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It used to be that there wasn't pre-wrapped bacon.

That issue has been addressed, at least. (On that page, you have to scroll down a bit to find it. It's called "fully cooked", meaning that you just unwrap it and eat it.)

And you don't even need a million dollars to buy it.

I suggest that your product, no matter how you may percieve it has NEVER been a favorite.

More than 122 million cans of SPAM are sold worldwide each year. In the U.S., a can of SPAM is purchased every 3 seconds. ...Over 6.7 million cans are sold annually in Hawaii, which equals 5.5 cans per year per Hawaiian.

Whether or not the Spam brand name is being diluted, everything I see says that sales of SPAM and other Hormel products are up, up, up. Surely name recognition has increased in the last five years, arguably because the word "spam" has become so commonplace.

The Specialty Foods and All Other segments continued their strong performance from the first quarter and the Grocery Products segment reported impressive growth in microwave tray items, HORMEL bacon bits and the SPAM family of products....

The All Other segment improvement in sales and operating profit was driven by the International operating segment. Export sales of the SPAM family of products were up 37 percent and continued improvement from the China operations were the biggest contributors.

Never heard of SPAM? Wha?

http://www.hormel.com/brands/brandview3.asp?id=2&c atitemid=3

Happy Birthday CmdrT!

In honour of this gracious occasion, I will prepare the following:

SPAM(TM) Tacos

Servings: 4
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes


Ingredients
- 1 SPAM® Classic (12-ounce) can cut into 1/2-inch cubes
- 12 small new potatoes sliced 1/8-inch thick
- 1 Anaheim chile chopped
- 8 corn taco shells
- 2 cups torn romaine lettuce
- shredded cheddar cheese
- chopped tomato
- sour cream
- salsa
- standard keyboard & internet connection

Directions
In skillet over medium heat, combine SPAM®, potatoes, and chile. Cover. Cook 15 to 20 minutes, turning occasionally, until potatoes are tender. Fill each taco shell with about 1/4 cup SPAM(TM) mixture and 1/4 cup lettuce. Top with cheese, tomato, sour cream, and salsa. Eat while posting, emailing, or whatever!

Isn't mac and apple sort of the same thing?
 
  Sort of?

This company will make chips to order if you buy enough.

CRUNCH!

Pommes Frittes in Norway, a french name

That's odd. Pommes Frites is the German name. Of course there is the "pomme frite" a French name for a Belgium food apparently. I guess you just have to find who stole the word 'pommes' from whom.

>spam was a common household dinner

Not for Darwin, I'm afraid. Spam was invented in 1937; Darwin died in 1882

Quite the opposite in fact: according to Hormel themselves,

In honor of SPAMALOT, a new musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," Hormel Foods is introducing a limited edition flavor, SPAM(TM) golden honey grail in a "SPAMALOT collector's edition" can.

"SPAM® products have been spoofed by the Monty Python comedy team for decades," said Nick Meyer, senior product manager, Hormel Foods. "The brand is beloved by many, so we are pleased to offer this special collector's edition can and SPAM(TM) golden honey grail to consumers."

SPAM stands for Specially Processed Assorted Meat, the acronym chosen during the world wars when the original name was not popular enough.

Ah yes, the sound of a new urban legend in the making. I've not heard this one yet, and it's already as stupid as they come.

No, SPAM stands for spiced ham, and it has nothing to do with the military. Here's Hormel on the topic:

The story of SPAM® luncheon meat began in 1936. Hormel Foods devised a recipe for a 12-ounce can of spiced ham. Jay C. Hormel was determined to find a brand name with a distinct identity that would set it apart from the competition. The company offered a $100 prize for the best name for the spiced ham product. The winner was Kenneth Daigneau, the actor brother of Hormel Vice President Ralph Daigneau. He created the new word by combining the "sp" from spiced ham with the "am" from ham.

It's almost an initialism, but not quite, and it predates the military's association with the product.

I think someone at hormel spends a lot of time on slashdot!

http://www.hormel.com/kitchen/recipe.asp?id=5775

There is only one!

Invented SPAM

100% of Spam comes from the USA! SPAM is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods Corporation based in Austin, Minnesota!

The twin cities probably distort the overall picture for the state. You'd probably see the same for Missouri and Kansas if you removed Kansas City and St. Louis from consideration.
I would generally agree with you. Each of these states has a top 50 city, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Wichita, Kansas. The two largest privately held companies in the U.S. are located in MN (Cargill) and KS (Koch) with revenues of $48B and $40B respectively. However, ...

The twin cities probably distort the overall picture
Hormel has its headquarters and R&D in Austin, Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic is headquartered in Rochester, Minnesota, Cargill started in Austin, Minnesota and is headquartered in Minnesota, etc. Of course, Minnesota has large companies in the twin cities (e.g. 3M is headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota.)

see the same for ... Kansas if you removed Kansas City
The largest city in Kansas is Wichita (not Kansas City). The aircraft industry in Wichita (e.g. Boeing, Raytheon (Beech), Cessna & Learjet) is a big employer in Wichita and Koch is headquartered there.

My guess is that the rural areas in MN and KS are seeing a population decline; I am too lazy to actually check. Other than "spillover" from large urban areas (e.g. Las Vegas), I suspect rural areas are losing population all over the U.S.; does anyone know if this is true in upstate NY?

I can't see how those two could possibly be confused. The ones company logo is a Macintosh that's been nibbled on and the other is that computer company.

Actually, Apple Corps' logo is an all-green apple (Granny Smith) with no nibbles out of it, whereas Macintosh apples are green and red.

Let's look at the differences:

• A MacIntosh apple

And with that, I'm going to have another slice of fine MacIntosh apple pie my mother baked, with a scoop of ice cream on the side, while I listen to Abbey Road on my PowerBook G4. Now there's some Apple-on-Apple action.

Yaz.

Do you mean an Apple?

I'd love to see what a "Macintosh that's been nibbled on" looks like.

These guys make a lot of spam.

I take cash or check.

A spokesperson for Hormel Foods reports that there has been no decrease in spam either ... however, there has been an increased interest in Spam Gifts and also in the Spam Museum.

A spokesperson for Hormel Foods reports that there has been no decrease in spam either ... however, there has been an increased interest in Spam Gifts and also in the Spam Museum.

I think the word spam has been invented much less than 100 years ago...

Leaving me wondering: what did they call it before 1937?

All right, I'll get my coat.

Spam, the food, is made right in our very own third world city of Austin, Minnesota at the Hormel plant. (also Nebraska, Denmark, Korea and The Phillipines.) See the Spam museum.

(Funny on slashdot how I have to qualify Spam as a food product...)

1867!!
http://www.hormel.com/brands/brandview3.asp?id=2

I like it fried on a sandwich with honey mustard.

Ugh please don't eat that crap. It's all fun and games until somebody gets mad cow from ground up whetever-the-hell is in that stuff.

Of course the US is the leading producer of SPAM. It was invented here. And according to the SPAM Museum, Hormel produces 435 cans of spam PER MINUTE in Austin, Minnesota.

Are you Corn Fed?

The subject line ought to read:

"City Of Austin (Texas) Migrating To OpenOffice.org."

Otherwise there may be confusion with Austin, Minnesota ... home of Hormel Foods, maker of Spam.

-kgj

Since I haven't been following this issue at all, and since it probably doesn't matter what any of us think about it anyway because our elected representatives don't actually represent us anymore, my only contribution is to point out that the Hormel Meat Company operates an actual Museum of SPAM near their corporate hq in Austin, Minnesota. Anybody been there? How about a mini-review?

Since I haven't been following this issue at all, and since it probably doesn't matter what any of us think about it anyway because our elected representatives don't actually represent us anymore, my only contribution is to point out that the Hormel Meat Company operates an actual Museum of SPAM near their corporate hq in Austin, Minnesota. Anybody been there? How about a mini-review?

And their SPAM museum!

For the love of SPAM

Oh my...

Reiser4 seems pretty nice, but you still have to pay for the disk space in the first place.

That's why I'm excited about SpamFS - the first POP3/SMTP-based file system, leveraging the preponderance of free email accounts available on the internet.

Need more disk space? Sign up for some more email accounts. One advantage ReiserFS has is that it will work a lot better if you have an internet connection problem ... props on that.

However, Hormel Systems is really taking a revolutionary approach that I expect Reiser5, Longhorn, and OSX will be forced to incorporate.

This is pretty much the definition I use (from spamfaq.net).

2.1.1 What are UBE and UCE? What is SPAM?

These are all types of email abuse; that is, abuse _of_ the email system. They differ from abuse _on_ the email system (e.g. stalking, sexual harassment) in that they endanger the usability of electronic mail as a communications medium.

UBE stands for "Unsolicited Bulk Email" and is an email message that is:

1. Unsolicited
   i.e. it wasn't explicitly requested by the recipient

   and

2. Bulk (or Broadcast)
   i.e. substantively identical messages were sent to a non-trivial number of recipients

To put it another way, UBE is most of the junk email messages that plop into your email box every day. UBE isn't necessarily advertising, and emailed advertising is not necessarily UBE (advertising isn't UBE if you request it, or you knowingly request something that it is attached to, for example), but most UBE is advertising (because advertisers are the ones with the most interest in making you see something you don't necessarily want to).

UCE is often used as an alternative to "UBE" - it stands for "Unsolicited Commercial Email". Which term you prefer is largely a matter of style. UCE is easier to prove than UBE - it's easier for one individual to see if an email is commercial in nature than to see if it is sent in bulk - but UCE doesn't necessarily endanger the email system if it isn't UBE.

Of course, as a spam-victim, you will probably be in no place to judge whether a suspected spam you received really was sent in bulk, as you'll only get one copy of the spam yourself. For the most part, this doesn't matter, as you can make a jolly good guess based upon what it looks like and whether you solicited anything like it. Unsolicited advertising is rarely sent individually. As the saying goes, if it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck.

While almost all UCE is also UBE, the converse is not true - there are whole classes of UBE that are not UCE, such as:

• Political - politicians love to make direct contact with the electorate. Many of them will see UBE as an ideal medium for this.

• Charitable - the world's worthiest causes need our help. Many charities don't understand the issues surrounding bulk email and might think it'd be okay to send UBE requesting donations.

• Religious - there is no shortage of people preaching the end of the world and repentance as the only salvation, and seeing UBE as an ideal way to reach a large number of sinners.

Five minutes spent thinking will throw up plenty more examples.

SPAM is a tasty luncheon meat produced by Hormel (http://www.hormel.com). Spam (note capitalisation differences) is a colloquial term with a large and sordid history; in news.admin.net-abuse.email it is generally used as a synonym for UBE or UCE.

The subtle differences between these terms can be confusing, but for the most part UBE and spam can be equated and UCE considered a subset of them.

Other people may have different definitions. For example, some maintain that spam is any unsolicited, non-personal email. Most definitions are broadly compatible but differ in a few places around the edges.

Yeah, you're right. Their first product would have been canned pork (I thought that was the same as spam)...spam came about in 1937 (proof). My bad.

Whoops! It looks like 1937 is a more accurate date for the first spam. I should have checked the "Spam Spanning The Decades" link first....

But, that still makes spam 66 years old...that's a lot more than 25...

Actually, Spam, has been around for over 100 years...just check the spam museum!

Hormel was started in 1891...way more than 25 years...in fact, last year the 6 billionth can of spam was made!

I love it. I'm having Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam, Baked Beans, Spam Spam Spam and Spam.

Did you know that Spam is crazy tasty?

A history of Spam

Home of SPAM

Hormel Foods Corporation

In this overly-litigious society, I'm just waiting for Hormel to file suit against everything and anyone using the word SPAM.

-----

SPAM: Trademark for spiced, chopped ham manufactured by Hormel.

spam: Unsolicited, Bulk E-mail, where e-mail can be interpreted generally
to mean electronic messages designed to be read by an individual, and it
can include Usenet, SMS, AIM, etc. But if it is not all three of
Unsolicited,
Bulk, and E-mail, it simply is not spam. Misusing the term plays into the
hands of the spammers, since it causes confusion, and spammers thrive on
confusion. If you were not confused, would you patronize a spammer?
(blatantly ripped from Nick Simicich)

Invest in spam! Go to the Spam Festival. Love Hormel! Learn to prepare spam deserts. Buy lots and lots of spam. (Wait, can't you get free spam?)

Just as every Elvis fan longs to visit Graceland, SPAM fans worldwide now have their own pilgrimage to make. In Austin, Minnesota a 16,500 square-foot SPAM Museum opened in September 2001.

Museum visitors will be welcomed to the world of SPAM luncheon meat with a variety of interactive and educational games, fun exhibits and remarkable video presentations.

If there is going to be a Spam conference there has got to be a representative from Hormel, the makers of Spam. They even have a Spam Museum, Spam Recipes and much more on their Website. You can even order online, if you don't want anyone to know you are a closet Spam Freak, or read Spam Trivia.

Regardless of what you think of Spam, someones eating those 6 BILLION cans they have produced since 1937.

If there is going to be a Spam conference there has got to be a representative from Hormel, the makers of Spam. They even have a Spam Museum, Spam Recipes and much more on their Website. You can even order online, if you don't want anyone to know you are a closet Spam Freak, or read Spam Trivia.

Regardless of what you think of Spam, someones eating those 6 BILLION cans they have produced since 1937.

If there is going to be a Spam conference there has got to be a representative from Hormel, the makers of Spam. They even have a Spam Museum, Spam Recipes and much more on their Website. You can even order online, if you don't want anyone to know you are a closet Spam Freak, or read Spam Trivia.

Regardless of what you think of Spam, someones eating those 6 BILLION cans they have produced since 1937.