I doubt that was the point the OP tried to make about being frightened by religious people.
If someone can believe something without proof that was written down 2000 years ago then they can believe almost anything. That's scary to someone who isn't religious. It's just completely alien.
I agree that I probably shouldn't be projecting assumptions onto people I don't know.
For me at any rate, as a person who does not consider themselves religious in any conventional sense, I don't find the fact that someone believes something without proof to be frightening at all, in and of itself. The problem only comes when someone else uses those beliefs as the basis to impinge on my own life/liberties or the life/liberties of others who do not share their belief.
This is one of her responses:
"As you all know I have a rockin' tight ass, a successful project on Kickstarter that you've all funded, and a cyberstalker that goes by the name of FrankSinatraDirtyTalker1915@comcast.net.
I originally met "Frank" back in College, where we dated for a bit. I should point out that he's not an old man, as his username might imply, but rather someone who is simply obsessed with Frank Sinatra and my gorgeous rockin hard ass.
Anyway, when I broke up with him he took it pretty badly. It was our Sophomore year at Rice University and I had just discovered gravity bongs and going down on another girl while blazed out of my gord. As I've admitted, these were confusing albeit fun times for me.
Meanwhile, "Frank" was raised as a Mormon but had recently converted to Scientology. I guess you might say he was experimenting with his own hallucinogenic homoerotic drug. This drug/sex/cult cocktail, combined with my round pulchritudinous derriere, and the sudden shock of losing his ability to play his daily role of dressing up as Dr. Parnassus while gently fondling my perky nipples and supple breasts that he had affectionately named the Merry Mammary Sisters of Nippopolis, and Queens of the Breastiary - led to Frank's complete mental breakdown.
I don't blame Frank for my rockin body, just as I don't blame you for being attracted to my intelligence and funding my project on Kickstarter. However, what I do not like is being stalked. I hope you all do what I do when you see Frank's messages on any thread related to my project. Just lick your index finger, point it at Frank's username and then say, "Ooooooooooooo ICE COLD! Mama thinks you're a BAAAAD BOYYYY! OOOOOO Ice Cold..." then point the same finger back at your left nipple and make a sizzling sound "SSSSSssssssssssss" and sing this little rap
Thank you all again for funding my project on Kickstarter. You're clearly invested in a winner!"
Yeah, I understand kickstarters position fairly well now.
Agreed. In her blog post she says that this is someone who "stalks" hundreds of targets. A stalker that stalks because of a personal vendetta/obsession, as the troll post implies, wouldn't do that.
However, She is a very odd cookie - and appears to have said some strange things (including engaging trolls) in the past. So I would believe Kickstarter if they said there was more "engagement" than Rachel lets on.
Sounds like a fucking idiot. Which doesn't mean she deserves to be harassed. But WTF @ that comment! Who would want to give someone who talks like that any of their money?
Not sure if it helps your perspective or not, but the quoted material was written by our stalker rather than Rachel. He has many accounts on social networking sites and manufactures credibility by replying to his own posts with links to posts on other sites (usually ones he's written). He's been doing this for a long time. Even I have a hard time sorting out the sock puppets from the non-sock puppets sometimes. He's a brilliant, evil, genius. I would be jelly if I hadn't seen how he actually lives and had a glimpse at his mental illness.
For instance, he has this really bizarre fascination with women named Vanessa and Rachel. He's been "married" twice, once to a Vanessa and once to a Rachel. He has this compulsion to have three women at once (named Vanessa or Rachel) that he describes in metaphysical terms.
He does tons of designer hallucinogens he buys from labs in Japan. He often talks about himself in psycho-spiritual terms of superiority, such as "I've gone farther out than any mage. I flew right past [Carlos] Castaneda into expanses of the abyss he'll never know".
More often than not I find myself feeling sorry for him. Until, of course, he goes on the offensive again.
Except for the fact that she should absolutely _not_ have engaged and/or acknowledged the stalker, I don't see a problem at all with the formulations/rhetoric in this response. She kept the vocabulary clean[1], and the content should not bother any grown-up at all.
I don't know the demographic of her project, but if this connects with them, the wording of this seems perfectly okay to me.
It may have been "clean" in the sense that little profanity was used, but it was also full of sexual slang and drug references, and clearly intended to shame Frank (not saying he didn't deserve it, but on the other hand I think a bit more tact is in order). So I could see Kickstarter considering it a violation of the "Don't post obscene, hateful, or objectionable content. If you do we will remove it and suspend you." guideline.
If she did think informing her backers was a good idea, she could have said something along the lines of:
"Hello, backers, you may have noticed that some guy named FrankSinatraWhatever has been posting spam on my threads. Unfortunately, Frank has been cyberstalking me for a while due to a failed relationship from college. If you see Frank posting anything on my project, please just ignore him. Sorry about this, and thank you all for funding my project!"
Still gets the point across without being vulgar, tactless, or ego-stroking.
> So I could see Kickstarter considering it a violation
> of the "Don't post obscene, hateful, or objectionable
> content. If you do we will remove it and suspend you."
> guideline.
I hate speculation like this. If Kickstarter considered it in violation of that part of their TOS, then why not explicitly state so rather than saying that she was 'encouraging spam' and that spam is in violation of the TOS? Chances are that they did not consider it a violation of those terms.
What's your reasoning? Nowhere in the KS guidelines does it say you're not allowed to receive spam, only that you're not allowed to generate spam for your project. Please advise?
You should never engage a troll/netstalker. Ignoring them is the best approach, always. They feed on your engagement and get frustrated and go away looking for other targets if you ignore them.
If they become real-world stalkers, get a restraining order.
Merriam-Webster:
"Definition of IMMORAL
: not moral; broadly : conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles"
Based on this, whether piracy is moral or not depends on people's opinions. I would argue that society does not consider copyright infringement to be especially immoral.
Sing 'Happy Birthday' in public without paying the guy who bought the company holding the copyright to it. Is your audience disgusted by this immoral act?
Now the owner of the company holding the copyright sues you for your unauthorized use of 'his' song. Would more people think that you acted immorally, or that the copyright holder is acting immorally?
Then again Netflix isn't available in Europe and there are huge holes in the catalogue of any streaming service. With that said I think Netflix will be huge in Europe or at least in my native Sweden. As for your pirate bay experience here is how it goes today:
1. Search for content.
2. Sort by seeders.
3. Click magnet link.
4. Start streaming from uTorrent.
If its "available" in the UK in the same way that it is "available" in Canada then you're lying to yourself.
They gimp the offerings on the foreign netflix due to licensing issues and it really hurts the service. I tried netflix but cancelled because the catalog of things aren't worth it.
That's not even near true. Many people are completely oblivious about their weight. Though I highly doubt you will do anything but hurting them by telling them that they're fat.
Body dymorphia is a very real phenomenon, although it's commonly seen the other way around. As a formerly fat person, I have to say that I'd go long periods where I'd be willfully oblivious to my weight. The occasional hurtful comment and/or painfully bad photograph really did jar me into action.
Body image isn't always accurate. Surely you have heard of anorexia?
Clip from white chicks about that (opposite of a fat person thinking they are not, but similar principal I guess):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gy4xMgArmk (dressing room scene -- possibly NSFW)
That depends on how much hardware you want to spread it out on.
Many companies would have to hire a hadoop guy, then again some companies would have to hire a sysadmin to to run the Oyster solution. Build your storage to fit your company.
