Slashdot Mirror
Spread The Love (And Pay Us)
Digitus1337 writes "Wired has an article up about a new online service known as 'FunHi.' You sign up and join a community, and give your fellows gifts, but as Wired has reported, 'these are not ordinary gifts. They're purely digital: little flashing icons of cars, planes, diamond rings and other virtual representations of expensive items included in messages members send each other. And FunHi members don't seem to care that the real money they're spending on the gifts, at prices as high as $30 an item, is going straight into the company's coffers." This leaves just one question unanswered... why didn't I think of this?" It sounds like an April Fool's Joke, but then, so does online trading of Everquest loot.
FunHI - yet another reason capitalism should come with a warning
What about the Snobby Greedy Bitch... the one who thinks these gifts are reprsentative of real ones?
Then $30 will seem quite inexpensive.
I can send digital files to my friends for FREE thank you very much!
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
I suppose a real diamond ring is a status symbol, as is using a $10 bill to light your cigar.
So too is throwing your money away with a virtual gift. let them who want to, do it.
I'd love you more if you just gave me the money...
Original text: http://tinyurl.com/2332n
Over the last month, Nikoma Lee has received more than $1,000 worth of gifts from friends she barely knows and only recently met through a new service called FunHi.
For Lee to receive gifts from near strangers is probably not all that uncommon, as she's a beautiful young woman beginning a career as a model.
During the same time period, George Georgiades, a 25-year-old consultant, has spent about a grand giving presents to his own group of new FunHi friends.
But these are not ordinary gifts. They're purely digital: little flashing icons of cars, planes, diamond rings and other virtual representations of expensive items included in messages members send each other. And FunHi members don't seem to care that the real money they're spending on the gifts, at prices as high as $30 an item, is going straight into the company's coffers.
"It gives me the same pleasure like at Christmas," says Georgiades. "When the money ran out, I went and got more. A hundred dollars at a time, (and) over time it added up."
Mike Peng, too, has been buying gifts for his fellow FunHi members at a rapid rate. Often, he says, it was as a result of him and other members trying to out-generous each other.
I "got into a tag fest with some of them," Peng says. "It's like if someone got you something, you get them something back, and with a few people I got into a gift-giving contest."
All told, the 26-year-old says, he's spent nearly $300 on gifts in just three weeks.
A visit to the FunHi Gift Shoppe gives a quick lesson in the service's hip-hop sensibility. Though surely a small percentage of FunHi's users actually talk like the gangstas they portray, it's evident that nearly everyone involved has fun pretending they do.
Thus, members can spend real dollars on things such as a "FunHi Luv Byrd." For $15, a FunHi member could give another pal this "plane," which is touted in the gift shop as "the ultimate symbol of the Playa that knows no limits to luv! No matter where you at, you can get there just in time to watch the sunset together on the beaches of an exotic paradise. Hanger and white-gloved crew included. Bring yo baby and take off for an adventure anytime."
Another option might be $7 for "The Cleaner," a rather ominous gift for the paranoid. Its blurb says, "Every playa is bound to make some enemies. Get your favorite balla' their very own hitman. Put the contract out, sit back and watch the haters drop. One bullet, no trace and no case."
The point of all this gift giving is that FunHi members want to meet as many of each other as possible, and quickly. Where eBay members get a feedback rating showing their trustworthiness, FunHi users rack up a "buzz" rating, as well as "fans." One way the buzz ratings and numbers of fans go up is by being seen within the community as generous and responsive to receiving gifts.
Of course, being a young good-looking female doesn't hurt, as the members with the most fans are all women whose pictures show them in sexy, alluring poses.
To hear Joshua Selman tell it, FunHi never intended to get its members to spend significant amounts of cold hard cash on these virtual gifts.
"It's ludicrous," says Selman, the company's vice president of business development. "It wasn't something we had planned. Our customers asked us for this.... It just exploded on us. It's not like we're trying to bilk people. They really want it. I think it's a prestige" thing. Georgiades seems to agree with Selman's notion.
"If someone is nice enough to get me something nice, I always try and return the favor," he says.
He also says he doesn't mind that FunHi is pocketing the money he spends on gifts that, other than demonstrating his esteem for the recipient, can't be used for anything, or even be re-gifted.
"It's a donation for a service," he says. "I probably overdid it though. Gotta feed the habit."
In fact, Georgiades says FunHi shouldn't be blamed for its mem
For Nigerian scam suckers and potential MMORPG players.
WHy can't I think of a cool scam like this ?!
... maybe the people who are prepared to pay out cash for virtual items will be so busy trading their nonexistent gifts they won't have time to breed, and the average IQ will go up. At the very least, it should keep the terminally gullible out of circulation.
Like purchasing a square on the moon. Whats the point.
A fool and their money are soon parted.
I'm training myself on the internet. It's fascinating. I'm doing pornography. It's amazing how much these suckers will pay for photographs of chicks. And it doesn't matter if they're fat or ugly or what.
Paying for crappy porn.. that's bad. But paying 30 bucks for a stupid icon? These people are dumber than that guy that loves his spam.
Cripes, why didn't I patent this?
1) sell online, virtual junk
2) get AOL community interested
3) ???
4) Profit!
(fp?)
That you spend real life money on..
It just proves that Fools are not found only in April but all year round.
April Fools jokes are not funny compared to reality..
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
A fool and their money soon part. Capitalism seems to make this easier, and the internet makes it EVEN easier. I say good for this company, if an idiot wants to spend $30 on a picture of a ring, let him, it is no less idiotic than spending a couple grand on a real one.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
These sound like the charm bracelets that my little sister drooled over in the 80's. Except even more pointless.
This is so cool! I'm signing up right after my labotomy!
Next thing you know AIM will be charging for the use of emoticons in their IMs...
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
Their buzz system (scroll down) is a direct ripoff of eBay's feedback system. Wonder how long they get sued for that?
I have blog like everyone else
From the article:
"Selman says FunHi has banked about $10,000 in the month since FunHi launched. And given that Georgiades himself has paid about 10 percent of that, it's clear that not all of the service's 6,500 active members are doing the same thing."
If two people (the article mentions one other having spent $1000) account for 20% of the $10K that this company has made in a month, this seems more like silliness on the part of a very few people, and shouldn't really be considered "newsworthy".
libertarianswag.com
It may sound silly, but little things like this are seen as validating by a lot of people who spend a significant amount of time online. You don't really 'have' anything, but you know that someone, somewhere spent money on you.
The article mentions that the most popular members are invariably attractive females whose pictures show them scantily clad and in sexy poses.
Seeing as this "buying nothing" idea is a capitalist's dream, I think it's only a matter of time before these attractive females rise up above their alleged vapidity to realize that they can control the world. As much as I hate to admit it, think about it: who would you vote for between George W. and Britney Spears?
An fool and his money are soon parted.
It's good to know that there are plenty of suckers left in the world, I was getting worried that my combo hair brush, vegetable peeler and ice skate sharpener wasn't going to sell!
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
How I wish that I were unscrupulous enough to come up with such an idea. This system would be equivalent to: if Slashdot moderation were geared towards highly rating those posts that advertised for their sponsors...
Just as well there aren't 2 billion starving people in the...
Oh, wait.
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
If it'll get me layed I'll shell out $30 on an icon.. :D
BANG!
Mod +5 Drunk
Their domain expires 09-apr-2007. I guess the short term domain "lease" suggests this was an experiment for them, which seems to have paid off. Now I'm wondering what else they've done or had planned.
Trolling is a art,
gf: LIKEOMGWTF!!!!11
me: but it's the thought that counts, right?
Wow, I have to say people will fall for anything. Why not just take the $30 and send it to me. That way I can send them receipts for new stuff that I buy and it will serve the same purpose
....to send me your dollar.
Ads are broken.
The real value of diamonds is a small fraction of what they cost in the market. The reason they are expensive is because a smart cartell has established them as expensive, if valueless, tokens of affection. And there is ample precedent in biology: males are supposed to demonstrate their wealth and prowess by not having to care about expending costly resources on useless pursuits.
However, if you are going to do this, why not dispose of your resources in some socially valuable way? Demonstrate your boundless resources by making a "platinum circle" donation to your local opera house, either in your own name or in your sweetheart's name.
I have always found these sorts of economies very odd. They also tend to be rather unstable.
I wonder if this system will endure or eventually collapse.
Also how do you handle fraud incases like this, where the only person who determines value is the individual selling the item. What I mean by this, is how value is a digital file that can be trivially replaced. Does its actual cost related to bandwidth or harddrive space etc?
Who should legally determine value in systems like this?
...of P.T. Barnum global holdings.
Moderators prepare to mod 10,000 indignant replies of "I'm not stupid enough to fall for this!, I would never be involved in something like that!"
:) ;) ;D etc
Make anything "cute" enough and you'll get a backing from fools. Now if only the moderators thought my anonymous cowardice was cute enough to moderate up.
Why don't people give the money to the starving in Africa or use it to find a cure for cancer?
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Wow. Just when I thought my opinion of the average person couldn't get any lower, I see something like this.
I am sorry, but anybody who buys Everquest characters, or stuff for their characters is almost as much of a loser as the guy who played the game 8 hours a day to get it. I am not saying that all people who play MMORPGs are losers, just the ones that pay for stuff and spend way too much time on it.
If you pay 30 dollars for a digital representation of a diamond ring, then you deserve to be 30 dollars poorer. Same as people who think coffee is worth 3 bucks a cup, and MS Office is worth 300 bucks.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
Bit of an over reaction!
So if these virtual items are worth money, I wonder what will happen when some enterprising hacker finds a way to copy them for free? Will the company try to sue the person for copying items that have no inherent value anyway. And what when someone asks for their virtual engagement ring back when they break up with their virtual fiancee?
This is just a new plot by those dreaded MiGo (the Fungi from Yuggoth).
"never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups"
but really, this does go to show something about how we attach value to even worthless things. way back when in britain there was a fad involving flower bulbs; way back when in america there was a fad involving beanie babies. when you really think about it, does the negligible manufacturing cost of a beanie baby really make it signifigantly more valuable than a magnetic charge on a hard drive?
Ok, so what happens the first time someone 'steals' a 'virtual' diamond ring on this service... I mean, do you call out the virtual police, perform a virtual investigation, put virtual handcuffs on the virtual criminal, call the virtual judge... you get the idea.
You just *know* it's going to happen. What sort of crazy conversion laws do you think they'll try to apply ?
Man, I would really hate to have to tell the inmate next to me that I'm in for "stealing a bunch of diamond icons for my cyber-girlfriend"
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
"It's ludicrous," says Selman, the company's vice president of business development. "It wasn't something we had planned. Our customers asked us for this.... It just exploded on us. It's not like we're trying to bilk people. They really want it. I think it's a prestige" thing. Georgiades seems to agree with Selman's notion.
Selman says FunHi has banked about $10,000 in the month since FunHi launched. And given that [one customer] himself has paid about 10 percent of that, it's clear that not all of the service's 6,500 active members are doing the same thing.
So probably only a few members are spending money for nothing, and the owners claim it wasn't their idea. Fascinating.
(I never took an econ class, so this is just my thoughts on the subject)
So, they create a community that has a percieved value in virtual items. There is a demand (that they created) for these items (that they created.) They supply falsely "limited" virtual items at a price.
Well, if people are willing and happy to pay it, they can supply it. Seems fine to me. Hopefully people are happy with their purchases. I wouldnt buy into it, personally. But, then again, Im the type that thinks MMORPGS are fairly foolish as well.
no
...if they gave a part (say, half of it) to non-profit organisation to education of developping countries or whatever....
NO, Buying porsches doesn't count as non-profit organisation !
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Wow, this definitely goes to #2 place in my "top 10 ways to waste money list", right after SCO's Linux licenses.
I just bought them some pictures of food.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I guess a student posing behind the picture of a sexy girl could attact enough "love" to pay for his salary, the models photo-shoot, and leave some profit for the company...
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
It's not like the money that's spent on this is taken out of circulation, no? It's just moved somewhere else -- a company that pays its employees and (presumably) its shareholders [via dividends], who it turn spend it on... well, whatever they spend it on, which may or may not include feeding starving people.
Indeed, if the people who spend money on this are the kind of people who aren't inclined to give money to feed the starving, then it's to the benefit of those who are starving that the money is now out of their hands and in someone else's.
Well, this is halfway there. Instead of spending money on actual crap, people are spending money on abstractions of crap. Now, the next step is to get them to create this crap on their own, make their own icons, and send those. Use MS Paint or whatever you've got. And that could be the start of something healthy, the path leading away from the crap. A community where people made gifts of original creations, that seems like a sound idea to me. FunHI! has achieved the important first step of removing money from the equation. Onward!
Over reaction? If this had been posted on April fools day everyone would be thinking "Can't they come up with something less obvious?"
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
I know at least 2 ppl that broke 6-figures last year playing that game and selling the cash they made from item sales to yantis (the 1000lb gorilla of the everquest auctions).
/. before ....
3 .s html
In fact, EQ item sales have caused the rise of sweatshops of players to farm cashworthy loot as mentioned on
http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/11/24/014124
-chitlenz
Imagination is the silver lining of Intelligence.
Wait a minute! Now there is an idea for the ultimate waste of money: virtual bottled water.
Of course, being a young good-looking female doesn't hurt, as the members with the most fans are all women whose pictures show them in sexy, alluring poses.
&
The service aims, according to what might be called its bylaws, to foster purely positive and friendly interactions.
Sheesh. Why not just call it "FunHo" and be done with it?
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
HiFun has a few things going for it. It's a members site which essentially ranks its members. Those who receive the most gifts are the most popular, so this could be compared with a dating service or one of those hot-or-not sites a few years back. Also, it's similar to friendster in that you collect this circle of people around you who you've invited inside.
Their members publish photos of themselves...attractive women in various poses as well as some regular looking joes. So now it's personal and less sterile than just icons or avatars.
Would people pay membership dues for something like this? Sure they would... HiFun has created an interactive webboard that just happens to draw some income for themselves. All of their elements have worked quite well before in parts of the web...might as well work for them too.
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
what percent of them are actually employees of FunHi... and have a face/body like goatse?
internet sex/flirting, you can always fake being cute or even being female.
See real money gets changed for fake money. I think it's like US$10=FUnHi$30. Plus some of the gifts give the recipient even more fake money. All in all, most "gifts" cost just a few cents.
The thing is that they're tapping an already existing culture- racing and souping up import cars. It serves as a fan-club kind of thing for these import models, and then expands from there.
I really have to hand it to the guys who started it. They tapped a culture well, provided a means for them to play on the internet together and found a way to make a tidy profit off of it. Besides, you don't even need to pay to use it. You don't have to buy "gifts" for people. It's just a nice way to say "I like you" or whatever that backed up by a little bit more.
I'll admit, I accidently ran into this early on in its development and started playing along for mostly 2 reasons: 1) I was newly single so having cute asian girls give me compliments boosted my ego 2) I'm horrible with internet culture (IMing and other sorts of things where you speak with abbreviations and smileys) so I thought it would be funny to see how well I do (and how well "they" do) with my paragraphs and thinking.
It was fun for a while, but now it's getting really dull. Next!
Wow some people will buy anything!
"FunHi.Com has taken the lead as a next generation social networking site. Recognizing that online relationship time is replacing mainstay leisure activities like movies, TV and night clubs, it is successfully diverting leisure purchases to the relationship site itself. Results show that purchasing a virtual box of chocolates for another FunHi.Com member is far more satisfying than the passive glow of a film or TV screen?"
So basically you pay this company and the girls on the site get a cut. Now im not one to judge, i mean people are in to whatever they want, but really! some people are just too sad.
oh shit look! a linux thong!!! i have to get it for that cute girl on the front page, then maybe ill get laid?
Actually no really can you get linux thongs? i want!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Here, let me draw a picture of a diamond ring... store it in this database here. Now, I'll have you and a few others sign up as members to this database.
You pay me $$, I will do a simple "INSERT INTO" statement and associate the diamond ring record with the recipient's user ID. You will feel good because you sent them a "gift", they will feel happy because they think they will have received a real gift.
You will think it's fun, I will think it's funny. I will be rich, you will be paying me to alter my data in my database.
At least this gives hope to people trying to make money out there.
I have an idea. I have a website filled with members and their email addresses. When you want to send a gift, YOU draw the gift using MS Paint. Upload the picture, I will email it to the recipient of your choice, and I will only charge $1.99. See, because YOU drew it and it would be from YOU! (The sad thing is, people would probably go for it)
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
----
Spam subject of the moment: Offshore account secrets -nashville disrupt
agreed.
Two cowboys, John and Jim, are walking in the prairie. John sees a pile of manure and says "Jim, I bet $50 that you won't eat this pile". And Jim bets on this and eats it.
Then John sees another pile and says again "I bet $100 you won't eat this one". And Jim bets and eats it too, getting his $100.
Now Jim is very upset for eating lots of manure, so, seeing another pile, he says "John, I bet $150 that you won't eat this one!". And John bets and eats it, winning $150.
Then after a couple of minutes, John says reluctantly "Jim, don't you think we've just eaten loads of manure for nothing?".
I live in Norway, and here teenagers have for many years spent big money on ringtones, logos, screensavers etc for their mobile phones. Now, with the new phones, people have started paying for mms messages, games etc as well.
Also, there are tons of tv programs where you can pay for having your sms shown on the screen for a brief moment. Sort of like using IRC, but spending $1-2 each time you press enter.
My point, I guess, is that the way young people spend their money doesn't really amaze me anymore...
"the average IQ of a dollar tends to rise"
Kind of an economic version of evolution-in-action.
So if I go out and bought a girl a virtual dinner at an expensive restauraunt, a virtual diamond engament ring... does that mean I'll get virtual....... well you can finish that
.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
Anyone seen that southpark episode "raisins"? this reminds me of it so much!
"MissEvelyn: I need some virtual loot. If you want to show me you care, send me some. Your profile will show everyone you're a "Playa." I'll receive the icons and know i'm special. I'm counting on you to help me get noticed in style. Holla!"
wonder what percentage they get?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
There's post after post on here of people saying "this is stupid", "I can't believe these people pay for stupid icons", and "why would anyone buy virtual anything".
/. crowd that thinks it is perfectly normal and acceptable to sell items or characters for an EverQuest game. Hello... Pot, you have a call on line one. It's Kettle.
Yet there's quite a bit of the
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
The only thing about this kind of business that really makes me angry is that I didn't think of it first...
I still don't understand why some people think paying cash for EQ loot is strange.
You pay cash to play the game at all in the first place. Many people then pay cash for the strategy guide to let them play better. Some people buy new equipment to let them play better, like a new flightstick with detached throttle for their new flight sim.
In the old adventure game days if you got stuck, you could call a number and pay per minute to listen to hints to get you unstuck. You basically paid money to continue in the game.
What if you didn't need a strategy, or a hint to progress in the game? What if what you needed was better equipment or more levels? Why would it be so strange to pay for those, but not the other things?
Fool $$$
Ringtone downloads: huge business, costs almost nothing to produce.
People like to compete. We like a challenge. We also like to reciprocate. We're social animals.
FunHi, using symbols, tapped into that part of us, probably to their own surprise. It's symbols, though silly, have value - in dollars. So you can "measure" how much someone spent on you (or someone else) and ignore, thank, reciprocate, or compete appropriately.
Do I think it'll last? No. But it's worth studying.
Just my 2 cents. Or, in the future, 1/50 of a Slashdollar!
(And yes, I expect FunHi's idea to be imitated to death).
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
...should become the next slogan for the Herpes cream I'm always seeing advertised.
Why do people spend money on anything but the bare necessities of a pair of jeans, sneakers, some food and a bicycle?
It's because people are consumers and are believe that they can't make any difference by donating money.
You can't show off the healthy child you help feed like you can show off the blood diamond that his parents died mining out of the earth.
In that the end goal for users of this service is random, semi-anonymous sex...
Nothing to see here, move along.
The investments that people make in order to avoid actually having to deal with the real world are astounding. Wasting time is one thing but now they're wasting their money, too! Hey, why buy your girlfriend flowers when you can buy virtual ones for some imaginary chick online? Oh yeah, why even bother with a real live girlfriend when you can sit in front of a computer and chat with an imaginary one? Now I know why they make 3-button mice.
In the immortal words of William Shatner: "Get a life!".
1.Post anti MS (or pro Linux) troll.
2.Gets modded as Insightful.
3.Gets meta-modded as fair
4.Original Mod is more likely to get mod points.
that explains everything
Everybody has their own way of attempting to prove themselves better than those around them. Some people spend money on art collections, some fix up their car to be as pretty as possible, some spend a lot of money on tickets to sports games that will be nothing but a statistic in ten years.
When it comes right down to it, if something doesn't directly improve your personal effectiveness it's essentially valueless to those who aren't keyed into your personal scale of better-than.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
When doesn't wealth trickle down to the poor? Answer: when resources are being consumed. For instance, if gasoline is being burned in SUV's when it's needed for tractors, that could be an example of wealth not trickling down. However, I believe the problem of hunger isn't caused by insufficient food,but by bad distribution. Therefore, getting money out of the hands of those who have it will, eventually, put it in the hands of the needy. Spend it on a Porsche, the Porsche factory will pay some workers, who will pay their housemaids: that's "trickle down" for you.
At the risk of making the submitter sound terminally naive, where else would their cash go besides the company coffers? Heck, Gunbound works the same way now. You pay to dress your character up in fancy items, which can affect your gameplay. While you can get the items foor free it take a hellva lot longer. it's digital, has no real world value, but people buy anyway.
Kinda like people buying/selling Diablo items, I imagine.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
this says a lot about how much we live in our heads
how disconnected we are from the physical world
how disconnected we are from other people
the more we engage in a virtual existence, the less time we have to be in the physical world
being physically disconnected from our local communities leads to a default acceptance of unsustainable lifestyles
an example:
i make my living doing computer consulting. i buy my food with the money i earn. this food comes from all over the globe transported to me by polluting the earth. if i had to accept all the pollution generated from just the transport of my food into my home i'd probably be asphyxiated. the computers that i fix to make the money i think i need to exist probably create more toxic byproducts than i'd be willing to store or release into my home so *i choose* to store or release these toxics into someone else's "backyard".
the flip side (a tangible example of how connectedness to place can result in sustainable choices):
when i go out jogging and breath the exhaust from all the automobiles driving past me i gag. as a result i've chosen to drive my car less and bicycle instead with the ultimate intention of getting rid of my car.
peace
My new realization is: A fool and his money are best parted. The last thing you want are bunches of fools with effective personal or political power.
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
Am I the only one who noticed that there is a black thongfeaturing Tux!? Talk about logo misuse....
Less look fast, more go fast.
attractive women. I wonder if people would pay just to exchange emails with attractive (or supposedly attractive) women
yuor trnaslaiontn, thoguh hornoable, is unnceesrsay. as lnog as we hvae the fsirt and lsat lteter in the crroect posiotin of the wrod oedrr, we wlil be fnie rdaeing it.
The Artificial high price of diamonds may be changing. Here is an article about quality mass produced diamonds, that I read some time back.
In the words of Jamie Kennedy,
"Don't be hatin'!"
This neo-hipster urban language (I call it Pimp) is the new Jive/Ebonics/Ghetto dialect. Cope.
You have to note that the prices don't really match up - The $30 super biznatch iced out platinum plastik translates to $20 real money. Still, it's hilarious.
It seems to me they're a bunch of slashdot-style geeks blatantly milking a huge group of retards - the hint is the "Dominatrix Sub Whip +2" - I don't expect the idiots who actually use that site to have any idea what a +2 is.
I also doubt that anyone who really wrote the way they do would be able to set up a complicated website.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
This place is a horrific written image of pain.
I quote:
My eyes, they bleed!
My brain, it bleeds!
Posts marked as troll or re-dundant when they are neither?
on the internet? That money you're wasting on yourself could be better spent feeding the hungry. I bet you have the nerve to drive a car, too.
Starvation isn't a money problem. It doesn't take money to plant a garden and grow food. The problem is the assholes in charge who prevent the food from going to people who need it that need to be overthrown.
There's plenty of food. And buying more of it isn't going to make the situation better for anyone but the assholes in charge who hoard it for themselves.
The poor will always be with you. If you feel so compelled, help the poor in far away places. I'd rather help those around me. And that involves buying crap that helps pay their wages so that they don't starve.
I don't suppose you stopped to think that if nobody bought anything they didn't need, 90%+ of the population would be out of work and unable to afford to eat. Our society functions based on the buying and selling of crap. Just like every other country.
If you go to the Mexican border at least, everybody is selling something. Buying a pot or a flower you don't need really equates to feeding the seller and his family.
Buying a stupid little icon helps keep this guy fed and with the extra money he buys more crap which puts money in a lot of people's pockets so they can eat and so on down the line.
To claim that we shouldn't buy anything frivilous is incredibly short sighted. I don't think you realize how many poor people survive selling frivilous crap working at fast food joints, restaurants and what not. You think corporations should just give people money? Where do you think their money comes from?
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Virtual accesories and avatars are a big business in Korea
Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit
to meet fellow Slashdotters.
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
But women have a different response to diamonds. The sparkle stimulates their brain more than it does men...and their response is a feeling of great beauty.
Given that most (not all) women draw much of their self-esteem from their feeling that they are beautiful, the diamond ring is primarily a means of becomming beautiful, and hence happy.
Whether or not this is the way it SHOULD be is immaterial...
SCO owned the patent for getting money for nothing...
FunHi seems to be an extreme manifestation of the overly materialistic culture it has emanated from (people who call themselves a "gangsta" or a "playa" or a "hunie", modern popular culture basically), it's just... too horrible for words.
People judging how popular and loved they are on the basis of how much other people have spent on them *puke*.
I guess they could all be doing it in an ironic and political fashion to show all members of capitalist societies to be whores. I'm sorta doubting that's the case, personally.
She's too obvious. Now a contest between liv tyler and George bush.... Thats got more of a dilema.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
For TWO dollars, I'll go away and leave you alone!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It's 1999 all over again. I though the bubble burst for companies like this.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
I just bought a case of paste-on foil gold stars at Office Depot. Now I'm going to completely destroy the intellectual economy of the local kindergarten. BWAHAHAHAHA!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Personally, I'm amazed at the person/group who thought up this idea. What sane person or group actually thought this would make money for them.
Apparently I'm just not enlightened enough for this line of thinking...this is definately another step toward the perfect society.
Peter: I got an idea, an idea so smart my head would explode if I even began to know what I was talking about.
This leaves just one question unanswered... why didn't I think of this?
Probably because you are naive enought to think that a sufficient proportion of the population to support such a venture isn't that stupid.
The items in everquest can be re-sold and potentially for a profit. The items at FunHi (to my limited understanding) can't be regifted or sold.
It's makes all the difference in the world. It's why people will buy 'shares' in a company which are esentially vitual property too -- because they're resellable.
people to spend their money on. Once they've bought all the neccesities and run out of neat toys to buy, what else is there ? Virtual presents for virtual girlfriends.
...they might as well pay for icons. In fact, operator logos for mobiles are paid icons too. It's not all that different really. That said, I personally wouldn't pay for ringtones either.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
- kidnappers
- slavemasters
- gun companies
- pitbull breeders
- shovel manufacturers
- smugglers
- whip manufacturers
and create jobs for the underpriverledged.the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
When they spend so much on crack?
They obviously consume VAST quanities of crack cocaine.
This is the dumbest shit I have EVER seen...
These idiots deserve to go broke, throwing their money down the toilet like this.
All I can say is Muwhahahahhahahahahaha!!!!
Since they IR network and transfer data objects, I'm working on an infectious Tamagotchi plague. It's for the children's sake.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Amber4ever
you're all figments of my deranged imagination
Next, we'll have to institute some sort of government standards agency to insure that our beautiful virtual girfriend isn't selling 200%, is really beautiful, and is really a girl!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Looks like its an advanced form of "Rate my nakedness" sites.. except you post revealing photos as people tip you... Send me a tip and I'll reveal my underthings... hmmm, now that is inrteresting.
meh
Who's the assclown who modded the parent up?
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
mod up!/ 8202diamon d1.htm
i amond.h tml
Excellent article about DeBeers scumbags
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/82feb
Wired had an article about artificial/cultured diamonds; decent read.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/d
Also, if you care about exploited children in Africa, watch Child Soldiers. It's really depressing; Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone, etc. use diamond money to buy weapons and send kids to war.
I guess DeBeers' would defend themselves by saying that those kids would otherwise have too much free time on their hands and get in trouble hanging out at schools, playgrounds and working on their families' farms.
I got my wife a Mac Cube and flat screen. Nothing like being married to a computer geek (she's a telecom analyst and loves having Mac DTP and command line tools all together).
I drank what? -- Socrates
Here I just saved those people a ton of cash:
http://www.funhi.com//images/gifts/46.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/20.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/33.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/1.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/3.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/30.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/35.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/39.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/22.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/17.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/11.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/23.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/14.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/49.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/25.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/41.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/27.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/51.gif
d
...the Icy Hot Stuntaz have begun their bid for world conquest.
-R
I'm showing my age reminding everybody about Pet Rocks.
People would complain how stupid they were as they stood in line to get one.
The inventer retired a multi-millionare.
Strap that Adonomizer to your head and while it zaps your brain repeat... I - will - not - buy - stupid - shit - for - no - reason...
What's really sad is that I bet some of the "high rollas" on this site are actually buying themselves gifts from alternate accounts, or are company shills designed to motivate a much smaller number of legitimate members to compete for more intangible crap.
Ultimately, you have to respect a venture like this, that can make a person alternate between thoughts of "WTF This is sick" and "Wow, this is genius". It's both interesting & entertaining, and profoudly sad and pathetic as well. What an eloquent microcosm of capitalism, superficiality and materialism.
It sounds like an April Fool's Joke, but then, so does online trading of Everquest loot.
... or stock, gold, tulips ... or money. One of the interesting points of Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos is how the value of things is what we make them. Today, an ounce of gold may be worth $400 to me (I haven't checked the market), but tomorrow, if I'm hungry, I may well trade it for a can of Dinty Moore stew.
If you have a bank account, you may feel comforted to know that the money you have in it is represented by ones and zeroes, the same as that Everquest loot. It could be worthless before the market closes today!
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
what a scam! I can't believe that people would actually pay for this.
Chiggdy Chiggdy check yo'self before yo reck yo'self.
In the great thundering herd of dumbass there are 2% that will buy anything. These fools have more money than brains, and are the same ones that open attachments from people they don't know.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
A fool and HIS money are soon parted.
Wait, you mean like, instead of a ring?
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
Naw, the Cube kept slipping around under her finger. Would have had to balance it with another cube.
The cube was my 4 year anniversary gift to her.
Wife's aunt ran a pawn shop and she knows how fast jewelery depreciates (almost as fast as computers). She prefers something that is actually useful (and plays solitare) to a rock.
I drank what? -- Socrates
It's a gift you don't need a place to store!
Quick, what's the combined volume of stuff people you care about got you that you don't actually need?
What else could this be used for?
If people are dumb enough to spend money on this they deserver what they get.
If I'm going to play an online game, but only have a few hours to play each week because, say, I have a job, it makes sense to spend some real money to move ahead. If I were unemployed, it might make sense to spend those 40+ hours a week online finding stuff, then selling it.
Playing online games such as Everquest shouldn't be restricted to people with lots of time. Without being able to buy items, those of us with little time would have a hard time advancing, and it wouldn't be as much fun.
More sugar!
Why not just make a few comments to some company execs about how their website looks really /. worthy, and that bandwidth is getting really expensive these days. Leave a buisness card with a swiss bank account number on it :-)
This is the best business model I've seen since the MardiGras artists that were charging women $5.00 to paint designs on their breasts. Paint with brush in one hand and hold it with the other. And try not to fall off your stool too often.
Jesus. I think that everyone considering engagement should read this article.
I feel like a sheep for having fallen for the Diamond is Forever crap.
Fortunately(?) when I got engaged I wasn't making a lot of money and could only afford a 3/4 carat diamond. So I don't feel as bad as I would had I bought a bigger rock.
wbs.
Huh?
Go to an auction. Buy an estate piece for 20% the cost of what the equivalent would be in a store. Go to a store and get it cleaned for free. DeBeers gets nothing. You get a happy partner...
1999? Do I get a free computer with it?
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
This is not new. The service by Sulake Labs Oy, Habbo Hotel has already achieved some popularity by selling "virtual furniture" to a game which is like Sim with bad graphics and a weak chat system. The furniture is paid by sending a SMS text message, so the spent money is charged in the phone bill. The users are usually kids, who can spend a terrible amount of money without realizing it. It is available in English: Habbo Hotel
It's nice to see that I might just have a market to sell my DVD rewinder that's shaped like a car!
You can tell what their target market is from this wonderful quote on their www site:
FunHi.com is NOT a place to rate or hate.
FunHi is your friendly gangsta, playa pimp, banging hunie community. Haters and lamers shall be dealt with to the FULL extent of da law (and then some).
Yeah, they are going after that "young middle class suburban dipshit" demographic. The same group that thinks it's cool to talk/dress like the rappers do in their videos.
....along with the emergence of tv shows like "I Want a Famous Face" and "The Swan" has caused me to start babbling like an old man about how society is going to hell in a handbasket. And I'm only 18.
I belong to the ______ generation.
This site just screams ghetto. Even though it's a cantonese word, seeing the item descriptions is sad. Then you click to see profiles and your heart sinks to know people actually pay for this crap.
I'm in shock.
Teachers are not nearly as poorly paid as you suggest.
u rvey-TX.pdf
FROM: http://www.aft.org/press/salary/downloads/SalaryS
WASHINGTON - Texas ranked 30th in the nation for its average teacher salaries during the 2001-02 school year, according to the latest American Federation of Teachers state-by-state teacher salary survey released today. Texas's average teacher salary for 2001-02 was $39,230, up 2.3 percent from the previous year. The state ranked 17th for its average beginning teacher salary, which was $30,938, up 3.7 percent from the previous year. The report, which covers the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is based on the most recent data available. The U.S. average teacher salary for the 2001-2002 school year was $44,367. The average beginning teacher salary was $30,719. Nationally, the AFT salary survey found that improved beginning teacher salaries and a depressed job market have helped alleviate the teacher shortage. But the good news is tempered by the report's finding that overall salary growth has been slowed because of state fiscal crises. "Thanks to better starting salaries, the shrinking teacher shortage should help reduce class sizes. But we can't afford to ignore and lose experienced teachers, whose salaries are not showing much improvement," said AFT President Sandra Feldman. Texas came in 30th nationally and posted the highest average teacher salary regionally. Here are the national rankings for the other Southwestern states: Arizona was 33rd at $38,510; New Mexico was 42nd at $36,716; and Oklahoma was 49th at $32,870. The AFT report also found that the shortage of teachers for all subjects in 2002 dropped to 1999 levels. However, considerable shortages still remain for math, physics, chemistry, earth science, biology and Spanish-language teachers. At the other end of the spectrum, there was an oversupply of physical education teachers. The report found a balanced supply and demand for elementary school teachers.
Ever heard of Habbo Hotel?
pl3453...JU5t $eND C45h!
First they ignore you Then they laugh at you Then they fight you Then you win -Mohandas Gandhi
These gifts effectively convert money into status in a way that buying something useful does not, because they are a "sacrifice". Just like sacrificing a lamb to your God (Old Testiment), Women love demonstration that you are willing to sacrifice something monetary, social, etc in an unguaranteed attempt to woo them. It demonstrates that Money means nothing to you compared to what they mean to you. It's more effective to get them a "pretty, but valueless token" (diamond ring, nifty computer icon, etc) in return because it's a memorium of what you sacrificed (and how few others would do so) every time they see or think about it. So, as counterintuitive as it sounds, it should be considered a currency conversion. :)
If the girls (er, hunies) were to whore themselves out to an adult site like they do on FunHi they would actually get some of the take instead of just stupid gifs.
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
How else could they afford to puy pretend stuff for their pretend girlfriends
Why pay 15 bucks for an animated gif of a F*****g jet, when you just hack the source and get them for free. This is just plain stupid. Jackal
This may surprise you but some people actually think diamonds are nice to look at and that's why they buy them
And how many of them can tell the difference between a diamond and cubic zirconium? Incidently, a close female friend of mine would prefer cubic zirconium because of the price difference.
after closer inspection revealed it to be a digital cubic zirconia.
Americans are idiots. I can say this because I am one. Nonetheless, the value of an item is for the most part a direct function of it's scarcity. Gold is expensive because there is only so much to go around. Diamonds are expensive becasue idiotic americans think that there aren't very many of them.
Same goes for digital gifts. Authentic ones cost money not everyone has one. Does anyone out there really thing that we are spending our money on things we need? Pet rocks?
If I didn't have my iPod I'd be heartbroken(true) but do I need it? Well, whatever makes you happy. What else has value attached to its scarcity? Karma point maybe.... No. Couldn't be.
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
You've been reading too much ad copy, and not looking at enough gems. Cubic zirconium has a very different index of refraction from diamond, so instead of a multicolored sparkle it just looks white. Also, CZ decays in UV light; if you wear one outside for a few days, it'll cloud up.
That said, there are several other very attractive white gems. Moissanite looks pretty good, and good-looking white sapphires are starting to come out of the labs for cheap.
WTF did you post this non related drivel here?
i have it on good authority that one of the interviewees is a slashdotter ;)
george
Its a joke guys... couple days to April fulls and all. Don't take it seriuosly you foolz.
For those of us not in the know, could you outline how and why jewelry depreciates? All I know about jewelry I learned from the antiques roadshow.
I just joined funhi, and when I tried update my program I got this:
/my/accountinfo.asp, line 142
:( hehe
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80040e14'
Line 1: Incorrect syntax near ','.
Looks like I wont be upgrading my pimp status on funhi
SproutWorks Software Design
Because the parent said teachers are underpaid and I was showing him that he was talking out his ass.
Q: Is it true that under communism we will be able to order food via telephone?
A: Yes, but it will be delivered via television.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
...much better than my own. Thanks for making me laugh! I'll bet that's the only time this April 1 I actually find something funny.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley