My wife asked me tonight, “Does spam ever really work?” I was prepared to launch into a speech detailing that, “although it’s a statistically small amount, large numbers of spam are made to compensate,” when it hit me.

The problem with spam is that the less effective we make it, the more spammers have to send out.

Huh? Well, if spammers have a success rate of 2% and they send out 100 million emails with each successful email making $1, then they make $2,000,000. Now, let’s say someone comes along with a spam filter that lowers their success rate to 1% … suddenly 100 million emails only makes them half what it used to, and they have to send out an extra 100 million emails. And no matter how hard we try, they’re never going to have a 0% success rate.

The Solution?
Simple. Convince everyone you know to fall for the spammers scheme. The more people who fall for it, the higher their success rate goes. The higher the success rate … the less spam they have to send out.

You may wonder if they won’t simply send more spam out to make even more money. I’m willing to bet they won’t. The one thing you can trust about a spammer is that they want easy money. So, if you make their job easier, they aren’t going to work harder.

Want to prevent spam? Maybe you should consider buying some weight-loss pills. I’m sure you’ve already received an offer.

There’s been plenty of talk about some great, global, online conversation, but I want to outline how to engage in that conversation once you realize it’s there.

What is this Conversation?
In simple terms, it’s any conversation anywhere (whether it’s online or not). Think of it like the Force from Star Wars. It surrounds every living being and is controlled by them and controls them at the same time … or something like that. It’s a website, comments on that website, emails, IM’s, phone calls, radio talks shows, television programs, two people talking to each other, and just about anything else you can think about (yes, even music). Obviously, if you can inject what you’re saying into all that … well, something would happen.

Step 1: Start Your Own Conversation
Grab a website. Start putting coherent text and content on it. Even better yet, let others leave comments. It can be as simple as “Hi, I’m Nicholas. I like kitchens,” or as structured as “We’re Xyz, an online publication that discusses all aspects of Kitchens.” Don’t stress too much on details, because there’s really only two import aspects: 1) you’re clearly understood and 2) you have a permanent location that you can reference in future conversations.

Step 2: Identify Similar Conversations
There’s tons of conversations out there, but don’t just run to the loudest one in the room. (It’s probably about Anna Nicole Smith anyway.) Instead, identify conversations that are similar to yours. They fall into some categories (which I will describe as lines):

a) parallel conversations - Parallel conversations are the people out there talking about the same stuff as you. If you’re kitchen-xyz.com, they’re kitchen-abc.com. Traditionally, they would probably be considered your competition. They’re not, and you should be listening to what they’re saying.

b) intersecting conversations - Intersecting conversations aren’t necessarily talking about the same things as you, but they do touch your topic in some way. In our kitchen example, they would be talking about bathrooms (or appliances, or … you get the picture).

c) vertical conversations - Larger conversations that encompass your conversation. They are the big boys. In our kitchen example, they would be talking about the whole house (or it could be a general interest conversation at the local beauty parlor).

Step 2: Listen
Shhh… That sound, it’s not silence. It the roaring, thriving global conversation, and you can’t just jump in. You have to listen first. In fact, the longer you listen to a conversation the better you will be able to engage it. So, now that you’ve found similar conversations, don’t bombard them … instead listen to them.

Step 3: Start Off Small
Now that you’ve been listening to this conversation (and you know what it’s about), you may feel like you’re the speaker’s best friend. You’re not. In fact, the person doesn’t even know you. So, begin engaging the conversation appropriately. Start with any small entry points you can find. On websites, it’s usually comments.

Step 4: Start a Cycle
Hey, you just took your first step into the conversation. Now, go back to listening. It’s some kind of recursive, circular monster.

Step 5: Let it Grow
It’s not good enough to go around in circles. You have to grow the conversation and let it spiral out of control (until you end up on CNN and madly famous). Last time, you left a comment, this time expand your comment to an article on your website. Then email it back to the site you just commented on. Hit the parallel conversations first, then the intersecting, and then the vertical. Growing the conversation the whole time.

That’s it. Hopefully, when your conversation grows so big that’s on the front page of the New York Times, you’ll throw this conversation a bone.

For some reason, I never posted this. I got this tattoo shortly after my son Jackson was born. So, I probably have had it for about a year. The pic is pretty bad because 1) I took it one-handed, and 2) it was my left hand.

The tattoo is located on my right forearm.

Blake asks, “Who cares about the Vista launch?“

Here’s my impression of every single Microsoft operating system launch I’ve ever seen:

Step 1: Release new OS that has a bunch of features no one was asking for but look mildly impressive.
Step 2: Break anything that worked well in the last OS
Step 3: Wait and watch as everyone avoids it like the plague.
Step 4: Panic!
Step 5: Realize that the company is about to go under.
Step 6: Release SP2.
Step 7: Realize that somewhere along the way you got a product that’s not bad.
Step 8: Force it down the throat of everyone who’s buying a new computer.

Yea, I pretty much only get a new version of Windows when it comes pre-installed on a new computer, which is probably the same for 90% of everyone else. So… Vista’s launch is only a big deal if you’re in the market for a new PC.

1) Re-do this site (yuck!)
2) Get a haircut, a shave, and take at least one shower
3) Launch my work site
4) Beat all the games that I got for Christmas (this will take all year)
5) Work-out schedule
6) Scrap work-out schedule, then start it again
7) Tie up loose ends (I’m not exactly sure what that means)

When I first read the headline, Rare Video of Dying Frilled Shark, I told myself I preferred discovery specials on lonely days where my pajamas smell as bad as I do. Later, I was forced to watch the video … all I can say is “I’m never going in 2,000 feet deep water if this is what’s living down there!”

It’s been described as a modern day dinosaur, but I say crazy monster of the deep is more accurate. After watching the video, contemplate how many of your trips to the beach were really just close encounters with being that thing’s last meal.

Because it would be boring just to recite the things I asked for Christmas, here’s the top ten things that I didn’t ask for, won’t get, but secretly desire this Christmas:

1) HDTV (yea, I have a specific one picked out in my heart of hearts)
2) White water rafting / skiing trip
3) Water front property
4) Motorboat to go with the water front property
5) Sailboat for when I’m tired of the motorboat
6) Fancy mobile phone
7) TV Tuner card for my Windows Media Center (this one isn’t even unreasonable)
10 minutes of complete, utter, deafening silence (I’m talking not even background noise; the kind of silence that will upset you)
9) A good shave (I’m too lazy to shave my beard myself, but just maybe I’ll do it)
10) Goodwill and peace on earth for all of mankind (if I get everything I asked for this year, I might ask for this next year)

Instead, I’m going to have an eat your heart out, 12-year-olds dream Christmas full of video games.

What do you secretly want for Christmas?

I wish I could become a t-shirt collector. But in the mean time, I’ll spend my time looking at t-shirts available online.

Here’s seven new designs available at Tees My Body:

• and the Pickles T-Shirt
• Fun Size T-Shirt
• Cobra Commander T-Shirt
• Samurai Baka T-Shirt
• Congratulations Idiot T-Shirt
• Fight Milk Expiration T-Shirt
• How Much? T-Shirt

Forget IE 7. FireFox 2 was just released and it rocks … big time. I’d go into detail, but it wouldn’t do it justice. I predict IE 7.5 in less than a year.

Now go download FF2!

I’m so tired of seeing grammar books suggest the usage “E-mail”. Many of these books argue that “e-mail” stands for electronic mail and necessitates a hyphen. They are wrong.

To say that email stands for electronic mail is akin to saying that automobile stands for automatic mobile. Certainly, automobile probably originated by combining automatic and mobile, but it is now a word of its own. Email has also become a word of its own, and I would argue that “e” has become a common prefix much like “auto.”

Google Trends is an excellent tool for showing how real people use words.

If we look at e-mail vs. email, we clearly see people use email when searching. Now, some might be quick to argue that search users are lazy and type the shortest possible input, but that hypothesis can easily be disproved by looking at t-shirt vs. tshirt. “T-shirt” wins, showing that search users aren’t inherently against using the hyphen in a search term.

Other Grammar Book Errors
Take a look at Web site vs. website. The argument grammar books make here is that Web site stands for World Wide Web site. However, they are incorrect. You can easily have a website that exists outside of the World Wide Web. An intranet is an excellent example. I can even have webpages if not complete websites on my local computer. Does a Web page become an HTML document when it no longer resides on the World Wide Web?

Those “Damn” Quotes … and Parenthesis
Any grammar book will tell you that punctuation goes inside the quote. And they are correct when referring to the limited ways that they use quotes. However, the rise of the internet and computers has added additional usage for the quotes. For instance, I may want to communicate a specific search term like “punctuation inside the quote”. If I put the punctuation inside of the quote like so “punctuations inside the quote.”, it changes the meaning of what I was trying to convey.

Confused? Take a look at a programming example. For instance, I may want to communicate the PHP code like “echo ‘hello world’;”. Clearly if I were to put the period inside of the quote “echo ‘hello world’;.” and someone was to try using that code, it would no longer work.

Grammar books don’t make grammar rules; populations do. In the past, language changed much more slowly, or at least, our ability to track changes in language was slow. However, that is no longer the case. So, next time you go to use “E-mail” just because it’s in a grammar book, be wary because you probably mean “email”.

It’s been over five years since Microsoft has released a new version of Internet Explorer, but today they released Internet Explorer 7. I was actually pretty impressed with it, but once you download it, you realize how badly Microsoft had ignored the web browser.

In the five years since Internet Explorer 6 was released, browsers have progressed by leaps and bounds. IE 7 jumps on the bandwagon with just about everything. It does tabs really well (Hey, is there a major browser that doesn’t have tabs?) It has incredible RSS support (better even than FireFox.) It does some major house cleaning of the toolbars (actually, it’s quite spartan now … and nice.) It even improved on CSS rendering. Unfortunately, I feel like IE is still playing catch-up (like a boxer after a five year hiatus.) If it goes another five years without a major release, it will be dead. Instead, they should plan some decent improves for a year from now (maybe a 7.5.) So, where does it need to improve? Web Standards (especially CSS). Come on, isn’t it about time that we got 100% compliance?

More importantly, what trends does IE7 cement on the web?
Tab browsing is here to stay. That means people can browse more pages, more quickly. Hey, I guess we need to work harder on keeping peeps around.

RSS Is Big. M$ puts some major muscle behind RSS. Expect to see sites that don’t have an implimitation scrable to get some sort of RSS. It’s going to get a lot bigger.

Zoom! I feel like the Zoom functionality will be big for accessibility. Or at least old folks. I expect it will become more common.

All in all, a long needed release to help push the web along.

I’ve been keeping a secret. I didn’t get MySpace. Everytime I looked at it, I found myself thinking, “This HAS to be the worse website I’ve ever seen.” There’s NO content there. It looks painful as well. What gives?

I had an “Ah Ha” MySpace moment today. Since we’ve launched Tees My Body T-shirts, we’ve been trying a few different marketing approaches. One of my partners was in charge of the MySpace approach. I had heard that it could be a real powerful tool, but I didn’t get it. After looking at our traffic reports today, I REALLY get it.

43% of intial traffic has come from MySpace, and there lies the secret to it all. MySpace doesn’t have any content. It’s not useful in that manner. It’s usefulness is in networking. Helping you find people, and helping people find you. It’s a hook-up site. You can go there (and in our case) find visitors for your website. In other cases, I’m sure you could find someone to fill whatever seedy role you have open.

Now that I get it, I’m going to start thinking of a lot more ways to use MySpace to my advantage… And NO that’s not what I had in mind. I was simply hoping to garner traffic to various projects that I have going on.

In a moment of spontaneity, I broke down and bought an Xbox 360. My initial impression? Very impressed. It’s sleek design is marred only by a few slight flaws. Take for instance the great look of the console and controller, and match it up with the hideous logo (that green X looks out of place no matter where it is) or the atrocious game box design. Who does neon green boxes appeal to again? The controller is almost perfect; my only complaint (besides the giant X logo) is that the digital pad sucks. Good thing you rarely use it, but as long as the digital pad has been around, how can you screw that up?

The real worth of the system is how much fun it is, and I’ve had a lot of fun on it (can’t stop playing it). From downloading demos (I have to move my router into the den becuase the wireless adapter = $$$) to playing Dead Rising (I only have one game because they too cost $$$), I’ve had a LOT of fun on it. While many of the demos are top notch (Ghost Recon, Dead or Alive 4, and Call of Duty 2; Fight Night looks like a movie), the system takes a hit on poor quality control when you play a demo like blazing Angels that is so below par it seems sad. Far Cry Insticts Predator’s online demo looked like Picasso’s rendition of an FPS.

Still, I’ve started Dead Rising over 3 times from the beginning and loved every second of it. There’s something about taking a lawnmower to a hoard of zombies that is just appealing. The game has some minor flaws though. For instance, the dialog text is insanely tiny. I have to sit 3 feet from the screen to read it and I have a decent sized TV. How this made it past product testing is beyond me, but someone needs to be fired over it. Also, a patch REALLY needs to be made. It’s actually painful to read the story at times and for a change it’s not because of bad dialog.

So, what’s my final verdict? The Xbox 360 is a GEM (I can’t say how incredible the graphics can be); it just needs a little more polishing from Microsoft. I’m left wondering what Sony could possibly do to stay even remotely in the game. Some big shake-ups are definitely in the store for the video game industry.

New Project: Yes! I just got my newest project up, Tees My Body T-Shirts. I teamed up with some longtime friends to give t-shirts a try. I’m really happy with what we’ve put together so far. We just got our t-shirts in from a local screenprinter, who did an incredible job.

Anyway, check it out! Here’s the designs we have so far:

• John Basebow Lives T-shirt
• Ninjas Love Pirates T-Shirt
• Pimpbot 5000 Hoes T-Shirt
• Pork-Chop Express
• Jheri Curl Yoda
• Brokeback Mountain - I’ve never been there
• Please be 18

Oh, and tell everyone you know to go check it out.

Nope, I’m alive, kicking, and working… Yep, for once, I’m actually busy… But doing what? Here’s a quick list:

• WordPress - I’ve gotten my hands dirty in a custom install, and I like it alot.
• Vanilla - I’m about to try a Vanilla/WordPress integration
• Networking - I’m setting up a small intranet for my employer. The Windows Server 03 box is sitting right here. Anyone know anything about setting up a VPN?
• Super secret BUDS project… Hopefully will launch it today or tommorrow
• Scuba Diving - I went spearfishing over the weekend. It’s not all fun and games, but a little bit always helps.
• Zip Code Radius Search - I wrote a neat little PHP piece that lets you search by zip code. I’ll post the code soon.
• New PC - I ordered a new PC. 2.66 Ghz, 3 GB RAM, 250 GB HD…and a really gnarly pair of sunglasses

Of course, most of my time I’ve been spending enjoyably with Jack and Cindy.