Updates

(You know, I don't actually like modern jazz all that much. I like the old stuff—Django Reinhardt, that sort of thing—but when they start losing the thread of the melody, playing a riff on a riff on a riff on a memory of a tune, I lose interest. I like knowing when and where a note is going to show up.)

Again, no live music tonight. *sigh* Next week we move back to our old digs; perhaps that will encourage melodists to come. I did give little Katie her hexaflexagon, which captivated her utterly; I've never seen someone so entranced by a topology trick. Within two minutes—and twice—she got it gummed up such that the faces' colors were mixed, but both times I was able to restore it to its monochromatic splendor.

No live music; yes home-made pizza. I made a particularly tasty pepperoni pizza for dinner tonight, perfectly inflated and browned, and with toasted parmesan scattered over the top. The secret is honey in the crust.

We chose our house for next year: the one with the funky den, on South Professor. It has character, it's closest to campus, and it's on the first floor. Larry Funk is holding it for us until he gets our applications; assuming we get it, I think we'll be happy there. My only regret is that we won't be living above a meteorologist. We should have room for guests (hint, hint)!

We also received confirmation that we've gotten into Pinewoods—Scottish Session II. Very much looking forward to that.

(Oho—thunderstorm warning on the TV. Should be here in half an hour. Exciting!)

iTunes

Searched iTunes for "Cowboy Bebop." Was asked, "Did you mean Snowboy Cubop?"

The Cassandra of Spam

I took a trip down Random Access Memory Lane last night. In late 1992, at Swarthmore, the all-campus email list was opened to everyone—anyone with an event to promote, a news item, or a lost pen could email the entire campus population, though it passed through an administrator (Eiji) first. (He sent mail on essentially unmoderated, for fear of being labeled "censor.") I perceived the potential for abuse, and asked Eiji to forward this note to the list:

I don't know if I'm speaking for anyone other than myself here, but I would greatly appreciate a reduction in the number of all-campus e-mailings everyone seems to be sending out these days. (Like this one, yes.) E-mail is (was?) the only unpolluted form of mass communication out there, by which I mean one never used to receive junk mail electronically as we do on paper mail and telephones, etc. Starting (or encouraging) a practice of mass e-mailings is (in my opinion) rather a bad idea. It wastes disk space, time, and (I think) slows down other computer processes. (I dislike waiting for extended periods while the POP server forwards 13 mail messages to me, only three of which I care about (as happened today). I _think_ other people feel the same...)

I can understand mass mailings of, say, course changes or other items that could directly affect nearly everyone on campus. But the proper forums for advertisement of discussion groups and such things are the Phoenix, Weekly News or electronic bulletin boards. (I'd be happy to explain the use of electronic bulletin boards to anyone, and I'm not even a consultant.) Please try to restrict your all-campus e-mailings to a) things that affect everyone, b) official college business, or c) things that you're quite certain nearly everyone would be interested in. Campus groups should get mailing lists of interested people and mail only to them; otherwise, use signs and the newspapers like everyone else.

If anyone would like to respond, send me e-mail--I'm getting used to multiple messages every time I log in. But, about mass e-mailings, try to think "What if everyone did it?" Please, let's preserve this last incorruptible communications resource, or at least delay the inevitable. Thank y'all.

I'm amused (and a bit saddened) that I saw email as being the one "unpolluted" form of communication, and that I thought 10 of 13 messages being junk (we hadn't applied the term "spam" yet) was pretty bad. I'm also a bit impressed with myself for my acumen—Clarke predicted the communications satellite; Heinlein predicted the waldo; I predicted spam.

Yeah, yeah. Of course I wasn't the first to notice the potential for abuse, but the responses I got indicated that many people didn't think it could ever become a problem:

[From a certain Wild classics prof:] For what it's worth--and I don't do all campus, or even all-faculty postings, I don't see a problem. As long as people use the subject line effectively it's easy enough to ignore the junk mail, just as it's easy to skip entries in the Campus Bulletin. It's hard for me to see e-mail as something the purity of which is a very high priority.

Look, I can understand if you don't want to read a whole lot of email. That's why we include a subject header so that you can tell what you do and don't wish to read.

I am sure you will get lots more mail for having sent that message out, but I will add my two cents. I also feel that it is annoying to receive junk mail here on my account. BUT it only takes a few minutes to page through and delete anything I am not interested in.

I also got mail like:

[From a certain female Engin prof] THANK YOU!!! I got 14 email messages yesterday myself (less than 12 hours after I last logged in), of which about 3 were interesting. Sometimes I even get junk/mass mailings in quadruplicate.......

About 2/3 of the 70 respondents agreed with me; 1/3 didn't. (Only two flamed me.) Many people were pleased that the email was reducing the amount of paper being used. (Which I agreed with—my solution was to use Newswatcher). It generated enough discussion that the Computing Center instituted a filtering policy—a human (Eiji) was given the thankless task of moderating the all-campus mail lists.

This led inevitably to cries of censorship. Two weeks later, the CC capitulated:

Two weeks ago the Computing Center attempted to set an email mass mailing policy which we thought served the best interest of network users. The implementation of this policy has not been successful. I'm writing to tell you the steps we have taken to correct this error...

Effective today, Monday, March 1, we are again opening up the process and allowing everyone on campus to use all mass mailing lists.

And so the floodgates opened. The entire campus got a message telling a cappella groups where to meet before the Jamboree; graduating seniors tried to sell their mini-fridges and sofas. A month later, I got email from one of my former flamers:

Ok, Jeremy. I gave you shit for your all-campus e-mail complaint earlier. I take it back. It seems that your message prompted everyone on campus to send out all-campus mailings, including things like "To all juniors" and stuff. It's gotten out of hand, and I agree with you that people should chill on all campus mailings.

Shortly thereafter, someone sent an anonymous all-campus message from a public Mac. It had an attachment.

That attachment was Newswatcher, copied and stored and forwarded 1500 times or so.

It overran the servers, crashed the campus mail system for a day; the tech crew yanked their hair out trying to get it all running again. The policy was reversed again: the doors were closed, and all-campus mailing was restricted to people who had something to say.

I don't know what the policy at Swarthmore is now; the web doubtless changed the dynamic after I left. But it's nifty to look back at a simpler time, when intelligent people could have an honest disagreement about spam, when a dozen messages a day seemed excessive, when people thought email would reduce paper use.

As I switch (just now) to Eudora to delete "Increased bone density. tgmlx" and "Buy VÌagra and many other medicines here", as our government struggles with stodgy naïveté to find a way to legislate away the billion-dollar spam drain on our economy, it almost makes me nostalgic to think of a little liberal arts college working out its first spam policy.