text:
I have the same problem, I particularly like the misdirected emails send by law firms - they invariably have a disclaimer saying that if I receive an email in error, I must destroy all copies of it.
I like to reply and tell them that in order to comply and delete the email off of all devices that the email ended up on (which is at least 5 different devices), I'll need to bill them for the work. So far none of them has offered to pay the bill.
I've often wondered if I could just spend an hour or two to go around deleting the email from everywhere it was delivered, and send them a bill. After all, they told me that I *must* do it and since it was their error that sent me the email, I shouldn't have to pay for it.
On a good day I settle for polite self-promotion, on a bad day I lean towards snippy sarcasm about spelling, and I'm waiting for a really bad day to rip them a new one for failing to get either of the hemispheres correct.
It's not your meat...
I know it sucks, but in a sue-happy world that one nice thing you do for someone could be misconstrued as an invasion of privacy. Then being helpful turns into an angry back and forth from someone who doesn't understand it was their mistake to begin with. Worse yet they claim you looked at their incredibly-privileged-yet-somehow-goes-through-email messages that has now totally harmed them.
Just delete these emails. Create a filter, make sure you're not storing stuff anywhere, and leave it be.
I know it sucks, but in a sue-happy world that one nice thing you do for someone could be misconstrued as an invasion of privacy
... wait, you mean a sue-happy country, right?
A sue-happy world.
About a decade ago, long before this became a common problem, I got an e-mail meant for someone at a
The result was that I got a scathing reply back, implying that I was a criminal, and that this would be reported to the police.
The problem is that those who can't even be bothered to enter a correct e-mail address aren't going to bother reading the technical details, nor figuring out what or where the problem is, and will likely draw the conclusion that you somehow stole their e-mail.
I'm tempted to automatically put all e-mails to my domain that isn't for me on a web page, for public consumption. While most of them are obviously spam, some appear to be quite, um, interesting if you have odd kinks. As long as I announce this as a public service, would I be in my rights to do so?
Write to your Congresspeople asking them to create a law requiring businesses to address the problem, sort of like a second anti-SPAM act. Write to the Consumer Protection Bureau (if it gets off the ground), the FTC, or whatever other jurisdiction the sender may fall under. Write articles to your local paper--if you write well, it's an interesting enough problem they may well publish it.
I have that happen all the time with a gmail account of mine. I have a filter, look through to find if the mail is relevant to me, then just purge the mailbox with the misguided stuff in it. Chronic people who send in error, I just blacklist their E-mail addresses.
Agreed. They're not his e-mails, and he shouldn't be involved. Let them figure it out as to why their e-mails didn't get received. Recycle those bits.
Must... resist... weiner... joke...
I have a personal domain which has the same problem. My domain name is a four letter latin word (not wanting to slashdot my poor server, I won't mention the name). There's a Belgian rock band with the same name, a video game with a similar name, and at least one medical ward in a Boston hospital which uses a typographical variation.
I used to be inundated with (a) Flemish grunge fans who were indignant that I had "stolen" the name of "their" band's website (fans, not the band itself), (b) people asking/demanding help in the game, and (c) confidential reports from the hospital. And when I say inundated, I mean I was getting between 3,000 and 7,000 spam/misdirected email a day. Probably 50 of those a day were misdirected emails that weren't flagged as spam.
Ten years ago, I used to send back a boilerplate "this isn't the web site you're looking for" response to these guys (I set up a script in the Bat mailer I was using at the time). The results I got for this were:
a) the grungers demanded I give "back" my domain to their favourite band;
b) the gamers told me "I'll never buy another one of your effing games again"; and, for the win
c) the hospital types said "you have illegally intercepted confidential medical data, we're going to sue you into the ground"
To be fair, there were a number of "oops, sorry, thought you were the other guys" apologies (and one rambling email in Portuguese from a woman who wanted to know if she should marry her boyfriend whom she didn't love, and should wait for Mr. Right instead)
Nothing ever came from it, other than my deciding to say the hell with it. Most of it was nonsense, but it could easily become a time suck.
More recently, I've started getting "confirmations" from companies that my application has been pre-approved. This isn't spam, it's actually some bozo using my email address, despite giving different address/phone information when applying. The fact that he's getting these pre-approvals says something about the approval process, to be sure. I called the first few, thinking maybe my account had been hacked, but it's just someone else (it's always the same address he gives) who doesn't seem to know his own email address.
The results you got suggest a large number of people who are truly clueless about email and the Internet. Might I suggest that in your initial "This isn't the website you're looking for" email, you provide a small note to the effect of "I reserve the right to post future correspondence from you publicly."
Then just do what The Pirate Bay does [thepiratebay.org].
I have a personal domain which has the same problem. My domain name is a four letter latin word (not wanting to slashdot my poor server, I won't mention the name). There's a Belgian rock band with the same name, a video game with a similar name, and at least one medical ward in a Boston hospital which uses a typographical variation.
Deus [deus.com], right ? Belgian pop knowledge FTW ! Also 1995 called and wants their web design back
Frankly... Filter them out. It is not your job to fix their problems, because in fact that's what you suggest doing. The companies got those email addresses from their client and if they didn't it is and it belongs in your junk folder. Getting on the phone with those companies costs you time and money, and that's where it ends.
I would not suggest filtering out all messages that contain "no-reply" or similar in their From field. I'd suggest that if you get such a misdirected message, you add a custom filter directly to trash (not Junk, that may screw the Bayesian filter). Try matching on the subject or so, for example, for the cable company it typically will have a subject "CableCo Bill of 06/2011", then filter on Subject: "CableCo Bill".
The example you gave with the kid was most likely on purpose done by the kid. I'm pretty sure a kid trying to activate an account would try with a phony email or something else, not realizing that in fact that won't bring them closer to activation. If it does, the activation of the website they applied for is broken. (Besides, really, a clever kid just makes his own "parent email account" and circumvents the system).
I don't have as common a name as the submitter apparently does, but just two weeks ago I got mail from a sheriff's office concerning a domestic dispute the intended recipient had been involved in. It was probably just clerical error, but I'm very glad I was able to correct the mistake.
Heh, strange, I'm really surprised no one's suggested that you're morally obligated to turn yourself in to the FBI for illegally invading other people's privacy... you're not allowed to open other people's mail even if it is addressed to you
So legally, the safest thing to do is just filter/delete the thing as soon as you realize it's not for you.
That said, I suspect this could become a new SPAM technique, if it isn't already.
But of course, the legal or even the safe thing to do isn't always the right th
I'd suggest that if you get such a misdirected message, you add a custom filter directly to trash (not Junk, that may screw the Bayesian filter).
But it is junk. Quite literally, because it is unsolicited e-mail. If a bank can't be bothered to properly implement opt-in, then they get what they deserve.
I get emails for people who used a fake address on my domain as a throw-away address when they signed up for some web account. That's no different than someone else signing me up for junk mail; I have every right to ask the sender to stop, even if that ends up deleting the original person's account.
Someone out there lost a lot of Southwest Airlines mileage points because the requirement for bonus points was to sign up for their email newsletter for 6 months. After two I emailed customer service and had it
I'm actually quite happy to put them in spam. If there is, for instance, a university that some kid who has no business in university (I'm looking at you, "Cor Ey", and if by some small chance you are, in fact, reading this you are, in fact, an idiot) signs up for with a bogus address, and they don't send a fucking confirmation link, they deserve to have their outgoing emails marked as spam.
Same goes for cable bills, etc. The people who's responsibility it was to make sure those emails don't get to me are
Don't mark them as spam.
If you do and they are legitimate emails, then you'll be training your filter (or worse, everybody's filter, if you use a web-based client) to flag real emails.
Really, why not just ignore it and throw it all away? If people sign up with the wrong addresses, they might as well notice it themselves...
Because it can snowball, fast. This happened to me twice on a gmail account. If the person making a mistake sends messages to a group, then everyone in that group now has your email address; I'd get a long conversation via the reply-alls of his correspondents. I emailed one of his correspondents and explained, since I wasn't sure of the correct email address. That one recurs now and then since I'm in so many group mail lists of his friend and biz associates.
And I started getting lots of please-please-come-b
If the person who was supposed to get it cares, they'll call the company and ask why they're not getting it, and fix the address then.
If they don't care, then it doesn't matter.
We all get email we don't want or care about. Dump it.
Let the person these emails are supposed to be going to know that it happens a lot so they can correct it, assuming you can find their email address .
Oh, come on... That' s pretty much next to impossible. He says he has a common name, let's assume "John Smith" who is subscribed to CableCo in State ST. That's it. If he really has a very common name/surname combo I can assure you there will be hundreds of "John Smith" in State ST. Finding them, with the limited information you have, is even more time consuming and expensive than calling CableCo.
If the address of said "John Smith" is in the bill, you have a better chance, but still, it will cost time a
Tangent here, but I wonder if there is some improvement in modern times as to parents naming their kids incredibly common names. Just personally, if my last name was "Smith" and I had a kid "Joe", "John", "Sue", "Sally", etc would all be off the table immediately. It would have to be Plaxico Smith or something like that.
Um... I did exactly that. I had received an email from an educational institute, a credit card company, and a theatre club, all addressed to someone with a different first name. My email address is just my last name, so I kinda expected I'd eventually get wrong emails, but this was all email addresses manually provided by this other individual to these companies. With the three emails, I decided I had enough info to do some quick research. I found out who she was, where she worked, etc., and got her cor
Enjoy your stay at PMITA prison.
You're admitting 'hacking' in to someone else's account and changing the account details? Are you insane?
and tell them that I first have to say I am that kid's parent or guardian
Enjoy having to notify your neighbors about being on the sex offenders list. Why would you pretend to be the parent of some strange kid on the internet? Yes, if I take you at your word, you're going out of your way to help. On the other hand, if I'm a local official who wants to look tough on cyber-crime, you're a predator.
I have a not-so-common FirstNameLastN
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2222466&cid=36377112 [slashdot.org]
It isn't spam, but it isn't my meat.
It sounds like this isn't the case, but I'd point out that "accidently" sending email to the wrong person is getting more traction as a spam and phishing technique. I've seen stuff recently (I have a fairly common email too) that goes way beyond the classic and obvious "hey man, here's the projections you wanted. You were right, you should invest in SomeShitStock right away!". Again, the stuff you talk about sounds legit and you probably already know this, but just incase, be-careful!
As to the actual post. I do much as you do. If it's an actual person, quick reply sorts it out. If it's automated and there is an _obvious_ support or admin email link (most businesses seem to have a "if you have received this in error" link now) I'll do. But as you said, there is a point though where you have to draw the line at how long you'll play phone tag for someone else's benefit. I always figure stuff like that eventually works itself out anyway. I don't want people going through billing nightmares, but unreasonable is unreasonable.
On that note I'd point out that any company _billing people_ over email should have one of those activation link via email dealies. Most web forums have that, you'd think a cable company could manage to confirm an email before sending out personal info (in fact, here in Canada I think they legally have to).
I too have a very common email@example.com. For personal emails, I just reply and let them know they've got the wrong falloutboy. One guy, a screenwriter in LA, gave my address to a lot of his family, so I had to have kind of an awkward exchange with his mother and one of his aunts who CONTINUES to send me photos of her young son. This is weird stuff I don't want in my inbox.
For the DirecTV emails, I submitted like 15 messages to their general customer service inquiry form. That took like four months to get completely cleared up.
Once I got looped in on an email thread where the other three people were high school kids using Facebook, so my only method for actually communicating was that I had to add as a friend a high school girl. I'm a 30 year old man. My wife was less than thrilled.
I got looped in on an email thread where the other three people were high school kids using Facebook, so my only method for actually communicating was that I had to add as a friend a high school girl. I'm a 30 year old man. My wife was less than thrilled.
Congressman Weiner, is that you?
. I'm a 30 year old man.
On the internet, you can be ANYONE.
The solution is simple enough: Change your name to "Vorokrytin P. Winterbuttocks", and I can guarantee you that it won't be a problem in the future.
I ignore it. It isn't my responsibility to route somebody else's email. And if I'm stuck on somebody else's email address, I set up an filtering to 1) discard all email from that address, and 2) send an autoreply to unsubscribe, which may or may not annoy somebody at the sender's origin.
Beyond that, if they're personal e-mails, I usually reply and tell them they have the wrong address. If someone sets up online billing, it's their responsibility to ensure that they're receiving the e-mails. It's no different than if you failed to get a bank statement or credit card bill via snail mail--you know you owe the money, and need to call in to find out how much.
My solution to the problem was to look for the person's name and address in the billing information being sent to me. Obviously writing them an email is impossible. So I wrote one person a nice letter warning them about the issues of fraud and identity theft, asked them to fix their email address records with various companies, and encouraged them to be more careful with their personal information. It worked, all the stuff from one lady no longer appears in my inbox. Unfortunately *someone else* has s
For Apple's Mail.app there is a "bounce message" which returns something pretty much like a "no such address" type of response. There are probably plug-ins for Thunderbird that do the same, but where I looked for them I mostly found plugins that "redirect" mail to addresses of your choice keeping the headers intact - so there may be an issue with terminology that might complicate your search for a solution.
I have an uncommon first.last name combo, but still end up getting signed up for weirdest things... there appears to be a kid in Croatia with the same name, and of course, there's no way to reach out to him and inform him of the mistake he repeatedly makes.
As a last ditch effort, when he finally signed up to facebook [with my email], I reset the password, logged in and messaged a few of his new friends that this is "not the John Smith you are looking for", politely explained the situation, and asked them t
but you also don't want to bother fixing it....
Fix: Get a different email address.
I am sure he already thought of that and decides his email must be his name, so get a new name.
It seems from your description that this is becoming a significant nuisance.
So just get a new account, with a non common e-mail address, notify all your contacts and start using that.
On the original account, put an automatic reply notifying the sender that they probably got a wrong address.
Post them to alt.flame. Deleting your own email address, of course.
If it's a personal email, I mail them back and let them know they've got the wrong guy. If it's some web site that they've signed up for, I'll try to log in and leave a comment to their profile. I've gone as far as poked around for phone numbers and called and texted them (that freaks people out, but... not my problem). I'll also often change the email to "not(address)@(domain)" and even sometimes randomize the password.
Some of the no reply ones I've marked as spam, and there's at least a couple of peopl
my GF has been getting a bunch of these for someone else that has the same first initial as her. After getting a few very personal email replies obviously directed at this other person, she attempted contact (as these folks were replying to an email this other person had sent). There was much confusion between the two of them until I suggested that I look at the headers. It seems that this other person had configured their mail client to set the "Reply To" header to be my GF's email. Unfortunately, even
An automated bounce message that explained the issue ("It lookes like your friend Pat.Smith set his reply-to address as P.Smith. This is an automated message
Change your email address, my verbose friend
Why should he have to change his address? They are the ones that suck.
I get this one guys mail all the time. I've manage to sign him up for bbqs and all kinds of fun stuff. If I remember right I even told them my "daughter" wasn't allow to go on some field trip.
First Email "
Dear Bentley Families,
You are receiving this email because we still have not received a gift or pledge from your family towards the Annual Fund.* While we understand that this has been a particularly challenging economic time for many of our community members we hope that you will still consider a gift or a pledge to the Annual Fund. In an effort to keep tuition as affordable as possible, Bentley, as other Independent Schools, sets a tuition level below our annual operating costs. The difference, or gap, between tuition and the price of a Bentley education is covered by Annual Fund dollars raised. This year the gap is $1,500 per student. While we do not expect every family to give at this level we do expect each family to participate to the best of their abilities. Every dollar donated will be used this fiscal year towards the benefit of your children.
You may make an easy no-fee gift by credit card by clicking on the GIVE button on the right side of our home page: www.bentleyschool.net . You may also mail in a check or make a donation of stock. No gift is too small. Every single gift counts. We receive gifts from $1 - $40,000. Please join us in supporting Bentley to provide the very best education possible for our students.
Avoid a call- make your gift or pledge today.
Many thanks sincerely, "
My reply"
To Whom It May Concern:
I would love to be able to help with your fund raiser, unfortunately due to the current economic situation I will be unable to help with your fund raiser. I'm doing everything I can just to ensure my daughter has a proper eduction. This includes a list of things we've had to cut from out normal lives. Two of the major things we've had to cut out is electricity and food. While we do have some food, we have no electricity in the conventional sense. I have to power my computer using a battery being recharged from stolen lemons (my neighbor has a tree). Is there any way you could maybe have a fund raiser or pass around a donation plate to help me and my family?
Humbly Yours,"
This goes on back and forth for a while with his daughters school.
I have the same thing happen with snail mail - mostly bill collectors. Apparently they just LOVE trying to guess at addresses and track people down. There is another person with my first and last name (different middle) born in the same state as me on the same day (I found all this out while sorting out similar problems I was having with his crap showing up on my driving record).
At least every 3 weeks I get a new collection notice from some company trying to get money from him. I call them up and they always act as if I'm trying to cheat them or something. One collection agency actually tried to convince me it would be better to just pay the guys bill anyways. Thing is, since he's SSN is different none of them ever make it to my credit report, so if they don't take my word for it I don't care too much.
Did have an interesting traffic stop once though. I didn't know why it was taking so long until the cop came back asking whether or not I had any narcotics charges on my record. After that processed for a second and realizing he wasn't just messing with me we got it cleared up. He was close to calling for backup as my "evil twin" (as I've come to refer to him
There is another person with my first and last name (different middle) born in the same state as me on the same day
Just the name is all it takes. I've been getting phone calls from a bank for over a year looking for a guy with the same first & last name who's delinquent on a mortgage. They go something like this:
Mr. x?
This is Mongo Bank. May I have the last four digits of your SSN?
Would you like me to give you a phone number to call back?
So you can get the information I have for you.
What i
I typically just mark misdirected messages as spam
Makes me think about those comapny signatures with some legal blabla in it telling me what to do if mail is send to me by accident. Two things:
1) I did not agree with that signature, so sod off.
2) I looked at the header and it clearly shows that the mail was intended for me each and every time. Otherwise I would not get it.
Yeah, the company I work for also has them. When I asked legal why, they pointed to IT as it is their responsibility. They pointed to leg
After buying a new house we started getting snail mail addressed to the former owners. Most of it was junk which just get put in the recycle bin. Some were bills which we marked as 'return to sender' and handed back to the post deliver person. Eventually, a collection agent rang our bell to serve a legal notice, we told them to take a hike as the person they were looking for is now in parts unknown. That stopped the bills from coming.
If they buy stuff like air tickets reply that you did not order then cancel the order. That will annoy somebody so that they only do it once. airlines are happy to oblige.
I still get some idiot on comcast who has a the wrong domain names in there m$ email client setup and tries to access our email servers now and again. Dont expect change.
I changed the addressing format as well however short firstname.lastname@example.com accounts are out of the question, the spammers might be reduced but those addresses still are
Delete it, and create a more unique email for yourself. email@example.com for example Of course that likely means that down the road you'll be stuck wondering who is getting mail meant for you.
My name isn't all that common, but even so this has happened to me. I first learned about a "john Sauter" in southern California who is some kind of medical doctor when he traveled to a conference and I got notices from his hotel. I told them that they had the wrong e-mail address, and thought no more about it. However, I kept getting other messages obviously intended for him. When there was a reply address available I would politely tell the sender that I am a computer programmer in New Hampshire, not
About 3 years ago I started getting emails regarding tax returns from Intuit. All for a guy by the same name except he's from Georgia, USA.
I've tried contacting them, to no avail. Intuit says they can't send him anything due to privacy etc, meanwhile I'm getting all of his details in an email.
Since I had his address and everything I even tried calling the guy, but I guess his number is unlisted or something, couldn't find him. Figured that tax return emails were kind of important.
I have the Canned Responses set up from Google Labs that has a short, sweet, "Hi, you got the wrong [John Doe]. Don't bother apologizing/replying, I know it was a typo. Just update your addressbook, please."
I just do a quick reply to all with that canned response, and then I assume I've done my due diligence regarding the error. If nobody gets the reply, that's not my problem. If I still get more misdirected mail from that source, I just trash it.
Back before rising spam levels made this unworkable, I used to have a catchall address for my domains. One of my domains in
One day I got a message titled "I am going to kill you tonight". This was a bit worrisome. Especially since my site predicted which dot-coms were going to go bust, based on their financials, and I routinely got threats. But those threats were usually from corporate lawyers and CFOs, and threatened litigation. After reading the message, though, it was clear it was aimed at some kid at the school.
This was shortly after Columbine, and it said tonight", so I felt I had to do something. I was able to get hold of someone at the school by phone, and they woke up the headmistress (8 hour time difference) and put her on the line. I read her the text of the message, and she immediately knew who it was. She told me it was a 12 year old kid, and the matter would be taken care of.
It's a good thing it was a UK school. In the US, a SWAT team probably would have been sent in.
I have had my personal email address for quite some time (5-digit UID and it's the same email address with which I registered my
Anyway, I forwarded her the email explaining the problem and giving pointers on how to fix the problem. Well, Emily replied and accused me of hackin
I have my last name registered as a domain so I could have a first_name@last_name.org email address. But I occasionally get news mails that address me as Ralph, my dads name, from the Missouri state university, where my dad went. I also get environmental political action emails addressed to him.
I've examined the links closely and none appear to be phishing attempts.
I'm wondering if these institutions have bought supposed good email addresses from a company that came about them through some kind of "smart"
I've gotten all sorts of things to my Gmail account (email@example.com). Navy job interview details, hotel reservations, job quotes, renewals of UK commercial driver's licenses.
I correct individuals, just a quick note to say "Sorry wrong e-mail address." Except some girl named Paige (same last name as me). I have been trying for 6 months to get her to stop sending me her stupid chain humor letters (she thinks she's e-mailing her dad), and she said she would several times. Today she got Reporte
Just make a mail filter that checks if there is a no-reply and junk the mail. That will work as long as you don't have any subscriptions running, but on the other hand you can filter them first so that they aren't deleted.
However - every company should have a postmaster account so send any complaints to that account. The postmaster account is required by a RFC. And many companies do have a contact page or contact email addresses. Some even have abuse@... in which case you can use that too.
If they request yo
You could...
Start collecting them. Learn about the interests of those other John Smiths of the world. Then call them up someday or have a visit with then and amaze them with your psychic abilities.
Sell them to Wikileaks as flack against corporations. Might turn into something.
Print them out and mail them to their original recipients. They'll get real peeved to think their paperless preferences are broken.
Cancel the services and say someone fraudulently signed up for something using your information. Th
From Harvard
Dear Emily,
Thank you for your application to the Management Program. Unfortunately,
you have not met the admission requirements. Your grade point average of
3.42 is slightly above the 3.33 required. You did not earn the required
grade in ECON 1010. As a result, your application has been made
ineligible. You may take the alternate course ECON 1600. You have two
attempts to pass the required economic preadmission course. Failing to
obtain a B on the second attempt will permanently bar you from admission
to our ALM in Management Program.
If you decide to continue your studies with us it will not be easy.You
are required to maintain your cumulative GPA at 3.33 or higher. It is
important to note that any grade below B+ will push you even further away
from degree program admission. Please by mindful that all program grades
count toward your cumulative GPA, including required repeat courses.
Earning your graduate degree and moving ahead with your professional plans
is of paramount importance. Our program may be an obstacle to this goal.
Your valuable time and money might be better spent at another institution.
You may even be eligible to transfer credits earned and begin again with a
new GPA.
We hope you accept this message in the spirit that it was intended, to
support your degree completion plans. If you have questions regarding this
information, you may call our office at **********.
Best wishes for future academic success.
Donna *****
What asshats.. I told them the email was misdirected and didn't get a response either.
I also have a firstname.lastname@example.com account and frequently get email that is neither intended for me nor sent to me. I sometimes look at the email headers and many times my email address is nowhere to be found. It appears that if Gmail receives an email for a non-existent account it simply routes it to whatever account it can find that is most similar. And I believe that email@example.com accounts get ranked highest because they have no numerical permutation.
If someone signs up for a website using my email, I immediately go there, reset their password, and change the email address to something like "email@example.com."
If a kid signs up for an account with me as their parent, I immediately revoke their account. I'd want someone to do that to my kids if they were trying to get around me.
Any other accounts, I do what I can to alert the company, but for
I got a firstname.lastname@example.com address and EVERYDAY i receive at least one e-mail by mistake. People type email@example.com as xyz,firstname.lastname@example.com and there you go...
I tried filter, warn people, flag as spam, but there's no sure way to catch it all. I at least try to have fun. So far i've got:
- Pics from a married man to his male lover.
- US$370 transfer from Paypal (i didn't take the money, by the way).
- Dozens of resumes.
- E-mail from a girl to his teacher who would do ANYTHING to don't fail his cou
With an email address like "firstname.lastname@example.com"! I mean, you might as well have the address "firstname.lastname@example.com"!
The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the number of participants. -- Adam Walinsky


text:
WARNING: Graphic image below
It sounds like something from Ridley Scott's Alien: an Australian couple has been infected with flesh-eating parasites and endured a traumatic exorcism of the bugs.
But no gruesome horror flick could have prepared Bryan Williams, an experienced traveller and avid adventurer from the Gold Coast, for the creepy episode he would endure in South America.
The 28-year-old is stuck in Bolivia, where his body served as a breeding ground for the human botfly that feasts on his flesh.
"I have travelled to nearly 50 countries over the past five years. This by far is the worst experience," Mr Williams said.
After trekking through knee-deep swamps populated by anacondas, catching piranhas for dinner and patting alligators, botflies were the least of Mr Williams's concerns.
He and his girlfriend Ally Vagg, from Sydney, returned to Bolivia after travelling across the Amazon basin late last year, only to learn what they thought were infected mosquito bites were in fact pockets of feasting botfly larvae.
In order to reproduce, the botfly, or dermatobia hominis, deposits up to 50 eggs on the faces of carrier insects such as mosquitoes.
The mosquitoes inject the soon-to-be-born larvae under the skin of unsuspecting humans.
"I think I saw it on National Geographic channel a few years back, labelled something like 'world's most disgusting bugs'," Mr Williams said. "Makes me sick thinking about the whole thing."
While Ms Vagg was volunteering at an animal refuge, she wrote to her boyfriend, who was staying with friends in the city, confirming the unimaginable.
"P.S: The bites on us actually have eggs in them. They pulled three worms from my back and one from my leg," Ms Vagg said via Facebook.
The diagnosis made Mr Williams even more queasy.
"It was feeding on my flesh, neutralising as it goes so I would not notice, and growing bigger every day," Mr Williams said.
Human flesh incubates botfly larvae until the maggots crawl out about five to eight weeks later.
After battling the language barrier and an apathetic doctor, the first attempt at removing the inch-long bug from the wound in Mr Williams' stomach failed.
"I see the little invader rise up out of the hole for one second; look like he took a big breath and maybe even wink at me, and then dive-bomb back down the hole of the infection not to be seen again," Mr Williams said.
Mr Williams was advised to cover the hole on his stomach with tape and wood glue for 24 hours to starve the botfly of oxygen.
When he peeled back the tape, the fly reared its head long enough for Mr Williams' friend to pull it out with tweezers.
"It was wiggling as it came out. It was nearly an inch long ... we all nearly puked. Repeatedly," Mr Williams said.
Mr Williams and Ms Vagg have to remain in Bolivia until they are fully healed, but expect to return home in late February.
- A botfly is removed from a man's ankle. Photo: Supplied

subset: commoncrawl


text:
[QUOTE=Warfish;4704786]Holmes/Kerley/Hill/Keller/Cumberland/Schillens is a perfectly adequate receiving corps.
Greene/Powell/McKnight is a perfectly adequate stable of backs.
Our skill is fine. Not great. Not elite. Not top-10. But fine.
Like many fans, you can deflect the massive failure of Sanchez all you wish, but the reality is we can improve either by replacing ONE person, the QB, or replacing the entire O-line, WR, TE and RB spots with HOF'ers. Which do YOU think is more reasonable?
Sheer and utter nonsense. If you think I deflect Sanchezs awful play you simply have never read any of my posts. If you think our RB's and WR are adequate I don't know how to counter than except to say, actually look at what other teams have and compare.
2 missed blocks for 2 blocked kicks, and one (or is it two?) fumbles by the return men. 4 plays, all accountable to specific individuals, not the unit as a whole. The Special Teams Coach cannot hold the ball for the returner, or stop a blocker from completely missing an assignment.
Know why there are two missed blocks and where most special teams blocks come from? the opposition spots a weak spot. A guy leaving too early. a guy not knowing what to do when there is an overload. I'm sure a few years back when San Diego was top 3 in offense and defense and missed the playoffs due to special teams it was a few missed blocks. Our specials have been terrible this year. (with the exception of our punter.)
In any event, we'll see next year if we can do better, since this is (if I recall) the Cane's last season before retirement.
This season is a disaster, and prob over blown due to:
1. Having the "BEST" roster the last 5 years
2. "FRANCHISE" QB in his magical 4th year
3. Ground and pound with no running game
4. Tebow and the hype, we all know it was for the back pages, not the front page....
5. Price to go to the game, aka PSL's
6. Cocky GM
7. A QB who is more focused on the girl of the month vs. the play book.... RESULT was a ASS FUMBLE on the broken/forgotten play
8. Same yearly errors by said QB
9. Bart Scott boycotting the media, then ripping the fans (This one is new, but does have me really ticked off... F him and his big mouth, he runs like molassas going through a tin horn in the dead of winter)
10. Mental errors across the board
That prediction thread is Pure Gold Jerry !!
Some of the non kool aid drinkers could see the team for what it was. Lack of depth really hurts.
First, the season is not disastrous in any historical context. They will win a minimum of 6 games finish in the middle 1/3 of the NFL at season's end.
It is a disastrous season in the context of being a team that 2 years previous went to a conference game.
It is a disastrous season in the context of PR in how the team is perceived by its fans and the media
It is a disastrous season in the context of the team now having to be rebuilt and not being in the position to do so due to cap constraints caused by bad personnel decisions.
For jet fans who thought the team had a legitimate chance to compete again for a championship, it is a disaster. If a jet fan thought that the best it could be hoped for is 8-8 is just disappointing.
Where you perceived the team at the start of the season influences wheter you think the season is a disaster or just a disappointment.
I thought Sanchez would have been benched by week 3, we would be running the denver offense from last year and we would be 6-5 right now.
But we kept Sh!tchez in and the season has become a total waste because of him.
I think they are poorly coached, poorly utilized and poorly led by their bottom-of-the-league QB, the last of which compounds all of the other problems.
I believe that if you replaced Sanchez with a decent QB and O-Co, this talent would produce just fine, at or above league average.
We'll never know, since Sanchez is a lock to start the rest of this season and most of next, and Sparano isn't going after one year.
Like I said, you can blame the entire O, and try and replace them all with future HOF'ers to make Sanchez look better, or you can replace Sanchez, and the rest of them will look better.
One of the missed blocks was by our All-Pro O-lineman. Thats not a weak-spot, thats an error. They happen.Know why there are two missed blocks and where most special teams blocks come from? the opposition spots a weak spot.
The fumble recently was by our Pro-Bowl return man (who does have a flaw, admittedly, in ballhandling). Thats closer to a weak-spot......if he wasn't an Pro-Bowl return man, and if casuing fumbles was as easy as simply identifying a "weak-spot".
Last edited by Warfish; 11-29-2012 at 01:16 PM.
The most frustrating thing is that the defense not only wasn't good this year, they have been a complete dissapointment. At the beginning of the year Rex and company had us believing that we had a talented defense that would get back to its dominant ways. Good one...
I think I predicted the 8-8 to 10-6 range, with 10-12 wins if we got hot and the offense scored points. Naturally, losing Revis and Holmes hurt us (hamstrung us a bit on both O and D - what other teams can lose their most talented/explosive player on both O and D?), but we'd probably only have, what... only 1-3 more wins with them than without them, probably. Even with them, we still would likely wind up losing against SF and SEA, and we maybe win the 1st Pats game and maybe a couple of those others we lost close (maybe we squeak out that HOU game). Still not that good, but better than now. And not to mention that obviously, Sparano completely did not use Tebow like I (and others) expected him to (option QB/RB, occasional TE), which makes me wonder why the hell did we get him.
My concern going into the season was the same one I had in the last two seasons. Lack of skill position firepower, and lack of a pass rush. Pass protection is a tad better than last year, but the lack of punch at WR and RB still hurt, as I feared. They are worse than I predicted, as they can't beat playoff caliber teams (and while the Colts have a winning record, it's because of their schedule and they will be a 1-and-done playoff team if they still get there), and I expected them to play better and at least split against the playoff teams. Defense is worse than I expected, but that's partially because the LBs's are showing their age more than I expected, and the O cannot stay on the field long enough to keep them fresh and inspired. Not many D's can with our sup-par O. Also, what seems to be a problem with a lack of halftime adjustments if we're down has continued, and in fact, gotten worse. That's quite sad. And, last but not least, Sanchez has not grown. He makes the same exact mistakes he made as a rookie, but now he's less fiery, and seems defeated while he's making them. (Common with many a talented player who played QB for the NYJ in our history, no?)
All fans always see the bright side when everyone is 0-0... they hope for the best and us Jets fans know to also expect the worst with that, as we're used to it. As I see it, everything that could've gone bad for the Jets went bad. The only bright spot is that Wayne Hunter was gone and his replacement has been better than him. All other aspects have been varying degrees of disappointing, to flat out tragic.
Still, I want them to lose enough of these games for the organization to understand that the offense needs more firepower at the skill positions, the defense needs more speed at LB (or a pass rusher SOMEWHERE). As Jets fans, we have seen far too many times of a same old Jets moment. This years SOJ chapter would be to win all or most of the remainder of the schedule, have hope, then get squashed in the playoffs of just barely missing out.
However, my prediction that the Pats will never win another Super Bowl, and that Tom Brady may get grievously hurt, still stand.
PS - Again, I cannot understand what kind of a retarded lowlife grown human being goes on opposing team's message forums and trolls. How pathetic your lives must be to do that. Lame. I've never been on a Pats forum and never will. I have a life - work, family, hobbies, pastimes... I could never find the time and never would try. Yet, here you guys are... acting like you belong or are wanted. Or that by mocking a team that you (correction, your TEAM, not you) have owned for probably 10 or so out of the last 11 or so years that you are creating a greater good on society by eliminating evil and suffering and promoting good and prosperity. Are you f***ers serious? You may think you're so clever, "Ha-ha, I'm gonna' make some fellow human beings who like a rival team feel like **** today, hahaha! Oh, I'm so f***ing smaht and the world is better with me being a troll! HAHAHAHA!!" Like... serious? Are you that low-IQ? That lifeless? That d!ck-w@ddy? And you probably weren't even Pats fans before 1994 or so, because you all act like bandwagoners and not like true fans that understand that these things happen in cycles, and eventually you'll be on the other end at some point.
A life. Get one, Pasts fans.
Last edited by ChrisChrusher#40; 11-29-2012 at 01:36 PM.
Your prediction will be spot on when the Jets reach 9-7
Only question really is whether it gets them into the dance
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
In my opinion, the "disastrous" season is not being overplayed at all.
- The Jets have five blowout losses this year.
- The locker room has been lost multiple times over the past year.
- The quarterback, skill position players, and linebacker unit are all bottom five in the NFL.
- Most of the team's draft picks over the past 3 years have been busts.
- The level of talent on the roster has decreased for multiple years in a row.
- Management is more interested in grabbing headlines than building a winner on the field.
- The team's philosophy and strategy is ancient and runs directly counter to what has proven to be successful in the NFL over the past decade.
- The team's salary cap situation is very poor through next season.
The team needs new leadership on and off the field, better talent at key positions, and a new vision for the future.
Last edited by sg3; 11-29-2012 at 01:53 PM.
I thought 11-5 Pre-Season.
Revis went down and I downgraded to 10-6 (Thought we would win home game against Pats)
Only game we have lost so far that I thought we would win was Miami.
The team can go 9-7. Will it? Dunno.
I am shocked with how bad some of the losses were. That has been the surprise to me.
Season has been pretty damn bad but these last 5 will go like this
If Jets can get up 10-0 on any of these five, Jets will win
If we get down 0-10 to any of these teams, we most likely will be unable to climb back
That's what its like to have a horrible offence.
This teams confidence is hemoraging


text:
Rev. Ronald Durham, senior pastor at Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, still remembers the day he came home to find his grandmother in tears at the news of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.
DAYTONA BEACH -- Rev. Ronald Durham, senior pastor at Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, still remembers the day he came home to find his grandmother in tears at the news of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.
"She said to me, 'They shot Dr. Martin Luther King,' " Durham recounted. "I was 17 years old, and it was then that I recognized and realized that my grandmother had been depending on Dr. King."
He joined pastors around Volusia and Flagler counties Sunday in speaking about King during their sermons.
Durham told of how his grandmother would take a shoebox full of food with her whenever she took a car trip from her home in New Jersey to her native North Carolina because she weren't allowed to eat at roadside diners along the way.
" 'But you know what,' " she said. " 'It won't always be that way. Things are going to change,' " Durham said in his sermon, recounting his grandmother's words.
Durham said he knew his grandmother had been counting on King to change the world, and compared his struggle against intolerance and injustice to the biblical tale of David and Goliath. Durham noted the struggle enabled him and his siblings to be as successful as they are today.
But Durham reminded his flock that much work remains to be done to fulfil King's promise.
He urged them to not only love and honor King for the benefits they reap from his life's work, but to embrace the responsibility that comes with the freedom and opportunity he and others fought for.
In a passionate sermon, Durham pushed his congregation to embrace the spirit of both King and the biblical David, to fight what he called the "children of Goliath" – those who want to promote intolerance and push back the progress that's been made in eliminating racial inequality.
"Just as David's Goliath had some children, Dr. King's Goliath had some children, too," he said. "And their goal and role has been to destroy the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."
15-year-old Julian Hunter, a student at Mainland High School and member of Greater Friendship, spoke to the congregation Sunday about what the civil rights leader's teachings meant to him.
"They showed me that no matter what color you are, how tall you are, no matter what, we should all hold hands and just be equal," said Hunter. "Nobody's better than each other, so there's no reason to treat each other any other way."
King's spirit was similarly honored with services in Flagler County and West Volusia. In Palm Coast, the Rev. Gillard Glover led the First AME Church in the congregations annual celebration commemorating King, and in Deltona, the Deltona Dream Keepers organized a gospel program and candlelight vigil in his honor at Deltona Alliance Church.
Durham and Greater Friendship hosted a banquet in King's honor on Thursday. Monday, the church will hold a commemorative breakfast at 8 a.m., followed by a worship service in King's memory at 10 a.m.
"Today is a day that we reflect back on those things he accomplished in his lifetime," said Durham. "With all that he did accomplish, and certainly they were major accomplishments that have gotten us to the front of the bus and at the lunch counters, there is still a lot more that has yet to be done."
"I think the way that we honor him today is by recognizing that his job is not complete. He's left the legacy for the completion of that work in our hands. We can't sit back and wait for the next Dr. King to arrive; we have to become the next Dr. King in order to make those changes and fulfil his dream."


text:
MORE than 300 people are homeless as a result of the Tasmanian bushfires, according to the state government.
Emergency accommodation for these people who had either lost their homes or been displaced by the fires was being given by other households, organisations or businesses, the state Minister for Human Services, Cassy O'Connor, said.
She described the aid given as ''truly inspiring''.
The fire that took most homes, east of Hobart around Dunalley, continued burning on Wednesday but was less dangerous due to cool weather.
Hopes were rising that despite devastating property losses, Tasmania's bushfires would prove to be fatality-free.
Five days after the bushfire tore through Dunalley and other nearby communities, acting Police Commissioner Scott Tilyard said police had not received any official missing persons reports.
''At this point, more than 2200 individuals have been identified as safe and well,'' Mr Tilyard said.
Emergency services screened 731 properties in and around Dunalley, including 126 properties damaged or destroyed by fire, without finding any human remains.
Searches are continuing with the aid of a contingent of Victoria Police sworn in as special constables, and the preliminary screening was expected to be completed later on Wednesday.
As losses are counted, the damage bill is expected to be sharply higher than an initial $42 million, according to the Insurance Council of Australia.


text:
Thank you. BTW, you're already #5 in Google if you search for "Medical Hardship Football". For posterity you'll want to spell-check a few things. Couple questions:
1) With the Saban hardships, technically a player could transfer and play football for another team, correct?
2) Can a student athlete receive multiple medical redshirt seasons?


text:
For those in need of things
head to http://www.freecycle.org
Find your local freecycle (or learn how to start your own). Here's the press release from the one I got going in Portland
Contact Information:
Nutmeg Alfredo
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 31, 2003
"Freecycle Portland: Turning Trash Into Treasure"
PORTLAND, OREGON - Freecycle Portland is proud to announce the launch of its community recycling e-mail list and message board. Based on the adage that "one person's trash is another person's treasure," Freecycle Portland connects people who want to get rid of junk with those who want free stuff. Anyone looking to discard or acquire an item is welcome at Freecycle Portland, where all items listed are absolutely free.
Established in September 2003 and hosted by Yahoo Groups, the Freecycle Portland board serves the Portland Metro area. Signing up for the group is simple; for instructions, see Freecycle Portland's web page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freecycleportland .
Freecycle Portland is inspired by and modeled after the Tucson Freecycle Network, founded in March 2003 and recently profiled in the September/October 2003 issue of Utne magazine. Created by the non-profit group "Downtown Don't Waste It," the Tucson Freecycle Network has sparked a worldwide "freecycling" revolution, with groups in 3 dozen cities and several countries so far. For a broad view of the freecycling movement, visit http://www.freecycle.org.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Americans recycle approximately 28% of our garbage, thus keeping 64 million tons of waste out of landfills across the country. Freecycle Portland would like to see the nation's rate of recycling rise even higher. Portland residents are invited to join Freecycle Portland and freecycle their trash rather than just tossing it away.
[b]We're looking for participants - get in touch!
Freecycle - hop on board!
All things outside of Burning Man.
6 posts • Page 1 of 1
- Nutmeg Alfredo
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:17 am
- Location: Portland, OR
- Contact:
- Skyhawk
- Posts: 67
- Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 9:15 am
- Location: DFW metroplex, North East Texas
- Contact:
- Nutmeg Alfredo
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:17 am
- Location: Portland, OR
- Contact:
Freecycle - sorry about that!
whoops. Hey, very sorry about that and open to suggestion. Is there a way, or is it worth doing - to remove some of the posts?
I just posted it 4 times in four different places. Figuring that different people go to different places for their info. Didn't realize people would be offended.
Trying to get the word out on this gifting service...
- diane o'thirst
- Posts: 2092
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 5:04 pm
- Location: Eugene, OR
- Contact:
- aforceforgood
- Posts: 333
- Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2003 8:49 pm
diane o'thirst wrote:Some things are worth repeating, as they get out to people who may not overlap another outlet. A resource like Freecycle is one of them.
Don't worry about it
BTW, I'm on FreecyclePDX, too
I'm one of those people. Thanks Nut. I agree with the multiple posts for useful stuff like freecycle until we can knock out some of the walls in this place...
- Nutmeg Alfredo
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:17 am
- Location: Portland, OR
- Contact:
Freecycle: Latest development
Just got word that a couple of folks are going to start up Freecycles in India (3). Imagine a world where everyone was freecycling. I'm down with that. Someone decided to hold a free yard sale and posted it on our list in Portland.
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text:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has commissioned a series of short films taking a jocular look at the issue of sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). In doing so, it has merely succeeded in demonstrating its incompetence in dealing with foreign relations and its penchant for dabbling in domestic affairs.
In the films, the ministry has, rather preposterously, chosen to invoke Li Hongzhang (李鴻章) — the senior Chinese official and negotiator working for imperial Manchu masters in the late 19th century who ceded Taiwan to Japan — instead of former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), in what has been seen as a provocative gesture to the Japanese.
When Li signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, he ceded both Taiwan and the Penghu archipelago — also known as the Pescadores — to Japan. In the treaty, he wrote the exact coordinates of the Penghu Islands, but left the reference to Taiwan as nothing but the name of the island itself.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) correspondence shows that Japan only included the Diaoyutais — known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands — as part of the Ryukyu Islands one year after the signing of the Shimonoseki treaty, intimating that the Diaoyutais had been ceded along with Taiwan, although the KMT did not see fit to make that point for 75 years.
China's manipulation of the idea of protecting the Diaoyutais has always been about unification with Taiwan, seeking to spread division within the nation and ultimately to annex it. Everything to do with protecting the Diaoyutais, from the beginning of the movement back in 1971, has been initiated by China.
The KMT has had problems with its legitimacy domestically and its ability to represent all of China internationally, and it is deeply wary of China's "nationalistic" unification drive. This means that it has had to keep a low profile and remain passive when it comes to the Diaoyutais.
During the Martial Law period, the KMT government's grandiloquent claims to being the legally constituted authority of China and its nod to protecting the Diaoyutais were really about seeking a fake construct of legitimacy for a foreign power that had come to Taiwan with designs on ruling it.
In a different time and place, when the Republic of China (ROC) was still recognized as the sole representative of China, the ROC diplomat Cheng Pao-nan (鄭寶南) admitted to a US official that the KMT government would find it impossible to suppress the wave of Taiwanese ideological awareness rising in the nation if it ever lost its status as the "legitimate government of China."
Back when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) first started echoing China's calls to protect the Diaoyutais, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) was deputy premier.
On July 8, 1971, Chiang met with the US ambassador to the ROC, Walter McConaughy, and relayed the reasons the ROC had for protecting the Diaoyutais.
He told McConaughy that the issue had already developed into a major domestic problem for the KMT administration, particularly since the Chinese Communist Party had started to exploit the issue, whipping up Chinese nationalist sentiment abroad, and this had become a headache for the KMT.
However, since democratization, and Taiwanese's growing awareness of Beijing's exploitation of the Diaoyutais issue, these concerns have gone away.
It is just that Ma, who has made protecting the Diaoyutais something of a vocation, would prefer to invoke Li, the negotiator who had been so ambiguous in what he was ceding when he gave Taiwan to Japan, rather than a former Taiwanese president.
Clearly Ma is still preoccupied with the rather intractable issue of his own links with China.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper


text:
. . . we're still number one in obesity, right?
. . . and . . . how come I never get those programmers when my company outsources . . . ?
. . . we're still number one in obesity, right?
Uhh, no... [washingtonpost.com]
. . . and . . . how come I never get those programmers when my company outsources . . . ?
For the same reason you never get a knowledgeable person if you dial a helpdesk.
Those outsourcing countries have internal markets as well, including normal programming jobs.
TBH a lot of these people are not the kind of programmer you'd want to outsource your average business app to.
It's really more of an algorithm competition. The programming part is mostly concerned about getting a correct implementation, quickly. The winners tend to be people who 1. know a lot of algorithmic theory, and 2. can write and keep track of fiendishly complex code, with emphasis on conciseness.
I'm sure many of them can write clean and maintainable code as well, but it's not a requirement for this c
There probably is a correlation between obesity and a slothful mind, present company excluded, of course.
So what? I don't see any of those schools being real power houses of innovation either.
College might be considered a waste of time by the best programmers.
Another possibility is that the very clever are washing out of school before they even get to college. I once saw a study that suggested (not proved) that something like 20% of high school dropouts in the USA might be gifted.
In my experience most of the attention in public school goes to those that are ultimately ineducable. Gifted students are just expected to be fine without help. If they dropout, though, they're less likely to be program
I once saw a study that suggested (not proved) that something like 20% of high school dropouts in the USA might be gifted
I would have thought it was closer to 80%. You have to be pretty smart to see the writing on the wall as a teenager.
So it's very possible those countries just practiced harder for the contests
Quite true. Another possibility is that 'those countries' won fairly.
Quite true. Another possibility is that 'those countries' won fairly.
I'm going to assume by "won fairly" you mean, "won because their universities are better than ours." Because I consider winning by practicing harder to be fair.
That's what the article seems to be worried about, are the CS programs in those countries better? As if I have any idea.
That's what the article seems to be worried about
Damn! You got me.
You assume dynamic programming is required for a solution. Though the CS teacher there was big on recursion, so I'm sure some recursive solution would have presented itself.
The problem is not recursion, although that might make it easier to write; it's great you learned that in high school since most CS majors don't learn that until their second semester; the problem is that if any sort of straightforward approach is used (like the solutions shown on stackoverflow), the algorithm will end up solving the same subproblems repeatedly, and the number of subproblems will grow factorially as the input size increases. So you need some way to keep track of which sub-problems you've al
In my experience most of the attention in public school goes to those that are ultimately ineducable.
Define "ineducable".
Gifted students are just expected to be fine without help.
As they should be. If you're bright enough you should be able to learn it by yourself. If you can't, then you're not as clever as you think. Genuinely gifted students, or even just the "pretty bright" (top few percentile) should be cheap to educate. There's the library, it includes computers and Internet access if your family can't afford them, they'll be an exam on the following material next Thursday. Attend the lectures if you want.
Or better, it _is_ already lazy. I have done some competitive programming while studying, but it was a small group of students in a special elective course and only 6-7students in it. I already was a PhD student at that time and not taking the course, but I knew the professor doing it and he had told me that he was setting this up and also participating himself. Ended up being 1st until the professor and another student started "cheating" by using inline-assembler
Still, even in this specialized, elective course, only half of the student put any real effort into it. That is not good. Programming is something you need to be able to do reasonably well if you do anything advanced in IT, or you will never be any good at it. Historically, the west did protect its economic advantage by having better infrastructure, machinery and materials, but that is over. Any bright person with at least slow Internet access, reasonable English language skills and an older computer with Linux or one of the xBSDs on it can compete now on a world-class level, geography has become pretty meaningless. Or rather, being in the west is a disadvantage due to a pervasive sense of entitlement. Personally, I think this is a good thing. Competing on merit only is the only working way to identify talented people.
Sponsored by a local company (probably recruiting) and not officially ACM-sanctioned. These are the kinds of competitions where if you practice you'll do much better at them. Our college had just rebooted their ACM club and I got the distinct feeling that had we been dedicated for years a team could place very high. We were around the 80% percentile or so and still burned 1/2 our time figuring out the logistics (physical space and PC access was limited). On top of that, we had a couple questions worked
It seems intuitively obvious to me, which means that it might be wrong. -- Chris Torek


text:
9am to 5pm Spectator times
2pm to 5pm The Monkey Feeders
9am to 5pm Spectator times
Specialized lightweight motorcycles
are powered with extreme rider skills over various man made and natural
obstacles for scores. Points are "awarded" when a rider loses balance
and drops a foot to the ground, or if other mistakes are made to cause the
rider to travel backwards or go out of bounds. The rider in each class with the
fewest points at the end of the meet is the winner. Sections will be set for
spectator viewing around the Ski TAOS base area beginner ski slopes, such as
near the Rueggli, above Raspberry Hill, and on Pioneer Glade. Some sections on
Sunday will be right on the stairs and landings by Rhoda's Deck. Music at the
Resort Stage Saturday from 2pm to 5pm with local favorites The Monkey Feeders
For further information contact: Roger Pattison 575-776-8785o 575-770-9371c email@example.com


text:
The werewolf taps into those ever constant horror themes that can easily work in many given contexts: bodily control, the uncanny combination of human and inhuman forms, instinctual nature and astrological influences, fear of the "other" and abject within ourselves, infection and spread of disease, etc. Like any of the long-standing horror mythologies that have made their way into cinema the exemplary werewolf stories utilize this literal transformation of person into wolf for dual means.
With talks of "Scream IV" and the release of the all new "Nightmare on Elm Street", Wes Craven is on a lot of people's minds. The latest rumors say that there is a remake in the works for Craven's "Deadly Friend". Though still in the preliminary stages, the word is that Warner Brothers will be shooting for 3D on the film as well.
Hollywood carries on the status quo as there is even more remake news about. The next horror oldie on deck? George Romero's semi-realistic vampire tale, "Martin". Lending a small bit of legitimacy to the rumor, the film is said to be produced by original Romero backer Richard P. Rubinstein.
Horror author John Skipp plans to step into the directors chair as he announces plans for his first film, a 3D horror comedy entitled "Rose".
Stephen King has another project in the works with his hetero life partner; director Mick Garris, afour hour mini-series event of King's "Bag of Bones".
Adam McKay spills the beans on an upcoming project titled "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters", produced by McKay and directed by "Dead Snow" helmer Tommy Wirkola. Set 15 years after the pairs escape from the wicked witch, McKay promises that the movie will be a Sam Raimi style shocker with steam punk elements. Most frightening of all; they've already offered roles to many members of the "Twilight" cast.
While not yet attached to any project that we know of, this Rick Baker take on Popeye will blow your mind.


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Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny has played down talk of a summer move away from the club.
The 27-year-old centre back has been heavily linked with a move away from the Emirates Stadium in recent months, with The Daily Express claiming both Barcelona and Bayern Munich are interested in adding his services.
However, the Frenchman is happy with life in north London, has a four-year contract with the Gunners and is looking to test himself in the Champions League once again next season.
"I have four-year contract. For now, I am still at Arsenal," he told La Montagne newspaper.
"The most important thing is that Arsenal is in the Champions League. It is super exciting to play against the best teams in Europe."
Koscielny joined the Gunners in the summer of 2010, with Arsene Wenger bringing the player to the English capital following an impressive season with Lorient the previous year.
And, since arriving in the Premier League, the 10-cap international has grown in stature year-on-year, becoming a permanent fixture in the Arsenal defence.
His comments will be a major boost to both the management and supporters of the club, having seen captain Cesc Fabregas leave for Barcelona two-years ago.
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I grew up in a small neighborhood. It didn't have sidewalks, streetlights or fire hydrants. What it did have was tons of kids my age. There were seven girls within a year or two of each other, and I cannot imagine my childhood without my neighborhood friends.
Because of the lack of sidewalks and immensely low level of traffic, we would walk around in the middle of the street. Of course, we became more visible when we rode our bikes or Razor scooters, and we rode those often. The bike was our staple of transportation because it was faster than walking and much more fun. Nights in the summer were spent taking bike rides. I don't know where we went because there really weren't that many places to go in our tiny, isolated subdivision, but I can still remember showing up at friends' houses with my bike and us riding together until 8 or 8:30 p.m.
I remember having secret forts, with locations ranging from a horribly unstable treehouse to a 5-foot-deep hole dug into a field. I remember my friends and I set up a club called MASAC – the first letter of our first names in order of age – on our compost pile. We didn't seem to mind that all of our playtime there involved sinking into piles of decomposing leaves crawling with spiders. I remember throwing rocks into the creek for hours. I remember walking my friend, Mary, home once and almost getting hit by a golf cart. I remember holding our breath when we walked through locust corral, and I remember Little Kid Island.
I remember it all so well that it hurts.
Eventually, my group of neighborhood friends split up. There was no definitive point, just a slow abandonment of Barbie dolls and an increase in 9-year-old girl drama. People's parents not getting along, friends from school and sports and a bridge being built over the creek where we would play for hours took their toll on us. No amount of funny, homemade videos could hold us together once school, boyfriends and other things came into the picture.
Sure, I still talk to my old neighborhood friends. One girl was on the speech team with me; another girl gave me the idea for this column, and one has remained my best friend throughout the years. Even if we all got together again and ignored our differences and years-old fights, it wouldn't be the same. I'm not 11 anymore. I wouldn't ride my bike for miles to go to 7-Eleven when I could just drive there. And I'm not about to go play with dead leaves and spiders.
To me, the closer I get to college, the sadder thinking about my childhood becomes. I can never go back to being that young, that innocent, that happy, and that scares me. Growing up is a terrifying thing because being a child is all I've ever known. I was riding my bike so fast that I didn't stop to look around at how wonderful life was. If I could go back, I would tell my childhood self to write everything down and try to remember how fun and stress-free life was so that I could read it today and be that exuberant again.
I would also tell my childhood self to stop playing on the compost pile.
• Courtney Phelan is a senior at Geneva High School. She is an outgoing and energetic young writer who likes to swim, read and participate in general teenage activities. She can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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After 27 years of trading, family business Ruffell jewellers has announced they are shutting their Hargreaves Mall shop.
Citing a change in shopping habits, the high Australian dollar and the unappealing atmosphere of the mall director Martin Ruffell said the decision to close was difficult.
"Times have changed and bricks and mortar stores are struggling," he said.
"There is a great deal of novelty in buying from online traders and the next generation will rely more and more on the internet for information and products.
"We are therefore going to pursue other avenues to bring quality individual handmade jewellery to the marketplace."
Mr Ruffell said he was proud of the level of customer service they had provided to the community over the years.
"I wish to thank all of our loyal customers, some of whom have been with us from the start, for their loyal patronage."
The closing down sale starts today and will run until December 24.


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John D. Flanigan, 64
John D. Flanigan, 64, died at 1:45 p.m., Friday, March 30, 2012, at his residence after a lengthy illness.
He was born in Allen County on Aug. 27, 1947, to Rosemary (Weber) and Kenneth Flanigan. His father preceded him in death and his mother survives in Lima. On Dec. 19, 1987, he married Julie Stauffer and she survives in Lima.
Other survivors include a son, Grant D. Flanigan, at home; a daughter, Dawn Lane, of Carbondale, Colo.
He was preceded in death by a son, Kurt Flanigan.
He was a U.S. Army veteran serving during the Vietnam Conflict.
Funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Armentrout Funeral Home, in Waynesfield, with the Rev. Ron Jones officiating. Burial with full military honors conducted by the Lima VFW Post 1275 will follow at Willow Branch Cemetery, Waynesfield.
Friends may call from 2 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the funeral home.
Contributions may be given in John's memory to "Grant Flanigan's College Fund."
Condolences may be expressed at armentroutfuneralhome.com.


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Despite the fact that many folks have had to keep a sharp eye on their budgets when holiday shopping in this uncertain economy, the demand by some for diamonds and other precious stones sent prices soaring at auctions this month.
The 35 pieces of jewelry from the collections of the late Estee Lauder, founder of the cosmetics empire that bears her name, and of her late daughter-in-law Evelyn H. Lauder sold at Sotheby's Magnificent Jewels Auction for $22,248,250, which was well above the high estimate of $18 million. The jewelry was sold to benefit The Breast Cancer Foundation, founded by Evelyn Lauder.
The top seller was Evelyn Lauder's 6.54-carat fancy intense pink diamond ring, which after competition among six bidders sold to the English jeweler Laurence Graff for $8.6 million, more than doubling the low of its $4 million-$5 million estimate.
The 47.14-carat heart-shaped fancy intense yellow diamond, worn as a ring by the Duchess of Windsor and which Estee Lauder had mounted as a pendant necklace, sold to an Asian private for $2,546,500 (its estimate was $1.5 million-$2 million).
Also sold at Sotheby's auction was the jewelry collection of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, the philanthropist, for whom, with her late husband, the Wrightsman Galleries of French Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art are named.
The auction, which brought $15,541,118,
well in excess of its
$9 million high estimate, was topped by a circa 1910 natural pearl and diamond corsage that sold for $2,042,500 (estimate $800,000-$1.2 million). A rare natural gray pearl and diamond brooch set an auction record for a single natural gray pearl when it sold for $1,874,500, more than tripling its $600,000 high estimate.
The three collections grossed $64.8 million, the highest total ever for a day of jewelry sales at Sotheby's New York.
. . .
At Christie's auction of ancient jewelry, a suite of four gold jewels, each embellished with emeralds, sapphires, garnets, and pearls, and dating from around the sixth or seventh century AD, sold for $242,500, and a circa fifth century BC 15-inch-wide Scythian gold torque sold for $212,500.
. . .
A 50.1-carat rectangular-cut diamond ring which was purchased in 2005 at Christie's for $4.2 million by the jeweler Laurence Graff was once again purchased by him, this time for $8.4 million at Christie's December Magnificent Jewels Auction.
It demonstrates "the increasing strength and stability of the global diamond market," said Rahul Kadakia, head of jewelry for Christie's Americas and Switzerland.
This month's sale, which totaled $32.5 million, set two new world auction records. A per-carat record for a Kashmir sapphire was set when an 8.91-carat sapphire sold for $1,370,500 or $154,000 per carat, and a 3.15-carat fancy reddish-orange diamond set a record for the largest reddish-orange diamond ever graded at the Gemological Institute of America when it sold for $2,098,500.
. . .
The top seller at Skinner's Fine Jewelry Auction this month was a double-strand jadeite bead necklace that brought $348,000, more than quadrupling the high of its $60,000-$80,000 estimate.
However, nine of the other top 10 pieces featured diamonds ranging from an Art Deco long chain necklace to an Art Deco bracelet. The necklace bezel-set with 61 marquise and 61 old European-cut diamonds sold for $162,000 against a $40,000-$60,000 estimate and the bracelet set with old European-cut, baguette-cut, and single-cut diamonds weighing about 30 carats sold for $37,200 against a $3,000-$5,000 estimate.
The 15 solitaires in the sale ranged from a square-cut 4.08-carat diamond ($60,000 against $35,000-$45,000) to a 1-carat old European-cut diamond ($2,337 against $1,500-$2,500).
. . .
Four works by Alexander Calder (1898-1976), the American artist who was prolific in many media, were the top sellers at Grogan & Co.'s December Auction.
Calder, the inventor of the mobile, a sculpture of light, free-flowing parts, also painted, and was a printmaker and jewelry maker. The four works, all purchased by the same phone bidder, were gouache paintings and jewelry.
The two 1973 gouaches were gifts to his Roxbury, Conn., neighbors William and Virginia Chess. "Red, Blue, and Yellow Man," which he inscribed "To Virginia" and "Skeleton Drinking Wine," inscribed "To Wm. Chess," sold for $36,580 and $35,400, respectively.
The two pieces of jewelry were hand-hammered silver brooches, one with initials ($11,800), the other in a heart shape ($10,030).
Also from the Chess collection was a 19th-century molded copper three-dimensional weather vane attributed to Cushing & White of Waltham that sold for $5,195.
The other top-selling paintings included "Winter Trail" ($16,260) by the Czech artist Jaroslav Vesin (1860-1915) and "Boulevard de la Madeleine" ($14,160) by the French artist Édouard Cortès (1882-1969).
A 19th-century 5-piece bedroom suite attributed to the Herter Brothers of New York ($22,420) and an Art & Crafts tall chest of drawers by Gustav Stickley ($6,490) were among the furniture highlights.
Seaforms, a set of four blown glass works by Dale Chihuly (estimate $10,000-$20,000) failed to sell, but a 22-inch glass vessel (estimate $5,000-$10,000) by William Morris, who early in his career was a gaffer for Chihuly, fetched $2,950.
. . .
A 1989 Rolls-Royce is among the offerings at Kaminski Auctions' Annual New Year's Auction Saturday at
10 a.m. at its Beverly gallery, which will also feature collections of African art, jewelry, watches, and postcards. It will be followed on Sunday by a
10 a.m. auction launching a Décor series of furnishings for the home, including furniture, rugs, fine art and decorative arts.


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NORODOM Sihanouk, the cherubic, mercurial two-time king of Cambodia will depart as he lived - in a blaze of pomp and ceremony at dusk on Monday.
The pageantry will end the story of one of Asia's towering figures of the 20th century.
Royal astrologists will blow conch-shell trumpets, 101 guns will boom a salute, fireworks will explode and Khmer music will resound as Sihanouk's body burns in a pyramidal pyre within an ornate crematorium on Phnom Penh's riverfront.
Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians will watch a ceremony based on the funerals of more than 100 Khmer monarchs dating back 2000 years.
A larger-than-life character who steered Cambodia through six decades marked by independence from France, civil war, the rule of the murderous Khmer Rouge and his own exile, the king died from a heart attack on October 15 in Beijing, aged 89.
His embalmed body lay in state at the royal palace until Friday when a giant golden float shaped like a mythical bird took it from the palace to the pyre in a city park.
After the flames are quenched, Sihanouk's wife, Queen Monineath, and his son, King Sihamoni, will scatter some ashes in the Mekong and keep others in a diamond urn at the palace, with the remains of previous kings.
The departure of the self-confessed ''naughty boy'' who fathered 14 children over six marriages will cement the dominance of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who took power in 1985.
''This is our last homage to say goodbye to the great hero king,'' Mr Hun Sen, 60, said on radio.
King Sihamoni, a former ballet dancer, has played a shrinking role compared with his father, who was just 18 when placed on the throne by French colonial authorities in 1941. He quickly defied expectations he would be a compliant king.
As his health declined, Mr Hun Sun, a one-time Khmer Rouge commander, monopolised power, accused of using violence and intimidation to quash dissent.
Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said Mr Hun Sen had sworn a sacred oath to protect the monarchy, but he conceded the role of King Sihamoni would be different.
Australia will be represented at the funeral by former army lieutenant-general John Sanderson, who commanded United Nations forces in Cambodia in the early 1990s.


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For 18 straight contests, Giants starters Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Barry Zito and Sanchez went to the post, did their work and finished their day without allowing any more than three runs. Perhaps inspired by that level of work, Giants relievers maintained the dominance, keeping every opponent under the four-run mark. That 18-game streak of allowing three runs or fewer -- the longest for any particular team since 1917 -- vaulted San Francisco into first place, legitimized talk of the Giants having perhaps the best starting rotation in the game, and presaged a magnificent run through the postseason that concluded with a World Series title.
Some folks just catch on a little later.


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If you were anywhere near Kansas City last night and you didn't get hit with a baseball, consider yourself lucky, because baseballs were flying all over last night at Kauffman Stadium. The fountain, the roof on top of the big scoreboard in center field, literally everywhere. Guys were hitting baseballs harder than I ever thought was humanly possible. But one man was crowned champion last night, one man was the king. It was Prince Fielder. He was crushing the ball everywhere. But this isn't Fielder's first time winning the Home Run Derby. He won it in 2009 when he was with the Milwaukee Brewers, representing the National League. Last night, he was representing the American League, since he currently plays for the Detroit Tigers. Let's take a look at how Prince became king once again; In the Home Run Derby, players get 10 outs. They can take as many pitches as they want, and anything that is hit but not a home run is considered an out. Carlos Beltran, outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, led off the derby. He hit well, and eventually advanced to the second round. Andrew McCutchen, center fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, hit four homers and was eliminated in the first round. Carlos Gonzalez, left fielder for the Colorado Rockies, also hit four dingers and was eliminated in the first round. Jose Bautista hit a lot of homers in Round One, and advanced to the second round. Matt Kemp, who was coming off a hamstring injury, plays center field for the Los Angeles Dodgers, hit only one home run and was quickly eliminated. Mark Trumbo, an outfielder, first baseman, and designated hitter for the Anaheim Angels, hit well and advanced. Prince Fielder, first baseman for the Detroit Tigers, (as you already know) got to advance, but it was just by the skin of his teeth. He just barely made it into the second round. Robinson Cano, second baseman for the New York Yankees, came out and was hoping to defend his Home Run Derby title. Apparently there are not many Yankees fans in Kansas City, because he was booed the whole time he was batting, and the fans would cheer when he got out. This must have thrown Cano's game off a little bit, because he put up a big goose egg, and didn't hit a single homer. Then came the second round.
Carlos Beltran, Jose Bautista, Mark Trumbo, and Prince Fielder all advanced to Round 2. Ding ding ding! Carlos Beltran hit well in the second round, but not well enough, and he was eliminated. Mark Trumbo impressed in this round by hitting balls deep. Really deep. Jose Bautista then tied Mark Trumbo in Home Runs. Prince hit the most this round and was guaranteed birth in Round 3.
Before Round 3, the final round could start, Mark Trumbo and Jose Bautista had to have a swingoff to see who would advance to the next round, since they had tied in Round 2. In a swingoff, each batter gets five swings. Whoever gets the most home runs out of those five swings wins the swingoff. So Mark Trumbo came up to bat first, and only hit one homer on his final swing. Jose Bautista then came up and immediately jacked two deep ones to left in his first two swings, and the swingoff was over. Jose Bautista had won. So it was Round 3, the final round. Time to name a champion. The two last men standing were Prince Fielder and Jose Bautista. Prince stepped up to the plate and made some fireworks. By the time he got two outs, he had already nailed seven dingers. He ended up with a massive home run total, and Jose Bautista didn't have a chance. Prince Fielder won, for the second time, and Prince was king once again. He first won in 2009 representing the National League, and again last night representing the American League. Prince Fielder became the first player ever to win the Home Run Derby representing both leagues, and the second player to win it twice, the first being Ken Griffey Jr. Last night was a special night for Prince Fielder, and Prince became king once again.