Saturday's Mini Codices

Here is today's installment:

• Have you ever seen the reporter who keeps on hitting the people he interviews with a microphone?


• Have you ever seen the film that Karl Marx would have made if he had Disney at his disposal?


• The Shepherd's Scrapbook posted a link to a great PDF file posted which contains a full index of the works of John Owen! Not only does it have English phrases, but Greek/Latin/Hebrew terms and a Scripture index!


• Scott Stevens was a great NHL defenseman who delivered debilitating checks. His top ten checks are posted on the internet.


• Ever feel overwhelmed by the monstrous task of reading, replying to, and organizing your e-mail? Here are some helpful hints. And if that isn't enough, this is helpful too.

Educated at the Feet of Spammers?

Over the last little while, I've been receiving an increasing amount of spam advertising Liberty University distance education.

I think they may need to update their list of taboos. They've already tabooed things such as dancing, drinking alcohol, unauthorized petitions, flip-flops, capri pants, jeans, and possibly Calvinism :) Perhaps they should stop paying spammers and add spam to its list of ethical no-nos.

Please stop spamming me, Liberty University. Granted, you are not directly doing it. However, I highly doubt someone is voluntarily doing it at their own cost. Sending me spam with an opt out link is not good enough. I do not want e-mail from any Universities unless I specifically ask for it.

Spam: The Joke's On You

Since spam appears to be here to stay, some have decided to make the best of it. There are a couple projects dedicated to making use out of mounds of spam, and believe it or not, they are actually quite funny.

The first is Spamradio, a decidedly bizzare project. The folks at Spamradio have developed a system that processes a seemingly never ending pile of spam and uses text to voice technology to turn it into audio files with light background music. The result is a 24/7 stream of spam readings. I can't imagine someone listening to this for more than an hour, but just listening to it for a few minutes sure cracked me up! Perhaps the next project should be to figure out how to convert mass piles of spam into a renewable energy source!

Another project, probably more popular than Spamradio, is thespamletters.com. This is an attempt at replying to spam, with a vengance. The author of the site, Jonathan Land, acknowledges that most FROM addresses that spammers use are invalid, but that doesn't stop him! He takes secret pleasure in talking back. He writes humorous responses to spam he receives and posts it on his site. And sometimes he even gets replies! This is not some small project either, because now the project has become a published book! No Starch Press has published a number of these responses in a book entitled "The Spam Letters".

Sometimes when we can't seem to get rid of something, we need to learn to live with it. And these projects are dedicated to doing just that! Next, Spam Art! :)