Not to be a spoilsport, but I thought that promotion was a slimy publicity grab by the publisher from the very first time I read about it. Even without stealing the donations (as in Zarquon's link) this kind of promotion is sleazy.
There is really no reason not to donate money directly to the Red Cross (or any legitimate charity or relief agency) regularly or after a specific disaster.
Any for-profit company that uses a disaster as free publicity, in this kind of "BUY OUR STUFF! Proceeds to the Red Cross" way is, in my opinion, trying to profit (in the form of publicity) from someone else's misfortune. Frankly, I hope they are fined enough to exceed the value of the free advertising they got out of the fire victims.
Terry Karney @92: The likely reason to use Czech was to get the will down to seven letters. After all, why would a German leave a will in Czech? (You could shave off one more by leaving everything to your dog, but that would be silly.)
Terry Karney @93ff.: We really need a good national infrastructure for sending, receiving, and keeping small, positive amounts of money that isn't tied to our corrupt and insolvent banking system. There is cash, of course, for local transactions. The USPS issues money orders and stamps, including barcoded e-stamps. Surely that could be a start.
"Everything to [my] wife," in Czech, would be even shorter: Vše ženě.
According to dubious Internet sources, exactly such a will was once signed by a German.
Out of curiosity, I clicked on the ad. The sites it leads to are interestingly scammy. They all try to sell both "acai" and "colon cleanse" pills.
They seem to have a different .com domain for various geographical markets, as well as different names for the same model. Compare www.www-karensweightloss.com (Karen Joyce from Scranton, PA) with emilysweightlossblog.com (Emily Stevenson from Seattle, WA) or thisdietsavedme.com (Nicholle Stevenson from Miami).
The fake blog entry has fake comments, all of which praise the scammy product. There is, of course, no way to actually comment: "Comments have been temporarily closed due to spam."
This blog seems to have kept track of the scammers running the ad. (The scam is apparently so widespread that Google searches on information about the scam carry advertising for meta-scams.)
#17, 19, 28:
Second Audio Program technology is already supported even in analog television transmissions. PBS uses it to verbally describe performances (ballet, for example) for visually impaired viewers.
That list makes the 2000's seem like a decade of remarkably boring comedians.
The guy with the bag of cash looks like Blagojevich, but surely the programmers couldn't be that fast?
The bridge to Nowhere was cute.
Elders' homes have shrines... which they use to summon up a GEnie... at 3 a.m... to release curses agaist McCain?
I'm pretty sure this happens in America, too.
The October 2008 whiteboard video explanation of CDOs ("How we got them to take our crap") is copied from this cool December 2007 animation.
(Oops, I just noticed that the link is in the sidebar, not this thread. Forgive the digression.)
Possibly the weirdest Chinese counterfeit products are books, such as Harry Potter and Leopard Walk Up to Dragon, which is terrible fanfic sold as if it were a Rowling translation.
Imagine these people outside an sf convention!
There is an interesting neurological phenomenon called blindsight.
Back in college I lived near a guide dog training facility. One day at the bus stop, a blind lady with a dog asked me to let her know when the #31 bus pulled up.
While we made small talk, the #7 arrived; just then she mentioned that the #7 bus line didn't quite pass her destination. Odd coincidence, I thought. The #13 was next, and she suddenly mentioned that bus line, too. We ran out of things to talk about, but when the #17 bus stopped by, she mumbled something to herself about seventeen.
Thinking that she might have been a partially sighted guide-dog trainer, I asked whether she could see the numbers on the buses. She glared at me for the stupid question, so I let her know when the #31 showed up and never saw her (or the dog) again.
I think the Jerkosphere is simple vandalism, extended into the realm of reputation and self-esteem.
Consider customer-vandals who steal towels, urinate on bathroom floors, or take hundreds of ketchup packets which they never use. Their thinking seems to be roughly: the hotel/restaurant owner is rich, in part due to my spending, so if it is possible for me to make her poorer, I will take the opportunity to do that.
It doesn't make economic sense, but as a behavioral-economic model it predicts the behavior of a tiny fraction of the population quite well.
Analogously, if someone has a good reputation (like Boing Boing) or high self-esteem (like the cosplayer in #104), then online reputation vandals will take every opportunity to reduce that person's or company's reputation or self-esteem, even if there is no direct benefit to them, just because it's possible.
For anyone interested in insightful book-length analysis verbal argument and gender, I highly recommend books by blogger Suzette Haden Elgin, including The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense and Genderspeak.
#31: OK, sorry.
#36: Oh. It really wasn't obvious without further research.
Boing Boing deleted posts referring to a third-party author/blogger, which made people upset, causing them to comment on Boing Boing posts by blogger Cory Doctorow about his own book, which comments were also deleted, making people upset again.
The two separate deletion events make the circumlocutions in this thread doubly confusing.
The only meaning I can glean from this discussion/argument is that the book Little Brother is so bad that the author had to delete comments complaining about how bad it was from his own blog, which made people upset. Is that roughly the situation?
Gayle Greeno wrote a series of novels about telepathic kitties. Possibly they were giant telepathic alien kitties; I'm not sure.
The author of Eternity of Blood, meanwhile, plans sequels!
Happy Birthday!
#12 The obvious solution is to redefine squares and/or prime numbers.
Or you could choose a reference planet with a longer year.
The good news is that our host's age in days will next be the square of a prime on Pentecost 2010.
Happy New Year! May yours bring peace, joy, health and prosperity!
(Is anyone busy publishing a novel right now for maximum award eligibility?)
The strangest thing about Ron Paul and next year's election is that he's the only candidate whose supporters seem excited about his candidacy.
Everyone I've met who supports Clinton, Obama, Giuliani, etc. is either clearly into politics as a career, or resigned to voting for the one barely adequate candidate.
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