Google Puts the Brakes On Saving the World 179
An anonymous reader sends along a sharp and snarky article that takes Google to task for taking longer than expected to award $10M in its competition to find and fund world-bettering ideas. The submitter comments, "After using its tenth birthday as occasion to solicit philanthropic ideas from Web users through its Project 10^100, Google appears to have backed off from its commitment to provide $10 million in funding to the winner. While the company was supposed to reveal the Project 10^100 winner in February, Google has since delayed the vote once and now suspended it indefinitely, due to the overwhelming response — Google says it received 150,000 entries. A Google spokeswoman wouldn't commit to a new date, saying only it would be delayed 'for a while longer.' She further apologized for the company's 'over optimistic assumptions about how quickly we could analyze all the ideas that we've received.'"
Hype (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hype (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know what's taking them so long...my idea to replace inefficient jet-fuel-burning airliners with giant gliders and slingshots was so clearly superior to any other ideas they could have received, I don't understand why I haven't received my check yet.
Re:Hype (Score:5, Funny)
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Wait, people across the world are people too? LIES!
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tweak it so you're feeding obese people from overpopulated countries to starving people
That's not very nice! Obese people are very fattening. You need to feed them vegetarians, if you're going to be humanitarian.
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I'm afraid there's prior art...A Modest Proposal [art-bin.com]
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Re:Hype (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you addressed the acceleration problems mentioned in this post [slashdot.org] by Gnick the last time your idea was discussed?
That'd have to be a mighty long and soft slingshot band.
Re:Hype (Score:5, Funny)
Working out little details like that will happen after we get the funding.
I'm glad to see you've been following my work. You don't happen to be a venture capitalist, do you?
Re:Hype (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hype (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a venture capitalist from Nigeria. Now if you'll just be kindly sending me your plans for your new transportation system along with a $1,000 processing fee we will begin the process of funding your project. Get back to me quickly! there are many projects we're interested in an only a limited number can be funded.
You have used contractions properly. You have made no spelling errors. Except for one word (beginning your final sentence), you have used capitalization appropriately. You have used correct grammar throughout your message. Your punctuation is sensible. And, if that were not sufficient, you have not even given a feasible-sounding fake name.
YOUR A DESGRACE TOO THE NIGERIAN SPAMMERS GUILD!!!
Walter M'Boti-Wakele,
Membership Secretary, NSG
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That'd have to be a mighty long and soft slingshot band.
And rubber loses its elasticity after only a few cycles. Early Spring ballistas used rawhide for repeatable performance. I'd suggest you use rawhide to propel the gliders and find some way to gear it down. As a side effect, the meat content of your average sausage will improve when the idea is widely adopted.
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dammit, my nuclear powered hydroponic hemp farm (that cures world hunger on the side), simply cant compete with giant slingshots :(
don't suppose anybody got a few billion dollars to lend me? I think i need about three fiddy!
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My proposed "vasectomies for food" program is clearly superior to this. In overpopulated countries people get a free vasectomy, and they get food to eat. Those who don't get a vasectomy are on their own. Women instead of getting a vasectomy will get dental implants in a certain part of their body to ensure anyone they copulate with never reproduces again. This will simultaneously reduce hunger, overpopulation, and rape in third world countries.
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I love a good concerto as much as anyone... but what the hell has a viola [wikipedia.org] got to do with this?
Or did you mean the female protagonist from Twelfth Night? [wikipedia.org] I'M SO CONFUSED.
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Wouldn't Wolfram Alpha be a little more cut out for that sort of work though?
--- Mr. DOS
Re:Hype (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks for offering the choice. I'm gonna assume they're horribly evil.
See, the truth of the matter is that Google is now assembling a database of all the possible ways the world could be saved. Meanwhile, they have a crack team of evil underlords working to make sure that Google has appropriate counter-strategies to the the world-saving methods with the highest PageRanks.
This way, when Googol the Destroyer is summoned from the Plane of Infernal Terrors to wreak the End of Days upon the world, no measly humans will be able to execute a plan to thwart him.
Mwua-ha-ha-ha.
Humanity's only hope will be that the eminent rival sorcerors, Gatus and Joba, will overcome their mutual disdain in order to devise an artifact of true power, the One True Operating System with Built-in Global Web Search, that will condemn Googol to return to the Plane of Infernal Terrors. Unfortunately, the roving druid Stallmanx has thrown a wrench into the works by turning the hearts and minds of lesser sorcerors (and hedge wizards) against Gatus and Joba, and so our heroes must overcome the animosity of their lesser brethren before they can fulfill their quest.
Will Gatus and Joba succeed? Will we ever find out what wonders lie beneath the surface of Stallmanx's Beard of Druidic Prowess? Will Googol succeed in bringing about the End of Days via the Rite of a Million Targeted Ads?
Tune in to next week's broadcast of "Googol the Destroyer"!
Re:Hype (Score:5, Funny)
The previous post has been removed due to copyright violation by The Church of Scientology.
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Will Googol succeed in bringing about the End of Days via the Rite of a Million Targeted Ads?
Now, why did I just think of AC Clarke's "Nine Billion Names of God"?
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Thanks for offering the choice. I'm gonna assume they're horribly evil. See, the truth of the matter is that Google is now assembling a database of all the possible ways the world could be saved. Meanwhile, they have a crack team of evil underlords working to make sure that Google has appropriate counter-strategies to the the world-saving methods with the highest PageRanks. This way, when Googol the Destroyer is summoned from the Plane of Infernal Terrors to wreak the End of Days upon the world, no measly humans will be able to execute a plan to thwart him. Mwua-ha-ha-ha. Humanity's only hope will be that the eminent rival sorcerors, Gatus and Joba, will overcome their mutual disdain in order to devise an artifact of true power, the One True Operating System with Built-in Global Web Search, that will condemn Googol to return to the Plane of Infernal Terrors. Unfortunately, the roving druid Stallmanx has thrown a wrench into the works by turning the hearts and minds of lesser sorcerors (and hedge wizards) against Gatus and Joba, and so our heroes must overcome the animosity of their lesser brethren before they can fulfill their quest. Will Gatus and Joba succeed? Will we ever find out what wonders lie beneath the surface of Stallmanx's Beard of Druidic Prowess? Will Googol succeed in bringing about the End of Days via the Rite of a Million Targeted Ads? Tune in to next week's broadcast of "Googol the Destroyer"!
Mod this guy overrated, because it lowers his score without impacting his karma... then mod him informative to boost his karma.
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It doesn't really sound like they're copping out. It just sounds more like 150,000 projects is a whole lot more than they expected to get.
I agree, they don't sound like they're copping out.
They do, however, sound completely fucking stoopid.
A legitimate offer for US$10MM put on the internet, by a company with deep pockets, and the requirement for payout to this demographic is: a good idea to make the world better.
How did they not expect well in excess of 150k applications?
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Well obviously they where hoping for as many applications as possible, what did not work quite so well was general public interests. No stream of news stories, an absence of tens of thousands of articles on blog sites, tech magazines reported the initial offer then it all died off and even this extension of time to the scheme is treated more as a ho hum to be joked about.
So never am effective marketing scheme, oh my, you must love the googly woogly it is going to save the planet and, all those evil thing
Get it done but get it right (Score:2)
I'd rather Google spend the time to carefully consider all submissions, instead of just selecting some motherhood ideas and round-filing the rest. In fact they've said that each winning idea may draw on many separate entries to crowd-source the optimal way to implement it..
But it's true that if any organization can devote resources to getting these examined in a timely fashion, it's Google.
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It depends, now doesn't it?
It's not worth it to spend $10 million to decide who will get $10million, and if you spend an hour each one 150K applications, you need 80 employees full-time for a year, which will cost you pretty close to that, when you include benefits, taxes etc.
I guess a lot of the suggestions are very similar, or very crappy, so can be dealt with quickly though, so should be realistic to give this a reasonable review with substantially less resurces, still it's going to require atleast a man
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It depends, now doesn't it?
It's not worth it to spend $10 million to decide who will get $10million, and if you spend an hour each one 150K applications, you need 80 employees full-time for a year, which will cost you pretty close to that, when you include benefits, taxes etc.
I guess a lot of the suggestions are very similar, or very crappy, so can be dealt with quickly though, so should be realistic to give this a reasonable review with substantially less resurces, still it's going to require atleast a man-year or two.
I actually submitted two ideas, and you had to start with a max-150-character title, then a max-150-word summary. So they should be able to do a lot better than a one-hour average.
I think a year to assess them would be OK. Unless of course one idea happened to be a swine flu cure, an Italian earthquake predictor, or a financial meltdown circuit breaker.
Re:Hype (Score:5, Funny)
It just sounds more like 150,000 projects is a whole lot more than they expected to get.
Now if only they could find someone who's really adept at searching through large quantities of documents and ranking the relevant results....
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Indexing the world's knowledge is easy, they're doing that. Indexing the worlds ideas may be a little more difficult.
I hope that they get through it all. And that my idea wins, of course.
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It doesn't really sound like they're copping out. It just sounds more like 150,000 projects is a whole lot more than they expected to get. They didn't plan on dedicating the resources necessary to get through that many submissions in a reasonable amount of time.
If only they had some way of searching and sorting through large amounts of data...
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Pay for submission (Score:4, Interesting)
Make each entry cost $5-10 or whatever to enter. That would encourage only the cream to surface, whilst also giving Google incentive to actually finish the project.
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Well, just have them pay less then.
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Re:Pay for submission (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, I caught the $0.07 vs 0.07 cents trick. I just saw it as an opportunity to pay homage to an old Huckleberry Hound cartoon. There was a bit of buried wit in some of them, once you got past the bongo feet.
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Making it cost even $0.01 would probably reduce the submissions significantly.
I can only speculate, but I strongly suspect that the reason they've had to delay as much as they have is not because of the volume of crappy submissions, but the volume of actually good submissions.
It doesn't take a lot of time or effort to throw out the obviously bad submissions. What does take time and effort is ranking truly good submissions. And it's those submitters who would likely pay a fairly large fee for a crack at $10 million to implement their idea.
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Re:Pay for submission (Score:4, Insightful)
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Do you want to learn from those who succeeded, or from the failures?
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So being forced into poverty by countries/corporations that are exploiting you is failure?
Gotta love these right wing nutjobs.
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Frankie Boyle [wikipedia.org] said it best on an episode of Mock the Week [wikipedia.org]. In the segment Scenes We'd Like To See with the subject being Things A News Reporter Would Never Say his brilliant line was:
"As I watch these people, I cannnot help but think, that if my country was gripped by famine, I'd just move."
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In some cases, yes. In plenty of others, no. But really, the fact that you automatically classify anyone from a poor country as a failure with no ideas to contribute guts any statement you make against PC idiots. Because of course a bigoted idiot thinks anyone who isn't also a bigot is naive and overly PC.
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Oh, yes, of course, I do not agree with some PC idiot, then I MUST be a BIGOT. Yeah. Don't forget a RACIST. Hell, I probably personally tear poor little children apart limb by limb after and sell their organs to evil western corporations.
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Hell, I probably personally tear poor little children apart limb by limb after and sell their organs to evil western corporations.
You can do that?
That sounds way more profitable than gold farming.
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Oh, yes, of course, I do not agree with some PC idiot, then I MUST be a BIGOT.
No, you're a bigot because you automatically dismissed the potential contributions of billions of people due to their poverty and nations of birth without knowing anything about them. That's why you're a bigot. That's basically the definition of the term: "strongly prejudiced, forming opinions without just cause." It has nothing to do with disagreeing with anyone, your first post in this thread made it clear all on its own.
Yea
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Buahahahahaha... Well, thankfully, Zimbabwe is doing so much better under Mugabe.
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Good ideas *can* come from anywhere. The power to implement them comes from those above. Y'know those with the influence or money to bring these ideas about.
This is a pretty simple concept:
Failure of the country != failure of the individual.
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Have them pay less for the poorer countries.
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Absolutely. Even in relatively well off countries like Ghana and South Africa, there simply isn't a 'credit' system. That means no credit cards.
Personally, I'm not crying foul (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a lot of money, and a lot of submissions. It takes a long time to judge based on how much "good" the proposal can accomplish.
Easy as pie (Score:2)
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Why even bother with entries? Just google for "best world bettering idea".
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Why even bother with entries? Just google for "best world bettering idea".
Hey, it worked! It only returned one result [google.com], so I know it must be true. So, google says the best world bettering idea is:
Re: (Score:2, Funny). by davester666 (731373). Why even bother with entries? Just google for "best world bettering idea". ...
Dude, you totally called it!
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Right, so will that be the wikipedia entry, the wikianswers entry (same as wikipedia entry), or the link-farm entry (same as the wikipedia entry)? Those are the three that are in the top results from every search I perform.
duh. (Score:2)
No need, it's all taken care of (Score:5, Funny)
Well, that's it, then. In November the Savior was elected, so no need for further ideas or awards. It's all in good hands now, thank you. Let's go back to Oprah.
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In November the Savior was elected
Huh? Didn't you know she and McCain lost? She can try again in 2012, if God tells her to.
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Tony Blair and George Bush had a special relationship. I guess the relationship between Gordon Brown and Barack Obama will be a saviour relationship [youtube.com].
Really, with all the world-saving being done by our world leaders, Google can afford to take it easy for a bit.
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You do realize that by regurgitating that accusation mindlessly every time anyone involved is black you are reducing it to the point where no one will ever take it seriously, right?
The Bird (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only one who is amazed at the amount of times someone sticks the boot into Google for doing something constructive?
When was the last time Microsoft (or any other large company) did anything like this? NEVER?? You'd be right.
So some smart ass anonymous coward takes it on themself to bag Google because Google couldn't predict the number of entries they would receive for something that had NEVER been done before.
AC
Interestingly, Bill Gates solicited submissions (Score:5, Informative)
Not to be an apologist, just stating facts...
Interestingly, Bill Gates solicited submissions similar to the ones the Google contest was intended to solicit, back in the mid 1990s, prior to completing his book "The Road Ahead". This was right around the time he founded "the William H. Gates Foundation", which was later renamed to "the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation [wikipedia.org]
He did this with an initial $94 million stock gift.
Now, while he's technically not identical to Microsoft... he's probably close enough.
-- Terry
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Had they actually done something constructive - you'd have a point. What they've done is reneged on their promise to do something constructive in February and replaced it with a promise to something constructive someday, maybe. (Or maybe you missed the part where they no longer promise a date to do something constructive.)
Re:The Bird (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one who is amazed at the amount of times someone sticks the boot into Google for doing something constructive?
When was the last time Microsoft (or any other large company) did anything like this? NEVER?? You'd be right.
Well, yesterday Bill Gates (who I think we can still equate with MS) gave away $8.1 million for medical research based on unconventional submissions (and open to the public). So the answer to your question isn't "never." It's "yesterday, and very very often." That's remarkably similar to what Google is trying to do here for the first time, but the main difference is that Bill Gates has given away something like $30 BILLION by now and he actually succeeded in finding a way to sort through submissions and get the money to the people who had ideas. If he stops now and Google hands out their prize tomorrow, and then they continue at this pace, they'll catch up to him in the year 32009. Yeah, Google is amazing and MS hates everyone.
Low expectations... (Score:5, Interesting)
It was really quite crippling for them.
Rabid? (Score:2, Informative)
If you needed work, I don't think you would consider yourself "rabid". They are doing what they have to do.
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I posted a Craigslist job listing (in an area with no Craigslist region of its own and relatively little local usage of the adjoining regions) for a 10-15 hour per week packing and shipping job at a buck an hour over minimum wage and had 75 resumes in 3 days, with most of those applicants willing to commute 15 miles or more for 2-3 hours of work a day!
As it turned out, just having 75 applicants doesn't mean it's easy to find someone who will actually show up on time, follow simple directions, and actually r
Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm . . . I looked at the headline and thought, "Oh Noes, G00gle iz teh 33-vil!"
Then I read the summary. Actually, with 150,000 entries, it looks perfectly legitimate that they are delaying or suspending the vote. I thought, "Hmm, which editor would write a misleading, sensationalistic headline like that?"
Well, I guessed correctly: The same genius that comes up with such diamonds as "Bill Would Declare Your Blog a Weapon" [slashdot.org]. Is anyone surprised?
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which brings up an apparent curious slashdot bug: i removed kdawson from the authors in my profile, yet the stories still show up in RSS.
Arent they google? (Score:2, Interesting)
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They should just Google search the submissions (Score:2)
Like this:
Search: awesome amazing bestest -hamsters -"youth participation" -yahoo
- Alaska Jack
May be a criminal offense (Score:5, Interesting)
To advertise a "skill contest" and not pay off on the scheduled date is usually a violation of the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act. [ftc.gov] Not good, Google.
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"Failing" the last tests nullifies the promise of benefits.
Project 10^100 *beta* (Score:2, Funny)
Hey, come on guys! We can't fault them for this. The project is only in beta!
Google Geo Challenge also delayed unknown months (Score:2)
The Google Geo Challenge [google.org] was also supposed to announce grants in January or February. They sent an email in March saying they were delayed due to overwhelming response, and nothing since.
Google grants seem quite popular! But better communication would be appreciated.
Pick me! (Score:5, Funny)
Technology to the rescue (Score:2)
Dear Google,
Maybe you should take a lesson from the corporate litigation world where they have to review millions of documents hunting for evidence -- cluster related documents together to boost efficiency and improve consistency of review. If you don't have your own technology, try Clustify ;-) </slashvertisement>
The Google Way (Score:2, Insightful)
Why don't they just identify one of the entries as a Beta Winner? Then they can prolong the actual decision indefinitely.
Is this the year of GoogleGroinkick? (Score:2, Interesting)
Google goes out of their way of doing something nice and "people" kick them in the groin repetedly. The people feels a lot like astroturfers trying to portrait Google in a bad manner. I suspect its very irritating for some unnamed companies with goodwill down in the slimepit that a successful company like Google can be liked by their users.
It would be nice of the editors would stop posting crap articles like this whos only purpouse is badmouthing, straight from the competition. Its a different kind of FUD b
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So how much did they buy YOU for?
Bottom line:
Google made promises.
Google didn't deliver.
The negative press now won't even come close to the positive press they got when they announced the project.
Net gain for Google, and they don't actually ever have to do anything.
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Except there's no evidence the situation is in any way other than what they said: an overwhelming number of entries.
Bottom line:
_________________________________________
Google did something nice(for PR reasons or not)
Google made promises
Google got surprised
Google hasn't yet announced anything
People like you and kdawson jump to conclusions because "Hey, look, they ARE evil!" posts, similar to inflammatory Fox News reports, generates publicity for yourself.
I thought they already implemented the idea... (Score:2)
Work hours to get it sorted (Score:2, Interesting)
Fun fact: If it took an average of 20 minutes to review each entry, it would take 50000 hours for a single person to go through all of them. That's 6250 days, or a little over 17 years.
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I see you took into account the weekends (is this the weekly working period at Google?) but forgot to take human nature, illness, recuperation, holidays , drive, motivation and the state of the work-market into account.
Having experience with work-estimation, you'd need to sell 30 years, tell the r
Let the voting start (Score:2)
Google should just let the people vote between all
150000 ideas and then select the best 5 ideas from top 100.
It is in situation like this the wisdom of the crowd is useful.
You're having HUMANS review it? (Score:2)
Seems like if you gave the problem to some of your engineers they could come up with an automated way of finding the best entries.
THINK ABOUT IT MAN!
Dear Google, Try this. (Score:2)
Clearly you did not think of a search interface that would allow the Internet Public to go through 150,000 submissions efficiently without hitting the Google I'm Feeling Lucky barrier as I call it, where if you don't get on the top page you are nobody.
Now you are in trouble and maybe being forced to disclose ahead of time some neat multi-dimensional collaborative interface that isn't out of alpha let alone beta yet, which could be a competitive disadvantage.
Here's what I recommend:
- Take a random sampling a
Squirrels (Score:2)
Surely if they did the initial filtering using squirrels they could get the list down to a more manageable size. They must be able to transfer a few from other projects.
Re:150,000 entries...? Damn. (Score:5, Funny)
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um... how is mail coming from Yahoo the fault of google?
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you're assuming that it is a real gmail address not just one that is going to bounce.