Monthly Archive for September, 2004

Page 2 of 2

Visual history of spam and viruses

Published on September 17, 2004 in spam. Closed

Raymond Chen from Microsoft has been saving all his spam and virus mails since 1997 and created a graphical representation of them: a dot per mail in time/size coordinates.

Spam history

Some of his observations:

  • Spam went ballistic starting in 2002. You could see it growing in 2001, but 2002 was when it really took off. 
  • The big red splotch in August 2003 around the 100K mark is the Sobig virus.
  • The horizontal line in 2004 that wanders around the 2K mark is the Netsky virus.
    Source: Visual history of spam 

    • But no worries, Bill Gates promised to terminate spam by 2006.

    The end of the world: french armpits

    Published on September 17, 2004 in Society. Closed

    The End of France
    Some Californian guy with a funny accent made an amusing Flash movie on The end of the world, which has been circulating since 2003. No one seems to know who the author was. The movie has its own site www.endofworld.net, but even the people who set it up have no clue who made the movie. I guess not everyone needs his 15 minutes of fame.

    It does confirm some prejudices the Americans have: the English are phlegmatic, the French lazy, the Chinese stupid, the Russians rude soldiers and French women don’t shave their armpits. That is sò wrong, it’s German women.

    via ferket.com

    Japanese lesson in Rock ‘n Roll

    Published on September 15, 2004 in music. 1 Comment

    Japanese Rock 'n Roll (Prodikeys)
    Nothing like an enthusiastic engineer to sell a home entertainment keyboard.
    A commercial for the Creative ‘Prodikeys’ product (music and ‘normal’ keyboard in one) features an archetypical Japanese sales guy teaching us how to play rock ‘n roll drums on a MIDI keyboard. This is not the best way to play drums, and he adequately proves this point.

    I couldn’t help but put a soundtrack under it, it was too tempting. This was the original Prodikeys commercial (WMV) and this is the whole new Smoothpod mashup. Eat you heart out, Elvis!

    via drijfzand.com

    Coffee and Cigarettes: the halitosis effect

    Published on September 7, 2004 in movie. 1 Comment

    Coffee & Cigarettes

    I saw Coffee & Cigarettes yesterday, a movie by Jim Jarmusch. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s a ‘comic series of short vignettes’ with as main theme people drinking coffee while smoking. Jim Jarmusch started the project in 1986 (for Saturday Night Live) with a scene by Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright. I was kinda looking forward to it, but for some reason, it didn’t do much for me. Yes, Bill Murray is good in “Delirium”. Yes, the “Cousins?” scene is OK. But Iggy Pop can’t act, and an equally shitty job is done by Meg White, Roberto Benigni, Steve Buscemi, Joe Rigano, and some other names. Most of the stories weren’t really compelling. And, but that’s a personal opinion, I do not consider smoking and drinking coffee at the same time a ‘cool’ thing to do or watch. For one, it doesn’t do wonders for your breath…
    At which point I’d like to refer to Stinken uit de bek by the Nieuwe Wereld orkest.

    Coffee & Cigarettes

    [Listening to: "Breathe" - Groove Armada - AnotherLateNight]