SORRY EVERYBODY.....JUST HAD TO TAKE THE CHANCE!!!
I'm an attorney, and I know the law. This thing is
for real.
Any lawyer that falls for this should have his license revoked.
Rest assured AOL and Intel will follow through with
their promises or fear of facing a multimillion dollar
class action suit similar to the one filed by
PepsiCo against General Electric not too long
ago.
Research people, research. If you really think you're going to get $10k+ for forwarding an email, please stop using email as a means of communication an go back to writing letters.
Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet
companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet
Explorer remains the most widely used program,
Microsoft AOL are running an e-mail beta test.
How would an email beta test ensure that anyone uses Internet Explorer? It has absolutely nothing to do with it.
When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft
can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows
user) for a two week time period.
Microsoft can't and won't track spam mail that goes to millions of people in the course of a month. It would be a waste of resources and of time, even if they could.
Now, for the real reason you don't need to forward spam to everyone in your contact list, other than it being really annoying, it is a waste of bandwidth for Internet Service Providers across the world. "Eh, no big deal. It's just one email." That's what you think.
In a 1999 survey done by The Gartner Group, they asked, yes or no, who the users complained to when they received spam. The sender? 64% said yes. This has somewhat been rectified as a wrong answer by a law that requires any newsletter/mailing list type email to have a working link where the users can click to unsubscribe. Of course, enforcement of this law will never work until all ISP's start using one set of standards in allowing mail through their servers. (That's an entirely different post though.)
The second source that the survey asked of users who directed complaints: Their own ISP? 53% said yes, they complain to their ISP. This is a start to why spam mail does get expensive and does cost you money. I don't want to breakdown the entire reasons for ISP's having to hire technical support, so you'll just have to trust me. When people start complaining to ISP's about receiving spam, it's going to require the ISP more manpower to have people available to take those calls. That's going to cost them money and eventually, it will cost you money with rising monthly connection charges. Sure you may think that will never happen, but it looks to me like any major ISP that provides technical support will be substantially higher than one that does not.
Do you know what the answer to all of this spam is? I do. It's called an Internet Protocol Standard - RFC (Request for Comment). These Internet Standards are going to take a very long time to be put into place. Why? Because of you. Because of end users. Because of the general population. When an ISP starts using these Internet Protocols, it inevitably causes users problems in sending and receiving their email. If another ISP isn't enforcing these standards on their email servers, all of the email that is sent to the ISP that is enforcing the standard will be rejected. The standards I'm referring to are basic setups on their servers to require and allow such things as Reverse DNS lookup. If every email server in the world had Reverse DNS lookup setup, all spam could be tracked. If all spam could be tracked, laws like the one mentioned above could be enforced. If those laws could be enforced, we would see a very dramatic drop in all spam.
Of course this all sounds simple to you, I'm sure. (hehe) Some ISP's (think large, corporate ISP's) know about these Standards and choose not to enforce them because of the huge problem it causes when users don't receive their email. Other ISP's don't even know about the Standards, so they obviously can't enforce them.
Do the research for yourself. Type in "spam isp statistics" in Google and emerse yourself into the world of your ISP's Network Administrator. It may seem annoying to you, but you don't have any clue how much of a pain in the ass it is for ISP's. What can we do about it as individuals? I'm not really sure. Maybe I'll find something one day and make you all join in my revolution. Until then, just stop forwarding spam mail. All of these statistics DO include forwarding chain letters, jokes, etc.
says MarissaD at 2/25/2003 11:54:00 PM
I'm going to Arizona tomorrow. We're going to visit my sister and bro-in (as tay says brother in law.) It should be really fun. I haven't been out there to see them since they got hitched a year ago. We're also going to go to a PGA tournament. That should be fun too. That is all. Thank you bye.
says MarissaD at 2/25/2003 11:57:00 AM
February 23, 2003
Here are a few other pics from K.C. in the sheets. One Two Three Four Five This is an edited version of pic two.
says MarissaD at 2/23/2003 01:15:00 PM
February 22, 2003
Last night I was putting the sheets on the bed and K.C. decided to play with them a little bit. She definitely likes to be covered in fresh sheets. I edited it a little bit to bring out some color. More pics soon.
says MarissaD at 2/22/2003 11:34:00 AM
February 19, 2003
I just did the math. As of today, my body is officially free of that gum I swallowed 7 years ago.
Okay not really. I'm just super bored.
says MarissaD at 2/19/2003 05:15:00 PM
February 18, 2003
I am exhausted. Today I spent half the day with a classroom full of third graders. I loved it. I was a little scared at first, but it was great. I even kept my regular sense of humor and they got most of my jokes. I didn't cuss though. Took a lot for me not to do that. One little kid was talking about being at home and he said his mom told him to shutup a lot. All I thought was how sad it was that his parents told him to shutup. The other kids in the class freaked out and all went 'ommm!!!!' I didn't know how to react. I didn't want to punish him or embarass him so I just told them to quiet down and finish their work. They also told me I'm pretty and the cutest boy in the class asked if I was married. I said that I wasn't. He asked when I was going to get married. I told him when I find a boy worth marrying. He proposed. It was nice for the ego, but then I had to remember he's only 9. All in all, it was nice. The kids were pretty good. And when they weren't they took well to my sarcastic scolding. That way I didn't have to be really mean, but they still got the point. It was good. Now I'm really tired and will probably be in bed by 9:30. So pathetic.
says MarissaD at 2/18/2003 08:20:00 PM
February 17, 2003
I'm only going to say this once.
We all know Michael Jackson had a billion surgeries. We all know he's a bit of a pervert. We all know he's not telling the truth about 90% of what was said in that interview. Just watch his freakin eyes. No One Cares. ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and whoever else is running so much of this shit, SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY. This isn't huge breaking news! Just look around the internet. Most of this material has been around for years. You idiotic reporters think you have a big scoop, when in reality, you're just rehashing the same bullshit day after day. Spare us this O.J. Simpsonized, over dramatic redunancy already!
I feel better. That is all.
says MarissaD at 2/17/2003 09:20:00 PM
February 16, 2003
I just spent the last thirty minutes browsing the internet on Misti's computer while she's sitting in the living room folding laundry and watching the Sunday Matinee. Bad friend.
says MarissaD at 2/16/2003 03:22:00 PM
My visit with Misti has been fun. This is my second day here and it's nice. We haven't hung out in a long time. So far, being back home is okay. I'm glad to be back around my parents a lot, but not exactly ecstatic to be away from Dallas and my friends there. I've been getting blow by blows on the daily happenings there from said friends and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, I'm glad I have friends that will even talk to me when I'm not there, but I don't like hearing about things they're doing that I would normally be doing with them. It's overall a little depressing. Usually in situations like this, I'm out of sight, out of mind, but now I'm actually spending a lot of time thinking about being back there and back with friends. I guess this is just the adjustment period. Don't really know. I don't really know much of anything lately. I have, however, watched more T.V. and movies in the last week than I have in the last two years. Is that good or bad?
says MarissaD at 2/16/2003 02:53:00 PM
February 04, 2003
I found a home for one of my cats. I don't know which one yet, as it's a bit of dilemma as to who will get along better with Midnight. We don't want an uproar on our hands. The thing about the person who will be keeping my cat, is that it will not be permanent. I will be retrieving my cat when it's time to move again. Oh yes. I will. Mist, at least you're getting into something and at least that something isn't a bad thing.
says MarissaD at 2/04/2003 09:45:00 PM
No, I haven't found anywhere for my kitty. I don't know which one is going to stay with me and which one is going to a new home. For awhile I thought I would keep K.C. and give Judy to someone because K.C. seems more adaptable to outdoors and we'll need an outdoor cat because mom and dad prefer the house be empty when they go out of town. But lately I'm thinking K.C. is a little too high strung to be around Midnight. She's always jumping around, picking fights with Judy. I just don't know. Mom is going to ask around in Andrews for anyone who might want to keep one of them until I move out again. I'd rather have them close to me than up here in Dallas. It's a source of sadness for me during this move thing. I'm not really sad about moving home, btw. I'm excited about it. I'm just sad to leave my friends and family up here. It'll be ok though, I suppose.
says MarissaD at 2/04/2003 01:23:00 PM
Ah I feel it is time to stretch these little fingers again. I have some news and for those who haven't heard the news yet, it's nothing personal that I didn't tell you one on one. It's just not something that I felt like making a big deal of. Anywho, I'm moving home, with my parents this Saturday. I'll be leaving the big D and it's going to make me entirely depressed for a little bit. I'm going to miss a lot about this place. Mostly all my close family. Second mostly, my good friends that I've made while I've been here this last year. Much love to my cousins, aunts, uncles here and to my two bestestest friends here in Dallas, Mykie and Laurie. Gonna miss everyone. None of you even know the depth of that statement. The good news is, I'll be back. Probably within a year or so.
The other good news is I'M MOVING HOME!!! Some kids (even the ones in their mid 20's eesh...) would dread moving back in with their parents. I'm one lucky little brat to have the parents that I do. They're awesome and amazing and it will be great to develop my reltionships with them. I need me some good mommy time. And I need awhile to recoup myself financially. I'm so happy that I have this option at all. I know a lot of people out there don't, so I'm thankful for it.
Next... I haven't really missed blogging much lately. I know it's annoying. It drives me crazy when other people don't update. Kind of throws my day off, in a way. Hopefully I'll be around more soon. For right now, I'm not going to promise anything. Here's for an update though. I've read way too many "Marissa needs to update" posts. Now I've got some packing to do. Bai Bai.
