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Man Sells Baby to Pay for Gadgets
nzgeek writes "This guy seems to have a serious gadget addiction: 'we're selling our son for $30k. There's nothing sinister about this, he's not going into child slavery or anything, Randy and Linda just really liked his demeanor, and they're keen on a Kiwi kid because they're usually so healthy. I hear $30 grand is really good value these days.
So help me out: what would be a good swag of gadgets to get hold of for US$30,000?'
" This one definitely raises a lot of important questions. $30k is a lot of gadgets, so you must choose wisely!
If this is not an april fools joke i shall eat my mac
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
A couple of months ago, my wife and I were approached with an interesting offer by an affluent couple from California. After thinking carefully, we've decided to take them up on their offer. My fetish for gadgets is well puplicised through this blog, and I think this offer will help me finally get those gadgets I've been coveting for so long.
That's right, we're selling our son for $30k. There's nothing sinister about this, he's not going into child slavery or anything, Randy and Linda just really liked his demeanor, and they're keen on a Kiwi kid because they're usually so healthy. I hear $30 grand is a really good number these days.
So help me out: what would be a good swag of gadgets to get hold of for US$30,000? Here's my initial wish-list:
This entry was posted
on Friday, April 1st, 2005
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the problem with these jokes is that unless these are totally stupid, theyll all eventually come to reality. :-D
That's why I enjoyed the GMAil story that much : Nobody believed it
Trolling using another account since 2005.
... that slashdot once ran an April Fools piece that was both funny and plausible. It was 1997, if I remember correctly.
Of course, it's entirely possible that this recollection is a hoax, too.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The kids mother is wanting to fight the case, but SCO are sure they are the father.
liqbase
First of all, the article is completely off-topic, it should be "AskSlashdot" not "Technology"!
I don't know many countries that it is legal to sell your offsprings. So this raises an important question - if someone went to the airport today and announced that he was going to set off a bomb, can he use "Hey it's April Fool" as an excuse to get away?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
How about some Robotic artificial baby to compensate for the loss of your son? :) Something like an Aibo perhaps..
To realize what day it was.
The rest of that 15 seconds was spend thinking "WTF?"
with, like, special days marked on it.
Hey thanks for that. Looks like it's already toast.
:)
Mean time to failure: about 180 seconds. I blame ipowerweb.com
gadgetophile.com
well thaey say it takes $30k to raise a kid so whoever buys it should really read the smallprint.
A dual Athlon server and rackspace with a 100 MBit pipe.
Frankly, if one is going to sell such "merchandise" to pay for gadgets, I would go out of my way to find another buyer (check the black market), and start a bidding war! You could likely get up to $50K that way - and then imagine how much you could get in gadgetry!
;)
Or, better yet, auctions on eBay, with some well placed shill bidding could get you $100K! Then you could double your fun/d!
DBA? Software Engineer? My company is hiring! Click
us being on 1'st of april and everything..
Novel idea that. I love my children, and shudder at the greed involved here.
I am thinking though... A new mac could be nice..........
Why should he rule out slavery? The market value might be higher and you would deprive the child of some valuable life experiences and lessons....
Better to not have the kid in the first place! Then you'll have loads of money to spend on gadgets and you wont have to put an april fools joke on slashdot.
Maybe a low-end Alienware PC and a pack of gum...
and get himself multiple OC-3s and new hardware so we can see what the fuss is all about.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
I am the party that plans to buy the little guy. I am going to open a site similar to Save Toby. This will work far better than my 419 efforts and if all else fails I will find out finally if liver really goes well with "fava beans and a nice chianti".
A couple of months ago, I was approached with an interesting offer by an affluent company from California. After thinking carefully, we've decided to take them up on their offer. My fetish for gadgets is well puplicised through this blog, and I think this offer will help me finally get those gadgets I've been coveting for so long.
That's right, i'm selling my popular newsite Slashdot for $30k. There's nothing sinister about this. The company really liked the website, and they said there wouldn't be as many repeats, dupes and Roland Piquepaille articles . I hear $30 grand is a really good number these days for this quality.
So help me out: what would be a good swag of gadgets to get hold of for US$30,000? Here's my initial wish-list:
* A dictionary to learn how to properly spell.
* Some kind of anti-bias machine. Maybe Microsoft makes one.
* An anti-duping machine.
* A vaccine for my Apple Fever. And not the one that attacked my lower intestine that summer of 76.
* Maybe a realdoll.
I traded my mum for a Slashdot subscription, so I guess anything's possible.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Wow. Nice April fools joke on my hosting provider - the site lasted all of about 60 seconds after the article went public. I never expected this pretty lame joke to actually get posted.
Here's a nicely formatted version of the article text (compared to that pretty poor effort above... thanks for the effort, but if you're going to repost the article text, perhaps at least remove the piles of whitespace mmkay?)
gadgetophile.com
Man I hate /. on 4/1 ... gonna be a long day.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
This must be the day people who pay money to read slashdot hate.
But he who tux into penguin-meat gets tarballs.
I've had the theme tune to Quantum Leap going through my head all day... Now you have, too!
Electronic Arts wasn't hiring! ;-)
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
2005 Britannica takeover of Wikimedia.
Gmail rolls out Infinity+1 storage plan.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
On a serious note, it is very expensive to raise a child these days. You can count yourself lucky actually making a net gain, not 100 000 dollar loss, as most parents suffer ;-)
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc/raiseChild.asp
http://www.babycenter.com/costofchild/
Surur
Information is the location of things. Computation is moving things around.
Well iff you like apple gadged you buy an apple eu-pod for it:
apple eupod for xs4all members (sorry dutch only)
but they could check with microsoft and their DRM software testing center..
As they have mapped the kid's genome and so are in a position to supply source code to the buyer.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
61" LCD Television with all the trimmings
I mean, geez, it's only 30K.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
...and the crapfest begins....
really.. is it so hard to come up with semi plausible fake stories?
Invest the $30k. Use the interest to buy yourself one or two fairly decent toys a year for the rest of your life.
It's april second in New Zealand!
If your toast does not accquire any kind of royalty, please do not contact us. We can't help you.
gmail really is 1 today. No you don't get more storage.
Shame on you people for wasting valuable Slashdot space with this childish article.
StupidChildren...the reason jesus is crying
I take that back. They seem to be doubling storage to 2 GB.
Who cares? As long as it isn't his baby. ;)
Not a joke, suspect was arrested
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
yeah, I mean jeesh, should have tried for atleast 60K, then you could maybe buy a nice second-hand sonic screwdriver! Or a used Ferrari with low miles.
A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
You're getting 2GB. And Google have added a raft of new features.
...
I like this:
Gmail turns 1 today. And we've always loved a good joke. We know we won't reach infinity, but check out what we will do
Ah, Google, that endearingly rascally but ultimately inoffensive jokester!
Could also be Child Protective Services, or whatever y'all have down there. And just think of the taxes.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
Isn't it usually the other way around: Man sells gadgets to pay for baby?
--It's Pimptastic!--
It had to be a hoax cause if it was real his wife would have spent the money on a new bedroom set.
What if these funds were used buying M$ Products, or an SCO license. We couldn't have that!
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Come on, April-Fool's-people! Johnathan Swift already pulled something similar to this about THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
;)
You guys must not have been paying attention in your high school American lit classes.
What it that, like maybe 2 ipods?
$445 | IWILL DK8X Motherboard, 3Com 3C940 Gigabit Ethernet, onboard SATA/RAID controller
$100 | Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu "big freakin' hunk of quiet copper cooling" (two)
$201 | Lian Li Black ATX Full Tower, PC-75B, transparent panel
$445 | I-Star 500Wx500W Dual PSU TC-500R8A
$187 | Western Digital Raptor, 74 GB, 10,000 RPM IDE
$528 | Western Digital 300 GB, 7,200 RPM IDE (three)
$979 | OCZ EL Platinum RV-2 Dual Channel Kit, 2-2-2-5, (512MBx2) (four)
$64 | Pioneer DVR-109 DVD+RW/-RW CD-RW drive
$15 | Hi-Val Floppy Drive (best part of the machine here!!)
$33 | Logitech Cordless Desktop Keyboard and Mouse
$25 | Wireless Logitech Trackball (screw the dinky mouse in the one above)
$170 | HD 3000 Linux compat HDTV card
$80 | Sound Blaster Audigy MP3+
$270 | Logitech Z-5500 5.1 Digital Surround Sound System
$2359 | EPSON PowerLite 821p LCD Multimedia Projector
$1642 | Sony SDM-P234/B 23" Wide Screen Flat Panel LCD
$529 | MSI nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra, 256 MB DDR3, 256-bit, Dual DVI, TV-Out
$649 | HP Officejet 7140xi All-In-One
$46 | Belkin Isolator IPF 8-outlet surge protector, 2960 joule protection
$28 | Creative WebCam Instant USB Webcam
$8 | Labtec PC Microphone
$300 | Bose QuietComfort2 Acoust Noise Cancelling Headphones
===========
GRAND TOTAL: $9,529
Think of the god awful Gentoo Linux power... why, my Folding@Home scores would be just obscene.
I think my first born is in danger.......
I wonder how much it'd cost to have Steve Ballmer dance as my private monkey for a day. Dance monkey boy dance!
YEAAAAAAA GET UP!!! DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!!!!
The Peanut Gallery, Ubergeek, Biblically Sober
NCAAbbs.com: Thousands of fans, Hundreds of teams, Just one place
This better be a joke.
I only got $20K for my kid.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
Penny Arcade have got a pretty funny April Fools issue.
That what /. considers an April Fools, I would actually consider? Having said that, I plan to cut out the middle woman, and just sell my sperm.
Do you see what I did there?
Unfortunately, that would probably use up the entire 30k right there. So maybe I'd go for a quad opteron, really beefy graphics card, and doom 3. Then for when I'm out and about I want a zaurus or A370 with the expansion sleeve, senseboard (clips onto your hands, virtual keyboard) and an over-eye display, so I can walk around and use my comp. With an enormous usb hard drive (both the pdas I mention have usb host capability which is why I chose them) and all the usual stuff like gps. And maybe an AV140 for video playback, that could also work as the hard drive. Finally, maybe I could chip in on a satellite so that I get permanent free internet via it. That would rule.
I am trolling
I know its meant as an April fool, but this one is in really bad taste.
because it's not a dupe.
For those of you who think this guy is making a bad decision, I'd like to say that you shouldn't be so quick to judge. My hippie parents sold me off for $3000 worth of LSD back in 1971, and I've turned out just fine.
that appreciate in value at least at the same rate as the child. Otherwise, it's not worth it.
Don't forget to duck!
Jonathanjk.com
Good home or not selling a person for things that will be discarded or replaced in 6-12 months is deplorable. I hope it is a joke, because if not as a society we just degrated another level.
April fools...
Wait...
Ummm...
Aww, crap! Now I'm definitely going to hell.
This has to be some kind of April fools' joke. I can't see how the mother, family or govt would allow such a sale.
Nice April Fools Joke, gents!
Hah! Everybody knows the going rate for a healthy baby is way less than $30.000...
superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
.....would pay $30k for a kid. Offer $300, and we will talk. Hey, that could get ya a decent mp3 player. Besides, I can hire professionals to paint my house for me for cheaper... errrrr.... yea, I love kids.
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
Sony SDM-P234/B 23" Wide Screen Flat Panel LCD $1642 EPSON PowerLite 821p LCD Multimedia Projector $2359 Knowing that your smelly crying offspring will ruin someone else's night - priceless. For everything else, there is Moostercard.
$30k is a lot of gadgets, so you must choose wisely!
Actually, if you have a lot of money, I would think that you don't have to choose so wisely. You would have to choose wisely if you can afford only a few gadgets.
Unfortunately, April Fools jokes are supposed to give the perpetrator bad luck if performed after noon. Maybe this article was purposefully delayed in the submissions process?
One good turn - gets all the covers.
Sony SDM-P234/B 23" Wide Screen Flat Panel LCD $1642
EPSON PowerLite 821p LCD Multimedia Projector $2359
Knowing that your smelly crying offspring will ruin someone else's night - priceless.
For everything else, there is Moostercard.This really should have been an "Ask Slashdot". And $30k? Please, you can probably get better profit you sold it for parts...
Sig
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars
The last one was a charm -
Final Update: Wow. Just wow. You guys really like to ream the buggery out of a webserver when presented with an opportunity eh? It's 1am down here now, I'm off to bed. Knock yourselves out, and turn the lights out when you're finished.
GP
Wow. Nice April fools joke on my hosting provider - the site lasted all of about 60 seconds after the article went public.
...
Here's a nicely formatted version of the article text (compared to that pretty poor effort above... thanks for the effort, but if you're going to repost the article text, perhaps at least remove the piles of whitespace mmkay?)
Maybe if you didn't have all that white space in your page your server load wouldn't be so high. Did you ever think of that? Well, did you??
Geez, some people... *grumble grumble mutter*
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I laughed so loudly when I read that my co-workers all think i'm mad >_
I'm EST so I don't know for sure but arent the article post dates in EST as well as saying Month and day? I would think that would give it away even for those who usually celebrate it. We're a crazy bunch.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
No, it's New Year's.
Blood for Bhaal! Blood for Bhaal!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
You could always start out with a Pizgauer 6x6 ambulance and outfit it with $15K worth of gadgetry.
For $15K that Pinz will be more capable off-road than any new SUV, including Jeeps and H2 Hummers. Has plenty of room inside for lots of hardware and a crew of geeks. And it's great for attention whoring, which you seem to already be good at ("hey I sold my kid for some gadgetry...")
I preferred The Register's April 1st efforts with Steve Jobs joins IKEA.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I would do the same thing. *ducks*
For a full list of sites that pulled April Fools Day Pranks this year check out this list here -
.GET into next version of Windows
Here is a sampling:
dotget.net - Microsoft to put P2P software
kylewenda.com - the government records your phone calls... scary
rfc-editor.org - RFC for "Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts"
planet.gentoo.org - Various things, CFLAGS, etc
fark.com - Many Jokes (keep reloading): BOOBIES!, Logged in as admin, North-Central Kentucky Bunghole-Discharge, page from 1999, BEER
2600.com - Formal Attire required for 2600 meetings today
forumsector.com - Changed the name to Nascar Sector
wikipedia.org - Britannica taking over Wikimedia
google.com - Google releases Google Gulp
kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov - Water On Mars
Belive in Technology and AMAZE yourself. -- RIP ZDTV/TechTV
Actually, a kid can be a pretty good gadget in itself.
Exit, pursued by a bear.
gotta agree, I always liked the detachable limbs, nakes em like a DIY transformer...
Wish they were more flame retardent though
bah!*@%!
I knew I missed something about this article... the fact that it's April 1 seems to have eluded me until now.
Speak for yourself.
from you're link "A North-Of-Bombay-Hill woman was arrested on 1st April, after her intention to sell her son, Jason, for NZ$1.95 (US$1.40) was made known to the internet community at Slashdot.org."
The guy's son's name is Ollie according to the "Personal Section" of his blog, not Jason.
Good home or not selling a person for things that will be discarded or replaced in 6-12 months is deplorable. I hope it is a joke, because if not as a society we just degrated another level.
;)
What about the people adopting his son? They've probably been on waitinglists for years and will now finally get to have the family they've always wanted.
Oh, and happy april 1st
Personally, I'm interested in what genuine answers there are -- If you'd just sold your baby for $30k, what would you buy?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
If they don't like so they need to rethink their actions.
I understand it's just a joke and all, but it makes me wonder... if such a transaction were legal, would he be obligated to pay income taxes? If so, that 30k drops considerably. Just a stupid thought on a stupid april fools joke...
Why should he duck? It's not like anybody that likes EA reads here. The managers aren't nerdy enough to be here, and the developers... Well, would you dare read slashdot if you worked with EA?
This is worse than Save Toby!
This sig has been removed pending an investigation.
Here's the official page that requires that pesky Flash-plugin/ad-force-feed-tube.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
... because the little rug rats become ankle-biters and then before you know it are taking the car -- and the costs go up exponentially with time.
I think that once they get past the ankle-biter stage, $30K becomes a money-losing proposition for the seller. I know for a fact that as they approach college age, $300,000 would be a losing proposition for many folks.
So get with the program, people! Sell your spawn early and often!
When somebody tells a really bad joke, they normally duck in order to avoid the objects being thrown at them. I wasn't concerned about its content. He forgot to type that he was going to duck, which is a custom on slashdot.
Jonathanjk.com
I think that on April 1 we need a MOD of "gullable". I will have to admit that this was the first story I saw today and I almost said "I don't believe it". But my son came in and hit with an on April Fool's gag just as I was reading it and I realized.
/. DAY.
Unfortunately, the world has almost come to this point, but hopefully a little humor of the day will lighten our load and make us realize what is important in life. Life is for living, not for worry.
HAVE A GREAT
I have no sig, does anyone have one to spare?
I reckon only seasoned RPG players would use this term. Therefore this person cannot have a wive, let alone have the skill points to create a baby in the first place!
Beating up people in little rooms, if you do it for a good reason you do it for a bad one.
The interesting part is that they don't say how old the son is.. Or at least by the time i hit the static page they didn't i couldn't find it.
This story as you said wouldn't be all that bad if the child was a newborn, would be provided for better then with its real family, and the rest of the usualy reasons people adopt or let thier children be adopted.
I guess the real shocker is that even if all that is true and the child would be better off, the intent seems to be for a few material items that a little hardwork could get. Last i checked it ws ilegal to sell a human at all. The most they could do is pay expenses (hospital fees, attourney fees, trips to complete the deal etc..) If this story is remotly true, i bet it would be outed as an april fools joke just to aviod possible jail time. If it is a joke, sadly i think it might have some unintended consequences reguarding legit adoption and such. It almost hits you with a "i can't believe it" hammer so hard, that you don't know what to think. And it is the reasons behind getting rid of the kid that does it after you start to think. The only good thing that could come from this if it is true, would be that the kid is probably truely better off now.
I've heard there's a good market for Politician's brains/souls... very low usage, after all.
Folks, I am up against the competing kid. I am open for negotiations on final prize. someone wants to buy me for 29.95k$?
I think you were ripped off...
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The interesting part is that they don't say how old the son is.. Or at least by the time i hit the static page they didn't i couldn't find it.
If you look in the "Personal" section of his blog there's a post from Feb 8, 2005 where he discusses a particular a particular incident involving his 1.5 yr old named "Ollie."
Don't forget last year: This and this!
My kidfs are half Kiwi, half Aussie - they're well behaved, but in addition can play cricket AND rugby. What do yah think they're worth ?
PS Don't tell anyone about the colour blindness (its hereditary and might drive the price down)
I can't wait until April Fools Day is over...
... on the other hand, April Fools does give us the opportunity to shrug off all human stupidity, real or contrived.
No such thing exists when a story like this comes up on your average news-day as a result of Stupidity of Humans x E-Bay environment.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
I don't like my Mom (er, step-mother) much either, but I think I could get more for her than you did for yours.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Define hipocracy
I think it's "hypocrisy"...
Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions. It's the only way to mak
while reading the linked page. The part where he's conducting masochistic experiments in server flagellation was F*****G hilarious!
Time to clean up...
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
because it's not a joke.
Have you read my blog lately?
SCO doesn't have the balls :)
They have the balls. What they don't have is a case.
baby 2,3 and 4 = new house Who wants to buy the kids I find on the street? Going real cheap for today only.
Let's see
ADAPTEC SATA RAID controller (16 port model, not the stinkin' 4 port version I just got)
and 16 300GB disks (a total of 4.5TB in Raid 5)
Adaptec Serial ATA RAID 21610SA $995.00
16x 300GB SATA Drives $4133.60
TOTAL $5128.60
Save the rest for a dual core AMD mutiprocessor system in the fall. Anything left over goes towards a nice HDTV for the living room.
Oh, I suppose I should have included the hotswap enclosures for those drives, but I couldn't find the price to buy them seperately, but since they seem to add about $200 to the 4 drive version That's an extra $800 or so for the RAID array.
Lots of good gadgets you could get for $30K
coming from India, this can't be categorised April Fool's Day news for me.