For the first time in years, someone featured in a This is True story has complained about it.
It took Samuel Saraiva nine years(!) to learn about the story where he’s featured and call me on the phone with the complaint.
Online Life
How to Deal With Spammers
Less spam? For the first time ever (in my experience, at least), I’m getting noticeably less spam. My spam load — the vast majority of which my server catches for me and reports in a nightly email — is down to a “mere” 350 to 450/day!
No Really: I Want the Leather
In 1999, after I had been working full-time on True for awhile, I found I really missed having peers to chat with, as I did when I had a Day Job. So I started a little group of online entrepreneurs to network with.
Hit Squad on Spammers?
I’ve been clamoring for action on the spam front since 1996. I’ve even dedicated a web site to a primer on what spam is, how spammers get your address, and other topics (which recently got some updates).
It’s a GOOHFy World
“You’ve caused a notable effect on cultural consciousness.” — that’s what one of True‘s readers said, one of hundreds and hundreds of you who wrote to say that Mike Peters’ popular Mother Goose & Grimm comic strip featured a “Get Out of Hell Free” card.
Bonzer Debut
I’ve added a new weekly feature to True: the “Bonzer Web Site of the Week” has been added just above the Honorary Unsubscribe. I accept site suggestions for this feature only from Premium subscribers (yes, I’ll be checking).
A Truly Heartwarming Story
In doing my research every week, I’ve been noticing more and more stories about spammers.
Animusic: a Pipe Dream
My Musician Brother, Curt, turned me on last week to something very cool. I ordered a copy of this disk and WOW! What a neat concept!
Diamond Girl
The following story is pretty good. What happened after could only happen in the Twilight Zone of the Internet.
Isn’t Life Already Short Enough?
A story in the 22 July 2001 issue really captured my interest — it amazes me how people will adapt to their technology, rather than make their technology adapt to them.
Not Just Dumb, But Hella Dumb
When reviewing the logs for my autoresponders I sometimes find people arguing with them, even though the messages they get clearly say that they are an automatic response to the email they sent. I thought you’d like to see an example.
Online Video: Simply Cool
Editorial Comments made in the 2 July 2000 issue:
Why oh Why2K?
or, Ponderings on the New Millennium
“I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence.” –William F. Buckley, conservative newspaper columnist.
It all started as a bit of musing in my author’s note in the first issue of the year 2000. Then, the more comments from readers I published, the more they streamed in. Let’s recap. In the issue published 7 January 2000, I pondered:
April Fools and the Internet Police
April Fools — with emphasis on the fools!
Stealing is Still Stealing, Even if It’s Easy
There has been a disturbing increase in theft online lately, of True and other material.
I’m Being Watched
The Online Journalism Review (published by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication) did an interesting story on “Value-added email: A Publishing Alternative to the WWW”.
Fork U!
I was apparently the first “Guest Columnist” on the interesting web-site-quality-really-needs-improvement site, “Fork in the Head” (“Because flawed web sites deserve a fork in the head”), which offers lessons in improvement called, yep, “Fork University”. I (let’s hope) supplied some words of wisdom about appealing to a wide audience.
Virtual Friends
I was chuffed (as one of my Australian subscribers would put it) this weekend to meet another early online publisher, Cathie Walker, formerly the Head Honcho of the Centre for the Easily Amused web site (later SillyBuddies.com), who was in Denver briefly on business from her home in Canada.
A Moment for a Serious Issue
I was quite honored last week to get a copy of the new Breast Cancer Resource Guide of Massachusetts, which lists This is True as a leading Humor Resource for victims of breast cancer. They sent it to me for a very special reason.
Another Myth Dispelled
This is Not an Emergency: I’ve had quite a few hysterical people send me an ‘urgent’ notice that “we” “must” flood the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in order to make it known that we Do Not Want to allow the telephone companies to be able to charge by the minute for Internet access.