Slashdot Mirror
Brad Templeton On Spam's Silver Anniversary
Brad Templeton writes "This Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of the first spam I was able to find, and one month ago was the 10th anniversary of the first time a USENET posting was called a spam and the birth of the term (at least beyond mudds)." Templeton was also cited in the American Scientist article featured last Sunday.
Hello, my name is Indigo Montoya. You spammed my father, prepare to die.
-- Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.
His story reminds me of how Abe Simpson (Grandpa Simpson) tells stories...
"I needed a new heel for my shoe. So, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. 'Give me five bees for a quarter', you'd say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah...the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war; the only thing you could get was those big yellow ones..."
Producer: NEXT!!
Ralph Wiggum: Chicken necks
First, nothing begins if not opening
How many times have you filled in a "You must give us an email address" box with something like "fuckoff@spam.com" or similar?
Poor bloody mail admins at Hormel, their lives must be hell. And what about if they accidentally left an open relay?
Actually, the last time Spam was on sale at the local supermarket, I went and bought a bunch (low-sodium, fries up well, and tastes great with rice.) Even though I'm rabidly anti-spam (anti-uce), I have a very positive attitude toward Hormel. They're smart enough to understand that Spam, the meat product, is very different from spam, the generic term for junk e-mail/usenet postings. Moreover, they've delineated what is permissible in terms of using "spam" to refer to junk e-mail - no use of the Hormel logo, using spam vs. Spam (tm). I think their courtesy should be repaid with an equal dose of courtesy from the community. Hurrah for Hormel!
I'm a unix geek like the rest of you.
The mudder's use is not recorded, of course, as far as I have found. Simply reports from mudders say that when people started flooding a mud with text, and later objects, somebody called it spamming. From the Monty Python, because the vikings keep repeating the word over and over and over again.
I have conflicting stories on the first use, but without logs we may never know.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
> You still haven't answered my question. What does verbosity or a full screen have to do with salty canned meat?
Nothing, except that Monty Python's Flying Circus did a skit where a modern, normal-looking guy goes into a restaurant full of 10th C. Viking customers and a lady (played by a guy in drag) behind the counter. He asks for something to eat, I forget what. He's told that he can get "Spam, eggs and spam, or spam, spam, and spam." After some discussion that goes nowhere, the Vikings break out into a chant of "Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam-ity spam!" They repeat this chant over and over until it drowns out everything else going on in the scene.
The idea is that screen flooding becomes like the Vikings chanting "Spam." Nothing else goes on because nobody else can get a word in edgewise over the racket.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.