foxit

Well, there goes the gaming industry.

Wimdu failed to cross-check our presence when they gave their telemarketing list to what sounded like kids in dorm rooms robocalling us - day after day after day and sometimes three times per day - until they finally gave up (more likely) or finally got the message that we had already listed ourselves on their site. Whatever Airbnb did where they emailed people via Craigslist has absolutely nothing on the obnoxiousness of Wimdu, they're just lesser news.

I've considered this issue a lot. Having lost many friends and family members to cancers of various types, and counting cancer survivors among my friends and acquaintances, I am very keenly interested in curing cancer.

Right now, being so deeply invested in my own business, I would wish there were things I could do to simply fund cancer research. But nothing is simple, and there are a lot of problems with cancer research funding: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/health/research/28cancer.h... The comment on that piece that most struck me was from the breast cancer survivor who eagerly participated in a research study, given that she knew which carcinogens she'd been exposed to in her lifetime, but found that she was asked useless questions using research money that could've been well-used elsewhere. #28 on this page: http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/0...

You will quickly find when you research cancer that acquiring a decade's worth of specialized knowledge isn't going to get you to your goal. It's much better to have a working knowledge of statistics and the ability to read medical papers, something you can do with far less than a MD or PhD.

I'm posting from a 2007 Compaq 8510p with Windows XP, and having the browser bog down as if I've been hacked has been the sharpest reminder of late I need to upgrade.

That's because the internet has stripped profits away. It's like reality shows being the trend in television because expensive productions don't have as much profit margin as they used to.

My view of porn is essentially what Naomi Wolfe's was in 2003: http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/

The only thing I'd add is that as we become more saturated in stimulation, it takes more extremes to get the dopamine hit. This goes for porn or anything else he mentions in his article.

There is a singular lack of realization about the societies in which we live, possibly because it does feel like every man for himself most days. The societal web that makes us interdependent and upon which we rely without knowing it isn't as apparent.

Addendum: there's a lot of confusion about the differences between something being legal and something being moral/ethical in the responses to this post. Legal too often simply means exploiting loopholes.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/vac/2983382098.html

For those who don't know, Airbnb has a posting-to-Craigslist option. It is not an auto-poster; rather, it formats a post into the html that'll be accepted by Craigslist, then you have to log into your Craigslist account to post to Craigslist what Airbnb's given you. We haven't used this option since we started. It does invite you to go to Airbnb's site so the transaction is not being conducted via Craigslist's email system. It chooses "no email - see below" as the default option and does not include a phone number. You can, of course, since you are the poster and it's not being auto-posted, change anything and everything about the format and the options.

Then you have our situation, the situation that has developed. We indicate our reviews on Airbnb and other services. The other services remain fine and untouched. But we can no longer show potential customers our Airbnb reviews.

I think this is REALLY important. I didn't want it to pass without notice as when I posted the "Airbnb killer" link 10 days ago; that was worth noting too, but this is vital. Ability to link to Airbnb on Craigslist may not be important in the large markets where people will see your Airbnb ad anyway, as in SeoxyS's case, but for the just-getting-going places where Airbnb wishes to grow, it's vital.

It's an inaccurate representation of what happened as well as a year-old story, and I don't think it has much relevance to why they chose to block airbnb.com today.

2. We don't use the Craigslist posting feature through Airbnb's site. It would make some sense for Craigslist to limit the use of that tool, since they have limited the use of other automated tools (limiting their own utility as a service, but that's beyond the scope of what I'm talking about). This is not being able to type "airbnb.com" into the posting form at all, something quite different. Potential guests ask for reviews, as they should, and we direct them upfront in our Craigslist ads to Airbnb, Homeaway, and other places we have excellent reviews.

Just for the record, I DO NOT agree with the headline in any way, shape, or form. House swapping and vacation rental swapping has existed since before the internet, and while adding social networking to the transaction is a nice touch and may even work to make a viable business, I can't see how this kills Airbnb, or even competes with it.

[edit] disclosure: vacation rental owner advertising on Airbnb and other vacation rental sites, has never worked out to successfully swap houses with the 5-10 parties who've inquired over time.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but Sagan requested that Voyager turn and take the picture as it exited the solar system, which is the reason we have it. I'd say his 1994 book and the original photo are pretty well intertwined.

His conclusion went a step further than yours: since we're insignificant, we must take care of each other and the planet, because we're all we have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections_by_Sa...

Whereas stopping with just "we're insignificant, so who cares" is apathy, the most destructive force.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...

Ubuntu was soooo close to surpassing Windows from a "I just want to get stuff done without mucking with the machine" standpoint.