"I'm calling epic troll of the US-Internet World on this one."
That would be magnificent and a giant feat of social engineering, but I don't think it is. It's too subtle, there are too many unknown factors to be able to control the situation (how were they going to know that a person with a high-profile blog would respond with just a claim of 100$?) and the time line is too long for a troll. Nor is there a (positive) connection to any brand.
no, a glance at the @Cookssource twitterfeed (referring, amongst other things, to Poe's Law) makes it clear that to a large extent this is an epic trolling. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poes_Law
That would be magnificent and a giant feat of social engineering, but I don't think it is. It's too subtle, there are too many unknown factors to be able to control the situation (how were they going to know that a person with a high-profile blog would respond with just a claim of 100$?) and the time line is too long for a troll. Nor is there a (positive) connection to any brand.
But if it is, hats off.