Tetherd Cow Ahead

Sun 13 May 2007

Word$worth?

Posted by anaglyph under Poetry, Spam Observations
[8] Comments

Spam Observations #41

It’s not enough that I am constantly plagued by bad poetry by my readers here on The Cow. Now the spammers are at it. This missive from my new best feiend Pauline:

Gorgeous presents You may find,
Make this clear to your mind
Morning, noon or even night
Here’s the link that you want
http://www.crapwatches.com
Rolex, Cartie and much more
Hurry up, this is YOUR store!

Regards, Pauline

Now, I’ve replaced the URL that Pauline was kind enough to send, for the obvious reason that I don’t want to give these idiots any additional publicity, but I have not touched the scanning or the rhyme.

I draw your attention to the lines:

Morning, noon or even night
Here’s the link that you want
http://www.crapwatches.com

I mean, really. Not even a vague attempt at rhyming. ‘night’ and ‘want’? ‘want’ and ‘.com’? And scan? Forget it! Cheeze. You’d think Pauline could do better than that. After all, if you’re going to use crap poetry to spam people, it doesn’t actually matter what kind of nonsense you write so you could make it anything and still get the rhyme right at least. What about:

Here’s a link that is the bomb
http://www.crapwatches.com

Or maybe:

Morning, noon or even night
Here’s the link to set you right!

Not in the same league as my Mr Brooke, I know, but c’mon Pauline! Work with me!

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I sincerely hope that Pauline’s ‘poem’ doesn’t herald a new trend in spamming. I don’t think my delicate constitution can take it.

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Fri 11 May 2007

Putting the Sham Back in Shampoo

Posted by anaglyph under Grumpy Old Man
[8] Comments

OK, so I do stupid things from time to time. More so of late, it’s true, but I feel I can blame senescence for that.

Recently I strayed from my usual brand of shampoo. There was nothing wrong with it at all, it was perfectly OK. It’s just that some strange gremlin took over my shopping faculties and made me reach for a an exotic new thing on the supermarket shelf…

“You should try different products” the gremlin said, “Rather than just mindlessly use the same brand over and over…”

“Okey dokey gremlin,” said I, forgetting that gremlins are hardly ever up to any good.

I picked up a bottle of this Palmolive ‘Aromatherapy’ Lavender & Geranium scented stuff. Sounded reasonable. How bad can they get with a bottle of shampoo anyway?

Shampoo Front Shampoo Side

The first time I used it I knew there was something wrong. The bottle was disturbingly thin… it felt kind of like it had already been squeezed in the middle… Erk. So weird.

OK. I guess. Some kind of fancy design thing. Can’t see the point myself. Didn’t they test this with a focus group? Surely someone would have pointed out how clumsy and stupid this design is…

Anyway, I used it for a while and the pre-squeezed thing became more and more irritating. Not only was it unwieldy in the shower and unstable on the bathroom shelf, it was really difficult to reliably measure out a set amount of… uh-oh. Yeah, right, now I get it.

The whole thing is a complete swindle. I looked at the bottle. OK. It’s wide and tall, and looks BIG on the shelf, but the thinness of the container makes the volume of shampoo inside about half what it appears to be. Combine this with the frustrating inability squeeze out just a sufficient amount of the contents and you have a perfect example of ripoff marketing.

I’m sure the Palmolive marketing people think they’re very clever coming up with this idea, but I honestly don’t understand how a company can believe that this is a decent way to treat their customers. Maybe I’m naive, but I like the old fashioned idea that if something is actually any good, people will buy it. This kind of money-grubbing contempt for the folks that keep you in business is shabby.

Personally I think it puts Palmolive in the same Circle of Hell as spammers.

Wed 9 May 2007

Great Moments in Food Science #19

Posted by anaglyph under Food Science
[8] Comments

Boffins With Tape Dispenser Chicken

â˜†February 8, 1987: The team from Xtrud-O Labs that bought you Fruit Rollups unveil their newest invention: ‘Tape Dispenser’ Chicken.

Tue 8 May 2007

The Carbon Cycle

Posted by anaglyph under Safety Craig
[5] Comments

Mon 7 May 2007

A Dime a Chime

Posted by anaglyph under Spam Observations, Web Politics
[18] Comments

A Dime per Chime

So I was over at Modern Mechanics having a browse as I’m wont to do, and I found this great article about an invention to keep canvassers and peddlers from ringing your doorbell.

The principle is simple enough – the doorbell won’t ring unless you first pay a dime into the slot, thereby discouraging anyone without a legitimate purpose. If you’re an approved caller, your dime can be refunded on opening of the door. If you’re just a hustler you lose your dime and it goes to charity. Brilliant enough – there are times when I would have found this mighty handy.

Then I had a brainwave (and I’m actually being serious here folks, for a change): take this idea and remodel it for the digital world and you have a fantastic method of stopping email spam in it’s tracks.

Now there have been a few different pay-per-mail schemes mooted in the past, but they tend to come from people like Microsoft who have a view setting up yet another revenue stream (and heck knows they really need it). They invariably operate on the principle that you make a micropayment for each email you send. In other words, it’s using the old Post Office concept – you stamp your mail to send it. And it costs you.

I’m suggesting something significantly different.

Here’s how I propose it would work: If someone wants to send you an email they must pay you a small fee – say the equivalent of a mailed letter. Their email goes into your Inbox and when you see who it’s from, you approve it and their fee is refunded. You only need to do this once for every sender.

Spammers would be completely stymied – sending millions of unsolicited emails would cost a fortune. Genuine advertisers could still send you email, but they would have to pay – and if you declined their dime, they would lose it.

The money would be held in some kind of escrow, and from time to time you would approve its donation to charity. The escrow slush fund could also finance the service that facilitates the process.

This idea also answers one of the the most widely-voiced objections to a ‘paid’ email system: that users would have to start paying for something that is already free. With my Dime Per Chimeâ„¢ scheme the end user doesn’t pay at all![tippy title=”¹”]In fact the biggest drawback I can see is that it might become too effective, thereby rendering the whole idea worthless…[/tippy]

Sum effect: End user happy, charities happy, spammers very very unhappy. O frabjous day!

Is this not genius?

Help me beta it Cowerati!

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¹In fact the biggest drawback I can see is that it might become too effective, thereby rendering the whole idea worthless…

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Sat 5 May 2007

Serious Science

Posted by anaglyph under Cow Matters, Sister Veronica, Technology
[12] Comments

A little while back, just after I posted my little observation on the claims of Irish ‘Free Energy’ company Steorn, my page load stats spiked. Scanning back over the visitors provides some fascinating reading: lots of name searches for ‘Sean McCarthy’, ‘Richard Walshe’, ‘Steorn’ and various combinations of those. Now it’s impossible to know exactly what this means but the fact is that posting about loony scientific claims seems to attract nearly as much interest as posting about erotic images.

With that thought, it is pretty obvious that combining these two fields is really going to jazz up the Hit-O-Meter.

So it is my pleasure to bring to you today… Sister Veronica’s Science Report!

Over to you babe.

Science Veronica

Oh wow! So cool Reverend!!!! Y’know I always thought science was, like, fully wicked at sk00l. LOL!!!! Mr. Smythe looked so HOT in that lab coat. LOL! ;-)

OK!! Life’s not a rehearsal!”DoN’t GoTtA gEt AlL cRaZy…ReLaX. ReAdy? Go!”

2day I’m going to talk about MARS! Like the PLANET but + also THE GOD OF WAR!!!

Did U know that there is a FACE on Mars and no 1 can xplain it???? TRUE!! Herez a pic.

Slammin’!!!! Soooo rad! OMG if U think this isn’t proof of alienz you are fully **lame**!! + not many peepl no this, but the 1st country to land on Mars (the RED planet) was RUSSIA! + it was during the Cold WAR!!! OMG!!! Coinsidence????? :-0

I read that NASA has little RoBoTz on Mars! True! LOL! Like little r2d2s that are xploring and looking for more evidenz of LIFE!

But its ALL FAKE!!! ReallY!!!! Its what the U$A wants U to think…. but ACTULLY they R filming it in a film set!!!! LOL. TRUE!!! I saw this MoViE about it once. MaDe U ThInK!!

ScIeNcE!

WhAts iT aLL AbOuT???????