Irony
Posted on May 31, 2006 Posted by John Scalzi 22 Comments
The message in the most recent bit of spam comments attempted at the site: “You have a great site, but I’m sorry you have a lot of spam :-( “. That’s not the irony. The irony is that it was all caught by my spam trap and never showed up on the site at all.
Sadly, however, if I don’t do a quick checkup every couple of hours, I would have a lot of spam on my site. Vigiliance is the price we pay for a site not to suck (comment spam-wise, at least).
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans and spam…
Anyone who even visits sites from a piece of spam (let alone buys from them) ought to be taken out and shot.
Seriously.
You mean I shouldn’t buy that stock that someone sent me a tip on this morning? Dang – so much for early retirement…
You only got one Hot-Tip? I get fifty or sixty a day, who knew there were so many stocks ready to skyrocket! Of course, I have to weed through the hundreds of Hoodia (Yeah, I could stand to lose 10 pounds or so) or the even worse, Viagra ads. Come on, I have been married 16 years, I have two kids and enjoy relations with my wife about 4 times a week. If I did the viagra thing, she would kick me out.
Who buys this stuff? We need to track them down and hurt them, and not some politically correct hand slapping kinda hurt, we need to lay them out with lead pipes.
Lead pipes – well, see, that’s where the Viagra comes in…
Who needs Viagra for that? Dammit man, I am only 43.
“I’m 37 – I’m not old!” – Dennis
I understand. But when you need it to last for 36 hours, nothing beats Viagra…
36 hours? I got kids to get to school, a business to run, food to get on the table and a wife who enjoys the 30 to 45 minutes she is getting now.
Not to mention, $6.00 a pill? Are they kidding, I don’t spend that much on the Ben & Jerrys I use now as an aphrodisiac!
“Anyone who even visits sites from a piece of spam (let alone buys from them) ought to be taken out and shot.”
Comment spam is a bit different. It’s designed to increase the Google PageRank of a Web site. If John didn’t delete his comment spam, the problem wouldn’t be Whatever readers visiting the aphrodisiac sites, the problem would be that Google would see the link from the Whatever’s comments as an “endorsement” of the product, so when someone does a Google search for “aphrodisiac,” the spammer’s page comes up first.
So the person doing the Googling never realizes he’s buying from a spammer.
All the more reason to shoot them, Dave.
You know, for years and years I have advised “be careful what you measure for” because if it involves people you will ALWAYS get it.
People will ALWAYS find a way. I suppose in the long view that is a good thing but it sure can be tiresome at times.
I forsee a time (now?) when Spammers replace Lawyers in jokes in the category of “most hated profession”.
Q: What do you call 1000 dead spammers at the bottom of the ocean?
A: A good start.
Q: Why do scientists perform experiments on spammers instead of rats?
A: Because they don’t get as emotionally attached.
Hey, it works….
I’ve just installed MT Keystrokes (http://overstated.net/projects/mt-keystrokes/) and it works very well to block spam from bots.
You’re right Dane.
Q: Why is spam so greasy?
A: Because it’s made from spammers.
hmm, too soylent green for middle of the week?
Q: How do you unload a truck full of spammers?
A: A pitchfork.
—
Q: Whats red and goes round and round?
A: A spammer in a blender.
I’ll try that, Kate.
Psst! Akismet for MovableType.
Just performing my monthly anti-spam huckstering duties…
I have good news and bad news:
First, the bad news is that a bus load of spammers drove into Lake Michigan.
The good news is that they’ve recovered the bus and it seems to work just fine.
I have good news and bad news:
First, the good news is a bus load of spammers drove into Lake Michigan.
The bad news is there were a couple of empty seats on the bus.
Since I live fairly close to the birthplace of Spam ™ I will brag that Hormel has a Spam question line and I actually know someone who works at Hormel answering the questions.
It seems the most common questions are “what is in this stuff” and “why is it so salty.”
The answers are “pork and spice (meaning salt)” and “low-salt pork is mushy. Yuck!”
I still think the war between spam and spam-countermeasures is the likeliest source for the evolution of artificial intelligence.
Tom,
F U CN RD THS U2 CN DFT FLTR AI.