Part 01:
This is old news, but there's a point to it...
>From the Ninfomania news feed:
> <newz//1.1> NINTENDO SEIZURES
> TOKYO
<snip>
> As many as 700 schoolchildren reportedly suffered
> convulsions, vomiting, and other symptoms while watching
> the Pokemon cartoon Tuesday evening. Japanese mass
> dailies Mainichi, Yomiuri and Asahi carried front-page
> stories Wednesday reporting the seizures, which they said
> took place about 20 minutes into the 30-minute show,
> watched by millions of kids across Japan.
>
> Japan's Home Affairs Ministry said 208 people, from age 3
> upward, including a 58-year-old man, were still in
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> hospital with epilepsy-type symptoms more than 24 hours
> after the showing.
<snip>
> The blame was put on a scene depicting an explosion
> followed by five seconds of flashing red lights from the eyes
> of the most popular character, Pikachu, a rat-like
> creature. The episode centered on characters getting inside a
> computer to fight each other, while the explosion was set off
> by a "vaccine bomb" detonated to destroy a computer virus.
<snip>
> Doctors said children went into a trance-like state, similar
> to hypnosis, complaining of shortness of breath, nausea, and
> bad vision when the rat-like creature's eyes flashed. Other
> children were stricken when they watched TV replays of the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> offending scene in news reports on the earlier victims.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> (Source: Reuters)
Those of you on the list who are familiar with either the virus from
Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_ or the mutimedia toxin "Blue Ice" used
by the Panthermoderns in William Gibson's _Neuromancer_ should be able
to see the applications of this....
Part 10: (gotta love those binary numbers)
Connecting this to the ideas that we've been tossing around about
banner ads, you might want to check out a site that's doing a
oh-so-neat variation on the Multimedia Greeting Card(tm) -- for those
Cheap Boyfriends(tm) who don't care about sending the very best --
called "Virtual Plague(tm)." This is from the penultimate satirists at
www.gaijin.com/EvilPeople/ , who bring us other things such as "Mike
Tyson's Cookbook," The "Dark Side of the Force Handbook," and
open-platform Death(tm). [They're trying to get God to do the same with
Life(tm), but He's not buying. They did, however, according to their
current press release, just acquire North Pole Operations (a.k.a. Claus,
INC.).]
I found the idea quite pleasant: Send the target of your choice a
virtual (or real, you're given the choice) plague. Choose from
syphillis, anthrax, ebola, and many others.... You can also choose the
method of delivery (hypodermic, hematological, oral ingestion/food
poisoning, oral ingestion/forced, etc.) and add a note
threatening, ridiculing, or whatever your victim. You do have to get a
confirmation code, tho, so you have to enter a *vaild* e-mail address.
Just as with selling your soul (the EvilPeople, INC.(tm) "Blood
Contract"), this is so that you don't condemn someone else to eternal
torment or mailbombing.
The URL is http://www.gaijin.com/EvilPeople/VirtualPlague/ .
Professionally done, I might add. If the URL doesn't work, I have a
button link on my site: http://www.deathsdoor.com/argos . It's
actually on Geocities at the moment, but that is a forwarding address
and will remain constant if and when I move it.
The point: oh, yeah.
Basically, we may want to consider doing something similar instead of
simply producing a banner ad. This would allow greater variety and
size, and would also have the potential (if they were well-designed
and not manifestly for the purpose of recruitment -- hint, hint, the
"I'm not as evil as I seem, really and for true" meme just kicked in)
for attracting people by using senders (who are not even interested in
CoV) as vectors. Brilliant, no?
Best regards,
Gairovald mailto:argos@DeathsDoor.com
<JOKE>This document is made with 100% virus-free HTML</JOKE>
-- The Corporation