...From the "don't flame Hettinga, it only encourages him" department...
At 4:36 PM -0800 on 2/6/00, the romantically-nymmed "John Doe Number Two"
wrote:
> Did Kirkagarde ever organise a fundraiser mentioned on Slashdot?
> No.
Damn straight, he didn't.
> Was John Stuart-Mill capable of spamming newsgroups at the push of a button?
> Absolutely not.
Nope, and I bet *you* can't, either, at least not without Lance, or
whoever, taking away your nym, hmmm? :-).
The trick, you see, is to send people stuff about something related to the
*topic* of the group in question, about something that they might actually
be *interested* in participating in. Oh. That's right. If *that*'s the
case, it isn't *spam* anymore, is it, don Juan?
I should note for the record, however, that I can't even do *that* right:
somebody else, a nym (this one with a clue) from the *L0pht*, don Juan --
you know, people who even *you* would say worked for a living -- sent the
invitation to slashdot and HNN. Not me.
By the way, that slashdot effect thing is just plain *cool*. I got 30
emails within 3 *hours*, almost every one of them signing up to go to the
EFF fundraiser (<plug> on February 15, at 5:30, at the Downtown Harvard
Club of Boston, wear a suit, bring your checkbook </plug>). No wonder they
just sold andover.net last week for *8* *Hundred* *Million* *Dollars*.
(Damn. I *am* in the wrong business. Well, so far, anyway...)) And that was
for some suit-thing any self-respecting linux person wouldn't be caught
dead at.
When I thought of doing this EFF at the Harvard Club fundraiser thing, I
was figuring on *maybe* 100 people raising *maybe* $10k, tops. I mean,
compared to the Bay Area, we're poor over here in New Europ^h^h^h^h^h, er,
England. Gotta *feed* that tax-man, you know. ;-).
Now, because lots of people are saying, up front, how *much* they want to
donate as they email me their RSVP, we might even have that much money
raised *now*, after just two *days*. Maybe. We'll probably move the thing
to a bigger room if this keeps up. None of those contributions nearly as
large as Lucky's $5k individual donation, which inspired me to do this, or
Sameer's $2k, for that matter, (or was it the other way around, and Sameer
did $5k? I can't remember), but I *am* doing my best to shake the money
tree over here for what it's worth, and in my own fashion, and with a whole
lot of help from hackers willing to brave a suit-donning. I'm shaking said
tree instead of ponying up my own ducats, of course, because,
> Decartes may have lived inside an oven, but did he do it as an adult while
> still living at his mom's house?
> Nope.
:-).
Wife. Wife, don Juan, not mother. Get the story straight, will you, please?
Sheesh. My mother couldn't *begin* to afford my food bills. Always marry a
professional woman, that's what *I* always say. ;-).
> And Sartre may have been a Frog, but was he a fat, uninteresting slob who
> lived off of the work, words and ideas of others?
> No way, man.
Nope. That's me. A boring, obese, parasite. A banal butterball-blight on da
woikin' man. <Hold on, I've got a top-hat, cane, chalk-striped pants and
spats around here somewhere. There. Don't I look like a genuine,
socialist-realist Pravda-Capitalist now? Okay, okay, squint harder. Can't
ya see it? No? *Damn*. And I was going to ask *you* for $800 million,
too...>
Of course, if I'm such a leech, why ain't I rich? Because, don Juan, other
people *do* work, and, mostly, I only *talk* about work, and I only do
*that* very rarely. Well, until lately, anyway. My heretofore blissful
state of leisure seems to be changing, and for the worse, I fear. Why, only
yesterday, don Juan, just *yesterday*, mind you, I must have worked a whole
*hour*, maybe even *two*. The horror. The *horror*...
> You leave Bobby alone or I'll bitch-slap you with a fistful of virtual
> eHettingCash�...just as soon as he's found an investor.
Too late. Found an investor. Actually 4, so far. Gonna need a lot more than
that, though; the angels, the board, the principals, etc., all being there
just for adult supervision of Evil Lazy Corpulent Bob, for the most part
:-). And I'm really gonna need that supervision, don Juan, because I wanna
spend a whole *lot* of other people's hard-earned cash this year, that is,
if I'm supposed to be underwriting bearer cash transactions at an 85
basis-point front-end load (look, Rocky, nothin' up my sleeve), by 01/01/01
(at 01:01:01? naww...). Here's hoping, of course, at least *some* of that
money comes back, or I'm gonna be in biiig trouble. Hell, don Juan, I bet
you've never even gotten a parking ticket, have you, hmmm? Daddy would be
*mad*, I bet, or at least, heh, your wife would, all delusions of
militia-romanticism that your chosen nym implies aside.
So, don Juan, if I can leech any more feelthy lucre out of those poor,
hard-working institutional investors -- maybe an insurance company or six
-- do you *want* some, maybe?
All you have to do is write me a public-domain bits-on-the-wire internet
financial cryptography protocol for streaming bearer micropayments with
probabalistic double-spending control. You can do *that*, can't you? No?
How about open-source walletware or serverware, or, even, an underwriting
engine for same? No? Really? Can't code? How about this then: get me the
rights to the blind signature patent so people can store money (yup,
*that*'s what it's for, *storage*; seriously... :-)) before it zips around
in such little bitty bits. No? Hmmm... Okay. Can you get me "no-action"
letters from The Fed, the IRS, Justice, and the Controller of the Currency?
No? How about signed underwriting agreements from someone like, say, Sumner
Redstone? You know. Viacom. *Blockbuster*. No???
Well, shoot, man, what *can* you do? I mean, you better do *something*. You
certainly don't expect *me* to actually *do* anything, do you? *Do* you???
:-).
Tell ya what, Juan, see you in Anguilla in 10 days, and we can talk about
it. If you're going, that is. I'll be anchored in Little Harbor this time
(or so we've been told, to get line-of sight with the Wave-LAN, if we can
scare one up). In a multihull ("Houston, we have a Condo-Cat...") with a
bunch of people who work for a living. Me, I'm just leeching off them. If
you ask nice, don Juan, maybe I can talk them into giving you a ride...
Yes, don Juan, (and Matilda) it *is* good to be King...
Cheers,
R. 0, Rex
"...your horse must be getting pret-ty sore by now, don Juan..."
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
