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TorrentReactor Reportedly Buys, Renames a Russian Town
baronvoncarson and a few other readers sent in the unconfirmed report that the Russian torrent site TorrentReactor had bought the Russian town of Gar for $148,000, on the condition that the town rename itself Torrentreactor.net. Torrent Freak notes circumspectly that TorrentReactor has been known in the past for — how best to put this? — publicity stunts and hoaxes. And Torrent Freak at the time of writing had no confirmation from any Russian authority that the purported cash-for-renaming deal is genuine. Here is the announcement on TorrentReactor's site, which contains this explanation of how Gar was chosen: "We've picked a few thousands of godforsaken places around the world that are close to operating nuclear reactors to make a connection to the name of our company. The list was numbered and a random number was picked by a generator. The number 377 was a lucky one for Gar village. We think it was a good choice since Gar citizens are very kind and generous people." The whole (purported) transaction is reminiscent of the dot-com boom, when in 1999 the not-yet-launched Half.com offered $100,000 to a small town, Halfway, Oregon, if it would rename itself for the company. It did. The record is vague as to whether the money was ever actually paid, as Half.com was acquired by eBay just over a year later.
At-least this town will be non-associated to other communities and surely is non-incorporated to the State.
I love free towns, almost as-good as a township, and has a worthy style of living that can put itself on the map just as did CB Radio, homebrew beer, free-range livestock, and Water Electrolysis/Joe Cell.
What's the likely hood of the town actually agreeing to this? If they were pretty much bankrupt it would make sense but how would the people in the town feel about having it renamed to a website name? Stop reporting crap kdawson.
Cool, you can buy a town and rename it ? I want to buy Fucking in Austria and name it... err... Sod it, it can stay as it is :)
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
By the very act of considering this News For Nerds, and posting it on the front page where millions will see it, Slashdot has participated in this hoax. If it's not verified, and it comes from a known perpetrator of hoaxes, and it smells funny, why the heck is Slashdot or any other media outlet even paying attention to the story? It plays directly into the hands of the hoaxers!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
It would add a bit of color to this grey, lifeless IT world.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I am reminded of http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/star/how_to_view.asp naming a star. I think TR should seriously consider naming an actual reactor, or maybe a uranium mine. This is Adman Genius. I am impressed.
Waiting for the other shoe to...
...the citizens will buy anything.
Maybe Half.Com paid half.
In my mind to buy a whole city or village you need to buy all the lands in it.
Which is quite hard and expensive to do.
You can try to buy a city name, which makes a different sense.
Or, as it seems from the (possibly hoax) announcement, they convinced people with money to change their village name.
In either case, who cares?
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
"Gar'" in Russian means "soot". Considering the current situation with fires in Russia (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10897116), renaming a village named 'soot' near a nuclear reactor somehow does not builds up confidence :)
I guess they first thought of Topeka, KS but realized Google was already on it... maybe it'll turn out in the end that TR will take the name of Gar...
They should have read classics in school, too bad.
Does anyone find a bit of a coincidence that torrentreactor - a pirating website - chose Gar as a town? I mean, Its obvious. Next they should look for YARGH!!!!! or Simply YAR!!!!
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
But I thought in soviet Russia, town buys you!
Giant idle spill continues to pollute the front page.. The owners had no comment when asked how long it will be before the leak is plugged... Reports of interface contamination have been flooding in for months now, and several readers have washed up on multiply.. One user commented on the condition of Anonymity, "Oh, the humanity! This is a tragedy of unimagined proportions for worldwide geekdom. With kdawson in charge of cleanup efforts, it is doubtful the site will ever recover." It has been suggested by some that Jon Katz be recalled out of retirement.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
It's only a matter of time before other cities start auctioning off their naming rights...........
GoDaddy, Arizona (Formerly Scottsdale)
Microsoft City, Washington. (Formerly Redmond)
GooglePlex, Googlia (Formerly Mountain View, California)
Playboy, Porn-ia (Formerly Chicago, Illinois)
Empire of Obamia (Formerly, the United States of America)
Yeah, you can all keep laughing but when I buy a town in England with a castle and rename it Hogwarts, none of you are invited!
The town I live in just got renamed to Meatspin. It's so embarassing, I think I'll move to the neighbouring town of Tubgirl or perhaps Lemonparty.
Does anyone find a bit of a coincidence that torrentreactor - a pirating website - chose Gar as a town?
Because the name refers to a badass that one would be willing to be gay for. It beat out Gao and Gai.
First, anyone reading the TorrentFreak article would have noticed the link at the bottom of the article that brings you to a second, related article... http://torrentfreak.com/despite-confusion-village-wants-torrent-site-investment-100809/ which explains that most of the details that Torrentreactor had about Gar were wrong, and that they never did buy a town or make an offer... but in fact the people of the REAL town of Gar are very interested in the money.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
A town by where I used to live did something similar to this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_or_Consequences,_New_Mexico
Never mind the dot-com boom, this kind of publicity stunt has been around since at least the 1950s: Truth of Consequences, NM, named after a game show.
Wait, the guys on torrentreactor get on ships and terrorize people on the high seas? Oh, you mean data copiers, meh nevermind...
For best results, avoid doing stupid things.
Shitterton, England. (Apparently their town sign kept going missing, so now they have a big new immovable one, made of stone.)
You can not rename a village in Russia for sponsorship. Maybe it is allowed in USA, but in Russia it is not. So the whole thing is fake, couldn't be otherwise.