Dabitch.net - Everything is so random there must be a pattern

As you know, it all started because of that "pleaserobme" page. I dashed around 4square to prove a point, and then did the same excersize in Gowalla (which I play), to not play favorites with either service. Both have the same hole, and you might blame it on Android phones, or whatever phone is the reason the m.-versions of their pages exist. (Clue alert: that is the biggest and only clue I will give on how I did this. It's already mentioned numerous times around the getsatifaction gowalla topics, so it's not an unknown glitch, but I won't spell it out further.)

On a dare my gowallaing pal I normally swap rare items with, said "Found the oval office!", and I did, which will likely get the attention of Gowalla, or at least other users who will be miffed that someone founded a spot where they were not. I get that and if the spot is erased, well, that would just make sense. It's likely that I'll be banned as a Gowalla user as well. I knew it would get out of hand when I started.

When I first looked at what trips could be done in Gowalla, and what pins you earn, I saw these... And the Hacker pin which instantly became the only pin I ever wanted. That hacker pin has been an itch needing to be scratched ever since. Looking at the featured trips that one gets pins for completing, I saw "Honky tonk crawl" in Nashville and similar US-centric trips.

These are great suggestions of course, and I'd be thrilled to do a Frank Lloyd Wright tour one of these days, but I couldn't understand why one didn't see featured trips based on ones geographical location, like: "Hey I'm in Amsterdam now, is there a museum crawl I should do?", and why would a bunch of pins that people collect only be reserved for those who are on the North American continent? I've spoken about Gowallas possibilities with many friends, how one should be able to create (or rather buy as income for gowalla) special icons given when you check-in at places.

My friend suggests that cafes should be able to drop discount-pins in your pack when you check in there, which you could trade for real food. How I would love to grant little rainbow-coloured TV-sets to anyone who checks in more than 5 times in any given ad or digital agency around the world, for example. The possibilities are endless. Perhaps the Turning torso here in Malmö would become a featured spot one of these days, so us stuck in Öresund have a chance in getting one of those "featured" stamps, apart from at the central station. I shrugged the suggested trips off as "Impossible pins", and I made statues, as soon as I saw one. I have a thing for statues and famous buildings and tried creating spots with as much information as possible about the ones that I have visited. Some became popular.

I figured that soon we would be able to make trips, and sure enough, as soon as that feature rolled out, I made a statue trip in Malmö (that I even I haven't completed yet).

Of course, this trip only shows up to my friends, making it fairly useless as the tourist-recommendation I meant it to be. But that "hacker pin" itch was never satisfied. How does one get this? You check-in at 25 tech startups for the hacker pin, that's the only information you'll get in getsatifactions forums. It's possible to do this in San Francisco alone. What startups count toward the pin isn't listed anywhere, so if I were to fly to San Fran for a week, I could not dash out to complete this quest while there because there is no list to follow.

So while I was flying around the world like Dakini, reshuffling items for fun (removing all the boring luggage tags and candy bars from the white house and throwing a slew of exotic formerly Swedish rare items in their place, then dropping "White House" marked candies all over the states... for example.), I figured I should get the hacker pin. The only pin I really cared about.

Now I've been around San Fran, Palo Alto and Mountain view way too many times, and have not reached hacker status, though I have checked in to more than 50 startups, both the ones with special badges and the ones without.
Now I'm bored, and will stop.

My point about the Pleaserobme site is made, and I hope I've made a point about the silly of having special pins given for US-only type trips when you offer a worldwide toy. p.s. I will admit faking being in the same café as @morpac was effing hilarious, I laughed for a good 20 minutes.

What should I found next? Yes, I founded the oval office map point on Gowalla because why the heck not.

Pretty much as soon as pleaserobme.com appeared it was tweeted around like wildfire (and blogged a lot) by everyone who saw it and, apparently, had never thought of this angle before. Announcing that you're not at home might be as effective of an invitation to house-robbery as having teenagers brag about their planned vacation in Thailand.
That is if you leave your home announcing it by checking in at airports and presumably live alone, with your house unguarded.

The other worry about these "stalker helper" programs is of course that it announces where you are to anyone who might want to follow you around (I've been trying to freak people out by gowallastalking them, but so far only sofoe seemed to notice that I wasn't in the venue at the time. Well done sistah!)

So, just to show that these programs can give you equally false alibis of location as truthful ones, I decided to do a very quick world tour in 4square, each check-in appearing on "pleaserobme" and even prompting the pleaserobme tweeter to send a note of concern about me announcing my supposed whereabouts.

I checked in at the university in Paris, the Ritz-Carlton in Boston, at Microsoft, Cape Town, on a wee road in Barrow, Alaska, at the Soup Stock in Tokyo, Japan, at 7-eleven in Bangkok, Thailand, a pub in Singapore, Radiotjänst, Kiruna, Noah's bagels in San Francisco, a couch in Portland, Oregon in quick succession. Boyah. In 4square right now I'm in Ushuaia, Argentina.
My cat knows this is not true.

Update, did a little country-hopping in Gowalla too, so that they don't feel left out. Images after the jump.

4Square tour

Created this spot when I got a little lost.

Further fun on the same topic Bored with geotagging now... Kinda. Confessions of a Gowalla "hacker" No, there are no proxies involved in "hacking" gowalla

Sure, I sit funny, often pulling my legs up in the chair or spending hours in the lotus position. Perhaps it's a remnant of instinctive knowledge from way back in time when our forefathers were still hanging out in trees that make me pull my legs up from the floor. It gets funnier when I have a cat, who sincerely believes that I have my knee up just so that he can have a high place to perch. Cats love high perch places, it's their instinctive knowledge from living in the wild to stay off the ground and have a good view. So here we are, in front of a computer, with me giggling at our respective DNA preprogramming.

.... and we've secretly replaced the usual news about snow with some relevant releases and newsmill postings about the super bowl in Sweden. Let's watch as we're ignored by the press written by our fellow countrymen once again, shall we?

Worlds largest super bowl commercials collection - 38 years

Meanwhile Check us out in the New York Times (as the source for the ads).

Jag har langat upp ett inlägg på newsmill: Tim Tebows anti-abortreklam slår in dörren för politik under super bowl.

Jag har ju som bekant super bowl på hjärnan så här års. Schyman har ju onekligen en poäng i sitt newsmillinlägg om de mindre partiernas vara eller icke som reklam i TV-rutan, men det är inte bara "demokratin som har flyttat ut på nätet" utan även den gamla hederliga diktaturen, myglarna, maffian, propagandakungarna, rasisterna, und so weiter.

Allt som finns utanför nätet finns på nätet och mer därtill. Allt som går att böja åt det ena hållet går även att böja åt det andra. Men, nu talar vi om TV, och specifikt om en sporthöjdpunkt när halva den amerikanska befolkningen slår sig ned för att titta på TV. Minns ni hur det var på den tiden Sverige hade enbart två kanaler och de visade Dallas på den ena? Småstäders gator tömdes på folk, barncyklar låg slängda i högar när ägarna haft bråttom in, fotbollar rullade fortfarande ensamt på grusplaner. När jag bevittnade hur en småstad förvandlas till en spökstad första gången trodde jag att jag hade missat ett gaslarm. Men, nej, det vara bara "sallad på teven".

Den slags uppmärksamhet har the Super bowl, complete and undivided attention som min lärare Mr. Nadermier brukade säga. Vänner har TV-tittar fester med chips och öl, familjer och grannar samlas med en dos fredagsmys och pizza, flera generationer samsas runt TVn som om det vore Kalle Anka på julafton. Det är den uppmärksamheten politisk reklam nu kan få, och den första filmen som får gå över den osynliga gränsen som NBC och CBS följt i så många år, är en anti-abortfilm sponsrad av den kristna högern. Är det någon annan som minns när Clearchannel blockerade anti-krigsreklam i Times Square och varhelst de hade sin affischpelare, vilket är i stort sett överallt? När en ägare av kanalen emotsätter sig ett budskap kan det inte nå ut alls. Att anti-abortfolket gör reklam är inte ett problem, så länge pro-abortfolket också får det. Så länge det finns regler om hur man får göra politisk reklam har jag heller inget emot att allas åsikter få komma till tals, det är helt riktigt. Men reglerna tycks vara rätt lösa i USA, som jag har plockat isär bit för bit i min post: "The National Organization for Marriage commercial, perfect FUD." kan man tydligen ljuga hej vilt om man har lust. Hoppas innerligt att det dröjer innan vi får se sånt här på Super Bowl:

Dr Dwight McKenna for New Orleans Coroner - Igor - (2010) :30 (USA)

(Bakgrunden till denna kampanj finner du här; Coroner Frank Minyard and the undergound trafficking of body parts )

• Ja, just det, jag glömde helt att "milla" på newsmill. Gjorde det i den första postningen, men när jag skulle rätta några stavfel genom att lägga upp en ny artikel glömde jag bort att lägga till den där millningsgrejen. Nåväl. Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om super bowl, reklam, newsmill

While I was off busy celebrating "jul", episode 11 of the advercast went live. In it, we spoke about breeder bingo, salaries, bitchiness, sex and sexism and I've already summed up my thoughts here.

We also spoke about that Shiny Suds ad that was pulled for triggering rape flashbacks....and just to show off my embedding capabilities, here's that Shiny Suds ad we were talking about:

METHOD People Against Dirty - Shiny Suds - (2009) :70 (USA)

....also, I brought up the Panlegis advert debate, translated cliff notes and the ad with the near-naked santa helper is here, just so you know the ad was crap no matter how you look at it.

It's so long ago now. I was working late in an otherwise quiet building, all alone in my little workspace, gardening in the commercial archive as the parties raged at the nighclubs in Amsterdam just a block away from me, and the SAG strike raged in California a day away from me. That's when the emails began dropping in, one angrier than the other; "You shouldn't be making money off those actors hard work, you have no right!" argued some, to which I laughed knowing my hobby cost me a fortune in server-fees and didn't make a dime. "You better watch out, you're angering a lot of people and we know where you live!" stated another and for a brief second I was worried.

Judging by the amount of peeved SAG-actor fans, I was ticking a lot of people off, and now they said that they knew where I lived. Here I was alone, in a basement that was so easy to break into, in a rather bad part of town. "Where do I live?" I asked, and got an instant reply. "Helgagatan 33, 11858 Stockholm". Lets google map that, to really let it sink in how funny that was. My own personal reference to Blues Brothers movie, back when you actually had to have a legit snailmail address when registering domain names was being thrown back at me as a threat. Allahelgonakyrkan in Stockholm was my 1060 West Addison. Yeah dude, I'm scared now. You're so far off, you're not even in the right country.

Lawyers have called me up early in the mornings and late at night, all things have been sorted out without much of a fight (as it turns out, I'm right), and if I ever removed anything it's out of my own sense of fair play, like when a game-ad leaked early, before said game was ready for release and the game company sent sugar dripping pretty pleases. "I'll do it but the nano-second it can go live, you let me know right?" Right! Of course, they never do, these people I'm doing favours forget it fast. When the ad is ready to air, everyone gets it at the same time and I put another notch in my "It doesn't pay to be nice" stick. Those who break embargos win the traffic crowds and those who publish their misdirected C&D's are perceived as heroes.

The C&Ds bore me by now, and the threats of "I will call my lawyer" bore me twice as much. Don't say you will, go all Nike and just do it. And have your lawyer call mine. Seriously. Right fucking now. Put your money where your mouth is, as I don't respond well to threats. But of course, I'll treat every case differently, as each one is as individual as the individuals who email.

Like the person who had made animatronics for an ad I have in the commercial archive wrote his own not-lawyer vetted C&D to try and have me remove it, I gave him a short class in a) what C&D's actually read like, b) how he should write his contracts in the future to get paid better for his work.

I haven't posted any of the C&Ds we've received in public, as I consider them private correspondence (and some people really should thank me for not making a permanent sad internet mark on their shiny legal careers). Or that guy who was rather upset about a piece of negative news (a huge bellyflop in his professional life) kept showing up on top of google when looking for his name, I helped him out by posting new news of non-bellyflopping career moves, since it was so easy to read his frustration wasn't with me but with that failure haunting him.

Today, however, I find I'm having a real hard time doing the classy thing of keeping my mouth shut. See, today a man emailed telling me to "correct information" in a post from last year, or he'll "be forced to take legal action". The email's subject line was "defamation article on your website". The post in question is mocking the trade press for writing everything but this person's name in a news article regarding his arrest for suspicion of murder, making figuring out who it is easier than making a cup of instant coffee. (Notice I didn't say tasty instant coffee, as that's impossible)

My response was as curt as his email, explaining that Adland isn't in the habit of revising history unless he could point to a factual error in the article - was he not arrested in this case? - but I'd be happy to post a new article about the current state of affairs in this case (the case was dropped due to insufficient evidence: ie they never found a body) which is by far more effective in drowning bad news out.
The police aren't foolproof, just ask the Creative Director who was arrested based on a flimsy Facebook connection. I added that being arrested must take a great psychological and physical toll on anyone, so I didn't take the legal threat personally.
Nice, but crisp. "It's not a threat" his response came back_"It's reality"_.

Well then, get your damn lawyer on the phone honey, and quit wasting my time. I just offered you a big-ass microphone to clear your name and asked you a straight question regarding the factual error which you didn't answer, which tells me what I already knew, there was no error. Kaboom! You've been lawyered!

Interestingly he claimed that other "publications" have all "corrected their error or removed their articles".

Either he's fibbing or publications scare easily around here. Look, I've had some fanatical removed-from-reality folks harass me all hours of the day with proper death threats on every contact channel, (the misdirected SAG related anger ones don't count), I've had my phonenumber put on UK Porn dating sites,

I have a rather impressive collection of sexually harassing messages left on my phone with matching police report piles, my server DDOSed properly more times than I care to count, and the first C&D I ever received came from Universal Studios lawyers who know a thing or two about the law & IP, back in 1999, but they never even replied after I had pointed out all their wrong assumptions and their bad case.

If you can't answer my straight question, I have no reserves of "nice" to spare, no matter how innocent or emotionally distraught you might be after your ordeal. I gave it a shot. You wasted it. So to end on a high note, if you never find my body, the suspect's name is in the database. ;)