary. Lance had fallen asleep in the back of the van, according to Newman's release. Strickland usually dropped him off at a day care, but she was distracted and forgot, traveling on to work at Smith Systems at 8 a.m.
At about 1 p.m., Strickland was contacted by the Kingsbridge House and told that she needed to make a rent payment on behalf of her invalid father. She left work, made the payment to Kingsbridge House and went home. When she went back to her van to go pick the grandchildren up from school, Lance was found deceased in the back of the van.
According to reports from the Sheriff's Office, Strickland had an adult son return home to live. Then, in June 2012, her daughter moved back home with her four children. Strickland's invalid father, who was diagnosed with colon cancer, was also placed in Kingsbridge House at about the same time.
"In this case, the only possible criminal charge is involuntary manslaughter. The facts, however, do not support that charge," Newman said in the release. "Ms. Strickland was not behaving recklessly or negligently in any way. Like so many single mothers, as well as grandparents raising their grandchildren, Ms. Strickland was under enormous stress."
Strickland was the only one in the home working and paying bills, according to the release. She was hospitalized at Transylvania Regional Hospital for a period of two weeks in mid-April and was treated for symptoms caused by severe stress and depression, the release says. When she was released from the hospital on April 30, she continued to experience health problems and her doctor urged her to not return to work right away.
The financial pressures, however, were so great that Strickland felt compelled to return to work on May 15, due to mounting bills at home and to pay for the care of her father at Kingsbridge, according to the release. Newman and Mahoney said in the release that pursuing criminal action against Strickland is unsupported by the facts.
"Every situation is different and we look at each individual case very closely where a death has occurred," Newman said. "But in this matter, Ms. Strickland was doing the best she could do under difficult family circumstances and she did nothing that approaches criminal culpability.
"This is a tragic, accidental occurrence and Ms. Strickland needs and deserves the prayers, support and compassion of the community. She is distraught over the loss of her grandson and I am not going to try to make her out to be some kind of criminal."
Reach Weaver at email@example.com or 828-694-7867.
Grandmother of boy who died in hot car won't be charged
District Attorney Gregory Newman said Wednesday he will not seek an indictment against a Pisgah Forest woman whose 4-year-old grandson was found dead after being left in the back of her van in May.

subset: commoncrawl


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Mack's Suggestions
From FamiLAB Wiki
1 Lounge Area
- Couch
- Coffee tables
- Laptop bar?
- Wall of fame/shame (graffiti, Polaroid pics of members)
2 Kitchenette Area
- Knock down wall separating this room from room 1. It's not as permanent a wall as the others, and will open up the room a bit. Or maybe lose door and just open up wall a bit.
- Add sink/counter to bottom wall.
- Add outlets above counter (GFCI)
- Install fridge (may need to add an outlet)
3 Bathroom
- None of us have seen it yet
4 Tiny office
- Others have proposed laser lab
- Servers?
- Storage?
5 Classroom
- Need a short throw projector
- Ideally with A/V rack so presenters can hook up to projector easily
- Consider extending further into warehouse area
- This room is open into the warehouse area
- Close this in?
- Egress to warehouse space so should also be subject to access control
7 Bay Area
8 Quadcopter Arena
- Enough said =P
9 Power Panel
- Breaker panel is on left wall
- Vent stack on top wall, unused right now, but could be used for shop sink
10 Tiny Closet
- Used to be an entrance into room 5
- Has a door and tiny windows on each side
- Use as room for A/V kit for classroom?
Loft Area
- There is a loft area above the office space
- Suitable for light storage (fire hazard?)
- Sprinkler piping comes down from ceiling
- Need to add railing


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Learners will explore the physical characteristics of comets by reaching into a series of boxes and feeling the materials and structures within. They will describe what they observe and speculate on comet characteristics being modeled in each box,... (View More) opening the discussion about the nature of these icy bodies and begin to compare them to other members of our solar system.Note: See Related & Supplemental Resources (right side of this page) for links to assembly instructions and worksheets needed to complete this activity. (View Less)
This is a brief activity about the mathematics of Mars. By playing this matching card game, learners will gain knowledge of Mars mathematical facts and vocabulary. Note: Find the latest information and updates on Mars missions at the NASA Mars... (View More) Exploration website (see Related & Supplemental Resources to the right). (View Less)
Materials Cost: $1 - $5 per group of students


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Wake Park Triple Crown Wrap Up
This weekend was the third and final stop of the Wakepark Triple Crown presented by Monster Energy Drink and Alliance Wakeboard Magazine. Hydrous Wake Park played host to the event literally opening up just days before. Their facilities are top notch including 7 unit obstacles, a system 2.0 park, and plenty of those platinum blonde Texas gems. Once again, Tom Fooshee was a force to be reckoned with in all categories, but when it came to obstacles only, The French Canadian brothers Raphael and Olivier Derome refused to slow their roll and rounded out the day in the top 2 spots. They've spent all summer at home honing in their skills in their own two way backyard cable park, and their hard work paid off. Other highlights in the obstacle only division included Shance Bonifay, Bob Soven, Brenton Priestley and Mitch Langfield.
When it came to the men's professional full cable division, Tom dominated the field of competitors and took the title for the third consecutive stop, which also crowned him King in the overall standings. Tom has been on top of his game throughout the series, and stop # 3 was no exception. In the women's professional division, Angelica Schriber threw down several air tricks, and took to the rails with style and precision, rounding out the field as top seed. In pro wakeskate we saw Texan Aaron Reed make an appearance over the weekend, as well as Travis Doran, Bret Little, and Daniel Grant. Daniel Grant proved to be the victor with his consistency that can only be achieved through the powers of candy.
To round out the weekend on saturday night Alliance and Monster threw down $1000 bucks cash to watch all the riders duke it out on the Unit quarter pipe in the system 2.0 park. Cable park operations manager Cody Johnson was boosting at least 5 feet out off the top busting big backside indy pokes to disaster stalls on the way down, Brenton Priestley was also launching some massive pokes as was Shane Bonifay, and also a new name Brady Webb came in with some tricks up his sleeve. After Cody's insane boosts and Brady Webb's corked 360 the audience voted for a three man ride off where once again, Brenton Priestley perfected his airs, but the real show began when Cody landed an invert onto the top deck and Brady rode out of a corked 540. There was some serious progression on the water and eventually Brady was crowned the champ.
It's been an incredible 3 stop series from Winnipeg to Tampa and wrapping up in Allen, TX. THis is it for 2011, we look forward to another great series in the 2012 season. COngratulations again to Tom Fooshee and all of our champions throughout the events.


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|Kyle Busch Wins ISM Connect 300
|Modified Season Sweep for Santos
|Bell Wins UNOH 175 Truck Series Race
|Mile Kyle: Busch Takes Pole for ISM Connect 300
|Short Track Extravaganza Set for Sept. 2018
|New England Themed Going Away Gift for Junior
Junior Cleared to Return
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been cleared to drive this weekend at Martinsville Speedway, according to a statement issued Tuesday afternoon by NASCAR officials.
The statement said NASCAR's medical liaison received official notification of Earnhardt's clearance to resume racing Tuesday morning.
Earnhardt sat out the past two races while recovering from a concussion he suffered in a last-lap crash at Talladega Superspeedway. On Monday, he climbed into a car at Georgia's Gresham Motorsports Park for a closed test session attended by neurosurgeon Dr. Jerry Petty and ran 123 laps without incident. The two then met Tuesday morning in Dr. Petty's Charlotte office for a follow-up evaluation.
"Dale Jr. has done everything asked of him," Dr. Petty said in a statement released by Hendrick Motorsports. "He hasn't had a headache since Oct. 12, and we have not been able to provoke any symptoms since that time. I have informed NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports that he is medically cleared for all NASCAR-related activity."
On Sunday, team owner Rick Hendrick said Earnhardt would be entered for Martinsville if Dr. Petty thought the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet had healed sufficiently to be cleared to race.
"I will be shocked if he's not in the car," Hendrick said during the Kansas race. "Everything looks good -- his attitude and the way he feels. He's had no headaches since the Thursday and Friday of Charlotte, and the tests have gone real well. I think Dr. Petty is just being cautious, and I applaud him for that."
Earnhardt went to see Dr. Petty shortly after he began experiencing dizziness and headaches resulting from the Talladega accident. That, coupled with a serious hit during Kansas tire testing in August that resulted in another concussion, gave Dr. Petty reason to advise Earnhardt to step out of the car until he recovered.
During his time away from the car, Earnhardt went to Pittsburgh to meet with Dr. Micky Collins, director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Concussion Program. Earnhardt also remained actively involved in the team, as replacement driver Regan Smith finished 38th at Charlotte after experiencing an engine failure, then rallied from 39th to seventh at Kansas.
Earnhardt snapped a four-year winless streak with a victory at Michigan earlier this season, and his 18 top-10 finishes in 2012 represent the most he's had since 2004. He made the Chase for the second consecutive season.


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The IET serves the specialist requirements of the legal profession by nominating expert witnesses to present technical information in court. Furthermore, the model forms of contract have for many years included a section which permits the President of the Institution to appoint suitable members to arbitrate when a dispute occurs. A further extension was made in 1998 with the appointment of the IEE as an adjudicator nominating body (ANB) for disputes in the construction industry; this has been carried forward into the IET.
The President's List of the IET is the source of neutral individuals qualified to resolve disputes or to act as expert witnesses, arbitrators and adjudicators in all areas of electrical engineering (including ICT), and manufacturing. This service does not include legal advice or advice relating to employment or professional indemnity.
The List is not published.
Requests for nominations/appointments should be made to:
Tel: +44(0)1438 765645
Email: email@example.com
The minimum personal requirements for members seeking appointment to the President's List are:
Prior to appointment they must:
Members wishing to be nominated as adjudicators or arbitrators must in addition:
Following appointment they must provide annual evidence that they remain in full time employment in those areas of electrical engineering, manufacturing and disputes resolution in which they claim to be proficient.
Members seeking appointment to the President's List should contact Dom Pickersgill using the contact details above.


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Make A Ranking ?!, Hardware Ranking; what is important ?
Make A Ranking ?!, Hardware Ranking; what is important ?
Aug 12 2006, 06:32 AM
Post #1
Group: Members
Posts: 15
Joined: 1-June 06
Member No.: 10,028
Hi all,
just read a bit here and there and noticed, that many people have quite different opinion what a "good" PDA should include. As far as we come to software this is not critical as everyone can change it later over and over again.
As far as the hardware is discussed there should be a ranking to meet the opinion of most people out there.
E.g. I totally need no finger-print reader. IMHO, these devices are useless and it was demonstrated that this devices can be easily entrapped (more easily then a good password). Hence, they give a totally wrong feeling of security.
On the other side, battery-life-time is more important to me than everything else.
What do all these bells and whistles mean if you can only run them for 1.5 hours without recharging? I like to see a device with a more then full working day (10-14 hours) continuous runtime, which should end up in charging the device every third week or every month for normal usage vs. power off periods.
Thus, for sure a web-cam will be fine, but if it will eat up 10 % of my battery life time, I really can live without it.
For me the most critical point to create the perfect PDA would be therefore, the development of the best power-management available on the PDA-market.
Furthermore, try to keep everything as flexible as possible. Instead to integrate a web-cam at the top of the display (as some sonys-laptops did), it might be a good idea to create a hidden USB port there. There are hundereds of very tiny cams on the market already, just stick one at the top of the display if you need one. This will gurantee, that later developements (e.g. more pixels, more fps etc.) can be easily upgraded by everyone. On the other hand, there might be some smart users, which find other devices on the market to be usefull.
In addtion, this will reduce the price to a affordable barebone set-up with a lot of individual add ons.
Just my two cents
Aug 13 2006, 03:44 AM
Post #2
Group: Members
Posts: 1,579
Joined: 7-April 05
From: Sydney, Australia
Member No.: 6,806
i guess i am starting to get really jadded with this prooject now as every week someone comes along and suggests the same things or the same reasons.
oh well
[standard response]
If you dont want it then tell the PCB board manufacturer to not solder the part in
everything can be turned off independentlly however i cant stop you from leaving the wifi and bluetooth on while disabling CPU freq changing
upgaradability is a no go, it sounds like a really good idea, and i mean a reallly really really good idea but it is imposible to do that and make the thing small. it will have flexability in that you can chose what you dont want. if you want to add anything the you use the USB ports
what goes in it is supposed to be a minimum to satisfy a large percentage of people. of coaruse as you have stated what people want differs between people
keep in mind that the most expensive parts are the screen the keyboard anh the pcb as well as casing.
[/standard response]
the finger print reader is somthing i knew would be a point of conntention, for me there is no such thing as three factor authentication using somthing you knwo somthing you have and somthing you are as i belvie that somthing you have and somthing you are are in fact the same thing.
the fingerprint reader is best used as a replacment of the user name, ethier you type your user name or swipe your fingerprint then type your password. the other use i see it for is to prove that you are at the terminal, ie if you have the ability to sudo to root then it is a simple check that you are actually in front of the computer, it is easy to defeat but it assumes you have logged in, which means that you have alreaddy authenticated to the computer, you are just proving that you are actually sitting in front of it and not looged in from the other side fo the world
10-14 hors will never happen with this device, the ram alone uses too much power when active to allow for that. however with a smart power policy and programs to enforce it (turning off ram manks and changing the cpu freq, turining off hardware) then it should be posible to get 5 or more haurs for non intensive tasks (mp3 playback)
normal usage should allow for 4 hours, heavy should be 3 hours light shourd be 5 plus. all PDAs have this problem it all depends on your usage patterns. i could use a 4mhz 8 bit chip and have it running for 1 month at 100% cpu usage (ie heavy usage) but i dont think that is what you want
Aug 16 2006, 08:37 AM
Post #3
Group: Members
Posts: 699
Joined: 26-February 04
From: near Munich, Germany
Member No.: 2,043
QUOTE(Da_Blitz @ Aug 13 2006, 12:44 PM)
i guess i am starting to get really jadded with this prooject now as every week someone comes along and suggests the same things or the same reasons.
That is something I believe you will have to live with when defining products. I have done that for years for a large company. It was really well paid and called "Product Manager".
Customers simply can't know what you already know...
So they come up with all the same proposals which are already built into the product you are currently selling (they even don't know that you already have a new one). But you have to look at their proposals and find the 0.01% golden nuggets which really improve a product.
And even worse, there are very distinct people, distinct needs and distinct willingness to pay for something. View it like circles of different size on a 2-dimensional surface. They have some overlap but none cover all the area.
Now, you try to satisfy all of them with a single product point. Doesn't work. The ususal solution is to have different models for different people/users/customers. Look at mobile phones. How many small variations they make to capture every niche. That is the real complexity.
But for a ranking, there is a standard tool: customer requirements research. Can be as simple as a poll or more complex by a conjoint analysis.
If you need help for this direction, contact me by PM.
-- hns
Aug 16 2006, 04:17 PM
Post #4
Group: Members
Posts: 2,808
Joined: 13-September 04
From: Wasilla Ak.
Member No.: 4,572
simply put--
nice keyboard/input button/toggles/wheels/--easy input
fit in pocket
nice screen
video out
good storage
useably large ram
solid networking (bt, and b&g wifi maybe?)
do this at a good price.
I could care less about cameras--- except that they mean the device can't be taken certain places, and usb cams might do the job better for less $$. If cameras are generally wanted I'll have one with a cam, then.
Same with the thumbprint reader. It strikes me as silly expensive and complicated (and way more likely to cause problems than to solve them). If the main functions and price of the device aren't altered by having one--then I'll be happy to have one. If it's gonna raise the price more than a few percent--well, that might be a deal breaker.
Battery availablility (as discussed way earlier) would be desireable. If battery life is mediocre as a result of good performance, then easy battery swapping & charging would compensate.
reading all of the batman features--multiple cams, thumbprint reader wheels and buttons and game controllers everywhere I'm very afraid that the price will soar, and the durability will plummet. not a good mix--it tends to make for very expensive paperweights.
Aug 16 2006, 08:38 PM
Post #5
Group: Members
Posts: 1,579
Joined: 7-April 05
From: Sydney, Australia
Member No.: 6,806
i m dedicating this post to what you want, please post here and i will ignore it
i have to agree with you dhns, that seems to be the way it is going however at this stage we are still getting little gems of ideas coming in so i am prepared to let it keep on comming.
the distinct groups of people on this board is simply amazing, you can go to several diffrent sections and spot who uses what and what they have tied as well as the topics the frequent by what they type and ask, i try to get to most topics but only cover about 50% of the fourm on a regular basis. satisfing everyone on the board will be imposiblle
i guess i will go for the 80:20 rule (or perhaps 90:10) so that i know when to stop putting more time per week into it
back to the point, its down to one cam and i can see it bieng droped, finger print reader may be dropped unless i can find a good supplier (hard to come buy) i guess you mean the trackball when you say game controller, thats in there as i hate the touch screen and prefer it over a directonal pad.
Aug 16 2006, 09:25 PM
Post #6
Group: Members
Posts: 2,808
Joined: 13-September 04
From: Wasilla Ak.
Member No.: 4,572
[nah... I have nothing against a trackball. There had been earlier discussions re optimizing input for game emulators-- it seemed a bit much. I guess it isn't an issue anymore. I was just trying to emphasize function and value over niftimess. "nifty; neato" features for their own sake kinda remind me of the talking coke machines of the 80's. Really noticeably nifty on 1st exposure..... by the 3rd what was noticeable was that more time and effort was required to actually receive a bevereage. needless to say, we don't see 'em much anymore.
Aug 17 2006, 12:55 AM
Post #7
Group: Members
Posts: 572
Joined: 8-June 05
Member No.: 7,295
I'm ok to lose game crud, and the fingerprint reader (I have a password!) but I think the camera is better kept than left out, if only for the sake of video conferencing. I use my mobile phone more than a dedicated camera, because these days. . The cameras are good enough to take a photo that is reasonable on a 6x4 card. . . There's just no point for me in having the extra weight.So my rating is similar to everyone elses with the usual personal niggles.
Memory Bus (Size and Speed),
Usb Host,
Networking: Bluetooth and 802.11G,
Storage: ATA and 2 SD sockets, I'm not bothered about CF or onboard flash. Just as long as it will boot.
Nice Screen,
Aug 18 2006, 11:28 AM
Post #8
Group: Members
Posts: 154
Joined: 16-January 04
Member No.: 1,464
I had an idea that could help solve some of the over design issues. I know that making everything modular was rejected, because it would add too much complexity / bulk with the various connectors, etc. But, what if the bulk of the core was made into a standard pcmcia card form factor? I know that a lot of manufacturing lines have templates for pcmcia cards, which simplifies the process for putting out a few prototypes. Here's what I envision:
The cpu, bluetooth, memory, cf / sd slots, etc. all go into a pcmcia card shell (modified slightly so someone doesn't accidently try shoving it into a laptop...). This is the core module. The screen, keyboard, battery charger / power supply all goes into a sperate shell. That way, if someone wants a larger clamshell / mini laptop, they can get that shell. If you want a tablet, use a tablet shell. A phone would use a phone shell. That way, you can take your core module, and put it into the device shell that is appropriate for what you want to do that day.
For example, I could see keeping the core module in a phone shell most of the time, but when I go on a trip, go ahead and pack the oversized clamshell in a suitcase, and transfer the core module from phone to clamshell at the hotel. Or, if I'm going to be in meetings on the run, use the tablet shell. Either way, all the core functionality will transfer to each device easily.
The only drawback I can see is that using a pcmcia-type shell may add a bit to weight / bulk, but I think the flexibility would be worth it. And, if you do get someone to mass market this, for the end consumer it may be easier / cheaper to go and replace one of the shells if it gets damaged, than to replace the entire pda.
Aug 18 2006, 01:21 PM
Post #9
Group: Members
Posts: 188
Joined: 9-December 03
From: Kansas City Kansas
Member No.: 1,112
QUOTE(derekp @ Aug 18 2006, 01:28 PM)
The cpu, bluetooth, memory, cf / sd slots, etc. all go into a pcmcia card shell (modified slightly so someone doesn't accidently try shoving it into a laptop...). This is the core module. The screen, keyboard, battery charger / power supply all goes into a sperate shell. That way, if someone wants a larger clamshell / mini laptop, they can get that shell. If you want a tablet, use a tablet shell. A phone would use a phone shell. That way, you can take your core module, and put it into the device shell that is appropriate for what you want to do that day.
I have to admit I like this idea myself. A core module that I could keep in my phone/clam shell when I am out and about and then plug in to my desktop when I am at my desk and continue what I am currently work on, sounds great to me(This is how I try to use my 6k right now with x11vnc).
If this is possable it could make it possible to satisfy more people. HTe core module has the capability to do all of the neat things like finger print reader but only if the shell has it will it be used.
I really have not read all of the threads in PocketPenguin so I have not seen the post about not going modular derekp modular idea even make since for this project?
i guess i will go for the 80:20 rule (or perhaps 90:10) so that i know when to stop putting more time per week into it
I would tell you build in what you want to have. Since you are looking at an open design it make is possable for others to rework the design to work for them. I just wish I knew enough and had the time to help. For now I will uses my 6k along with a motorola ming soon and try to learn more.
Aug 19 2006, 04:57 AM
Post #10
Group: Members
Posts: 1,579
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From: Sydney, Australia
Member No.: 6,806
that actually sounds like a more workable idea, there are still some problems that can be worked around, mainly tha PCMCIA slot dosent have a high enogh pin density, the more pins i have the better as a lower counh means that you need to put more on the CPU board
about the only thing i think is a major design issue is the depth of the card, i remeber PCMICA as bieng huge (i dont have a refrence card next to me) however i think perhaps somthing a bit more rectangular would be a better idea, this deos bear some serios thoght as the current system i envisioned is that you plugged the PDA into your PCC and did the "Black Dog" thing and setup a usb-net connection and CDROM link and started a VNC or local x server on your computer. with the new stacking modules idea it is very easy to have a docking station, we dont even need to specifically support one as there is a standard interface
i will have to think on haw granular we go with the idea, eg what goes into the cases and what gose into the cpu card or daghter card, as it would be very easy to end up with a huge range of designs that are simple variations of each other.
Aug 19 2006, 05:51 AM
Post #11
Group: Members
Posts: 1,248
Joined: 6-July 04
Member No.: 3,928
Here's my usual food for thought or rant (interpret as you wish)
If you survey the Zaurus community about product features generally you aren't looking at what would make a good PDA. Interest areas for many people include..
* Mobile developer station.
* Quick porting platform where they can very easily get desktop applications running.
* Games and game emulation.
* Media.
The Zaurus models to allow us to play in these areas with certain degrees of success due mostly to their good core selection of hardware and base upon an open source platform.
The challenges of meeting all of these areas stretch the platform in various different ways, for example
Development, Porting and running desktop applications could really benefit from having a lot more RAM available.
Games, Emulation etc. could really benefit from graphics acceleration etc.
Media could really benefit from having acceleration and media bandwidth.
These are areas that will stretch hardware requirements in various different directions that a consumer electronics manufacturer will not normally take the time to consider because they will focus the device at one of these particular areas.
For example take the apple iPod - it has a large amount of storage, reasonable bandwidth, maybe it has some acceleration and certainly has a DSP to handle some audio processing. It doesn't have a lot of RAM and what RAM it has is used for a massive cache so that disk access can be reduced (battery life improves etc.). Consider the impact of usefulness of the iPod if you were to run Linux and X on top of the iPod - Cache would be reduced due to the memory overhead of the OS and applications and the unit would be less appealing as an mp3 player - and actually if it is running something proprietary but with regular upgrades you don't feel compelled to re-engineer it every time that Linux has a patch upgrade
Likewise a PSP2 has 3D acceleration etc. and makes a good game machine but just doesn't have the memory to run a decent operating system and has storage limited to the size of Memory Stick cards for user media.
Cramming extra RAM into such devices is simply going to reduce their battery life, maybe introduce thermal issues etc. In the end the manufacturers made good hardware choices for their target market and as long as the device is used for the specified functions alone it works really well.
Now, you may have deduced what this ramble is about.
Ask a user what he wants from a device and he/she will say that they want to do everything with the new device that they are used to on the old one but better.
Change some of things for 'better' things on the Zaurus and you will end up with one or more of the following..
i. Decreased battery life.
ii. Increased size.
iii. The convergent technology trap.
By the convergent technology trap I mean that you implement some hardware in a device that performs some function. Take for example your phone with your 1.3MPixel digital camera built in. If you take a lot of photos with your camera then in 1 years time when the resolution is being sold at 4MPixel in an equivalent phone there is an incentive for you to upgrade your phone.... but hang on..... this is a phone... why upgrade it because you want a higher resolution camera?
Another horrible software driven example is a PDA with Phone/Camera/Bluetooth/MP3 and it runs Windows CE.NET (or whatever M$ is calling it these days). In 2 months time M$ launch a new version of Windows CE.NET and the HW manufacturer won't offer you an upgrade. You are now looking for a new PDA that is very expensive because you got used to all of those features. If you had bought a basic PDA, a Camera, a Phone and an MP3 player then you would only be buying a new basic PDA. (had to put the M$ rant in because this is what got me into Linux PDAs after having several PDAs that reached end of line because of no OS upgrades).
So, are convergent technologies something you really want to bring into your design? - think again about inbuilt stuff like Cameras and to a small extent things like Wifi and Bluetooth. Wifi and Bluetooth don't sound to bad but there is more freedom in having them available via a second PCMCIA slot rather than having a chipset soldered into the device that you find has some strategic limitation in 6 months time.
Aug 19 2006, 06:18 AM
Post #12
Group: Members
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Joined: 8-June 05
Member No.: 7,295
On the other note, PCMCIA cards are huge. CF cards aren't exactly small, and because of the "Throw-Away" society we live in, people don't make CF cards for new devices often.
So if we want to use wireless, we have to incorporate the latest version we have. The camera on this is not designed for taking high res photos, it's for quick low-quality snapshots for use as a background picture, and for video conferencing. I am not about to carry a USB webcam in my pocket for when I want to call my Dad from university. That's what the camera in my Uni, and hopefully my PPZ are for.
On terms of OS, the PPZ's central purpose is to be an open source replacement for the HTC Universal, and the CXXXX Zaurus. So the softwre is open source, and you can stick whatever you like on it. Linux, OpenBSD, and if you felt like porting them, ReactOS, AROS, FreeBSD, even an old open-sourced version of Windows (I know at least one of the old codebases has been released.)
I don't see therefore that the OS is going out of date. basically, we're avoiding the Convergent Technology Trap by only implementing the bare minimum of things, not to replace other devices completely, but for different "Phone" functions. We chose the iMX31 to get decent support, 3D for Gaming, MPEG decoding for Video and music playback, incredible I/O support, and a dedicated Floating Point Unit. But it's still a PDA chip, and as such, shouldn't be a big drain on power. It's a pretty ruddy versatile chip.
Finally your point on Memory, not only do we have 4 times the standard (256mb) at current count, it's twice as fast. Overkill? Probably. A small effect on battery life because of it? Most likely. A ridiculous preformance boost and reduced likelyhood of the system being out of date for a long time? Guaranteed.
As you said, it's a Coding, Gaming, Media playing machine. And just by abandoning Intel and their new buddy XSCALE owners, we can get a serious machine without a BIG fall in battery life. And because we're building with new batteries, we can use what we like to get maximum mAh in the thing. Which is why we're all looking at Digital Camcorder batteries, because they're designed for big mAh, small cm2.
Rant over.
Aug 19 2006, 10:03 AM
Post #13
Group: Members
Posts: 1,248
Joined: 6-July 04
Member No.: 3,928
Yeah, PCMCIA is huge and I was thinking about CF rather than PCMCIA... this is what comes of spending time working on CF drivers which usually live the the PCMCIA section of the kernel
Sounds like an interesting device and I would love to see it when it becomes real. I think as far as a gamer machine goes you will end up with the traditional problem that people will want to run Desktop Linux games on it and will get to the point of outstripping the resources quite quickly - this is the obvious advantage of handheld devices like the PSP where games are specifically being designed and scaled to that architecture.
Anyway, I'll keep this thread pinned with interest.
Aug 19 2006, 11:58 PM
Post #14
Group: Members
Posts: 1,579
Joined: 7-April 05
From: Sydney, Australia
Member No.: 6,806
your points about wifi and bluetooth on CF are quite valid until you look at some of the design comprimises and goals of this design placing a CF card will place huge constraints on the case design as well as the PCB layout so i want to avoid that. CFIO was dropped for several reasons, mainly that we were chucking everything on board (more on that latter) but as we dont have CFIO having a CF wifi or bluetooth card is pointless. you could use USB if you dont mind somthing sticking out but one of the design goals is that i can fit it into my pocket
i have an application or two that would benifit from things such as built in wifi and bluetooth and that is who i am primarly designing it for
if it comes down to making a call as to what is and isnt included then i will be chosing what i will be using. if i have to it will come to a vote for dev team members however at the moment the only pearson who really qualifie for dev status is me (not to sound like a dictator, to get dev status you have to ask for it and you have to be able to contribute substantial back)
back on topic:
bieng out striped is nothing new as we will most likly have developers developing for a nice P4 system so nothing new there, for gaming a boost to the SDL libries and mplayer would be nice and easy to do, any gaming i do will be quake 1 or 2 which should run ine on the thing
your list of target areas is quite acute, however the bottom 2 share alot in common and could almost be colappsed into one while the top 2 have simmilar needs.
there is a reason to chuck stuff into the design rather than making it a plugin, by placing it in the design it forces you to design for it. and i dont just mean at a hardware level.
any way there are still some things that are on my listof "to be dropped" due to avalibility of chipsets ore the problems with interfacing it to the chipset so dont expect the final design to have everything we specified in it, remeber that we were going to add everything we wanted to a list and then start cutting down that list, at the moment we are cutting it down
the having to throw it away part is valid that is why i am standardising on USB, it is unlikly that usb will dissapear in the next year, UWB may come up however the adaptors will have to be connected somehow. in my opinion CF is dead and SD cards are taking over and i think that the design reflects this.
of course i didnt mention the wireless and when they will be out of date, i think bluetooth is dead. IMHO it never really took off like some people said it would. about the only thing it is used for is headsets, we may be diffrent but thats what the rest of the population is using it for. i belive that thats why they are pussing for inclusion with the UWB crowd, they relise they are dead otherwise as USB already has all the stuff that bluetooth is supposed to be good for (networikng (PAN<>usb-net) and audio, OBEX exchange works over ethernet so you can mave files about easily) if the bluetooth commite was smart they would have seperated the lower levels from the higher levels in thier design so that it could run over somthing like ethernet
as for wifi i dont think that 802.11n will be here any time soon, call it a hunch even if it was i see little benifit in using it in a PDA except for the longer range
Aug 20 2006, 02:28 AM
Post #15
Group: Members
Posts: 2,808
Joined: 13-September 04
From: Wasilla Ak.
Member No.: 4,572
well... your opinion on CF being dead is hardly borne out by a look at pro and prosumer digital cameras, though you are probably right about bluetooth. If neither fits your design, then by all means exclude them without apology. Everyone here already has a zaurus, and probably a cell phone too--- there is no reason at all to design anything other that what suits you-certainly it won't be as if you are leaving (non-existant) investors high and dry with out some gizmo or other included in your design. I'm sure we all expect to be impressed with the final specs.
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text:
Friday, July 19, 2013
A Scooter Trip to Redmond
This has been a busy summer at the bike shop and often my days off from work involve relaxing by wandering around Issaquah with Christine, having breakfast at a local cafe or reading some terrific book. It's a good life but it doesn't generate a lot of compelling bike blog content, so I've been kind of quiet here. Christine still loves biking to work and we have a bike tour planned for September but these days I'm more likely to be seen scootering around town instead of biking.
Yesterday, after a terrific breakfast, I hopped on my NYCeWheels KickPed and rolled out toward Redmond. The trail from Issaquah to Sammamish is paved now, but at the Sammamish line it turns to gravel so I rode up the shoulder of the Parkway to Redmond.
This mother deer had two fawns with her (if you look close you can see one behind her) and she acted like she'd never seen a man on a kick scooter before.
The trail pavement resumes at the Redmond town line.
I stopped at a coffee shop and then headed over to the Redmond Library. I like this little bit of art.
The Friends of the Library have a sale shelf and I got these three books for the grand total of $1.75. This is what old hippies like me spend their money on.
I'm not the only one who uses a scooter to get around town. A kid who looked to be about three years old rolled up and parked his scooter at the bike rack just as I was leaving.
The geese were sunning themselves on a log in the Sammamish River.
I rolled towards home through Marymoor Park.
Back at the Sammamish line, I rolled back onto the shoulder of the Parkway.
I tend to find things when I wander about. Yesterday's find was a nice bundle of nylon cord.
This is the view south along the trail in Issaquah.
Along Gilman Boulevard, the peaches were ripe in the trees.
I was almost home, but I stopped to eat three peaches. They were delicious.
I'm still kind of amazed at how easy it is for me to rack up miles on the scooter. Google maps tells me the Redmond Library is 14 miles from my home, but it didn't feel far. It felt fun.
Keep 'em rolling,
Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson
Issaquah, WA USA
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text:
There was no easing into the Southern Conference Tournament for the Elon University men�s tennis team Friday morning.
The Phoenix was fast and furious.
Top-seeded Elon dismissed eighth-seeded Furman in about 75 minutes, winning the quarterfinal matchup 4-0 at Burlington Tennis Center.
�Business-like,� No. 2 singles player Stefan Fortmann said. �We needed to get on and off the court.�
Elon (16-7) meets fifth-seeded Chattanooga (12-8), a 4-3 winner against UNC Greensboro, in today�s 2 p.m. semifinal at Jimmy Powell Tennis Center on campus.
The Phoenix wasn�t interested in settling into the tournament, showing up with a purpose.
�It�s nice to be efficient when you know rain might be coming in,� Elon coach Michael Leonard said, referencing the change in time of the match to 8 a.m. to help avoid late-day storms in the forecast.
Leonard pointed to good practice sessions and an ideal approach entering the tournament for the regular-season champions, who had about a 10-day layoff.
Fortmann secured the clinching team point, letting out an emphatic yell at the conclusion that pretty much summed up Elon�s intense approach.
�If you don�t come out and play, you have a chance of losing so you have to come with some urgency,� Leonard said. �We play well like that.�
Robert Lindgren topped Furman�s Alex Christ 6-4, 6-0 at No. 3 singles to push the Phoenix to the lead. Brian Kowalski followed by defeating Luke Synn 6-1, 6-3 at No. 5. Then came Southern Conference Player of the Year Cameron Silverman, who finished off Andrew Mellow 6-1, 6-2 at No. 1.
A few minutes later, Fortmann ended it. He said he was a bit perturbed because he was two points away from notching the first team point before his match with Matt Browne was prolonged.
He ended up with a reward anyway with the 6-2, 6-4 triumph.
�It was in the right moment,� Fortmann said, explaining his excited outburst with the final point. �It�s always nice to win it for the team, especially in the conference tournament. I was fortunate to be that one.�
Fortmann said he hopes as tournament host that Elon will benefit from energy from a home crowd during the weekend.
Furman ended up 9-14.
Chattanooga�s victory came by winning the doubles point against UNCG. The teams played that after splitting six singles matches. UNCG finished with a 14-5 record.


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moondart wrote:Rylan wrote:
1. lol still.
2. What is the cap? Has that increased or decreased? How about prospective costs? How well do you know the Penguins bottom line? Possible that operation costs have increased? If you can not actively look at the Penguins financial statements, then you have no idea the reasoning behind the ticket prices. The Pens wouldn't jack prices up unless it was necessary to turn a profit. Same with every other business in America. lol
3. lol what are you talking about? No crap Sherlock the cap won't be 85 million. The Pens themselves have no control over the cap. I don't even know why the hell you keep bringing that up...
4. lololololololololololololololololololololololololololololol. English must be your second language to not understand what I wrote the first time.
To be quite honest, the only reason I keep responding to you is to see what lunacy you come up with next. You continue to outdo yourself in ways that most would find incomprehensible. You sir, should be commended in your attempts to manipulate wording and try to construe statements to try and make yourself appear as though you have made an argument for your side. Unfortunately for you, when you use hyperbole and use that as your only definitive attack that more or less makes you have zero credibility.
You sir, must try harder if you want to legitimately talk about this. Otherwise,
1. You still look foolish from that originally....even you are admitting that.
2. It won't be 85 million I GUARENTEE YOU. It always seems to increase with the CBA inflator rule. The Pens now have parking, concession, and a better lease with now a 40% increase. Again...let me try again for you slowly: "turning a profit" versus "looking like you are screwing your customers". As I stated several posts ago: The Pens look bad here. Whether their GP was 10%, and it's now its only 11%: THEY LOOK LIKE GREEDY A-HOLES...PLAIN AND SIMPLE WITH 40% INCREASES. Further, you have NO IDEA that the Pens wouldn't jack up prices without cause just to make more money....that's 100% theory on your part. Again, you look foolish typing that dude. Wow...that was worse than you not knowing what a "discussion" was.
3. You stated earlier that the Pens increases were for a "standard practice to raise prices to spend to the cap". Again, to spend to the cap at a 40% increase, would mean the cap is going to about 85 million. You keep tripping over your previous statements dude....be careful.
4. Again, avoiding this point by LOL. I posted your own words back at you....and you do LOL. Nice stating that I "manipulate" your words. When, anyone can use their mouse to scroll back up to see
what you typed.
1. lol You funny. Still.
2. lol don't become a businessman sir. You again show a complete lack of understanding of basic principles and continue to spew a 100% theory on your part. You think I appear foolish? You can't even back out of a silly corner you put yourself in by arguing the cap over and over.
3. lol seriously, you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. I have yet to trip sir. You are extrapolating data into hyperbole to create a situation that does not and will not exist. When you do that your argument becomes a silly hypothetical to justify your current disgust with the Pens. Unfortunately, you just continue to prove its irrational. The Pens, as I have continued to state, are a small market team. Tickets are a teams main revenue. Here let me show you the operating income for the 2010-2011 season (most recent data I could find)
http://www.statista.com/statistics/1937 ... s-in-2010/
The Penguins you will notice are the very last team to break in the black. Greedy team right?
4. And yet, you apparently didn't because unless you have no idea how to comprehend a simple sentence in which I stated, "The Pens are a high class organization (as are all NHL Clubs but the Islanders )" which means ALL teams are on an equal class level. There are no Evil Empires out to screw the fans over. lol but again, you continue acting pompous and I will continue to allow you degrade your credibility yourself as you continue to talk.


text:
A quarter century ago, a brilliant L.A. punk named Barry Minkow built a carpet-cleaning business worth hundreds of millions of dollars — on paper. His company, ZZZZ Best, turned out to be an elaborate Ponzi scheme. Minkow had built his phony business by lying to reporters, lying to investors, lying to federal regulators — even lying to Oprah.
But news organizations carried a special dose of blame. They had been so eager for his boy-wonder story that they failed to check even the most basic facts. Instead, they wrote glowing stories, unwittingly propelling Minkow's phony business to lofty heights, costing investors as much as $100 million.
Minkow went to prison for seven years. Afterward, he sought to redeem himself. He became a minister and a fraud fighter, helping the FBI and starting a company dedicated to rooting out corporate wrongdoing. Heartened by the turn of events, some of the nation's largest news organizations have been all too eager to do major stories in recent years on the redemption of Pastor Minkow — which is why the truth about him today is so maddening.
Tens of thousands of pages of court records going back nearly two years show that Minkow is again not to be trusted. He is leveling unproven allegations against major companies, driving their stock prices down and profiting by doing so.
A Miami judge in one of those cases says Minkow has no credibility, that he "will lie, plain and simple." Since January, the Securities and Exchange Commission has been looking into Minkow's activities.
In an interview with the L.A. Weekly, Minkow acknowledged that he has been a "horrible defendant in the case" in Miami, which is a lawsuit that one of the nation's largest home builders filed against Minkow after he accused the company of massive wrongdoing. Minkow said the Miami judge is right in "thinking I'm an ass."
But you would never know about the challenges to his credibility if you rely on the journalists who helped create Barry Minkow 2.0. To their readers and viewers, Minkow is still an upstanding Christian fraud-buster. (Click here for the interview.)
Mark Maremont, a Pulitzer Prize–winning senior editor at The Wall Street Journal, praised Minkow for his fraud-discovery unit and came to rely on him as a source for investigative stories. But after Maremont learned in January that Minkow was once again the subject of SEC scrutiny, he never wrote a word about it.
In a flattering 2005 profile on 60 Minutes, Minkow detailed how he manipulated the media and even duped Oprah Winfrey. "Nobody knew I was a liar and a thief, but I knew," Minkow confessed to correspondent Steve Kroft. But several months ago, when 60 Minutes was presented with evidence that Minkow was being deceitful again, producers had no interest in correcting the record.
Similarly, Fox News has enthusiastically served as one of Minkow's biggest promoters. Minkow appears regularly on the network as a fraud expert.
During a recent interview on Your World With Neil Cavuto, the host aired clips from an upcoming movie starring Minkow in his own redemption story and gushed, "Now you're a big movie star. ... This movie is going to win an Oscar."
To understand Minkow today, you need to turn back the clock to a garage in Reseda 25 years ago.
There, at his parents' home, Minkow hatched his original scheme. He impersonated a customer in a phone call to a local television station, raving about a 16-year-old who cleaned carpets between his algebra and Spanish high school classes.
Five minutes later, Minkow said, a reporter called to arrange an interview.
"When the television piece aired, I got addicted to the recognition," Minkow explained in a chapter he wrote years later for They Thought for Themselves, a book about people who have taken new paths in their lives.
After the television interview, Minkow's carpet-cleaning business took off — or so he claimed. By 1986, at the age of 20, Minkow became the youngest person ever to take a company public. ZZZZ Best was listed on NASDAQ.
On paper, the company — which Minkow claimed had about 1,300 employees in some two dozen offices — was worth nearly $300 million. Minkow lived in a mansion in the exclusive San Fernando Valley gated community of Hidden Hills, with a Ferrari Testarossa in the garage and a gigantic Z painted on the bottom of his swimming pool.
Minkow's personal worth reportedly topped $100 million. In April 1987, he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
"This television appearance was a watershed for Barry, a vintage performance of his desperate need for attention, his inability to sit still, his astounding capacity to lie with a straight face and the extent to which he succeeded at fooling the world," author Daniel Akst wrote in Wonder Boy: The Kid Who Swindled Wall Street.
The scam fell apart a month later, just as Minkow was closing a deal to become Sears' national authorized carpet-cleaning operator and to sell $18 million in stock. The Los Angeles Times reported that Minkow had run up $72,000 in false credit-card charges. The story grew out of a tip from a homemaker whom Minkow had overcharged by a few hundred dollars.
Minkow's business had been a Ponzi scheme. He had promised investors hefty returns on multimillion-dollar restorations, but in reality, there was little work. Investors were being repaid with money from new investors.
Minkow had lied and stolen to meet ZZZZ Best's payroll and to expand the business. He took high-interest loans from people with mob ties.
The role the media played in his deception became a large subplot of the Minkow saga. The Los Angeles Business Journal detailed how the press had been duped — and noted that reporters could have found the truth as early as 1985, when court records raised questions about his business long before investors began sinking millions into it.
The story noted that journalists were easy prey for Minkow because they "didn't do the checking, the personal visits, the trudges to the courthouses."
Business Journal reporter Benjamin Mark Cole wrote that as early as December 1985, a reputed L.A. organized-crime figure, Jack Catain, had filed a lawsuit against Minkow, involving financing Catain had arranged. Reporters didn't look into the lawsuit.
News organizations also didn't try to reach disgruntled former employees who had left the company with stories about its suspicious behavior. Nor did reporters look into Minkow's Interstate Appraisal Service office, which supposedly was doing millions of dollars in business but was a hole in the wall, Cole wrote.
In 1988, Minkow was convicted on all 57 fraud and related felony counts, sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to repay his victims $26 million. At the time, it was one of the harshest terms handed down in a white-collar crime case.
"Today is a great day for this country," Minkow said in court as he was sentenced. "They got the right guy. I can only say how sorry I am. I am going to get what I got coming — and I deserve every bit of it."
In prison, Minkow claimed to have an epiphany, concluding that there might be "something wrong" with him. He said he began a transformation, contacting his victims and undergoing a jailhouse baptism. He studied religion and began leading prison ministries. His prison sentence was reduced to seven years.
After his release, he became the pastor of a church in San Diego. He started doing fraud-detection training for the FBI, as well as helping IRS agents.
By the summer of 2002, Minkow became more proactive in uncovering financial crimes, creating a new company: the Fraud Discovery Institute. For the next six years, FDI worked on some 20 cases with federal agencies, Minkow said.
In 2007, Minkow began doing fraud investigations of publicly traded companies. He carved out a specialty: outing company executives who inflated academic credentials on their résumés.
His targets included former Herbalife Ltd. president and chief operating officer Gregory Probert and former MGM Mirage CEO J. Terrence Lanni.
Before disclosing such findings publicly, Minkow typically shorted a company's stock or purchased "put" options, which enabled him to make money when the company's stock prices fell after his disclosures.
That practice is legal — provided that the disclosed information is accurate.
Over the years, Minkow has told and retold his story about how easily he duped the press in the 1980s.
In the 60 Minutes interview in May 2005, an animated and laughing Minkow recalled how reporters uncritically covered his "Boy Wonder of Wall Street."
In giving 60 Minutes correspondent Kroft a reason the media should believe him now, Minkow said that as an ex-con, he has no margin for error.
"One report is wrong, I'm done," he said. "And, when you're Barry Minkow and you say something is a fraud, get law enforcement involved, blow the whistle, and you're wrong, it's over. Over.
"It's called one and done."
For two years in the 1980s, Minkow managed to get away with his lies despite mounting evidence that he was a fraud. Today, if you look at the record over the last two years, you will see ample evidence that he is untrustworthy once again — and once again you will find the news media turning a blind eye.
The first indication came when he correctly revealed that Herbalife's president had inflated his résumé. The company's stock dropped after Minkow's disclosure, and he made $50,000 by shorting the stock, according to the San Diego Reader.
But Minkow didn't stop there. He went on to allege that the company's products violated laws on testing and labeling, a claim that also drove down the stock. The company fought back on those accusations and in August 2008, Herbalife issued a press release saying that Minkow had retracted them.
Although Minkow told the Weekly last week that he disagreed with the press release, it was issued on behalf of both Minkow's FDI and Herbalife, and remains on the company's website today.
The settlement with Herbalife's products could have served as his "one and done" in the media's eyes. But it didn't.
Five months after that settlement, in January 2009, Minkow leveled charges against one of the nation's largest home builders, Lennar Corp., which is headquartered in Miami and has many projects under way in California.
Lennar's stock lost more than 20 percent of its value — nearly $500 million — during the two trading days immediately after Minkow and his Fraud Discovery Institute made serious allegations about the company and its top executives.
Lennar responded by naming Minkow as a defendant in a libel-and-extortion lawsuit. That lawsuit has unfolded over the last 21 months, leaving an extensive public record that includes statements like this from Florida State Court Judge Gill Freeman: "My main issue is that Mr. Minkow acts as judge and jury and decides what we should and shouldn't know, and he will lie, plain and simple."
Minkow made his claims against Lennar while working for a client who was suing the company in San Diego. According to the court record in the libel-and-extortion case in Miami, Minkow's motive was to bring Lennar to its knees financially, forcing it to settle with the client.
A San Diego court eventually found no merit to that client's claims against Lennar — but by then, Minkow had damaged Lennar's reputation.
Here's what happened:
San Diego developer Nicolas Marsch III filed a lawsuit on Dec. 22, 2006, against Lennar over the development of an exclusive housing project in Rancho Santa Fe known as The Bridges.
Marsch claimed that Lennar owed him hundreds of millions of dollars under the terms of a development deal and accused Lennar of fraudulent accounting and mismanagement of the project.
On July 11, 2008, as the case moved through the court, Marsch sent to Lennar's board of directors a letter charging the company with a litany of misconduct. The letter said that if the company didn't respond to his satisfaction within two weeks, Marsch would air the home builder's "dirty little secrets" and implied the company would be reported to the SEC.
Lennar responded by filing a libel-and-extortion lawsuit against Marsch in Miami.
Marsch also had sued Lennar in a separate lawsuit for tens of millions of dollars, claiming the home-building giant had cut him out of a 50 percent partnership in another Rancho Santa Fe real estate venture called The Lakes.
On Nov. 5, 2008, the same San Diego Superior Court judge overseeing the Bridges lawsuit tossed the Lakes case out of court, saying that Marsch was "inherently incredible."
Angry at the setback and with the Bridges case hurtling toward trial, Marsch turned to Minkow, whom he would later describe in a deposition as someone who operates outside the "conventional justice-system toolbox."
The ex-con reviewed the situation and wrote a memo to Marsch dated Nov. 28, 2008. In it, Minkow recommended an "all-out 'blitzkrieg.' "
Although Minkow had no evidence of wrongdoing by Lennar, he wrote that the company "will have to decide that it is a better business decision to settle [its] case with you in a fair and equitable way rather than deal with the consequences of an all out exposé of their business practices by an investigative company that has direct experience in this very type of exposé that will be carefully sourced and will likely have a devastating impact on their stock price, borrowing power, and ability to secure new joint-venture partners."
In another e-mail, Minkow revealed how much he would charge Marsch for his services: An initial payment of $125,000 would be required through Jan. 9, 2009, with the total reaching at least $1 million and possibly as high as $2 million.
The payments didn't stop there. Bankruptcy court records show that on May 8, 2009, Marsch transferred ownership of his Vail, Colorado, luxury home to Minkow's DegreeFraud.com, LLC, and Jeffrey Sachs, the financier of the pending movie about Minkow's life. The price: Minkow forgave $500,000 that Marsch owed him for his work on the Lennar case, plus Minkow and Sachs paid Marsch $950,000. One month before the transfer, the house was appraised at $10 million, Marsch has testified.
Minkow's Nov. 28 memo also describes his media strategy. Minkow said he would "carefully educate the Associated Press and Bloomberg financial writers assigned to the building industry who have specifically covered Lennar, Inc. with multiple, relevant and easy to comprehend evidence of the company's most blatant abuses."
Two days after sending that memo, Minkow followed up with an e-mail emphasizing the importance of "the feeding of outlets like the AP, Reuters and Bloomberg, media agencies we have had significant experience working with, covering the Lennar, Inc. case and track record of fraud."
On Jan. 9, 2009, Minkow struck. He issued a report on his website citing "10 red flags," accusing Lennar of a massive fraud. Some of those red flags included allegations similar to those in Marsch's lawsuit. Minkow's language was hazy and jumbled, but he used verbiage that relied heavily on the phrase "Ponzi scheme" — which, coming on the heels of the Bernard Madoff scandal that was in the news at the time, spooked investors.
On a YouTube video he made in support of his allegations, Minkow described Lennar as a "financial crime in progress" and called the company a "corporate bully."
As Minkow predicted, the media swooped in. Bloomberg, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal all carried stories.
Lennar's stock tumbled nearly $500 million in two days.
Lennar responded Jan. 12, 2009, with a detailed public rebuttal. The company also added Minkow to the libel-and-extortion suit it was pressing against Marsch.
But news organizations gave little attention to Lennar's rebuttal or news of the lawsuit against Minkow. The Wall Street Journal published a short story quoting Lennar accusing Minkow of making "false and scurrilous" claims, and Minkow as saying, "When you get sued, you know you are right."
But neither the Journal nor any other publication dug into Minkow's activities to see whether the supposedly redeemed character whose image they had helped burnish could still be trusted.
Marsch's lawsuit against Lennar went to trial in the spring in San Diego. It concluded last month with a 48-page ruling against Marsch by California Superior Court Judge William R. Nevitt Jr. The judge wrote that Marsch's claims that he was defrauded by Lennar "did not withstand close scrutiny and cross-examination. Ultimately, Mr. Marsch was thoroughly impeached with his own testimony, documents and the testimony of other witnesses."
Nevitt wrote on 22 different occasions that Marsch's testimony and statements were "not credible." Although Marsch sought more than $400 million in damages from Lennar, he did not get a dime and was ordered to pay $12 million in counterclaims.
"There is no evidence of fraud or diversion of funds to other projects," Nevitt wrote.
The judge's decision meant that damaging allegations made public by Minkow on Marsch's behalf in January 2009 had been weighed in a court of law and found to have no basis in fact. But none of the major media organizations that had rushed to disclose details of Minkow's charges against Lennar 18 months ago reported on Nevitt's ruling.
Mark Sustana, Lennar's general counsel, said in a statement to the Weekly this week: "The media rehabilitated Mr. Minkow's image after his imprisonment for fraud, but have shown no interest in investigating his behavior or even reading publicly available court records. This neglect has enabled Mr. Minkow to malign the reputations of U.S. businesses like ours without any showing of proof."
Determined to clear the company's name, Lennar has continued to pursue its libel-and-extortion lawsuit against Minkow and Marsch. Unreported by the media were revelations that came tumbling out through the court record. Some examples:
— Minkow hired a private investigator to look into Lennar with regard to one of his 10 red flags. When the investigator, Paul Palladino, said he found no evidence to prove any wrongdoing, he warned Minkow against going public with an accusation.
Palladino said he was told it was too late. "I was very upset, to put it mildly," that Minkow went forward with the allegations, Palladino said in a deposition.
— Minkow had said under oath that he'd never bet against Lennar's stock by buying put options before leveling allegations against the company.
After being confronted with trading records, Minkow was forced to admit that he had indeed shorted Lennar's stock, twice. The first time was about a month before he issued his FDI report on the company.
— Another investigator hired by Minkow, Terry Gilbeau, said he had hired a "foreign investigator" to look into the private banking records of Lennar executives and that the investigator had found evidence of wrongdoing.
But when pressed by Lennar, Gilbeau said he could not remember the name of the investigator. As for the evidence, Gilbeau had ostensibly written it on the back of a Starbucks napkin and sent the information to Minkow.
When Lennar demanded e-mails and documents from Gilbeau's computer, Gilbeau said it had crashed and he had abandoned it in a San Diego hotel room.
— At one point, Minkow claimed he had untraceable e-mails from an anonymous whistle-blower inside Lennar, alleging improper behavior by company executives — including a document purported to be a confidential company memo. Challenged by Lennar attorneys about the authenticity of the e-mail, Minkow produced still more anonymous e-mails.
The memo turned out to be a fraud.
— Minkow's FDI uses the offices of the San Diego Community Church, where he is senior pastor, to conduct business; uses church employees to perform investigative tasks; and even uses church money to fund his for-profit enterprise. Indeed, the records show that Minkow sent at least $3,000 from the church's PayPal account to an FDI consultant.
— On Aug. 2, the day Minkow was to travel from Los Angeles to Miami to testify in Lennar's lawsuit, he told the court he'd missed a red-eye flight because he had been hospitalized in an emergency room for assorted ailments, including nausea, anxiety, kidney stones, food poisoning and a migraine.
When the judge ordered him to produce hospital records, Minkow was forced to concede that he had lied. Under oath, Minkow admitted that he had not visited the ER but instead stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey and sought treatment the next day from an anti-aging doctor in San Diego.
Judge Freeman said that Minkow "seems to have absolutely no sense of responsibility for telling the truth," and had exhibited "misfeasance and fraudulent conduct."
"The truth is whatever he decides is important to the moment," Freeman said.
In an interview with the Weekly, Minkow blamed his conduct on a serious health problem that prevented him from traveling to Florida to testify in person.
A judge calling Barry Minkow a liar in open court should be enough to raise any journalist's curiosity. But that has not been the case.
Some newspapers have written brief stories reporting that companies Minkow has challenged are fighting back. But no news organization has undertaken a thorough examination of his claims.
Minkow has targeted at least two companies since the Lennar court case began: Medifast, a diet-food company headquartered in Maryland, and InterOil Corp., an Australian-based company exploring for oil and gas in Papua New Guinea.
Minkow targeted Medifast on Feb. 20, 2009 — six weeks after Lennar accused him of libel and extortion. Minkow said Medifast was a Ponzi scheme. The company's shares tumbled 30 percent. Minkow told the Weekly that he had purchased put options to profit from the declining stock price.
The company filed a $270 million defamation lawsuit against Minkow in February.
On June 26, 2009, Minkow called another company — InterOil Corp. — a "classic case of a Ponzi scheme." He had purchased put options on InterOil's stock, according to the San Diego Reader.
Instead of looking into Minkow's activities, news organizations have ignored the mounting evidence against him in Miami. Here are prime examples:
The Wall Street Journal
One of the first Minkow redemption stories appeared in The Wall Street Journal on Aug. 25, 2003, under the headline "Former White-Collar Felon's Insights Reap Redemption." The story described Minkow's work on behalf of government agencies, including the SEC.
Over the years, Wall Street Journal reporters developed a close relationship with Minkow as they wrote about the companies and executives FDI was accusing of wrongdoing. Many of Minkow's claims in those earlier years were indeed true.
On April 25, 2008, The Wall Street Journal wrote that Minkow caught Herbalife's president's résumé fabrication. The story briefly recapped Minkow's prison record and also mentioned the praise he had won from the FBI in uncovering corporate fraud since his release from prison.
(Many other news organizations have reported those words of praise from the FBI. They derive from a letter written by FBI Special Agent Peter H. Norell on Oct. 24, 2005. Norell lauds Minkow for helping the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to "disrupt and dismantle various financial frauds totaling millions of dollars."
(But here is a detail you won't read in Minkow stories about his FBI connection: Norell was forced to resign from the FBI and pleaded guilty last March to the misdemeanor charge of tapping a government computer in August and September 2005 to get information on a person who owed money to a friend.)
The Journal's story detailing Minkow's allegations against Lennar appeared on Jan. 10, 2009. It was written by reporters Michael Corkery and Mark Maremont.
The story lists Minkow's claims and goes on to recap Minkow's past as a stock-fraud felon and the FBI's praise of his fraud investigations.
The reporters quoted Minkow as saying he was being paid by "an unnamed client" and that he did not hold a put option on the company's stock. Minkow also stated in sworn deposition testimony that he had never shorted Lennar stock, a claim the Miami court record later would reveal as a lie.
The story included Lennar's denials but they were brief, given that the company had only hours to evaluate the allegations before being asked to comment.
The company issued a far more detailed rebuttal on Jan. 12, 2009 — making a case that has stood up since. But The Wall Street Journal didn't report those arguments, despite the enormous damage the company suffered at Minkow's hands.
Indeed, the Journal's reporting came to a near halt for months — even as both Marsch's lawsuit against Lennar and Lennar's lawsuit against Minkow and Marsch generated an extensive public-records trail.
Minkow has continued to put out inflammatory press releases against Lennar, touting the "Top Ten Red Flags for Fraud 2 — The Sequel" and footage from an FDI documentary, Too Big to Go to Jail: The Lennar Story, which purports to demonstrate the company's "alleged nationwide pattern of fraudulent behavior."
The Wall Street Journal took the bait once again. In a March 31 story posted online, the paper reported that Minkow's documentary promises to show "a disturbing pattern of apparent fraudulent behavior ... ranging from the falsification of government documents to the utilization of their joint ventures to conceal debt and siphon cash from unwitting joint-venture partners."
On June 4 of this year, Minkow's relationship with the Journal took a strange turn. Minkow disclosed on his website that FDI had received a "nonpublic subpoena from the SEC." Six companies Minkow had criticized, including Lennar and Herbalife, Medifast and InterOil, had filed SEC complaints against him, the statement said.
Minkow said he was disclosing the subpoena in the interest of full transparency. But the facts suggest that he knew the subpoena was about to become public and that he struck first so as to give it a positive spin.
In explaining the subpoena, Minkow's website defended him in a surprising way. He claimed that five months earlier, in January 2010, he had forwarded to Wall Street Journal senior editor Maremont a copy of the subpoena along with his company's 300-page response to it.
Minkow said Maremont's decision not to write about the subpoena was proof that it was of little consequence. "For six months, The Wall St. Journal decided that it wasn't news," Minkow wrote.
A week later, however, on June 11, 2010, the Journal's sister company, the Dow Jones Newswires, decided the SEC inquiry into Minkow and FDI was news, publishing a story headlined "SEC Probe Into Barry Minkow's Fraud Discovery Institute Continues."
The article, by Maxwell Murphy, said Dow Jones Newswires had reviewed copies of three of the subpoenas and "related materials." It quoted the SEC, saying the "investigation is a nonpublic fact-finding inquiry" intended "to determine whether there have been any violations of the federal securities law."
The story added that the SEC also wanted information on all contacts Minkow and FDI had with about two dozen individuals, including two Dow Jones Newswires reporters, Ben Dummett in Toronto and Michael Rapoport in New York, who had written about InterOil Corp.
But aside from reporting on the subpoena, the story did not look at the mounting evidence in Miami that Minkow was indeed making phony claims about businesses. Also, nowhere did the story address Minkow's claims that Maremont had been in possession of the SEC's subpoena for five months without reporting it.
In an interview with the Weekly last week, Maremont said The Wall Street Journal had not relied on Minkow's credibility when taking tips from him over the years. When Minkow passed along a tip, the Journal checked to see if it was accurate.
"Many things Barry pointed us to have in fact turned out to be real fraud, real abuses, resulting in lots of enforcement actions by authorities," he said.
But the Journal never got to the bottom of Minkow's claims about Lennar in January 2009 before writing its story about his allegations.
Maremont declined to comment about whether he had been told about the SEC subpoena five months before Minkow disclosed it on his website.
A spokeswoman for the newspaper told the Weekly that the Journal was not obligated to look more deeply into the case or Lennar's lawsuit against Minkow.
"There is a fundamental flaw in the argument that we're obliged to write about — or could even possibly write about — every lawsuit filed, including those that may involve sources," said spokeswoman Ashley Huston.
CBS/ 60 Minutes
Minkow's redemption story aired in 2005. It begins with an explanation that Minkow is "back in the spotlight, not for committing fraud but for exposing it."
On camera, Minkow is relaxed and laughs frequently as he tells his story to correspondent Kroft. The segment includes an interview with a federal postal inspector, Tim France, who says Minkow helped him uncover a fraud. France says Minkow was useful but, because of his history, "I have to re-verify everything he has done already." Kroft asks France if he trusts Minkow. France says, "Trust but verify."
Last spring, a CBS News producer received a detailed presentation urging 60 Minutes to take another look at Minkow on the basis of evidence in the Miami lawsuit, a source familiar with the meeting told the Weekly.
60 Minutes did nothing.
A representative of 60 Minutes told the Weekly that the Minkow segment stands up even today.
"I think if you take another look at the wry — even humorous at times — story we did on a famous con man, you'll see that the information you brought to us doesn't change our story or the way we feel about it at all," said Kevin Tedesco, executive director of communications.
The segment is wry, but it unmistakably portrays Minkow as a legitimate fraud-buster.
In fact, 60 Minutes persuaded Minkow to go undercover for the show, using a hidden camera to try to nab a Dallas couple who Minkow alleged were engaged in fraud.
Debby and Eric Berry were running a possible Ponzi scheme through two Dallas companies, Minkow claimed. The companies bankrolled a nonprofit organization called the Nehemiah Fund, promising a 100 percent matching grant for churches willing to put in $500,000 or more.
Minkow said the deal had the markings of a "financial crime in progress" — the same phrase he later used for Lennar. The evidence? "All the red flags," he said.
The Berrys hadn't been charged with any crimes and refused to go on 60 Minutes. But after Minkow issued his report, the Texas Attorney General's Office, the FBI and the Montana auditor's office began investigations, the show reported.
The Texas Attorney General's Office told the Weekly last week that no charges were ever filed because investigators couldn't find sufficient evidence.
Fox News
Fox News commentator Neil Cavuto is a self-described Minkow fan going back to 2003. (Fox is owned by News Corp., which in August 2007 bought Dow Jones & Co., The Wall Street Journal's parent.)
Cavuto over the years regularly invited Minkow on his show to weigh in on major figures who had fallen from grace. In March 2009 — a month after his allegations against Lennar and two weeks after Medifast — Cavuto invited Minkow onto a panel to discuss discredited financier Bernie Madoff.
Rather than question Minkow, Cavuto gave him the stamp of approval: "You learned the error of your ways. You returned whatever your debt to society many times over, and done enormous amount of good that dwarfs whatever bad you did. And you helped society."
It is unlikely that Minkow's victims in the ZZZZ Best scam concur with Cavuto. They are still owed much of the $26 million in court-ordered restitution — a debt Minkow has said he will be paying off for the rest of his life.
In March, 19 months after the Herbalife "one and done" and 14 months after Lennar began offering evidence of Minkow's questionable activities, Cavuto told viewers that he couldn't praise Minkow enough. In reviewing a trailer for the movie about Minkow's life, Cavuto predicted an Oscar. "It's going to be big, big, big," Cavuto said.
The movie has yet to be released.
Cavuto did not respond to the Weekly's requests for comment, although a Fox News representative said she tried for several days to obtain one from him.
The Orange County Register
On Feb. 23, 2009, six months after the Herbalife retraction and a month after Lennar's detailed rebuttal against Minkow, The Orange County Register published a long, narrative piece on the front page of its Sunday paper, recapping Minkow's life. It was the redemption story all over again.
"In an epoch when much of corporate America seems like a house of cards built on a foundation of fraud, Minkow is on a crusade to render financial justice and find personal redemption," the story said.
In three paragraphs near the end, the story acknowledges Lennar's libel-and-extortion lawsuit against Marsch and Minkow. But coming at the end of a lengthy, glowing story about Minkow, those paragraphs amounted to little more than a jarring non sequitur.
John Gittelsohn, the reporter, quotes Minkow as saying he can't afford to make a false accusation. "For a guy like me, it's one and done."
But the story didn't explore the Herbalife case or the growing court file in the Lennar lawsuit.
Gittelsohn did mention that Minkow had leveled allegations against Medifast, which occurred days before the story ran. It quoted Medifast's CEO, Michael S. McDevitt, saying Minkow is "a liar and can't be trusted."
In the story, Gittelsohn discusses how Minkow deals with the press.
"Once he has the goods, he often prepares a lengthy spiral-bound written report with a glossy cover. He shoots a YouTube video, starring himself. He leaks the story to a financial reporter at a news service, such as Forbes, Bloomberg News or even the Register, who can confirm his research and whose report can impact the market. Then he places his bet and prays things go right," Gittelsohn writes.
Gittelsohn, who now works for Bloomberg in New York, declined to comment to the Weekly.
Los Angeles Times
At the Los Angeles Times, in a column on Jan. 19, 2009, Pulitzer Prize–winning business writer Michael Hiltzik expressed deep skepticism about Minkow's claims.
Hiltzik wrote: "You certainly can't determine from Minkow's evidence that Lennar is crooked.
"When I told him so, he tried to convince me with a spiel that had the cadence of a con man's pitch — instead of haranguing me about all the suspect maneuvering I was overlooking, he might have been telling me this was my last chance to get in on a fortune at the ground floor," Hiltzik wrote.
He said Minkow responded to his skepticism by saying, "What kind of evidence are you willing to accept that will convince you ... that Lennar is lying?"
Hiltzik told the Weekly that he has remained unconvinced, saying while Minkow is good at self-promotion and trotting out testimonials from the FBI, on closer scrutiny he has mainly gone after small-scale scams and easy targets like résumé fabrications.
"There was so much talk and not so much real, solid achievement."
Hiltzik said Minkow expected people to take him at his word that he had had a jailhouse conversion and now just wanted to help out.
"I was just very skeptical. ... I didn't buy it and I didn't see evidence he was all that reformed."
Despite Hiltzik's skepticism in that column, the Times did not follow up to determine if L.A.'s famous fraud had become a menace to businesses.
Minkow told the Weekly last week that he is getting out of the business of investigating public companies and then shorting their stocks, because the investigations are expensive and government regulators, such as the SEC, don't take action.
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Daniel Akst, who wrote a book about Minkow, said in an interview last week that the press has more reason to be skeptical of Minkow today because he has admitted to lying to news organizations.
But the media generally have become more "credulous" as newsrooms have shrunk and reporters have less time to do investigative journalism, said Akst, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who is now on the editorial board at Newsday.
Geneva Overholser, director of USC Annenberg's School of Journalism, said news organizations and journalists who have told Minkow's "redemption story" and have reported extensively on his allegations against companies have an obligation to the public to report on challenges to his credibility in court records and settlements as well.
"The story was big when it was a scandal, when [he became] a preacher, but where are the media now?" Overholser asked. "Of course we love a redemption story, but we're supposed to be skeptical. Redemption stories often don't pan out or last for very long."