During Hurricane Irene weekend, while holed up in a friend’s apartment and looking for some stimulation, I got friend-requested and emailed by an obvious scammer on Facebook. The con artist, under the name “Claire Anrie,” used a few professional photos of an attractive young woman (whom I later reverse-image-searched and discovered was a personal trainer in New York) and a typo- and contradiction-filled profile. READ MORE

This is how the Freelancer’s Panic works: Checks that are supposed to have arrived get lost in the jaws of payroll processing, leaving you without any money and, worse yet, a sense that no money will find its way into your mailbox, ever. Days are spent alternating between considering the poor life decisions that have led to this point and sending out mass emails to friends and strangers looking for any leads. Which is how, one day last week, I found myself responding to an ad on the “Writing Gigs” section of the Los Angeles Craigslist that was, most likely, a scam. I mean, it definitely was a scam. Completely. Only thing is, I can't figure out how I was scammed. Or why. READ MORE

A web listings service of which I've never heard has released some "stunning data" about crime on Craiglist, putting them somewhere in bed with John Boehner or maybe Rick Santorum. How much crime happens on Craigslist? On average, points out Fast Company, "around 0.00005% of posts are associated with crimes on Craigslist." That puts Craigslist use at somewhere on the safer side of flying in an airplane, which is far safer than sitting in your apartment, basically. And by the way, "crime" also includes prostitution and a whole lot of "other." So they're not only fearmongerers, they also hate proud American (sex) workers.

Sooner or later in many a young person's life, he or she moves to New York City and is then fairly promptly locked out of his or her terrible first apartment late at night. When this happens, you young people should know, the answer is go sleep at a friend's house, or pick up someone in a bar and sleep at their house, or sleep in a park, even if it gets you hassled by a cop and it's 20 degrees out. This is what happens pretty much, without fail, when you call a locksmith at 1 a.m. We're sorry we didn't let you kids know this sooner. (Later we'll tell you about the deli sushi and some other things.)

What are you going to do this weekend? Catch up on your CSI? Some light cleaning? Or maybe you could polish off two chapters in your dusty old novel! Maybe it's your first novel, the one that you would rather die before showing anyone? Or, as Michael Berger puts it today, "The one people will say, provided it ever gets published: oh that was just his first novel. That's why it was so childish and so preoccupied with sex and werewolves and time travel." (Um, yes please.) Anyway, that is what he is going to do this weekend and why don't you join him? He is still hacking out the beginning of his, "which features a fire in an apartment complex, a food fight, a congregation of greaser bikers, fishnet stockings and a long walk to a haunted park." Sure!

Just about everyone has written a Richard Florida takedown, to which I say, the more the merrier. This latest entrant, by Alec MacGillis, takes a long look at Catalytix, which is "A Richard Florida Creativity Group Company," one that extols the virtues of and implements the Creative Class® philosophy that he espouses. This is a great racket. READ MORE

There are so many new exciting sources of investment income these days! Fortunately you can own 25% of 20% of 50% of the performance royalties only of 80s pop hit "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off," as recorded by Jermaine Stewart, long dead now, and then you can retire, because you will be rich. Or stupid. (Here, the math: for every dollar earned that qualifies for performance royalties, you get, lesse: OH A SHINY ROUND 2.5 PENNIES.)

Um, that's weird! The Feds gave Ruth Madoff her passport back, "which apparently indicates that Lady MacMadoff will definitely not be charged with any role in the scam." Maybe she is innocent! Or promised immunity! Or maybe the world has gone mad.

It was easy to miss amid last week's great celebrity die-off, but while a nation turned its lonely eyes to the departing shade of Billy Mays, the securities industry moved into what it ominously termed the "execution phase" of its campaign to roll back "populist" resentment against the lords of the paper economy. READ MORE