Mark Zuckerberg stole my ideas

Mark Zuckerberg stole my ideas. He owes me $171 million. Sure, I pulled that number out of my ass, but it'd keep my belly full of pork products for the rest of my days -- so it seems about right.

As you'll learn over the next few weeks (after the release of Facebook: The Movie) that Mr. Zuckarski has a reputation for stealing of ideas. And he's surely stolen mine.

Think about it. What do you think of when you think of something on teh intarwebs that is:

• useless
• about nothing
• a time waster
• a senseless self promotion

Facebook? Or SporkInTheEye? Or both? Coincidence? I think not!

Oh sure, you may point out that the origins of Facebook were in 2004 and the beginnings of the holy Spork were in 2006, but I don't think that's enough evidence. You're forgetting that this guy has a net worth of about $7 billion dollars... I'm relatively sure this is enough to purchase a time machine in order to steal my business plan. If only I had figured out a way to make money with my implementation. If only.

First, Zuckerello tries to win on traffic flow alone. As of July, 2010 the estimated users on facebook was about 500 million. Now I don't have access to his logs to compare that with my own traffic, but if I do a little estimation, I think he may be getting more hits than me. I cannot say for sure... but I think he is.

And if that wasn't enough, he now is trying to trump me on uselessness. First he introduced a new method of data mining where people VOLUNTEERED their most personal information to applications written by absolute strangers he wasn't paying... And today he is going to announce he is giving $100 million to the Newark public school system. Damn, Zuckophaleese... you pulled ahead of me. You are now King Useless. I bow before you.

Let's put this in perspective, shall we? The Newark Public School system is terrible -- with a 51% graduation rate. Their mission statement must be "We be better than Cleveland." The whole system was seized and taken over by the state in 1995 for its supreme waste and mismanagement. Clearly, this is a money problem, right? Zuckonnel to the rescue!

Well, maybe not. The nationwide cost per student runs about $8,000. Hell, the smell-my-bootie private school here in town runs $10,000 per year. Newark about doubles that at $19,000. Nationwide teacher salaries average around $40k. But the poor educators in Newark are forced to live on a measly average pay of $63k. (And DON'T you bitch at me about poor underpaid teachers. Remember that this is a 9 month contract, not a year. If you adjust this to the 12 month year most of us work, it works out to an equivalent $88k.)

Zuckeroo falls into the same stupid hole that so many consumers (and 99.9% of politicians) fall into: If something isn't working, throw money at it. At least he's not borrowing to do it. But jeez: for $100M you could build a moat of private schools around all those failing public schools -- and let all the kids attend for free. My crystal ball says: In 1-5 years you'll see a fine new batch of controversy, cronyism and embezzelment surrounding this.

Uselessness of Spork: 0; Zuckminster Abby: 1

A prediction of future paleontolgy

There will be a day, somewhere in the future, where future archaeologists dig up the remnants of our society and try very hard to understand us. I suspect the most confusing thing they will find is the battery operated paper towel dispenser. The following is an excerpt from Future Earth paleontologists:

...and much in the same fashion that 20th century humans failed to understand that spending $300 in fossil fuels to drive a recycling truck in order to pick up $8 worth of raw recycled materials isn't really "conservation", they totally went off the deep end when it came to conserving paper. When archaeologists first unearthed what is now commonly referred to as the "hands free towel dispenser" they were absolutely and totally confused. Many, many theories arose as to the purpose and origins of this apparatus:

• It was theorized that primitive 20th century man did not have fully working elbows, which did not allow him to raise his arms more than 8 inches above his waist. Later skeletal discoveries have proven this theory unlikely.
• It has also been theorized that this primitive man had a very flawed idea on germ theory. It was believed that they were so terribly afraid of touching surfaces after washing up that they required automatic dispensers so as not to touch the towel dispenser as we do today. The very sad irony of this is that the combination of touch free dispensers and increased use of hand sanitizer left their immune system ripe for destruction during the age of the Purellic Plague.
• Another popular theory is that primitive man was just so absolutely lazy that he could not be bothered to turn on faucets or dispense paper towels. Archaeologists have searched for an automatic poo extraction device where these machines are found, under the theory that anyone too lazy to dispense paper towels is also too lazy to actually defecate.
• The most popular theory is that primitive man did not understand basic mathematical principles. The device was designed to "save paper" by only dispensing a worthless 6 inches of towel. Also required for this theory to be viable is that primitive man had extreme short term memory. It was assumed that if he could get a 6 inch towel to dispense that he would forget the mechanism he used to dispense it and walk away... rather than actuating the dispensing mechanism a second or third time.
• It is also generally understood that primitive man had regressed by the time they were using this odd machine. Archaeological digs show that the walls contained some sort of copper electronic wiring that would generally allow powering of lighting and machines. Yet man in this age was unable to understand that mechanism and defaulted to powering this worthless gizmo using 12 caustic acid-filled battery devices. It is estimated that the power to run this machine cost roughly 300 times more in power generation, natural resources and environmental damage than the paper it saved....

Crash (the economy) for Clunkers

Generalization. People can't do it. Take a concept, apply it elsewhere in a different, possibly wider context. Why is that so hard?

Most of us remember how the Federal government spent the terms of 2 presidents pouring federal money into building the housing market "to help those that could not afford it." Most of this was done by convincing folks to borrow. And most of us can remember the outcome: The crash of the housing market that drug the entire economy down with it. Thanks a lot guys. You helped the poor a lot.

Now take that same idea and bolt wheels on it. We want to take a bunch of folks that have a car that is most likely paid for... and replace it with a brand new car that comes with payments. And we want the taxpayers to shoulder this burden. Convert one asset (a car) into 2 debts (one for the consumer and one for the government). Oh, and it's "for the good of the environment." Oh, please.

I've mentioned before the intrinsic value of a paid for car (or house or tractor or ....) And our wonderful government is trying to remind you that it isn't cash that's important, it's credit. Forget the whole "greatest generation" that worked hard to eliminate debt and reach retirement. Pay for it later. Save for retirement some other time. There's always social security to fall back on. And medicare. It's not your responsibility anyway.

We're told this will help the economy... by asking people to reach out and buy something they weren't sure they could afford.

And remember: it helps the environment. You know, because getting 4 mpg more is going to save the planet. Forget, for a moment, that it actually takes some amount of actual resources and even petroleum based energy to produce a car out of nothing. Forget that the ultimate in "recycling" isn't taking a car and crushing it flat: it's reusing it for as long as it is usable. Come on -- it's more "environmentally friendly" to drive a clunker than to smash it, throw it away and build a new one.

And let's not forget that the "wonderfully altruistic" concept of asking me to subsidize someone's car they can barely afford removes their old car from the marketplace. And don't forget that the old clunker was destined for someone that really couldn't afford a car. In "helping" the new car buyer, the end result is hurting the used car market -- where there are now fewer inexpensive cars for the poor folk to choose from.

Does anyone want to make a prediction on the amount of increase in repossessed vehicles in 3 years?

Do not read this post

That's right, I am asking you to ignore this post entirely. It's not really important. This post is just an anchor that I can refer to in the future when I say "I told you so." You can just file it away. I'll point out when you can read it later.

The lead in story on today's NBC Nightly News was that the government will team up with hedge funds to buy up bad debt.

This reveals the following predictions:

• borrowing money to pay off bad debt is bad and is generally done by poorly educated people with little or nothing to lose. See payday loans.
  
• when the government encourages stupid spending and it crashes the economy (and is blamed on money grubbing capitalists) then the answer to fix this is NOT to encourage stupid spending and investment by money grubbing capitalists.
• when this fails, it will be blamed on evil money grubbing capitalists. It won't be the fault of the government or that it was a bad idea.
• selling something that is worth less than nothing is a scam and a bad idea and is only legal if you are the government
  
• no person will ever find a clause in the US Constitution that allows this to happen

Note that I have created a Nostradamus sporktag for this and similar future entries.