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Craigslist to Beam Ads into Space (for Free)

Posted by timothy on Wed Mar 02, 2005 05:49 AM
from the unintended-consequences dept.
It's funny. Laugh. Space Science
rdarden writes "According to a press release issues yesterday, Craigslist will be broadcasting 10,000 ads into space later this year. CEO Jim Buckmaster won an eBay auction offered by Deep Space Communications Network, a Cape Canaveral, Florida company. According to an article at Technewsworld.com, they may have already received permission from 10,000 ad submitters."
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Craigslist to Beam Ads into Space (for Free) 50 Comments More /

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  • Beam ads ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mirko (198274) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @05:51AM (#11821895) Homepage Journal
    What's the point ? Isn't this a form of pollution, anyway ? Even if we do not actually know what we pollute if these are radio waves...
    If itz's light, no doubt, it is. The Macunmba disco (near Geneva) had to stop lighting the sky at night for ecological reasons.

    • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, I believe that the ruling that Macumba should turn off their lights was made on the basis that they constituted "advertising outside of a rural area" which is apparently not permitted in France.

      However, it was a group of ecologists who pushed for the prosecution (rather like prosecuting Al Capone for tax evasion).

    • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lumpy (12016) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:24AM (#11822007) Homepage
      It doesn't matter. a Ham radio operator with $300.00 worth of gear can do the same thing.

      Point high gain direction antenna into space, crank watts up to 100, have TNC transmit tones into space.

      Want to get fancier? use a old discarded sattelite dish, point it straight up. get a 2ghz transmitter surplus Microwave oven at the focal point will do.

      either modulate the carrier (hard) or transmit Via CW (easier

      have a 10,000 watt deep space "transmitter" (1000 watt microwave into a 10dbi gain antenna is close to that... most 10 foot dishes are 20+dbi)

      either way the signal is not going to go very far (interstellar speaking) and is a huge waste of money that is purely for the fool to spend his money on.

      Case in point.... CEO of Craigslist.

      • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Dogtanian (588974) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @07:13AM (#11822132) Homepage
        either way the signal is not going to go very far (interstellar speaking) and is a huge waste of money that is purely for the fool to spend his money on. Case in point.... CEO of Craigslist.

        Why is he a fool? His aim seems to have been to get attention for his company for little cost, at which he has probably succeeded.

        The fools, if anyone, are the people getting excited at this.

        • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:4, Funny)

          by WoBIX (819410) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @10:12AM (#11823269)
          They should be more excited about the message I sent:

          "I claim your planet in the name of Earth. Surrender or die."

          I'm expecting an answer back in a few thousand years.
          • They should be more excited about the message I sent: "I claim your planet in the name of Earth. Surrender or die."

            Assuming that intelligent life follows the same evolutionary spurts that the human race has followed in the past few thousand years, we can conclude that evolution of intelligent life is on a scale God knows how many magnitudes faster than the pace of construction/destruction of stars/planets etc.

            Thus, although by numbers, there may be a massive number of potential sites for life out the

          • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:4, Funny)

            by JWSmythe (446288) <jwsmythe.jwsmythe@com> on Wednesday March 02 2005, @02:42PM (#11826303) Homepage Journal
            > "I claim your planet in the name of Earth. Surrender or die."

            Imagine if the SETI folks received a message like that from another planet. If it managed to make mainstream news, people would be freaking out. :)

            I want to send the message "Ecosystem failing. Need ride off this rock. Pick up at Long -118.20193 Lat 33.85908, Earth."

      • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:5, Funny)

        by fireboy1919 (257783) <rustyp.freeshell@org> on Wednesday March 02 2005, @07:18AM (#11822143) Homepage Journal
        HAM radio operators hoping to contact distant life for the altruistic goal of communication aren't nearly as annoying as advertisers who want to make a buck off of every sentient being in the universe.

        I'm going to be very angry when some superpowerful aliens show up to put themselves on our "do not call " list with an Earth-destroying weapon.
        • what do you think really causes novas?

        • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:5, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 02 2005, @10:49AM (#11823718)
          Oh dear oh dear,,,
          Dear sir,
          This message may come to you as a surprise. I am seeking assistance in retrieving my species assets. Due to the recent Slave worlds rebellion, we were forced to flee that sector of the galaxy, carrying along only a few easily transported valuables. Currently our homeworld and six colony worlds are maintained in a stasis field storage facility in the Sagittarius arm, and we are seeing your assistance in reclaiming....

          Or this... [google.com]

      • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:5, Funny)

        by WormholeFiend (674934) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @07:52AM (#11822268)
        Point high gain direction antenna into space, crank watts up to 100

        but do they make one that you can crank up to 111?

      • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:5, Informative)

        by anethema (99553) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @08:38AM (#11822470) Homepage
        If the aliens are at the nearest star (they arent), using a 30dB dish and a 1000 watt microwave magnotron...

        The recieved signal would be at least -300dBm. You know what kind of transmitter can Rx a signal at -300dBm? The magical non existant kind. No one is recieving these ads, no matter what any ham operator can do, or craigs list.
      • A ham operator can't do that. The license does not permit broadcasting (except under very limited circumstances). See: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_02/47cf r97_02.html [gpo.gov]

    • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kernelblaha (756819) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:35AM (#11822040)
      It's a great publicity stunt, just cos it's quirky. Look, it's even made it on /. Similar thing happened with the "Milka" cows in Switzerland. They painted cows with a variety of adverts (for a reasonable fee) and let the cows graze close to the railways in Switzerland. But most of the influence was due to people telling other people about the idea, because they found it interesting. An example of memes in action.

    • Re:Beam ads ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Laurentiu (830504) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:59AM (#11822097)
      Haven't you noticed yet? Human beings sorely lack the capacity to put things in the proper perspective. Their view of their immediate surroundings almost always superceeds whatever large-scale or long-term effects their actions might have.

      "Yeah, we'll dump the nuclear waste in the Pacific. The containers are sealed so tight, there's no way they're gonna leak." 350 years later our children's children will have an ecological disaster of such scale on their hands that Hiroshima will be remembered fondly as "the good ol' days".

      "Stop pollution? But that would cost us votes... erm, jobs! No way!" What is the long term cost, we wonder? I don't want my grandchildren to live in a future where they buy CocaCola Pure Mountain Air, do you?

      This is just the newest folly in a long list of follies that the human race produced over the centuries. Craigslist sees it as a slick marketing move - they'll get all the free publicity they need with this one. They can now safely claim they boldly spammed where nobody spammed before. But that's as far as they think; other consequences, if any, escapes them completely.

      Anyone remember the Voyager message? That was something our race could be proud of. 15 years later we're sending another message, which makes me wish there's no one out there to receive it. I wish they would begin and end their transmission with this disclaimer:

      "This message represents only the human corporation known as Craiglist, and not in any way, shape or form the entirety of the human race. Any complaints, jams, deathray beams or any other form of communication related with this transmission should be directed towards the aforementioned entity."

  • spammers... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 02 2005, @05:51AM (#11821896)
    Cue thousands of angry alien civilizations rushing in to destroy the earth-spammers.

  • 2035, first contact with an alien species (Score:5, Funny)

    by Laurentiu (830504) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @05:53AM (#11821903)
    Earth: "Greetings, friends from space, welcome to Earth!"

    Alien spaceship: "All your Burger Kings are belong to us."

  • Yay Earth! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Farmer Tim (530755) <roundfile.mindless@com> on Wednesday March 02 2005, @05:54AM (#11821907) Journal
    Universe's leading source of spam!
    • "Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of them have tried to contact us" - LazyBoy

  • In a Galaxy Far Far Away... (Score:5, Funny)

    by liloconf (560960) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @05:54AM (#11821908)
    Alien 1: Sir we're receiving a transmission...
    Alien 2: What does it say?
    Alien 1: Increase it's size by 3 inches!!!
    Alien 2: ?????

  • Great (Score:5, Funny)

    by twodiabolo (265880) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @05:56AM (#11821914)
    That should be enough to get us blacklisted as spammers. There goes any hope of making first contact!
  • Single White Male in Search of Grey Alien Anal Probe
  • 1. Create an ad
    2. Send it into space
    3. ???????
    4. Profit

  • I can see it now (Score:3, Funny)

    by proverbialcow (177020) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @05:57AM (#11821925) Journal
    Humanity finally perfects FTL travel, and the first colonists are lost because the communications channel is filled ads for v|@gr4 and old 'Friends' re-runs and Hitler kicking off the '36 Olympics.

    Fan-frickin'-tastic.

  • I can just see the ads beamed out into space... (Score:5, Funny)

    by idlake (850372) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @05:59AM (#11821931)
    Polyamorous alien within 1003.2 light years (same galactic arm only please) with prime number of piercing into tentacle sex and black hole bondage wanted by endoskeletal ape descendant (some hair) with XY sex chromosomes and external genitalia (tentacle-like but not prehensile). Please be between 3'2" and 10'7" along your longest dimension, weigh no more than 500 pounds (no prejudice against big boned aliens, but there are physical limitations), have skin pigmentation that absorbs IR and fluoresces under near UV light. I still live with my evolutionary relatives, so you must have your own spacecraft.

  • Don't panic (Score:3, Funny)

    by mcc (14761) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:00AM (#11821932) Homepage
    October 13, 2005: Craigslist beams 10,000 ads into space
    October 14, 2005: Earth obliterated by the Intergalactic Anti-Spam Defense Force
    October 15, 2005: [Nothing]

  • Last request (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jonathan the Nerd (98459) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:01AM (#11821935) Homepage
    The last thing humans will ever see will be an intergalactic missile streaking towards earth, inscribed with the alien word for "Unsubscribe".

  • Why not (Score:5, Funny)

    by ebrandsberg (75344) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:03AM (#11821944)
    It's not like the response rate for my personals ads will get any lower by beaming them into space, I figured they were doing this already.

  • I can see it now (Score:5, Funny)

    by OldManAndTheC++ (723450) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:06AM (#11821957)
    "We wanted to be the first to offer free job postings, apartment listings, personals and other classifieds to the extraterrestrial community.

    FOR SALE: **DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH**. Third planet from Sun. Surface mainly dihydrogen monoxide with some silicates. Good starter planet for young, carbon-based species. Still has much of original fossil fuel deposits. Excellent views of Venus, Mars. Small hole in ozone layer. Aboriginal biped humanoid species infestation can easily be removed with genetically engineered plague, or runaway nanotech "accident".

    PRICE: 1.2 Million Quatloos. **CALL NOW** will not be listed for long at this price!

  • we won't have to ask why...
  • The article didn't say: does anyone know *where* the beam will be pointing?

  • The first interstellar 419? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My esteemed colleague,

    Let me introduce myself. I am James Obayyama Coquhamm'uoy of Nigeria, on the African continent, on a small blue-green planet circling a star known as 'sol'

    Recently, my government was overthrown by dissidents and my father, General Christian Obayyama Coquhamm'uoy was killed.

    Upon his death, it was discovered that he had accumulated a large fortune which we need to get off this planet as soon as possible.

    My dear friend. I am a God-fearing man. I am putting my trust in you, another Go

  • 2005: A Space Aneurism (Score:5, Funny)

    by bmo (77928) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:16AM (#11821982)
    "My God, it's full of Spam!"

    --
    BMO

  • Any signal is worth sending.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aug24 (38229) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:19AM (#11821993) Homepage
    All that an intelligent species will care about is the non-natural arrangement of information - then we have first contact.

    If it's paid for by idiots for the expected publicity, then all the better - less budget for them to spend on spamming me!

    Justin.

  • Lets just pray they filter the ads (Score:5, Funny)

    by antifoidulus (807088) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:22AM (#11822002) Homepage Journal
    I don't really want to see a "goatse" constellation up in space.....

  • new message (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tethys_was_taken (813654) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:55AM (#11822080) Homepage
    FROM:
    MR.SOLOMON ALEMAYEHU
    WORLD BANK OF EARTH
    STREET P.O.BOX 5550
    ADDIS ABABA,ETHIOPIA, EARTH, THE MILKYWAY.

    DEAR SIR/MADAM/THING,

    I AM MR.SOLOMON ALEMAYEHU, BANK MANAGER OF WORLD BANK OF EARTH.

    THIS IS AN URGENT AND VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSITION.

    ON 1123.423123 METRIC DATE ,A FOREIGN OIL CONSULTANT/CONTRACTOR WITH THE EARTH INSTITUTE OF MINING AND METALLURGY, MR. MICHAEL FOSTER MADE A NUMBERED TIME(FIXED) DEPOSIT FOR TWELVE EARTH MONTHS, VALUED AT 26,500,000.00,(TWENTY-SIX MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITS GALACTIC CURRENCY) IN MY BRANCH.

    UPON MATURITY,I SENT A ROUTINE NOTIFICATION TO HIS FORWARDING ADDRESS BUT GOT NO REPLY. AFTER A MONTH,WE SENT A REMINDER AND FINALLY WE DISCOVERED FROM HIS CONTRACT EMPLOYERS, THE MARTIAN PETROLEUM CORPORATION THAT MR. MICHAEL FOSTER DIED FROM AN AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT.

    ON FURTHER INVESTIGATION,I FOUND OUT THAT HE DIED WITHOUT MAKING A WILL,AND ALL ATTEMPTS TO TRACE HIS NEXT OF KIN WAS FRUITLESS.

    I THEREFORE MADE FURTHER INVESTIGATION AND DISCOVERED THAT MR. MICHAEL FOSTER DID NOT DECLARE ANY KIN OR RELATIONS IN ALL HIS OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS,INCLUDING HIS BANK DEPOSIT PAPER WORK IN MY BANK HERE ON EARTH.THIS SUM OF 26,500,000.00 HAS CAREFULLY BEEN FIXED IN MY BANK FOR SAFEKEEPING.

    NO ONE WILL EVER COME FORWARD TO CLAIM IT.ACCORDING TO EARTH LAW, AT THE EXPIRATION OF 5 (FIVE) STANDARD EARTH YEARS, THE MONEY WILL REVERT TO THE OWNERSHIP OF THE GOVERNMENT IF NOBODY APPLIES TO CLAIM THE FUND.CONSEQUENTLY, MY PROPOSAL IS THAT I WILL LIKE YOU AS A ALIEN TO STAND IN AS THE OWNER OF THE MONEY WHICH WAS FIXED DEPOSITED IN MY BANK.I AM WRITING YOU BECAUSE I AS A PUBLIC SERVANT,I CANNOT OPERATE A NON-SOLAR-SYSTEM ACCOUNT.

    I WANT TO PRESENT YOU AS THE OWNER OF THE FUNDS SO YOU CAN BE ABLE TO CLAIM THEM WITH THE HELP OF MY ATTORNEY. THIS IS SIMPLE.I WILL LIKE YOU TO PROVIDE IMMEDIATELY YOUR FULL NAMES AND ADDRESS SO THAT THE ATTORNEY WILL PREPARE THE NECESSARY DOCUMENTS WHICH WILL PUT YOU IN PLACE AS THE BENEFICIARY OF THE FUNDS.

    THE MONEY WILL BE MOVED OUT FOR US TO SHARE IN THE RATIO OF 80% FOR ME AND 20% FOR YOU. THE PAPERWORK FOR THIS TRANSACTION WILL BE DONE BY THE ATTORNEY.

    IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, PLEASE REPLY IMMEDIATELY VIA THE SAME METHOD THIS REACHES YOU AND UPON YOUR RESPONSE, I SHALL THEN PROVIDE YOU WITH MORE DETAILS AND RELEVANT DOCUMENTS THAT WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE TRANSACTION.

    PLEASE OBSERVE UTMOST CONFIDENTIALITY, AND BE REST ASSURED THAT THIS TRANSACTION WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE FOR BOTH OF US BECAUSE I SHALL REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE TO INVEST MY SHARE IN REAL ESTATE WITHIN YOUR PLANET.

    AWAITING YOUR URGENT REPLY.

    THANKS AND MY REGARDS.

    SOLOMON ALEMAYEHU.
    WORLD BANK OF EARTH

  • Is this what the editors at Slashdot (Score:4, Funny)

    by carlmenezes (204187) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @06:59AM (#11822094) Homepage
    have resorted to nowadays? I'm sure you had stories MUCH more worthy of acceptance, instead you choose to publish rubbish like this.

    Don't mean to sound like a troll, but are you sure you don't choose stories based on random numbers and a team of trained hansters?

  • Cat: What happen? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zog The Undeniable (632031) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @07:25AM (#11822169)
    Somebody set up us the ad!

  • Spam the galaxy (Score:3, Funny)

    by 'Tractor' Barry (788340) on Wednesday March 02 2005, @07:56AM (#11822289) Homepage
    Great. Now they're spamming the galaxy.

    I hope this attracts a Vorlon planet killer in response.
  • Remember the days of venture capitalists throwing money into high "burn rate" companies, and then the general public throwing money into high "burn rate public traded" companies? This is kind of like throwing your money away, again, but instead of having nothing to show for it here on Earth, you'll have nothing to show for it up in space... very profound.

    And I think that if you're going to send out images into space, you best send out a copy of Irfanview, or a JPEG viewer (read their FAQ), because those damn intelligent life forms just may not understand the JPEG file format. (I hear they're into PNG)

    I think the only thing that would actually effective would be to send huge banners or posters into space. I'm detaching my Heather Locklear and Motley Crue posters right now. ALl of these signal transmissions will just sound like space noise, but an old picture of Leather Locklear in a cheesy white bathing suit would be a far better way to communicate.

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