2008 – Page 3 – craigslist blog (2024)

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »

We’re experimenting withCAPTCHAimages from thereCAPTCHA projectat Carnegie Mellon, here’s an excerpt from thereCAPTCHA wikipedia entry:

“reCAPTCHA supplies subscribing websites with images of words thatoptical character recognition(OCR) software has been unable to read. The subscribing websites (whose purposes are generally unrelated to the book digitization project) present these images for humans to decipher as CAPTCHA words, as part of their normal validation procedures. They then return the results to the reCAPTCHA service, thereby contributing to the digitization project. The result is that the university receives approximately 3,000 man hours per day of free labor to help in the preservation of books.”

Luis Von Ahn, who originally coined the termCAPTCHAback in 2000, is also the guy behind the reCAPTCHA project, not to mention the ESP Game, and several other “games with a purpose.”

Please don’t waste dirt’s time by emailing dirt and asking for more money.

DIRT isn’t here to subsidize your craigslist lifestyle.

Dirt just wants to be gone.

For garage & yard sales:

Site-wide average page download speeds (in seconds) for selected sites:

0.6 craigslist
1.2 google
1.7 aol
1.9 wikipedia
2.0 facebook
2.2 yahoo
2.5 msn
3.6 myspace
5.0 amazon

Data courtesy of Alexa.com

It’s troubling that the NY TImes can’t find a more worthy columnist than Nixon speech writer, intelligent design proponent, game show host, pro-life activist, and commercial pitchmanBen Stein.

In thisSunday’s column, after noting that the gargantuan oil supply we currently enjoy is largely being wasted, he concludes we should *increase* subsidies for oil producers, maximize offshore drilling domestically, and step up environmentally disastrous conversion of coal and tar sands to gasoline.

Hopefully we listen to ourengineersand not our idiots.

Amory Lovinsinterview in the current issue ofMother Jonesis agreat readif you’re interested in solving our energy and climate issues without sacrifice, while generally increasing everyone’s standard of living.

Clean, renewable energy sources do not need subsidies to thrive — all they need to be fully competitive is removal of the massive subsidies that currently entrench our increasingly untenable energy status quo.

That’s right, market economics and good old fashioned capitalism hold the solutions to the big issues we face, if only our “conservative” government would allow them to operate.

Amory Lovinsis co-founder, chairman, and chief scientist of theRocky Mountain Institute

According tothis recent studythe average American smartphone user spends more of her total web browsing time on craigslist than on any other site.

Rock on average American smartphone user!

Our response [cl.de.response]in DE.

Navigational searches on Yahoo for “www.craigslist.org” or “craigslist.org” have been bringing up eBay textads featuring hyperlinked craigslist URLs, designed to confuse and misdirect users seeking craigslist onto eBay sites. Here is a link to ascreen shot of one such searchtaken this morning, and an image of the text ad itself:

We’ve tried to give eBay the benefit of doubt, but it’s hard to reconcile deceptive, trademark-infringing ads calculated to harm craigslist and its users with statements like this one from eBay yesterday:

“eBay has, and will continue to be, a minority shareholder who believes in Craigslist, shares its values and acts with openness, honesty and integrity in its dealings with Craigslist’s board and the online community.

In fact, these ads suggest that they do not share our values at all, and that they are being anything but open and honest with the online community

UPDATE – Looks like these ads have been withdrawn! Ceasing unlawful behavior out of fear of legal consequences falls short of “openness, honesty, and integrity”, but it’s a step in the right direction.

We filed a complaint in California today, charging eBay with unlawful and unfair competition, misappropriation of proprietary information, deceptive passing-off, business interference, false advertising, phishing attacks, free-riding, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and breaches of fiduciary duty.

We respectfully ask the Superior Court in San Francisco to enjoin this conduct and order eBay to (1) make full restitution to craigslist, (2) disgorge their related profits (3) restore to craigslist all shares of the company acquired by means of, or for the purpose of unfair competition, and (4) pay punitive damages for their malicious behavior.

Full text of complaint is available inPDF.

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »