On Mon, 4 Feb 2008 06:33:12 GMT, djheydt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Dorothy J Heydt)
wrote:
>In article <fo65t4$32e$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>Keith F. Lynch <kfl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> Keith F. Lynch <kfl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>> You're letting the spammers cut us off from each other. Their
>>>> intention may not be to shut down email between people who don't
>>>> already know each other, but it's the most obvious bad effect of
>>>> their actions.
>>
>>> They're not cutting me off from anybody I want to hear from. If
>>> I recognize the sender and/or the subject line, I read the mail.
>>
>>You never want to hear from anyone you don't already know?
>
>Depends. What are they talking about? What's the subject line
>going to say?
>>
>>Last month someone I had never heard of sent me HTML email with a
>>subject line of, "Can I ask this question?" Both HTML email and such
>>a generic subject line are typical of spams.
>
>I'll take your word for it, though I don't think I've ever seen
>one under that title. Still, if I got an email from some unknown
>sender with that title, I'd probably open it and look at the
>first screenful. I can do that with impunity because my UNIX
>system doesn't, nay, cannot open attachments. If "Can I ask you
>a question is followed by "Do you crave humongous wealth?" or "Do
>you want to satisfy your female in bed?" I hit d. This doesn't
>happen very often, that I have to open a message to discover it's
>spam.
>
>Note also that if anybody sends me anything in HTML it will come
>out in the form of scattered recognizable words interspersed with
>gibberish. If I actually know the person and the topic is
>something I know about, I'll send mail back saying "Please send
>me only straight ASCII text; my newsreader can't read HTML." If
>the mail (to the extent I can decipher it) is trying to sell me
>something or otherwise annoy me, I just hit d.
>
>>> I glance at the list of names/subjects every time I log in, and I
>>> can tell in a second or two that nothing on it deserves reading, and
>>> I apply the dreaded D STAR.
>>
>>You obviously get a lot less spam than I do. I usually get a few
>>hundred thousand each day. Sometimes over a million.
>
>This is quite true. I get maybe a couple dozen per day?
>Anywhere from zero to ten per login, where the number of logins
>per day is maybe a dozen. I am not at all certain HOW you manage
>to get a few hundred thousand spams per day; I can only say (for
>about the fourth time), you do what seems best to you in your
>situation, and I'll do what seems best to me in mine.
>
>>True, except that anyone not in certain spammy countries can email me
>>on my current disposable address, which can be found at the URL that's
>>at the bottom of all my Usenet postings, websites, etc.
>
>For the fifth time, if it works for you, do it.
>>
>>>> I understand that bayesian filtering works well for people who get
>>>> not more than a few thousand spams per day. You might look into
>>>> that.
>>
>>> /googles bayesian filtering
>>
>>> Oh good grief, now you want me to study higher mathematics.
>>
>>You don't need to understand Bayes' theorem to run such software any
>>more than you need to understand Maxwell's equations to listen to a
>>radio, or the Navier-Stokes equations to ride in an airplane.
>
>Now you're beginning to sound like Gary Farber -- remember? --
>when he was trying to tell me how to filter things on the Web,
>and kept using terms I didn't understand, and getting angry when
>I said I didn't understand them, and saying "You aren't stupid!
>You understand this stuff! Just do what I tell you and it will
>all work!"
Translation, you don't have to understand it to use it. Let it be a
magic black box that does its thing.
But than as you keep pointing out, what your doing now works for you,
so there's no need to change it.
BTW I found your Mongolian fly analogy amusing in its own right.
>I wound up saying,
>
>>I think I have finally figured it out.
>>
>>Gary really *IS* speaking Outer Mongolian. He's been speaking it
>>for several years and although he still has an accent, other
>>speakers can understand him. But, because it's not his native
>>language and because he isn't a professional Outer Mongolian
>>bard, he assumes that everyone he meets here in Manchuria, not
>>far from the Outer Mongolian border, speaks it at least as well
>>or better than he does.
>>
>>Stretching the analogy to breaking point....
>>
>>So here I come, and I don't speak Outer Mongolian, I barely speak
>>Manchurian, and I'm complaining about those nasty little flies I
>>run into every time I go to Outer Mongolia, and he says, "Oh, the
>>paddy flies? All you have to do is burn zwoot on the household
>>altar."
>>
>>I say, "I don't think we have a household altar, and what's
>>zwoot?"
>>
>>........
>>
>>Many, many misunderstandings later, we finally figure out that
>>what's been bothering me is not paddy flies but house flies,
>>which he doesn't even notice because they don't sting, and anyway
>>the remedy for *them* is not to burn zwoot on the household altar
>>but to sacrifice a gledehopper and bury it under the threshold.
>>By which time Gary is in despair over how dense I am and I am
>>three-quarters decided never to try visiting Outer Mongolia
>>again.
>
>So let's not go there any more.
>
>Dorothy J. Heydt
>Albany, California
>djheydt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America,
and to the republic which it established, one nation, from many peoples,
promising liberty and justice for all.
Feel free to use the above variant pledge in your own postings.
Tim Merrigan
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