United Kingdom.
London, W6 9PE.
Company No: 4620511
FROM THE DESK OF SAMSUNG 2014 PROMOTIONAL AWARD.
Dear Email Owner,
This is to officially inform you that your E-mail have been verified and pronounced as the lucky winner of 500,000.00 GBP, in the 2014 Award By (SAMSUNG Draw Promotion UK) wishes to congratulate you over your Email Address success in this financial bailout plan. Your Email Address emerged as one of the ten final recipients of a Cash
The grammar and spelling is enough to make this a dead giveaway as a Nigerian scam. If you get this email, or one like it, throw it directly in the trash. If you respond, you’ll be hit up for as much money in fees and taxes and transfer agents and bribes as you are willing to shell out. As for what you’ll get?
And that’s the sum total of the transaction. Be careful out there.
Just got this in my spam box today. It appears that Dr. Oz has now moved from hawking garcinia cambogia to this new garbage, Forskolin. The name sounds thoroughly unsavory for reasons I won’t go into here.
I found a great post over at Science Based Medicine that says many of the things I’d normally post here, so I’ll just refer you to that article, and other posts on the same website are worth reading as well. One good quote I will extract – all of these weight-loss nostrums
“…fit the same pattern: a small grain of plausibility, inadequate research, exaggerated claims, and commercial exploitation. There are always testimonials from people who lost weight, probably because their will to believe in the product encouraged them to try harder to eat less and exercise. But enthusiasms and fads don’t last. A year later, the same people are likely to be on a new bandwagon for a different product. Dr. Oz will never lack for new ideas to bolster his ratings. Enthusiasm for easy solutions and for the next new hope will never flag as long as humans remain human.”
In short, it’s all bulldust. But as network marketers will tell you, health and wellness is a trillion-dollar industry, and everyone is trying to get a slice of that pie. As one associate put it, that business is big enough that it would be sufficient to lick the knife that cut the pie. The sad part is, the pie is a lie. Most of what is hawked and marketed has little or no value. As I mentioned over here, if you want to release weight, eat less, eat better, and exercise more.
As a final note, a couple of rules of thumb regarding spam messages like the one above.
It’s a scam. Legitimate businesses don’t advertise using spam
Never click the link that says “unsubscribe.” You’ve just confirmed to these unethical dipweeds that your email address is real and active. It will be sold to other scumbags, and your level of spam will increase.
In a story published in 1953 entitled “Nobody Here But…”, the Good Doctor Asimov wrote,
“We were especially interested in the automobile angle. Suppose you had a little thinking machine on the dashboard, hooked to the engine and battery and equipped with photoelectric eyes. It could choose an ideal course, avoid cars, stop at red lights, pick the optimum speed for the terrain. Everybody could sit in the back seat and automobile accidents would vanish.”
They promised us flying cars, too,
but this idea looks like it’s going to happen a lot sooner.
The Google driverless car is a reality. Watch Steve Mahan, a blind individual, get taken to Taco Bell. These cars have now driven over 500,000 miles without a serious accident when the car itself was in control. While the technology is not yet perfect, it does not need to be; as long as the driverless car reduces accidents – in other words, if it’s better than human drivers – there is no reason why industry, including the insurance companies should not get on board. It will save lives, and reduce insurance costs dramatically.
That’s not to say that the technology is easy to develop:
Google’s engineers are dealing with problems like this increased by an order of magnitude. But based on results, they are doing it.
Right now, the technology costs about $75,000 to $85,000 per vehicle, more than the car itself. But I fully expect that my grandchildren will be able to make full use of this technology, long before flying cars are ever – if ever – practical. And the Good Doctor Asimov would be proud.
My father was an actor by trade and a sculptor by avocation. He was very good at it, and worked in clay, wood, and stone. When he passed (hang head), most of his work was donated to local musea; a few examples follow.
Paul Muni
Walter Hampden as Cyrano de Bergerac, modeled from life
Negro Dancer, Bronze
King Lear, plaster, destroyed
As a young man during the depression, my father and his first wife would lug his sculptures to a display in Washington Square in New York – heavy work, because most of his materials, such as limestone, granite, and wood came from building debris. In the evening, he would lug them all back to his workshop. Sufficie it to say he was passionate about sculpture, and remained so to the end of his days.
In 1949, he and my mother visited the 3rd International Sculpture exhibition in at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He was also an avid amateur photographer, and captured some images of the day’s visit. The quality is not spectacular, but there are some interesting pieces to be seen.
Clearly my father’s work was influenced by some of the styles that seemed popular in the day:
Here’s a new one. I fear it will catch some people in its snare, but I’m putting it up here in case anyone is searching to ascertain its validity.
This email is not from General Motors. It is a scam.
The English is riddled with errors. The message promises a payout. There will be “fees” to pay. Do not call the number, or respond in any way.
————————————-
Microsoft Word – GM Mass Zoho Email
To: Undisclosed recipients
Subject: you might want to look at this plan
From: “GM” <jason@mta1.axp4h.com>
GM ANNOUNCES PAYOUT PLAN!
Hello,
I hope this message finds you well. We are writing to inform you of a very important recall. General Motors (GM) as of Monday June 30th, 2014 has put out a recall on over 29 million cars. These cars are being recalled due to many different problems one being a faulty ignition switch. These faulty cars, are causing major accidents and injuries, all the way up to multiple death related accidents. If you or a loved one owns one of these recalled cars and have experienced some type of complication , accident or even death as a result of the accident, we would like for you to call us and let us help you or your loved one be financially compensated , due to GM’s recall. Below are a list of the recalls from GM. If you see your car, or family members’ car listed below. Please call us as soon as possible at 877-210-5546.
It should go without saying that this message is a bald-face lie. General Motors would be ashamed to send out such a poorly-formatted, poorly-worded, error-riddled email.
Please protect yourself and your loved ones – teach them never to respond to mails of this nature. Be careful out there.
Some have billed this as the first brick building in Boston, but that fact is in dispute. What is not in dispute is that this is a wonderful relic from years past.
And looking as it does today:
Google Maps search done by /u/MyApplePie
A stereogram of the Old Corner Bookstore taken in the 19th century
“Threatened with demolition in 1960, the building was “rescued” through a purchase by Historic Boston, Inc. for the sum of $100,000.Historic Boston is a not-for-profit preservation and real estate organization that rehabilitates historic and culturally significant properties in Boston’s neighborhoods so they are a usable part of the city’s present and future. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is Boston Landmark under the auspices of the Boston Landmarks Commission.” – Wikipedia
March 1943. “Conductor G. Reynolds, checking his waybills in a caboose of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad between Argentine and Emporia, Kansas.” Photo by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information.
An eeriliy deserted 6th Avenue, looking south from 40th street. The man’s headline reads ‘Nazi Army Now 75 Miles From Paris.’ The lack of traffic and people, combined with the breakfast special sign, leads one to believe this may have been taken in the early morning.
This is the New York I remember, the one I grew up in. Not too far from my home in that year, either. Notice the street light: no yellow. I remember sitting in my windowsill in 1955 or 1956, on nights when for some odd reason I wasn’t sleepiing, watching the staggered lights turn green or red all the way up Lexington Avenue (we were on 85th) – here’s my view, taken around the same era:
The window to the right was the one I sat in, and I was able to see a couple of miles up the road.
I would pay dearly for a time machine and be able to go back to the City in those days. In many ways it was a lot more interesting than it is today.
This delightful Epic News video by Peter and Chris (two Irish gentlemen with sharp wit) deconstructs the nature of clickbait to make it easy to recognize. The video is irreverent and lowbrow, but spot on and hilarious. Watch at your own risk.
For those who want the executive summary:
You usually see a highly-sensational title that completely misrepresents and oversells whatever content there may or may not be.
Take a headline like “19 Reasons Why Young Marlon Brando Will Ruin You For The Rest of the Day.”
What do these headlines even mean?
What follows is a summary of how to generate successful clickbait:
Don’t waste your time generating original content.
Spend your day lurking on link aggregator sites such as reddit and repackaging other people’s stuff to get maximum shares on social media.
Add a ridiculous claim about something that will happen provided you CLICK
1) Take a simple video of a homeless man playing a tin whistle for his dog.
This homeless man’s music (will change your life) / (will restore your faith in humanity) / (will make your jaw drop) / (will shock you)
2) If possible crowbar in gender, race, or social issues to make it more provocative:
This blind homeless man’s amazing music for his terminally-ill (gay) dog will restore your faith in humanity.
3) Remove as much descriptive information as possible from your headline to create what the industry calls “a curiosity gap.” Replace it with Hyperbole. If the reader can tell what the story is about at a glance, you’ve FAILED!
Wow! A Blind, Homeless man Befriended an Old Adorable Lost Dog, and What Happened Next Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity.
4) If possible, turn it into a bogus list somehow. Use age and target demographics for greater impact.
16 reasons why only 90s Kids from England will Keep Calm and Carry On While Understanding Why This Blind Homeless Man and His Full-Blown Dog-AIDS-Infested Best Friend Will Restore your Faith in Humanity and Change Your Life (Forever).
5) Add a hashtag
#jenniferlawrence
If you need good examples of clickbait, toddle over to ClickHole, the Onion’s (semi)-parody website originally designed as a sharp stick in the eye to BuzzFeed and Upworthy, but now taking on all the media without discrimination.
As the presenters say, there’s a place for this kind of bulldust tabloid journalism, because enquiring minds want to know. The problem arises when so-called “real news” outlets try this stuff and are deadly serious about it.
Now I need to confess that I often scan media outlets and reddit and other sources for things I consider interesting or worthwhile or socially relevant, and share them with my social circles. However, I don’t think I’ve ever asked anyone to “like and share” anything. I’m not a like farmer, it’s a poor way to make money.
The Old Wolf Has Published a Blog Post Accessible from Almost Anywhere in the World, and Reading It Will Change Your Life Forever! #Monsanto
Playing in the World Game 