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'Pushers' pushing people on a crowded Japanese train...
ibenaija
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Contemplating Facebook
ibenaija
At a thanksgiving party hosted by a friend recently, there was a noticeable frenzy to take, and be in, photographs. Apparently, everyone knew that the pictures would inevitably end up on Facebook and it seemed everyone wanted to ensure that they were properly represented. True enough, while the photographing was going on, one of our other friends was on … Facebook. Such was the fever that our host remarked, “Facebook will soon consume everybody’s life.” We all laughed.
Of course, this is no laughter matter… I’m still grappling with the Facebook phenomenon myself:
2004
- Three Harvard nerds (led by Mark Zukerberg) found “The Facebook”
- 09/ the owners of ConnectU file suit against FB, alleging that Zukerberg stole source code from them
- FB receives ~ $0.5M from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel in an angel round
- 12/ FB’s user base exceeds one million
2005
- 05/ FB raises $12.8M in venture capital from Accel Partners
- 08/ FB buys the domain name facebook.com from the Aboutface Corporation for $0.2M
- 10/ FB’s expansion trickles down to most small universities and junior colleges in the United States, Canada, and the UK
2006
- 03/ BusinessWeek reports a potential acquisition of FB. FB reportedly declines an offer of $750M; it is rumored the asking price was as high as $2B
- 04/ Peter Thiel, Greylock Partners, and Meritech Capital Partners invest an additional $25M in FB
- FB launches an API that allows the development of applications to be used on the site, known as FB Platform
- 07/ FB announced its first acquisition, purchasing Parakey, Inc. from Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt
- 08/ FB is featured in a Newsweek cover story by Steven Levy in the magazine’s annual college edition
2007
- 08/ FB hires YouTube’s former CFO Gideon Yu
- 10/ AP reports Microsoft has bought a 1.6% share of the company for $240 million (valuing FB at about $15B)
- 11/ FB announces FB Ads; a marketing initiative which includes:
- a system for websites to allow users to share chosen information about their activities on the sites with their FB friends (FB Beacon);
- the capability of businesses to host pages on FB for various brands, products and services (FB Pages)
- a targeted ad serving program based on user and friend profile and activity data (FB Social Ads)
- a service for providing businesses with advertisement analytic data including performance metrics (FB Insights).
Source: Wikipedia
On a personal level, the impact of Facebook has been profound. I have found friends from primary and secondary school, that I would likely have never seen again (in fact, one of such friends whose mother was my pediatrician, currently lives in Sweden! What are the odds I’d have ever run into him ever again?). Facebook has also provided numerous insights into the interrelationships among the people I know. The theme is recurrent: I discover that my secondary school classmate (in Lagos, Nigeria) is in fact the cousin of a Chicago acquaintance… or that a former neighbor is in fact the room mate of one of my buddy’s girlfriend—who is, by the way, the sister of another friend!
Of course, like everyone else, I have deep privacy concerns… do I really want my personal information (name, photos, e-mail address, up-to-the-minute statuses) so available? Do I really want the inter-relationships among my friends so clearly discernable? Are the benefits (finding old friends, gaining insights into interrelationships, keeping in touch, etc.) worth the risks (the biggest of which is related to privacy).
For now, I continue to be enamored of FB, yet leery of its potentials… I expect I will continue to enjoy FB (forging new friendships and relationships, rediscovering old friends, gaining insights into interrelationships), but will make an effort to mitigate potential risks by tightening my privacy options.
My biggest admiration for Facebook, through, rest with how extraordinarily innovative they’ve been (for example, their API offering turns out to be a game changer in the web app development space), how astonishingly responsive they’ve been to customer needs and yearnings, and how brutally on-point their execution of their business strategy has been.
Anyone with the slightest sliver of entrepreneurial aspirations better be taking notes.
Postscript: For whatever reason, here’s the Facebook that never came to be: ConnectU.
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I'm Back Here (Sort of...)
ibenaija
So, my last post here was to basically say that I was moving my blogging to my newly-launched bornAfrican.com blog. I have since blogged on that site, and am pretty darn proud of the strides we made in terms of number and quality of posts, as well as number of new bloggers. But, to be honest, I have learned a couple of things since I last expressed that resolution to move my blogging from here to there:
- While the blog at bornAfrican.com is quite suited to serious editorials, I do not feel inclined to post entries of a personal nature on my bornAfrican.com blog. As bornAfrican.com is billed as a “convergence of Africana,” it wouldn’t appear to make much sense to rant about the aggravations of metropolitan life, for example. Neither would it be appropriate to wax lyrical about a love interest. The blogs at bornAfrican.com are serious business: in my case, impassioned harangues of the Nigerian status quo. I intend to continue to do this, with a view to paying more attention to the economics as much as to the politics within the Nigerian space particularly, and Africa, in general.
- Running an initiative might not be as easy as it might initially seem. As you might have seen from that posting in which I declared the move to the bornAfrican.com blogs, bornAfrican.com promised numerous initiatives… from Music to Classifieds to an online Store, etc. For a number of reasons, only the blogs has made sufficient traction… the music component, through live, has not lived up to its billing. The goal is to continue to look for ways to get these offerings into production, and to bring the bornAfrican.com initiative, as a whole, to its potential.
- Keep at it. That’s a lesson that’s not been lost on me in the whole process… The implicit message being that context and constraints change all the time… the challenge is figuring out when and how to modify the modus operandi in such a way as to ensure continuity…
In summary, I have resolved to return here to post more personal stuff; my blog at bornAfrican.com is clearly not an appropriate outlet for such entries. I will continue to post the more serious stuff—the ones that have implications for matters larger than you or me (at least from my perspective) to the bornAfrican.com blog, but the daily (relatively trivial) stuff go here.
Sidebar:
One phenomenon that has (and continues to) at once awe, inspire, and amaze me? Facebook.
We’ll talk more about this and more, I’m sure, pretty soon.
Ciao.
postscript: let me use the opportunity to thank bayo, idiare, ejike, ade, tolu, seni, and “edward” for being bloggers at bornAfrican.com. Do you want to join the bornAfrican.com cadre of bloggers? Please accept my personal invitation.
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My Blog Has Moved to bornAfrican.com
ibenaija
So, bornAfrican.com has finally gotten off the ground!
bornAfrican (http://www.bornafrican.com) is an online community for Africans, and is billed “the convergence of Africana.”
I encourage you to join and be a part of the bornAfrican community… share your African (and human) experience, converse with old friends and meet new ones … rant, rave, pontificate … take advantage of current and coming offerings … spread the word by telling your friends about bornAfrican … help to make small (or earth-shattering, if you like) improvements to bornAfrican, over time…
So, I will now blog at http://www.bornafrican.com/blog/author/coyibo/. (Or, just visit bornafrican.com, and click on the Blogs navigation tab).
Catch you on the rebound—at bornAfrican.
C. E. Oyibo, Over and Out.
bornAfrican.com-
racquelle-cutie
aigght i’ll go pay the site a visit right now
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The Hypocrisy of Our Democracy #3: Did Obasanjo Really Kill Fela's Mother?
ibenaija
On my taxicab ride from O’Hare today, the driver no sooner asked for my destination and bawled fluent Yoruba over his cell phone than inserted a Fela CD into the vehicle’s CD player.
While I have heard Fela’s indictment of Obasanjo, Nigeria’s two-time president, for killing (or at least having to do with the killing of) his mother during Obasanjo’s first presidency in the 70s, I (and I suspect many Nigerians in their characteristic complacency) have not really, and I mean truly, fully absorbed the import of Fela’s charge.
Perhaps I was roused by Fela’s lamentations of the murder of his mother by the fact that I only just finished reading Wole Soyinka’s childhood autobiography, Ake—in which he recounts Mrs. Kuti’s valiant headship of a women’s liberation movement in colonial (i.e., pre-independence) Western Nigeria, that rendered the Alake, the King of Egbaland, the white District Officer, and the at once feared and revered Ogboni, all summarily impotent.
Did Obasanjo kill this woman of whom Soyinka wrote? The one that dared lambaste (to my utter joy) the insolent white colonial D. O. with the riposte,
You may have been born, but you were not bred. Would you talk to your mother like that?
The one that inspired the march on, and siege of, the Aafin, the palace of the Alake? Did dark-hearted, cowards of men, on orders of President Obasanjo and his vice Yar’Adua, really throw Fela’s mother off a balcony onto her death?
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Kunle
In my opinion, Obasanjo did not ordered the murder of the Nigerian Afro beat legend,Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s mother. But he is responsible for the murder considering his position as the head of state at that time. Although the government facilitated the damage done at the Abami eya’s palace Kalakuta republic in order to put the violence at Surulere under control. Kalakuta republic was considered a dangerous zone and a threat to the safety of the Surulere residence.
However, the intervention by the Nigerian government at Fela’s kingdom is justified but it should have been done without blood shed. I love Fela, i listen to his music everyday. I considered Fela as my artistic role model.
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Ochuko
What Kunle opined was absolutely true. Obasanjo never intended that Fela’s mother be killed. It was the “sabi-sabi” of the soldier who executed the action that cause Fela’s mother to fall through the balcony. As you know, the head is always to be blamed whenever things go awry.
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ibenaija
I still can’t help but feel that we are a complacent lot in absolving Obasanjo by arguing that his footmen were overzealous. I was not alive when these events took place, so I missed Nigerians’ immediate reaction to Mrs. Kuti’s killing. Nonetheless, I can’t shake the feeling that, in our national complacency, we accepted and continue to accept the woman’s murder as no more than an honest mistake.
Was anyone ever prosecuted for her murder?
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aworan
Very interesting read you have here….
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Idiare
I think the issue of claiming his soldiers were over zealous is too lame an excuse.
The same argument has been bandied about on the attack of Odi…that overzealous men went beyond the brief.
I personally watched a TV programme where obasanjo not only justified that attack but shouted down Barnaby Phillips, the BBC correspondent who had the audacity to question ‘Babas’ judgement to send in troops!
The poor white man went completely red in the face. I was so ashamed.
Now if the president could defend that action of the Odi invaders as being justified, i doubt if he would feel that the soldiers that ‘killed’ Fela’s mother were acting out of line!
Remember that in 1979 he was not yet ‘born again’….if he could defend Odi after he was ‘born again’…….please fill in the blanks
May God deliver us from the locust
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Hamilton
Short answer: No, Obasanjo did not really kill Fela’s mother… It was unfortunate and it happened in his watch, so the “buck” stops there.
Fact: The soldiers were overzealous, and she was not singled out as a target (they probably didn’t know who she was), but rather Fela and his entire “compound” were the targets. The soldiers commited many atrocities that day which you may not have heard of – perhaps you should take a look at the DVD titled “Music is the Weapon”. It’s a bonus disc as part of a 2 CD set. It should give you a clearer picture.
Conclusion: None…
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Chijioke
Charles,
i partially agree with most of the comments above but the biggest part is with Idiareno.
One may not hold the Commander-in-Chief directly responsible for such an offense given the chain of command in the army hierarchy: the soldiers were most likely dispatched from a barracks; directly supervised by the RSM who receives orders from either the AO or Commandant. If you continue in this upward chain, you might just see how far up one may have to travel to find the origin of the order or where it went wrong.
But that is on the one hand. On the other hand, being the Head of State at the time when a national maternal figure is openly murdered by men in his discipline, he should have set up a panel/tribunal to investigate and try all found wanting in that exercise. His ‘complacency’ points to the fact that there was an underlying support for the action. It enabled him label the murder site as a possible danger zone and forced the occupants to relocate.
I truly wonder if he did not think that they may endanger their new neighbourhood at the time.
I don’t want to continue to analyse the situation in my way ’cause it concerns Obasanjo, the chief advocate of the use of the absence of reason; i don’t intend to loose my mind.
i agree when you say we are complacent as a people because it is true. I see it everyday: people being openly robbed and others scarcely budging. I want to believe that someday soon the matter will hit national recognition again.
Till then, i can only await what his throat-clearing response might be.
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Adefulu
Did Obasanjo really kill Fela’s mother? Yes. Was it intentional? Probably not, but that’s no excuse. I don’t claim to know much about the incidence that led to Mrs. Kuti’s demise, but what’s clear is Fela was an opposition to the Obasanjo regime and something had to be done to stop him, in the process of stopping him a Nigerian ICON was murdered.
Complacency or not, we are talking about a military regime that absolutely ignored the rule of law…there’s no way they would prosecute one of their own for a “job well done”.
Charles, I do commend you for bringing to light what most of us have know for a long time, but never discussed or analyzed. I do have one request for everyone that reads this, let the discussion not stop in this forum, let’s seize from being know as a bunch of push-overs, let’s do something! What can we do? Bring issues to light, hold benefits…the possibilities are endless, just act. Brother Charles has sparked a flame and we must keep it burning.
Adefulu.
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Okwy
To Ibe and Chijioke, an inquiry was indeed set up. But customary to Obasanjo, as can be seen today in everything he has done for the past eight years, nothing came of it. Instead, blue was turned to red, and green was turned to yellow.
After all the resources that were expended and precious time wasted in the name of investigating the atrocities committed at the time in that area of Lagos on that fateful day, the outcome was that unknown soldier was responsible, including the killing of Madam Kuti – a first nigerian patriot among equals – a national treasure of no equal measure to-date. What a sham, what a shame?
Fela was not an opposition to Obasanjo. Fela was against anything done by anyone that retrogressed the common man’s chances to live a meaningful and enjoyful life in the midst of abundant resources. Obasanjo represented retrogression as can be seen even today, and Fela fearlessly spoke out against it and thus incurred Obasanjo’s wrath – many today can attest to this because they are feeling and seeing that side of Obasanjo.
Well, as Obasanjo’s instrument of magic begins to unravel because you simply cannot fool people all of the time, Fela will stand vindicated that, “na wayo Obasanjo de all the time”. Be at peace where ever you are Fela, you are indeed another heroic, patroitic Nigerian.
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The Hypocrisy of Our Democracy #2
ibenaija
Countries and cities vie to host global events like the Olympics, the World Cup, the Miss World pageant, etc., in hopes that the literal convergence of the world onto that geographic space will translate into some real contribution to the local economy, etc., etc.
It leaves one really, truly aghast then, when the argument purportedly advanced by “the spokesman for the Nigeria[n] Olympic Committee (NOC)” to support his country’s bid for hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2014 is the need to:
… celebrate the centenary of the unification of its northern and southern protectorate[s].
This refers, but of course, to the British “amalgamation” of northern and southern Nigeria in 1914. BUT… What exactly are we celebrating? The invasion, violation, and exploitation of the peoples inhabiting the Nigerian space circa 1914? Or the arbitrary drawing and re-drawing of geo-political maps and interventions into those peoples’ collective fortunes?
What an absolute goon.
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'Gbubemi
I feel you, I’m sure the man spoke out of illiteracy and most likely, he was ill prepared as well. There’s more to Nigeria than that!
The Hypocrisy of Our Democracy #1
ibenaija
According to BBC News, Nigerian Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential contender, Umaru Yar’Adua (pictured) was flown to Germany last week after he collapsed at a campaign rally.
In other words, the man collapsed out of I’ll bet, no more than mere exhaustion, and had to be rushed—not down the street, or to the next town, or to a neighbouring country—but half way across the world, to an entirely different continent, to be attended to. What does this say about the state of Medicine (amongst a host of other things) in Nigeria? Or, does this reflect the Nigerian perception of local products and services relative to foreign ones? Perhaps it’s a combination of both and many other factors?
How much of an indictment is this of the Nigerian leadership?
Why You Should Never "Send this E-mail to 8 People"
ibenaija
We’ve all received that e-mail, right? The one that urges us to “forward this to 20 people” in return for anything from “a laptop from Dell” to “a miracle in 7 days” to an outright “surprise right after you click ‘Send’”. Who hasn’t seen the one that says Bill Gates will send you a check for $1 for every single person you forward the message to?
I just received one such e-mail today, and couldn’t help but shake my head at the gullibility and outright folly of the universe. The e-mail appeared to have traversed a good portion of the Internet, for it appeared to have been forwarded many a time. Scrolling through the multitude of e-mail headers (To, From, CC, etc.), revealing the e-mail’s traversal path, to the bottom of the message, brought me upon:
Hi everyone,
The Ericsson Company is distributing free computer Lap-tops in an attempt to match Nokia that has already done so. Ericsson hopes to increase its popularity this way. For this reason, they are giving away the new WAP laptops. All you need to do to qualify is to send this mail to 8 people you know. Within 2 weeks, you will receive EricssonT18. But if you can send it to 20 people or more, you will receive Ericsson R320.
Make sure to send a copy to : anna.swelung@ericsson.com
The scheme here should be fairly obvious: you send this to 8 people, cc’ing Ms. “Anna Swelung” at “Ericsson.com”. Depending on how gullible your 8 friends are (let’s say that an arbitrary 50% of them are in fact gullible and forward the message to 8 of their own friends), Ms. Swelung now has your e-mail address, plus the 8 e-mail addresses you forwarded to her (via cc), plus the 8 e-mail addresses that 4 of your recipients sent to her… (and this doesn’t even count the e-mail addresses of the folks upstream to you; i.e., the folks that sent you the message in the first place).
Now, let’s say you and your friends are really, really gullible, and decide to up the ante by forwarding the e-mail to not 8, but 20 of your buddies… Think about how quickly (read: exponential growth) Ms. Swelung’s e-mail box will fill-up with the e-mail addresses of folks thirsty for a free laptop computer… Ah, thousands, if not millions of e-mail addresses, harvested, and ready to be spammed with Viagra, Cialis, and HornyAsianVixens.com come-ons.
Out of curiously, I copied ericsson.com from the contact’s e-mail address, and pasted it into my browser’s address window (which resolved it to http://www.ericsson.com). The site I came to appeared to have no more than a slightly subliminal connection to the telephone company at http://www.sonyericsson.com.
A couple thoughts:
- If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
- By extention, if it doesn’t make sense, it probably, well, doesn’t. (A company gives away its high-cost/high-margin product, on a large (Internet-wide) scale—to “increase its popularity” and match its competition? How sustainable is that?!)
- And, finally, there is no such thing as a free lunch; in fact, there is no such thing as ‘Free’. Everything has a price.
I really do hope that those little programs that scour the Internet in search of e-mail addresses, ALL grab Anna Swelung’s e-mail address from this page, and that they all collectively spam her to no end. That would give her a taste of her own medicine.
Postscript:
The clincher: neither Ericsson T18 nor Ericsson R320 (pictured) are laptop computers; both are cellular phones.
And, both are discontinued models.
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Shoeb Ahmed
What I don’t understand though, is a spammer like Anna Seung? Working at Ericsson?
How come?
The email addr that’s the harvester has seems to be a legit one.How can she be a harvester?
I’m not disagreeing with you, but this is the same question that rocked me. -
Shoeb Ahmed
Actually, I googled about her again.
And this is what I found:http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/internet/a/ericsson_hoax.htm
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Bayo
I dont understand why many of us are so gullible anyway, if it is too good to be true, many times, it isnt. And its so simple, if you have acess to internet to forward such mails, try and spend about 3mins to verify the correctness of what you are sending
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ibenaija
Shoeb-
We’ve heard of things like phishing, and URL redirects, and such… The point is that with sufficient will and skill, one can achieve practically any feat.
The fact that the product being touted as a ‘free’ laptop is in fact a discontinued cellular phone should lead us to conclude that, at the minimum, Anna Swelung is up to no good.
To your point though, my main argument about this being an e-mail address harvesting scheme is pure conjecture.
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nick
I used to wonder where those viagra adverts in my inbox originated from! Obviously my friends who are looking for free gifts have inadvertently sent my email address to scammers! Do’h!
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Ik
I just dont know why pple cant double check such stuff before sending them out. I mean, as any naija man shd know nothing is for free!
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Aphra Behn
Well, when I helped to build the site in late 2000 / early 2001, http://www.ericsson.com was certainly owned by Ericsson the Swedish Telecoms company. I’ve still got the description of the site’s architecture archived onto CDs somewhere.
Their consumer division joined forces with Sony a year or so later. They go a long way back in Swedish corporate history, and specialised in large telecomms switch-gear and stuff like that.
It was a nice gig, but cold.
Aphra
PS – I you may be right about email address harvesting, but don’t blame Ericsson. -
Ganovane
Good theory but this hoax is pretty old. Turns out there is no such Anna Swelund and the email address given has never worked- Got the following off of Snopes which references to what happened during one carnation of this hoax in April 2000:
“But of course, Ericcson made no such offer, the e-mail address provided was bogus, and the company employed no one by the name of “Anna Swelund.” Ericcson was hit so hard by inquiries about this hoax that they set up an auto-response for mail to the Anna.Swelund@ericcson.com e-mail address (the auto-reply message stated that there was no such account, there was no “free phone” offer, and there was no Anna Swelund working for the company) and inserted a denial of the rumor into their web site FAQ.”
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Jo
Aren’t we all the eternal optimists?
I’ve never believed these mails, usually I delete them immediately but now and again I pass them on to share the fun.
of the rebuttals – you’d think I have better things to do with my precious time.I never thought about the email address harvesting so I do apologise to all my friends if they suddenly start getting mail offering them bigger and better boobs and/or other body parts. Your revenge is that I’ll be getting the same mail. Mind you, I’ve already had my share of both offers (plus the inheritance and lottery winnings) 100 times and counting…..
Jo
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godwin
this is just not true, becos nothing goes for free. although i sent the mail. so i dicided to use google and i came across this website. and it gave me an affirmation.
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nosa
I recieved the mail from an old friend and reading through it saw the falsity in it. Funny enough i live in Sweden and have been to the Ericsson Global Headquarters situated in the city of Lund it is interesting to note that the Last name of anna is derived from the combination of the first syllabul of the country name (Swe-den) and the name of the city (Lund). therefore we have anna.SWELUND it is all a hoax.
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Len
Doesn’t anyone get it??
Anna.swelung@ericsson.com
=
Anna is well hung at Ericsson.My bet is there is some poor girl at Ericsson called Anna.
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smoke5sticks
Thanks for the informations guys!
Damnit!
I am one of the foos who send the email about the $1 Bill Gates will give out to those who will send the email.Shame on me!!!
wehehehehehe
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Rikke
There is no Anna Swelung at Erricsson – ske dosen’t excist!
http://www.ericsson.com/nl/pers/archief/persbericht_kettingmail.shtml
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jv
What makes me wonder is if Anna Selung doesn’t exist at Ericsson, how can she receive the spammed emails? How can a spammer clone an Ericsson domain for his email (*@ericsson.com)? Our victimed email adds should remain undelivered and there should be no viagra ads reaching our emails..
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i be naija
jv- at the simplest, the spammer uses “anna.swelung@ericsson.com” as a decoy; his/her actual e-mail address (in the To: or CC: field) is something like big_spammer@hotmail.com (ok, maybe something less obvious… but you get the point). He/she is betting that folks will Reply to All, in which case, he/she would have met his/her objective.
Now, remember that this is taking the simple, low-tech approach… imagine what a true hacker can do… with redirects, phishing, etc.
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Phentergirl
Very very interesting article! You describe very important theme. I’m going to discuss about it in my blog to my readers. Unfortunately I’m late to write the same article in my blog. In the web are a lot of same sites and blogs but your differs markedly of its profundity.
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DMKE
Taken from the Ericsson web site’s FAQ:
5: Is it true that you are giving away mobile phones? Please give me Anna Swelunds e-mail address.
No, Ericsson is not giving away phones for free. The chain letter is a
fraud.[First published 10 April 2000]
A chain letter is currently in circulation via e-mail, purporting that
Ericsson is giving away mobile phones. The e-mail is a fraud and
Ericsson is not giving away phones for free. The following is an
extract from the letter:
“If you forward it [the letter] to 20 friends, you will receive a brand
new Ericsson phone.”
The letter is signed off Anna Swelund, Executive Promotion Manager
for Ericsson Marketing. This person does not exist at Ericsson. The
legal and IT departments at Ericsson will trace the person who
initiated the illegal chain letter. Ericsson is sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused and kindly ask people not to forward the chain mail further. -
zhosi
Yea Iv sent this damn e-mail to 20 people and after I’v read this article.
Thnx guys for the information I will be more careful the next time. -
Wilson Lai
These spammers seriously suck man……. wasting our time….
kudos to the people who created this site…. it really gave people the chance to have freedom of speech. -
zainab
These spammers seriously suck man……. wasting our time….
kudos to the people who created this site…. it really gave people the chance to have freedom of speech. -
Randomability
Don’t forget about the foreign lottery that you’ve supposedly won. The one that you don’t remember entering. That’s the spam that I get most often too.
blech.
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YOUR MOM
H@ 3v3ry f00l b3l13v3 th1s sh1t, s0 1f 1 s3nt t0 y0u s0m3th1ng r1d1cul0U.S. l1k3 ”cl1ck h3r3 @nd g3t @ fuck1ng v1rus” y0ur3 g01ng t0 cl1ck, 1 c@n’t 1m@g1n3 th3 1gn0rat10n 0f th3 p30pl3.
p3@c3 0ut
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almoataz
I think it is a way to collect an Emailing list but with a new Idea for free ! these lists shouldn’t be for free but they only trying !!!
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Max Smith
i called Ericsson and they know nothing about this “person”, they are not giving away nothing… don’t get caught…
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johnnie
You guys are such losers
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shaji
Helloooooooooooo
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Mannan, Abdul
Hello,
ich möchte ein luptop computer haben von Innen, Danke.
sie sind net, ich habe keine komputer, deshalb.mit freundlichen grüßen
Mannan Abdul
cordier str. 29
60326 Frankfurt/M
Germany -
ABAZA
Hi all I have nothing to say……….
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Gauri
Hahaha Abdul, hast du der Laptop oder nicht jetzt?
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Gauri
Somebody, give Abdul the laptop, he’s asking so nicely… He left you the address. Anybody??
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Marcin
Yeah. I have such. It is refurbished, but have a nice design. I believe it is 386 with 4MB of RAM.
Can someone cover shippment cost since I am not too rich.?
Regards,
Marcin -
adam
i send 8 massege what i do now tell pls
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adam
i send 8 massege what i do now tell me pls &how i win
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Muhammad Shahidul Islam
Today one of my friend sent this mail and i google about this topics and found this article. And now i am sure that ericsson dont got mad that they’ll give me a laptop for 8 email. ): Thanks for this article. I already gave mail to all those friends and told them not to send this message and this type of mail.
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luke wilson
i send more then 8 no what?
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Mel
Anna swelung is on facebook
and http://www.spoke.com/public/pages/A/person/001/552/819
so she has our details time to spam the bitch
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kefa
that is dangerous, the internet is full of trickery and you have got to be careful otherwise you might not be safe…
i received the email through my gmail account and i fear that spammers have got it…but they wont get me coz am a wizzard.
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toadwart
i am going to send this link to the lady who forwarded me as well as a staggering 40 of her email contacts that free ericsson nonsense. I mean really how ‘duh’ does one have to be to be fooled by that sort of rubbish…..
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Jonno
I just recieved my free T18 erricson mobile car laptop with a built-in drink waiter and a free set of steak knives.
Man theres a sucker born every minute.
But the steak knives are cool.
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Jabber
Just received the email from my cousin in New Zealand.
Had to tell her and let her down gently.
cant wait for all the Viagra emails now
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THINK before you Foward!!!
Viagra lol
I have been getting loads of spam so bad in ALL my emails thanks to my MOTHER!
I actually came here because of another Hoax email she forwarded (be she thought she was playing it safe by taking out all the other people’s addresses from the forward and taking out the Fwd: out of the Subject line and BBC’ing everyone). DO NOT FORWARD ANYTHING I say .. damn it I am so tired of all the spam I have to go through every day now! I ended up in the hospital for 3 months and then had to ask my ISP to delete all my emails for me just to login it was so packed with spam.
Beliefs: "Still Evolving..."
ibenaija
On Creationism
I believe there is a Creator. Or, to put it more accurately, I’d like to believe there is a Creator.
But believing is not the same thing as knowing—at least, not in the epistemological sense. My ‘belief’ is different from what I consider ‘knowledge,’ in that it is based on an imperative not too dissimilar from ‘faith,’ rather than empirical evidence, discernible by the senses or through deduction.
I believe there is a Creator; I just do not know that there is one.
Why I do believe that there is a Creator?
It appears highly unlikely to me that the universe, in all its complexity, began spontaneously and without cause, out of nothing. The sheer diversity and organization of things would appear to require the concerted action of a creator. In order words, I believe it is more likely than not that a universe as complex ours resulted from some sort of higher intelligence.
Also—and I am convinced many people share this sentiment—my belief in a Creator is driven by a desire, nay need, for there to be something bigger than me… for there to be something that transcends my mortality. Believing in a Creator satisfies that need.
(True, true, these two ‘arguments’ do not offer deductively valid support for the belief in a Creator, either. Nonetheless, I think that the first one at least, is strong enough to support that belief.)
Why I do not know there is a Creator?
I cannot claim to know that a Creator exists because I have not seen any empirical, fool-proof evidence for His (or Her) existence.
What is your own belief based on?
Do you KNOW that a Creator exists? What is this ‘knowledge’ based on? If you have a deductively valid (i.e. 100% fool-proof) argument for the existence of a Creator, do post a comment. Note though that anecdotal “evidence” do not count.
Finally, without convincing empirical evidence, I categorically refuse to believe in:
voodoo · juju · jazz · deities · shamans · shamanism · astral travel · ouija boards · reincarnation · sublimation · demons · demonism · demonic possession · Satan · Satanism · conspiracy theories · spiritualism · charms · talismans · cults · occultism · fraternities · confraternities · angels · archangels · demonic suppression · feng shui · organized religion · psychics · magicians · magic · witches · wizards · witchcraft · wizardry · curses · spells · incantations · heaven · hell · purgatory · the sixth sense · extra sensory perception · past lives · aliens · unidentified flying objects · etc.
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nick
there is no empirical evidence for any supreme being, and there will probably never will be unless there is a second comming of Christ on the horizon. There is however a suprisingly large collection of data supporting reincarnation, however it is not emprical evidence. there is no emperical evidence for anything paranormal.
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ibenaija
So, if there is no empirical evidence, is there evidence of any other sort?
This “large collection of data supporting reincarnation”, where is it?
And to the question at hand: Do you, personally, KNOW that a Creator exists?
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Idiare
I know a Creator exists…..I have met Him. He could not be seen in the sense of a head, neck and shoulders but i came into His presence and it was as if i was blinded by light so bright you could see but couldnt see at the same time. We had a 2 sentence conversation which in retrospect was like a dialogue of eternity….for so much was meant in the few words He spoke to me
I know that such experiences are laughed at and felt to be untrue but i have things i can point to that resulted from that one encounter.
I was just beginning my second year in univ when t happened….my first year results were very dismal, not only was i too playful but i just didnt take my future seriously.
My second year results were phenomenal, why? I suddenly experienced a uniue ability to syntehsize vast amounts of information in a way that led me to several unique insights that helped me in my school work. I also developed a strong sense of purpose as a result of that one encounter. My life was no longer mine but His, i could not afford to live anyhow.
For me, the experience itself cant be ’substantiated’ by others but the after-effects are highly verifiable by anyone……especially those who knew me personally within the period. Something had changed about me they couldn’t describe. I however did not rush to begin proclaiming the experience. I spent a long time just internalizing its implications
It is only of recent that i have felt compelled to share that experience with others.
There is a Creator and He has a Son called Jesus. I met God and he pointed me to His Son. Thats my experience….
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ibenaija
Idiare-
I can appreciate your experience and its far-reaching implication for you personally.
I look forward to, like you, meeting the Creator in that blinding light manifestation, or otherwise, and engaging Him in a conversation… Till then though, it’s hard to know that He exists.
Nonetheless, you and I agree that your argument for the existence of a Creator is based entirely on anecdotal “evidence”; and those never really do.
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Chijioke Ezeh
Charles,
In terms of empirical evidence, as well as logic, there is no creator. This argument will take you everywhere and fetch you victory in any intellectual debate on the topic.
You will never find it anywhere about the physical existence of a god, even in the studies of myths and deities. All you will find will be historical documentations of different beliefs with artifacts and fossils dated by archaeologists and the like.
Before you go further, I’d like you to stop, and repeat the thought…
My brother my friend, there is a Creator. Like Idiare, i have met him, but in different circumstances. The Creator and I are good friends.
I might perfectly understand your argument about his existence. And besides, He actually lives in the supernormal; the celestial. Some argue that he is in the Extra-Terrestrial. All of these have an element of truth.
These truth arise from one thing, which He gives us: free will. The freedom to exercise ourselves in any (un)given manner. If yours is to believe after a physical fact, you might never find proof to this effect.
You might want to ask yourself when last it depended on your belief to validate the truth, or fact, about any matter. Try disbelieving that the sun will not rise tomorrow. You might find the fact you are looking for.
cheers, my dear ol’ timer.
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ibenaija
Ezeh-
I think you’ve got the order of things slightly off: it is the truth or validity of something that leads to (or inspires) one’s belief in it, not the other way around. It would be silly to attempt to “disbelieve” that the sun would rise; the “truth,” validated over time, is that the sun does rise (in the east!) every morning, and the sun will rise tomorrow (barring any cataclysmic event—like the Rapture!).
Interestingly, you bring up the subjects of “truth” and “validity,” two prerequisites for the soundness of an argument. For an argument to be considered to be sound, its premises (or underlying reasons) must be true; and its inference (i.e., the relationship between its premises and conclusion) must be valid. And, in the soundest of arguments, the relationship between the premise(s) and the conclusion(s) are such that the truth of the reason(s) guarantee the truth of the conclusion(s).
So, give me a sound argument for the existence of a Creator.
I dare you.
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ibenaija
Idiare, the dare applies to you too.
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Chijioke Ezeh
Ordinarily, I would have teed off explaining the “hows” and “whys” about the existence of God. But I know better than a fruitless argument, which you will win because there’s no evidence to prove or disprove you.
I only have this to say; Charlie, you are one of God’s creation, exercising the very thing He gave us, Freewill.
On this note, I bow out and leave you to your belief, while hoping that some day, you meet him on your terms.
Peace.
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ibenaija
I appreciate your candor…
Abiku, Discussed
ibenaija
Read the Poem, Abiku, by Charles O.
Background
To the uninitiated, Abiku can be a rather daunting piece. This is so because an understanding of the meaning and implications of the Abiku concept is necessary for a proper understanding of the poem.
If the belief in the supernatural is all-pervasive in traditional African culture, then the belief in the inimical and diabolic variant is even more insidiously ingrained in that tradition. Abiku (figuratively “born to die”) in Yoruba lore refers to one such malevolent spirit who appropriates and insinuates a woman’s womb to be born and re-born, for the singular purpose of unleashing recurring tumult on such a woman. The woman, then, conceives, carries the pregnancy to term, delivers, only for the child, Abiku, to die within the first few years of its birth.
In some cases though, the spirit-baby pities her mother and decides to stay permanently.
The poem Abiku explores the travails of a woman who has birthed several Abiku. Each conception brought her an unnerving admixture of “elation and despair”. Indeed, she inhabited, perpetually, the twilight between exaltation and grief: in one year she would conceive, in another, deliver, and in a few more yet, mourn the death of the child. The poem captures a moment when our protagonist, pregnant again, sits on her windowsill and gazes at the night sky. Crying silently, she prays the gods to have mercy on her, and have Abiku stay this time. As though in assurance of a new resolution, the child stirs within.
Imagery & Symbolism
“Death” and “rebirth,” “emergence” and “spiral … into abyssal depths,” “elation” and “despair,” “arrivals” and “departures,” are imageries at odds with each other. We sense antagonistic forces—life and death, emergence and downward spiral, et cetera—engaged in tense battles, as though for their very own continuity.
The “accentuation” of the protagonist’s belly by the night’s full moon provides another striking imagery. For one, both are round; for another, both are, literally, full. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, just as the full moon heralds the dawning of a new day, the woman’s full belly portends the impending arrival of a new being.
Message
Undoubtedly, there are as many interpretations of a poem as there are readers of it. One of the messages I take away from the poem though is that, just as the protagonist, who had suffered repeatedly at Abiku’s hands, clung obstinately to the hopes of having a child that would survive past infancy, we all must remain steadfast to our higher aspirations in spite of (or, even, because of) the odds. We must, indeed, never resign ourselves to the accident of chance, or worse, fate.
Even in the face of forces seemingly outside of her control, our protagonist expressed hope for an eventual breakthrough (“maybe she’ll stay”) this time.
*
Rewritten from the original piece of May 9, 2002.
Conorni
omg.. good work, bro
maddie 8:28 am on November 30, 2007 Permalink |
so true. one can spend hours wasting time on facebook though. and the useless unnecessary apps (of which there are many) get annoying after a while. still, like you say, i’ve managed to find old friends and it’s been a nice surprise to see where everyone ended up
frodo441 4:51 pm on November 30, 2007 Permalink |
I used it alittle … 20 min. every other night to keep intouch with Palestine…Now I can’t find “facebook” anywhere…
Gamine 2:41 am on December 9, 2007 Permalink |
Nice Blog
Facebook is alright
unauthorized persons cant view ur info if u want
its a very cool site
tho i know a number of people who r leaving it
saying its too addictive ..lol, dat it must be from the devil!
SOLOMONSYDELLE 1:24 pm on February 15, 2008 Permalink |
Facebook is a useful tool when used properly and in moderation. I have joined it but under an alias and use it primarily for my blogging purposes as a member of the Nigerian bloggers group.
Other than that, I am hesitant to make myself overly accessible to people I know or don’t know. It just gives me the creeps in a Big Brother is Watching You kinda way.
Nice blog, I found you through Akin’s Aworisms. Do update sometime soon.
http://www.NigerianCuriosity.com
http://www.SolomonSydelle.com
Randomability 1:35 pm on April 29, 2008 Permalink |
I’m a facebooker too and now that you have my email address, you can find me there.
I do like the fact that I’ve reconnected with people whom I thought I would NEVER EVER hear from again. I think I did a post on it myself. I don’t do most apps, but I’ve come across an addictive one or two.
I’m very protective of my kids and their photos are friends only, but my photos of my childhood, is out there for my firends and friends of friends. It’s all a matter of personal comfort.
Gotta get back to my packrat game.