The spam model is based off of the traditional direct marketing blanket campaign where you throw out as wide a net as possible and see what comes back.
While spam has a lower effectiveness than tradtional snail mail campigns, it nontheless pays becuase some people are interested in buying what the spammers sell (even when its a scam, unfortunately).
If you believe in the free market, then there is nothing inherently wrong with advertising in any medium (though in Soviet Russia there is...).
The problem with spam is the lack of regulation that balances consumer protection with the free speech rights of advertisers.
Clearly, as consumers we should be able to opt out of receiving spam without having our email address validated and resold, be confident that the advertisements we receive are not fraudulent, have transparency as to which company has sold our information, and importantly, have the ability to register to not receive any spam from any companies.
Spam is an easy target for criticizing as it's annoying and the lack of regulation makes it pernicious. Our focus shouldn't be to persecute those sending it, but to push for strict legislation that balances the rights of the consumer with the rights of the advertiser.
And "Human Rights" clauses in EULAs don't do jack shit for the man standing in front of a tank for free speech
I completely agree with the sentiment of your message, but I do feel that the biggest problem isn't the efficacy of such statements being included in the EULA, but rather the inclusion of explicit rather than implicit political demands within the agreements to use software.
Everyone in the slashdot community seems to assume that any politicization will inherently be leftist/libertine in nature. If we treat leftist activism within the EULA as acceptible how can we fairly insist that rightist doctrine has no place there as well?
I know I run the risk of having this post labeled flame-bait, but I feel it important that I get specific. More frightening to me than the leftist-rightist vaguery above, is the possibility that the current, thinly-veiled anti-semitism that masquerades as the "Israeli divestment" movement (as referred to by Harvard's President in a morning prayer meeting address this fall) will soon find its way into an EULA. It does not seem a far stretch to imagine that a developer with ties to the academic community--as many in the OSS movement have--decides to forbid any Israelis or for that matter, any Jews that support Israel fom using their software.
Obviously what is troubling is not that such an EULA would bar people from software usage (as most people don't even read the EULAs and even fewer decide not to use software as a result of something said therein), but rather it gives a forum for statements sheltered from discussion and dialogue.
------ Karma--nothing when compared to Hashgocha Pratis
Actually, you're right. I figured I'd wait until the end of the day to reveal the hoax.
I thought it would be funny to play McLaren's advocate.
It was so easy to rile people up. Throw in a few slightly distorted "facts" and voila. Malcolm Mclaren was an old fart who tried to co-opt a legitimate youth movement. The Sex Pistols are fun and a novelty, but come on...they were hardly sowed [from] the fertile and largely underexplored ground of pop-proletarian art. What a load of crap. And McLaren's role was more of a crook and fake than an innovator of "situationist art." It was James Reid, not McLaren who created the cover art for the album.
Had mderators been more clever, they would have seen through my "situationist art" and given me a -1 Flamebait.
Take your aesthete wheeze back to the Village Voice. You wouldn't know punk if it kicked you in the nuts.
1) I've never read the Village Voice. It's always seemed too prentious.
2) My knowledge about rock and roll music comes from collecting records, and reading books as a FAN of it.
3) I fucking slept on floors, roomed with junkies, and have had five bands practicing in my home at various points in my life.
Don't you find it ironic in a thread about McLaren creating a self-aware artistic statement with obvious knowledge of art and history, you've chosen to filet me for have some semblence of intellectualism. Believe it or not a lot of punks from back then and now are not idiots. Leggs McNeil, Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch, even Nick Cave are all very bright people. Bill Joe from Greenday's not terribly intellectual (I can vouch for this), but Aaron Cometbus is.
I doubt there's any other topic on Slashdot where I could be attacked for sounding too smart or having something to say.
There's no question that Malcolm McLaren created the Sex Pistols as, as you put it, "an...art experiment", but this is no reason to be dismissive about the Pistols' music and importance, and McLaren's legitimacy.
McLaren was a force in the cutting edge of 1970s music and culture, from managing the New York Dolls, to coining the term "punk rock" (though his forays into rap in the 80s are a disgrace...Buffalo Girls? Puh-lease). Malcolm McLaren sowed the fertile and largely underexplored ground of pop-proletarian art. Note the Da-daist artwork on the cover of "Never Mind the Bollocks" harkening back to the art radicalism and anti-modernism of the early 20th century.
In many ways McLaren's role with the Sex Pistols is no different than Andy Warhol's role with the Velvet Underground. McLaren got together 4 musicians (and I refer to the original line-up since Sid hardly qualifies for the M word), gave them a look, an attitude, and a subject line. Where Warhol gave VU the topic of S&M, McLaren gave the Pistols the topic of nihilism. Mind you, I'm not calling McLaren the greatest innovator in the history of music--since in fact he borrowed his turn of the century proletarian radicalism from Richard Hell and Lydia Lunch (who invented the ripped clothing and safety pin look copying the turn of the century Bohemians and whose writings borrow heavily from the turn of the century radical art and poetry).
But listen to how "Never Mind the Bollocks" brings it all together: the musical minimalism, the snarling proletarian, vaudvillian lyrics, the Dadaist artwork. It's a true classic in the history of Rock.
I could name a handful of other, more important artists and albums from within a 5 year period (Television, The Clash,The Ramones,The Birthday Party, Gang of Four, etc., etc.) but that doesn't mean that Mclaren, the Pistols, and "Never Mind the Bollocks" aren't legit.
The abundance of telemartkers in the United States most assuredly has NOTHING to do with the low priced (not completely free) local calls. Most telemarketers call from out of state. Telemarketers gladly pay long distance rates on their phone calls because the profit more than justifies the variable expense for the calls.
The EZ Hangup and the Phone Butler are such scams. All they do is tell the telemarketer to put you on the do not call list. If you want to pay $30 to have someone do that, be my guest, but most states have "do not call" legislation that allows you to ask telmarketers to take you off of their calling lists. If you stick to the same formula every time, after a few months, you'll hardly receive any phone solicitations. If you move and change phone numbers though, you have to start all over again.
If you absolutely do not want to ever receive a telemarketer's call, you might as well buy a concerno switchboard which is a fabulous home auto attendant/voicemail system. If you're paying $6 a month for home voice mail,$6 a month for "Privacy Manager", $3 a month for call waiting, etc. after a couple of years, you've paid about as much and haven't gotten nearly the benefits.
...or invest in a bullhorn for $9.95 and make telemarketers deaf one at a time.
-------- NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency....
You have to get a voice plan as well which gives fixed minutes per month. I got a Pocket PC phone from On The Go Solutions for only $299 and pay $20/month data and $39.99 voice. I get 5MB data and 600 anytime minutes and unlimited weekends with free LD and roaming.
I'm not sold on the Sidekick. It seems that for the price, having POP mail, greyscale browsing, IM, basic PDA functionality and a phone is nothing to get too excited about.
It lacks a lot of the functionality you can get with the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone. And while the sidekick costs costs just $200, I found a company that's selling the Pocket PC for just $299 after rebate. ($250 off the T-Mobile advertised price).
With the risk of running afoul of the anti-M$ sentiment here, my pocket PC runs Windows CE which can sync, run Excel, Word, Outlook, IE, and thousands of other apps.--a ton more functionality than a Palm OS based PDA, let alone the Sidekick (which as mentioned a dozen times can't even sync with any other devices, let alone run 3rd party apps.).
I can't understand why anyone would pick the Sidekick over the Pocket PC, especially at that price.
...and no, I don't work for T-Mobile or On The Go Solutions.
Now, if you start jailing their sons and daughters, confiscating their properties and suing them into poverty for the sake of Disney, Sony and such other oh so poor companies, I believe we will see a backslash these guys won't forget for generations.
I think you're more right than you know. We can juxtapose copyright infringement with murder for effect or parallel the fight against it with the war on drugs, but neither analogy is anything but pedantic. I think a better comparison is to compare movie/music sharing with the prohibition of alcohol consumption.
It's clear given the numbers of people invloved with file sharing that this can't be considered a fringe movement or some dark seething underbelly of crime. Given the profound penetration that file sharing has had into our society, to begin prosecuting amateur sharing would bring this battle inside the homes of a very influential segment within American politics. When middle aged, middle class Americans, with little to no knowledge of networks, file sharing, or the semantics of copyright and property law, are fadced with their sons and daughters being brought up on charges for sharing music or movies (which by any stretch of the imagination brings physical harm to no one--including themselves [which, as an aside, cannot be said of drug use]) there will be no way to convince them that heavy fines or jail time (whether their child is an adult or not) benefits anyone. I cannot imagine that were such a situation to become commonplace that the backlash against not only the laws, but the companies pursuing the civil action would be quick and forceful.
Mom and Dad don't want their children and their neighbor's children punished for what is largely an intellectual crime. There is no way to explain the damage caused by sharing in such a way that you will get parents to turn on their children and not stand up in their defense--which seems largely the expectation of the RIAA/MPAA legal teams.
Prohibition ultimately failed because 1) few people obeyed the law and 2) punsihment for simple violation of the law against drinking (not necissarily producing) was viewed as draconian since it was difficult for most people to see the social and recreational use of alcohol as a harm.
Personally though, I think the lawyers are just barking. We don't have much to talk about until that first sweep by the justice department where they press charges against people for having copies of the Sopranos on their hard drives.
---------- I did nothing
and it was everything I expected it could be.
Re:Anti-spam law will not achieve much
on
Meet the Spammers
·
· Score: 1
But if I am shouting my opinion on a street corner, and you are walking by
I would think that this "walking by" analogy is a better description of a popup or banner ad. A good argument can be made that at a browser level, ads shouldn't be restricted.
Email seems clearly to me to be more akin to your office or your home. And if you were standing on my porch shouting your opinion, I could quite easily call the police and have you removed.
-- Think Global, Act Vocal
Re:Anti-spam law will not achieve much
on
Meet the Spammers
·
· Score: 1
Spamming has nothing to do with the first amendment.
Agreed. I feel the issue is similar to protesters blocking access to abortion clinics in protest. The supreme court has ruled that the rights of these protesters is not covered by the first amendment because it is harassment.
Isn't this a similar issue? Spammers are similarly obstructionists. They are blocking access to productivity, hampering the effectiveness of business and invading privacy.
It seems fairly simple to me. A person could not keep coming to my door if I asked him not to, regardless if he was a representative of a legitimate business. A telemarketer could not keep calling me nonstop over and over again if I asked to be taken off of their call list. Advertisers can't even send me unsolicited faxes anymore. Why is it so hard to connect the dots to spam? Of these three previous examples, the restrictions placed upon these other would be harassers is legislative. The best answer to spam is not personal attacks on spammer, filtering software, or any other such reactive measure (though I'mnot discouragin these responses, by any means). On the other hand, a real solution won't be found until we pass proactive legislation that severely fines and/or jails the offenders with the most privacy invasive business practices.
While an argument can always be made that spammers are using their freedom of speech, a better one can be made that our right to personal property is violated by those whom we can't stop from harassing us.
THIS JUST IN...WebTV users have been tying up 411 lines due to a new version of the WebTV virus.
The ramifications are terrifying! Thousands of people too lazy to look the number up in the phone book or online are left scratching their heads wondering how to get the number for Dominos Pizza!
Fears of additional mutations of the virus have left authorities wondering if tomorrow people will be bale to call time or check the traffic!
`I told those 3-year-olds they're watching a very historic moment,' she said, adding that they may not have grasped the significance.
The significance being that the U.S. is farther ahead of any other nation in developing useful, efficient, profit generating public transportation.
Oh wait....or maybe that this is the only time anyone sees this train and doesn't think: "how long until a bailout?"
wow--from great minds come great inventions
on
P2P Television?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
So if you want to watch reruns of Gilligan's Island...
I guess necessity is the mother of invention after all. Why there could be thousands of people paying for and downloading Gilligan's Island as we speak! Think of the business oportunities! We could end the dot.com collapse right now!
Take the counter offer and you'll walk into work one day, be shuffled off to a small conference room with two guys named Bob asking questions like
"what would you say you do here?"
The company that's offering to take you away has probably budgeted your salary. The company you're working for now may well not have and are likely more concerned with the short term effect of your leaving (e.g. deadlines, the pieces of the project you own, etc.). When they look to trim the fat next time, you may well find yourself hit with the downsize stick.
Slashdot Mirror
The spam model is based off of the traditional direct marketing blanket campaign where you throw out as wide a net as possible and see what comes back.
While spam has a lower effectiveness than tradtional snail mail campigns, it nontheless pays becuase some people are interested in buying what the spammers sell (even when its a scam, unfortunately).
If you believe in the free market, then there is nothing inherently wrong with advertising in any medium (though in Soviet Russia there is...).
The problem with spam is the lack of regulation that balances consumer protection with the free speech rights of advertisers.
Clearly, as consumers we should be able to opt out of receiving spam without having our email address validated and resold, be confident that the advertisements we receive are not fraudulent, have transparency as to which company has sold our information, and importantly, have the ability to register to not receive any spam from any companies.
Spam is an easy target for criticizing as it's annoying and the lack of regulation makes it pernicious. Our focus shouldn't be to persecute those sending it, but to push for strict legislation that balances the rights of the consumer with the rights of the advertiser.
----
in Soviet Russia, sig signs off you.
And "Human Rights" clauses in EULAs don't do jack shit for the man standing in front of a tank for free speech
I completely agree with the sentiment of your message, but I do feel that the biggest problem isn't the efficacy of such statements being included in the EULA, but rather the inclusion of explicit rather than implicit political demands within the agreements to use software.
Everyone in the slashdot community seems to assume that any politicization will inherently be leftist/libertine in nature. If we treat leftist activism within the EULA as acceptible how can we fairly insist that rightist doctrine has no place there as well?
I know I run the risk of having this post labeled flame-bait, but I feel it important that I get specific. More frightening to me than the leftist-rightist vaguery above, is the possibility that the current, thinly-veiled anti-semitism that masquerades as the "Israeli divestment" movement (as referred to by Harvard's President in a morning prayer meeting address this fall) will soon find its way into an EULA. It does not seem a far stretch to imagine that a developer with ties to the academic community--as many in the OSS movement have--decides to forbid any Israelis or for that matter, any Jews that support Israel fom using their software.
Obviously what is troubling is not that such an EULA would bar people from software usage (as most people don't even read the EULAs and even fewer decide not to use software as a result of something said therein), but rather it gives a forum for statements sheltered from discussion and dialogue.
------
Karma--nothing when compared to Hashgocha Pratis
Actually, you're right. I figured I'd wait until the end of the day to reveal the hoax.
I thought it would be funny to play McLaren's advocate.
It was so easy to rile people up. Throw in a few slightly distorted "facts" and voila. Malcolm Mclaren was an old fart who tried to co-opt a legitimate youth movement. The Sex Pistols are fun and a novelty, but come on...they were hardly sowed [from] the fertile and largely underexplored ground of pop-proletarian art. What a load of crap. And McLaren's role was more of a crook and fake than an innovator of "situationist art." It was James Reid, not McLaren who created the cover art for the album.
Had mderators been more clever, they would have seen through my "situationist art" and given me a -1 Flamebait.
Take your aesthete wheeze back to the Village Voice. You wouldn't know punk if it kicked you in the nuts.
1) I've never read the Village Voice. It's always seemed too prentious.
2) My knowledge about rock and roll music comes from collecting records, and reading books as a FAN of it.
3) I fucking slept on floors, roomed with junkies, and have had five bands practicing in my home at various points in my life.
Don't you find it ironic in a thread about McLaren creating a self-aware artistic statement with obvious knowledge of art and history, you've chosen to filet me for have some semblence of intellectualism. Believe it or not a lot of punks from back then and now are not idiots. Leggs McNeil, Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch, even Nick Cave are all very bright people. Bill Joe from Greenday's not terribly intellectual (I can vouch for this), but Aaron Cometbus is.
I doubt there's any other topic on Slashdot where I could be attacked for sounding too smart or having something to say.
There's no question that Malcolm McLaren created the Sex Pistols as, as you put it, "an...art experiment", but this is no reason to be dismissive about the Pistols' music and importance, and McLaren's legitimacy.
McLaren was a force in the cutting edge of 1970s music and culture, from managing the New York Dolls, to coining the term "punk rock" (though his forays into rap in the 80s are a disgrace...Buffalo Girls? Puh-lease). Malcolm McLaren sowed the fertile and largely underexplored ground of pop-proletarian art. Note the Da-daist artwork on the cover of "Never Mind the Bollocks" harkening back to the art radicalism and anti-modernism of the early 20th century.
In many ways McLaren's role with the Sex Pistols is no different than Andy Warhol's role with the Velvet Underground. McLaren got together 4 musicians (and I refer to the original line-up since Sid hardly qualifies for the M word), gave them a look, an attitude, and a subject line. Where Warhol gave VU the topic of S&M, McLaren gave the Pistols the topic of nihilism. Mind you, I'm not calling McLaren the greatest innovator in the history of music--since in fact he borrowed his turn of the century proletarian radicalism from Richard Hell and Lydia Lunch (who invented the ripped clothing and safety pin look copying the turn of the century Bohemians and whose writings borrow heavily from the turn of the century radical art and poetry).
But listen to how "Never Mind the Bollocks" brings it all together: the musical minimalism, the snarling proletarian, vaudvillian lyrics, the Dadaist artwork. It's a true classic in the history of Rock.
I could name a handful of other, more important artists and albums from within a 5 year period (Television, The Clash,The Ramones,The Birthday Party, Gang of Four, etc., etc.) but that doesn't mean that Mclaren, the Pistols, and "Never Mind the Bollocks" aren't legit.
Oh yeah, and the album rocks.
People in this discipline badly need a common linguo
Last I checked "linguo" is only a word in Esperanto. You're suggesting this be the Lingua Franca?
-----
A Black man, a Mexican, and a Pole walk into a bar. The bartender says "what is this, a joke?"
The abundance of telemartkers in the United States most assuredly has NOTHING to do with the low priced (not completely free) local calls. Most telemarketers call from out of state. Telemarketers gladly pay long distance rates on their phone calls because the profit more than justifies the variable expense for the calls.
The EZ Hangup and the Phone Butler are such scams. All they do is tell the telemarketer to put you on the do not call list. If you want to pay $30 to have someone do that, be my guest, but most states have "do not call" legislation that allows you to ask telmarketers to take you off of their calling lists. If you stick to the same formula every time, after a few months, you'll hardly receive any phone solicitations. If you move and change phone numbers though, you have to start all over again.
If you absolutely do not want to ever receive a telemarketer's call, you might as well buy a concerno switchboard which is a fabulous home auto attendant/voicemail system. If you're paying $6 a month for home voice mail,$6 a month for "Privacy Manager", $3 a month for call waiting, etc. after a couple of years, you've paid about as much and haven't gotten nearly the benefits.
...or invest in a bullhorn for $9.95 and make telemarketers deaf one at a time.
--------
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency....
Bandwith only relates to data.
You have to get a voice plan as well which gives fixed minutes per month. I got a Pocket PC phone from On The Go Solutions for only $299 and pay $20/month data and $39.99 voice. I get 5MB data and 600 anytime minutes and unlimited weekends with free LD and roaming.
...and no, I don't work for them.
I'm not sold on the Sidekick. It seems that for the price, having POP mail, greyscale browsing, IM, basic PDA functionality and a phone is nothing to get too excited about.
It lacks a lot of the functionality you can get with the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone. And while the sidekick costs costs just $200, I found a company that's selling the Pocket PC for just $299 after rebate. ($250 off the T-Mobile advertised price).
With the risk of running afoul of the anti-M$ sentiment here, my pocket PC runs Windows CE which can sync, run Excel, Word, Outlook, IE, and thousands of other apps.--a ton more functionality than a Palm OS based PDA, let alone the Sidekick (which as mentioned a dozen times can't even sync with any other devices, let alone run 3rd party apps.).
I can't understand why anyone would pick the Sidekick over the Pocket PC, especially at that price.
...and no, I don't work for T-Mobile or On The Go Solutions.
I think you're more right than you know. We can juxtapose copyright infringement with murder for effect or parallel the fight against it with the war on drugs, but neither analogy is anything but pedantic. I think a better comparison is to compare movie/music sharing with the prohibition of alcohol consumption.
It's clear given the numbers of people invloved with file sharing that this can't be considered a fringe movement or some dark seething underbelly of crime. Given the profound penetration that file sharing has had into our society, to begin prosecuting amateur sharing would bring this battle inside the homes of a very influential segment within American politics. When middle aged, middle class Americans, with little to no knowledge of networks, file sharing, or the semantics of copyright and property law, are fadced with their sons and daughters being brought up on charges for sharing music or movies (which by any stretch of the imagination brings physical harm to no one--including themselves [which, as an aside, cannot be said of drug use]) there will be no way to convince them that heavy fines or jail time (whether their child is an adult or not) benefits anyone. I cannot imagine that were such a situation to become commonplace that the backlash against not only the laws, but the companies pursuing the civil action would be quick and forceful.
Mom and Dad don't want their children and their neighbor's children punished for what is largely an intellectual crime. There is no way to explain the damage caused by sharing in such a way that you will get parents to turn on their children and not stand up in their defense--which seems largely the expectation of the RIAA/MPAA legal teams.
Prohibition ultimately failed because 1) few people obeyed the law and 2) punsihment for simple violation of the law against drinking (not necissarily producing) was viewed as draconian since it was difficult for most people to see the social and recreational use of alcohol as a harm.
Personally though, I think the lawyers are just barking. We don't have much to talk about until that first sweep by the justice department where they press charges against people for having copies of the Sopranos on their hard drives.
----------
I did nothing and it was everything I expected it could be.
But if I am shouting my opinion on a street corner, and you are walking by
I would think that this "walking by" analogy is a better description of a popup or banner ad. A good argument can be made that at a browser level, ads shouldn't be restricted.
Email seems clearly to me to be more akin to your office or your home.
And if you were standing on my porch shouting your opinion, I could quite easily call the police and have you removed.
--
Think Global, Act Vocal
Spamming has nothing to do with the first amendment.
Agreed. I feel the issue is similar to protesters blocking access to abortion clinics in protest. The supreme court has ruled that the rights of these protesters is not covered by the first amendment because it is harassment.
Isn't this a similar issue? Spammers are similarly obstructionists. They are blocking access to productivity, hampering the effectiveness of business and invading privacy.
It seems fairly simple to me. A person could not keep coming to my door if I asked him not to, regardless if he was a representative of a legitimate business. A telemarketer could not keep calling me nonstop over and over again if I asked to be taken off of their call list. Advertisers can't even send me unsolicited faxes anymore. Why is it so hard to connect the dots to spam? Of these three previous examples, the restrictions placed upon these other would be harassers is legislative. The best answer to spam is not personal attacks on spammer, filtering software, or any other such reactive measure (though I'mnot discouragin these responses, by any means). On the other hand, a real solution won't be found until we pass proactive legislation that severely fines and/or jails the offenders with the most privacy invasive business practices.
While an argument can always be made that spammers are using their freedom of speech, a better one can be made that our right to personal property is violated by those whom we can't stop from harassing us.
--
Think Local, Act Vocal
THIS JUST IN...WebTV users have been tying up 411 lines due to a new version of the WebTV virus.
The ramifications are terrifying! Thousands of people too lazy to look the number up in the phone book or online are left scratching their heads wondering how to get the number for Dominos Pizza!
Fears of additional mutations of the virus have left authorities wondering if tomorrow people will be bale to call time or check the traffic!
News at 11.
You forgot---
( ) Thought I smelled it, but it was in fact Cowboy Neal's lunch
Maybe the hologram isn't exactly like the one on Star Wars, but it does say "help me Iacocca, you're my only hope"
--------------
I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing and it was everything that I thought it could be.
Problem with Garth Brooks is that though I can download a full song, no matter the title, it's always the same song.
Pity poor Slashdot if the on-topic smartassed comments all get modded down.
On our planet, we call it humor.
I think we're too late to stop them! Everytime I download a new techno song it's the same few bars over and over again!
oh wait...
`I told those 3-year-olds they're watching a very historic moment,' she said, adding that they may not have grasped the significance.
The significance being that the U.S. is farther ahead of any other nation in developing useful, efficient, profit generating public transportation.
Oh wait....or maybe that this is the only time anyone sees this train and doesn't think: "how long until a bailout?"
So if you want to watch reruns of Gilligan's Island...
I guess necessity is the mother of invention after all. Why there could be thousands of people paying for and downloading Gilligan's Island as we speak! Think of the business oportunities! We could end the dot.com collapse right now!
Gilligan! Put down those coconuts!
Take the counter offer and you'll walk into work one day, be shuffled off to a small conference room with two guys named Bob asking questions like
"what would you say you do here?"
The company that's offering to take you away has probably budgeted your salary. The company you're working for now may well not have and are likely more concerned with the short term effect of your leaving (e.g. deadlines, the pieces of the project you own, etc.). When they look to trim the fat next time, you may well find yourself hit with the downsize stick.
BEWARE THE BOBS!