I told her she should write about it (I just created this account, she doesn't know I'm commenting on it here) ... If she had asked him for an interview on the

I told her she should write about it (I just created this account, she doesn't know I'm commenting on it here) ... If she had asked him for an interview on the topic (for free obviously) this would've been a non-issue. But she thought she would give him a byline, not knowing of his fame. He became famous for interviewing pol pot when she was about a year old, and although he is well known in south east asia circles, he's not exactly a household name. The article is freely available now (if you care to read about basketball in NK), she just wanted to offer a wider audience with near zero extra work on his part. With the offer of $100 for a future online effort. So she asked and got put on blast. It's interesting how that works. It was a weird way to wake up this morning though. TO YOUR POINT ON MICROPAYMENTS: Yes, I think there is a per transaction fee for credit cards. Bitcoin couldn't work flat out because it only supports 350,000 total transactions a day and piddly little tips would eventually crush the blockchain. I think paypal could do it if you just tipped out of your paypal balance. Dwolla.com does do it... but no one has an account. I have to say I agree with the people who argue people should be doing a lot of this for the love, but love doesn't pay the bills. I really like Stewart Lee's take on it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqMA4YRQCk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqMA4YRQCk Long listen, but he advocates for a lot of government funding for the arts. Likewise a lot of in the trenches journalism is sponsored by small orgs (pro publica, xyz foundations, etc) The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, etc just chip in a bit extra to publish some of that work. This specific case was about already written, already available content. If this was huffpo they would've just thrown quotes around it and put it up with a little link. /rant