Woo-hoo, we'll never have money problems again! And better yet, we'll be able to undertake all sorts of projects we previously deemed well beyond our financial means; for example, following up on the Virginia Tech supercomputer news, faithful viewer bRaD Weston took a gander at the list of the world's top supercomputers, busted out his nifty sliderule, and determined that we could build the fastest massively parallel cluster on the planet by welding together a mere 4,455 dual 2.0 GHz Power Mac G5s. Yesterday we didn't have a clue where we'd have gotten the $15 million or so to buy the G5s and the gear to hook 'em all together, but now we've got a plan to raise the cash in just a couple of weeks. Soon we'll be well on our way to Ultimate Supercomputer Ownership! (Take that, Earth Simulator! Molest us not with this pocket calculator stuff!)

No, we didn't just discover Matthew Lesko and his government grant spiel; we've known about that creepy guy for years, but always steered clear knowing full well that it's only a matter of time before Batman swoops in to pummel him silly. Anyway, as it turns out, all the big money is in the secondhand iTunes Music Store song market. Faithful viewer Jakester notes that a single 99-cent song listed on eBay has currently amassed bids topping out at over $2,500-- and there's still over five days left before the auction ends. We're talking a return of at least 250,000% (well, minus listing fees, we suppose) in one week's time. Now that's the kind of investment strategy we like to see! Basically, if it wouldn't make Fred Flintstone's eyes turn into dollar signs with that chipper little "ping" of a cash register, we're not interested.

Yes, we're well aware that none of Fred's get-rich-quick schemes ever worked and he was eventually reduced to scraping out a meager living by hawking Fruity Pebbles before he finally died destitute and alone, but we maintain we're a whole lot smarter than poor ol' Fred. For one thing, we never got locked out of the house by our prehistoric cat. (Well, okay, once. Maybe twice. But certainly not every freakin' week. "WILLLLMAAAAAA!!!")

So apparently, all we need to do to finance our World's Fastest Supercomputer is buy about 6,000 songs at the iTMS, list 'em on eBay, and just wait for the cash to start rolling in. Not that we have $6000 handy, mind you, but we do have three bucks's worth of credit left on our Visa, so we figure we'll start with just three songs, and once those are sold we'll have more than enough moolah to buy the 6,000 songs necessary to fund our 9,000-processor G5 juggernaut. Easy peasy!

We are a little surprised, of course, that so many people are so willing to shell out over two grand for a song they won't even be able to play; as you're all well aware, iTMS songs are tagged with the purchaser's Apple ID when downloaded, and can only be played on up to three different "authorized" computers at once. So unless the seller is planning on giving up his password and allowing the winning bidder to use up one of those "authorized" slots, said winning bidder will be the lucky recipient of... a 3.2 MB file.

It is perhaps even stranger that said bidders don't just buy their own copies of the song at the iTMS, in which case 1) they'd only pay a dollar, and 2) they'd wind up with a song they could actually play. But "ours is not to reason why, ours is but to make a ton of cash by selling useless files to rich stupid people who could buy working copies of the songs for a buck apiece at the iTMS." (You know, that adage never actually made sense to us until now. Neat.)

Now, we're sure there are a few of you out there who are convinced that none of the bidders is serious and the apparent transfer limitation of iTMS music is the whole point of this auction in the first place-- that the seller isn't really expecting to unload his beloved copy of Devin Vasquez's cover of "Double Dutch Bus" from the soundtrack of a movie starring Dana Carvey as some sort of rampaging turtle-humanoid. (Indeed, who could bear to part with it?) He is simply, you contend, "making a statement" about how you don't "own" the iTMS songs you pay for the same way you own a CD you buy at the store, which is of course resellable at will.

"Making a statement"? Puh-leeze. As if anyone would subvert the sanctitude of eBay with a frivolous listing. You should be ashamed at your lack of faith in the inherent goodness of humanity. Supercomputer stardom, here we come!

Addendum: And thus dies the dream; the auction link now just says "Invalid Item." Sigh. Anyone got $15 million we can borrow?