My observations exactly, tho I'd put it a bit more fundamentally than "engineer" -- it applies to anyone who can't tolerate the world being anything less than black-and-white or wholly-controllable. Math and engineering, with their emphasis on order and precision, appeal to that mindset.
I've found a pretty good rule of thumb for whether a math/engineering type is unbalanced or normal, is what they do outside of work. If their hobbies are random stuff unrelated to work, no problem. But if their hobbies are fundamentally indistinguishable from their work, watch out.
Actually you could apply this to the soft-science side, too (see my posts above). Frex, a politician who builds model airplanes for fun or whose real job is running a ranch or business is probably okay mentally, but a politician whose only real hobby is making the social circuit is liable to have an unbalanced "people are there to be used" mindset.
See above where I point out that there are hard-science terrorists, and soft-science terrorists, which latter include politicians, Wall-Streeters, and other social-engineers.
And I would agree that the business-attire set are ultimately more destructive, and do harm (if sometimes indirectly) to far more people than any camo-suit terrorist could achieve in his wildest dreams.
Also, my observation is that math and engineering appeal to a certain type of highly intelligent but unbalanced personality that is unable to see the world except as 100% pigeonholed data, utterly black-and-white. Shades of grey and uncategorized data disturb or even terrify them, and the more unbalanced ones will take steps to "rectify" that. Hence the educated terrorist is more likely to be of this particular scientific bent.
At the other end of the spectrum we have the "soft science" type of unbalanced personality, who is a "user" of others, and is more likely to wind up as a crooked or radical politician.
If you eat enough fat and protein, your body won't be fooled by carbs of any type, and your appetite will control itself. But today's "healthy eating" craze restricts fats and proteins. THAT is the real issue you're seeing, not which type of carb is consumed or what its concentration is. Fat-deprived people crave carbs, and protein-deprived people lack long-term appetite control.
Beer is a poor example, since people often drink to achieve a certain level of buzz, and that takes NN-much alcohol whether you get it from everclear or near-beer. Obviously it takes a lot more near-beer. Which tastes worse, I leave as an exercise for the reader.
That's all true. Blaming fructose is like blaming spoons because you ate the whole container of ice cream. We've been taught to clean our plates, then they made the plate larger AND loaded it with carbs while taking away fats and proteins, and most people lack the self-control or the self-awareness to stop when they're satisfied rather than only when the food is all gone. Between that and our radically more-sedentary lifestyle of the past couple decades, what did people expect, a population of svelt athletes??
And yes, I have noticed a fairly good correlation between eating-out all the time (especially if it's fast food) and steady weight gain.
But the bigger one is the computer era. I've watched dozens of people go from slim to spherical with the SOLE change in their life being how much time they spend in front of the computer. Furthermore, the up-all-night gaming lifestyle tends to make you munchy (according to some research, it impacts your insulin metabolism which causes this). Bigger snacks, less exercise, hello balloon world!
BTW, being as usual a freak, I still fit in my college clothes, and I'm now 55.:) But I do physical work every day, I eat a rather old-fashioned diet (from before all this 'healthy eating'** restricted fats and proteins), and I don't snack in front of the computer, even tho we spend many hours together (as you can tell by my/. stats;)
Eh, that's biochemical nonsense -- your gut *also* takes the fructose out of the INDIGESTIBLE fibre. That's what fibre is, by definition -- the parts you can't digest/absorb.
(BTW I can't see YouTube anymore, but I trust my 98%-of-a-biochem degree more than anything I'd see there. Tho feel free to post a synopsis.)
Fibre can affect speed of digestion/absorption, yes. But once ANY nutrient is past the intestinal wall, no. Especially since the fibre NEVER crosses that barrier in any form whatever.
Fibre is, by definition, indigestible matter.
Another amusing point on that note... people who push a high-veggie diet, then scream when cellulose is added to some products. It's a wonder their heads don't assplode.
There's differences in the production line between animals exhaling CO2, and burning stuff to release CO2 as well. That doesn't change the composition of said CO2.
As to the declining use, I believe I saw that in a chart in the Wikipedia article on HFCS, or some page linked from there. But Vidnet linked to more definitive data, tho you'll have to make your own chart. See http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1788586&cid=33597224
ANY kind of sugar can be regarded as a "form of alcohol". Fructose isn't special that way.
I'm now reminded of the argument that you shouldn't eat corn products because "they ferment in the gut". Noooo, you should eat rice instead because it "doesn't ferment". Er... if that's so, anyone care to explain how Budweiser makes beer??
Fructose IS the common isomer of glucose. I could not find any info about the evils of its own isomers.
That "large number of processes" is not in the chain of events here being discussed. Either we add sucrose to certain processed foods, or we add some other sugar. We don't bond it to something else first, it's free in the food as a simple carb regardless of what sugar is used. And every time you eat table sugar you wind up with an equivalency of fructose no matter what.
As to insulin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose#Compared_to_sucrose the evidence would suggest that if anything, proportionally more fructose in the diet should cause a decrease in tendencies toward obesity... if it weren't for that pesky calories-is-calories thing.
"...the same old fantasy of being able to eat all the crap you want as long as it's the right kind of crap."
That's exactly so. This discussion is full of posts that are perfectly willing to believe all manner of psuedoscience or even Made-Up-Shit, so long as it means that what THEY eat is better or not at fault, even tho they're consuming the same excess calories and the same carb-heavy diet... often in biochemically identical form under a different name or from a different source.
I'm forcibly reminded of a Mac-devotee mantra from about 15 years ago: "WE don't have those nasty PC drivers and TSRs. WE have our lovely extensions and inits." (Conveniently remaining ignorant that they're the exact same things... and there was absolutely NO explaining that. Belief trumps knowledge every time.)
"WE don't use that nasty toxic manufactured HFCS. WE use safe, natural honey."
"WE don't drink that horrid poisonous dihydrogen monoxide. WE drink naturally-hydrogenated oxygen."
I think I saw the chart showing use of different types of sugars in the Wikipedia article on HFCS. If not there, then on one of the more obvious article links therefrom.
When I think about it I'm not too surprised -- some of the instant drink mixes, which had switched to fructose a few years ago, have lately switched back to using plain sugar. (Nestea for one.) Fructose doesn't taste quite the same, I find the difference irritating, and I know that is enough to send me packing to a different brand; I doubt I'm alone. Sales dips are a telling argument, even tho they were not the least bit interested in listening to complaints when the switch to fructose (and then worse, sucralose -- yicch!) was first made.
Anyway, that's a big enough market that it alone might account for the decrease.
I suspect this problem often goes unrecognised, even tho it's not uncommon in some ethnic groups.
When my neighbour went to the doctor with her symptoms, she was prescribed something for acid reflux but it didn't occur to the doctor to ask about her soda consumption -- which proved to be the culprit. When she ran out of soda the symptoms miraculously vanished! Next time she bought a case of soda... back again!
But it's just not the sort of thing the average doctor is going to ask about when someone presents with stomach cramps, acid reflux, and diarrhea.
Also, we live in HMO hell where they've got all of eight minutes to process each patient. And my experience is that you have to be very careful NOT to mention any potentially kneejerk-diagnosis symptoms, or that's as far as the doctor will get. It's not really the fault of the doctors, but rather of the HMO system that prevents them from developing a good doctor-patient relationship (yes, I'm old enough to remember when you had a lifelong family doctor).
So you may have fructose intolerance or malabsorption, which is not terribly rare. My former neighbour apparently has a mild form of the malabsorption syndrom, as if she consumes too much soda too regularly, she gets gut cramps, diarrhea, stomach pain, and a recurrance of the acid reflux that had otherwise gone away once she stopped eating her mom's flaming-hot-spiced cooking.
Your chemistry class should also have taught you that the first thing your body does when it gets hold of sucrose, is break it down -- into equal parts fructose and glucose.
"...in exactly the same way that baking soda (NaHCO3) is 50% lye (NaOH)"
Oh man, you made me spit carbonated lye and medium fructose bee barf all over my monitor:D
Based on the chemistry expertise of the average poster, I think it's time to resurrect the campaign against DHMO. Except this time, rather than trying to convince people of its toxicity in its natural state, we should concentrate on the dangerously explosive traits of uncontrolled hydrogen, once it's been chemically separated from the DHMO.;)
My college biochemistry texts caught on fire while I was reading this thread... yours is the only even nearly-correct post.
Fructose is just fruit sugar, or half of a sucrose (table sugar) molecule. Fructose takes an extra step to get broken down down to glucose so is not as efficiently used by the body, but this is nothing different from the fructose half of sucrose.
If you think fructose is bad, stop eating fruit, cuz it's the sugar you'll find therein. You could just as well call it "fruit sugar" as "corn sugar" -- both are correct.
Honey is chemically indistinguisable from HFCS-55. In fact HFCS is sometimes used to illegally "stretch" honey, and the only way to tell HFCS from honey is by the pollen-protein contaminants found in honey. Amazingly, the people who are first to condemn HFCS are usually also the first to tout honey as a "natural replacement" for sugar... when in fact it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. (Where DID you think the bees got the sugars in honey, anyway??)
HFCS is only "high fructose" in comparsion to regular corn syrup.
HFCS use in foods has been declining, yet obesity continues to rise... kinda kills that as a direct correlation, eh?
Most of the other, uh, fructose-cake arguments are so biochemically nonsensical that I don't even know where to start.
My own objection to HFCS is that food doesn't taste quite right when fructose is used as a substitute for sucrose, and this irritates my supertaster senses. However, corn syrup is perfectly good for use in certain candies, where its flavour is expected.
Yep, I've seen Redneck Rampage... pretty funny tho I'm not a humour type of gamer:) I did notice a few titles I'd meant to look at way-back-when, that I might have to snag next time there's spare change for it (things are a bit snug right now). Did have a problem with the search engine, it just plain ignored me as did some of the header tabs on the site... not sure what gives there. Oh well, a problem for another day. Does look like they're very actively pursuing the stuff of yesteryear that was decent in its day.
Have already passed the info along to someone who maintains some older gaming group systems, this stuff oughta be right in their target range.:)
Your cheap vidcard makes mine feel inadequate:) I think the newest one around here is of the 128mb vintage, probably 6 or 7 years old by now and wasn't high-end then. The one in my main box is a 16mb Matrox dating from 1998. Shaders? Whuzzat?!
I don't know about that story, but here's mine: A while back my domains-and-hosting bill, which should automatically go to my credit card, got rejected by said credit card (turns out the card was fubar'd after BofA ate MBNA). 1&1 could have simply cancelled my account, domains and all. Instead I got an email telling me about the problem. This was about a month after the bill originally fell due so apparently routine to do it on the next billing cycle. Anyway I redid the payment on a different card and life went on. No mention of any collection agency; the presumption evidently was that a good customer wishes to retain their account.
Before I moved my domains, I googled for complaints, under the theory that there was no use jumping from frypan to fire if there was something I didn't know (tho I already had a few domains at 1&1 without difficulty, and was already happier with them than I'd ever been with GoDaddy). I found very few for 1&1, and shitloads for GoDaddy. Something like 300 vs 30,000, if I recall right. Tho against the perspective of millions of customers, neither is a huge number.
I've run into a lot of those forgotten domains being "montetized" by the registrar... nothing but damned irritating, they are... all of mine are at least pointed at *some* real site.
I had fun with one SEO outfit that tried to sell me some keywords... while the Nice Young Salesman was giving me his spiel, I looked up their company's own website's traffic, and it was only about 10% of what I already get on my main site. (A datum which rather flummoxed said NYS.) And here's the big question: if my site is so hard to find, how did *they* find it??;)
I did recently hear from someone who wanted to buy one of my domains for his new business... no, sorry, I've used that business name since 1975, and you really should find a different one or *mine* will steal all *your* traffic.
Yeah, I've had the same thing happen... no plan survives contact with the internet;)
And I don't go grabbing a bunch just to have 'em; I've only got a dozen or so and at least have SOME notion what they're good for, or else they're a word or businessname that is already associated with me (like my longtime usernames). And a couple I manage for other folks.
If everyone did like us, there wouldn't be this squatter market in the first place. It occurs to me to wonder how much of GoDaddy's billion-dollar value is in squatted names, and what percentage are real sites (if I were bidding, I'd want to know this). And I'm also wondering if some squatted domains will fall out of the system and become available to the real world, when the company is sold.
Slashdot Mirror
My observations exactly, tho I'd put it a bit more fundamentally than "engineer" -- it applies to anyone who can't tolerate the world being anything less than black-and-white or wholly-controllable. Math and engineering, with their emphasis on order and precision, appeal to that mindset.
I've found a pretty good rule of thumb for whether a math/engineering type is unbalanced or normal, is what they do outside of work. If their hobbies are random stuff unrelated to work, no problem. But if their hobbies are fundamentally indistinguishable from their work, watch out.
Actually you could apply this to the soft-science side, too (see my posts above). Frex, a politician who builds model airplanes for fun or whose real job is running a ranch or business is probably okay mentally, but a politician whose only real hobby is making the social circuit is liable to have an unbalanced "people are there to be used" mindset.
See above where I point out that there are hard-science terrorists, and soft-science terrorists, which latter include politicians, Wall-Streeters, and other social-engineers.
And I would agree that the business-attire set are ultimately more destructive, and do harm (if sometimes indirectly) to far more people than any camo-suit terrorist could achieve in his wildest dreams.
Also, my observation is that math and engineering appeal to a certain type of highly intelligent but unbalanced personality that is unable to see the world except as 100% pigeonholed data, utterly black-and-white. Shades of grey and uncategorized data disturb or even terrify them, and the more unbalanced ones will take steps to "rectify" that. Hence the educated terrorist is more likely to be of this particular scientific bent.
At the other end of the spectrum we have the "soft science" type of unbalanced personality, who is a "user" of others, and is more likely to wind up as a crooked or radical politician.
Same principle, different application.
If you eat enough fat and protein, your body won't be fooled by carbs of any type, and your appetite will control itself. But today's "healthy eating" craze restricts fats and proteins. THAT is the real issue you're seeing, not which type of carb is consumed or what its concentration is. Fat-deprived people crave carbs, and protein-deprived people lack long-term appetite control.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=print
Beer is a poor example, since people often drink to achieve a certain level of buzz, and that takes NN-much alcohol whether you get it from everclear or near-beer. Obviously it takes a lot more near-beer. Which tastes worse, I leave as an exercise for the reader.
That's all true. Blaming fructose is like blaming spoons because you ate the whole container of ice cream. We've been taught to clean our plates, then they made the plate larger AND loaded it with carbs while taking away fats and proteins, and most people lack the self-control or the self-awareness to stop when they're satisfied rather than only when the food is all gone. Between that and our radically more-sedentary lifestyle of the past couple decades, what did people expect, a population of svelt athletes??
And yes, I have noticed a fairly good correlation between eating-out all the time (especially if it's fast food) and steady weight gain.
But the bigger one is the computer era. I've watched dozens of people go from slim to spherical with the SOLE change in their life being how much time they spend in front of the computer. Furthermore, the up-all-night gaming lifestyle tends to make you munchy (according to some research, it impacts your insulin metabolism which causes this). Bigger snacks, less exercise, hello balloon world!
BTW, being as usual a freak, I still fit in my college clothes, and I'm now 55. :) But I do physical work every day, I eat a rather old-fashioned diet (from before all this 'healthy eating'** restricted fats and proteins), and I don't snack in front of the computer, even tho we spend many hours together (as you can tell by my /. stats ;)
** http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=print
Eh, that's biochemical nonsense -- your gut *also* takes the fructose out of the INDIGESTIBLE fibre. That's what fibre is, by definition -- the parts you can't digest/absorb.
(BTW I can't see YouTube anymore, but I trust my 98%-of-a-biochem degree more than anything I'd see there. Tho feel free to post a synopsis.)
Fibre can affect speed of digestion/absorption, yes. But once ANY nutrient is past the intestinal wall, no. Especially since the fibre NEVER crosses that barrier in any form whatever.
Fibre is, by definition, indigestible matter.
Another amusing point on that note... people who push a high-veggie diet, then scream when cellulose is added to some products. It's a wonder their heads don't assplode.
There's differences in the production line between animals exhaling CO2, and burning stuff to release CO2 as well. That doesn't change the composition of said CO2.
As to the declining use, I believe I saw that in a chart in the Wikipedia article on HFCS, or some page linked from there. But Vidnet linked to more definitive data, tho you'll have to make your own chart. See http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1788586&cid=33597224
ANY kind of sugar can be regarded as a "form of alcohol". Fructose isn't special that way.
I'm now reminded of the argument that you shouldn't eat corn products because "they ferment in the gut". Noooo, you should eat rice instead because it "doesn't ferment". Er... if that's so, anyone care to explain how Budweiser makes beer??
(No fair answering, "by diluting horse piss". ;)
Fructose IS the common isomer of glucose. I could not find any info about the evils of its own isomers.
That "large number of processes" is not in the chain of events here being discussed. Either we add sucrose to certain processed foods, or we add some other sugar. We don't bond it to something else first, it's free in the food as a simple carb regardless of what sugar is used. And every time you eat table sugar you wind up with an equivalency of fructose no matter what.
As to insulin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose#Compared_to_sucrose
the evidence would suggest that if anything, proportionally more fructose in the diet should cause a decrease in tendencies toward obesity... if it weren't for that pesky calories-is-calories thing.
"...the same old fantasy of being able to eat all the crap you want as long as it's the right kind of crap."
That's exactly so. This discussion is full of posts that are perfectly willing to believe all manner of psuedoscience or even Made-Up-Shit, so long as it means that what THEY eat is better or not at fault, even tho they're consuming the same excess calories and the same carb-heavy diet... often in biochemically identical form under a different name or from a different source.
I'm forcibly reminded of a Mac-devotee mantra from about 15 years ago: "WE don't have those nasty PC drivers and TSRs. WE have our lovely extensions and inits." (Conveniently remaining ignorant that they're the exact same things... and there was absolutely NO explaining that. Belief trumps knowledge every time.)
"WE don't use that nasty toxic manufactured HFCS. WE use safe, natural honey."
"WE don't drink that horrid poisonous dihydrogen monoxide. WE drink naturally-hydrogenated oxygen."
Ah, the flexible language of chemistry... ;)
Worse, one could get caught in an endless loop of byproducts, toxic dioxyl (if that's a word), and rocket fuel ;)
I think I saw the chart showing use of different types of sugars in the Wikipedia article on HFCS. If not there, then on one of the more obvious article links therefrom.
When I think about it I'm not too surprised -- some of the instant drink mixes, which had switched to fructose a few years ago, have lately switched back to using plain sugar. (Nestea for one.) Fructose doesn't taste quite the same, I find the difference irritating, and I know that is enough to send me packing to a different brand; I doubt I'm alone. Sales dips are a telling argument, even tho they were not the least bit interested in listening to complaints when the switch to fructose (and then worse, sucralose -- yicch!) was first made.
Anyway, that's a big enough market that it alone might account for the decrease.
As I replied to the other fellow --
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fructose-intolerance/AN01574
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption
I suspect this problem often goes unrecognised, even tho it's not uncommon in some ethnic groups.
When my neighbour went to the doctor with her symptoms, she was prescribed something for acid reflux but it didn't occur to the doctor to ask about her soda consumption -- which proved to be the culprit. When she ran out of soda the symptoms miraculously vanished! Next time she bought a case of soda... back again!
But it's just not the sort of thing the average doctor is going to ask about when someone presents with stomach cramps, acid reflux, and diarrhea.
Also, we live in HMO hell where they've got all of eight minutes to process each patient. And my experience is that you have to be very careful NOT to mention any potentially kneejerk-diagnosis symptoms, or that's as far as the doctor will get. It's not really the fault of the doctors, but rather of the HMO system that prevents them from developing a good doctor-patient relationship (yes, I'm old enough to remember when you had a lifelong family doctor).
So you may have fructose intolerance or malabsorption, which is not terribly rare. My former neighbour apparently has a mild form of the malabsorption syndrom, as if she consumes too much soda too regularly, she gets gut cramps, diarrhea, stomach pain, and a recurrance of the acid reflux that had otherwise gone away once she stopped eating her mom's flaming-hot-spiced cooking.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fructose-intolerance/AN01574
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption
Your chemistry class should also have taught you that the first thing your body does when it gets hold of sucrose, is break it down -- into equal parts fructose and glucose.
Great, now I have to clean my monitor AGAIN :)
BTW I see by your username that you still know how to spell!!
It's all the pasty doughboys living in mom's basement -- due to their type II diabetes, they'e glucose-intolerant. ;)
"...in exactly the same way that baking soda (NaHCO3) is 50% lye (NaOH)"
Oh man, you made me spit carbonated lye and medium fructose bee barf all over my monitor :D
Based on the chemistry expertise of the average poster, I think it's time to resurrect the campaign against DHMO. Except this time, rather than trying to convince people of its toxicity in its natural state, we should concentrate on the dangerously explosive traits of uncontrolled hydrogen, once it's been chemically separated from the DHMO. ;)
My college biochemistry texts caught on fire while I was reading this thread... yours is the only even nearly-correct post.
Fructose is just fruit sugar, or half of a sucrose (table sugar) molecule. Fructose takes an extra step to get broken down down to glucose so is not as efficiently used by the body, but this is nothing different from the fructose half of sucrose.
If you think fructose is bad, stop eating fruit, cuz it's the sugar you'll find therein. You could just as well call it "fruit sugar" as "corn sugar" -- both are correct.
Honey is chemically indistinguisable from HFCS-55. In fact HFCS is sometimes used to illegally "stretch" honey, and the only way to tell HFCS from honey is by the pollen-protein contaminants found in honey. Amazingly, the people who are first to condemn HFCS are usually also the first to tout honey as a "natural replacement" for sugar... when in fact it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. (Where DID you think the bees got the sugars in honey, anyway??)
HFCS is only "high fructose" in comparsion to regular corn syrup.
HFCS use in foods has been declining, yet obesity continues to rise ... kinda kills that as a direct correlation, eh?
Most of the other, uh, fructose-cake arguments are so biochemically nonsensical that I don't even know where to start.
My own objection to HFCS is that food doesn't taste quite right when fructose is used as a substitute for sucrose, and this irritates my supertaster senses. However, corn syrup is perfectly good for use in certain candies, where its flavour is expected.
And now I'm wondering if they plan to deport all of us Americans who have also called Obama a p***k. ;)
Yep, I've seen Redneck Rampage... pretty funny tho I'm not a humour type of gamer :) I did notice a few titles I'd meant to look at way-back-when, that I might have to snag next time there's spare change for it (things are a bit snug right now). Did have a problem with the search engine, it just plain ignored me as did some of the header tabs on the site... not sure what gives there. Oh well, a problem for another day. Does look like they're very actively pursuing the stuff of yesteryear that was decent in its day.
Have already passed the info along to someone who maintains some older gaming group systems, this stuff oughta be right in their target range. :)
Your cheap vidcard makes mine feel inadequate :) I think the newest one around here is of the 128mb vintage, probably 6 or 7 years old by now and wasn't high-end then. The one in my main box is a 16mb Matrox dating from 1998. Shaders? Whuzzat?!
I don't know about that story, but here's mine: A while back my domains-and-hosting bill, which should automatically go to my credit card, got rejected by said credit card (turns out the card was fubar'd after BofA ate MBNA). 1&1 could have simply cancelled my account, domains and all. Instead I got an email telling me about the problem. This was about a month after the bill originally fell due so apparently routine to do it on the next billing cycle. Anyway I redid the payment on a different card and life went on. No mention of any collection agency; the presumption evidently was that a good customer wishes to retain their account.
Before I moved my domains, I googled for complaints, under the theory that there was no use jumping from frypan to fire if there was something I didn't know (tho I already had a few domains at 1&1 without difficulty, and was already happier with them than I'd ever been with GoDaddy). I found very few for 1&1, and shitloads for GoDaddy. Something like 300 vs 30,000, if I recall right. Tho against the perspective of millions of customers, neither is a huge number.
I've run into a lot of those forgotten domains being "montetized" by the registrar... nothing but damned irritating, they are... all of mine are at least pointed at *some* real site.
I had fun with one SEO outfit that tried to sell me some keywords... while the Nice Young Salesman was giving me his spiel, I looked up their company's own website's traffic, and it was only about 10% of what I already get on my main site. (A datum which rather flummoxed said NYS.) And here's the big question: if my site is so hard to find, how did *they* find it?? ;)
I did recently hear from someone who wanted to buy one of my domains for his new business... no, sorry, I've used that business name since 1975, and you really should find a different one or *mine* will steal all *your* traffic.
Yeah, I've had the same thing happen... no plan survives contact with the internet ;)
And I don't go grabbing a bunch just to have 'em; I've only got a dozen or so and at least have SOME notion what they're good for, or else they're a word or businessname that is already associated with me (like my longtime usernames). And a couple I manage for other folks.
If everyone did like us, there wouldn't be this squatter market in the first place. It occurs to me to wonder how much of GoDaddy's billion-dollar value is in squatted names, and what percentage are real sites (if I were bidding, I'd want to know this). And I'm also wondering if some squatted domains will fall out of the system and become available to the real world, when the company is sold.