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Man To Live In House for One Year 228

Posted by Hemos from the dumb-pr-stunts dept.
Barry K. Nathan writes "MSNBC is reporting that a geek is actually locking himself into a rented house for a year, to prove that e-commerce makes it possible. He's even changed his legal name to DotComGuy. He says, 'I'm going to come out being a loon,' but I think you have to be crazy already to even think of doing this in the first place... " Actually, it does appear that he can go in the backyard - and can have visitors. But still, I think I'd lose it after about two weeks or so.
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Man To Live In House for One Year More

Man To Live In House for One Year

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  • Re:Terraserver [reply to an off-topic] (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    LETS GET ONE THING STRAIGHT, YOU DAMN MODERATORS!

    If I say in the topic that my post is off topic, there is no point in marking the post off topic! The purpose of me marking it off topic is that people who want to only read on topic posts can easily skip mine. The purpose of YOU marking it off topic is so people who want to read only on topic posts can easily skip mine!

    In any case, I was replying to something that was on the same topic as i was talking about, so i was actually on topic UNLESS YOU THINK THE WHOLE FARKING THREAD SHOULD BE MODERATED DOWN!!! Since the rest of the posts in the thread are intact, you obviously are just abritrarily moderating without thinking.

    Go read the moderation guidelines [slashdot.org]. I will quote: "Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting." "The goal here is to share ideas."

    I am sharing ideas, dammit, go find some post with a useful link and moderate it up so that more people can share more ideas. Don't shoot me down for sharing my ideas about something random when i clearly say i am doing so. This helps no one.

    This is being posted anonymously because even though it is clearly not a troll (but possibly a flame) it will almost certainly be marked as such.


  • Maybe this [puttybox.com] would help.

  • Julia Butterfly Hill lived high in the limbs of a
    redwood for over 2 years, and saved a chunk of the
    Headwaters forest from clear-cutters and Corporate Greed.
    And now some clown's gonna lock himself up in his house
    (which he prolly seldom leaves anyway), and prove that
    one can throw themselves on the mercy of E-commerce and not starve.

    Forgive me for not being thoroughly impressed.
  • BTW, check out Julia's story at htp://www.luna.org
    A cool video clip of her descent from Luna after 2 years
    can be found in the archives at CNN.
  • >To quote Eric Cartman, "Dirty tree-hugging hippies!"
    I thought it was: "Stupid shallow-minded ditto-heads"..
    Oh, well. Ya missed the point anyway.
  • Go take a look at his Schedule [dotcomguy.com] and check out the dodgy (perl?) scripting thats going on:

    01:09 AM Invalid Date/Time object: 01/03/19100
    01:09 AM Invalid Date/Time object: 01/03/19100
    01:38 AM Invalid Date/Time Object: 01/03/19100
  • My dad's hermit-y ass sits at home for MONTHS at a time, and as long as he has someone to buy him liquor and a freezer full of frozen fish sticks, he won't leave the house -- ever.

    One month is childs play. You don't need the 'net to live in solitary confinement for anything less than two months. Deep freeze with food in it, electricity, and a microwave is all anyone would need, if they could stand staying inside that long. My dad doesn't seem to have any problems whatsoever staying indoors for 8-10 weeks at a time.

    What REALLY sucks about it is that he expects me to do the same.

    Fuck you, dad.

    Naikrovek.
  • Sure, it's possible. As long as you can telecommute (or break into your Y2K stockpiles), you can pay to get groceries delivered and everything. Hell, if you had the money, you could do that easily w/o e-commerce.

    I'm hardly a social person, and I probably could do the same without complaining much. But why would I?

    Now if some online grocer was paying me a small fortune for advertising rights... :)
  • If he can have visitors, that would be way too easy. As long as I could find a liquor store to deliver to my place...it would become DotComPartyCentral and I could name myself DotComGuyWhoThrowsParties. With guaranteed live webcasts of people puking.

    I don't think this is a challenge....

    Derek
  • Sounds like you're an expert on the topic - care to tell us more?

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • Aside from not having *physical* contact with anyone, I don't think that one would miss much of the communication you get in the real world. There's always IRC, ICQ, and others. And if he has enough bandwidth, he can even do videoconferencing. Heck... I already live almost like this, especially on the weekends. :)

    --

  • Well, you can configure this on the end-user interface by selecting that the articles be displayed "Newest First."

    I don't know if this requires you to be logged in, however. Either way, it's a nice way to get Slashdot to behave the way you want, even if the occasional Anonymous Coward still won't.

  • Hrm. Yes, this is old "news." Yes, the media has been saturating us with information about this guy and his little e-commerce publicity stunt. Yes, he's got to be a little wacky to do this voluntarily, even though it's not too strange compared to how some other geeks live as it is.

    But an entire year without being able to go out and meet other people?

    Ya gotta wonder just how much cyberpr0n this guy is going to access during his year long sentence! Pr0nDotComGuy?

    Heh heh heh.

  • I wear glasses and a suit when I post as Karma-whore-guy-antagonist-guy, but when posting as Karma-whore-guy, I take them off, let a curl of hair dangle over my forehead, and put on a cape. Sure, it might sound like an easily-detectable disguise, but you're the only one who's caught me so far!

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • I think that the posts should be reversed, with the newest at top, as default. That would render the "Must comment first to be at the top"-attitude unsucessfull...
  • That should be the default, and no one would run for first post anymore...

  • Maddox's first monthly paycheck from the company will be $24, but it will double every month as an incentive to stay in the house, Critcher said.

    In other words, over $98,000 (assuming my math is right) to live in a house for 1 year. And the sponsors are probably covering all his expenses. Nice job, if you can get it. Perhaps somebody in finances forgot how fast exponential functions grow...

  • How long will it take before we see something like this but where you are not allowed to touch or have anything to do with a computer for a year?
  • What's he going to do for an encore, climb mount Everest?

    Nah, he just orders a sherpa over the web to climb the Everest for him.

    -- Abigail

  • In wonder whether Sun Microsystems put the dot in this dotcomguy.

    -- Abigail

  • Y'all think that people who refer to themselves in the third person are silly. Y'all much prefers to refer to y'allself in second person plural.


    -Andy Martin
  • Dotcomguy? What a dumb name first of all, but i guess the stunt is working, since we are talking about it and bringing attention to it. I have a question however. What happens, say, six months from now when Mr. Dotcomguy has a medical problem. Is Mr. Dotcomguy going to look up on the web how to do a apendechtomy or will he be allowed to leave the house for that.

    And hey, I have one better. Install Windows 98 on a bunch of older machines. That sure feels like your spending a year in your own home.
  • [The text is from his website -- I've interpolated my comments]

    His days at Highland Park High School [Michigan high school -- strike 1] were relatively unremarkable with the notable exception of his being suspended for interrupting stuffy graduation exercises with beach balls, bouncy balls and bubbles from the balcony. [OK -- *once* he had some balls...] He went on to the University of North Texas [ Texas University -- strike 2,], where he joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity [Dubya's old frat -- strike 3]. His family had always been politically active [political family -- strike 4] , and this model went to his head when he majored in Political Science [Majored?? -- strike 5 ] and left school in 1994 [Bill Gates syndrome -- strike 6] to work for state and federal political campaigns. After serving in the US Marine Corps [ Jarred head -- strike 7] he received an internship at UPS, where he later took a management position in Human Resources [ "The HR! The HR!" -- strike 8; leaving before the IPO -- strike 9 ]. Most recently he was a systems manager [ Oxymoron -- strike 10 ] for the world's largest mobile telecommunications company [ Thanks for all the cell phones, guy -- strike 11].

    And *then* he became -- DotComGuy! [ Strike 12! Yer out, out, out, OUT!!] Poor guy -- hitting bottom at 26. At least he's removed himself from our physical presence for a year. I nominate -- one year in advance -- DotComGuy for a Darwin Award in the year 2001. I think it's the only way he can redeem himself. ;-D

  • I Alredy do this :)
  • Yup, I won't be watching either as he's chosen a non-Unix viewer.

    At least he had the sense to run the web server on Unix. Not that it will matter if he doesn't get traffic.

  • If he's using it as a toilet too, lack of content won't be a problem for long.

    (Ba-dum-dum-psh!)

  • Noise is the enemy of the submarine fleet. Modern sonar and sonarmen are sophisticated enough to hear the slightest of noises which are conducted through the hull into the water. Equipment and machinery are shock and noise mounted to reduce noise leakage, and in general routine operations are carried out efficiently and quietly.

    That being said, submarines at sea, even in peacetime, are constantly running emergency drills and procedures to test crew and ship readiness for battle conditions. So, just when your particular shift has retired to your sleeping quarters for your six-hour sleep-slot, you get awakened by a simulated reactor failure or a fire in the galley drill.

    By the way, there is no "night" on a submarine :-) There are three crew shifts which work in a staggered 18 hour cycle or "day". At any given time, one shift is standing watch (operating equipment), one shift is performing maintenance or training, and the third shift is (hopefully) getting some shut-eye. These all rotate every six hours.

    At least that's how it was on mine.

  • Yep. When people find out I was once a submariner (USS Archerfish, SSN-678), the first thing they ask is how we avoided claustrophobia. Funny thing was, though, that once the routine settled in (after about five minutes :-), the boat simply...became our universe.

    Making our own oxygen and distilling our own water, a metal tube a few hunded feet long and mostly filled with machinery became the home to 100+ men whose lives depending inextricably on every single one of the others.

    Not an experience easy to communicate--I guess you just had to be there.

  • I rarely leave the house myself. I feel as if I could go an entire year. Then again i'm only 17. I have no job, and my parents buy me all my food and clothing. So it would be easier for me I guess.

    -PovRayMan
  • You blame Americans just because of me. That is a very stupid and unthought comment, Anonymous Coward. There are lots of people my age, and younger, who do have a job and support themselves. Did I also mention they are Americans? Good god, it's good you posted that comment as an AC. Anyone who has the guts to post a comment flaming Americans as an AC is a true coward.

    -PovRayMan
  • True, but I don't look as my parents as the only providers. I do simple tasks for my neighbors, IE mowing the lawn, shoveling their walkways. It doesn't pay a specified ammount. Last year I had a summer job at Burger King, but it's not worth spending more than a summer there.

    -PovRayMan
  • I think you brought up some of the best concerns about this project. I can understand how there are plenty of loners out there that are fine without human contact, but your average Joe would suffer some serious psychological effects from not leaving the house for a year. It would be the equivalent of sending a domesticated animal into the wild, and then trying to take it back into domestication after a year. It's not going to know how to interact at all.

    More importantly, why is it that the sponsors feel they need to do this to prove the reliability of e-commerce? Those of us in the know have been using it for years, and know it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. If these big corporations are so gung-ho about proving the reliability, why don't they offer a program for their employees (or, God forbid, their executives) to give this a shot? All this project amounts to is a large publicity stunt that only sets them back $100K, but reaches millions effectively.
  • Maddox's first monthly paycheck from the company will be $24, but it will double every month as an incentive to stay in the house...


    2^12*304 = $98,304

    and this is just for the last month. Before taxes he's going to get $196,584.00 for the entire year.

    this isnt that hard to do... i could stay within my back yard for a year if everything was payed for. It would be even easier if i was clearing almost 200K before taxes.

    TRUELY IMPRESSIVE:
    A person lives in a house on his/her own for a year. Living only off the money that he/she has earned online (sales/programming/sysadmin/etc).


    john
  • oops my math was off. sorry about that. still this would hardly be called a challenge.


    john
  • I'd assume so. Even if he could not (use a telephone), he probably could sign up for one of those Net2Phone services so he could call places off his computer.

    This is not that big of an event, a guy in japan lived in an apartment for 3 months off stuff that he won in mail order contests a while back. He will do his event and probably get his name in some record book, but all in all it is a waste of time...
  • OK. You're cool. Let's use silly pranks and act like a 13 year old. Unfortunately this seems to be the typical /. response to things we don't understand or don't like.

    I'll admit that this is a lame publicity stunt, but to suggest that we use neat-o leet-o script-kiddie tools to bring the site down and have the post moderated up is just unbelievable.

    There was time on /. when people read the article in question and actually thought about it before they posted. There was a time when there was intelligent conversation on /. - it seems that time is gone. Too bad really...

  • Does anyone have the web-stie address where we can see these web-cams?

    (my e-mail is down, Someone needs to tell Exodus to never cut the Fiber-optic cable)

  • yes, you are right. The major effect of y2k is bogus dates on web pages. There are pages that have screen shots of a lot of them, but i forgot where they are, so i will summarize, the date testerday was, depending on what they did wrong:

    0, 100,1900,1999 (jan 1), 1999 (dec 32), 19100, 192000 or 202000

    There were also a number of millenium countdown sites that are either now counting up or counting down from a very large negitive number.

  • $50000 and free groceries? What's the challenge? I'd be a lot more impressed if he started with one clean install of Linux, no financial/material support, and the clothes on his person -- funnel advertising dollars to an escrow account to be collected in 2001. See someone support themself entirely from home, w/o resorting to selling the story of..."someone supporting themself entirely from home". Just silly otherwise.
  • Best deals before dawn!
  • daveo thinks this man is a true geek, and whoever is sponsoring this, he, like any of us, just wants to take advantage of not having to work, and just sit and play on the net all day. a great opportunity... daveo does this anyway, just not officially ;0)

  • This guy really knows how to rough it.
    What's he going to do for an encore, climb mount Everest?


  • Umm...you've given away your secret identity, and as secret identity rules go, you've got to either, die, disappear (and reappear as someone else), or turn evil.

    Sorry, those are the rules.


    TheGeek

  • Oh hell yeah, I'd do it.

    And you know, it wouldn't be terribly hard either...I know a local organic produce place allows you to order over the web, a couple pizza places allow you to do the same. God knows you could buy clothing, software, amusements, whatever over the net...though if you run out of something, expect a few days or weeks before it arrives.

    One thing though...it order to make this really fair they should take away his phone line and give him cable access...that way he really is restricted to using the net for everything instead of just ordering take-out all year. And he should not be allowed to talk to his friends or neighbours and ask them to bring things over for him. Otherwise this would be a pointless effort (though, temptingly lazy).

    TheGeek
    http://www.geekrights.org [geekrights.org]
    TheGeek

  • What's so strange about this? I don't use the internet at all...in fact, I've never even seen it in action!

    For my two cents (real cents = real sense), I think he's a dotcommie, bent on destroying the north american way (styrofoam containers, .357 magnums, flea markets, chaw). We've got the bomb, let's blow the hell outta his house and see if he stays, summoning 911 via email.

    TheGeek
    http://www.blowthehelloutofdotcomguybeforehehasIRC sexandb reedsdotcomchildren.com [geekrights.org]
    TheGeek

  • Isn't it strange that Karma-whore-guy and Karma-whore-guy-antagonist/complainer-guy have the same amount of Karma?

    And for that matter, I've personally never seen them in the same place at the same time.

    TheGeek
    http://www.geekrights.org [geekrights.org]
    TheGeek

  • Check out the website [dotcomguy.com]. His 'upcoming schedule' doesn't have much, since it doesn't like the Year 19100.. (if they've fixed it, there's a snapshot of the page here [qsolutions.com].
  • Even 50 years ago, with enough money, you could buy every single thing you wanted with just the phone. Augh.

    Yeah, but they're using that thar Internet thing! The guy even calls himself "DotComGuy!" 50 years ago, people might've suspected he was (gasp) communist -- but today we know that everthing must be dot com. Why? Because dot com is an Internet Address! And everyone loves the Internet. That guy on CNN told me so.


    ---
  • Well, at least he did this after Wal-Mart's NEW IMPROVED STORE went online.

    I looked at it today... its less useless than the previous version, at least. However, if you take more than a certain length of time to click a link, you get to start over again. Also, didnt see any Privacy info on their feedback page.
  • First saturdays's rock! I really missed that after moving away from Dallas. (even though I couldn't tell half my friends about it - It's 3AM and you're going where??)

  • The Difficult Bit Will Be.... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Getting ayone to actually deliver to you with a name like "DotComGuy"... if you worked at a pizza place and got an order from someone named thatm would you make the drive to the address he gave? Hell no!

  • Re:THIS IS NOT NEWS! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just for reference, I live next door to this guy. You should all come see us... I have never met him personally, but I kinda figured it was him when Channels 4, 5, 8 and 11 were all out front, and then I saw my neighbourhood on the evening news. We live on Lake Highlands Drive (which is, obviously, in the Lake Highlands section of Dallas, near White Rock Lake). I'll leave you to puzzle out the block number on your own. Suffice to say, my house has a 30' ham radio tower out back.
  • What does this prove. That in the future, humans can be filed away into little cubbies and be forgotten. The implications are a little to Orwellian for me. I would go nuts. I play racquetball all the time, I backpack all the time, and I go to the movies a lot. The backpacking is what rejuvenates me every year and prevents me from going postal. The racquetball playing keeps me from getting fat. The movies are a nice form of escapism. Yes, I know, you can watch videos/dvd's, but its never usually the same as going to a cinema. There's just so much stuff this guy may not be thinking of that he takes for granted.
  • What is he gonna do if his laptop sporks out? Or the cable for his net connection? He'll have no contact with the outside world (except screaming for help from his backyard I guess). I hope that incidents along that line are covered. =)
    --
  • Also consider 85% of that person's muscle. Try making that person walk after that year. Gahh.....

    I'm assuming the person would be fed via IV?

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Nah, that's somebody who never leaves his own website and doesn't let other people visit it either.

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction

  • Karma whore guy
    Karma whore guy
    Seekin' all the karma his money can buy
    Does he have a life?
    It's not important
    Nobody likes
    Karma whore guy

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • Is anybody doubting that it's possible?

    Somebody who actually decides to spend a year of his life that way is in need of some psychiatric help, in my humble opinion.

    --
    grappler
  • Except we called our domicile the lab/office, our monthly salary never doubled, and we couldn't afford food let alone to have it delivered. Ok, so we left to go happy hour to eat, but that was it, honest.
  • There used to be a time when people had a sense of humor and were able to distinguish between joking and not joking - it seems that time is gone.

    Now we have elitist idiots who have nothing better to do than parade their lack of common sense and ramble on about the past that never was. If Slashdot was ever better than it is now, you probably weren't apart of it, user #42901 (ooh.. I get to be elitist now, too).

    Now watch it, or I'll ping flood you, mofo.
    [WARNING: That was a JOKE.]
    ~~~~~~~~~
    auntfloyd
  • Forgot to include the fact that many/most people before the industrial revolution "worked out of the home" (yes, a huge generalization and there are exceptions, etc., etc.)
  • But how would he pay? With his ClickCredit?

    Pay on delivery I suppose, or with his credit card. Dotcomguy is getting a nice amount of money for this. $24 dollars the first month, and each month the amount doubles. Which means that over a year, he'll get $98,280.

    -- Abigail

  • The next step should be that someone can't leave the computer for a year. Obviously, a combination chair/toilet/bed would need to be made, but it's doable. (Patent pending) Problem is the lack of content... one might go crazy pretty quickly.

    Back to the toilet chair bed... integrate that so you don't even have to leave the keyboard...
    chair -flush
    chair -bed
    chair -spin 3 (three times around =P)

  • I bet this guy is just a Y2k programmer looking for some money (ie. through publicity and sponsorship), becuase his crash course in COBOL and FORTRAN at ITT tech really isn't paying off anymore.
  • don't forget the fridge, the man's gotta eat...
    and what about the shower? well... since he's all buy himself, i suppose he can do without the shower =)


    _______________________________________________
    There is no statute of limitation on stupidity.
  • This is the lamest thing I've heard of in a long while. Do we have to puy "dot com" on everything on the planet earth? Oh well, maybe I can still be dotorgguy. What exactly is this going to prove? That people will do anything for money? I betcha this guy will crack in 3 months. BTW, this is really old news.

  • Being left in a place the size of a normal person's house for a year isn't even unusual.

    It's called prison, and millions of people spend a year there without going crazy, under tougher circumstances. Millions more live in restricted environments for safety or medical reasons.

    This is a cute publicity stunt, but being limited to one's house and yard is not such a terrible restriction to live with.

  • It's not an advance in "using technology to avoid leaving the house" - my parents have just about managed it, themselves. Thousands of people have lived most of their lives that way without the benefit of professional caretakers.

    I quite agree, I can think of several groups of people who have managed to go for years without leaving the house. The word "housebound" springs to mind for starters. I'm quite amazed that any self-respecting company would fall for a scam like this and can't help wondering what the shareholders think of their dividends sponsoring this scheme.

    For quite some time now, even here in the quiet backwaters of England, the supermarkets have had online ordering and delivery. I assume this guy is trying to make some kind of point, apparently unaware that many people are forced to live this way, and have been for years without the luxury of having a choice.

    I'd be interested to find out what this guy intends to do at the end of the year when all he has to show on his resumé is that he decided to stay at home for a year and effectively sponge off other peoples charity. I know who wouldn't get to interview if he came to me for a job!!

    Veni, Vedi, Visa: I came. I Saw. I Did a Little Shopping.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • To see one comment: use cid links. For example:
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/01/02/111 4212&cid=22

    If you don't know the cid number of the post you want, then you should be reading the whole discussion anyway.

    Wanting to have a constantly updating discussion is frankly stupid. Here is why. The reason that we almost never see intelligent posts numbered in the single digits is because everyone rushes to post without reading the article or putting any thought into what they are saying. If everytime someone posts, everyone else sees it instantly, then the "gotta reply before someone else does"/"gotta post before there are so many posts that no one will get down to mine" manner of posting will become even more rampant and the incentive to write intelligent, thought out posts will drop even farther than it is now.
    Additionally, I wouldn't mind to be able to read the posts using lynx...

    again, if you are just trolling and you don't actually belive what you are saying, ignore this post.
  • First, those of us who have not been spoiled by cable-modem || T3 at college know how to deal with long pages. You start loading, go play a game or get food or something and then come back and read it. I have had a 33.6 for a long time and last month upgraded to 56k. At college, I share a partial T1 with 1600 other students. I find slashdot to be just fine at this speed.

    If it is still too slow, log in and use the "light" mode, disable sigs and set "Limit only display this many comments" to 1 or 2 (A comment in this case refers to a parent comment and all its replies). Doing any or all of these will speed things up considerably.

    I do not propose a system to twart potential abuse, I propose one to prevent actual abuse from increasing.

    If you know what a user interface is, why don't you write one and submit it to the slashdot community? It needs to (1) do everything the current one does, (2) do some things that the current one does significantly better (3) still be viewable by people without access to a graphical browser (4) not cause any new problems. Good Luck!
  • I'm still retired. You're not reading this.

    1) http://www.lawnmowers.com

    2) http://www.howtomakemoneywithoutreallyleavingtheho use.com

    3) http://www.kiteflying101.com

    4) www.conjugalvisit.com

    5) www.jennicam.com

    6) www.bored.com

    7) www.physicalexercise.com

    8) www.warehouse-o-porn.com

    9) www.mailorderbride.com

    10) www.GET-A-LIFE.com

    11) Wanna buy a duck?
  • At least he's better looking than Ruud...

    //rdj

  • I dunno, something about this enrages me. I can't put my finger on it. When I first heard about it I tried to go the guy's site and call him a loser (via a message board or something).

    me too. there is no message board. there is a spot you can give them a bunch of demographic info and become a dotcompartner or some such shit, and in return i guess you get to review e-commerce sites and get deals on various crapola. but no message board that i could find.

    you can, however, follow my lead and email the schmuck at dcg@dotcomguy.com [mailto] and tell him what a loser puppet of greedy commercial interests he is.

    ======
    "Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16


  • Suffice to say, my house has a 30' ham radio tower out back.

    hmmm. i can't help but think how a few thousand watts of RF beamed directly at his laptop would enhance dotcomguys [mailto] connectivity... :-)

    ======
    "Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16

  • DotComGuy writes "ABCNNMSNBC is reporting that an loony is actually throwing out all computers from his rented house for a year, to prove that it is possible to live without e-commerce. He's even changed his legal name to Mich Maddox. He says, 'I'm going to come out being a loon,' but I think you have to be crazy already to even think of doing this in the first place... " Actually, it does appear that he can use devices with embedded microcontrollers - and can use the phone. But still, I think I'd lose it after about two weeks or so.
  • Except that he is actually going to provide content. He is a talk show host, only instead of getting there by being fat and abrasive, or fat and cute, or funny, or controversial, or a competent journalist, or a good interviewer, he's getting draw by being dOTcOMgUY!

  • If he stays 12 months he'll end up receiving $98,280. That's a nice chunk of change, but I don't know if that could induce me to stay inside for a full year.

    If they offered me $196,584 for 13 months, though... (Love those geometric progressions.)

  • I have some friends who live like this now !
  • from the lets-count-the-crashes-dept.
    When attempting to watch sir clueless, the video stream gave me the following:

    Information on this page requires a plug-in for:
    video/x-ms-asf-plugin

    Perhaps this 24 hour/7 days a week broadcast of the Blue Screen Of Death would be more aply hosted on:

    RebootGuy.com
    _________________________

  • MICHIGAN, Jan. 1 -- In an effort to prove how wired
    the world has become, a web site programer walked out of
    empty Michigan house on Saturday without a computer and
    said he doesn't plan to log-on until 2001.

    HIS PLAN: live exclusively offline, including making his
    own food, getting furniture from a store and actually
    trying on clothes at the store and hosting a 24-hour
    technology news site.

    'Our vision is that new online shoppers will go to our
    site to learn how to delete windows,' said Rob
    Malda, who legally changed his name to /.Guy and
    set up a company, /.Guys Inc., for the stunt.

    After locking himself outside the rented house Saturday,
    he added: 'I'm not going in until Bill Gates admits he's a loon.'

    The 'live' part of the /.Guy stunt involves
    24-hour streaming tech stories from hundreds of story submiters
    set up throughout the world. One of Robs partners reviews books
    at the kitchen, several face the living room, and one even sits on a
    bathroom shelf -- turned away from the toilet and bathtub.

    The /.Guy project, which sounds like a cross
    between the enviro-colonization experiment Biosphere and
    the film "behind the green door," has a few ground rules.
    Malda can have visitors. He simply can't go closer than the
    front porch.

    'We certainly don't recommend that people lock
    themselves away from their computers, but we will prove that it
    can be done,' said Jeff Bates, a friend of Malda's and
    president of /.Guy Inc.

    Malda's first monthly paycheck from the company
    will be $1, but it will double every time a windows machine crashes
    as an incentive to stay out side of the house, Hemos said.

    Hemos helped line up sponsors to sustain Malda through the
    year, including Red Hat, which donated the winter coat, and
    Ace Hardware, which agreed to keep the snow blower gased up all winter.

    Michigan-based Andover.net sold there /. shares
    when it realized its company could be hurt from a Malda
    death due to outdoor exposure.

    'We are going to have people say, 'Hey,
    /. Guy, how do I uninstall my win-modem or
    how do I get this or that Web site?' said
    /.'s CowboyNeal. 'And when he uses our site,
    that's how people will learn about us.'

    Similar experiments have been undertaken before --
    'The National Enquirer' locked two New Yorkers out of
    their 'e-cave' for a week last year without a refrigerator, a
    $500 daily stipend, or computer and Internet access -- but
    Malda has vowed to live off small rodents and AOL CDs
    longer than anyone else has so far.

    Sunday afternoon, the Web site story board showed
    Malda sitting on porch chatting with visitors.

    Among his first buys offline buys: shampoo, toilet
    paper, cleaning supplies and carry-out food.

    © 2000 /. Press. All rights reserved.

    _________________________

  • With apologies in advance to tmbg [tmbg.com].
    I give you:
    .com man

    dot-com man, dot-com man
    doing the things a dot-com can
    what's he like?
    It's not important
    dot-com man
    is he a dot, or is he a com?
    when he's underwater
    does he get wet
    or does the water get him instead?
    nobody knows
    dot-com man

    thank you
    _________________________

  • Wow, wouldn't everyone like to have an exponential salary! Check out his monthly checks:
    $24, 48, 96, 192, 384, 768, 1536, 3072

    So in other words it takes him 8 months to make enough to really "earn a living". So what does he do except work out of savings for the first 7 months? Ordering all those products has got to rack up.

    Should we feel sorry for him? Nope. Here's why...
    ...6144,12288, 24576, 49152 are the monthly checks for months 9-12. More than I'll ever see.

    A grand total if he makes it all year? $95,208. Not bad, but let's remember he only makes $168 in his first 3 months and he'll have no life (or wife!).
    Sheesh

  • He puts a lenscap on at night

  • This can't be that much different than what some people do now :) Except instead of going down to the local QuickieMart to buy coffee/mountain dew/candy/etc, you simply order it online and have it delivered. If you're already working at home 100% of the time, and don't have much of a "real" social life, then this couldn't be that drastic of a change, since he's allowing himself to have visitors in the backyard, and can still go outside, unless he flips and becomes a nutcase of course :)

  • If you lived in a medieval town (or ancient Roman, etc.), wouldn't people would deliver your purchases for you if you paid them extra (i.e. shipping/delivery fee) for it? How does the Internet make staying in your home more possible than the telephone does? or an inky quill and a sheet of papyrus?

  • Top Ten Reasons... (Score:3)

    by msslave ( 26178 ) on Sunday January 02, 2000 @11:51AM (#1415723)
    The Top Ten Reasons the DotComGuy is not a True Dallas Area Geek.

    10. He will miss Fantansia 2000 on IMAX. Geeks dig classical stuff like that has a break from the techno and rock-n-roll life styles.

    9. People in Dallas drive, even geeks. Those who drive bicycles, motorcycles and small cars are called "targets". Then there are road trips to Austin and such.

    8. Geeks in Dallas go to users group meetings. There are ten different users groups where half the other geeks are named Chris. NTLUG, DFWUUG, etc..

    7. A true geek would have invited some buds along fro the piece of the action. At least a cat or a kitten. Then he could have a DotComPussyCat.

    6. First Saturday Sale. A Dallas thing.

    5. Going to Frys or MicroCenter to scoop out the latest stuff. Both carry Linux stuff and other essentials. MicroCenter has more BSD stuff and better books. Frys has a bit of everything. CompUsa is for the lame.

    4. Resturants. Dallas has more resturants then any other place in the known universe. You could eat out every meal for a century without being in a chain or repeating yourself. See Addison.

    3. A true geek would have a column in the Dallas Observer and substain from messing with Belo association. There is the WFAA Kristine Kahanek weather babe exception. www.wfaa.com

    2. A true geek would have moved in with a workstation to start with. A older geek would have an old PDP-11 or maybe a SGI 02. Laptops as a sole system are for marketing wusses.

    1. Babes. How is he going to get any quality women? True geek women are not into idoits called DotComGuy. What the heck do you call him? Dot? Com? Guy? Women want a true geek, half which in Dallas are called Chris Something.

  • Man to live in Real World" for a year (Score:3)

    by chazR ( 41002 ) on Sunday January 02, 2000 @09:40AM (#1415724) Homepage
    "MSNBC is reporting that a geek is actually locking himself away from Internet access for a year, to prove that real-commerce makes it possible. He's even changed his legal name to NotDotComGuy. He says, 'I'm going to come back being a loon,' but I think you have to be crazy already to even think of doing this in the first place... " Actually, it does appear that he can go in the newsgroups - and can have check his email. But still, I think I'd have lost it after about two weeks or so.

  • First Poster Who Actually Read The Article! (Score:3)

    by quadong ( 52475 ) on Sunday January 02, 2000 @08:25AM (#1415725) Homepage
    So, while this seems really dumb to me, i am interested in wheather he is actually going to make it, or if he will quit in the middle. It sounds sorta like thirty-days.com, which was interesting to look at for a little while, but i am sure most of their hits came from the few days after they were featured on slashdot. Wierd things like this just aren't captivating for that long. Once he realizes that few people are still paying attn to his show, i wonder if he will decide that it is no longer worth it.
    The article doesnt give much insight into his personality, except that he IS crazy enough to actually change his name to something that nobody wants to say everytime they talk to him (and with internal capitalization, joy!).

  • Emotional/Mental stability (Score:3)

    by slag187 ( 70401 ) <geoff AT zorched DOT net> on Sunday January 02, 2000 @09:20AM (#1415726) Homepage
    I work at home (telecommuting). All I can say, is that I think that I would go nuts not being able to leave my house AT ALL. I make a point to get out everyday, usually by eating lunch out. I live in a small enough town, that I can walk to an area that has a dozen or so restraunts. If it wasn't for these daily jaunts out, I'd go stir crazy that's for sure.

    I guess it would be a small consolation that friends could come to your place - at least then you probably wouldn't talk to yourself. And being able to go into the backyard would prevent you from turning into a mushroom . . . but your human interaction would be severly limited. And unless you already had a (very understanding) significant other . . . (you get my drift :))

    But still, lets think of all of the social and cultural things that you can not participate in without leaving home. Theater, movies, concerts, parties, going to a bar with friends . . . these are just a few of the things that I do at least once a week. Without them I'm pretty sure that most people would become hopelessly depressed (at least I would).

    Anyway, I don't think I'd do it. One thing we've learned in the tech world - lots of money can't make up for having no life :)

  • Livin La Vida Loca (Score:3)

    by richj ( 85270 ) on Sunday January 02, 2000 @10:42AM (#1415727)
    Groceries from PeaPod [peapod.com]: $80

    Shampoo from DrugStore.com [drugstore.com]: $4

    Call Girls from an Online Pimp [heavenorhell.com]: $800

    Pulling off this lame Publicity Stunt [dotcomguy.com]: Priceless

  • A First (Score:3)

    by W^3 ( 132281 ) on Sunday January 02, 2000 @08:33AM (#1415728)
    Does this make him the first 'e-hermit'

  • Okay... (Score:4)

    by QuMa ( 19440 ) on Sunday January 02, 2000 @09:00AM (#1415729)
    I'm usually not the kind of person to suggest this, but this is getting way out of hand:

    Who can obtain his IP address? As soon as we get it, we'll pingflood/teardrop/whatever him to kingdom come... No food, no online shopping, nothing to do (Unless he's got enough books :0 ).

    As long as that doesn't happen, he's just getting way too much money.

  • THIS IS NOT NEWS! (Score:4)

    by TheKodiak ( 79167 ) on Sunday January 02, 2000 @08:29AM (#1415730) Homepage
    This angers me so much - I am so sick of hearing about this guy on the nightly news, in the newspaper - it's SO much worse when you live in Dallas, because so many of his sponsors are local, including fucking A.H. Belo corp who runs half the media in this city, so they're all covering it like it's interesting. What's even passingly interesting is the amount of money the sponsors are pumping into this. Otherwise, it's basically a year-long talk show featuring a dork.

    It's not an advance in web-cam intrusiveness - we have 24-7 webcams all over the place.

    It's not an advance in "using technology to avoid leaving the house" - my parents have just about managed it, themselves. Thousands of people have lived most of their lives that way without the benefit of professional caretakers. Even 50 years ago, with enough money, you could buy every single thing you wanted with just the phone. Augh.

    This is an advance in hype. Nothing more.

  • It's essentially been done for the past 100 years (Score:4)

    by Wells2k ( 107114 ) on Sunday January 02, 2000 @08:45AM (#1415731)
    This isn't so bad. At least he is alone. When I was in the Navy, being out to sea for a couple of months in a submarine was a lot worse. Imagine being stuck in a house of probably the same square footage, only you are there with 100+ other men at the same time.

    Big deal. It's been done.

  • What the hell is the point of this? (Score:4)

    by NightHwk ( 111982 ) on Sunday January 02, 2000 @09:07AM (#1415732)
    This is just an extended version of the crap experiment we see made by journalists all too often.

    If he suceeds, so what? Can we make use of his knowledge in our future space exploration? Would we have not lost the Mars probes if one click shopping was more common?

    If he fails, does that herald the end of the internet? The automobile didn't spell the end of walking, why should the internet spell the end of going anywhere?

    Nothing of value can possibly come from this as far as I can see. This is just another publicity stunt to make money for whatever parties are involved.

    Something more worthwhile would be starting a business with every employee from a different city around the country or globe, and have them do all their comunication through the internet (no phone calls, no fax, no paper just email/messaging and file attatchments).
    Or another idea: Send Katz to Alaska for a year to live /without/ the internet and have him journal the experience, I'm sure enough /.'s would love that one =]

    NightHawk
    Set threshold at -1 flamebait to read this comment

  • Alternate headlines: (Score:4)

    by bons ( 119581 ) on Sunday January 02, 2000 @10:57AM (#1415733) Homepage Journal
    Man gives up. Admits he'll never get laid.
    Sewer problem causes back up. Man stays in home anyway.
    How to roach bomb without leaving your home!
    Man gains over 100 lbs on Domino's Pizza. Wishes he had been allowed to go to the gym.
    Doctor makes house call! Film at 11.
    (alternate) Doctor still refuses to make house call. Building condemned.
    Man vows revenge on unknown hacker who ordered 100 boxes of termites and had them delivered to his house.
    Local Escort Delivery Agency records record profits.
    Man discovers that car insurance rates get jacked up when you cancel your car insurance.
    Local Cable TV ups man's rate to $1000/month. "Come in and complain if you don't like it." says company exec.
    Man jailed for refusing to serve on jury.
    UPS refuses further delivery until occupant showers.
    Neighbors sue over local eyesore. Man hasn't cut grass in months.

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