Craigslist started as a tech mailing list in 1995, which quickly morphed into a place where tech recruiters posted job listings. Christina Murphy was a frequent job poster/head hunter on Craigslist.

98

Murphy teemed up with Nancy Melone, an Internet consultant, and together they roped Newmark into starting a nonprofit called List Foundation in 1998. In fact, Craiglist.org was originally available at ListFoundation.org.

2

Melone had big plans, as the dot.com bubble bubbled and bubbled and bubbled. Newmark, on the other hand, who has never been interested in the trappings of capitalism, begged off, and the two split. If you logged into ListFoundation.org, you were suddenly now redirected to a for-profit called MetroVox.

1

Ever hear of MetroVox? Didn’t think so. They went the way of most dot.coms around 2001, and Craigslist? Well, the rest is just Listory isn’t it.

25

Craigslist is the 25^th most popular Web site in the world, according to Alexa.com.

$10 Billion

the amount of revenue lost in newspaper classified ads over the last decade, due in part to Craigslist.

30

the amount of employees at Craigslist (by comparison, Amazon, ranked 29 on Alexa, has more than 20,000 employees.

195,000

the amount of e-mail messages Newmark received in 2008. He’s an avid e-mail responder, and replies to many of those. For example, I’ve written him twice, and he’s written me back both times.

12″

the difference between Newmark, who is 5’7” and Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster, who is 6’7”. Cool Buckmaster factoid: He was hired by Newmark after posting his resume on Craigslist in 1999.

0

number of meetings at Craigslist each day. With no business development, no HR, and no sales, who needs meetings?

[Numbers inspired, in part, by a recent WIRED cover story on Craigslist.]

On behalf of the good folks over @motionbox.com, Josh Halbur and I are thrilled to announce this month’s winners: Jon Hammond took the Motionbox premium membership and Kit Hughes won the HD cam. Working with their teams, each turned in all the right answers along the trail.

As did most of you who entered! So a big congrats to everyone who got through D5L2! Here, then, are your winning answers:

Final Answer

Peter Gabriel sung about Howard Hughes on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

Day 1

L1
Movies, clockwise from top left:
1. Amadeus
2. Batman
3. Phantom of the Opera
4. Spider Man
5. V for Vendetta
6. original Star Wars

L2

(J)uly (A)ugust (S)eptember (O)ctober (N)ovember = Jason

+
Very good!
Our Halloween-themed How Did You Know? continues
on this page, where many hidden clues
related to a classic horror film appear. When you
have found at least two of the clues, or
enough to figure out the title of the movie,
enter into the box the name of the U.S.
state where the original film took place.
(Jason’s last name in Friday the 13th)

+

the date Friday the 13th

= Friday the 13th, filmed in New Jersey

L3
Films
Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein(1931)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
The Wolf Man (1941)

We also would have accepted the following:
Three of the films were released by Universal, one by Paramount; three involved transformations, one did not; three were adaptations, one was original.

Day 2

L1
Conan, Homer, and Einstein
Conan wrote for the Simpsons
Albert Brooks also does voices on the Simpsons
The Beast is a type of Brooks-branded shoe
Answer = Albert Brooks, who was born Albert Einstein

L2
1. Rolos
2. Snickers
3. Whoppers
4. Almond Joy
5. Zero

L3
The rules for the colors are as follows:
Blue – inserted into the paragraph
Orange – contained an extra ‘e’
Pink – vowel shift ‘a’ to ‘e’ to ‘I’ to ‘o’ to ‘u’ to ‘a’
Green – second to last letter should be the first letter
Light pink – nothing
Gray – move the first letter to the end of the word
Aqua – ‘e’ should be ‘o’
Red – missing ‘u’
Black – switch the position of the two vowels
As usual you can only crack the code by figuring out the rules that govern each set of colored words. The blue words that have been inserted into this paragraph are the important ones. To figure out the name of the game we are looking for, you must reverse the order of both the blue letters in each blue word, and then reverse the order of the blue words themselves. Once you do this, circle the last letter of each. The twelve combine to spell out your final answer to today’s challenge.

Gniht not itiz bud bur oitap bals esoht llif poc pot apap
Thing ton ziti dub rub patio slab those fill cop top papa
Papa top cop fill those slab patio rub dub ziti ton thing =
Apple Bobbing

Day 3

L1
The video features the red ghost, Blinky, from the Pac Man series of games. The theme music also plays in the background.

L2
All of the pictures represent Stephen King novels/stories

Clockwise from top left
1. Salem’s Lot
2. Carrie (1974)
3. Insomnia (also would have accepted Night Shift or Dream Catcher)
4. Bag of Bones
5. Cell
6. The Shining

L3
Michael Jackson – Thriller
Rage Against the Machine – The Ghost of Tom Joad
Iron Maiden – The Apparition
Psychedelic Furs – The Ghost in You
Tori Amos – Happy Phantom
The Police – Spirits in the Material World (From Ghosts in the Machine album)

Day 4

L1
Story – Ledgend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving
Protagonist: Ichabod Crane
abcdhio
Hi = Hello

L2
Coordinates
AF, AJ, DM, HN

L3
He has a cold soul – Frost
He’s a fruit – Barry
He’s also a Good Man – Benny
He’s colorful – Black
He’s only got a day – Bauer
He’s foggy – London
He’s sour – Lemmon
He’s a sailor and a flier – Sparrow
He’s clumsy – Tripper
He’s on the road – Kerouac
He’s presidential – Kennedy
He does choose Chevrolet – Pickford
He gets teed off – Nicklaus
He’s also a hunter – Thompson
He’s the son of a dark prince – Osbourne
Heeeeeeee’s a killer – Torrance

Role for Nicholson: Jack Torrance, The Shining.

Day 5

L1
Latitude 35 degrees 21 minutes 33 seconds
Amadeus is about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who died in 1791 at the age of 35.
Crystal Lake (11 letters) + Cunningham (10 letters) = 21.
Ashrita Furman bobbed 33 apples in one minute.

Longitude -117 degrees 53 minutes 15 seconds
Sweet Talk Snickers. 1930 – 1968 = -38
-38X3 = -114
-114-3 = -117
Marylin Monroe guest starred on The Jack Benny Show in 1953
There are 15 songs (11 A and 4 B Side) on The Ghost in the Machine.

The coordinates land you square on Saltdale, California.

L2
Howard Hughes is the famous plane tester. He is mentioned in the song Broadway Melody of 1974 on the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

A fan of Randall Munroe’s brilliant webcomic xkcd? Well, today we’ve got an exclusive interview with the stickmeister himself, just in time for the release of his first book: Volume 0 recently published by our friends over @Breadpig.com. Plus, we’re going to give you a chance to win a free copy of the book! (stick around and see details at the end of the post) But first, the interview…

DI: For the ignorant among us, or those too lazy to check out your Web site: what’s the deal with xkcd? What’s it stand for and why do you insist on making me feel like a moron who can’t figure out how to pronounce it?

RM: I can’t pronounce it either, although I once saw someone argue that linguistically, each letter is silent. As for where it came from, sometime back in 1999 I picked a set of random letters to which to stake my claim, so that it would always mean what I wanted and nothing else. So I wanted something with no pronunciation, something that didn’t make an acronym, and which didn’t look like any other word. And something which was short, so I could type it fast!

DI: I heard before you became Digg and Reddit’s most famous cartoonist, you were working on robots at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. Um, honestly?

RM: Yup! But it’s not nearly as dramatic as it sounds. I spent one summer interning working on a student-run virtual reality project, and was hired the next year to work on another section of the base on a project building a little R2-D2-sized robot that was serving as a testbed/demo platform for some technologies other groups were working on. It was pretty standard programming work, and I was only there a year or so before leaving to do xkcd full time.

DI: I don’t know how much you know about us _flosser, but we’re on a mission to take over the blogosphere. How much do we have to pay you to put our URL or some branded rat-a-tat in your next comic?

RM: Oh, I’m not sure you want that. I did a comic early on about Cory Doctorow wearing a red cape and goggles while he blogs, and I don’t think he’ll ever live the image down.

DI: Breadpig has never published a book before, so this is quite unusual. Talk a little bit about how it all came about.

RM: Really, we weren’t looking for a publisher. The normal role of a publisher is to give you an advance, oversee the distribution of your book, negotiate with retailers, and take most of the profit. Since the main potential readership for an xkcd collection is already connected to me through my site, I wasn’t looking for bookstore distribution, so I wasn’t even sure I needed a publisher at all. My business partner, Derek, was talking with my friend Alexis [Ohanian] about what we’d want in a book, and Alexis thought he and Breadpig could fill the reduced role pretty well (finding printers and scheduling a basic tour). The idea sounded good to me, so we went with it.

DI: Is it true that some of the proceeds go to charity?

RM: A portion of the proceeds went to Room to Read, which was suggested by Alexis. It’s a great charity which builds schools in countries where they’re needed. The world’s got a lot of problems and I sure don’t have the answers, but there’s a great Aristotle quote that’s something like, “All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.” So education is as good a place to start as any.

DI: People often ask songwriters, “Which comes first? The music or the words?” Likewise, I wonder: Which comes first for you? The setup/scene or the punchline?

RM: It really goes both ways! A lot of the time, when a comic is inspired by real life, it’s the setup that comes first. Someone makes fun of me, and days later I finally come up with a clever retort, and since it’s too late to reply I turn that into a comic. But sometimes I have an idea and I work for a while to figure out how to lead up to it. And occasionally, like in comic #77, I draw a picture I like and then try to figure out a comic to go around it.

DI: Because your characters rarely have distinguishing characteristics–one of the things I love about them, btw–when you’re writing them, are you thinking: “Oh, this is a gag THIS character would say” rather than “Oh, this is a gag THAT character would say”? Or are the generic-looking characters more or less the same person in your mind?

RM: The generic-looking characters don’t have particularly consistent identities, and from looking carefully at comics it’s clear there are several of each. But I try to make sure the focus is on the conversation or the activities and not on trying to figure out how the character who’s talking fits into previous strips.

DI: What are some of your favorite comics?

RM: I read comics by some of my friends pretty regularly — among many others, there’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, by Zach Weiner, Jeph Jacques’s Questionable Content, A Softer World by Joey Comeau and Emily Horne, and Cyanide and Happiness, which is by four or eight different very nice guys. A couple of comics I really like have ended — Men in Hats by Aaron Farber and Minus by Ryan Armand. And one of my favorite comics ended some time ago but restarted — Buttercup Festival, by David Troupes.

DI: Besides other comics, where do you, er, draw inspiration from?

RM: Arguments with my friends, when we’re competing to try to be as clever as possible. That, and my ongoing frustrations trying to get various pieces of software to work properly. The problems I manage to create are notorious for their absurdity — some of my sysadmin friends spend a lot of time doing double-takes. I frequently hear things like, “how did you manage to break that?”

DI: If you could sit down and have lunch with any comic strip character in history, who would it be and what would you want to know?

RM: If we’re limited specifically to comic strips, I think lunch with Huey from The Boondocks would be a lot of fun. We could be angry, nerdy, and self-righteous about things for a while, and then heckle politicians and bad movies together. But if we can broaden the constraints slightly, I’d pick Wile E. Coyote; I desperately want to give him a tutorial on basic engineering and physics vis-a-vis Roadrunner-catching.

Win a copy of the new xkcd book!

Here’s how:

Mosey on over to the xkcd store. Poke around! Then, find the missing word in this tagline: A webstore of romance, sarcasm, ____ and language.

Next, head over Breadpig’s blog. Answer the questions you find there and send your answers, along with the missing word from the tagline, to: AnotherAwesomeMFContest@gmail.com.

Everyone with the right answers is automatically entered into a drawing for the book. It’s that simple.

More from mental_floss…

Worth More Dead Than Alive: 5 Famous Grave Robberies
*
The Mojave Desert’s Airplane Graveyard: A Photo Tour
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Ben & Jerry’s Bagels? The Original Plans of 10 Fast Food Joints
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Was There Really a Granny Smith? 9 Fruit & Veggie Origins
*
Mind-Blowing Accordion Performance: Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” Performed Solo
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5 Brazen Examples of Price Fixing
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31 Unbelievable High School Mascots

So how do you win? Easy… sort of. One of my favorite artists now available in the Vault is Billy Joel. So, we’re plugging our “We Didn’t Start the Fire” quiz into this post, to help get you in the Billy Joel mood.

Go take it right here. When you’re done, email us and tell us which answer we’ve switch around. That is to say, one of the quiz answers is temporarily incorrect (don’t worry Joel fans! we’ll switch it back in a couple days…) Identify the correct answer on the incorrect answer and e-mail it to us at AnotherAwesomeMFContest@gmail.com.

We’ll randomly select two winners and send you your free download codes. That’s it!

It’s an all-new 5-day trivia hunt,
with an all-new set of puzzles, prizes, and now, a major sponsor!

Co-puzzle Master Josh Halbur and I are thrilled to announce that How Did You Know? now has its very own Geritol. Yes, the extraordinary video sharing site motionbox.com, which I’ve written about on this site before, is now sponsoring our monthly 5-day trivia hunt.

>> What does that mean for HDYK? We’ve got an investor interested in helping us take the game to the next level. So please, before you do anything else, mosey on over to motionbox.com and see all the amazing services they offer, most for free!

>> What does that mean for you gamers? Better prizes! Each month, motionbox.com will be giving out 3 prizes: a free premium subscription on their site; a Vado 8GB HD cam. Plus, the winner of the cam will get the opportunity to purchase a discounted premium membership on motionbox, as well.

>> How do you win? We’ve got new rules, so pay attention: anyone who submits any kind of answers at all, right or wrong, is now eligible for a prize. So long as you submit, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win the free, premium subscription to motionbox.com, worth $49.99. Next: the $199.99 Vado 8GB HD cam. Anyone who submits all the correct answers within 24 hours of the final puzzle post on day 5, will be eligible for a drawing for the this amazing little gadget that holds up to 2 hours in brilliant HD.

>> So what’s in it for the person/team who finishes first with all the correct answers? Bragging rights, as always, with your photo/bio posted on our site. But also two chances to win the motionbox.com prizes, and, as is our tradition here at the _floss, your pick of any t-shirt from our store.

There you have it! If you’re not a Fan of our Facebook page , be sure to add us so we can keep you updated, and you can get in on some pretty nifty clues throughout the week. If you’re new to our five-day hunt, you can read up on our new Rules page here. You’ll also want to check out last month’s hunt and read up on our defending champion Daniel Wilson. If you missed Day 1, that’s right this way; Day 2 is down yonder; Day 3 over here; Day 4 is this-a-way. Okay, ready to get your final Hunt on? Click on through.

It’s an all-new 5-day trivia hunt,
with an all-new set of puzzles, prizes, and now, a major sponsor!

Co-puzzle Master Josh Halbur and I are thrilled to announce that How Did You Know? now has its very own Geritol. Yes, the extraordinary video sharing site motionbox.com, which I’ve written about on this site before, is now sponsoring our monthly 5-day trivia hunt.

>> What does that mean for HDYK? We’ve got an investor interested in helping us take the game to the next level. So please, before you do anything else, mosey on over to motionbox.com and see all the amazing services they offer, most for free!

>> What does that mean for you gamers? Better prizes! Each month, motionbox.com will be giving out 3 prizes: a free premium subscription on their site; a Vado 8GB HD cam. Plus, the winner of the cam will get the opportunity to purchase a discounted premium membership on motionbox, as well.

>> How do you win? We’ve got new rules, so pay attention: anyone who submits any kind of answers at all, right or wrong, is now eligible for a prize. So long as you submit, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win the free, premium subscription to motionbox.com, worth $49.99. Next: the $199.99 Vado 8GB HD cam. Anyone who submits all the correct answers within 24 hours of the final puzzle post on day 5, will be eligible for a drawing for the this amazing little gadget that holds up to 2 hours in brilliant HD.

>> So what’s in it for the person/team who finishes first with all the correct answers? Bragging rights, as always, with your photo/bio posted on our site. But also two chances to win the motionbox.com prizes, and, as is our tradition here at the _floss, your pick of any t-shirt from our store.

There you have it! If you’re not a Fan of our Facebook page , be sure to add us so we can keep you updated, and you can get in on some pretty nifty clues throughout the week. If you’re new to our five-day hunt, you can read up on our new Rules page here. You’ll also want to check out last month’s hunt and read up on our defending champion Daniel Wilson. If you missed Day 1, that’s right this way; Day 2 is down yonder; Day 3 over here; Day 4 is this-a-way. Ready to get your final Hunt on? Tune back in at 8pm ET!

It’s an all-new 5-day trivia hunt,
with an all-new set of puzzles, prizes, and now, a major sponsor!

Co-puzzle Master Josh Halbur and I are thrilled to announce that How Did You Know? now has its very own Geritol. Yes, the extraordinary video sharing site motionbox.com, which I’ve written about on this site before, is now sponsoring our monthly 5-day trivia hunt.

>> What does that mean for HDYK? We’ve got an investor interested in helping us take the game to the next level. So please, before you do anything else, mosey on over to motionbox.com and see all the amazing services they offer, most for free!

>> What does that mean for you gamers? Better prizes! Each month, motionbox.com will be giving out 3 prizes: a free premium subscription on their site; a Vado 8GB HD cam. Plus, the winner of the cam will get the opportunity to purchase a discounted premium membership on motionbox, as well.

>> How do you win? We’ve got new rules, so pay attention: anyone who submits any kind of answers at all, right or wrong, is now eligible for a prize. So long as you submit, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win the free, premium subscription to motionbox.com, worth $49.99. Next: the $199.99 Vado 8GB HD cam. Anyone who submits all the correct answers within 24 hours of the final puzzle post on day 5, will be eligible for a drawing for the this amazing little gadget that holds up to 2 hours in brilliant HD.

>> So what’s in it for the person/team who finishes first with all the correct answers? Bragging rights, as always, with your photo/bio posted on our site. But also two chances to win the motionbox.com prizes, and, as is our tradition here at the _floss, your pick of any t-shirt from our store.

There you have it! If you’re not a Fan of our Facebook page , be sure to add us so we can keep you updated, and you can get in on some pretty nifty clues throughout the week. If you’re new to our five-day hunt, you can read up on our new Rules page here. You’ll also want to check out last month’s hunt and read up on our defending champion Daniel Wilson. If you missed Day 1, that’s right this way; Day 2 is down yonder; Day 3 over here. Okay, ready to get your Hunt on? Click on through. NOTE WELL: ACK! We goofed. Hey, it happens. Rarely, but it happens. Directions in Level 1 should read: remove first four letters and LAST letter… sorry!

How well do you know THE neighborhood?

Fire up the quiz and find out. Oh, and whether you do well on the quiz or not, if you haven’t already, you’re going to want to check out our great post: 15 Reasons Mister Rogers Was the Best Neighbor Ever.

It’s an all-new 5-day trivia hunt,
with an all-new set of puzzles, prizes, and now, a major sponsor!

Co-puzzle Master Josh Halbur and I are thrilled to announce that How Did You Know? now has its very own Geritol. Yes, the extraordinary video sharing site motionbox.com, which I’ve written about on this site before, is now sponsoring our monthly 5-day trivia hunt.

>> What does that mean for HDYK? We’ve got an investor interested in helping us take the game to the next level. So please, before you do anything else, mosey on over to motionbox.com and see all the amazing services they offer, most for free!

>> What does that mean for you gamers? Better prizes! Each month, motionbox.com will be giving out 3 prizes: a free premium subscription on their site; a Vado 8GB HD cam. Plus, the winner of the cam will get the opportunity to purchase a discounted premium membership on motionbox, as well.

>> How do you win? We’ve got new rules, so pay attention: anyone who submits any kind of answers at all, right or wrong, is now eligible for a prize. So long as you submit, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win the free, premium subscription to motionbox.com, worth $49.99. Next: the $199.99 Vado 8GB HD cam. Anyone who submits all the correct answers within 24 hours of the final puzzle post on day 5, will be eligible for a drawing for the this amazing little gadget that holds up to 2 hours in brilliant HD.

>> So what’s in it for the person/team who finishes first with all the correct answers? Bragging rights, as always, with your photo/bio posted on our site. But also two chances to win the motionbox.com prizes, and, as is our tradition here at the _floss, your pick of any t-shirt from our store.

There you have it! If you’re not a Fan of our Facebook page , be sure to add us so we can keep you updated, and you can get in on some pretty nifty clues throughout the week. If you’re new to our five-day hunt, you can read up on our new Rules page here. You’ll also want to check out last month’s hunt and read up on our defending champion Daniel Wilson. If you missed Day 1, that’s right this way; Day 2 is down yonder. Okay, ready to get your Hunt on? Click on through.

Judging from this awesome photo gallery, apparently I wasn’t too far out of the solar system. These are just some of the highlights, though. For all the great photos, hyperwarp over to WildAmmo.com.

>> For all the great photos, check out WildAmmo.com.

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