This domain is NOT for sale. But I'm not stupid; if you can give me six figures (U.S. Dollars) I'd take the money and run...

Those posts were written in the wake of the Columbine (and other) killings. A few students were so emotionally disturbed that they decided to go out and kill the people they perceived as their tormentors. A lot of attention was given in the media about the violent video games they had been playing, some attention was given about the torment they felt from the bullies, but very little attention was given about their mental states.

One of the most common psychiatric disorders in youth is ADHD. Oftentimes when left untreated, such easily treated conditions can lead to much more serious disorders such as ODD or Depression.

Disorders such as these, when left unrecognized or untreated, can be devastating, both to the sufferer and to those around them. Feelings of worthlessness, poor self-control, aggression, these are the things that lead to violence. And usually, they are very easy to treat. Find the right combination of therapy and medication, and you'll be able to feel "normal" again.

One in five children needs this kind of help, and thankfully many of them are getting that help. Unfortunately, many are not. A recent UNICEF report informs us that in Canada, mental illness among children has risen, but only 20 per cent are getting treatment.

And so what is a parent to do when their teen just doesn't want to be helped? Imagine this not-so-hypothetical scenario:

The teen stops taking all of their medication, saying "it's not working". The parent is dumbfounded, because they have seen the difference in behaviour: while on medication they are stable, and while off medication they are not. The teen drops out of school, starts taking drugs, gets involved in various crimes. The parent tries every available resource, including the police, social workers, doctors, but nothing is helping. And at the back of the parent's mind all along, "if only he'd take his meds!"

As a parent, you're responsible for the well-being of your children. That includes education, food, a home, and their physical and mental health. If your children lack any of these basic necessities, then you can be punished. And yet, here in a civilized country like Canada that is a champion of human rights, there are no services available to guarantee those basic needs are being met, when it is the children themselves who are the ones refusing to cooperate.

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Anyway, a new (small) rant.

Basic Capitalism 101

If I have something that you want, you can buy it from me. If the amount of money that I'm willing to part with it for is less than or equal to the amount you're willing to spend on it, you give me the money and I give you the item, and we're both happy. But if the amount I'm asking for is more than you think the item is worth, then you don't buy it from me.

This is the basic premise for nearly all of our commerce. Due to competition between various sellers, if I charge too little then I may get more customers but I can easily go broke. If I charge too much then I may make more profit but I will sell to fewer people and I can still easily go broke.

So the Walmarts of the world tend to sell "for less" but tend to be selling items of lesser quality in order to maximize the profit per item. All basic capitalism. When there are lots of sellers and lots of buyers things tend to balance out pretty nicely, overall.

Advanced Capitalism 203

But when there are very few sellers (because the items are scarce, for example) or when there are very few buyers (because the items are only useful to a small minority) then you can throw pretty much all those rules out the window.

If I owned something that was rather rare that only a few people wanted, then I would be a fool to say "this is the price". Give me that much or more, and you can have it. Try to buy it for less, and I'll just say "no thanks". In this situation, I'm most likely to maximize my profit by holding an auction: all interested buyers try to buy it at the same time, and the one who values it the most gets to buy the item. This is how rare items such as art is often sold.

Now take for example my domain "kill.com". Domains are plentiful, but some domains are much more rare and much more valuable. Short common English words were all snapped up very early in the Internet boom, and despite the bursting of the Internet Bubble a while back, these domains still hold much of their value.

Now, who in particular would want my domain? I can think of quite a few possibilities. Movie studios. Anti-gun or anti-game lobbyists. Maybe even porn hawkers, although I really really don't want to think about exactly what kind of porn they'd be hawking. Heck, I've even got a kinda cool idea for a movie, a thriller, that would be perfect and (for Hollywood) rather original too. But the point is, it's not really a big market, but those that would want the domain would also be placing a high value on it too.

But if I were to post a message, "I'm selling my domain for $X" I'm completely screwing myself. Somebody who doesn't think it's worth that much will just go away without talking to me or trying to haggle, and I'm screwed. Somebody who thinks it's worth more than that would just snap it up, and I'm again screwed because I didn't get as much money as my domain is worth.

So I don't post such a price. I do indeed have one: a minimum price below which I wouldn't dream of giving up my rather valuable domain. But I also know that my domain is actually worth more than even that price.

I can hold onto my domain for the next twenty years, it won't become any less valuable over time. If I don't sell it, then I haven't lost much of anything, and it's one of the coolest geekiest things anybody can have besides their own name.

In other words, I've got no incentive to go to much of any work selling this thing, and if you want it you gotta play by my rules. But like I said in my disclaimer, I'm not stupid. Offer me enough money and I'll have a wistful feeling at my loss, plus a lot of cash. ;-)

But today, I bring to you a brand new rant.

Dear MySpace,

You are The Suck™

I happen to own a domain, namely "kill.com". I registered it quite some time ago, as a play on my nickname "possum". As "roadkill.com" was already taken, I realized I could use "road.kill.com" instead, and so this poor excuse of a website was born. I don't make a lot of money (read: none whatsoever), but that's hardly the point.

I do happen to use my domain for email. Some websites just don't "get it", so to speak, and require people to register an email address before, say, they download a program or document. Since I already get a freakish amount of spam, I use my domain to create "throwaway" email addresses. One address per site, and that way I can keep track of which ones are selling accounts to spammers, and which ones actually adhere to their privacy policies.

On the internet, your email address is your identity. It is your signature. It is your only way of proving you are yourself. In other words, when somebody is using your email address, it is basically a case of "identity theft". They are doing nothing less than pretending to be you.

Most websites like yours are aware of this problem, and their solution is very simple. People can create an account with any email address they choose, but they cannot use their account until the email address has been verified. How is this done? They just send one single email, and until the user clicks on a link or types in a secret code included in that email, their new account remains inactive.

This benefits everybody involved. Your marketing databases are accurate, the users have a working account, and us poor schlebs that own real, actual domains like "kill.com" don't have to wade through an additional couple of hundred marketing emails every month on top of the regular dose of spam.

So do the right thing, MySpace. Heck, I've already told you this more than once, but it appears that it the job of "Not Me!" to read the comments submitted to your website, as I have never even once gotten a response. Not even a simple "Thanks for your interest" form letter.

--Me