Gems of the Web: Spam Poetry

The non-canned version of spam comes to us not only to raise awareness about solving all life's problems by entrusting your credit card information to a certain Chinese manufacturing company that will not only be delighted to have your trust in doing fair business of buying impeccably forged products of superb toxic quality with them but also remedy you of any positive account balance and hopefully max out your credit limit.

No, spam also comes to us to enlighten us, make us reflect upon our own selves (with reflection on selves of others being a bonus) and enjoy the pure creative genius of their authors.

Spam makes us marvel at beauty of randomness or guess which new creative writing techniques could have produced such incredible inspiring verses in quantities vast beyond imagining.

I cannot claim it as my favorite pastime but reading spam poetry indeed can be as rewarding as reading high poetry of acclaimed authors who had literary means to transform their suffering from depression and other mental disorders into a readable form.

Instead of emptying your spam folder without giving it a second thought, click on the first supposedly unworthy message and walk through them as if they were an inviting picturesque autumn park in its most vivid foliage on a refreshing cloudless sunny day.

You may find the messages advocating magical remedies for appendages you perhaps do not possess, however the reward of finding priceless gems to marvel at as you walk along this pebbled path will make it worth your time.

Soon after spam poetry becomes your hobby you start wondering if anyone other well cultured individual shares the passion for this young art form. As it turns out, there's a whole bunch of them.
Flocking around the Spam Poetry Institute website like moths around a lamppost these spam enthusiasts are sharing their discoveries with the world. And for those who don't have anything to share, simply reading through the extensive collection of poetic spam is an unforgettable experience.

Take this post's accompanying spam poems, titled "The Tantrum of a Newborn" and "Coming of Fall" respectively, as examples of sheer brilliance of their author. Mastery of words and sounds, playing with the reader in anticipation of the next line, painting a picture of subconscious associations. One way or another, spam poetry is time well spent on getting inspired and discovering your own thought processes.


***UPDATE***

Ed Desautels from Maximum Fiction familiarized me with another form of spam poetry that he learned to create at an innovative writing conference. A good analogy to this "art form" would be creation of sculptures and other artwork types from the parts found in junkyards and garbage containers.

This type of spam poetry is created by creatively adding together only the words or phrases from the original spam email. The end result of this subtraction technique is a convincing spam poem. Click here for a few examples.

Interesting Insights: Where is Facebook Heading?

Based on my previous writing on online self-investment and its paradox, what can Google search data tell us about the current Facebook privacy situation and its consequences?
Taking into account the fact that Insights only offer a limited scope of information, the following data interpretation should be considered with at least some scrutiny.

1. The hockey stick


The first thing that falls into one's eye is the hockey stick shape for searches on deleting a Facebook account. Interest in deleting Facebook accounts has been steadily rising since 2008 but it suddenly spiked on May 13th, remaining a hot topic to this day.

While this hockey stick is not Al Gore's scare tactic to believe in his man-bear-pig, skepticism is due because the data of this ongoing topic is still coming in. However, for the time being it seems that the trend has already reached its peak and is now stagnating, even more signs that the buzz about account deletion is of limited reach.

G3: Blue - quit facebook, Red - delete facebook

Yellow - facebook alternative, Green - facebook evil

What's interesting is that the global increase was only twofold compared to recent data and about threefold in the midterm - which, if paralleled to the already ginormous and still exponentially growing number of Facebook users doesn't seem that big of an increase - certainly, at first sight this fact diminishes the hopes of Facebook profile deletion advocates.

G4: Blue = quit myspace, Red = delete myspace
Yellow = delete facebook, Green = quit facebook

But let's look at it from a slightly better perspective, comparing it to the dying mammoth, Myspace, and its historic record.
In several ways MySpace isn't comparable to Facebook. The main buzz around it was security/safety, not privacy - all thanks to its universally visible profiles (at that time Facebook was ironically offering a private alternative to it).

Additionally, search traffic and circumstances were different three to five years ago than they are now.

Yet still, intriguing conclusions can be made by comparing Facebook and MySpace search data: inquiries into deleting MySpace accounts slowly grew until 2007 and then remained steady throughout. In contrast with that Facebook deletion steadily grew for two years like MySpace and then started an increasingly steeper incline from 2009 onward.

This could mean that there actually is something going on with the number of people deleting their profiles or informing themselves on how to do it, in part because Facebook made it so hard for users to actually delete their profiles.

It could also mean that Facebook has a steady user drop that correlates with user signup.
Though only Facebook internal data could provide a real answer, it remains to be seen what impact this trend will have.

2. Deleting over quitting

Evidently, quitting is not the word to use when it comes to social networking. Quantities for both Facebook and MySpace when it comes to quitting are practically negligible. What then is the significance of deleting over quitting? The fact is that nobody's quitting or interested in actual quitting but in deleting instead.

In contemporary sense of the word, deleting refers to data removal, it connotes erasing information. The word quitting means severing the ties with no intention of restoring them again, disassociating from social networks and relations you've established, from the profile(s) you've invested yourself in.

In this case, quitting also means turning one's back on Facebook as a brand - as can be seen on the graph (G4), Facebook's quitting record recently started climbing up. Where it will lead to remains to be seen.

3. See no evil

Why will online self-investment paradox cause Facebook to come out of this relatively unscratched -unless the government gets involved: despite many inquiries into deleting the profile, few think Facebook itself is evil. The number is steadily climbing and is now on the same level at which MySpace was in 2007, at the peak of its evilness.

Compared to MySpace which had deletion and evil stigma walking hand in hand at its peak days, Facebook's evil and profile deletion do not match or correlate at all. This either means that users don't need additional information to verify Facebook's evil intents, that they've become smarter and more decided since 2007 or that the hottest social networking website on the planet is coated in teflon.

Blue = quit myspace, Red = delete myspace, Yellow = myspace alternative, Green = myspace evil

4. Monopoly brings safety

Data shows that there is also very little talk of Facebook alternatives. As discussed in my previous writing on online self-investment and Facebook, this is a major reason why Facebook has nothing to fear.

That could mean that users are maturing, the novelty of social networks is wearing off and the need for further presence anywhere is disappearing with some users, especially those seeking deletion of their profiles. It shows that users could be moving on to other, different niches online, and that they are defining their online interests.
However, that is only a small portion of all the users who are displaying a pattern similar to that of early adopters. Other users who are a majority, however, tend to follow the first wave.



That was a very brief overview of some assumptions and speculations that I've conjured up to satisfy my own curiosity. What I found is perhaps even less important than what the data made me think about.

The fact is that Facebook isn't threatened on a larger scale by any means but the share and loudness of those who are actively seeking to make it accountable for its handling of user data and counter its general attitude is growing at a increasingly faster pace. As long as it doesn't outpace the new user sign-ups, Facebook has unfortunately nothing to fear.

Instead of a conclusion I'd offer a hint for Facebook, its enemies and its competitors alike: turn the situation to your advantage by showing ads next to the above mentioned search queries, offering users to either rethink their decision, reassure them of searched service's safety or put a negative spin on it, encouraging them to join another (your) social network.

The real question in this case is: how much is a user worth to you? Search engines are doing it, you should be as well - if you can afford it.

Online Self-Investment Paradox and Facebook

Recently, my mind's attention got caught by this  Facebook transparency rant by Danah Boyd, another call to action in the electrified atmosphere of weighing in on shrinking of online privacy that is becoming an active ingredient of our internet zeitgeist.

Her politically biased discourse aside, the author does make valid and unsparingly honest remarks about the state of privacy on the web at large and the motives of various players trying to influence it.

From my perspective, its main contribution to the current Facebook privacy debate is that it makes a case for all those who (would) disagree with the site yet remain on it, it softens and bends the consumer response logic of voice/exit upon disapproving of Facebook's actions to a point at which those users are portrayed as victims who are not in a position to either leave or complain: the social contract with Facebook that was established when signing up has been gradually broken in such a way that prevents them from either exiting the service or voicing their dissatisfaction with the situation that they are not even fully aware of (again in part due to its gradual morphing).

In my opinion, this forthright attitude needs to be taken a step further. What needs to be exposed is the real underlying cause for the existence of the situation. Why do users online neither exit nor voice their complaints? The voluntary limbo they are in doesn't exist because of their own unsuspecting cluelessness, it's not because of Facebook's foul plan for gradual world domination. The attitude of most users doesn't change even when the full information picture lays bare in front of them.

The real answer lies in countless hours invested in profile building, networking, promoting the website to their social circle, the effort it took them to start trusting it and in the end the lack of alternatives that would outweigh (or have the potential to outweigh) the investment. Lack of alternatives is a major reason that has kept monopolistic services like Facebook above the water.

This real issue stems from what I call online self-investment. It is the prime issue of our internet era and at the same time an online incarnation of a dilemma as old as humanity itself, albeit with a twist.

Online self-investment simply means investing yourself in an online activity. It is a recurring theme in the life cycle of any online service or product. It shows consumer-service interaction and pitfalls thereof from the perspective of the user. It offers an insight into user behavior beyond the classic assumptions of frustration and passive attitude, adding another dimension to it.

Even though investing yourself, your time, money and your cognitive processes into something, that in itself won't prevent you from leaving or attempting to change it, though it will influence your calculation of what to do. In real life, such decisions bear real consequences that for the most part cannot be rolled back.

However, when it comes to the same situation online, the rules change. Unlike in real life, people don't have anything tangible to lose, and it could very likely be rolled back without consequences. But they can, as research shows, perceive virtual life as reality. This enables them to invest themselves into their activity in the same way as in real life.

Online self-investment that I've just described functions in the same way as one would expect from a real life self-investment but leads to a radically different result: O.S.I. therefore inevitably leads to online self-investment paradox.

Instead of deciding between voice and exit, online users keep investing themselves into an activity that they would try to change - or not continue at all - in real life. And they are doing that not despite but because of the fact that their virtual activity and its consequences are perceived as intangible, even if the service itself is costing them real money. In this sense, users still view virtual life as removed from reality.

To rephrase, users online are resuming their activity because they are self-invested in it in a very real way and at the same time still treat it as removed from reality. They are experiencing it as reality but not treating it the same way. This is what I call O.S.I. paradox, the online self-investment paradox.

I have stumbled upon this pattern throughout the internet, again and again. World of Warcraft, a paid MMO service, was a classic example of such dissonance. Millions of players who are investing time and money into an online computer game on a daily bass, a good portion of them privately disgruntled with the publisher's (Blizzard) attitude yet very few quit or raised their voice because of it, they rather kept investing their time in the game.

The lesson for anyone providing a service in this case is that in order to keep the users pacified, it has to ensure the following:
1. provide them with means for perpetual online self investment
2. make sure that you have as little competition as possible (appearing more appealing than the competition is what breaks many more services than it makes)
3. keep realities separate, do not allow for overlapping of the issues with reality: as soon as the online self-investment overlaps with reality, the individual's exit/voice decision reappears.

But what is there to do for users who actually want change? What stance do we assume, that of people as sheep needing to be lead by those who know what is right for them? Is the approach taking the fight (in the case of privacy) to every particular application/website or would time be better spent lobbying for a general regulation?

We hear criticism of Digg that it is caving in to users too much on one side and praise of companies like Facebook and Apple who follow through with their plans regardless of users' opinions. The approach works for Apple but in case of Facebook the situation is different. It is not engineers who bring services to life, it's people who do it, the engineers only serve as administration of the skeleton, the frame that helps you invest yourself in the service.

Taking that into account, Facebook should take the same path Digg did. And this is just the first of many reasons for it.
And since voicing your opinion is to no avail, exiting remains a viable alternative.


Sidenote: Little known fact: Facepook as a Facebook clone actually exists. Since it smells phishy, caution while there is advised.

YouTube Channel Parking

Back in the old days of YouTube, when the site was still considered an online Wild West, Renetto came up with an idea of cybersquatting YouTube usernames. In the video that he posted (it has since been taken down by him along with his all other videos and then reuploaded) he encouraged users to seek as many unclaimed YouTube usernames as they can, all for a chance that some of them might be worth something at a certain point in the future - if sold, of course, to the right buyer. After all, youtube.com/yournamehere is a prominent link.

Numerous potential issues arose around then, including some people accusing renetto of encouraging illegal activity and of not thinking the thing through (due to legal concerns). Those questions are all still valid now, four years later.

What happened then was a sudden eruption of usernames that were either names of famous corporations, people, products, well known brands or imitations of other users' names.

Naturally, this was too good of an opportunity not to jump on the bandwagon myself. So on that day in September 2006 I first created a number of renowned record label usernames and then kept adding new interesting usernames in the following weeks and months. It's important to note that I decided not to do it via botting but create each account manually.

Dozens and dozens of usernames were created and parked for a potential sale in the future. And then I waited. What follows below is how things turned out (thus far).

A thing to note is also that I created and used some accounts for the purpose of political activism in 2007 when YouTube's banning and deleting of users together with video takedowns was abound. It was a real DMCA induced chaos.

The Outcome - thus far

Some of the usernames were evidently popular and my ownership (if it could be called that way, it's still a legal concern) of them was a subject of frustration to those who didn't get them first. A result of that was that those usernames underwent occasional hack and password retrieval attempts.

1st Result: Euronews taken without any questions asked

One of the channels I owned was the Euronews channel. Seeing how it is a prominent European news media company I expected to hear from them soon enough. However, they did not attempt to contact me and neither did YouTube.
The channel was simply taken away from me in early 2007 with no questions asked, no advance warnings and in a completely uncompromising manner. In other words, it was stolen.
YouTube had no firm basis to hand the channel over to Euronews: the YouTube partnership program didn't exist, Euronews does not hold a trademark of the term and the claim to a Euronews channel was completely unfounded.
In this case, nobody was held accountable for YouTube's one-sided actions.
The only thing that remains as a memory of my ownership of it is the channel's creation date: September 18th, 2006.

The same goes for the AlArabiya channel that I owned. YouTube simply stripped me of ownership without notice and handed the channel over to the Al Arabiya news network. However, there still are some glitches remaining from the ownership transfer when I try to log in with the old username data.

2nd Result: Record label's request via YouTube form overturned
In the second case I turned down an official request to give away a known record label username. The request was sent to my email in an official form through YouTube's new (and perhaps automated) username acquisition system.
The content of the automated message was asking me to be kind and hand over the ownership of the account to the record label. I had the option of "yes" and "no", deciding for the latter since the offer was nowhere near my expectations.
But at least they fixed their own faulty system and prevented account stealing from happening again.

3rd Result: Private user pleas for handing over accounts
On several occasions I've been contacted by users through YouTube's internal mail or channel's comment section (the comment wall), asking me if I wanted to donate my account to them. The answer was always negative.
On one of the hottest accounts for a popular Windows service (and a few other channels) users were periodically getting upset about the username being squatted, leaving derogatory comments, including anti-semitic ones.
So far, no profit has been made on this end either.

4th Result: Record label actually offers something of material value
Finally, after four years of waiting I've been contacted by record label who means business. That is, if you decide to call an attempt at bribing me with a T-shirt and a mug conducting business. These two items are what they initially offered me in exchange for deleting my account so they could set up their own in its place.
Of course, this is an extremely humble offering on the part of a record label that's connected with many of the top names in the music industry - but it is a start.

The only risk associated with this last record label is that it could as well be a phishing attack but that could be easily verified.
What happens with this case remains to be seen.


Sad reality of YouTube username squatting


For now, YouTube username squatting has brought me exactly zero in revenue. Most of those who are interested in obtaining a username are inquiring into the possibility under the assumption that it will be completely free of charge.

The only alternative I have is to make at least some of those usernames profitable on my own, hoping that the username itself will be an authority enough to attract viewers. I don't consider this to be very likely without providing quality content at the same time.

What remains, of course, is more waiting.

The Z Logo

The main thing on this post's agenda is the introduction of my Z logo. While it could also be called the Z sign, Z symbol or a more traditionally sounding Z emblem, my decision to keep referring to it as a logo is solely for the sake of simplicity.

The previous Z logo was all about balance and stability in addition to reflecting the contrast of myself as a person. While all that still applies and the old logo continues to represent me in a nutshell, including the kinky endings of the Z, I have decided to design a logo from a different viewpoint.

This time the focus is not on an all-encompassing personal philosophy of life but what specific characteristics Z-LOT actually binds together, attempting to offer a satisfying answer to the question "what does it actually mean and what does it represent"?

A simultaneous creative process of first thinking and then drawing led me to my new logo. A logo that is out of balance yet still retaining its posture, that annihilates symmetry but remains proportional, a logo that is sharp and decisive, strong and still kinky, puzzling the observant viewer's mind why one part of it is hidden from plain sight - is it hiding or is it meant to be unable to grasp as a whole?

One thing about giving impressions is clear, the (3D) perspective that the logo subtly implies to be observed from is meant as a look from the ground below onto the massive kinky shape, piercing the sky above somewhere in the distance.

The logo is no longer in a square shaped frame but rather in golden ratio proportions which can be either a blessing or a curse. For me it is certainly the former since the logo was envisioned as heavily dynamic, contrary to its predecessor. An additional key benefit is the ease of its manipulability: it can be stretched, skewed and deformed in any number of ways, objects of various shapes and sizes can be added to it and finally, the clean, minimalistic shapes make recoloring process a delight.

I've spent quite some time playing with all sorts of variables, especially adding convenient square shapes to bind the logo to them. My favorite one is the combination of a red square with a black Z logo. It's made of clean lines, simplistic shapes and a radiant,colorful element that attempts to counter-balance the kinky shape and ground its swirling black tentacle.

A more square friendly yet compromising variant is the logo with a colored strip on its side. These can come in handy when it's time to express a certain mood or state of being and don't offer an appealing substitute for a square logo - I'd much rather see it stretched, oversized and cropped to fit or moved to the left side as I did with the favicon of this blog.

Overall, the move to create a new, clean logo felt like the right thing to do and it still does, especially since I managed to put own reflecting thoughts and feelings into a coherent form, calling those same reflections into memory each time I look at the sharp yet massive outline.

It is interesting to note a detail on creative process that led me to choosing such design. At first I was under the influence of old logo, constrained exclusively to straight symmetric lines. As I moved forward, nothing truly new happened until I turned the page, painted it black and made a simple white outline that completely defied the previous logo, putting it a vibrant green rectangular shape which immediately framed its perspective.

It's just the kind of feeling that I get when looking at my own logo, this time on an even more vocal level... mission successful!

MacBook Pro in the Winter Cold

I've gotten used to the idea of taking the MacBook Pro outside, simply because of the soothing ambient effect. The only obstacle in doing that is usually the laptop's battery life.

In the winter time, however, the main obstacle can be low temperatures. These make my usually sweating laptop dangerously cold and though it may seem that freezing air is beneficial for my silver companion, the truth is quite the opposite.

As I already wrote before about a faulty nVidia GPU when talking about my MacBook Pro, the GPU temperature as seen on the picture seems too high to be viewed as regular in these freezing conditions, especially when compared to the CPU temperature.

In addition, if it does actually have a faulty GPU or other components, then exposing the laptop to extreme temperature shifts during its operation will significantly reduce its GPU's lifespan.

The same goes for its hard disk drive whose temperature of around 20ºC is almost pushing the limit of safe operating temperature. As Google's research on this subject has shown, lower temperatures in hard disks are associated with higher failure rates.

The reason for that most likely lies in devastating contraction of materials that hardware components are made of during temperature shifts and their physical properties that favor warmer environments.

Of course, in the end it's still up to me to decide whether I prefer a healthier laptop or some fresh winter air on a peaceful sunny day. For now I'll stick to the latter.


***UPDATE***

The bottom line is that Apple's MacBooks can survive a fair amount of cold winter air. Its components still get warm enough inside its aluminum (uni)body to operate properly and the chips inside it actually prefer colder temperatures.
The only thing you have to pay more attention to is the hard disk drive (if you have a SSD drive instead you're safe).

The default operating temperature range for hard disk drives is 5ºC to 55ºC. Keep it in this range to avoid malfunctions.
To keep an eye on the hard drive, check the laptop's internal temperatures with iStatPro or a similar application regularly and make sure that they are not outside the range of their working temperatures.

It is also very important not to expose the MacBook to sudden big temperature shifts (going from -20ºC to +20ºC) as that can cause microscopic cracks in its tech components and shorten its lifespan.
Make sure to turn off your MacBook before returning indoors and then let it "thaw" for a while before turning it on again.

The Hairy MacBook Pro

This slick all-silver faithful Macbook Pro of mine has already endured a number of hardships.

When on the road, it spent most of the time safely tucked inside my Tom Bihn Buzz bag, experiencing a hefty amount of walking, running and jumping around in all sorts of unfavorable weather conditions and surviving even a nasty fall to the ground, all that without a scratch.

The reason for this durability lies somewhere between its Incase neoprene sleeve, the minimalistic waterproof sling bag and Apple's combination of design and material choices. Sure, it grumbles sometimes, and occasionally delves into theatrical waters by feigning death or demands a break from over exhaustion - but that is what all laptops do from time to time.

Beside being a trustworthy companion, it has some unique features that you won't find in a usual laptop. The most prominent one is a hair about a nail's length that is growing out of the screen with its follow-up being the letter F that looks engraved into it.

That hair is the most curious thing, I've first spotted it one day in Denmark when it suddenly appeared in the middle of the screen when I opened its lid.
My initial thought was that the screen got cracked and the thought of crack's likely widening each time I walk or run around with it sent shivers down my spine.

However, after a few days of not paying any attention to the issue I suddenly realized that the crack had moved from its initial position. A close inspection revealed that the "crack" not only resembled a hair, it indeed was one.

It made me think how it could have possibly gotten there? The entry point was most likely the right side of display, with gravity doing all the rest due to shaking in my sling bag.

I googled around to see how common the issue was and it turned out that while still uncommon,  it became evident that I was far from being the only person with a hairy Apple laptop.

The problem seems to lie in Apple's glossy displays and has been around at least since PowerBook times. The glossy panel covering the LCD display is supposed to be sealed - which means that any objects finding their way inside the screen are covered under Apple's warranty policy, granting you a free repair in case a hairy laptop is to much for the user to handle.

I found quite interesting stories about various dust particles and hair appearing under the displays, even live bugs crawling beneath glossy displays.
I also spotted a graphic designer who one day  found his cat's hair inside his MacBook Pro display. What a bad kitty! Pet hair seems to be a regular occurence in these not-so-tightly-sealed glossy displays while encountering human hair is not all that frequent.

Since the time of its first appearance the hair has moved around quite a bit and is now in an almost vertical position... but just how and when it decides to move is still a mystery to me.

This MacBook's second notable feature is its engraved letter F at the very bottom of the screen (below the MS Word sign on the picture). I am clueless as to when exactly it appeared but the bright mark resembles the letter F so closely that I don't have a valid explanation how it got there in the first place - unless you consider supersecret marking by Secret Service to be a valid one.
I do suspect that in this case he real reason might actually be a crack in the display, but once again I remain puzzled: how can a crack suddenly appear in the form of letter F? Unusual indeed.


However, the next issue is of more serious nature for a change. I am fairly certain that it has a bad nVidia GeForce 8600M GT graphic chip, a major industry-wide problem that has also been noted by Apple.
Since the failing GPU affects MacBooks Pro and all other laptops with this particular graphic card (meaning all MBPs up to the autumn 2008 revision), mine is also a very likely victim of this sudden defect.

What raises my suspicion even further are high idle temperatures  (displayed on the picture) that my laptop has - the graphic chip with its 60º C idle temperature is nothing less than alarming.
All that means that I should get it fixed before a spontaneous self-combustion happens - or before my warranty expires (there's three years left to fix that GPU issue). That would mean an unknown amount of days without my MacBook, a solution I'm far from willing to accept... but that's another topic.


***UPDATE***


Ever since the first hair was found inside the display of the laptop, several others have periodically appeared and disappeared over time, along with visible specks of dust. Unfortunately, the MacBook's warranty is now void and any attempt at display repair would be quite costly.

The lesson in this case is the following: if you do find a hair or other particles inside your laptop's display, demand a replacement for it immediately (while it still has its warranty). Otherwise, prepare to live with a hairy MacBook.