No, You Probably Didn't Win A Brand New iPhone
I love email.
I think email just might be the most powerful communication medium ever invented. Think about it; in a matter of seconds I can fire off a note to a reader in Jakarta, Indonesia thanking her for pointing out that three months ago I stranded a preposition in my column about dog poop. I can let her know that her alert assistance is something I will always be grateful for.
The best thing about email is that it's all completely free - if you don't count the $49.95 I spend every month on my high speed internet connection, or the roughly $150,000 I have invested in computer equipment that is now worth a total of maybe $75 on a good day.
But there is a down side to all this instant intercontinental kvetching. It's known as SPAM.
For the benefit of my younger readers, the overwhelming majority of whom have grown up roasting their thighs reading email on their laptops, I should point out that back in the old days the word "SPAM" referred to a vaguely meat-like substance that you ate. When I was a kid in Hawaii there was nothing quite as wonderful as a SPAM sandwich, or SPAM and eggs.
On an interesting side note, I have never heard of a constipated Hawaiian .
Anyway, just imagine my disappointment later in life when the registered trademark of one of my favorite foods became synonymous with email Subject lines like, "You can be ugly and stupid, as long as have a big tool!" I'm pretty sure they are not talking about cordless drills.
So what this all boils down to is that each day I get somewhere between fifty and a hundred messages correcting my grammar or providing me with other information vital to my career or my life in general. For each one of these I get at least twenty unsolicited offers to improve myself in ways that involve enlarging or otherwise enhancing the form and function of certain body parts.
I also get offers to achieve the status I always wanted with a fake Rolex (yeah, but it's a Rolex! Kind of...), watch uncensored Internet TV for free (you can't beat the price, and it's UNCENSORED!), get a Master's Degree without attending any classes (I'm thinking that just might be where Sarah Palin's strategists went to school), earn hundreds a day working out of my home (hundreds of what?), buy software for all needs and budgets (with all the documentation dated 1996 and written in Mandarin), or discover the "blueberry" path to better sex in America(?!?).
I particularly enjoy the note I get about once a month from the widow of a Nigerian diplomat who perished in an unfortunate automobile accident, leaving $25 million in an offshore bank account. The Widow has utmost faith in my righteousness and reliable nature, and she is sure that God wants her to give me all that money so I can make good use of it. The note is always addressed to "fartengood@learnedsofar.com" and begins, "My Dearest Friend fartengood."
Then there are the "giveaways." Call me a cynic, but I am willing to bet that not a lot of people have ever actually received a brand-new iPhone in return for filling out a "brief online survey." Oh sure, these things look perfectly legitimate, asking for your Social Security number and a major credit card just to make sure you're over eighteen. Still, I have my doubts.
So what can we do about all this SPAM? If we can't stop it, can we at least control how many SPAM messages make it to our In Box? Does the bandwidth wasted by SPAM threaten the future of the Web and our entire civilization? Do beautiful horny young girls right in my town really want to get to know me better? Don't you get tired of all these stupid semi-rhetorical questions?
Next week - What's Not To Love About Hackers?
Copyright © 2009, Michael Ball
What I've Learned So Far... by Mike Ball is a syndicated feature distributed exclusively by North Star Writers Group. If you enjoy this work, please contact your local newspaper's editors and ask them to carry it.
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I really love the NASCAR
I really love the NASCAR event, the Coca-Cola 600. These cars aren't nearly as quick as the ones they drive in Indy or Formula 1 races, but they are fast enough. They are also built so the drivers can do a fair amount of bumping and banging each other around, so a driver trying to work his way through race traffic at 200 miles per hour is just like any of us regular folks trying to make it through the parking lot at Costco.
In fact, one of the biggest draws of NASCAR is that cars are supposed to remind us of the ones we all drive every day - 642-982 especially those of us who have decals for our headlights and taillights, run engines with just a little less than 900 horsepower, and are sponsored by Viagra.
HP0-D07
1Y0-A08
The women of NASCAR stand alone - usually with one hip provocatively shoved out to the side. These girls are pretty much walking advertisements for chemically enhanced hair E20-001
color and surgically enhanced body parts. As of this writing, I have never met a man who had any sort of problem with that
I really love the NASCAR
I really love the NASCAR event, the Coca-Cola 600. These cars aren't nearly as quick as the ones they drive in Indy or Formula 1 races, but they are fast enough. They are also built so the drivers can do a fair amount of bumping and banging each other around, so a driver trying to work his way through race traffic at 200 miles per hour is just like any of us regular folks trying to make it through the parking lot at Costco.
In fact, one of the biggest draws of NASCAR is that cars are supposed to remind us of the ones we all drive every day - 642-982 especially those of us who have decals for our headlights and taillights, run engines with just a little less than 900 horsepower, and are sponsored by Viagra.
HP0-D07
1Y0-A08
The women of NASCAR stand alone - usually with one hip provocatively shoved out to the side. These girls are pretty much walking advertisements for chemically enhanced hair E20-001
color and surgically enhanced body parts. As of this writing, I have never met a man who had any sort of problem with that
I really love the NASCAR
I really love the NASCAR event, the Coca-Cola 600. These cars aren't 642-832 nearly as quick as the ones they drive in Indy or Formula 1 races, but they are fast enough. They are also built so the drivers can do a fair amount of bumping and banging each other around, so a driver trying to work his way through race traffic at 200 miles per hour is just like any of us regular folks trying to make it through the parking lot at Costco.
In fact, one of the biggest draws of NASCAR is that cars are supposed to remind us of the ones we all drive every day - especially those of us who have decals for our headlights and taillights, run engines with just a little less than 900 horsepower, and are sponsored by Viagra.
640-721
The women of NASCAR stand alone - usually with one hip provocatively 000-669
shoved out to the side. These girls are pretty much walking advertisements for chemically enhanced hair color and surgically 1z0-043 enhanced body parts. As of this writing, I have never met a man who had any sort of problem with that
Oh spam sucks..
The latest spamination is happening on twitter.. Everyone and their brother has a signup site to add followers.. Silly to have a bunch of people who don't know you, all following you, but whatever. Spam sucks. Fight spam!
The question is...
... why? Does anybody actually give their credit card number to these creeps?
Yea Really
I also dont understand why they do like that, even all the time we watch on T.V that dont give your C.C number on any phone call or Internet without watching their security.affordable seo services