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Welcome back, Simbey.com!
8/2/2003
By Simbey

I originally wanted to include Pedro, so here he is anyway!  Pedro does not approve of spam.
At long last, this famed (or perhaps not so famed) website has returned!  It has taken too long, I know, and the ride has been even worse.

But I'm not going to talk about what happened to the website...  If you really want to know, send me E-Mail.  Instead, I want to talk about one of the reasons I absolutely had to get this website back and why it had to be on its own machine!

Age of Enlightenment?
First I want to tell you that a long time ago, a time before I was so cynical, I hoped that once we saw the year 2000 we would take it upon ourselves to leave behind all of the old and primitive ways of life and embrace a new, modern, enlightened way of life.

I hoped we could shed ourselves of things like drugs, ignorance, catholicism, and just down-right human stupidity and instead focus on technology, the environment, the bettering of society...

But here we are without much change.  Smokers, the ignorant, and catholics abound.  And rather than seeing at least some improvement, there is now an additional nuisance for the list.

Direct Marketing
Apparently telemarketing in the 90s wasn't enough.  We all know what telemarketing is, and we know how annoying it is.  But it's not the most annoying form of marketing.  And at least with the phone calls, you have the opportunity to yell at the intruder.

With all the complaints against telemarketing, something has finally been done.  I only worry it's not enough.  There's a big loophole in the Do Not Call Registry that says political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors can still call you!  So I think the registry is more politically based rather than something made with the intention of truly helping consumers.  After all, those exceptions are the most annoying telemarketers!

Spam
Undoubtedly, the most intrusive and annoying form of marketing is spam.  We all get it, and we all hate it.  It is only becoming a bigger problem.  Now we have entire corporations throwing time and money at this problem instead of focusing on important issues.

But who can blame corporations for doing this?  It is a problem, like any other, and people are willing to pay for solutions to it just like to any other problem.  It's pathetic, really it is!

I get spam too.  And I think we can all agree:  spam is an insult to our intelligence, and there's seemingly nothing we can do about it except let it mock us every time Outlook Express announces its arrival in our inboxes.

No, I do NOT need to go on a diet or get my youth back...  I do NOT need a mortgage or a refinance loan...  I do NOT need antidepressants (okay, maybe I do, but I'm not ordering it from UCE)!  I don't need ink for my printer.  I don't need special prescriptions.  I don't want help selling on eBay.  I don't want a credit card.  I don't want to join MLMs.  I don't want pornography sent to me by E-Mail.  AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I DO NOT NEED HERBAL/GENERIC/RIP-OFF VIAGRA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Die, spammers, die!
In all truth, the real solution to spam (and to direct marketing in general) is to put mob hits out on the biggest spammers out there.  If that wouldn't send a clear message to them, I don't know what would!

The next best solution would be to use those new terrorism laws to classify spammers as cyber terrorists and arrest them for acts of terrorism.  They could probably be executed then (see above solution).

But until society is ready to put its clumsy foot down, I am going to do all that I personally can to make sure I stop receiving spam.

Goodbye, Spam!
And this is why Simbey.com is on its own machine.  I didn't want to be like everyone else and merely complain about spam but never try to do anything about it (like people who complain about politics but don't vote), so...

For the last two years I've been developing an E-Mail server.  It's been an on-and-off project, which is why it's taken so long.  But it works, and it's loaded up on this machine and ready to discard every piece of spam it gets!  And since I'm still using my OlyNet address, my server will download and sort out all the spam I get from there too... just like a sniper on a grassy knoll.

It's called SimbeyMail (obviously), and it's not a nice E-Mail server.  You can talk to it yourself by clicking here!
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