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Man To Live In House for One Year
Barry K. Nathan writes "MSNBC is reporting that a geek is actually locking himself into a rented house for a year, to prove that e-commerce makes it possible. He's even changed his legal name to DotComGuy. He says, 'I'm going to come out being a loon,' but I think you have to be crazy already to even think of doing this in the first place... " Actually, it does appear that he can go in the backyard - and can have visitors. But still, I think I'd lose it after about two weeks or so.
Getting ayone to actually deliver to you with a name like "DotComGuy"... if you worked at a pizza place and got an order from someone named thatm would you make the drive to the address he gave? Hell no!
Just for reference, I live next door to this guy. You should all come see us... I have never met him personally, but I kinda figured it was him when Channels 4, 5, 8 and 11 were all out front, and then I saw my neighbourhood on the evening news. We live on Lake Highlands Drive (which is, obviously, in the Lake Highlands section of Dallas, near White Rock Lake). I'll leave you to puzzle out the block number on your own. Suffice to say, my house has a 30' ham radio tower out back.
What does this prove. That in the future, humans can be filed away into little cubbies and be forgotten. The implications are a little to Orwellian for me. I would go nuts. I play racquetball all the time, I backpack all the time, and I go to the movies a lot. The backpacking is what rejuvenates me every year and prevents me from going postal. The racquetball playing keeps me from getting fat. The movies are a nice form of escapism. Yes, I know, you can watch videos/dvd's, but its never usually the same as going to a cinema. There's just so much stuff this guy may not be thinking of that he takes for granted.
What is he gonna do if his laptop sporks out? Or the cable for his net connection? He'll have no contact with the outside world (except screaming for help from his backyard I guess). I hope that incidents along that line are covered. =)
--
I'm assuming the person would be fed via IV?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Nah, that's somebody who never leaves his own website and doesn't let other people visit it either.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Karma whore guy
Karma whore guy
Seekin' all the karma his money can buy
Does he have a life?
It's not important
Nobody likes
Karma whore guy
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Is anybody doubting that it's possible?
Somebody who actually decides to spend a year of his life that way is in need of some psychiatric help, in my humble opinion.
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Except we called our domicile the lab/office, our monthly salary never doubled, and we couldn't afford food let alone to have it delivered. Ok, so we left to go happy hour to eat, but that was it, honest.
There used to be a time when people had a sense of humor and were able to distinguish between joking and not joking - it seems that time is gone.
Now we have elitist idiots who have nothing better to do than parade their lack of common sense and ramble on about the past that never was. If Slashdot was ever better than it is now, you probably weren't apart of it, user #42901 (ooh.. I get to be elitist now, too).
Now watch it, or I'll ping flood you, mofo.
[WARNING: That was a JOKE.]
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Forgot to include the fact that many/most people before the industrial revolution "worked out of the home" (yes, a huge generalization and there are exceptions, etc., etc.)
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
The next step should be that someone can't leave the computer for a year. Obviously, a combination chair/toilet/bed would need to be made, but it's doable. (Patent pending) Problem is the lack of content... one might go crazy pretty quickly.
Back to the toilet chair bed... integrate that so you don't even have to leave the keyboard...
chair -flush
chair -bed
chair -spin 3 (three times around =P)
______
everyone was born right-handed, only the greatest overcome it.
http://leftorium.net
I bet this guy is just a Y2k programmer looking for some money (ie. through publicity and sponsorship), becuase his crash course in COBOL and FORTRAN at ITT tech really isn't paying off anymore.
This is the lamest thing I've heard of in a long while. Do we have to puy "dot com" on everything on the planet earth? Oh well, maybe I can still be dotorgguy. What exactly is this going to prove? That people will do anything for money? I betcha this guy will crack in 3 months. BTW, this is really old news.
spoo
Being left in a place the size of a normal person's house for a year isn't even unusual.
It's called prison, and millions of people spend a year there without going crazy, under tougher circumstances. Millions more live in restricted environments for safety or medical reasons.
This is a cute publicity stunt, but being limited to one's house and yard is not such a terrible restriction to live with.
It's not an advance in "using technology to avoid leaving the house" - my parents have just about managed it, themselves. Thousands of people have lived most of their lives that way without the benefit of professional caretakers.
I quite agree, I can think of several groups of people who have managed to go for years without leaving the house. The word "housebound" springs to mind for starters. I'm quite amazed that any self-respecting company would fall for a scam like this and can't help wondering what the shareholders think of their dividends sponsoring this scheme.
For quite some time now, even here in the quiet backwaters of England, the supermarkets have had online ordering and delivery. I assume this guy is trying to make some kind of point, apparently unaware that many people are forced to live this way, and have been for years without the luxury of having a choice.
I'd be interested to find out what this guy intends to do at the end of the year when all he has to show on his resumé is that he decided to stay at home for a year and effectively sponge off other peoples charity. I know who wouldn't get to interview if he came to me for a job!!
Veni, Vedi, Visa: I came. I Saw. I Did a Little Shopping.
Philosopher (n) - a wise person who is calm and rational; someone who lives a life of reason with equanimity
Comment removed based on user account deletion
go.to/y2kmistakes as well.
To see one comment: use cid links. For example:1 4212&cid=22
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/01/02/11
If you don't know the cid number of the post you want, then you should be reading the whole discussion anyway.
Wanting to have a constantly updating discussion is frankly stupid. Here is why. The reason that we almost never see intelligent posts numbered in the single digits is because everyone rushes to post without reading the article or putting any thought into what they are saying. If everytime someone posts, everyone else sees it instantly, then the "gotta reply before someone else does"/"gotta post before there are so many posts that no one will get down to mine" manner of posting will become even more rampant and the incentive to write intelligent, thought out posts will drop even farther than it is now.
Additionally, I wouldn't mind to be able to read the posts using lynx...
again, if you are just trolling and you don't actually belive what you are saying, ignore this post.
First, those of us who have not been spoiled by cable-modem || T3 at college know how to deal with long pages. You start loading, go play a game or get food or something and then come back and read it. I have had a 33.6 for a long time and last month upgraded to 56k. At college, I share a partial T1 with 1600 other students. I find slashdot to be just fine at this speed.
If it is still too slow, log in and use the "light" mode, disable sigs and set "Limit only display this many comments" to 1 or 2 (A comment in this case refers to a parent comment and all its replies). Doing any or all of these will speed things up considerably.
I do not propose a system to twart potential abuse, I propose one to prevent actual abuse from increasing.
If you know what a user interface is, why don't you write one and submit it to the slashdot community? It needs to (1) do everything the current one does, (2) do some things that the current one does significantly better (3) still be viewable by people without access to a graphical browser (4) not cause any new problems. Good Luck!
I'm still retired. You're not reading this.
o use.com
1) http://www.lawnmowers.com
2) http://www.howtomakemoneywithoutreallyleavingtheh
3) http://www.kiteflying101.com
4) www.conjugalvisit.com
5) www.jennicam.com
6) www.bored.com
7) www.physicalexercise.com
8) www.warehouse-o-porn.com
9) www.mailorderbride.com
10) www.GET-A-LIFE.com
11) Wanna buy a duck?
-
At least he's better looking than Ruud...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I dunno, something about this enrages me. I can't put my finger on it. When I first heard about it I tried to go the guy's site and call him a loser (via a message board or something).
me too. there is no message board. there is a spot you can give them a bunch of demographic info and become a dotcompartner or some such shit, and in return i guess you get to review e-commerce sites and get deals on various crapola. but no message board that i could find.
you can, however, follow my lead and email the schmuck at dcg@dotcomguy.com and tell him what a loser puppet of greedy commercial interests he is.
======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Suffice to say, my house has a 30' ham radio tower out back.
hmmm. i can't help but think how a few thousand watts of RF beamed directly at his laptop would enhance dotcomguys connectivity... :-)
======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
DotComGuy writes "ABCNNMSNBC is reporting that an loony is actually throwing out all computers from his rented house for a year, to prove that it is possible to live without e-commerce. He's even changed his legal name to Mich Maddox. He says, 'I'm going to come out being a loon,' but I think you have to be crazy already to even think of doing this in the first place... " Actually, it does appear that he can use devices with embedded microcontrollers - and can use the phone. But still, I think I'd lose it after about two weeks or so.
Except that he is actually going to provide content. He is a talk show host, only instead of getting there by being fat and abrasive, or fat and cute, or funny, or controversial, or a competent journalist, or a good interviewer, he's getting draw by being dOTcOMgUY!
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
If he stays 12 months he'll end up receiving $98,280. That's a nice chunk of change, but I don't know if that could induce me to stay inside for a full year.
If they offered me $196,584 for 13 months, though... (Love those geometric progressions.)
I have some friends who live like this now !
When attempting to watch sir clueless, the video stream gave me the following:
Information on this page requires a plug-in for:
video/x-ms-asf-plugin
Perhaps this 24 hour/7 days a week broadcast of the Blue Screen Of Death would be more aply hosted on:
RebootGuy.com
_________________________
the world has become, a web site programer walked out of
empty Michigan house on Saturday without a computer and
said he doesn't plan to log-on until 2001.
HIS PLAN: live exclusively offline, including making his
own food, getting furniture from a store and actually
trying on clothes at the store and hosting a 24-hour
technology news site.
'Our vision is that new online shoppers will go to our /.Guy and /.Guys Inc., for the stunt.
site to learn how to delete windows,' said Rob
Malda, who legally changed his name to
set up a company,
After locking himself outside the rented house Saturday,
he added: 'I'm not going in until Bill Gates admits he's a loon.'
The 'live' part of the /.Guy stunt involves
24-hour streaming tech stories from hundreds of story submiters
set up throughout the world. One of Robs partners reviews books
at the kitchen, several face the living room, and one even sits on a
bathroom shelf -- turned away from the toilet and bathtub.
The /.Guy project, which sounds like a cross
between the enviro-colonization experiment Biosphere and
the film "behind the green door," has a few ground rules.
Malda can have visitors. He simply can't go closer than the
front porch.
'We certainly don't recommend that people lock /.Guy Inc.
themselves away from their computers, but we will prove that it
can be done,' said Jeff Bates, a friend of Malda's and
president of
Malda's first monthly paycheck from the company
will be $1, but it will double every time a windows machine crashes
as an incentive to stay out side of the house, Hemos said.
Hemos helped line up sponsors to sustain Malda through the
year, including Red Hat, which donated the winter coat, and
Ace Hardware, which agreed to keep the snow blower gased up all winter.
Michigan-based Andover.net sold there /. shares
when it realized its company could be hurt from a Malda
death due to outdoor exposure.
'We are going to have people say, 'Hey,
/. Guy, how do I uninstall my win-modem or
/.'s CowboyNeal. 'And when he uses our site,
how do I get this or that Web site?' said
that's how people will learn about us.'
Similar experiments have been undertaken before --
'The National Enquirer' locked two New Yorkers out of
their 'e-cave' for a week last year without a refrigerator, a
$500 daily stipend, or computer and Internet access -- but
Malda has vowed to live off small rodents and AOL CDs
longer than anyone else has so far.
Sunday afternoon, the Web site story board showed
Malda sitting on porch chatting with visitors.
Among his first buys offline buys: shampoo, toilet
paper, cleaning supplies and carry-out food.
© 2000 /. Press. All rights reserved.
_________________________
I give you:
dot-com man, dot-com man
doing the things a dot-com can
what's he like?
It's not important
dot-com man
is he a dot, or is he a com?
when he's underwater
does he get wet
or does the water get him instead?
nobody knows
dot-com man
thank you
_________________________
Wow, wouldn't everyone like to have an exponential salary! Check out his monthly checks:
...6144,12288, 24576, 49152 are the monthly checks for months 9-12. More than I'll ever see.
$24, 48, 96, 192, 384, 768, 1536, 3072
So in other words it takes him 8 months to make enough to really "earn a living". So what does he do except work out of savings for the first 7 months? Ordering all those products has got to rack up.
Should we feel sorry for him? Nope. Here's why...
A grand total if he makes it all year? $95,208. Not bad, but let's remember he only makes $168 in his first 3 months and he'll have no life (or wife!).
Sheesh
"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Nietzsche
He puts a lenscap on at night
This can't be that much different than what some people do now :) Except instead of going down to the local QuickieMart to buy coffee/mountain dew/candy/etc, you simply order it online and have it delivered. If you're already working at home 100% of the time, and don't have much of a "real" social life, then this couldn't be that drastic of a change, since he's allowing himself to have visitors in the backyard, and can still go outside, unless he flips and becomes a nutcase of course :)
Someday I'll make
If you lived in a medieval town (or ancient Roman, etc.), wouldn't people would deliver your purchases for you if you paid them extra (i.e. shipping/delivery fee) for it? How does the Internet make staying in your home more possible than the telephone does? or an inky quill and a sheet of papyrus?
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
The Top Ten Reasons the DotComGuy is not a True Dallas Area Geek.
10. He will miss Fantansia 2000 on IMAX. Geeks dig classical stuff like that has a break from the techno and rock-n-roll life styles.
9. People in Dallas drive, even geeks. Those who drive bicycles, motorcycles and small cars are called "targets". Then there are road trips to Austin and such.
8. Geeks in Dallas go to users group meetings. There are ten different users groups where half the other geeks are named Chris. NTLUG, DFWUUG, etc..
7. A true geek would have invited some buds along fro the piece of the action. At least a cat or a kitten. Then he could have a DotComPussyCat.
6. First Saturday Sale. A Dallas thing.
5. Going to Frys or MicroCenter to scoop out the latest stuff. Both carry Linux stuff and other essentials. MicroCenter has more BSD stuff and better books. Frys has a bit of everything. CompUsa is for the lame.
4. Resturants. Dallas has more resturants then any other place in the known universe. You could eat out every meal for a century without being in a chain or repeating yourself. See Addison.
3. A true geek would have a column in the Dallas Observer and substain from messing with Belo association. There is the WFAA Kristine Kahanek weather babe exception. www.wfaa.com
2. A true geek would have moved in with a workstation to start with. A older geek would have an old PDP-11 or maybe a SGI 02. Laptops as a sole system are for marketing wusses.
1. Babes. How is he going to get any quality women? True geek women are not into idoits called DotComGuy. What the heck do you call him? Dot? Com? Guy? Women want a true geek, half which in Dallas are called Chris Something.
"MSNBC is reporting that a geek is actually locking himself away from Internet access for a year, to prove that real-commerce makes it possible. He's even changed his legal name to NotDotComGuy. He says, 'I'm going to come back being a loon,' but I think you have to be crazy already to even think of doing this in the first place... " Actually, it does appear that he can go in the newsgroups - and can have check his email. But still, I think I'd have lost it after about two weeks or so.
So, while this seems really dumb to me, i am interested in wheather he is actually going to make it, or if he will quit in the middle. It sounds sorta like thirty-days.com, which was interesting to look at for a little while, but i am sure most of their hits came from the few days after they were featured on slashdot. Wierd things like this just aren't captivating for that long. Once he realizes that few people are still paying attn to his show, i wonder if he will decide that it is no longer worth it.
The article doesnt give much insight into his personality, except that he IS crazy enough to actually change his name to something that nobody wants to say everytime they talk to him (and with internal capitalization, joy!).
I work at home (telecommuting). All I can say, is that I think that I would go nuts not being able to leave my house AT ALL. I make a point to get out everyday, usually by eating lunch out. I live in a small enough town, that I can walk to an area that has a dozen or so restraunts. If it wasn't for these daily jaunts out, I'd go stir crazy that's for sure.
:))
:)
I guess it would be a small consolation that friends could come to your place - at least then you probably wouldn't talk to yourself. And being able to go into the backyard would prevent you from turning into a mushroom . . . but your human interaction would be severly limited. And unless you already had a (very understanding) significant other . . . (you get my drift
But still, lets think of all of the social and cultural things that you can not participate in without leaving home. Theater, movies, concerts, parties, going to a bar with friends . . . these are just a few of the things that I do at least once a week. Without them I'm pretty sure that most people would become hopelessly depressed (at least I would).
Anyway, I don't think I'd do it. One thing we've learned in the tech world - lots of money can't make up for having no life
Groceries from PeaPod: $80
Shampoo from DrugStore.com: $4
Call Girls from an Online Pimp: $800
Pulling off this lame Publicity Stunt: Priceless
Does this make him the first 'e-hermit'
I'm usually not the kind of person to suggest this, but this is getting way out of hand:
:0 ).
Who can obtain his IP address? As soon as we get it, we'll pingflood/teardrop/whatever him to kingdom come... No food, no online shopping, nothing to do (Unless he's got enough books
As long as that doesn't happen, he's just getting way too much money.
This angers me so much - I am so sick of hearing about this guy on the nightly news, in the newspaper - it's SO much worse when you live in Dallas, because so many of his sponsors are local, including fucking A.H. Belo corp who runs half the media in this city, so they're all covering it like it's interesting. What's even passingly interesting is the amount of money the sponsors are pumping into this. Otherwise, it's basically a year-long talk show featuring a dork.
It's not an advance in web-cam intrusiveness - we have 24-7 webcams all over the place.
It's not an advance in "using technology to avoid leaving the house" - my parents have just about managed it, themselves. Thousands of people have lived most of their lives that way without the benefit of professional caretakers. Even 50 years ago, with enough money, you could buy every single thing you wanted with just the phone. Augh.
This is an advance in hype. Nothing more.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
Big deal. It's been done.
This is just an extended version of the crap experiment we see made by journalists all too often.
/without/ the internet and have him journal the experience, I'm sure enough /.'s would love that one =]
If he suceeds, so what? Can we make use of his knowledge in our future space exploration? Would we have not lost the Mars probes if one click shopping was more common?
If he fails, does that herald the end of the internet? The automobile didn't spell the end of walking, why should the internet spell the end of going anywhere?
Nothing of value can possibly come from this as far as I can see. This is just another publicity stunt to make money for whatever parties are involved.
Something more worthwhile would be starting a business with every employee from a different city around the country or globe, and have them do all their comunication through the internet (no phone calls, no fax, no paper just email/messaging and file attatchments).
Or another idea: Send Katz to Alaska for a year to live
NightHawk
Set threshold at -1 flamebait to read this comment
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How to roach bomb without leaving your home!
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Doctor makes house call! Film at 11.
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No Zen is good zen