Spam attacks Spam. Film at Eleven. Hormel should just give up and save itself the lawyer fees. The funny thing about this article is they got the origin of the slang use wrong. It actually began on MUDs, Multi-User Domains/Dungeons, where are interacting text based environments where users can roleplay or chat. The term Spam was coined when a newbie, or a user with malicious intent, would log on and start to post large volumes of text just to get attention. So the important dialogue would get 'Spammed' off the screen. This was a real problem as most people were on 2400 baud modems or slower at the time. Eventaully the offender would get @toad'd (turned into a toad) and forced to behave or be kicked off the MUD.

Thus endeth the history lesson for today.

Webcasters fight back. The internet offers many new exciting technologies. Among those are the ability to provide mini-radio stations where content can be tailored to micro-audiences (around 100 to 1000 listeners at time). Something I would love to do. However, with the way royalties are set up now, the cost would be prohibitive even though the technology is dirt simple.

The old saying on the internet is "Information wants to be free." Free as in free from constraints, one of which is high prices. If prices are high enough to be considered censorship (by the owner of the information of the gov't) then the internet will consider that as damage and route around it. The information will then be made available in some other manner.

In this case, I think it behoves the recording industry to practically pay people to set up these micro internet stations. It's free publicity of the good kind. Right now all they're getting is bad press and they're not winning over any new customers that way.

Posit for the day. Are the Harry Potter books an allegory for the publishing world? Do the forces of Dumbledore the JK Rowling's of the world represent the people who write for the masses? How about Voldemort's group? Are they the high-falutin writers penning for the elite readers? And the muggles? The general audience for whom the fight for control over.

I don't know. But it's an interesting reading of the texts.

You Are A Pirate!


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Falling Angels Art: Air Force 1st Lt. Tamara Long Archuleta was killed on Sunday March 23, on a Mercy mission in Afganistan when the helicopter she was co-piloting crashed. This site has been left up as a tribute to her.