Putting Spam back in the can
p2pnet news view | Advertising:- “jon, take a peek at the second Devil’s Advocate post,” says frequent poster Dreddsnik, referring to a supposed Reader’s Write from DA, another well-known p2pnet comment poster.
“Clicking on his name takes you to a Green tea diet site,” says Dredd. “I don’t think DA would do that, and the I love your Blog tagline is usually an indicator of a bot.”
Nope. He definitely wouldn’t. And it could be a bot — there’s a type which picks sentences out of posts.
But maybe not. I’m also increasingly having to deal with one-off spams posted by hand, and this could be one of the latter.
FYI, I’ve copied the phony AD post below »»»
Devil’s Advocate Says:
June 13th, 2009 at 8:44 am edit
” … they discovered programming errors in the code used to process website requests. These would result in buffer over-run conditions on all computers running the software.”
Isn’t that special?
The well-known and primarily breached hole – the buffer overrun!
If this is true, and the Chinese Government continues with the campaign anyway, they would be, in no uncertain terms, legislating everyone leave their computers open to serious vulnerability issues.
BTW I love your blog!
Also, Akismet — which at current count says it’s caught 1,176,841 spams at an “overall accuracy rate of 99.992%” — seems to be getting a little over-enthusiastic and less, not more, accurate, putting genuine posts into the spam line.
I always look at it’s ‘kill’ list and I hope I undelete most of the incorrectly flagged Readers’ Writes.
But if you posted a comment and it didn’t show up, that might be why, in which case please accept my humble apologies.
SPAM has had enough of, well, spam.
So what’s Spam all about?
To some Britons, especially those 50 and older, it`s a word forged from `spiced` and `ham` to represent, pink, chopped ham and pork rammed into square tins, as the The Guardian once described it.
During WWII its maker, Hormel Foods, gave allied troops 15 million cans a week, says the Hormel web site.
But to the Net generations spam means garbage promo emails, adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which a group of Vikings sang a chorus of `SPAM, SPAM, SPAM . . . ` in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation, says Hormel`s legal & copyright info section.
Hormel got a little upset when I used various presentations of the companies spam cans in posts mentioning spam — the ejunque kind, that is.
Said company lawyer Kevin Jones said in an email »»»
We recently became aware of your Web site and your use of our SPAM® product image, with the ban symbol over it, which is used on your site in a manner that draws a close association, and a negative one at that, between our famous trademark SPAM for meat and other products and the practice of sending unsolicited commercial email (UCE) (spam), .
While we oppose UCE, we object to your visual use of our product as a symbol of UCE. We have a policy of keeping our product image separate from information on spam or UCE. The reason for this is that we do not want to increase the connection or association between our product and the very negative image arising from this disfavored practice. It`s bad enough that the same word is used; it is even worse when our product image gets dragged in, as well.
Fair enough. And around the same time, Monty Python’s Spamalot, the musical comedy “lovingly ripped off from” the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, as the Wikipedia puts it, had just opened and predictably, it featured a golden Spam can — with Hormel’s permission.
I agreed to stop using Spam, the real one, and asked Kevin if in return, he’d be cool with sending me a Spamalot Spam Can in return, which he kindly agreed to do.
It still sits in a place of honour beside my laptop. 
Meanwhile, below is the now-famous Monty Python Viking spam skit which started it all »»»
Jon Newton – p2pnet
June, 2009
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June 13th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Yeah!
It was less than a week ago, I think, that I saw one of my comments duplicated and reposted with an added line – something like, “Looking forward to more of these posts!”. I also noticed my handle was in blue, as it had a link attached to it that I didn’t bother to check.
No, I definitely wouldn’t spam this site (or any other), and I’m glad people see it that way.
I did also notice there are a few other comment posts on various pages over the last week that have similarly curious URLs linked to the posters’ names. Some people really need to get a life, eh?!
June 13th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Ya might know I cleaned my cookies out, and ended up posting a “Reader’s Write” (above).
Just for the record, it was me.
: )
June 13th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
hghjgkhj
June 13th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
coment
June 13th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I find it funny.
Where there is a will there is a way.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
“The well-known and primarily breached hole – the buffer overrun!”
Yeah, that’s either a spam post or Devil’s Advocate has a brain tumor.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
“Yeah, thatâs either a spam post or Devilâs Advocate has a brain tumor.”
It wasn’t that statement that was the spam.
I did make that post.
It was the duplication of that comment, along with an additional sentence and a hyperlink that was the spam.
I’m almost afraid to ask…
What is it about the “buffer overrun” statement you thought represented a brain tumor??
June 13th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
” Iâm almost afraid to askâ¦
What is it about the âbuffer overrunâ statement you thought represented a brain tumor?? ”
Don’t ask.
I can pretty much guarantee the answer will not be worth yours, or anyone’s time.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Devil’s Advocate:
“What is it about the ‘buffer overrun’ statement you thought represented a brain tumor??”
The fact that it reads like “word salad.” Although on second look, it makes perfect sense given the line you quoted from the article, which I must have missed the first time.
Dreddsnik:
“Donât ask.
I can pretty much guarantee the answer will not be worth yours, or anyoneâs time.”
As opposed to the time wasted telling someone not to ask when they’ve already asked?
June 14th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Troll somewhere else, kid.
June 14th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
you keep proving my point.
June 14th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
arguing online is like the Special Olympics, its fun to watch, and the retard always wins.
June 14th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
” arguing online is like the Special Olympics, its fun to watch, and the retard always wins. ”
I bow to the winner of the thread
June 14th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
“you keep proving my point.”
Your point, apparently, being that my misinterpreting someone else’s post gives you carte blanche to make arrogant snipes against me?
You needlessly inserted yourself into a misunderstanding between two other posters. You were wrong to do that. Get over it.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Both of you 2-minutes for bitch-slapping each other.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Yup, see.
He’ll keep right on jawing with absolutely nothing to back up his claim,
proving my point that he can’t contribute positively, only swing his club.
Back to your bridge, toothless one.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Why do you continue to argue what’s already been settled? Do you seek to embarrass yourself worse than you already have?
This is the last post I leave in this thread. Continue to argue as much as you like; I won’t be reading it.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
ok, see ya around
June 17th, 2009 at 2:32 am
“Why can’t we awwl just get alowng??!”
: )
September 17th, 2009 at 4:34 am
Her whole family is preditory. That father of hers complaining HARD about his $150,000/year salary.
Now we all know where she gets it.
Should be automated anyways. You let the blacks in New Orleans off.
Barely skilled labor.
Reincarnated as milking cows, ironically.