I’ve long tried to solve the problem of spam in my email inbox. There have been numerous tricks I’ve employed to this end - using disposable email addresses, not publishing my email address on the web, etc. And yet despite all these attempts to thwart spammers, a few screw-ups (such as posting on a mail list and forgetting to change my return email address) have sunk the ship - I’m getting about 200 pieces of spam a day. Until now - because I, Brendon J. Wilson, have found the solution to spam.
Delete all my email.
Well, not all. It’s not like I’m going Donald Knuth on email (Dr. Knuth has given up email, stating “15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime”). I’m just being very picky about what email I bother to let into my inbox.
Send HTML email? You’re deleted. Send multipart/alternative MIME type content in an email? You’re deleted! Mention pharmaceuticals, refinancing, or mortgages? You’re DELETED! Send to one of my known disposable email addresses? Oh, you better believe you’re deleted.
Why go to these lengths? Well, for one thing, it avoids web bugs (images in HTML emails) signaling to spammers that your email address is alive and suitable for additional spamming. Plus, it eliminates the step of deleting email - why go through your inbox and delete a bunch of emails, when it makes more sense to undelete the few erroneously deleted emails that you care about?
The other day, somewhere between Silicon Valley and Sin City, I was thinking about the paradox of the failing airline industry. How is it possible that the lynchpin of international business is constantly on the verge of financial collapse? I think the airline industry needs to take drastic action, and leverage some of the unique assets of its industry to pull itself out of its financial nosedive.
For example: movie theaters have long taken advantage of its captive audience. And they’ve only got you for two hours! Imagine what you could do with a captive audience for a trans-Pacific flight to Australia? I’m thinking four hours of in-flight ads, and people who are only too willing to watch them because they’re the only entertainment available. And what about all that free advertising space? I’m envisioning print ads on the overhead luggage compartments, the backs of seats, tray tables (both sides), the floor, and the ceiling.
And I hate advertising - how is it that people in the airline industry haven’t figured this out?
But why stop there? Branson announced plans to add beds and cabins to Virgin airlines flights - I say he didn’t go far enough. Hey, if you’re flying over international waters, why not use the absence of legal jurisdiction to your advantage? Where are the sky call-girls? Where are the in-air monkey knife fights? And hasn’t military aviation refueling technology progressed to the point that a Columbian provisioning plane could supply international flights with all the cocaine they could inhale prior to landing?
Honestly, someone just isn’t trying.