Many years ago, when I was still living with my parents, I intercepted what was probably a telemarketing call. The background babble was loud, like they were calling from one of those phone bleachers they set up for PBS donation drives.

Caller (in thick Indian accent): Hello, is Mrs. (Amazing mispronunciation of our surname) there?

Normally I would have just hung up, but something possessed me that day.

Me: Oh. I'm sorry, but she died last week.

Caller: (sound of bending over backward to apologize and get off the line).

A friend of mine got one that was even better, claiming to be collecting donations to support sufferers of a fairly uncommon disability. She's just happened to suffer from this disability all of her life, so she was quite interested in hearing about where she could sign up. Git hung up damn fast after that.

Yeah. I'm sure I echo the family of Henrietta Lacks when I say 'Fuck 'em.'

My bitcoin's on 'frell'. The kind of self-styled nerd who isn't familiar with the use of wildcards and chooses to self-censor with them is often the same sort that thinks swearing like they do in shows like Battlestar Galactica or Farscape is clever.

Frimping kiddies.

Sorry, but that global warming crack is about as ignorant as ones about the value of the loonie (which has actually gone above par with the greenback more than once in the last few years). Geographically, most of us are clustered along the border in the temperate zone we share with the northern states.

On the other hand, Alberta is a financial powerhouse thanks to those oil reserves and the tar sands, and it spends a lot on balancing payments to help keep some of the poorer provinces running. Our current Prime Minister comes from there, so his interest is very much in keeping things running smoothly back home. Something that most people don't know is that he's an unreformed Dominionist-- doing whatever the fuck we want with our resources, and fuck the environment because God put everything here for us, and if anything really fucks up, He'll fix it, is literally part of his religion.

This isn't the twentysomethings. This is their forty, fifty year old bosses, fresh from the change of life, desperate to look 'with it' and feel young again, trying to adopt their kids' lingo like the dads in a bad sitcom. You know, the people who have had the time and opportunity to rise to their level of incompetence in management.

Nah, this pays far, far better than being a school teacher.

That's right. There is no guarantee that you will get anything out of a project you've pledged money to, even if they go fifty times over their minimum and they've promised you your choice of knit keyboard cozies when they roll off the machines. And you know what? That's how Kickstarter's designed. You're not buying anything-- you've made a pledge, a donation toward getting the project staffed and completed. Promises of goods are 100% on the project team to deliver-- Kickstarter is totally, completely unrelated to fulfillment in any way, shape or form... which is going to cause some squawking when the first big project fails after it's been funded. There has already been at least one fraudulent computer game project, with pledge levels lifted entirely from another project, and photographs of the developers' HQ stolen from an unrelated company, that has fortunately been eliminated by the Kickstarter staff.

Bottom line is, Kickstarter isn't a storefront. If you're going to pledge money to a project, don't drop more on it than you're comfortable giving away to a school fundraiser, or a local charity.

No matter what we suggest here (and I suggest that it's a bad idea from a user comfort and utility angle), if she doesn't like what you're selling to her then it's going to be a waste before this article falls off the front page.

Searching for recipes and surfing the web? I guarantee that printing something off from a PC that she can actually relax at is going to be more appealing.

Television? It really sounds like you're trying to justify the cost of getting the rest of your house wired up. How much time does anyone spend in there?

Video chat? Come on. A wireless phone with speaker function would sell itself much more easily, and wouldn't try to drag her into the scheme (or the kitchen) for novelty value.

That isn't the name of a website, it's a fanfiction category.

Also, that giant flash video that goes where the text should be is making me so glad that I have NoScript installed.

Clearly this indicates that travelers should be tipping their screeners more, and more often.

I am too! I've been waiting more than ten years to finally squat www.clownpenis.fart, and now they're making excuses? Who else is going to go after that domain, Lorne Michaels?

Only the little people pay taxes, you insensitive clod!

The answer is clear: send Marketing to Detroit.

You will be caught.

Your credibility will go straight down the toilet, as will that of your company.

Certain sites and communities will ban your sorry ass for abusing their trust.

Fuck the marketing department. If they want people to astroturf, they can do it themselves (hilariously badly) or they can hire people to do it (which will also go over hilariously badly).

If they actually keep tabs on who 'turfed for your app and who didn't, I strongly suggest looking for a new job, because your current one is only going to become increasingly filled with paranoid, unethical bullshit as time goes on.

I hate to break it to you, but theft and bogus returns cut into profits. You know what else cuts into profits? Markedly lower retail prices. Any savings here will be passed along not to you, but to the executives.