On my various email accounts, I get about 100 “spam” emails per day. I’ve been on the Internet for about 20 years, visited lots of forums and blogs, purchased lots of books and other items, and…spam is just a fact of life. My wonderful software SpamBayes takes care of 98% of it.
One of my early entries on this blog was on the occasion of my first “blog spam”. There are automated programs (bots) out there that log onto blogs and try to leave innocuous messages–usually about, guess what, pharmaceuticals and viagra and online gambling.
Since then I have had about 50,000 spam attempts, but I have software to take care of that also. I only have to manually delete a handful per day. But lately there has been an onslaught. The last 24 hours: over 1500 spam attempts. (I only had to deal with half a dozen or so).
So if you ever see a spammer, punch him/her for me.
Little known fact: The original spammers were, of all things, lawyers. So perhaps this is just my cross to bear…
“SHANGHAI — When a friend whispered several stock tips to Yan Caigen last year, the investor snapped up 30,000 shares in one of them, a cement company. The reason: the stock’s auspicious ticker code, 600881, which contains a double-eight.
“I believe good codes will bring good luck,” says Mr. Yan, who parks himself most days in front of a trading screen at a Shanghai brokerage, Shenyin & Wanguo Securities Co. Indeed, shares in Jilin Yatai (Group) Co., the cement company he bought, promptly tripled, earning him about $50,000. Mr. Yan gives credit for the performance to the two “8s” in the stock’s numeric ticker symbol, which he considers a lucky combination.
“Part superstition and part self-fulfilling prophecy, numerology is a basic trading strategy in China. The philosophy reflects the widespread belief in Chinese society that numbers contain clues to good fortune….” [Rest of article]
“A Dutch reality television show in which a terminally ill woman is to select one of three contestants to receive her kidneys when she dies is to air this week despite criticism that it pushes the boundaries of the format too far. “The government has called for De Grote Donorshow (The Big Donor show) to be dropped because it is “unethical” and “wretched” but the broadcaster BNN said it would go ahead to highlight the difficulties of searching for kidney donors.
“In the show, due to be broadcast on Friday, a woman identified only as Lisa, 37, will select a recipient based on their history, profile and conversations with their families and friends. Throughout the 80-minute show, viewers will be invited to send Lisa text messages to advise her….” [Rest of article]
***
Then again, maybe if it heightens awareness of the need for organ donorship this is not such a bad thing. Shame on you if you don’t have a donor card in your wallet!
The Freakonomics Blog has more here, with links to other articles they’ve had on the issue.
[Update: By now, all of you have probably learned that this story was a hoax. I feel so used! Actually, I had waited a day to see if there was any truth to it, but when I saw it in the newspaper, well golly–I figured that now it just had to be true! Technically, it was a semi-hoax in that there really was a program promoted in the Netherlands with this premise that turned out, just before airing, to have been this hoax to create awareness for the organ donation problem]
“CAIRO, Egypt — Customs officers at Cairo’s airport on Thursday detained a man bound for Saudi Arabia who was trying to smuggle 700 live snakes on a plane, airport authorities said.
“The officers were stunned when a passenger, identified as Yahia Rahim Tulba, told them his carryon bag contained live snakes after he was asked to open it.
“Tulba opened his bag to show the snakes to the police and asked the officers, who held a safe distance, not to come close. Among the various snakes, hidden in small cloth sacks, were two poisonous cobras, authorities said….”[Rest of article]
Apparently, there is a new documentary being released that is fairly anti-Israel. I don’t have strong feelings pro or con, myself, but after looking at the following clip I have to ask: Are these numbers really true?:
“Female hammerhead sharks can reproduce without having sex, scientists confirm.
“The evidence comes from a shark at Henry Doorly Zoo in Nebraska which gave birth to a pup in 2001 despite having had no contact with a male.
“Genetic tests by a team from Belfast, Nebraska and Florida prove conclusively the young animal possessed no paternal DNA, Biology Letters journal reports.
“The type of reproduction exhibited had been seen before in bony fish but never in cartilaginous fish such as sharks.
“Parthenogenesis, as this type of reproduction is known, occurs when an egg cell is triggered to develop as an embryo without the addition of any genetic material from a male sperm cell….”[Rest of article]
“A Dutch reality television show in which a terminally ill woman is to select one of three contestants to receive her kidneys when she dies is to air this week despite criticism that it pushes the boundaries of the format too far. “The government has called for De Grote Donorshow (The Big Donor show) to be dropped because it is “unethical” and “wretched” but the broadcaster BNN said it would go ahead to highlight the difficulties of searching for kidney donors.
Actually, I had waited a day to see if there was any truth to it, but when I saw it in the newspaper, well golly–I figured that now it just had to be true! Technically, it was a semi-hoax in that there really was a program promoted in the Netherlands with this premise that turned out, just before airing, to have been this hoax to create awareness for the organ donation problem]
