I'm reminded of an editorial comic where someone creates a personal website for his cat and gets 10 million dollars in investment because he's visionary -- in effect, it's a parody of the.com bubble -- which Microsoft will fund.
I need to get cracking if I'm to get my $240 million...
The Internet is the biggest Social Networking site on the planet, and all these subcategories of it are going to be less and less important as larger percentages of the populace can build their own little inter-communicative sites.
Perhaps the real money is in creating a site which allows people to tie all their memberships together across these social networking sites. Should that happen, I predict lawsuits -- they don't want you to go anywhere else and they'll do anything to stop you within their power. But it would be a neat idea.
Is there any special meta-meta-mod points out there for reading this with "Chevron... the power of human energy" above it? I wasn't aware humans consumed petroleum-based hydrocarbons and shit out CO2.
Perhaps you are the one person in the world incapable of passing wind. Congrats. Perhaps we do not directly consume petroleum-base hydrocarbons, but we consume a great many things which would not be produced, or at lease in quantity at low cost, without the benefit of relatively inexpensive petrol. The beans you eat, the beer you drink, well, they are produced with heavy reliance on petrol and are transported to your local seller by vehicles using petrol.
Fearing it might lose control over the next generation of computer users, Microsoft has been attempting to match and in some cases block Google's plans, even if that effort is costly. In other words, they didn't spend $240 million for 1.6% because Facebook is worth $15 billion. They paid $240 million because they're in the middle of a pissing match with Google.
Actually I blame it on bad Bistromathics, someone took one too many toothpicks from the bowl by the register and there's an extra mustard stain on the tablecloth.
In six months' time Facebook will be "worth" half that and in a year it'll be worth nothing.
I'll pick it up at the liquidation sale and rename it VirtualWasteland. It's sure to be a hit with counter-culture crowd and I'll be able to sell 1.6% of it to Microsoft again! =)
After hearing so much about mySpace I finally surfed it, set up a page and looked around. It's all rubbish. People ask to join your list
of friends to spam you and the interface is clunky at best. I think such a site would be a good idea, but their implementation falls short of the mark
by leagues.
Along comes Facebook, cleaner interface, perhaps better ability to keep crap from showing up in comments or messages people send you. Hopefully if you are spammed
there's an actual admin who gives them the boot, though it's quick and easy to join so an abuser will likely create accounts as needed for pest purposes. When rot sets in people will leave and go
to the next big site, leaving mySpace and Facebook to host an ever shrinking group willing to put up with crap.
Two hundred forty! Million! Dollars!? IIIIII'mmmmmm the CAAAAAT! Seriously this is great news for those who hold ownership in this site, they'll rake in a very considerable profit.
Poor public transporation support, dumbing down of education, can't afford universal health care, but Hey, that war with no end in sight is keeping a lot of men and women out of the job market to leave holes for others to fill, even if on a temp basis (since many of these people will eventually return to their old jobs, in theory.)
Every time George hits up Congress for another round of war funding it's the equivilent of hitting every adult and child in the USA for $260+. That sort of pull-together could certainly accomplish a lot of infrastructure, science, quality of living.
Yeah, years ago a mate when to Japan for a month and brought back the absolute coolest combo radio/CD player. I checked the local Sony stores and found they didn't have it. Nothing even close to as nice as the Only Japan Market model. That was about 16 years ago. Nothing new here.
Beyond discounting the damage of piracy to RIAA partner profits, the fact a band
can raise at least that much money selling their own album suggests the bar is now
so low bands need not sell their souls out for a record contract.
So Madonna is considering a fat new contract with some record company, that's their
mistake. She's past her use by date anyway.
I think I need to record some of my own music and see how it flies.
When I was about 13 a friend and I rode our bicycles (the big old heavy steel ones of yor) about a mile away from home to purchase some candy and likely the latest issue of MAD. It was a typical hot and humid Summer day. On the way home we felt the wind pick up, kicking up dust and leaves and looked northward. Like a great steam locomotive out of the north a massive grey bank of thunderheads (large nimbus clouds with flared and flattened tops) was sweeping down. As it bore down, the front appeared to be ploughing smaller cumulous clouds before it like waves of pondscum. The face of the front was concave and decidedly dark and voluminous as it approached. The wind was practically a roar by the time I reached my parents house, struck by large early drops of rain as I sprinted across the lawn and up to the porch. It turned out to be one of the more violent in my memory.
Personally, I doubt that he got assassinated because someone hated him. He probably got whacked because he refused to pay the mob for his cut for illicit activities on their turf--and being an asshole was simply icing on the cake.
Either way, I had about 100 spams on Monday (that eluded my ISP's filter) and only about 20 today. I figure if its profitable someone, even the mob, will step in and fill the gap.
If you check the whois info on this site, it was created on October 11, 2007, today. Yet the site shows archives going back to February 2007? Archives which are "disabled' because of high traffic..
It's been copied around several sites today and it is quite late, as of this posting, so it's entirely possible his site was hammered starting today after his post. I see no reason to conjecture it as fraud.
Well.. an arrest of sorts. My money's on cardiac. *Rimshot!*
For spammers this may become known as Death by Natural Causes.
"That's odd I feel strangely different, there's a dead body in here and blood everywhere."
"YOU HAVE MAIL."
"Who are you? Do I know you, have we met?"
"I USUALLY MEET EVERYONE ONLY ONCE."
"Uh. Ooooohh...."
Mafia does not kill for spam - they kill for not sharing the profits of the venture. The guy probably thought that just because his business is virtual it is immune from racket, big mistake but I won't shred a single tear for this bastard. Maybe a hitfund should be setup - $1 mln per head of top 20 spammers in the world.
Sure, then once the old spammers are out of the way the mob would step in. There's a real solution...
I noticed a drop in spam over the past week and figured another big arrest had been made, which would
be in the news. Well.. an arrest of sorts.
While I don't advocate the killing of spammers, it's hard to argue
with results. What I do wonder is if this is a hit from a rival spammer.
Where do we see evidence spam was sent to the wrong person? Begin notorious
in Russia is a bit unhealthy, particularly when you have large amounts of
money and no bodyguards.
Russian Viagra and Penis Enlargement Spammer Murdered
Posted on October 11th, 2007 by admin and filed under Uncategorized.
Wow, just saw this on TV, so I decided to translate this story into English so my readers will be first to learn this. Sorry for mistakes in my English, I'm doing this in a hurry:)
Alexey Tolstokozhev (btw, in Russian his name means 'Thick Skin'), a Russian spammer, found murdered in his luxury house near Moscow. He has been shot several times with one bullet stuck in his head. According to authorities, this last head shot is a clear mark of russian hit men (known as "killers" in Russia).
Who hated Tolstokozhev so much as to hire a hit man to assasinate him? Well, I guess you have about one billion e-mail users to suspect. Tolstokozhev was a famous spammer who sent millions of e-mail promoting viagra, cialis, penis enlargement pills and other medications. Links in these e-mails usually led to some pharmacy shop, which paid Tolstokozhev a share of its revenue. This is a well known affiliate scheme employed by spammers worldwide.
Tolstokozhev is estimated to be responsible for up to 30% percent of all viagra and penis enlargement related spam.
In order to send millions and millions of unsolicited letters, Tolstokozhev employed a network of infected computers (so-called "botnet"), which he rented from hackers.
How profitable is spam? Well, the authorities say that Tolstokozhev has likely made more than $2 million in 2007 alone. (in comparison: average russian monthly salary is $400)
This is a second murder of a spammer in Russia. Another russian spammer, Vardan Kushnir, was assassinated in 2005.
"Violent murders is a clear sign that spam becomes a serious criminal activity" - the officials say. "Easy money attracts criminals, which bring their own version of "justice" with them."
It will enable us to further the careers of the passionate, creative and hard working teams at BioWare Edmonton and BioWare Austin.'"
Yes. When they consolidate there will be several people passionate about eating and paying their bills who will be looking afield to continue their careers.
As for the comments about MS beig in it purely for the money... sheesh. What do you expect?
I'd love to read on, but you seem not to have noticed that certain predictions are made of companies. If they don't have so much revenue, meet some growth target in a quarter or year, their stock begins to slide. Reduction in stock price is seen not just as Bill or Steve losing some value in their personal portfolios, but the company performance, ability to borrow, perception of other businesses, etc. Microsoft is a leader and has to look like one, so there's more than simply dollars at stake.
Microsoft released this early clearly because they were at the end of the profitable cycle of XP and needed a new product. It's slow adoption they have coloured and spun, but the fact is the rate of adoption is slowing with each iteration of Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
If they could burn manure or harness the gas emissions of a cow they'd have something.
Don't be too proud of this technological marvel you have created for it is nothing compared to the power of the slashdot effect.
I'm reminded of an editorial comic where someone creates a personal website for his cat and gets 10 million dollars in investment because he's visionary -- in effect, it's a parody of the .com bubble -- which Microsoft will fund.
I need to get cracking if I'm to get my $240 million...
We've got mixed drinks! Don't forget to put on your black shirts, sweatpants, Nikes and Away Team arm bands before going to bed!
Valhalla's Gate, Valhalla's Gate, Valhalla's Gate, Valhalla's Gate, Valhalla's Gate, Valhalla's Gate, ufo, ufo, ufo, ufo, ufo, ufo, space alien, space alien, space alien, space alien, space alien, space alien, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial, millennium, millennium, millennium, millennium, millennium, millennium, millennium, misinformation, misinformation, misinformation, misinformation, misinformation, misinformation, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, second coming, second coming, second coming, second coming, second coming, second coming, angels, angels, angels, angels, angels, angels, end times, end times, end times, end times, end times, end times, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, God, God, God, God, God, God
Perhaps the real money is in creating a site which allows people to tie all their memberships together across these social networking sites. Should that happen, I predict lawsuits -- they don't want you to go anywhere else and they'll do anything to stop you within their power. But it would be a neat idea.
Perhaps you are the one person in the world incapable of passing wind. Congrats. Perhaps we do not directly consume petroleum-base hydrocarbons, but we consume a great many things which would not be produced, or at lease in quantity at low cost, without the benefit of relatively inexpensive petrol. The beans you eat, the beer you drink, well, they are produced with heavy reliance on petrol and are transported to your local seller by vehicles using petrol.
Actually I blame it on bad Bistromathics, someone took one too many toothpicks from the bowl by the register and there's an extra mustard stain on the tablecloth.
In six months' time Facebook will be "worth" half that and in a year it'll be worth nothing.
I'll pick it up at the liquidation sale and rename it VirtualWasteland. It's sure to be a hit with counter-culture crowd and I'll be able to sell 1.6% of it to Microsoft again! =)
After hearing so much about mySpace I finally surfed it, set up a page and looked around. It's all rubbish. People ask to join your list of friends to spam you and the interface is clunky at best. I think such a site would be a good idea, but their implementation falls short of the mark by leagues.
Along comes Facebook, cleaner interface, perhaps better ability to keep crap from showing up in comments or messages people send you. Hopefully if you are spammed there's an actual admin who gives them the boot, though it's quick and easy to join so an abuser will likely create accounts as needed for pest purposes. When rot sets in people will leave and go to the next big site, leaving mySpace and Facebook to host an ever shrinking group willing to put up with crap.
Two hundred forty! Million! Dollars!? IIIIII'mmmmmm the CAAAAAT! Seriously this is great news for those who hold ownership in this site, they'll rake in a very considerable profit.
Poor public transporation support, dumbing down of education, can't afford universal health care, but Hey, that war with no end in sight is keeping a lot of men and women out of the job market to leave holes for others to fill, even if on a temp basis (since many of these people will eventually return to their old jobs, in theory.)
Every time George hits up Congress for another round of war funding it's the equivilent of hitting every adult and child in the USA for $260+. That sort of pull-together could certainly accomplish a lot of infrastructure, science, quality of living.
Yeah, years ago a mate when to Japan for a month and brought back the absolute coolest combo radio/CD player. I checked the local Sony stores and found they didn't have it. Nothing even close to as nice as the Only Japan Market model. That was about 16 years ago. Nothing new here.
Six. Million. Dollars!!
Beyond discounting the damage of piracy to RIAA partner profits, the fact a band can raise at least that much money selling their own album suggests the bar is now so low bands need not sell their souls out for a record contract.
So Madonna is considering a fat new contract with some record company, that's their mistake. She's past her use by date anyway.
I think I need to record some of my own music and see how it flies.
Nice post, what's it doing here? ;-)
When I was about 13 a friend and I rode our bicycles (the big old heavy steel ones of yor) about a mile away from home to purchase some candy and likely the latest issue of MAD. It was a typical hot and humid Summer day. On the way home we felt the wind pick up, kicking up dust and leaves and looked northward. Like a great steam locomotive out of the north a massive grey bank of thunderheads (large nimbus clouds with flared and flattened tops) was sweeping down. As it bore down, the front appeared to be ploughing smaller cumulous clouds before it like waves of pondscum. The face of the front was concave and decidedly dark and voluminous as it approached. The wind was practically a roar by the time I reached my parents house, struck by large early drops of rain as I sprinted across the lawn and up to the porch. It turned out to be one of the more violent in my memory.
Domain loonov.com registered Oct 11th... FAKE!!!!
Probably, to be totally ironic here, harvesting the address of everyone who reads it - for spamming.
"There's nothing wrong with it"
"Quick! Fix it! Hurry up we want this fixed in several months!"
Personally, I doubt that he got assassinated because someone hated him. He probably got whacked because he refused to pay the mob for his cut for illicit activities on their turf--and being an asshole was simply icing on the cake.
Either way, I had about 100 spams on Monday (that eluded my ISP's filter) and only about 20 today. I figure if its profitable someone, even the mob, will step in and fill the gap.
It's been copied around several sites today and it is quite late, as of this posting, so it's entirely possible his site was hammered starting today after his post. I see no reason to conjecture it as fraud.
For spammers this may become known as Death by Natural Causes.
"That's odd I feel strangely different, there's a dead body in here and blood everywhere."
"YOU HAVE MAIL."
"Who are you? Do I know you, have we met?"
"I USUALLY MEET EVERYONE ONLY ONCE."
"Uh. Ooooohh...."
Sure, then once the old spammers are out of the way the mob would step in. There's a real solution...
Reminds me of the Simpson's episode where Bill Gates "buys out" Homer's CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet. "I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks."
Mafia conventiently and discretely deliver YOU!
I noticed a drop in spam over the past week and figured another big arrest had been made, which would be in the news. Well .. an arrest of sorts.
While I don't advocate the killing of spammers, it's hard to argue with results. What I do wonder is if this is a hit from a rival spammer. Where do we see evidence spam was sent to the wrong person? Begin notorious in Russia is a bit unhealthy, particularly when you have large amounts of money and no bodyguards.
From another source:
To do that they'd probably need a supply of pills conventiently and discretely distributed.
BTW, here's the original source of the news
Russian Viagra and Penis Enlargement Spammer MurderedPosted on October 11th, 2007 by admin and filed under Uncategorized.
Wow, just saw this on TV, so I decided to translate this story into English so my readers will be first to learn this. Sorry for mistakes in my English, I'm doing this in a hurry
Alexey Tolstokozhev (btw, in Russian his name means 'Thick Skin'), a Russian spammer, found murdered in his luxury house near Moscow. He has been shot several times with one bullet stuck in his head. According to authorities, this last head shot is a clear mark of russian hit men (known as "killers" in Russia).
Who hated Tolstokozhev so much as to hire a hit man to assasinate him? Well, I guess you have about one billion e-mail users to suspect. Tolstokozhev was a famous spammer who sent millions of e-mail promoting viagra, cialis, penis enlargement pills and other medications. Links in these e-mails usually led to some pharmacy shop, which paid Tolstokozhev a share of its revenue. This is a well known affiliate scheme employed by spammers worldwide.
Tolstokozhev is estimated to be responsible for up to 30% percent of all viagra and penis enlargement related spam.
In order to send millions and millions of unsolicited letters, Tolstokozhev employed a network of infected computers (so-called "botnet"), which he rented from hackers.
How profitable is spam? Well, the authorities say that Tolstokozhev has likely made more than $2 million in 2007 alone. (in comparison: average russian monthly salary is $400)
This is a second murder of a spammer in Russia. Another russian spammer, Vardan Kushnir, was assassinated in 2005.
"Violent murders is a clear sign that spam becomes a serious criminal activity" - the officials say. "Easy money attracts criminals, which bring their own version of "justice" with them."
Because the 43rd would probably be the one what picks up that crucial signal:
All your base are belong to us!
Which would remove all doubt .. there is no intelligent life in outer space.
Yes. When they consolidate there will be several people passionate about eating and paying their bills who will be looking afield to continue their careers.
I'd love to read on, but you seem not to have noticed that certain predictions are made of companies. If they don't have so much revenue, meet some growth target in a quarter or year, their stock begins to slide. Reduction in stock price is seen not just as Bill or Steve losing some value in their personal portfolios, but the company performance, ability to borrow, perception of other businesses, etc. Microsoft is a leader and has to look like one, so there's more than simply dollars at stake.
Microsoft released this early clearly because they were at the end of the profitable cycle of XP and needed a new product. It's slow adoption they have coloured and spun, but the fact is the rate of adoption is slowing with each iteration of Windows.