Entries Tagged 'tech industry' ↓
July 6th, 2010 — 1389, China, India, Obama, counterjihad, economic collapse, education, immigration, leftist-jihadist convergence, outsourcing, tech industry
By 1389
As I have pointed out earlier, the damage that has been done by outsourcing our technical know-how to India and China, ever since Reagan left office, is irreparable.
- Starting with the Clinton Administration, we GAVE a wealth of technological access to the Chinese, allowing their military-industrial complex to progress much faster than would otherwise have been the case.
- Through the H-1b program and the tax and regulatory advantages of offshoring, the federal government has made it more and more difficult, verging on impossible, for Americans to make a decent living in high-tech careers. Young people aren’t going into those fields, and older folks are finding low-paying jobs outside their fields, or are retiring on inadequate incomes because they can’t find work any more.
This gives the high-tech companies (run by tranzi progressives, and sometimes by immigrants from Muslim countries, who contribute heavily to the Dems) an excuse to claim that we need to outsource and offshore even more, because of the a shortage of home-grown high-tech help. Of course, it is a lie, but in the future, this shortage will indeed exist, simply because nobody born here can hope to make a living in high-tech fields.
Creating TWO underclasses of indentured servants
- Managers and CEOs at high-tech firms aren’t offshoring and outsourcing in order to enhance America’s competitiveness by recruiting “the best and the brightest.” It’s all about short-term self-interest. What they really want are poorly-paid, compliant, and easily intimidated foreign workers who will make no demands and who will do exactly as they are told, with no thought given to pesky matters of conscience such as loyalty to the US or to Judaeo-Christian standards of ethics in the workplace.
- Adding insult to injury are all of those efforts to get American youngsters interested in studying for high-tech careers. That includes one of the three things that Obama tasked former NASA director Charles Bolden to do: to inspire children to learn math and science. Even the most talented children will seldom put the effort into studying math and science unless they think there’s something worthwhile that they will be able to do with that knowledge.
By the time they reach college age, those youngsters are being induced take out student loans that they will never be able to pay back, because there will be no jobs in those fields for Americans. The sneaky thing here is that student loan debts cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, so the federal government gets a permanent class of people in peonage and debt-slavery. The federal government can then promise to forgive some part of the student loans if the victim agrees to spend a certain number of years doing menial tasks promoting the interests of those currently in power.
Raising vipers in our bosom
On the other hand, the offspring of our jihadi enemies have enough petrodollars that they need not trouble themselves about unpaid student loans. Instead, they come to the US on student visas, accumulate the technical knowledge that their own benighted societies cannot produce, and take it back to their compatriots at home and abroad to use against us. It never occurs to the members of the leftist-jihadist convergence who run our universities that it is a bad idea to provide technical training to our avowed enemies.
Here’s my advice:
If you want a high-tech career, don’t borrow money to learn it and don’t plan on living in the US.
January 9th, 2009 — FAIL, IT profession, India, U.S. law, corruption, crime, economic collapse, government regulation, graphic arts, humor, outsourcing, tech industry
Click thumbnail to view original, then click again to view full size. The text is worth a closer look.
What a tragic irony!
In case you haven’t heard, Satyam was the fourth-largest IT outsourcing company in India, with 55,000 employees (or so they claimed). The CEO, Ramalinga Raju, recently resigned after admitting massive financial fraud. As of this writing, the company is almost out of cash.
Here we go again…
Satyam has done business with companies and governments in over 60 countries, including the U.S. This scandal appears to be even larger in scope than the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal of late 2001. Price Waterhouse, the Indian subsidiary of PricewaterhouseCoopers, is facing close scrutiny over having signed off on Satyam’s audits.
Obviously, the much-touted Sarbanes-Oxley law enacted after the Enron/Arthur Andersen debacle did nothing to prevent the recent collapse of the U.S. real estate, stock market, and financial sector. The take-home lesson is that once any corporation becomes multinational in scope, and politically well-connected, no laws, no regulations, no bureaucratic restructuring can possibly keep it honest if its management chooses to do otherwise.
Another reason why outsourcing is wrong
Outsourcing and offshoring are always and everywhere the enemies of accountability. The further away one’s trading partners are located, the harder it is to comprehend what they are up to, and that will never change.
Why corporate cheating is contagious
Whenever one major company in an industry has been “cooking the books” to promote or exaggerate its own success, what effect do you suppose that has? Think about it! Every other executive, every other company in that industry will be pressured to match or exceed the cheater’s inflated results, by fair means or foul, or face the wrath of board members and stockholders.
Some news links and other sources:
Perhaps some of this would be funny if it were not so sad.
Note: The screen capture was taken by 1389AD from www.satyam.com, shortly after the announcement. The pixelated area was blurred in the original.
February 7th, 2008 — Europe, Russia, Turkey, blog censorship, blogging, censorship, counterjihad, e-jihadis, security, tech industry
(Scroll down for rolling updates.)
EuropeNews has been under attack, causing the pages to load slowly or not at all. This is verified to be a botnet attack, coming from Russia. After the relevant IP addresses have been blocked, EuropeNews is now running again.
A Turkish hacker team by name of AyYildiz Team (Crescent and Star Team) has attacked various German sites. More information on Earth Times.
We have found that AyYildiz have paid attention to EuropeNews before and may have directed the attack against EuropeNews. What is known for sure is that the attack was a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack coming from obscure addresses in Russia, probably a botnet. Blocking those addresses gave our server breathing room again, and all is normal.
Also, our log indicates a (failed) hacking attempt against us.
The attackers would need a fresh botnet to resume the attack. That is not completely impossible, but we have more experience now and expect any future attacks to be fended off quickly.
The attack seems to be part of a hacker attack wave related to a fire in Ludwigshafen, Germany, in an apartment inhabited by a Turkish family. Claims of arson have been thrown around, nothing proven.
ABC News report.
Guardian report.
Unsurprisingly, the Turkish government is exploiting the event to the max. Zaman report.
The implications are explored in this Spiegel report.
The latest assumption about the cause of the fire is that it may have been caused by tinkering with the electrical installations. From Fact – Fiction blog (German). Thus, possibly the fault of the inhabitants, not an attack.
False accusations of racist hate attacks constitute blood libel.
Revenge through Internet attacks will be published as widely as possible. We will not give in to assorted Turkish bullying.
The Ludwigshafen fire and Turkish reactions
However, the DDoS is the least interesting bit. What is more sinister is the background and the behaviour of the Turkish politicians, who immediately reacted by trying to smear the Germans as a bunch of killer racists and, by implication, the *Turkish* politicians as the true protectors of Turks in Germany.
That included a Turkish minister visiting the place of the fire and lots of official statements recalling the racist arson attack in 1993, implying that now a new wave of racist attacks against Turks is looming. To show their distrust, a Turkish investigation team was sent to control the work of the Germans – very unusual behavior.
All this is based on a tiny grafitti on the entrance door “HASS”, which they take to mean it’s a hate attack. Given the rampant grafitti situation in Germany, and not least in run-down city part like this, there’s absolutely no firm reason to interpret a simple bit of evidence as conclusive proof about racism. This is far-fetched, and it is a severe case of libel, too.
This play by the Turkish politicians also ignores the fact that the firefighters were doing a marvelous job, that the cause of the fire is still unknown after four days of investigation – including Turks specifically looking for arson – and it skips the little detail that the 1993 attack was extensively exploited by Turkish investment groups to discourage Turks in Germany from investing their hard-earned money in Germany. Later these Turkish investement groups went into suspicious bankruptcies, netting AKP-connected businessmen (and probably AKP itself) a whopping 25 billion euro.
Further, the performance of the Turkish politicians posing as the protectors of Turks in Germany is a divisive move eerily similar to the events in the 60′s that eventually led to the division of Cyprus. This is counterproductive to integration but fits well with the “special role” Erdogan assigns the Turkish diaspora in Europe. We are on the edge of insurgencies in many places, latest in Cologne.
Connecting the dots is an interesting art. But one easily ends up with rather unpleasent results, and I’m scratching my head over this: Is it really this dangerous?
In any case, it would be wise for the German politicians to simply reject the Turkish demands. By any measure, the German justice system is much better than the Turkish one, Turkish anti-minority crimes are rampant anyway, and German fire technicians are perfectly capable of determining the cause of fires, and the undue interference of Turkey into German matters are a severe breach of diplomatic etiquette that deserves no reward, only rejection.
Erdogan deserves the humiliation of being rejected by the German politicians. Will they show enough spine to do so?
Europe News, a joint Danish-German news and opinion aggregating service, suffered a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack yesterday initiated by Turkish hackers, temporarily incapacitating their site.
It may be that the above link is not working. That’s because the Europe News site was brought down entirely during the night. Since then service to it has been restored intermittently, but it’s not back to full operations yet.
Henrik, who runs the English-language half of Europe news, sent me this account of recent events:
Turkish nationalist hackers attack Islam-critical blogs
The leading Islam-critical news aggregator EuropeNews has been attacked and knocked off the Internet, along with Politically Incorrect and several other blogs. Yesterday, February 7th, we faced a botnet attack out of Russia, which overloaded and crippled our servers. We weathered that by blocking the IP addresses involved. Today, February 8th at 13:50 CET, our server was knocked out entirely. Right now, 15:45, we are online again.
We do not know yet what exactly has happened. A Turkish hacker team by name of AyYildiz Team (Crescent and Star Team) has attacked and defaced roughly a hundred German sites. More information on Earth Times. The group, according to Netcraft, moves to a fresh server every few months. Part of their ethos is to never attack any Turkish web sites.
The attack seems to be motivated by a fire in Ludwigshafen, Germany, in a house inhabited by Turkish families. The fire had wide publicity, not least by a sensational rescue of a baby falling down four stories. The fire brigade is reported to have done a great job at the scene, but nonetheless nine persons succumbed to the rapid fire in the century-old building.
The fire, however, has escalated to a diplomatic crisis between Germany and Turkey, as claims of arson have been thrown around, nothing proven. (ABC News report; Guardian report. More details in this Spiegel report.) Unsurprisingly, the Turkish government is exploiting the event to the max. Zaman reports, like every other Turkish media.
The latest assumption about the cause of the fire is that it may be due to tinkering with the electrical installations. From Fact — Fiction blog (German).
False accusations of racist hate attacks constitute blood libel.
Revenge through Internet attacks will be publicized as widely as possible, and dealt with to the full extent of the law. We will not give in to assorted Turkish bullying.
EuropeNews is back online after 7 hours of downtime. The DDoS attack of yesterday was averted, but today the server was knocked out solid. We are still analyzing the exact cause of the event.
We’re alive and kicking, so please enjoy the articles. 
Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey, the man who said that Turkey was using democracy like people use a bus to reach their destination, the man who maintains that there is no difference between islam and islamism, that there is only one islam, will visit Germany on February 10th. Huge billboards are all over the place. Most of them are entirely in turkish language and desecrate the official German flag.
Why?
In the German city of Ludwigshafen, an apartment fire in a building inhabited by turks and kurds only, has cost the lives of several inhabitants. Without even a shred of evidence or the beginning of a reasonable suspicion, the Turkish press and Turks in Germany in unison with the usual leftist do-gooders have concluded, a day after the fire, that this was a politically motivated arson by German right wing extremists. A Turkish delegation will come to Germany to investigate.
Official numbers of muslims (mainly Turks) in Germany are pegged at 3.5 million. Unofficial numbers are between 5 and 6 million. Emotions about the fire are rising right now. German natives do not seem to be upset about the desecration of their flag and the inspection visit of the Turkish leader yet. Via internet, young turks and Germans are trading barbs, accusations and racial insults.
(hat tip and pic: PI)
UPDATE: ARD state TV reports that the fire in Ludwigshafen seems to be due to the theft of electrical power from in house power lines, circumventing the power company counter!
More:
January 23rd, 2008 — Foehammer (author), Foehammer's Anvil, blog censorship, blogging, censorship, counterjihad, e-jihadis, leftist-jihadist convergence, security, tech industry
By Foehammer
This should satisfy all that are wondering what has been going on with the hosting here at the Anvil. I finally received an email from a LunarPages admin that actually knows how to do her job. Not surprisingly, her name is something that I can actually pronounce and most likely doesnt belong to a Muslim convert. What follows is an edited version of the response, but you will now see that I have absolute proof that the Leftofascists and Islamofascists have been hard at work tying to shut me up. Ive been telling LunarPages to check for ddos attacks for weeks; someone finally listened:
Hi,
Our admin has moved your account to a quieter server whilst the issues are worked out with regards to your CPU /MEM usage which is why your main page is back online.
This server has fewer customers and is less likely to crash in the event of attacks or high usage.
I have checked back through the last 6,000 lines of your domlogs for foehammer.net on its present server
It has indeed been hit by a flurry of ddos attempts:
This IP has almost 500 hits to your domain and is now blocked in the severs firewall:
(Hits: 467) #.#.#.# (netvigator Hong Kong)
There were also hits in the 100 to 300 from other ISPs.
I then went on to check the pages hit by this IP and it is apparent that this attacker was angered by a post on there with regards to the criticism of obamas muslim background being justified as almost every single hit was to this article:
#.#.#.# – - [22/Jan/2008:22:37:33 -0800] http://foehammer.net/2007/12/ criticism-of-obamas-muslim-background-is-absolutely-justified.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
To overcome this I have now (edited out).
Your current usage is down today and this is before I installed the script, hopefully we will see this greatly reduced in the next 24 hours.
This quieter server is obviously a snail and unacceptable. Im hopeful that once some protections are put into place that I might actually want to blog again.
To those that might think switching hosts is no big deal, Im afraid you do not understand that I am being caught in this treadmill at the worst possible time for me personally, so yes, switching the Anvil to a new host is a very, very big deal to me. Beyond that, the Anvil is not a virtual sheet of paper. It is a heavily customized blog and setting it all up again on a new host would take many hours of intense work that I think I made clear around the New Year definitely wasnt what I wanted to be dealing with in 2008.
D–nit, at this point I do not even want to blog. Can anyone really blame me? Just look at the economy, the Presidential campaign, the continued rocket attacks into Gaza, the Stock Market being bought up by greedy Arab Oil Barons, and on and on and on.
Frankly, too much of what Ive been predicting all these years keeps happening and it looks like were going to elect a President that wont make things better, more likely far worse, in fact. Blogging to a few hundred awake readers and spending 40+ hours a week doing that is no longer an option for me. I have to start circling the wagons. I suggest many of you do the same.
This latest round of attacks on my Free Speech simply puts the exclamation point at the end of every sentence Ive been typing since 2003. Watch out! It looks like Im not lobbing softballs around here to be getting this much unwanted attention.
More:
January 20th, 2008 — Foehammer (author), Foehammer's Anvil, activism, blog censorship, censorship, e-jihadis, tech industry
By Foehammer
As many of you are aware of by now, I am experiencing problems with the hosting at the Anvil. This has been continuing off and on for months and in recent weeks it has built up a full head of steam.
This may be the last blog entry I make here at the Anvil for many days, so just be prepared. I am being badgered by my hosts with nebulous emails, unexpected service denials, etc., all during a time in my life when I need them the least and am not able to make much sense of what they claim to be the “problem” with the Anvil. In other words, I’m out of patience and short on solutions.
All this being said, I am now convinced that my next logical step will be to find a new host for the Anvil. I do not know when I will make this move, but I will make it in order to keep the Anvil online. I will not give in to extortionists, terrorists, Islamists or even poorly managed Internet hosting companies.
What I really will need to find is a hosting company that has a staff that can take the hat of tech support away from me. I must be getting old, because I no longer have the time, energy or will to be not only a writer but also a web designer, graphic artist, editor, marketer AND technical guru. I’ve lost my way in the wilds of the blogosphere and I need to simplify things for myself if I’m ever going to find the fire to start typing op-ed pieces again.
It’s a shame that it has come to this, but I certainly can’t say that I am surprised. The cause of my “problems” could range from an inside mole to an outside hacker to a simply well-hidden script that is misbehaving. I simply do not know and that is a rare thing for me to admit.
Wish me luck. I already know I have your support and for that I am sincerely grateful.
It has been my privilege to share my views with so many of you for this long and to be received so kindly by the majority. I will do my best to keep keeping on but there may very well be a big bump in the road ahead. Hold on tight.
Foehammer, out.
(Also at Foehammer’s mirror site)
The Anvil came back online just a few hours ago. You might think this to be good news, but I am perplexed. My last email to LunarPages hosting was anything but cordial and read more like a surrender, a sure sign that I am tired. I am sitting here right now (still tired) wondering why the Anvil is even online again. I intentionally put a placemarker online in order to stop the complaints from LunarPages and to make it clear that I was seeking a new host. That placemarker was removed by a tech.
Beyond all this bizarre circumstance, if I stated the names of some of the tech support staff I’ve dealt with, I can imagine the level of suspicion that would arise among my readers.
So, there you have it: the Anvil is back online, but I didn’t do it.
I should rename this site Foehammer’s Yo Yo. The Anvil is loading at the slowest times I have ever seen at the moment. Is this more coincidence or is this intentional on the part of some outside attacker or my host? Your guess is as good as mine.
I’m going to just let this boat sail itself for a few hours and see how long it takes to sink again.
More:
Update 1/22/08:
Foehammer’s Anvil is online! Be sure to visit!
January 19th, 2008 — Foehammer's Anvil, activism, blog censorship, censorship, e-jihadis, tech industry
Counterjihadist blog Foehammer’s Anvil
is down for the time being.
Evidently, someone at the Anvil’s current web hosting firm, LunarPages, does not want Foehammer’s message to get out.
Foehammer explains…
…unfortunately the trials of the Anvil continue. The site is down again. This time it may take me finding a new host in order to restore things. I’m done playing games with LunarPages.
The Anvil may be down for quite a few days, possibly weeks. Inform anyone that might inquire that I’m doing what I can, but this all comes at a very bad time for me to deal with and is not my doing.
Keep blogging!
Foehammer, we wish you the best and hope to see you back online soon. Of course, you are always more than welcome to post articles at 1389 Blog, or, if you prefer, when your own blog is back up, to post links to your articles from here.
More:
(Also at Fort Hard Knox.)
Update 1/22/08:
Foehammer’s Anvil is online! Be sure to visit!
January 12th, 2008 — CzechRebel (author), IMVU, art and design, chat, social media, tech industry
You may have noticed this ad on 1389 Blog…
By CzechRebel
A cartoon likeness of a young man, standing with an indoor pool in the background accompanies the ad. This author does not look like that in real life, but, yes, he is the same CzechRebel who writes this column.
Normally, we on the 1389 Blog team speak of serious political issues that may affect us all, and we share technical tips to help out in this ever-changing age of innovation. However, diversion is an important part of life too, and some of us on the 1389 Blog team like to slip over into the cartoon land of IMVU for a nice little vacation from reality.
Well, you can speak to a young college student from the People’s Republic of China, visit a middle-aged friend in New Zealand, exchange ideas with an elderly person in Germany, all in the same hour that you spend on IMVU. You will be the form of a cartoon character and look 25 again! (Or, if you are a little younger, get a taste of being about 25.) You can travel the world in seconds. Or fly somewhere slowly on a private jet.
You can have romance, even hugs and kisses. If you are looking for anything more, I am sorry, it is PG at most. On the other hand, you can even have a fistfight with someone and it won’t hurt a bit. You can swim even if you have never swum before and come out of the water bone dry. You can dance beautifully, even if you have two left feet. Heck, you can dance if you are laid up in bed with casts on both feet.
You can hang out in large mansion or a small cabin in the autumn woods. You can even take a visit to fairyland. Sound like too much? Well, all you need is a PC. (Sorry, Mac, old PC has got you beat on this one.)
Beyond Chat Rooms and Instant Messaging
- and It Is Free
IMVU provides the traditional features of a chat room with the added bonus of cute cartoon characters that speak in actual cartoon bubbles. There are realistic people, like my CzechRebel character, and fantasy features such as fairies. Some dress in period costumes. Others are furry creatures that are partly human and partly animal.
The basic chat scene is pretty simple: You hit the icon that asks if you want to chat now and you and another character meet in a room. Or you can visit cyber clubs and restaurants. You can chat one-on-one. You can invite friends whom you have met to chat.
Getting Started – Really, it is free
To get started, just click on our IMVU ad. If you use the one with the CzechRebel picture, be sure to click right on the character’s photo.
The first thing you do is to design your character, which is called an “avatar.” You can pick a male or female character, and, trust me on this one: it is a really good idea to make sure you and your avatar have the same sex. This character will become your alter ego.
It is very simple. You select your character’s features and an initial wardrobe of clothing. You also pick a screen name. Next, you select a place where your character will be living. Finally, when you have your character selected and place to live, you set up the account and away you go.
Chatting
IMVU really encourages you to meet new people. You can meet people at random. If you like your visitor, you can add him (or her) to your “buddy list.” If not, feel free to leave at anytime. Each character has an IMVU homepage, so it is possible to see other person’s homepage data to get a better idea of who you are talking to. Most people who play this game list their age and the country they are from. In the US, specific states are specified, but no other personal information is generally available to the public, unless you choose to give it.
Your Buddy List
It does not take long to have a few people who you would not mind speaking to, at least one more time. Whenever you visit IMVU, it is simple to invite a buddy to join you. Or they may invite you.
The Cartoon World of IMVU Even Has Email
Just as in real life, you’ll need to check your email, but you don’t need a separate program. You just display your own homepage, and there it is.
Private and Public Email
When you email a friend, you can make it private or public. Anyone who visits your homepage can see your public email, unless you decide otherwise. However, it is fun to see your friends’ friends’ little messages. If it is a private message, send it as one. If not, share the fun with your friends’ homepage visitors.
Gift Package via Email
Modern science has not yet found a way to email us our Christmas and birthday gifts. However, not so at IMVU! Check your homepage and you may find that an admirer, secret or otherwise, may have sent you a gift.
Some really sweet avatars have even given my avatar a gift or two. And, other people’s generosity does help tend to make us generous with others.
Chat and Email At Once
While you are chatting with one friend, you can still use the IMVU email as an instant messenger system with others. It saves you the trouble of doing an invite to say, “I have to leave in 5 minutes, but will you be on tomorrow after work?”
All Avatars Are Single
It is important to remember that IMVU is only a game.
As with any other chat room, it is extremely unlikely that any online friendship will work out into a real life relationship. Also, the characters do tend to gravitate to avatars of the opposite sex. Regardless of your marital status, your buddy list will most likely reflect this. So, please don’t play if you have a real-life spouse who would get jealous of your cartoon character’s adventures.
You may have someone in real life, but your avatar does not. That does not meant that your real-life special someone cannot join you in cartoon land, but it would be a little silly to join IMVU to chat only with your own mate. So, expect to be “seeing other people.” The avatars don’t come with X-rated features; thus IMVU does not lend itself to infidelity. For all intents and purposes, your avatar is not you, and your avatar will always be single.
Personal Information
IMVU does allow you to post certain other data, such as marital status. However, you do not need to show it, as it can be a lose-lose situation when people make hasty and often unwarranted assumptions. For example, “He (she) is married; must be here to find some on the side.” “She is divorced; must be easy to take to bed.” “He is widowed; must have some insurance money at least.” “She is 33 and single; wonder if she is so ugly that in real life no one would think of marrying her.”
So, it is probably best to leave your marital status blank in your profile. However, there are true romantics who hope that disclosing their available stats, or single, widowed or divorced status, might lead to finding a cyber mate who could be promoted to real-life spouse. More power to them!
For a woman, disclosing the status of being married is also pretty safe. The boys will still play with you, but the chances of their trying to get too fresh with you will be much lower.
Paid Upgrades
You can play with IMVU for free for an unlimited period of time, but if you really love your new hobby, there are some paid upgrade features. One is called an AP pass; it allows the avatar to hug and kiss in a little more romantic fashion. It is not really all that dirty, but only paying adults can use it. IMVU does a good job of keeping their game relatively wholesome. Anything too risqué for the 1950s world of Beaver Cleaver is unavailable without an AP pass. Even with the AP pass, it is still a fairly respectable fantasyland, at least as far as I have seen. And, even if you do add some of the slightly more racy characteristics to your avatar, only those with their own AP pass can ever see the results.
You can have your age verified, so that others will know that you are old enough to play this game, or too old to play with them. Right now, age verification is free with the AP pass.
You can also official join, own your own screen name, and be able to have more prompts and features than those who do not pay. However, most of the players are playing for free, so you really don’t miss that much if you never invest a dime in this hobby.
If this is the right hobby for you, and you are going to spend some quality time in cartoon land, you may want to consider VIP membership. It will allow your character to make certain moves that regular avatar cannot. You are also invited to participate in special activities. This includes ownership of your screen name as well. But play for a while first and see whether you like it enough.
Credits, the Fantasy Currency of IMVU
Just like in real life, IMVU has an economy. It provides a certain amount of “credits” just for showing up and playing the game each day when you start out. If you do want to spend real money on this hobby, you can also buy more credits.
What Are Those Credits For?
The basic avatar and his or her dwelling are OK. You also get some places to take your guests, such as a virtual Starbucks-like coffee bar. However, you may want a nice house or apartment to meet your guest. Your basic clothing is fine, but you might like more of a wardrobe. You can even have a vacation spot, a car, a motorcycle or even a jet plane. You may also want to play music for both yourself and your guests, or show your creativity and style by putting decorations on your IMVU homepage.
All these things and more can be obtained for IMVU credits. You may get some for free, or you may buy more if you like.
Making the Most of Free Credits
IMVU is very generous with provide initial credits. We highly recommend that you join when you are in a position to visit IMVU on four consecutive days. You don’t have to chat long, but each of four days earns progressively more credits. You get 200 for day one, 400 for day two, 800 hundred for day three, and a whooping 3,600 for the fourth day. So, if you join knowing that you won’t be able to chat on the fourth day, it will cost you 3,600 credits.
Once that period of generosity has passed, you will still be able to earn credits here and there. You can get some credits by chatting with new people. You can get 50 credits for seeing what is new in the catalog. There are other free promotional credits too, but noting is as good as those first four days.
Buying Credits
Credits are not too expensive when purchased direct from IMVU. However, people who make and sell things to be used on IMVU generally sell them at a discounted rate. Those people are called “developers.” Also, joining IMVU as an official member of their VIP club includes 5,000 credits per month at no extra charge.
Giving and Receiving Gifts
Many IMVU people love to give and receive gifts. Only credits that you pay for can be used to provide gifts. However, many players give gifts to their friends who would not be in a position to purchase credits.
Shopping and Wish Lists
You can use both your free credits, and any that you purchase, to buy your props form the IMVU catalog. It takes seconds, and your avatar can have a new house, a coat, or even a jet plane right on the spot.
However, IMVU allows you to create a wish list. This will allow you to shop, compare, and contemplate, just like in real life. What is even better is that your friends will know what you are thinking about buying. So, something from your wish list may appear as a gift.
The Downside to IMVU – Problems and What to Do
The worst thing that I can say about IMVU is that it very easy to spend too much time there. However, you need to be aware of a few other things.
Saying Goodbye to Strange People
The vast majority of people with whom you chat on IMVU will be decent. However, anyone with a computer can play this game. And you may have a few problems. It is simple to remove someone from your buddy list. And if you remove them, you come off their list, too.
You can also block someone who continues to give you a hard time. This should be sufficient in almost all cases. However, there is always the creep who thinks of something that no decent person would ever imagine. IMVU had a special line to report abuse and IMVU is very good about getting back to people who have a problem.
I Am a Mac and Cannot See PC on IMVU
For the time being, you must have a PC to play IMVU. However, IMVU hopes to have Mac software in the relatively near future. So, when you see that cute Apple ad, remember that Mac cannot yet do everything that old PC can.
Rude People
The other serious problem is that some people carry real-life rudeness into IMVU. Ladies, there is nothing wrong with telling a guy who show shows up bare-chested that you will talk to him only after he puts his shirt on. Gentlemen, if you don’t like women in real life who are a little too quick to kiss, who want to be too close too soon, and who ask for expensive gifts, you don’t need to play with them on IMVU either. There are plenty of nice people for everyone on IMVU.
One caveat: IMVU is not geared to young kids – it’s for people who are old enough to have some savvy about conversing with adults of both sexes.
If you come to visit IMVU, you may chat with me in cartoon land. I ordinarily don’t mention politics there, but would be glad to talk about a blog post or an issue that we cover on the 1389 blog, if pressed. But, come to have fun too, please. Life is too short.
CzechRebel, the character, is real ladies’ man on IMVU. It didn’t start out that way. However, as in other online venues, a man who will be nice to the women can become pretty popular, and the image has stuck. When asked how many “girl friends” my avatar has, he said, “I don’t number them. They are all unique and special to me as individuals.”
That is my character; “the man behind the curtain” of the CzechRebel avatar is a good friend, just as in real life. I am interested in hearing about my IMVU friends’ real-life problems and joys.
But ladies, I strongly advise you: don’t kiss and tell. I never do. Your secrets are safe with me. IMVU is only a game and my character is really sweet to ladies. In fact, if he were to meet 1389 herself in a chat room, he would try to sweet talk her a bit. After all, she works day and night to make this blog possible. If she ever gets time to visit cartoon land, it would be just the thing to get her mind off politics and computers.
Stickers for your IMVU Home Page
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January 11th, 2008 — 1389, Foehammer's Anvil, activism, blog censorship, censorship, censorware, counterjihad, e-jihadis, outsourcing, tech industry
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(This is an ongoing issue.
For rolling updates,
please scroll down.)
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What’s going on at Lunarpages?
The last time I tried to access Foehammer’s Anvil,
I got THIS:
Foehammer explains…
Foehammer recently answered a reader’s comment on his blog post, “Blog for a Year Contest Ends”:
Author: Foehammer
Comment:
Obviously Foehammer got the bug fixed.
I wish it had been a bug, but instead it was the intentional disabling of this site again by my hosting company Lunarpages. I am no longer going to hide their part in the several times that the Anvil has gone offline unexpectedly. They outsource their support but claim that they do not. I am quite suspicious that what is described to me in nebulous emails from Lunarpages as “script errors” that require blocking my site are simply transparent excuses made on the part of certain people that would much rather see this site off-line. Lunarpages should be supportive of my blog for the very simple reason that I am a good customer and pay my bills and run a clean blog, but apparently that is not good enough anymore. Instead, I am expected to be bled dry for what little I might be able to afford in order to maintain a blog that has seen its traffic dwindle in no small part but as a result of such mischief as transpired earlier this week.
Between sites like Digg and my own hosting troubles, vicious personal attacks from religious zealots masquerading as anti-hate police and all the rest of the nuts that even have gone so far as to threaten my life, it can be of little wonder to anyone that is paying even scant attention that I am disgusted and no longer view this fight the same as I did a year ago.
The Internet is a battle ground between those who dare to put forth the Truth and those cowards that would run from it or those enemies that would hide it. Well, as I have intimated before, the Net is no longer enough. I will take my message and put it into play in new ways over the course of the coming decades. In time I will be vindicated on multiple levels by way of the simple expanse of history as it unfolds before us, but beyond that, I will do my own part in creative ways to defeat Islamism and the lemmings that would bring it to the USA.
A few bumps in the Information Highway are not going to stop me and they shouldn’t stop any of us that care about the Truth and the Future.
Evading accountability at Lunarpages
1389, and other Foehammer fans, promptly contacted Lunarpages tech support by email at support@lunarpages.com, as indicated in their message.
Subject: foehammer.net DOWN – please restore access
Dear sir or madam:
I have repeatedly tried to access http://foehammer.net and I keep getting a message from Lunar Pages tech support saying that the site is down.
foehammer.net is a good anti-jihadist news and commentary site. Perhaps someone who wants to sabotage that valuable service is tampering with the site.
But all I got was some guff requiring me to prove that I was the owner of foehammer.net (which I obviously am not) in order to report a problem with accessing it. This insulates Lunarpages support staff from having to deal with multiple complaints if they have wrongfully taken down a site that is relied upon by a community of users.
For that reason, we have provided contact information for Add2Net, the parent company of Lunarpages/Lunarservers. Have at it, everyone!
Contact Information
(Add2Net is the parent company of Lunarpages/Lunarservers.)
Add2Net Corporate Headquarters
100 E. La Habra Blvd.
La Habra, CA 90631
Telephone: (714) 521-8150)
Fax: (714) 521-8195
Also see:
(Also at Fort Hard Knox.)
Rolling Updates
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1/12/08, 1:36 AM EST: The Anvil is up again. However, the issue is that the site has repeatedly been taken down, so we will continue to monitor it. It is not much use for a site that focuses primarily on US issues to be up only in the middle of the night in US time zones.
Foehammer left the following comment, by way of explanation:
The Anvil is back online but I do not know how long this will last. My hosting company is continuing to claim that my site is eating resources at an inordinate rate and I see no evidence of this on my end. I am at their mercy and I no longer have the patience to tackle the technical side of this any deeper than I have.
Do not panic if the Anvil goes off-line again; in fact, expect it.
- La página de Foehammer suspendida por su proveedor
- 1/19/08: Foehammer’s Anvil blog taken down by LunarPages
- 1/20/08: Experiencing difficulties beyond my control
Update 1/22/08:
Foehammer’s Anvil is online! Be sure to visit!
