Ted Kaczynski

In prison for life, Kaczynski protested that he should keep control of his papers, but the ruling is an attempt to recoup part of the $15 million in restitution Kaczynski owes his victims and their families.

It will be interesting to see if the papers are sold via eBay, a government auction website, or some other channel, and equally as interesting will be who buys the papers and for how much.

You never know online. An NFC championship hot dog once sold for $1,800, but Sarah Palin’s poor unpardoned turkey only fetched a couple of hundred.

Just to get an idea of the Unabomber’s topics and writing style, and in case you missed it when published in 1995, you can read his manifesto online, which isn’t all that different from an Ann Coulter book.
 

Ask.com Ad Campaign Associated With Google

This discovery comes courtesy of Barry Schwartz (posting under the name “rustybrick”), who found that 78 percent of his Digg respondents thought Google was behind the ads.  Now, for all you statisticians out there, I should note that only 27 people answered Schwartz’s question, and Schwartz himself admits, “This also only reflects the Digg market and does not reflect normal people who work in schools, in doctor offices, legal offices and so on.”

Still, for Ask.com to run a campaign that so many people think is the work of another company . . . well, if it weren’t for the poor response to the ads, I’d call it disastrous.  Yet random references to Jesus and the Unabomber didn’t go over well, so, as things stand, perhaps having people think Google’s behind it will help Ask.com, after all.

Let’s just pretend, though, that Ask might want to claim ownership of its commercials – this doesn’t seem like a huge leap.  Schwartz points to John Mueller, a veteran member of the Cre8asite Forum, who thinks it may still require a huge effort.  “Google is constantly doing something with [its] ‘algorithm’.  It even ranks #4 for ‘algorithm’ (on Google),” Mueller writes.

“Getting a ‘new’ company associated with a term like that is going to be a long, hard journey,” he concludes.

Well, at least, according to Schwartz’s numbers, 24 percent of people have already made the connection.

“Ask.com Billboard Brings Up Unabomber”

The last phrase to turn heads was “The Algorithm Constantly Finds Jesus.”  As our Jason Lee Miller noted (twice), religious matters can be a bit of a hotspot, and Ask has now moved on.  To terrorism.

“The Unabomber Hates The Algorithm,” proclaims the latest billboard.  (Valleywag has a pic if you feel the need to see it.)  And, well, it seems that the public hates the campaign.

“Is Ask.com drunk, do they misunderstand a good portion of their audience, or are they just that desperate for attention?” asks Jeff Jockisch (AKA “Jozian”) on the Cre8asite Forums.  Others have been more critical, and some have been less so, but it definitely seems as if Ask is losing fans.

To be fair, some vocal few have spoken up in the search engine’s defense.  “Shorebreak,” a longtime users at Threadwatch.org, writes, “Give in to the borg if you [sic] cojones fail you, but **give the folks at Ask some freakin’ respect for an ad campaign that everyone’s talking about!**”

Well, yes, everyone’s talking about it.  Back at the Cre8asite Forums, Barry Schwartz (“rustybrick”) notes, “It has been a while since I seen so much discussion in this forum.”  Yet everyone would talk about our theoretical burning man, as well, and I’d guess that things wouldn’t turn out too well for him.