I think that the root of this issue is the stupid Google policy of not distinguishing any variation of your address if a '.' character is in there -- until someone registers it. People get confused and try to login.

So if your address is jsmith@gmail.com, you can send email to (or login with) j.smith@gmail.com or jsmit.h@gmail.com.... at least until someone registers jsmit.h@gmail.com!

I was an early beta GMail user have a reasonably common first initial last name GMail address. I probably get 3-5 password reset attempts per month. I also routinely received a variety of interesting misdirected emails. Everything from someone's VPN credentials, a US military EEOC complaint, invitations to a stag party in Ireland, a video of a paratransit bus flipping over (intended to be sent to an investigator), to girls modelling underwear for boyfriends.

False. It is not possible to register multiple variants of the same address. The reason you get misdirected email is because people are entering the wrong address in forms. You should see all the email that goes to paul@gmail.com :)

Out of curiosity, is it enough to make the account unusable? Do you have to set up strong filters?

On an (un)related note, my google voice phone number is (xxx)-234-5678, and it is completely unusable. You should hear the kind of voice mails that I get. I have started archiving the most amusing ones in my account. I have been blocking the numbers from area code (xxx) since I registered that number (June/2009), but it is still not usable.

Do share. That sounds like a blog post waiting to happen.

With Gmail, j.s.m.i.t.h@gmail.com is the same address as jsmith@gmail.com as j.smith+nospam@gmail.com - it's likely that someone's mistyping their own email address all over the Internet (this happens to me all the time, having a common first name/last name combo. I get bills and newsletters and etc. Never got an underwear pic, though, alas!).

Good thing to remember this when writing a system that compares email addresses--always normalize Gmail addresses on the backend before processing--but woe betide you if you normalize on the frontend, people love their dots!

> So if your address is jsmith@gmail.com, you can send email to (or login with) j.smith@gmail.com or jsmit.h@gmail.com.... at least until someone registers jsmit.h@gmail.com!

Uh, if this is true it's a security abomination. I'm pretty sure Gmail doesn't allow registration with a login that would be considered the same as an already registered one (but I'm too lazy to check a few to confirm, just because I refuse to believe Google could be that dumb).

I just tried logging in with a random '.' in my username and got in.

That doesn't actually contradict what the guy I responded to said though; you'd want to try signing up for gmail with a few variations of your own login that have a few random extra '.'s. My assumption is that these would all be rejected due to the fact that the canonicalized version (all lowercase and with all periods removed) matches the canonicalized version of a currently registered login, but this guy was saying that's not the case.

But anyway, paul responded so it's a moot point.

You can also send a email to a gmail address with dots in it so sending a email to john.smith@gmail.com can be received by johnsmith@gmail.com, john.smi.th@gmail.com, etc. and vice versa.

Really, that works (surprise, not incredulity)? I have a period in my gmail address, but have never tried that. Seems like a very strange default.

I'd interpret this as someone with high income/low net worth.

Think someone from a random middle class background that got good grades an above average public college. Basically, if he fucks up, he's bankrupt.

The WASPy types with Harvard MBA's benefit from their social safety net.

We're not talking about retail investors getting fleeced by big traders. We're talking about $100M positions held by professional traders who were told to go pound sand by the exchange.

The questionable nature of many aspects of Facebook's business are not new -- an IPO investment in Facebook is by it's nature a speculative investment in the future. So was Netscape, the company that started the dotcom boom.

But unlike the good old days in the 90's, today we find ourselves in a new world where for-profit exchanges who handle billions of trades a day suddenly cannot handle an IPO. You have institutional investors stuck with seemingly illiquid positions in Facebook panicking to close positions poisoning the well and creating an atmosphere of ambiguity and fear.

You can't roll out the "investment is a long term endeavor" bunkum when the entire business model of NASDAQ-OMX and NYSE-EuroNext is now to operate a liquid market. The NASDAQ utterly and completely failed to operate the market correctly, and traders who expect to be able to trade quickly were hosed. Facebook, the traders, and the retail investor all suffered because of NASDAQ's incompetence.

I had a similar experience, except I put my order in at 11 and was able to successfully cancel it at 12:30 as the order queue was processed. It took 20 minutes to process the cancellation, which Ameritrade can typcially do in less than a second.

Go to Home Depot. You can now make PayPal mobile payments.

You're going to use your bank for payments because you already have low-cost ways to make payments already (ie. checks, debit and credit cards).

But... there are millions of people in the US who operate outside of the banking system. They are mostly poor or working off the books in some form. For these folks, the idea of buying a $100 topoff card at a gas station to have access to mobile payments makes sense. How do I know this? Becuase the same folks are paying $5 for a disposable debit card today.

How many coins were created daily 3 years ago?

The same 7200, it halves every 4 years.

Add: so 7200 coins/day in 2009, 3600 coins/day starting 2013, 1800 coins/day starting 2017 etc.

Drivers always have the authority to eject passengers. If they get resistance, they call the cops.

I'm not sure when they would clean a bus though. I'd rather have my bus driver drive than stop to pick up rubbish.

User count is only one dimension of the value that Facebook has. The user connections are arguably the more important dimension.

As Facebook figures out more ways to be a more pervasive force in people's lives, they'll have the ability to multiply the revenue they receive on a per-user basis.

Perhaps you are stuck in some weird loop due to attending school in different states, or have attended really lousy schools.

When i was in elementary school in NYC, we learned about ancient civilizations and NYC history in 4th grade -- the ancient part was kicked off with a field trip to the Egyptian artifacts at the Met.

In high school in upstate ny, we studied global history and current events from grade 9 through 11. The Chinese portion sucked -- we basically covered the opium wars though the cultural revolution, but we studied many aspects of global history.

NASDAQ allows any D-list dignitary type to "ring the bell". It's a total sham. See: http://www.nasdaq.com/marketsite/bell-event.html

I have to respect Zuckerberg for not wasting the flight to NYC to do this sort of thing.