Category: Geekery

Taking a break

I’m on a group of mailing lists. Over the years I’ve gotten a reputation for answering rhetorical questions. That’s partly true – most of the lists live on my system, so I see them before anybody else, so if I know the answer I will answer, without minutely analysing the post to see if it’s a rhetorical question. I think it’s better to err on the side of being helpful – most people would rather see thier question answered, rather than not answered because people couldn’t figure out if it was rhetorical or not. So sue me.

I also have a habit, when somebody makes a ironic statement, of trying to amplify the irony by playing off what they’re saying. Sometimes I do it right, sometimes it falls flat.

Unfortunately because of the first reputation, unlike when other people do it and it doesn’t work right, people just assume I’m totally fucking stupid, and pile all over me. And I’m god damned sick and tired of it. So I’m taking a break. I’m not going to say anything on any of those mailing lists for as long as I can. Maybe if I don’t give them any ammunition, they’ll stop piling on me. Already in the last hour I’ve had to stop myself twice where I was going to reply to a message.

The saddest thing is that these people are the people I consider my best friends in the world. Maybe I need some new friends.

Finally!

FOXNews.com – Business – Dell to Stop Using Indian Call Center for Corporate Customers

Dell has finally realized that outsourcing isn’t such a great money saver if the lousy service drives away your customers. I’ve emailed for customer support from three different companies recently, and in each case I got back a response that indicated that the person responding didn’t read or understand the question, and merely copied whatever chunks of the FAQ used the same nouns that I did, and in all cases it was signed with an Indian name.

I’m not saying that non-Indians are incapable of bad customer support, quite the contrary, but my experience with non-Indians has only been mostly bad, compared to totally bad experience with Indians.

Ok, it’s art, but not random.

In Rants and Revelations: Art in spammer subject lines I saw something that looked like art in what I thought were random words generated by spammers. Well, JoAnne just pointed out to me that the words actually come from The Master and the Margarita by Bulgakov.

Amazing. I assume that means the spammers just grabbed some text file they found on-line and used it to generate phrases, and not that they are secretly highly literate and fans of english translations of obscure russian authors.

Art in spammer subject lines

I was grepping my spam collection to see all the spam I’d gotten from the spammer who evidently has problems with his substitution script and leaves “%RND_UC_CHAR[2-8]” in the subject lines of all his spams. And I was struck by a curious poetic quality of the random words on the rest of the subject lines. Here’s what I have collected:

grep RND_UC_CHAR Mail/yes.spam
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], moment only because
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], anyone his passport
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], the master held
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], poured water into
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], of haze before
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], under a black
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], lengthening the shadows
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], each other only
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], felt cold under
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], he quite simply
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], he quite simply
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], dont know about
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], having got nowhere
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], is there beer?’
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], seeing someone come
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], face was half
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], that he would
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], apollonovichs young relation
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], but he gave
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], made one more
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], made one more
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and yet each
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], a thunderclap right
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], the interpreter deftly
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], i’ve been sent
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], put his head
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], as luck would
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], ivan nikolaevichs apprehensions
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], the bell started
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and here some
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], turning the barmans
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], good god!’ riukhin
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], good god!’ riukhin
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], he asked: yeshua
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], here it comes
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], at the same
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and once more
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], woland is simply
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], balls always assemble
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], a finnish knife
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], possible to make
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], investigation was going
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], many hanging about
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], who is this
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], here styopa turned
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], the same tone
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], crowds of guests
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], brilliant numbers will
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], finally the century
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and here’s something
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], he had looked
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], what had happened
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], wearing only black
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], beyond the housing
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], had already been
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], to the hairy
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], the investigation appeared
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], military chlamys with
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], anyone his passport
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and the first
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and the most
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], fifthstorey window three
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], glass; street sweepers

Not as good as “The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed”, but it’s getting there.