Kim Correa loves the online game DayZ, which lets you interact with other humans during a zombie apocalypse. DayZ's appeal is that it allows weird, spontaneous interactions between players. It also allows really terrible ones. Kim talks about her experience of being raped in a virtual world -- something she doesn't quite know what to do with. We also talk to writer Julian Dibbel, who wrote about how one online community dealt with a virtual rape back in 1993.
TLDR - #24 – The Million Dollar Homepage
In 2005, Alex Tew was a 21-year-old entrepreneur who wanted to make a million dollars before college. The only problem was he had literally nothing of value to sell. So he made The Million Dollar Homepage -- possibly the most ambitiously garish website ever created.
TLDR - #23 – A Bitcoin Story for People Who Don’t Care About Bitcoin
When Wired reporter Andy Greenberg read Newsweek's cover story claiming to have found mysterious Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, he was disappointed. Not so much that the mystery had been solved, but that the answer to the search was not all that interesting. But then, as the Newsweek started getting picked apart, he got a tip about another possible Bitcoin creator: a very ill, very brilliant cryptographer named Hal Finney.
Andy Greenberg is the author of This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information.
Donate to Hal Finney's care here.
TLDR - #22 – What Happens When You Tell The Whole Internet Your Password
Earlier this week, a commenter named Y. Woodman Brown posted his online passwords in the Washington Post comments section to show just how little his online security mattered to him. It was quickly picked up by the press as an example of online security hubris. Naturally, we had to find him. Alex talks to Y. Woodman Brown and the person who hijacked his Twitter account after the passwords were posted.
TLDR - #21 – There Is No Such Thing As Silence
Continuing our expose into the very hush-hush world of Silence, we look at an app that promises to deliver you four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. PJ talks to Larry Larson, who helped design the 4'33" app.
TLDR - #20 – Silence
Update: Vulfpeck received an email from Spotify asking the band to remove "Sleepify" from Spotify. See our update here.
A band called Vulfpeck has asked fans to stream an entire album of silence on Spotify while they sleep, so the band can use the royalties to tour without charging for their shows. So far, the scheme has worked. We talk to Vulfpeck's Jack Stratton about hustling as a musician on the internet.
TLDR - #19 – Project Flame
In 1966, a bored college freshman created Project Flame, an early computer dating system that promised to pair lonely hearts. Project Flame was an overnight sensation. The only problem was that the guy who founded didn't have a computer. Or any idea how to use one.
TLDR - #18 – The Army’s Robot Recruiter
Sgt. Star is the army’s robot. Specifically, he’s a chatbot designed to influence potential recruits to enlist in the US Army. So how do we feel about that? Alex talks to the Army and a reporter who's covered recruitment abuses to figure out if we're better or worse off for having a Siri who can talk us into going to war.
TLDR - #17 – Hey, Guess What? I Found Truth For Us
Last fall, TLDR covered a bunch of hoaxes. Some we liked, most we didn't. On this episode, we talk to Paulo Ordoveza and Adrienne LaFrance, a couple of people who have devoted themselves to trying to debunk the innumerable falsehoods flying around the internet.
TLDR - #16 – *Win a Million Dollar Mansion From Your HOME COMPUTER*
"Sweepers" are people who spend their free time entering hundreds of online sweepstakes -- the contests most of us skip because we're sure they're all scams. It turns out, we're wrong. Some people win big. Reporter Laura Mayer takes us into the online sweepstakes universe.