akicif: (no-thistle)
([personal profile] akicif Nov. 19th, 2004 06:51 pm)
I think I've just decided not to go to Interwossname.

I'd been debating it, and had more or less decided that I'm more likely to have the at-the-door membership price next summer than the current price before the end of the month - after all, I may magically acquire a better job or an unexpected tax rebate or something....

However, I don't buy from spammers. Full Stop. Ever. And I've just received spam - from someone who should surely know better - telling me to BUY NOW.

I was initially tempted to fire off a standard complaint to the spammer's ISP, but life's too short, the individual probably doesn't merit it, and they used one of those web-based "amusing domain name" hosts who tend to ignore complaints anyway (yes, I realise there are contradictions implicit in the above).

EDIT: Mail to spammer bounced - inbox full. Forwarded to the other interthingy address in the mail to pass on....

From: [identity profile] ayse.livejournal.com


You don't buy from spammers? Or you don't buy from advertisers?

I find myself remarkbly resentful of advertising these days, and less likely to buy from a company that inundates me with it.
ext_16733: (Default)

From: [identity profile] akicif.livejournal.com


Advertising is fine if I see it in a public medium, but junk mail, telesales operatives and spammers get the shortest shrift I can shave.
seawasp: (Default)

From: [personal profile] seawasp

Your description...


... "someone who should know better", "bounced -- inbox full" sounds very much like "someone who isn't spamming" and "someone whose system or email addy has been hijacked by a spammer".

Virii, worms, etc. allow spammers to frame others for their crimes.

From: [identity profile] munquie.livejournal.com

spammers


I don't pay any attention to spam itr annoys me the e-mails snail mails and cold calling.

I even get junk mail from my own bank who tries to sell me credit cards and bank accounts I already have with them. I have asked them over the years to stop the junk mail but they never do.

ext_16733: (Default)

From: [identity profile] akicif.livejournal.com

Re: Your description...


Well, perhaps, except that the spam is advertising a convention they're working on....

But I guess the fact that I can't think why someone would go out of their way to try and make the con look bad doesn't necessarily mean that someone wouldn't.

From: [identity profile] huaman.livejournal.com


This does not seem to be related. It's only a question about your icon. Why no thistles? I will forever associate thistles, incidentally, with the year 1768, thanks to the years I spent working at Encyclopaedia Britannica.
ext_16733: (Default)

From: [identity profile] akicif.livejournal.com

Oops


Um - I hadn't actually intended to use that icon - I'd meant to use this one.

The thistle one was made for [livejournal.com profile] anonymous_scots, which started as a community to help folk recover from an excess of tartan tat.

From: [identity profile] huaman.livejournal.com

Re: Oops


What, faux-kilt-wearing posers selling vegetarian haggis to tourists?
ext_16733: (Default)

From: [identity profile] akicif.livejournal.com

Re: Oops


That sort of thing, yes, except it's more likely here in Edinburgh that the faux-kilt is on the tourist. Oh, and MacSween's do an absolutely excellent veggie haggis - and I speak as a haggis-loving omnivore.

Actually, as the rules on importing food over in the States seem to bar sheep's stomachs full of oatmeal and offal, maybe a good veggie haggis would be an ideal souvenir to bring back?

Oh, and a year on the Brittanica? Wow.... was it fun? I guess it can't have been that bad 'cos I don't remember you ever mentioning it in adfp?

From: [identity profile] huaman.livejournal.com

Re: Oops


Yeah, I've actually never had a real haggis. But how do you make a veggie one? Is it in the stomach of a turnip or something? Or does it just contain no meat-type products other than the stomach?

The only reason I'm aware of the existence of the faux-kilt -- er or rather, that a real kilt is not "plaid wrap-around skirt with pleats and large safety pin" -- is because of my textile-related interests.

I actually spent 3 or 4 years at Britannica all told, and many things about it were really fabulous. It was a really, really neat thing to be working on... my first salaried computer dork job was the Macintosh network there, and then I joined the small UNIX group which was responsible for the then-fledgling Britannica Online. The IT folks there were top-notch. The lusers were lusers. ;-) I regrettably lost my entire amassed collection of print reference materials published by EB, when I got divorced, and I still miss those. I was working there when I first started hanging around adfp, and moonlighting at Tezcat, and then eventually went to Tezcat full-time. Or doubletime depending on how you look at it.

The only real down side to the place was... well, that it was a time of tremendous financial loss for the organization, leading up to it being sold. So there was a span of about 18 months when some 80% of the people who worked there were laid off, groups of 'em every Friday. It was after a long span of that -- including them laying off the director of the group in which I worked -- that I walked away. I still have my 3-year pin, some old business cards, and a few such souvenirs, and the folks I used to work with are pretty much all folks I'd love to hear from again one of these days.

Were I to say that I felt I had a real "calling" in life, it would be something involving the preservation and distribution of knowledge, in particular as new technologies can be applied to doing it. So to be entirely honest, working in IT at Britannica was a dream job for me, and something I will always, always be glad that I got to be a part of at some point in my life. And I mean, just imagine all the lore that I could access.
drplokta: (Default)

From: [personal profile] drplokta


If it's from someone you know, then it's not really spam, technically speaking. Spam is unsolicited email from someone with whom you don't have an existing relationship; your friends, and even acquaintances, are supposed to be sending you unsolicited email -- that's what it's for.
ext_16733: (Default)

From: [identity profile] akicif.livejournal.com


Hmmm. I don't think I can completely disagree with that - which would imply that I may be being just slightly unreasonable here. After all, if I quibble about form letters, that's yea-close to complaining about receiving fanzines....

From: [identity profile] armb.livejournal.com

Re: Oops


Lots of haggises for carnivores have plastic "skins". I imagine that vegetarian ones all do.

From: [identity profile] green-amber.livejournal.com

Re: Your description...


Do you really think of an email from a *convention* as spam? it seems to me it's just the sensible modern version of sending you a flyer or PR1.
ext_16733: (Default)

From: [identity profile] akicif.livejournal.com

Re: Your description...


Initially, yes. It's not a list I'd signed up for.

However, I was somewhat on the hasty side, and it appears that the email wasn't officially from the con as such.

I guess spam's just another of my hot buttons - and I seem to have a bunch of them these days.
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