Maplewood Patch has published a feature article I wrote about Social Media Today, a Maplewood-based social media company that draws on the work of bloggers from around the world. It’s a part of my continuing effort to establish myself as the premier chronicler of the Maplewood Blogolopolis^TM.  (It may already be safe to claim that distinction, in that I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who has ever used that term.)

(Welcome, Social Media Today readers. While you’re here you might want to look at other posts under my Social Media tag.)

Several weeks ago, I wrote about having been taken in by an IQ test scam on Facebook.   Lots of other people have also written about that and other scams.  Somehow I naively thought that once Facebook realized it was enabling deception on its service, it would get rid of the scams.  But if anything, the scams have become more plentiful — and more disgraceful.

The image above is a screen shot, captured today, with my annotations in red. It’s an ad — but if Facebook permits advertisers to use Facebook blue and otherwise mimic Facebook’s look and feel, it thereby lends Facebook’s credibility to the ad.  So when the text falsely says “3 of your friends have challenged you to beat their IQ scores,” Facebook is lying to me.

As before, clicking to accept the challenge leads to a brief quiz with a few easy questions, which then leads to a screen asking me to enter my cell phone number to get the results:

If I enter my cell phone number — as I was foolish enough to do before — I expect it will then give me a code and ask me to send it as a text on my cell phone.  Doing so will constitute a confirmation that I agree to their terms of service.

Now, let’s take a closer look at that page:

The barely readable diagonal blue text at right says “$9.99 Monthly Subscription.” The barely readable “Terms” link leads to a page with more than 9,000 words of dense legalese.  Somewhere therein it says that using the “service” constitutes agreeing with the terms.  Way at the bottom,  it states that the terms are $9.99 a month.

Facebook peddles plenty of other scams to its members as well, such as this:

And this:

And this:

This one is particularly diabolical, as it has grabbed the name of one of my Facebook friends — a woman who, I am quite confident, has an IQ considerably higher than 106:

Each of these ads-that-look-like-Facebook-applications leads either to an IQ scam or some other “service” that will be billed to your cell phone.  For example, one of them led to this landing page, which is a model of transparency and rectitude by comparison:

The eye is naturally drawn to the simple images in the center, but at least the text on the periphery (both at top and left) discloses the $9.99 monthly charge.  Try to navigate away from the page, however, and you’ll get this popup message:

It’s a standard Windows popup message, the text at top and bottom is generated by Windows.  The only customization is the text in the middle — which tries to keep you on the site by telling you that “Cancel” means the opposite of what it says on the line below.

Once you’ve “agreed” to the terms for one of these scams, you can get out of the charges by spending half an hour or so in voicemail hell with your phone company.  But how many teens and tweens have incurred the charges without realizing it, or without having the courage to tell Mom or Dad that there may be a problem on the cell phone account? The fact that there are competing scams says to me that it’s a business model that works for the scammers.

Facebook didn’t actually create these scummy scams.  It just knowingly profits by driving its 200 million members to them.  That is to say, it profits in the short run.  In the long run, it’s hard to believe that it is truly in Facebook’s best interest to participate in victimizing its members.

J’accuse, Zuckerberg.

Patch.com, the venture-capitalized, Google-zillionaire-backed startup that recently launched town-specific news and information websites in Maplewood, South Orange and Millburn, today announced plans to expand into an additional three nearby communities.

The newest Patches are slated to open in May in Summit, Westfield and Scotch Plains (including Fanwood), all in Union County. Summit is contiguous with Millburn in Essex County, but Westfield and Scotch Plains/Fanwood are further south, separated from the other Patches by Route 22 and by the towns of Springfield and Mountainside.

In a world-exclusive interview (OK, he replied to my email), Patch Editor-in-Chief Brian Farnham told A.T.I.N. that Googliath has “no specific rollout plans beyond these next three, or hard target figure to hit by end of year. I can say we remain bullish about expanding Patch as quickly as is prudent and in as many communities as can use us (which we think is a lot).”

Each of the new Patch towns are served by local newspapers, and Summit even has SummitNJ.net, a sister site of the venerable Maplewood Online. Even after the new sites open, however, none of the towns will have an online presence to rival the Maplewood Blogolopolis^TM, which is served by five separate, general-interest websites.

As the crisis unfolds, the Avellino Waterproofing ad
appears as a cruel joke… mocking me.

About 6:05 a.m., Eastern DAYLIGHT Time — The Web Goddess reports no water pressure at any upstairs faucet. “I hope we don’t have a burst pipe in the basement.” Yoicks!! This would have to happen on the very morning that clocks “spring forward,” depriving emergency responders of a potentially crucial hour of sleep.

6:07 a.m. — No water pressure at the downstairs faucets either. Visual reconnaissance confirms dry basement — an indication that the crisis may be systemic to the entire Tuscan Road microregion (the water could be out all up and down the street). Important tactical note: Each toilet can be flushed one time with water stored in the individual toilet tank.

6:15 a.m. — Time to see which news outlet in the Maplewood Blogolopolis^TM is doing the best job of reporting the looming crisis. As long-time A.T.I.N. readers (i.e., since six days ago) are aware:

Maplewood NJ, Pop. 23,000, Now Has Four FIVE Competing Local Websites

As a reminder, the websites, in approximate order of online presence:

Maplewood Online
Maplewoodian.com
Maplewood Patch
NY Times “The Local”
LocalSource.com (News-Record)

6:19 a.m. — Frenzied surfing reveals disappointing fact: the Maplewood Blogolopolis^TM appears to be ignoring the mounting hydration catastrophe. I need to take a shower, people!!

6:25 a.m. – [Lightbulb] — I should sound the alarm!! The technology is in my hands!! But where to turn first? Here’s where more than a decade of brand development comes into play — I happen to know that Maplewood Online, Est. 1998, has a thriving complex of local message boards, and I have not seen anything comparable at the other sites. At 6:25 a.m., while others in the Maplewood Blogolopolis^TM sleep soundly in their beds, I (me, Kirk Petersen!!) post the first emergency bulletin in a still-innocent world. At a mere 55 words, including the subject line, and if you count “a.m.” as a separate word, the message is a model of understated intensity and resolve:

Water Main Break in Tuscan Road Area

New Jersey American Water confirms a water main break in the Tuscan Road area. Service is out at our house on Tuscan near Springfield. The company expects to restore service in 4 to 6 hours from the time of the initial report at 4:25 a.m. today, Sunday, 3/8/09.

6:30-6:40 a.m. – Finish sending emails to the other four players in the Maplewood Blogolopolis^TM. That’s right, emails. This is the 21st Century, people!

6:59 a.m. – At last! After more than a quarter-hour of clicking the refresh button (no wonder Jamie gets so many page views at MOL!!), the first confirmatory report arrives. Well, sort of. A person styling herself as “Joan Crystal” posts the following:

Thanks for the alert. We have water at 6:59 AM this morning and we are one block from Tuscan Road.

Is she doubting me?? Or is the crisis more contained than originally feared? (Ugly thought: if there is a break between the water main and my house, am I liable for the repairs?)

7:02 a.m. – Visual reconnaissance out the front window reveals no sign of water bubbling out of the front yard. (But would I even be able to see it?)

7:06 a.m. — “elsie” provides the following report:

Thanks – ours is out too. Had seen a truck and water gushing into the road around 6 last night, so suspected it was related.

Neither of my next-door neighbors are named “elsie,” so this provides the first welcome indication that the problem may be wide-spread. (In typical suburban busy-street microculture, I do not know the names of the folks across the street.) I ponder the bittersweet irony of my satisfaction at the knowledge that others are suffering, too.

7:32 a.m. – Two additional breathless outage reports have been filed, indicating at least four households are without water. With a humbling yet majestic sense of history, I note that all of the respondents have started their comments by thanking me. This touching response from a grateful public provides a rare opportunity for a vertical screen grab. I’m starting to think about a bagel run.

7:40 a.m. – Maybe later on the bagel. ZZZZzzzzzzzz.

9:56 a.m. — Nearly three hours after the initial emergency report, citizen-journalist Joe Strupp reports the outage on his newsblog, The Maplewoodian, and links to this site. (Thanks, Joe!) I’m not sure the powder-blue text works, but I love the graphic.

I met Joe the other night at the NY Times “The Local” launch party, and I remember thinking, this guy is toast — he’s up against the mighty New York Times, a Google zillionaire at Patch.com, and the online version of the venerable News-Record, which has been reporting from Maplewood for however many years it has been.

But just as Andrew Jackson said “one man with courage makes a majority,” Joe has proven that one man who checks his email on Sunday morning makes a news cycle.

10:15 a.m. – First photos from the disaster scene at Tuscan Road and Oberlin Street, where the tension was palpable. (I had to walk several blocks from my home, I might add.)

Photo below reveals a shiny red new plumbing thingy in a hole — first responders at the scene confirmed that the hole had been dug by the big yellow hole-making device pictured above. The hole undoubtedly will need to be filled before normal traffic can resume on Oberlin. Traffic on the much-busier Tuscan Road was thankfully not disrupted.

Service has been restored, according to one of Maplewood’s finest, who did not give his name. (Note to self: next time ask for name.) And here I thought New Jersey American Water was blowing smoke when they said 4 to 6 hours.

Wait… you mean I could be taking a shower right now?!?

Signing off from the Tuscan Road microregion of the Maplewood Blogolopolis^TM, where it seems likely that some late-sleeping citizens will never know how narrowly they averted hygenic inconvenience.

11:30 a.m. — Quick update while my hair dries — Jamie Ross likes me! He included me in today’s edition of the Maplewood Dispatch!

(I subsequently wrote a followup to this post.)

I love the Internet. For starters, I met the Web Goddess on an online divorce support group. Thanks to the Internet, I have been able to pontificate on this blog to an audience of literally dozens of people who otherwise would be bereft of my wisdom.

But it’s still the Wild West on the World Wide Web (WWWWW). Web-enabled social media platforms such as Facebook lend themselves to scams that depend on social engineering as much as they do on TCP/IP. I think of myself as a reasonably sophisticated Internaut, but I got pwned this morning — before church, no less.

The Facebook message claimed that four of my friends had challenged me to an IQ test, with the smartest of them scoring 127. I was encouraged to click Continue to find out who they were and see if I could beat them. OK, Facebook friends — it’s on!

The welcoming page at the IQ site included a screen (see top image) with the words “Answer the questions quickly and accurately to find out your IQ.” OK, speed counts, good to know — bring it!

After racing through 10 multiple-choice questions (sample: of these four presidents, which was America’s 16th president?), I get to the screen below. My heart’s pumping — I just know I aced all those questions! But now they want me to tell them my cell phone number… am I going to get junk calls?

Oh well, I can always hang up, and at least they’re not asking for a credit card number. After I enter my cell number and click Next, I get a screen that tells me I have been sent a text message with a code number, and I have 30 seconds to enter the code number in a field on the web page. Crikey, my cell’s in the other room, the webpage is counting down the seconds, and I’m not sure how to retrieve a text message, I rarely use that service.

I get the code number entered with about four seconds to spare… which leads to a screen telling me I have to accept the Terms and Conditions. Damn! I’m out of time! But maybe it will still work a few seconds late. I select the Terms and Conditions approval box and click Next.

The next screen tells me to select the special ringtones I have ordered… and I start to have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I hit the back button to get to the page where I entered my cell phone number, and I see the virtually camouflaged reference (in the calculator screen in the picture above) to a $9.99 per month subscription. In small type at the very bottom (click the image to see a full-size version), there are five nondescript links, the fourth of which is the Terms and Conditions I didn’t read because I was running out of time.

The Terms and Conditions are a true work of art. (They were in a pop-up and I don’t know a way to link directly, but I’ve captured the complete text just in case.) In addition to telling me that my high IQ will now cost me 10 bucks a month until I cancel, the term sheet contains this cheeky statement: “YOU AGREE TO REVIEW THIS AGREEMENT FROM TIME TO TIME AND AGREE THAT ANY SUBSEQUENT ACCESS TO OR USE BY YOU OF THE SERVICES FOLLOWING CHANGES TO THE AGREEMENT SHALL CONSTITUTE YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF ALL SUCH CHANGES.” In other words, if they change the price to $10 a minute, it’s on me to opt out — and if I use the ringtone in the meantime, I’m hosed.

So after all my rushing, I ended up spending 28 minutes in voice-response hell with Verizon, before I got a human to tell me that I can cancel the ringtone “service” and I can dispute any charges that may get applied. I spent the 28 minutes rethinking my arrogant attitude toward the clients of Ponzi artist Bernie Madoff — clients who, I recently opined, should have known better.

Look, I freely acknowledge that I screwed up here. But shame on Facebook for enabling this. There apparently have been a variety of IQ test scams, none of which look any more dangerous than the standard Facebook fare offering superpokes, virtual hugs, good kharma and the like. If you Google “Facebook IQ test scam” you’ll get 86,000 results, some of them going back at least to 2007. (Let’s make it 86,001.)

I’m tempted to say “shame on Verizon” as well, but the ability to charge goods and services to your cell phone is at least potentially useful, and the nice Verizon lady assured me I would lose no money over this. Even though I “agreed” to the Terms and Conditions.

But here are other candidates for the IQ Test Hall of Shame: The aptly named Shadylizard.com, a ringtones peddler; Media Breakaway LLC, which according to the Terms and Conditions runs Shadylizard.com; quizyou.net, the site that hosts the phony quiz; and the “service” providers used by Media Breakaway to deliver ringtones: Flycell, Ringaza, Jamster and SendMe Mobile.

Media Breakaway LLC, according to its Flashy website, is based in Westminster, Colorado, and offers “performance-based marketing solutions for our business partners.” If you have any comments or suggestions about their “solutions,” their phone number is 303-464-8164. The CEO, Scott Richter, can be reached at scott@mediabreakaway.com.

(Images above may be subject to copyright; publication here is believed to be permissible under the fair use doctrine of U.S. law.)

Israel continues and escalates its efforts to use social media to press its case in the global court of public opinion.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the once and perhaps future Prime Minister, is pulling out all the stops to explain Israel’s position in the war with Hamas. In addition to an excellent op-ed in the Wednesday Wall Street Journal, Bibi’s Likud Party has a trilingual blog and social media site (in Hebrew, English and Russian), with an oddly cheery-looking Flash animation showing which towns in Israel are within various ranges of the Gaza Strip.

From the op-ed:

In launching precision strikes against Hamas rocket launchers, headquarters, weapons depots, smuggling tunnels and training camps, Israel is trying to minimize civilian casualties. But Hamas deliberately attacks Israeli civilians and deliberately hides behind Palestinian civilians — a double war crime. Responsible governments do their utmost to minimize civilian casualties, but they do not grant immunity to terrorists who use civilians as human shields.

The international community may occasionally condemn Hamas for putting Palestinian civilians in harm’s way, but if it ultimately holds Israel responsible for the casualties that ensue, then Hamas and other terror organizations will employ this abominable tactic again and again.

The charge that Israel is using disproportionate force is equally baseless. Does proportionality demand that Israel fire 6,000 rockets indiscriminately back at Gaza?

(Welcome, readers of TheDonovan.com, a.k.a. Castle Argghhh. If you’re a fan of “Jonah’s military guys,” you might be interested in my October post about that site, “In Praise of Milbloggers, and of the Iraqi Air Force”. And a warm welcome as well to Wired and Mudville Gazette readers.)

In an earlier post (“Israel Turns to Social Media in Fight against Hamas“) I described how the Israeli Consulate in New York is using Twitter in the battle for public opinion regarding the conflict that partisans on both sides seem to be calling the “War on Gaza.”

It turns out there’s some social media savvy on the Palestinian side as well.

GazaTalk.com (warning: if you click around on the site you’ll see gruesome photos) launched January 1. I discovered it at about 5 a.m. January 5 (today), via a link in the tweetstream of Beshr Kayali. I have no idea who he is beyond the fact that his Twitter page says he’s in Damascus, and because I need to wrap this up quickly before a busy workday, I’m not going to research it.

The GazaTalk.com homepage features the death toll scorecard badge above, along with links to articles, blog posts, pro-Palestinian “Gaza Tweeters” and more.

(Disclosure: I’ve made clear where my own sympathies lie in this conflict. For this post, I’m setting aside my political views to focus on social media.)

If you click on the image below, I think you’ll see a much-larger version of it. (Works on my machine, anyway, but I’m still a newbie blogger and I don’t know if it will work for you. Give it a shot, then come back here to continue the text.)

By using Tweet Grid — one of the many independent sites that have sprung up to leverage Twitter’s tweetstream — I’ve collected the most recent tweets from both Kayali and from Benny Daon. I don’t know anything about him either, but he gives his location as Tel Aviv.

The large screenshot (if you can see it) shows Daon and Kayali parsing the nuances of the conflict in 140-character tweets. Here’s a text version of one exchange:

Beshrkayali: RT @ysalahi: Gaza’s 9/11: 500 dead so far out of 1.5 million in #Gaza. that’s approximately 100,000 americans out of 300 million.

Translation: Kayali is re-tweeting (“RT”) a tweet from someone else (“@ysalahi”) which compares the Gaza death toll with the 9/11 death toll, based on the respective populations of Gaza and the U.S. (If anyone cares about what I think about this argument on a substantive level, please inquire in the comments — I’m staying neutral in the body of the post.)

Daon fires back with a different take:

daonb: @Beshrkayali of the 500 dead in #gaza most are jihadists who got their wish and many others were human shields. In 9/11 just civilians

One last observation, then I’ve gotta wrap this up. Daon and Kayali both press their cases in highly partisan language. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I think I detect a hint of grudging respect and even camaraderie in this exchange:

daonb: @Beshrkayali watching bbc news now for smart analysis on #gaza. hoping we can have peace after this bloodbath, but very much doubt it

Beshrkayali: @daonb Yeah me too… It appears that Israel won’t stop until ALL Palestinians are dead… That’s what Olmert said… #gaza

The two sides in the Gaza War may not be negotiating, but at least they’re tweeting.

Nick O’Neill has a good post at Social Media Today describing Israel’s use of social media in the current conflict in Gaza. Among other things, the Israeli Consulate in New York is engaging with supporters and critics alike, on Twitter. It’s reminiscent of Scott Monty’s efforts on behalf of Ford.

Update: Also see this, at Pajamas Media — it describes how Israel’s social media efforts represent an end-run around the mainstream media, much of which is bizarrely anti-Israel. “Now Israel can go directly to bloggers and other social media users to make their case without the biased filtering that takes place in all but a few outlets in the mainstream media.”

Updated Update: The IDF has a YouTube channel with a selection of precision bombing videos. In the one below, Israel strikes a Hamas truck as it is being loaded with Grad rockets. It’s a powerful answer to the charges that Israel is bombing indiscriminately. (Hat tip: Meryl Yourish)

To be precise, Mulally was Tweeting by proxy yesterday, via Scott Monty. It only lasted a few minutes, but it’s still fairly cool. No great revelations on weighty policy matters, but I learned that Mulally makes a point of driving a different auto every day, including competitor models, to stay close to the public experience of driving. Not earthshaking, but humanizing.

It’s notable that Mulally, a former Boeing exec, first started working for an auto company only two years ago. As I’ve written in previous posts, Ford is seeking to differentiate itself from the Big Other Two. It’s working for me.

Photo credit: Ford Motor Company

(Welcome, Corner readers, and thanks to Cornerite Iain Murray for his continuing support. Thanks also to Mickey Kaus for linking, with a permalink no less — sorry about the crack below about the Kausfiles template!)

In an article on Slate, Mickey Kaus explains why the Detroit automakers are in trouble:

There are some obvious culprits: shortsighted American managers, schlocky designers, an insular corporate culture. Here’s another: the very structure of Wagner Act unionism. The problem isn’t so much wages as work rules–internal strictures that make it hard for unionized competitors to constantly adapt and change production processes the way the Japanese do.Now that everyone is criticizing work rules, it’s easy to forget that they don’t represent a perversion of the collective bargaining process–they are the intended result of that process, and were once celebrated as such.

Kaus doesn’t explicitly advocate or oppose bankruptcy in the article. From what I’ve reviewed of his earlier writing, he doesn’t seem to have taken a position one way or another — rather, he has repeatedly pointed out the problems and the flaws with both bankruptcy and a bailout. (That link is to his blog homepage — his archaic “Kausfiles” template has very few permalinks, so you have to just keep scrolling or searching except when he puts up a major article.)

Legacy of the 1935 Wagner Act

But to me, his current article explains vividly why bankruptcy is the only solution for Detroit. He quotes from another writer’s 1983 article:

Under the Wagner Act, management manages. What the union does is complain, and negotiate for a rule limiting management’s right to do what the union doesn’t like. A worker protests that his job should be classified as “drilling special and heavy” instead of “drilling general.” The parties butt heads, a decision is reached, and a new rule is deposited like another layer of sediment. At some GM plants, distinct job categories evolved for each spot on the assembly line (e.g., “headlining installer”). In Japanese auto plants, where they spend their time building cars instead of creating job categories, there is only one nonsupervisory job classification: “production.”

Note that the above was written 25 years ago — the problem already was clear, and now the “layers of sediment” have had another quarter-century to accumulate. Kaus continues, describing the situation today:

Yes, faced with successful Japanese rivals, Detroit and its union have been trying to reduce the number of work rules–but the process has been slow, like pulling teeth, especially because the UAW defers to its locals.

Confessions of a Union Man

I’ve been professionally aligned with “management” for the past quarter century, but before that I briefly was an unpaid, elected union official. (It was the Newspaper Guild, an anemic junior varsity union in a dying industry, but still. I was the head of a roughly 40-person unit at The Home News, a small New Jersey daily. It’s now Home News Tribune Courier News, and the Guild unit didn’t survive the mergers.)

My point, and I do have one, is that I’ve seen enough of the behavior of highly paid top union officials to understand that their focus is not on the best interests of their members. Their focus is on protecting their lucrative jobs, and the only way they know to do that is to be perceived by the members as being willing to fight to the bitter end to protect existing contracts.

But in bankruptcy court, the contracts (theoretically, at least) can be voided. And that’s the level of change that will be required to put the U.S. auto industry on solid competitive footing with foreign automakers.

A Shout-Out to #TCOT

In the past few days, my humble blog has had a welcome flurry of attention because of a post I wrote describing the interaction between Ford’s head of social media, Scott Monty, and a new virtual organization called Top Conservatives on Twitter (TCOT). (What is Twitter, you ask? Here is a primer.) Having voted for Clinton twice I’m still not used to thinking of myself as a conservative, but I’m currently the 655th top conservative on Twitter, according to the group’s list.

I’ve been moving up the ranks as more people sign on to follow my “Tweets” because of the publicity. [Are YOU following me on Twitter?] The original post got linked to from The Corner, sending hundreds of visitors my way and spawning other threads in the conservative blogosphere. I later did a followup post expressing admiration for Monty’s grace under pressure.

The Ford Story

My BFF Scott Monty is working hard to get the public to understand that the auto bailout defeated last week in Congress was not a “Big 3″ bailout. As I said in an earlier post,

Interestingly, Ford is not seeking bailout money at this time, but supports the bailout “to address the near-term liquidity issues of GM and Chrysler, as our industry is highly interdependent and a failure of one of our competitors could affect us all.”

Monty argues, convincingly to my mind, that under CEO Alan Mulally — a former Boeing exec who never worked for a car company before two years ago — Ford has gone much further than GM and Chrysler toward adjusting its business model to the emerging realities. TCOT is racing to try to reinforce that story — dozens of volunteers (including, to some degree, me) have mobilized over the weekend for Operation Ford Motor, an effort to help differentiate Ford from the others, while striking a blow for capitalism and the principles of market discipline.

The proposed purpose of Operation Ford Motor is based on the following concepts:

- To recognize Ford Motor Company’s efforts at avoiding accepting government bailout money.

- To provide input to Ford Motor Company on why it is important to remain free-market focused, and not accept government loans.

- Partner with Ford in making its example of a market-based approach the standard for American business without relying on taxpayer dollars.

- Lay the groundwork for a market-based approach to turning around the auto industry, and the economy at large.

This nascent potential partnership is fragile on both sides. Monty has been unfailingly polite, but has cautioned that he can make no commitment on behalf of Ford. He also pointed out, in comments on a blog I just can’t find right now, that the company cannot become too closely aligned with any particular ideology. And TCOT may well bail out of this project if members come to disapprove of Ford’s actions.

I admire Monty and hope he and his company are successful in telling The Ford Story and differentiating Ford from the Big Other Two. Ford has already won some concessions from the UAW, and has refocused its business and avoided a cash crunch — it’s by far the healthiest of the three. But let’s say Chrysler and GM go bankrupt and shrink dramatically, while Ford avoids bankruptcy. Ford could end up at a competitive disadvantage because the other companies are able to put more pressure on the union.

As I said at the beginning of this adventure, way back on Friday morning: “I don’t know what if anything will come of this, but it’s fascinating.”