They promise to pay you royalties, but I've never seen a dime from them. For any downloaded songs or from people buying our CD. And what they'd owe us would change. That's not in the month-by-month way they put things by the way. Say for Feb. 2002 they'd say they owed us $26. I'd check again and it'd say $15. Check again and it'd say $21.
I used to ask them once a month about it, and I'd get a standard response saying they'd answer my question in 4-6 business days. After a year of this, it switched to "you need to pay us for us to answer your question".
Then they cut off the covers of CDs and put an mp3 add on the cover unless you paid them to release the CDs with your cover. Man, mp3.com is crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. But I kept our songs up because we've been giving them away for free anyway.
In fact, if anyone wants them, follow the link in my sig and distribute them through kazaa or something. Free songs from a Star Trek punk rock band.
I appreciate some of what mp3 does, but I'll whine about them at a moment's notice.
Ah, that post made me laugh. You used to be able to load a lot of songs to mp3.com, and as they were downloaded mp3 was supposed to pay the artist. Later, they cut everyone down to 3 free songs. That's also when they changed how the CDs look. It used to be they'd use the cover you supplied, but now you need to give them money so they'll use your cover. They've never paid my band royalties for the songs. They've never paid us for the cds that have been bought.
They also started changing how much they owed you. The number would fluctuate. I'd ask "Uh, where's our money and why does the amount keep changing" they'd respond "Your question will be answered in 4-6 business days". But they never were. I sent in a question once a month for a year until they started saying you had to pay them so they'd answer your questions. So I'm supposed to pay them to answer my question about where my money is? And you can't trade the money they owe you to buy other products they sell.
I put the songs up on another site for free, and changed the description on the first song on mp3 saying "Hey, go here and download all our songs for free". Dumb mp3 site.
mp3 has always been a crappy company as far as I'm concerned. It seemed like a neat idea at first, but they suck.
Geez, a good helpful answer. Thanks, Phil. I assume I can sleep in your backyard on this trip next year? gl4ss comment was also good.
I'm taking a 1966 Ducati 250cc motorcycle. Yeah, not the "best" bike, but what's the point of doing something easy? There's no way to upgrade the electronics on a Duc for a laptop because, based on my earlier slashdot question, you can't tricklecharge a laptop. It's a small bike. As one guy put it, "a Schwinn with an engine". Space will be a premium and even with the updated electronics on the bike, it's still a 1960s Italian bike.
I plan on circling the outside of Oz, then going to New Zealand, and then back up through Australia so I can see Ayers Rock. If I haven't pissed all my money away on cheap Aussie beer, I'll try to make my way up to Vietnam and from there, who knows.
J Lawless, who first said, "use a pen & paper" realized that I want to be a geek about it. I want an a travel blog. My life is long periods of nothing punctuated by short bits that are like a made for teevee movie.
What J Lawless' thinks would work best is a PDA with a solar recharger and a roll-up keyboard. It'd be nice if I could dump digital camera pictures onto it. Quality is not an issue with me on this trip. I don't need a 3 meg photo of me drinking larvae juice while the Aussies communicate with bongos. But if I'm taken out by a kangaroo, I'd like the blood to show in the photo.
I'd also like to be able to bring music, but I think an mp3 player would best be another gadget instead of a super PDA that can blog, hold photos, and still play mp3s. I'll write my dumb stuff (see my sig for my dumb writing), take my dumb pictures, and email it to J Lawless. He, for some dumb reason, volunteered to post it on my site for me.
I just want to make it easy for both of us. Writing it on a PDA would be better then paper that I then have to write an email of.
Cell phones won't work everywhere I'll be. I need to research satellite phones, and see what they can do.
How often do you or most of slashdot go to the library? I mean, hell, I've got a computer and t1.
Or I could walk, ride a bike, drive a car down to the library. Find parking if I drove. Stand in line to use the library computer to do research. Realize that the library doesn't have all the books & magazines I want, so they have to order them from another library. Or I can just go to google and type in "naked Terri Garr" without the trouble.
Are the libraries going to have the March 14, 1974 issue of Wall Street Journal where they ran the naked photos of Terri Garr celebrating Einstein's birthday? Probably not.
The girl next to me at work sent this. I think her friend, whos name I don't know, compiled it.
"So disappointing they may as well have bussed in Ewoks to save Zion."
-- Christopher Null, FILMCRITIC.COM
"Too bad the Wachowski brothers marry their mind-blowing visuals to some of the worst war movie clichs ever written."
-- Sean O'Connell, ECLIPSE MAGAZINE
"Though visually spectacular, 'The Matrix Revolutions' is a disappointing climax to what had previously been one of the great movie series of recent years." - Peter Sobczynski, CRITIC DOCTOR
"The Wachowskis... lean so heavily on concepts and designs from Aliens... that you half-expect to hear Bill Paxton wailing 'Game over, maaaaan!' in the background."
-- James Sanford, KALAMAZOO GAZETTE
"It's actually at its best when it's the most pretentious. Its loud and repetitive action sequences are impressive enough, but we've seen them all before."
-- Steve Rhodes, STEVE RHODES' INTERNET REVIEWS
"For all the ponderous philosophizing found in Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions is surprisingly straightforward and more than a little cheesy."
-- Bill Pearis, CITYSEARCH
"Theres a warmed-over feeling that permeates what should have been the defining film of the trilogy."
-- Rebecca Murray, ABOUT.COM
"Please someone, get me the blue pill. I want to forget that this ambitious and noteworthy series is ending so weakly."
-- Nell Minow, MOVIE MOM AT YAHOO! MOVIES
"A mixture of frantic but empty action and solemn, even more vacuous philosophizing that ends up simultaneously pretentious and puerile."
-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION
"While superior to Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions still can't quite justify turning a stand-alone classic into a misguided trilogy."
-- Alex Sandell, JUICY CEREBELLUM
"The final chapter in the Wachowski brothers' trilogy about stylish sunglasses, leather trenchcoats, freshly baked cookies and Wire Fu."
-- Jon Popick, PLANET SICK-BOY
"After all is said and done, I wish they would have left the trilogy to one."
-- Danny Minton, KBTV-NBC (BEAUMONT, TX)
"Seems like Matrix Reloaded with a little tweaking."
-- Harvey S. Karten, COMPUSERVE
"With The Matrix Revolutions, the Wachowski brothers have managed to pull off something nearly impossible. They've made a movie about the end of the world that leaves us entirely indifferent to the outcome."
-- Chris Vognar, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"The Matrix Revolutions sucks."
-- Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
"Reloaded was certainly a lumpy, gaseous treatise of a movie, but viewers of Revolutions may find themselves looking back on it fondly."
-- A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES
"There's relatively less of the clunky alternation of big action and static speechifying that stalled Reloaded. But there's also less storytelling fervor from the Wachowskis."
-- Lisa Schwarzbaum, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"Better than Reloaded, but the thrill is gone."
-- Michael Rechtshaffen, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"How did something that started out so cool get so dorky?"
-- Manohla Dargis, LOS ANGELES TIMES
"Louder, longer, more expensive and dumber than its predecessors, Revolutions is a mediocrity that will provide escapism only to those who head for the theater exits."
-- Colin Covert, MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
the emotional impact of this movie is zilch."
-- Paul Clinton, CNN
"The Matrix trilogy is so named for a reason: The most compelling aspect of the movies is that way-cool space. Revolutions spends too little time there."
-- Leigh Johnson, HOLLYWOOD.COM
"The Wachowskis have served up passable entertainment... but they fail to deliver on their own mythology."
-- Laura Clifford, REELING REVIEWS
"Visually stunning but a huge disappointment. The resolution sucked! "
-- Victoria Alexander, FILMSINREVIEW.COM
You're right, I certainly haven't seen the Simpons or Futurama use the exact same characters before. No Archie comic rip-offs, no Count Chocula, no Ren & Stimpy, no South Park, no Bill Cosby, no hmmmm.... that's all I could think of in 30 seconds that the Simpsons/Futurama have ripped off exactly. I still think Simp-arama are funny, but Groening was being a weenie with Bunnyhop.
I would think it was funny if I was on a "Black Man Killing Machine" whatever the hell that is.
I'll just sit here and await being sued by Paramount for ripping off the Mugatu and the Gorn in my Star Trek parody band.
Bunnyhole had to destroy an entire run of their magazine because Groening threw a hissy fit. This really annoys me because I love the Simpsons and Futurama. Especially the parodies.
It's fine for Groening to parody other people, but don't parody him.
From what I've read about that case, the Japanese kid showed up thinking that was the house where the Halloween party he was going to was at. The guy freaked out and told the kid to freeze. The kid, being Japanese and all, didn't understand the slang of "freeze". So the crackpot ended up shooting the kid to death.
Try googling on the guys name. Or louisiana halloween shooting japanese
That depends on what state you're in in the US. Say we're both in Louisiana and you come up trick-or-treating. I open the door and shoot you. That's legal in Louisiana. Or maybe that's only legal if I'm white and you're not. Although that sounds like I'm race baiting, I'm not.
I'm a lousy mechanic, but that's okay, I'm a lousy programmer.
Currently it's a huge collection of ancient Ducati singles, a Norton 750 with a hole in the case, Yamaha SR500, and a beat-up 67 Barracuda notchback with a/6 (part of my process to owning a Dodge/Plymouth for every year between 1960 & 1970).
Some friends and I did it about 3 days after that episode first aired. Skittles and Pabst don't seem to work out the best. Although I'm sure it's better than Skittles and Old Milwaukee. I never thought of trying it with good beer. Better go back to the store...
And on an unrelated note, I tried making bologna bread with the bread machine. Each slice would be like eating a sandwich, I figured. I've tried it twice and it hasn't worked out. But I think my 3rd idea will work. I'll add no water, but double the amount of water with Frenchs mustard.
Would you mind explaining how to use SBC DSL so I can use my Mac Classic? I'd like to get points for only using my mac classic for posting to slashdot.
I know it sounds like I'm being a smart-ass, but really,,, the gonculator is sitting right here....
I agree with you. They rank behind child molesters, but they are better than meter maids. There ain't no point in being a meter maid. Spammers are greedy, thieves, and inconsiderate. Meter maids are bastards.
I wouldn't rank all the slashdotters as well as you though. I'm sure there's murderers or at least people keen on aggravated assault probably flaming the latest dupe right now.
Yeah, you're right. Hopefully someone will start cruising by spammer's houses with an EMP device.
There's an ancient microwave at my apartment with a screen door. Back before they were adding glass. I'll donate it to anyone who wants to build some sort of microwave jamming device with some pringle cans...
How long before some nut on slashdot goes and kills or seriously injures a spammer?
Although, just driving by a spammers house and posting pictures and the address does some good.
But how far before it gets as crazy as the anti-abortion people who started logging the license plates of people who work at abortion clinics. That, combined with the shooting/killing of doctors, really cut down on doctors who perform abortions.
The animal rights people have started logging plates of lab employees at the UC Davis monkey lab. Although that freaks out employees, someone shooting an employee will cause employees to quit which will hurt tests on anti-HIV vaccines and the ilk.
His sample link doesn't work. And it also says "ignore the white space" because he was trying to show someone to use the href tag. And you were modded 5, Informative. I guess it's call center mod day on slashdot. By saying that, the call center mods will tag this -1, Flamebait. Sheesh.
Since the Diebold machines are connected to the internet hopefully someone like Adrian Lamo will rig them to announce Gary Coleman wins California by anonymous decision. "And in California, Coleman wins with 110% of the votes". That will bring the world of hurt down upon Diebold.
Hi, I'm pissed off at someone and would love to get them bombarded with spam. No, I don't think that'll work on slashdot. Better say "research" instead of "pissed off". Yeah, that should work.
Slashdot Mirror
They promise to pay you royalties, but I've never seen a dime from them. For any downloaded songs or from people buying our CD. And what they'd owe us would change. That's not in the month-by-month way they put things by the way. Say for Feb. 2002 they'd say they owed us $26. I'd check again and it'd say $15. Check again and it'd say $21.
I used to ask them once a month about it, and I'd get a standard response saying they'd answer my question in 4-6 business days. After a year of this, it switched to "you need to pay us for us to answer your question".
Then they cut off the covers of CDs and put an mp3 add on the cover unless you paid them to release the CDs with your cover. Man, mp3.com is crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. But I kept our songs up because we've been giving them away for free anyway.
In fact, if anyone wants them, follow the link in my sig and distribute them through kazaa or something. Free songs from a Star Trek punk rock band.
I appreciate some of what mp3 does, but I'll whine about them at a moment's notice.
Ah, that post made me laugh. You used to be able to load a lot of songs to mp3.com, and as they were downloaded mp3 was supposed to pay the artist. Later, they cut everyone down to 3 free songs. That's also when they changed how the CDs look. It used to be they'd use the cover you supplied, but now you need to give them money so they'll use your cover. They've never paid my band royalties for the songs. They've never paid us for the cds that have been bought.
They also started changing how much they owed you. The number would fluctuate. I'd ask "Uh, where's our money and why does the amount keep changing" they'd respond "Your question will be answered in 4-6 business days". But they never were. I sent in a question once a month for a year until they started saying you had to pay them so they'd answer your questions. So I'm supposed to pay them to answer my question about where my money is? And you can't trade the money they owe you to buy other products they sell.
I put the songs up on another site for free, and changed the description on the first song on mp3 saying "Hey, go here and download all our songs for free". Dumb mp3 site.
mp3 has always been a crappy company as far as I'm concerned. It seemed like a neat idea at first, but they suck.
Oddly enough, my roommate bought me a Canadian flag patch and said to say "eh" a lot. If he wasn't scared of computers, I'd say "is that you Mike?"
Geez, a good helpful answer. Thanks, Phil. I assume I can sleep in your backyard on this trip next year? gl4ss comment was also good.
I'm taking a 1966 Ducati 250cc motorcycle. Yeah, not the "best" bike, but what's the point of doing something easy? There's no way to upgrade the electronics on a Duc for a laptop because, based on my earlier slashdot question, you can't tricklecharge a laptop. It's a small bike. As one guy put it, "a Schwinn with an engine". Space will be a premium and even with the updated electronics on the bike, it's still a 1960s Italian bike.
I plan on circling the outside of Oz, then going to New Zealand, and then back up through Australia so I can see Ayers Rock. If I haven't pissed all my money away on cheap Aussie beer, I'll try to make my way up to Vietnam and from there, who knows.
J Lawless, who first said, "use a pen & paper" realized that I want to be a geek about it. I want an a travel blog. My life is long periods of nothing punctuated by short bits that are like a made for teevee movie.
What J Lawless' thinks would work best is a PDA with a solar recharger and a roll-up keyboard. It'd be nice if I could dump digital camera pictures onto it. Quality is not an issue with me on this trip. I don't need a 3 meg photo of me drinking larvae juice while the Aussies communicate with bongos. But if I'm taken out by a kangaroo, I'd like the blood to show in the photo.
I'd also like to be able to bring music, but I think an mp3 player would best be another gadget instead of a super PDA that can blog, hold photos, and still play mp3s. I'll write my dumb stuff (see my sig for my dumb writing), take my dumb pictures, and email it to J Lawless. He, for some dumb reason, volunteered to post it on my site for me.
I just want to make it easy for both of us. Writing it on a PDA would be better then paper that I then have to write an email of.
Cell phones won't work everywhere I'll be. I need to research satellite phones, and see what they can do.
How often do you or most of slashdot go to the library? I mean, hell, I've got a computer and t1.
Or I could walk, ride a bike, drive a car down to the library. Find parking if I drove. Stand in line to use the library computer to do research. Realize that the library doesn't have all the books & magazines I want, so they have to order them from another library. Or I can just go to google and type in "naked Terri Garr" without the trouble.
Are the libraries going to have the March 14, 1974 issue of Wall Street Journal where they ran the naked photos of Terri Garr celebrating Einstein's birthday? Probably not.
It was the tiny store where Tower is now, not the just as tiny store by the bowling alley where they are now. Crowded, it was. A great show though.
I saw a CBR show in Sacramento at Worlds Best Comics in Sacramento.
It was great, even though I was sober. I believe they played with The 4 Eyes, another great geek rock band.
I say that with a straight face, for being a Star Trek punk rock band.
The girl next to me at work sent this. I think her friend, whos name I don't know, compiled it.
"So disappointing they may as well have bussed in Ewoks to save Zion."
-- Christopher Null, FILMCRITIC.COM
"Too bad the Wachowski brothers marry their mind-blowing visuals to some of the worst war movie clichs ever written."
-- Sean O'Connell, ECLIPSE MAGAZINE
"Though visually spectacular, 'The Matrix Revolutions' is a disappointing climax to what had previously been one of the great movie series of recent years." - Peter Sobczynski, CRITIC DOCTOR
"The Wachowskis... lean so heavily on concepts and designs from Aliens... that you half-expect to hear Bill Paxton wailing 'Game over, maaaaan!' in the background."
-- James Sanford, KALAMAZOO GAZETTE
"It's actually at its best when it's the most pretentious. Its loud and repetitive action sequences are impressive enough, but we've seen them all before."
-- Steve Rhodes, STEVE RHODES' INTERNET REVIEWS
"For all the ponderous philosophizing found in Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions is surprisingly straightforward and more than a little cheesy."
-- Bill Pearis, CITYSEARCH
"Theres a warmed-over feeling that permeates what should have been the defining film of the trilogy."
-- Rebecca Murray, ABOUT.COM
"Please someone, get me the blue pill. I want to forget that this ambitious and noteworthy series is ending so weakly."
-- Nell Minow, MOVIE MOM AT YAHOO! MOVIES
"A mixture of frantic but empty action and solemn, even more vacuous philosophizing that ends up simultaneously pretentious and puerile."
-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION
"While superior to Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions still can't quite justify turning a stand-alone classic into a misguided trilogy."
-- Alex Sandell, JUICY CEREBELLUM
"The final chapter in the Wachowski brothers' trilogy about stylish sunglasses, leather trenchcoats, freshly baked cookies and Wire Fu."
-- Jon Popick, PLANET SICK-BOY
"After all is said and done, I wish they would have left the trilogy to one."
-- Danny Minton, KBTV-NBC (BEAUMONT, TX)
"Seems like Matrix Reloaded with a little tweaking."
-- Harvey S. Karten, COMPUSERVE
"With The Matrix Revolutions, the Wachowski brothers have managed to pull off something nearly impossible. They've made a movie about the end of the world that leaves us entirely indifferent to the outcome."
-- Chris Vognar, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"The Matrix Revolutions sucks."
-- Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
"Reloaded was certainly a lumpy, gaseous treatise of a movie, but viewers of Revolutions may find themselves looking back on it fondly."
-- A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES
"There's relatively less of the clunky alternation of big action and static speechifying that stalled Reloaded. But there's also less storytelling fervor from the Wachowskis."
-- Lisa Schwarzbaum, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"Better than Reloaded, but the thrill is gone."
-- Michael Rechtshaffen, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"How did something that started out so cool get so dorky?"
-- Manohla Dargis, LOS ANGELES TIMES
"Louder, longer, more expensive and dumber than its predecessors, Revolutions is a mediocrity that will provide escapism only to those who head for the theater exits."
-- Colin Covert, MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
the emotional impact of this movie is zilch."
-- Paul Clinton, CNN
"The Matrix trilogy is so named for a reason: The most compelling aspect of the movies is that way-cool space. Revolutions spends too little time there."
-- Leigh Johnson, HOLLYWOOD.COM
"The Wachowskis have served up passable entertainment... but they fail to deliver on their own mythology."
-- Laura Clifford, REELING REVIEWS
"Visually stunning but a huge disappointment. The resolution sucked! "
-- Victoria Alexander, FILMSINREVIEW.COM
You're right, I certainly haven't seen the Simpons or Futurama use the exact same characters before. No Archie comic rip-offs, no Count Chocula, no Ren & Stimpy, no South Park, no Bill Cosby, no hmmmm.... that's all I could think of in 30 seconds that the Simpsons/Futurama have ripped off exactly. I still think Simp-arama are funny, but Groening was being a weenie with Bunnyhop.
I would think it was funny if I was on a "Black Man Killing Machine" whatever the hell that is.
I'll just sit here and await being sued by Paramount for ripping off the Mugatu and the Gorn in my Star Trek parody band.
As much as I love the Simpsons, Matt Groening isn't above threatening to sue people for stupid reasons.
The whole Illegal Art project is pretty neat.
Bunnyhole had to destroy an entire run of their magazine because Groening threw a hissy fit. This really annoys me because I love the Simpsons and Futurama. Especially the parodies.
It's fine for Groening to parody other people, but don't parody him.
Wow, I have a friend who's been thinking about patenting that. I wonder if she could get it through.
Large photo from the Trekkies 2 site.
From what I've read about that case, the Japanese kid showed up thinking that was the house where the Halloween party he was going to was at. The guy freaked out and told the kid to freeze. The kid, being Japanese and all, didn't understand the slang of "freeze". So the crackpot ended up shooting the kid to death.
Try googling on the guys name. Or louisiana halloween shooting japanese
That depends on what state you're in in the US. Say we're both in Louisiana and you come up trick-or-treating. I open the door and shoot you. That's legal in Louisiana. Or maybe that's only legal if I'm white and you're not. Although that sounds like I'm race baiting, I'm not.
I'm a lousy mechanic, but that's okay, I'm a lousy programmer.
/6 (part of my process to owning a Dodge/Plymouth for every year between 1960 & 1970).
Currently it's a huge collection of ancient Ducati singles, a Norton 750 with a hole in the case, Yamaha SR500, and a beat-up 67 Barracuda notchback with a
And then there's some random computer stuff, too.
Some friends and I did it about 3 days after that episode first aired. Skittles and Pabst don't seem to work out the best. Although I'm sure it's better than Skittles and Old Milwaukee. I never thought of trying it with good beer. Better go back to the store...
And on an unrelated note, I tried making bologna bread with the bread machine. Each slice would be like eating a sandwich, I figured. I've tried it twice and it hasn't worked out. But I think my 3rd idea will work. I'll add no water, but double the amount of water with Frenchs mustard.
Would you mind explaining how to use SBC DSL so I can use my Mac Classic? I'd like to get points for only using my mac classic for posting to slashdot.
I know it sounds like I'm being a smart-ass, but really,,, the gonculator is sitting right here....
I agree with you. They rank behind child molesters, but they are better than meter maids. There ain't no point in being a meter maid. Spammers are greedy, thieves, and inconsiderate. Meter maids are bastards.
I wouldn't rank all the slashdotters as well as you though. I'm sure there's murderers or at least people keen on aggravated assault probably flaming the latest dupe right now.
Yeah, you're right. Hopefully someone will start cruising by spammer's houses with an EMP device.
There's an ancient microwave at my apartment with a screen door. Back before they were adding glass. I'll donate it to anyone who wants to build some sort of microwave jamming device with some pringle cans...
How long before some nut on slashdot goes and kills or seriously injures a spammer?
Although, just driving by a spammers house and posting pictures and the address does some good.
But how far before it gets as crazy as the anti-abortion people who started logging the license plates of people who work at abortion clinics. That, combined with the shooting/killing of doctors, really cut down on doctors who perform abortions.
The animal rights people have started logging plates of lab employees at the UC Davis monkey lab. Although that freaks out employees, someone shooting an employee will cause employees to quit which will hurt tests on anti-HIV vaccines and the ilk.
I'd imagine it'd work more like Star Wars than Star Trek. Everything is perfect on Star Trek. There will be script kiddies using The Force to hack it.
I just felt one million beowulf cluster jokes failing all at once.
Dude, someone haxxored my Sorlac Pit.
Your Google Death Star is 0wn3d.
In the future, Soviet Russia will blah blah blah.
His link worked fine for me.
His sample link doesn't work. And it also says "ignore the white space" because he was trying to show someone to use the href tag. And you were modded 5, Informative. I guess it's call center mod day on slashdot. By saying that, the call center mods will tag this -1, Flamebait. Sheesh.
Since the Diebold machines are connected to the internet hopefully someone like Adrian Lamo will rig them to announce Gary Coleman wins California by anonymous decision. "And in California, Coleman wins with 110% of the votes". That will bring the world of hurt down upon Diebold.
To reply to my own comment, is there a way that an article could be modded at -1 Troll? Really.
Hi, I'm pissed off at someone and would love to get them bombarded with spam. No, I don't think that'll work on slashdot. Better say "research" instead of "pissed off". Yeah, that should work.
I'm sure the Russians, or I guess now the Chinese, will help out.
"Uh, hi, this is President Bush, and uh.. well, our shuttle ran out of gas. If you bring the crew back, we'll give you whatever you want".
The Russians would just want money. I don't think the Chinese want anything from us that they don't already have.