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DotComGuy Survives His Year
blurzero writes: "Remember DotComGuy? The Texan who decided to prove that people could buy everything they needed through e-commerce by locking himself in his home for an entire year, and Webcasting the entire thing? Well, DCG made it through all 366 days! F*ckedCompany.com, however, is reporting that DCG's sponsors have all dried up, and he will be receiving none of the $100,000 he was supposed to be paid. There's no word on the DCG homepage." This guy would have been a lot braver to try this 10 years ago. Seems like the only real problem for the modern online hermit expecting $100,000 is enough room to exercise.
if he didn't have a contract for payment. If he did, then it's breach of contract if he's not paid. But if it was just a "Gentlemen's Agreement", then he's out the bucks.
At least he has a marketable skill now. He can teach other shut-ins and agoraphobics how to survive off of the 'Net...
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
damn, I spent the last 366 days in my house too...but I used another revolutionary tool to get all my food/clothes...I love you mom!
My father is a member of the media, and I got to, on several occasions, go to the DotCompound, as they called it. It was a fairly interesting gimmick at first, but eventually it got really damned boring. It became like a lame version of the Truman Show, and the main character was not terrible interesting. DotComGuy got the royal treatment from various online retailers trying to go for cheap advertising, but bored internet surfers can only watch the infomercials that were produced for so long. I can see why his "ratings" went down. I must say, however, that they did have one sweet setup in the house next door, where they did the editing of the footage that they got. At that point in my life, that was the most electronic equipment I had seen in one room, and their A/V equipment looked like it belonged in a television station.
After spending 366 days online (most of it in IRC I imagine), I can just imagine how his speech patterns have changed:
Reporter: DotComGuy, how do you feel finally being out after 12 months locked in your house?
DCG: 1t f33lz 1337. tH1s r0x0rS!
Reporter: And what do you have to say to the people who may contemplate emulating you in the coming months.
DCG: d0n't 3v3n t|2y d00dz. 1'm 1337, 1 w1ll 0wn j00!! 1'll h4x0r j00r b0xes!!
Reporter: "Haxor", "elite"? Sir what do you mean by this?
DCG: 1'm 1337, 1 d0wnl04d3d 13 g1gz 0f w4r3z 0ff my 1337 c4bl3 c0nexi0n!
Reporter: Right...
____________________________
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
How about this: guy volunteers to stay inside and read and post on slashdot for an entire year and not get paid (oh wait, we're already all doing this...) ;)
/'
Here's a few other interesting ideas for *Guy projects that people could try out and see if they can get a sponsor.
SpendMoneyGuy - guy shops for one year straight and spends lots of money. Follow his shopping adventures online and view his credit card bills online. Review his bank account balances and credit rating.
UpdateLinuxGuy - guy spends one year constantly updating sponsor's linux distribution with latest source from freshmeat. Go online and view the output of 'ls -lR
ReinstallWindowsGuy - goy spends one year constantly reinstalling windows and all of the required apps on the computers of various users
WriteCodeGuy - guy spends one year writing code for sponsor's company. Sponsor provides an 8'x8' cubicle and computer and a fridge full of cola.
PumpGasGuy - guy spends one year pumping gas at a gas station. you can go online and chat with him while he's not pumping gas.
WatchTVGuy - guy watches TV for one year. visit the website and watch him watch TV! Site has logs of all the TV shows he watches. Sponsor sells info to networks so they can determine what programs are popular.
Now i know who hacked Diablo 2! This DotComGuy had spare time, and wanted to get some xtra bucks on ebay! I call 4 revenge! Lets DOS his connection, and starve tha bugger out! Wha! That'll teach him!
This sig is intentionally left blank
I find it odd slashdot would post this if the only information on this subject is ONE paragraph on fuckedcompany.com . There is nothing on dotcom guy's web page supporting this. I looked in google and could find nothing there either.
If this is true why haven't any other large media sources reported on this like cnn.com or zdnet etc. The Media is loving every minute of the dotcom failures so I can't imagine it not reporting on a story like this. Someone earlier pointed out that there are plenty of his supporters left and I would have to agree.
I think Slashdot should have waited for more official documentation and/or resources that can be confirmed before posting this. I have a feeling they may end up retracting it. If anyone has any evidence to support this report could you please post it?
After 366 days of sitting on a computer and never going outside, his Diablo character got deleted. Frustrated he got up and left...
Becuase when you do nothing, all you have to do is look at yourself/your life. Most people find this unappetizing and as such find other things, however meaningless, to occupy their time. If Buddha were alive today in America he'd be a gas station attendant (just a really, really enlightened one ;-) ). I think Mohammed and Christ would be video store clerks.
--
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
He doesn't mean that there's no confirmation that he's leaving, he means there is no confirmation that he won't get paid his 100,000 dollars, which is not mentioned at all on DCG's site.
---There is no spoon....---
you don't live in Dallas.
DotComGuy had his compound there (Richardson, IIRC). He's been plastered all over the tv news ever since it was discovered he was broke. I'll vouch for the veracity of this (I, in case you couldn't tell, live in Dallas).
The funny thing is that he won't speak on camera any more. I saw three different local news stations shoving cameras into his face, and whereas he was all over interviews when this started, now he just laughs bitterly and shakes his head whenever asked anything.
Funnier still is the fact that he's getting married to a woman he met online, but has never seen IRL. Yeah, this is going to work.
Also, maybe he should have ordered some workout equipment during the year. He looks really unhealthy. Maybe it's just the stress of being so broke and not being the media's darling anymore - in any event, he looks like hell.
Happy New Year, from a Dallasite.
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
I guess that could apply to dotcoms, too, now.
Perhaps DotComGuy should've used half a brain and forced his "sponsors" to contribute monthly to an escrow account that he couldn't touch until his 365th day in the house. Most workers that I know of don't work all year and receive a lump sum at the end of the year. Professional athletes sign contracts that state an annual salary, yet they are paid several times during the year. Military personnel, who receive free room and board in most cases (very similar to DotComGuy's setup), are not paid in a yearly lump sum. Business arrangements can change in a year, especially in fast-moving industries like the Tech and DotCom industries, as evidenced by looking at NASDAQ for the past year. Had DotComGuy been at least halfway entertaining and not let himself fall apart physically, he might have been marketable and been able to cash-in through other avenues. As is stands, he'll probably get a few days worth of coverage and vanish into the ether.
i had a job offer to work with a dotcomguy sponsor/partner about this time of year one year ago when i used to live in dallas. it was with a small isp in dallas called coollink.com that was going to take over the streaming video service from broadcast.com. the guy i was talking with at coollink wanted me to write some java webserver software to insert ads into the video stream. aside from not being interested in the technology, he told me the dotcomguy was already running up huge bandwidth bills at broadcast.com. coollink took over as the isp of dotcomguy and was going to help pay some of his bills in exchange for the publicity. it sounded like a bad idea at the time, so i'm amazed the dotcomguy is around today. who knows how much he owes now. i doubt he's going to get all the $100k.
... he did it in Mir.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Check this link on CNN. Apparently the sponsors were contracted to pay for his internet purchases, which they did. In addition, he formed a company (DotComGuy, Inc.) that would pay him the $100,000. The tone of the article indicates the company was supposed to make money independent of the sponsors, but at the end of the year the company hadn't made enough to both pay his "bonus" and stay in business. Thus, he decided to keep the company afloat and forgo the $100K.
Check out Chad's News
this was linked to at ars as well. my favorite is the headline:
DotComGuy leaves house, sees shadow: Bush says six more months of market downturn to follow
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume