Slashdot Mirror
Craigslist to Beam Ads into Space (for Free)
rdarden writes "According to a press release issues yesterday, Craigslist will be broadcasting 10,000 ads into space later this year. CEO Jim Buckmaster won an eBay auction offered by Deep Space Communications Network, a Cape Canaveral, Florida company. According to an article at Technewsworld.com, they may have already received permission from 10,000 ad submitters."
What's the point ? Isn't this a form of pollution, anyway ? Even if we do not actually know what we pollute if these are radio waves...
If itz's light, no doubt, it is. The Macunmba disco (near Geneva) had to stop lighting the sky at night for ecological reasons.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Cue thousands of angry alien civilizations rushing in to destroy the earth-spammers.
until the extraterrestrials killed the world for spamming space...
this is a very stupid idea, and no i did not have to read the article to understand how stupid beaming advertising in to space is...
Earth: "Greetings, friends from space, welcome to Earth!"
Alien spaceship: "All your Burger Kings are belong to us."
Just
Ad submitters don't have enough of pissing US off, now they gotta pollute the alien airwaves?
Independance Day is coming, brace yourselves.
You saw that one coming, didn't you.
This is my opinion. Everyone has a right to my opinion.
Universe's leading source of spam!
Blank until
Alien 1: Sir we're receiving a transmission...
Alien 2: What does it say?
Alien 1: Increase it's size by 3 inches!!!
Alien 2: ?????
Does anyone know what the ebay auction ended for?
seems to be advertising and promotional stunt to me.
I'm craig: hey this is a cool ebay auction, im bored and im gonna bid on it.
That should be enough to get us blacklisted as spammers. There goes any hope of making first contact!
Single White Male in Search of Grey Alien Anal Probe
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
1. Create an ad
2. Send it into space
3. ???????
4. Profit
Humanity finally perfects FTL travel, and the first colonists are lost because the communications channel is filled ads for v|@gr4 and old 'Friends' re-runs and Hitler kicking off the '36 Olympics.
Fan-frickin'-tastic.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
i'm glad that this financial endeavor isn't wasting precious fossil fuels, money, and human capital to engineer something useless. none of those resources could be applied to actual terrestrial problems. oops, wait this is just a bullshit publicity stunt by a pretentious asshole who already has a large market. what a fucking waste of effort.
Polyamorous alien within 1003.2 light years (same galactic arm only please) with prime number of piercing into tentacle sex and black hole bondage wanted by endoskeletal ape descendant (some hair) with XY sex chromosomes and external genitalia (tentacle-like but not prehensile). Please be between 3'2" and 10'7" along your longest dimension, weigh no more than 500 pounds (no prejudice against big boned aliens, but there are physical limitations), have skin pigmentation that absorbs IR and fluoresces under near UV light. I still live with my evolutionary relatives, so you must have your own spacecraft.
October 13, 2005: Craigslist beams 10,000 ads into space
October 14, 2005: Earth obliterated by the Intergalactic Anti-Spam Defense Force
October 15, 2005: [Nothing]
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The last thing humans will ever see will be an intergalactic missile streaking towards earth, inscribed with the alien word for "Unsubscribe".
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, as I've not yet had my medication today.
It's not like the response rate for my personals ads will get any lower by beaming them into space, I figured they were doing this already.
FOR SALE: **DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH**. Third planet from Sun. Surface mainly dihydrogen monoxide with some silicates. Good starter planet for young, carbon-based species. Still has much of original fossil fuel deposits. Excellent views of Venus, Mars. Small hole in ozone layer. Aboriginal biped humanoid species infestation can easily be removed with genetically engineered plague, or runaway nanotech "accident".
PRICE: 1.2 Million Quatloos. **CALL NOW** will not be listed for long at this price!
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
we won't have to ask why...
--
maybe this might prompt a response even if it is to tell us to stop it! Then again, they may just invade and destroy us all. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "spam is killing the world" :-)
Warning, comments may not have been passed by the sanity department of my brain.
The article didn't say: does anyone know *where* the beam will be pointing?
Ydco co
My esteemed colleague,
Let me introduce myself. I am James Obayyama Coquhamm'uoy of Nigeria, on the African continent, on a small blue-green planet circling a star known as 'sol'
Recently, my government was overthrown by dissidents and my father, General Christian Obayyama Coquhamm'uoy was killed.
Upon his death, it was discovered that he had accumulated a large fortune which we need to get off this planet as soon as possible.
My dear friend. I am a God-fearing man. I am putting my trust in you, another God fearing man of stable character and distinct reputation, to take a share in transporting 6,200,000 (SIX MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND) bars of GOLD-PRESSED LATINUM to your bank account at Alpha Centuri.
blah...blah...blah...
"Best agar in the universe"
Alien 1: Sir, our translators have decoded a message saying they are going to declare war!
Alien 2: Prepare the ships of war! No nation threatens us with large members. I don't care HOW big they are, they will be destroyed with our giant death rays!
Seriously though, I really don't want to get into an intergalactic dispute over mixed messages to discover that our defence is that we are only trying to spam them!
Warning, comments may not have been passed by the sanity department of my brain.
"My God, it's full of Spam!"
--
BMO
I wonder if this will lead to an Aliens Suffrage?
Aliens need not apply.
NO ALIENS
Can't sit here, seats taken.
TO THE BACK OF THE BUS YOU!
Never mind space, look around you.
Ads are terror and advertizers should be shot on sight.
Sure, I know what you're saying, "without ads you wouldn't this that or the other blah blah blah"
Baloney I say.
bjd
All that an intelligent species will care about is the non-natural arrangement of information - then we have first contact.
If it's paid for by idiots for the expected publicity, then all the better - less budget for them to spend on spamming me!
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
So, instead of colonizing, we're going to pre-spam space with all the crap that annoys us here? OR So, we're going to guarantee that no alien race will want to come near us? OR Why does everything have to involve advertising? This is almost as bad as paying the hobos in California $100 to wear a T-Shirt promoting a movie. OR...
I don't really want to see a "goatse" constellation up in space.....
Monstar L
It's worse than that, it's spam, Jim! Spam, Jim! Spam, Jim!
CC
CKSCIII
until the aliens post back. Personally I'd love to be able to pick up the first ratty, old interstellar couch that was just going to be left on the curb in Alpha Centauri...
Aliens are going to think we're beings with large breasts and giant penises.
CC
CKSCIII
Great. Now instead of first contact being with the Vulcans, it will be with the Ferengi.
Loose lips lose spit.
After watching 10,000 Advertisements for OTC medications, bathroom products, junk food, music and entertainment!
Just No Ads for the upcoming Hichhikers Guide Movie
- we don't want to attract any Vogon's attention!
...when i picked up the wrong mike, and broadcast my phone sex to space. Those guys on the iss will no doubt enjoy that.
Soap box, Ballot box, Jury box, Ammo box. Use in that order.
This needs regulation. CAN-SPAM-MORE?
In three weeks there will be an news article:
- ICANN to regulate new galacy-TLDs
- FCC demands broadcast flag for interplanetary communications.
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
FROM:
,A FOREIGN OIL CONSULTANT/CONTRACTOR WITH THE EARTH INSTITUTE OF MINING AND METALLURGY, MR. MICHAEL FOSTER MADE A NUMBERED TIME(FIXED) DEPOSIT FOR TWELVE EARTH MONTHS, VALUED AT 26,500,000.00,(TWENTY-SIX MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITS GALACTIC CURRENCY) IN MY BRANCH.
MR.SOLOMON ALEMAYEHU
WORLD BANK OF EARTH
STREET P.O.BOX 5550
ADDIS ABABA,ETHIOPIA, EARTH, THE MILKYWAY.
DEAR SIR/MADAM/THING,
I AM MR.SOLOMON ALEMAYEHU, BANK MANAGER OF WORLD BANK OF EARTH.
THIS IS AN URGENT AND VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSITION.
ON 1123.423123 METRIC DATE
UPON MATURITY,I SENT A ROUTINE NOTIFICATION TO HIS FORWARDING ADDRESS BUT GOT NO REPLY. AFTER A MONTH,WE SENT A REMINDER AND FINALLY WE DISCOVERED FROM HIS CONTRACT EMPLOYERS, THE MARTIAN PETROLEUM CORPORATION THAT MR. MICHAEL FOSTER DIED FROM AN AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT.
ON FURTHER INVESTIGATION,I FOUND OUT THAT HE DIED WITHOUT MAKING A WILL,AND ALL ATTEMPTS TO TRACE HIS NEXT OF KIN WAS FRUITLESS.
I THEREFORE MADE FURTHER INVESTIGATION AND DISCOVERED THAT MR. MICHAEL FOSTER DID NOT DECLARE ANY KIN OR RELATIONS IN ALL HIS OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS,INCLUDING HIS BANK DEPOSIT PAPER WORK IN MY BANK HERE ON EARTH.THIS SUM OF 26,500,000.00 HAS CAREFULLY BEEN FIXED IN MY BANK FOR SAFEKEEPING.
NO ONE WILL EVER COME FORWARD TO CLAIM IT.ACCORDING TO EARTH LAW, AT THE EXPIRATION OF 5 (FIVE) STANDARD EARTH YEARS, THE MONEY WILL REVERT TO THE OWNERSHIP OF THE GOVERNMENT IF NOBODY APPLIES TO CLAIM THE FUND.CONSEQUENTLY, MY PROPOSAL IS THAT I WILL LIKE YOU AS A ALIEN TO STAND IN AS THE OWNER OF THE MONEY WHICH WAS FIXED DEPOSITED IN MY BANK.I AM WRITING YOU BECAUSE I AS A PUBLIC SERVANT,I CANNOT OPERATE A NON-SOLAR-SYSTEM ACCOUNT.
I WANT TO PRESENT YOU AS THE OWNER OF THE FUNDS SO YOU CAN BE ABLE TO CLAIM THEM WITH THE HELP OF MY ATTORNEY. THIS IS SIMPLE.I WILL LIKE YOU TO PROVIDE IMMEDIATELY YOUR FULL NAMES AND ADDRESS SO THAT THE ATTORNEY WILL PREPARE THE NECESSARY DOCUMENTS WHICH WILL PUT YOU IN PLACE AS THE BENEFICIARY OF THE FUNDS.
THE MONEY WILL BE MOVED OUT FOR US TO SHARE IN THE RATIO OF 80% FOR ME AND 20% FOR YOU. THE PAPERWORK FOR THIS TRANSACTION WILL BE DONE BY THE ATTORNEY.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, PLEASE REPLY IMMEDIATELY VIA THE SAME METHOD THIS REACHES YOU AND UPON YOUR RESPONSE, I SHALL THEN PROVIDE YOU WITH MORE DETAILS AND RELEVANT DOCUMENTS THAT WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE TRANSACTION.
PLEASE OBSERVE UTMOST CONFIDENTIALITY, AND BE REST ASSURED THAT THIS TRANSACTION WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE FOR BOTH OF US BECAUSE I SHALL REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE TO INVEST MY SHARE IN REAL ESTATE WITHIN YOUR PLANET.
AWAITING YOUR URGENT REPLY.
THANKS AND MY REGARDS.
SOLOMON ALEMAYEHU.
WORLD BANK OF EARTH
StrayByte.Net
just think of how much that spam blocker would be... ----- "the thing about space is that it's everywhere...but everywhere"
have resorted to nowadays? I'm sure you had stories MUCH more worthy of acceptance, instead you choose to publish rubbish like this.
Don't mean to sound like a troll, but are you sure you don't choose stories based on random numbers and a team of trained hansters?
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
The phrase "getting blackholed for relaying spam" is about to take on a sinister new meaning.
Quick, we have to pre-emptively beam ad blocker software and filtering rules into space to prepare the extra terrestrials for the onslaught. Think they've Got Firefox yet? :p
Did anyone else notice the glaring spelling and grammatical errors on the company's website?
* New South Whales (should be Wales - as in the country)
* Incorrect use of capitalisation - earth (should be capitalised), Movie (should not be)
* The place in NSW where the radio telescope is is called Parkes (not Parks) and the movie it appears in is called "The Dish" (not "Dish").
Do we really want these people communicating on our behalf?
...to the overall amount of "radiation pollution" or whatever the term is. Some of almost every radio communication ever made leaks into space - if we ever discover faster-than light travel and seriously good attenna technology, our ancestors could watch the original transmission of friends hundreds of years in the future from some where in the galaxy!
In California, hobos pay $100 to wear a T-Shirt to promote a movie
I am harvesting funny/good quotes. Please help by putting them in your sigs
...to scare some galaxians with ads and thus prevent posible future invasion on Earth.
Well, for a price, since a new HHGTTG entry on Earth will probably be something as: "Formerly mostly harmless, now plagued by strange mental disease forcing planetary population to buy tons of stuff they never need. This disease spreads itself by radio encoded visual memes, so recieving any signal from the direction of Earth is dangerous to your wealth."
There you are, staring at me again.
ET phone home
ET change long distance carrier...
http://www.sophos.com/spaminfo/articles/dirtydozen .html
Somebody set up us the ad!
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
"Realtime black hole list" is a cool-sounding phrase when it just refers to a blacklist of names. But when real black holes get involved, watch out!
Single female lawyer!
Im not sharing my flat with the Ravenous Buglatter Beast of Traal...
And no, you cant park that battle cruiser in my space, and were those YOUR scales I found in the shower??
How did you get *that* past the lameness filter?
:).
Good work, though
Just piss off those aliens. You know, it wasn't enough with people.
This is great, because we all know these thing to be true: Beyond the rim of the starlight, my love is wandring in star flight. I know he'llfind In star clustered reaches Love, strange love A starwoman teaches. I know his journey ends never. His Star Trek will go on forever. But tell him while He wanders his starry sea, Remember, Remember me.
did you win a free ipod? build a case for it here
Every radio transmission that I make with my garage remote control eventually makes it's way into deep space. I mean, a bunch of those photos have gotta be escaping earth's atmosphere. After that, they're gonna propagate until something stops them and there's not much to stop them in space.
Maybe I could set up a company doing this with a ham radio and charge people for it.
Ha, ha! Nobody ever says Italy.
oh yeah, the one thing we need is to attract a bunch of aliens who want viagra and bigger penises with which to roger us into submission.
I, for one, welcome our new SpamAssassin overlords.
Trained hamsters? The hamsters they use are nothing of the sort!
1. Send SPAM in space 2. ??? 3. Profit
Great. Now they're spamming the galaxy.
I hope this attracts a Vorlon planet killer in response.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Did Craigslist start the April fools season a bit early?
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
... welcome our new alien comrades with spywareblockers, adblockers, galactic antivirusprograms, alternative plaform independent browsers and decent torrents with alien pr0n.
TO: abuse@earth.com FROM: drphlox@denobulan.net Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited email message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the galaxy.
It should be perfect for those aliens living in California to mate with an alien life form and perhaps create a hybridg Calofornicationalien.
Sugots!
1,225.00 USD is a real good price for the weekly publicity this is going to get him. The spike should get some new (earthly) craigslisters and raise his asking price for ads, all while he solicits himself as ambassador of Earth.
what do you think really causes novas?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Cmdr, Cowboy? Considering beaming Slashdot into space for us next? Lord knows what sort of commotion it is going to cause among the real Borg when they find out that Bill Gates is one of them.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I've been relaying the whole internet to space for a couple of years now over my WiFi. Added a little WEP for challenge.
Fiat Lux.
Spam Adverts in space!? Imagine the Orion Nebula Cluster full of those!
AT&ROFLMAO
... first thing any alien is gonna learn, is that we're all racist people who can't drive, hate fat people, and love oral sex.
(Not kidding you - check out the RnR section of just about any Craigslist).
When the Vogons and Vorlons arrive at the same time, there's going to be an interesting fight over which force gets to illuminate this planet-sized spam cannon we live on. However, I have faith. If there is one thing that Earth excels at on a galactic scale, it is our lawyers. We will be able to put off destruction with barages of C&D letters aimed at the Vo***ons who defame us by calling us a malware planet.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
welcome our ad-beaming overlords.
I thought it was April 1st when I saw this headline.
This kind of thing will catch on fast! We need a new catchy term to describe this type of advertising... let's see... it's marketing in space... so space marketing... how about... SPAM?
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
We could call it Space Projected Active Marketing. It is kind of long to say this, so we might have to come up with an abbreviation or acronym.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Even the Indians are asking too much now; we now have to recruit for jobs in outer space.
Craiglist: the 1990's called, and they want their dot-bomb business practices back.
Seriously - when I hear of a company doing dain-bramaged things like this, I think to myself "Well, there's a company with more money than common sense (or business sense)."
And of course, companies with more money than sense spontaniously decay, via moron emission, into companies with no cash and high debt, which then decay, via bankrupcy, into crap at auction.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Damn those shifty, lazy martians stealing our jobs by working at slave-labor wages. Their icky green skin and the smell of the "Xvspoo" crap they eat and bring in their lunch-bags.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
there are a bunch of related links here:
http://www.elementlist.com/CLstory.html
This is great. Advertisers are not only bombarding us with ads presently, but they're going to bombard the future human space colonies with ads once the signal reaches them.
Now that's what I call looooooooong term thinking.
- "I reject your reality and substitute it with my own", Adam Savage
As long as their spending their money on beaming adverts into space and not into my inbox, I'm happy.
I'm just going to unplug my computer on April 1. Sheesh.
I don't think NASA should be using their equipment (and my tax dollars) for this sort of thing.
"We come in peace - now, take me to your porn sites and discount viagra!"
My bets regarding the future of this venture:
1. Aliens probably have no interest in Viagra or other herbal enchancers.
2. The catchy new name for this will be SPIN (INtergalactic SPAM)
3. Within 10 years, any alien civilization within ad-range will be building up an attack force to shut us up.
4. The FCC will want full regulation of the industry (it's for the space-children. Think of the space-children)
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I didn't know they were a significant commercial market..... :P
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
maybe I can sell my comic book collection!
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
This reminds me a hell of alot of the Starlight program that used to operate in the 1980's out of an abandoned Atlas F nuclear missle silo in the middle of the New Mexico desert. They used to shoot yer name into space in binary using laser light pulses for a fee. They (I wonder why?) have long sence been out of business.
I talked about my eBay auction on my PCS phone. A sphere of low-frequency light (PCS radio waves) emanated from my phone's antenna, headed for deep space at 3E8m:s. Microseconds later, a brighter "booster" pulse emanated from a PCS tower near the phone with which mine was talking, following my first pulse like a brighter shadow.
For only $45, I will transmit your ad into deep space, using the same revolutionary light-modulation interstellar broadcast system.
--
make install -not war
What is the point of beaming ads to outer space? The target audience is still on this planet. Who's gonna watch the ad and say " Gee whiz! There's a sale going on right now on Earth" . This is plain stupid.
Free means 'at no cost'. 'For at no cost' makes little or no sense.
Your monitor is staring at you.
Read the article. Yes they are doing this for real, but like the guy in the article said, SETI just hasn't given them a good set of contacts yet and direct mail would be way too much money.
Once an alien civilization sees the crappy products we have here on Earth, they'll never stop here! At least, not the good ones. We'll get plenty of visits from "green trash" bargain shoppers.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
me too.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Craigslist to Beam Ads into Space (for Free)
.1C, or 500 years.
Well, of course it has to be free. Let's see here:
1. Assume an alien civilization with trade goods is 50 light years away.
2.The signal gets there and they immediately decide to buy.
3.They send a signal back to indicate said desire and to order shipment.
4.Shipment is (amazingly) ready to ship immediately upon receipt of signal.
5.Shipment takes trip at
6. 30 days after reciept, payment is sent by return post (.1C).
In all, it's been 1,100 years since payout for advertising expense and receipt of payment. Let's say the ad cost just 1 US penny instead of being free. The average rate of return over the long run is historically 10% per year. Using the formula for interest over time, starting amount * ( 1.rate ^ years), we find that after 1,100 years the retail price of the product just to cover advertising expense would have to be $3.4037188048404317849170141766232e+43. What kind of suckers do you think aliens are, anyway???
Remember the days of venture capitalists throwing money into high "burn rate" companies, and then the general public throwing money into high "burn rate public traded" companies? This is kind of like throwing your money away, again, but instead of having nothing to show for it here on Earth, you'll have nothing to show for it up in space... very profound.
And I think that if you're going to send out images into space, you best send out a copy of Irfanview, or a JPEG viewer (read their FAQ), because those damn intelligent life forms just may not understand the JPEG file format. (I hear they're into PNG)
I think the only thing that would actually effective would be to send huge banners or posters into space. I'm detaching my Heather Locklear and Motley Crue posters right now. ALl of these signal transmissions will just sound like space noise, but an old picture of Leather Locklear in a cheesy white bathing suit would be a far better way to communicate.
duh
I'm getting a new roommate! We should get along well too; he's 3'6" tall (not intimidating), enjoys science and technology as I do, has a killer HDTV and stereo system, and is asexual, so I don't have to worry about him having sex on my couch. I just hope that he makes enough money as a cab driver, and whatever is making his skin that awful gray color isn't contagious.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
From the minimal investment of 1200 US dollars or so, he just bought the eyes of thousands of Slashdot users. You're all hitting the website, checking out what messages will be sent - providing him with the eyes he paid for. Good job! I bet before he paid OSTG for the story he bought a fat pipe and a shiny new server to handle all of you....
So if a bunch of kids are getting up to 15 years in jail under the patriot act for pointing a single little dot at an airplane... what's the penalty for a whole ad banner?
Partial Credit: The Engineer's Best friend
"Well, the bridge didn't fall all the way down!"
Isn't India still located on earth? Surely they must be attempting to bounce these signals off the moon or something.
radio waves are pollution? give me a break. black holes generate radio waves. lets pass a law against black holes.
there will be a new personals category "casual encounters with the third kind"?
Not the advertising in space part. I'm talking about the part where he's overcharging people for advertising in space.
The advertising revenue generated by selling this service to gullible and ambitious marketers or companies seeking to cash in on the infamy of going through with it must be tremendous.
Please broadcast under "Casual Extraterretrial Encounters (CEE):
Earth male, 6'2", 180lbs, looking for some discreet action, preferably with someone from under the Orion Belt. Willing to host. No reciprocation required. Discreet.
look up, shout your ad.
...to destroy the vile scum transmitting spam to them, I for one will welcome our new spam-hating alien overlords.
Hmmm, I don't know why, but for some reason, Howard the Duck comes to mind when picturing the alien overlords' arrival...
ya know....Lir of Omicron Persei 8 will be pissed in a 1000 years when he comes to visit and finds out that McDonalds is no longer running the speical of 2 Fish Sandwhiches for 2$
the communications channel is filled ads for v|@gr4 and old 'Friends' re-runs and Hitler kicking off the '36 Olympics.
In space, nobody can hear you scream...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
You know, I can't blame the Vogons for bulldozing the planet if they are trying to stop SPAM. I mean, they're just these guys, you know?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
They should be more excited about the message I sent: "I claim your planet in the name of Earth. Surrender or die."
Assuming that intelligent life follows the same evolutionary spurts that the human race has followed in the past few thousand years, we can conclude that evolution of intelligent life is on a scale God knows how many magnitudes faster than the pace of construction/destruction of stars/planets etc.
Thus, although by numbers, there may be a massive number of potential sites for life out there, the transitions from dumb to super-intelligent life will be like almost instantaneous sparks that happen relatively rarely (say, every few hours or so?) in the universe.
What is the chances of two (random) sparks occuring at *exactly* the same time, to within a few milliseconds?
If one race's evolutionary spurt happens even just a "few seconds" before ours, in real-life, that's still hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years ahead of us. If they survive, they'll be so much more intelligent that us that they won't have to take our threat seriously.
If, OTOH, they're behind us, they'll still be at such a dumb stage that they won't be picking up signals from space.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Oh, great. If it's anything like Earth-like craigslist ad experiences, 10 aliens will reply, 7 will flake, 2 will try to barter you down to nearly nothing, and the remaining one will ask you if you can drop the item off at a BART station.
Please tell me they're not beaming the "casual encounters" ads into space..
Their spamming the universe! I hate to see what that Karma is going to be for that little stunt. *grin* Raydude
...thanks to a recent breakthrough in microfab techniques, write-only memory has decreased in cost by a factor of 10 - down to only $50 for a TERABYTE WOM chip! As a reseller of WOM, I find this very exciting, though I'm worried demand may exceed supply. Get your order in soon!
My human husband can't give me what I want: Unearthly sex. Must be clean, disease and drug free. No radioactivity, please. If you don't have at least five penises, two of them bifurcated, don't bother responding.
Can you be the one who fills me up in every nook and cranny? Call #04398292
m4et? w4et?
or you'll get stuck for the shipping costs of sending that used exercise bike to one of the moons of Saturn.
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of them have tried to contact us"
This is from a Calvin and Hobbes comic.
:-P
New to Earth? Check out this awesome studio apartment in the quaint little town of Parkes! Easy access to "the dish" for phoning home! To let for $500/mo. no lease. No pets or mouth brooders. Klingons need not apply.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Our blue home planet
MUST SEE TO APPRECIATE
this is in/near Sol
Not intended to be funny at all.
Craig
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How do you convert the dollar prices to quatloos?
...Some space alien sees a commercial for Bud Light and comes to our planet in 10,000 years and finds it not here and destroys the planet... Oh joy. Who thinks of this stuff anyways?
Sig? No thanks, I don't smoke.
If there is life out there other then us they are going to kill them self after getting our stupid earth spam.
Taco?
...but let me know when they figure out how to beam spammers into space and I'll be front row, center!
I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.
-RenderHead
Aboard the Imperial Star Destroyer Executor...
"Lord Vader, we have intercepted a transmission originating from the third planet of this system."
"What does it say?"
"They claim our penis size is inadequate."
"Wipe that pathetic planet from the face of the galaxy!"
Did the modder not recognize "delectible morsels" or "S. Lent Green" (Soylent Green)???
;-)
Wow Prince Vegeta! Your humourous comments are interesting!
Web hosting that doesn't suck!Dreamhost
cheap publicity stunts now make news on slashdot? not to troll, but how is this newsworthy?
discuss amongst yourselves...
What kind of impression of humans does this give to extraterrestrials? We're intentionally beaming a ton of commercial advertisement in their direction for no PRACTICAL reason.
This is, on a much larger scale, tantamount to a seven year old keying up on a ham radio and talking nonsense while the adults are trying to carry on intelligent conversation. The adults would change frequencies in annoyance, call the FCC, and choke the brat if they ever met him.
Humans, as a race, have some monumental growing up to do.
I wouldn't blame the rest of the universe for having no sympathy when the vogons come to demolish the Earth to make room for a new hyperspace bypass.
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
How would the UN handle an intergalatic incident on SPAM? ; )
I wonder what the repercussions of the new travelers searching for great deals in a galaxy far far away will have on our economy or can customs even handle the incoming aliens green card increase. We should get on this quick!
Life is too short for a 40 hour work week.
1. Buy huge antenas
2. Beam 10.000 ads into space
3. ?????
4. PROFIT!