Exploring AquaMinds NoteTaker

Pond Scum Spotlight: In Which Idiots Who Pollute Cyberspace Get the Level of Attention They Obviously Crave

Hi There. I’ve just spent the past hour or so scrubbing spam comments off this weblog. Big, dumb, robotic intrusions into a discourse space with the sole purpose of shoving unsolicited ecommerce past the eyeballs of unsuspecting visitors.

Let’s be clear: This is not the equivalent of email spam--which, loathsome as it may be, is merely junk mail with no barriers to entry. Spam comments, on the other hand, can only be compared to annoying, psychotic non sequiturs that interrupt conversation. Imagine yourself at a party speaking intensely with two other people about something all three of you care passionately about. Now imagine this asshole--slightly sweaty, bug-eyed, in a cheap suit--muscling his way in, screaming Excuse me! Excuse me! I want you to buy a prom dress from me!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen--we’re talking about Business Pond Scum here. People worse than those electronic stores that have 30-year-long going out of business sales; people more creepy than those guys with less than full sets of teeth, who want to sell you stereo speakers off the back of a U-Haul; impolite thugs who basically need to be bitch-slapped into silence and then sent to military school.

Any one who follows the arc of this weblog must realize by now that my politics are not those of the sitting government. However, this morning I had an epiphany: I could finally wrap my head around and fully get behind capital punishment--I’d like to see the cretins who spray-painted this weblog with bad, even misspelled self-advertisements marched before a firing squad. Up Against the Wall, You Mothers. . . Bam! Next?

Of all the guerilla merchandisers who visited like burglars in the dead of night, my personal favorite is the search page which promises “Search Without Junk.” Yeah, that’s right, the hypocritical bastards are spamming to promote an allegedly spam-free search engine. Do me, yourself and every other legitimate Web citizen a favor--don’t patronize this service provider--ever. Forget about some kind of metaphysical rationalization for a boycott--it simply comes down to lying in public: They are junk merchants who say they don’t abide junk. Uh, good luck with your next search with them--you know, that critical one on which your job depends . . .

Blogging With a Virtual Virtual Notebook

Sometimes being left to one's own devices can be both productive and clarifying. Over the weekend, I had occasion to spend way too much time in environments where wireless Internet access was not allowed. Not being smart enough to have anticipated this little wrinkle, my trusty 12-inch PowerBook was with me--albeit useless for posting purposes. After I finished hyperventilating, I told myself I could handle doing time in an Access Free Zone--even though secretly, I knew these circumstances had broken better geeks than me. However, I had seen The Birdman of Alcatraz more than once and I knew how best to use my time in solitary confinement . . .

And so as I was sitting there, I decided to collide two ideas--just to see what sort of creative fission would be released. The first idea is that not only do weblogs not have to feature reverse chronology (and yes, I do tend to bang that idea like a gong), there is also nothing stopping blogs from treating time as something malleable.

What if I simply decided that the events/statements/jokes/confessions of, say, June 14, werenot carved in temporal stone, simply because the reigning Reverse-Chrono metaphor of online content management encourages such assumptions? What if on June 16, I went back to the June 14th posting and changed it? Not merely touching it up or correcting a typo or fine-tuning a reference. No, what if I put significantly new stuff in the June 14th posting? And what if other things written on June 14 were simply removed--ex cathedra--by me? What if the important thing about the June 14th posting wasn't the date, but the subject matter? Further, what if that subject matter was dynamic, changing from one day to the next?