Rafat Ali's got an unusually animated post about Adam Penenberg's big wet kiss (with Rolling Stone quality photos) to Ning, Gina Bianchi and Mark Andressen.

Rafat: "FastCompany has unloaded the biggest piece of Turducken shaped in the form of a cover story on Ning, in the latest issue. And for once, Valleywag is actually tame in its skewering of the story. In terms of hype, this is of BW-cover-story-on-Digg proportions (hence the similar headline in my post). Keep in mind this is a post about the lameness of FC's story and the hype its journalist spews in this story...Ning has all the right to hype itself however it wants."

Valleywag's Owen Thomas does an elegant pile-on: "According to figures in the piece, Ning is making roughly $1.7 million a year in the $20-a-month subscriptions some social-network creators pay. The rest of the money they make comes from Google's AdSense ads, the familiar fallback of hopeless startups."

Marc Canter calls em out:"Wat can Ning do with $44M?  Now what can they do with another $60M?  Well since they're not profitable - lets see - they could lost $10M a year for 10 years and still sell the company for $100M."

Susan sez: Nothing like blue chip founders and fawning journalists to get hard-driving startupistas in a twist--but is Ning really a mass market tool?

Me do not think so, regardless of stats.

"I've noticed the biggest bottleneck stopping me from efficiently accomplishing the tasks I've set up for myself is just my mood. I'll have a clear definition of what needs to be done, full confidence in where I'm going with things, and I'll sit down and just think "aw, damn, I feel like shit." Then I'll generally waste time until it's 1am and I need to sleep. This happens 1-2 nights a week.

I'm looking for news.yc folks to try to get some rational insights on on the irrational problem of keeping your mood in check and focusing on what matters, when you're just one guy.

How do you guys deal with emotional problems?

How do you avoid ruminating on things in your day that have pissed you off? This is my biggest issue."

--Hacker News community member and start-up entrepreneur Dan Grover. writing about issues solo founders of companies need to manage in a post called "How do solo founders stay emotionally efficient?"

Susan sez: Seems to me this is a great question for everyone-how do you keep your brain and feelings in check long so you can get things done when you need to, and with optimal output and performance?

Valleywag quotes a memo from AOL head Randy Falco talking about how AOL's plans for success are all about making the old into the new.

Falco: "The market is recognizing the value of what we've built together over the past year and a half, as we've shifted from a subscription model to an advertising-supported business. It's a remarkable transition that is gaining momentum with each passing week.
(snip)
Our collective rebuild of AOL over the past year and a half has positioned the company to prosper in this dynamic market. We know that strong, profitable companies have more control over their own fate. We still have more work to do toward this end. "

Is Falco a Spinmeister--or saying exactly what Yang might about Big Purple? VW thinks the latter? How about you all?