I do mean to return to my scheduled academic discussion soon but... well, it's the long weekend. Let's take our time. Specifically, let's discuss this piece of spam I received today:
To: yournotgettingmyemailaddressthis@easily.com
Reply-To: ceo.markhenry@ymail.com
Subject: Hello Beautiful
Hello,
I am looking for someone intelligent, ambitious, successful and not afraid of a challenge in a relationship. My ideal partner is very
attractive and has the maturity and self-confidence.
I'm looking for someone who considers herself extraordinary and wants the same. Someone educated, successful and ambitious and looking for a challenge in life
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Mark
ceo.markhenry@ymail.com
Sgt Larry Wayne
There are several questions that arise. Do I have the maturity? What list has my email address been put on? Does Mark Henry know my blog is authored by a teenage girl between 18 and 25 years old? (Update: according to typeanalyzer.com, I am no longer a teenage girl, but a logical and analytical type. The plebians go on to say that I may appear "arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what you are talking about." Honestly, I don't know why I keep going to the proles for an opinion.) Why the repetition of "ambitious," "successful," and "challenge," but not "intelligent" or educated? What is the connection between CEO Mark Henry and Sgt Larry Wayne? Are they one and the same? Is it a pseudonym? Or are they two separate people? And if they are two separate people, exactly what sort of a relationship are they propositioning? What kind of a girl do they think I am?
So many questions. So few answers. Such is life.
Later Days.
Addendum: And no, it isn't entirely lost on me that I'm interrupting a series on academic professionalism to discuss some spam guy hitting on me. This is where that "deliberate choice to engage personal and professional" thing comes in.
Showing posts with label email. Show all posts
Showing posts with label email. Show all posts
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Fwd: Re: FYI!!! YOU COULD ALWAYS ALREADY BE !NTERPELL@tTED!!!!!
I'm sitting in on a course looking at new media genres this term, and this week, we're looking at the email. I think the course itself is fascinating, as it really puts into perspective how many new forms of communication technology has provided over the past century or two. A telephone conversation is different from a face-to-face conversation is different from a Skype conversation. The convention for replying to an email is not the convention for replying to a letter. A show produced for online broadcast is not the same as a TV show. A podcast is not a radio show. And so on and so forth. And the studying these forms lead to new social understandings and opportunities. After all, this blog wouldn't exist if I hadn't signed up for a course a year back. For the class on email, we've been assigned the task of finding email how-to guides, and it's been illuminating to how much further the email genre can be broken down. There's guides for business emails, guides for friendly emails (and I love that society is in such a place that there are people who require a formula to write to a friend), and even guides for blind date emails.
But what about the other, neglected email genres? I envision a world where we will one day provide guides for the lesser known categories:
stalker-mail: Because on the Internet, you're always 300 feet away.
drunken email: All the fun of the drunken phone call, with the added bonus of delayed anxiety.
break-up email: "I think we should see other people. Let me know when you get this."
...okay, that's all I could think of. This is why I'm not writing a comedy blog. I'm not here to amuse you, dammit.
But what about the other, neglected email genres? I envision a world where we will one day provide guides for the lesser known categories:
stalker-mail: Because on the Internet, you're always 300 feet away.
drunken email: All the fun of the drunken phone call, with the added bonus of delayed anxiety.
break-up email: "I think we should see other people. Let me know when you get this."
...okay, that's all I could think of. This is why I'm not writing a comedy blog. I'm not here to amuse you, dammit.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
LIKE SAND THROUGH AN HOURGLASS
About this time last weekend, I took a long hard look at my email account from the University of Someplace Else and decided that it was time I created an electronic archive of the various emails there, so I'd have my own record, just in case. I made it to about the 2007 emails before calling it quits, largely because of my own discomfort in learning that the archive was at this point 260 pages long and I had gone through less than a third of the total body of emails. I'll do the rest later, I told myself.
But I didn't know... just how little... time I had left.
This morning, I found out that some time between yesterday and now, the University had deleted my account. Which was fair enough--I mean, I haven't been a student there for five months now. But I wish they had the simple courtesy to have given me some sort of warning about it. I had to send out a half dozen "change your address book emails," which was annoying. (These were mostly people I had needed to contact between the transition from Someplace Else to Blank, which meant I didn't have my Blank email address yet when I contacted them. I really should have told them to go over to the new one, but there didn't seem to be any pressing need. Until now, when there was nothing but press.) And I'm sure I missed someone important, but I guess there's no way of knowing.
What really bugs me though is that the reason I started the archiving project to begin was because I wanted to preserve those emails, as a record of who I was. And all that information is gone into the internet ether. I saved a lot of it, I guess, but if I had just known what was coming, I could have kept it all. Sigh.
I guess there's two lessons here. First, a "carpe diem" sort of thing: don't put off archiving until tomorrow what you want to archive today. Second: in my digital media course last term, one of the motifs that kept coming in the scholarly papers was that people are unaware that the records they leave on the internet persist. Well, this case shows that the opposite is true as well--things you think are set in stone can disappear just as quickly. The whole incident has shown to me just how fragile my online records are. Facebook pictures, other email addresses, even this blog-- I don't "own" any of that, and it could disappear overnight and there'd be nothing I could do.
And given the ominous rumblings my computer's been making, even making stored copies may not be sufficient. Back it up, boys and girls, 'cause those eggs shoudn't be in one basket.
And for the record, yes, I do understand that I was naive to believe these emails would always be there in the first place. Still, nothing irretrievable was lost (so far as I know, knock on electrodes), and an Important Lesson was learned.
Later Days.
*UPDATE* As my brother pointed out, I should really mention that after I tried again an hour or so later, the email address was working again. But I maintain that *overall* point re: the tenuous nature of electronically stored information still stands.
But I didn't know... just how little... time I had left.
This morning, I found out that some time between yesterday and now, the University had deleted my account. Which was fair enough--I mean, I haven't been a student there for five months now. But I wish they had the simple courtesy to have given me some sort of warning about it. I had to send out a half dozen "change your address book emails," which was annoying. (These were mostly people I had needed to contact between the transition from Someplace Else to Blank, which meant I didn't have my Blank email address yet when I contacted them. I really should have told them to go over to the new one, but there didn't seem to be any pressing need. Until now, when there was nothing but press.) And I'm sure I missed someone important, but I guess there's no way of knowing.
What really bugs me though is that the reason I started the archiving project to begin was because I wanted to preserve those emails, as a record of who I was. And all that information is gone into the internet ether. I saved a lot of it, I guess, but if I had just known what was coming, I could have kept it all. Sigh.
I guess there's two lessons here. First, a "carpe diem" sort of thing: don't put off archiving until tomorrow what you want to archive today. Second: in my digital media course last term, one of the motifs that kept coming in the scholarly papers was that people are unaware that the records they leave on the internet persist. Well, this case shows that the opposite is true as well--things you think are set in stone can disappear just as quickly. The whole incident has shown to me just how fragile my online records are. Facebook pictures, other email addresses, even this blog-- I don't "own" any of that, and it could disappear overnight and there'd be nothing I could do.
And given the ominous rumblings my computer's been making, even making stored copies may not be sufficient. Back it up, boys and girls, 'cause those eggs shoudn't be in one basket.
And for the record, yes, I do understand that I was naive to believe these emails would always be there in the first place. Still, nothing irretrievable was lost (so far as I know, knock on electrodes), and an Important Lesson was learned.
Later Days.
*UPDATE* As my brother pointed out, I should really mention that after I tried again an hour or so later, the email address was working again. But I maintain that *overall* point re: the tenuous nature of electronically stored information still stands.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)