We’re recording on location this week! Coming to you all the way from… next door. And now, with extra background noise! You’ll love it!
You also might say that, during this episode, we’re coming down like cat and dogs…. ?
And here’s the awesome video again!
UPDATE: There was a problem with the episode file. It’s all fixed now.
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From wiki:
According to the Internet Society and other sources, the term spam is derived from the 1970 Spam sketch of the BBC television comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The sketch is set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes Spam canned luncheon meat. As the waiter recites the Spam-filled menu, a chorus of Viking patrons drowns out all conversations with a song repeating “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam… lovely Spam! wonderful Spam!”, hence “Spamming” the dialogue. The excessive amount of Spam mentioned in the sketch is a reference to the preponderance of imported canned meat products in the United Kingdom, particularly a brand of tinned ham (Spiced ham = SPAM) from the USA, in the years after World War II, as the country struggled to rebuild its agricultural base. Spam captured a large slice of the British market within lower economic classes and became a byword among British children of the 1960s for low-grade fodder due to its commonality, monotonous taste and cheap price — hence the humour of the Python sketch.
In the 1980s the term was adopted to describe certain abusive users who frequented BBSs and MUDs, who would repeat “Spam” a huge number of times to scroll other users’ text off the screen. In early chat rooms services like PeopleLink and the early days of Online America (later known as America Online or AOL), they actually flooded the screen with quotes from the Monty Python Spam sketch. With internet connections over phone lines, typically running at 1200 or even 300 bit/s, it could take an enormous amount of time for a spammy logo, drawn in ASCII art to scroll to completion on a viewer’s terminal. Sending an irritating, large, meaningless block of text in this way was called spamming. This was used as a tactic by insiders of a group that wanted to drive newcomers out of the room so the usual conversation could continue. It was also used to prevent members of rival groups from chatting—for instance, Star Wars fans often invaded Star Trek chat rooms, filling the space with blocks of text until the Star Trek fans left. This act, previously called flooding or trashing, came to be known as spamming. The term was soon applied to a large amount of text broadcast by many users.
It later came to be used on Usenet to mean excessive multiple posting—the repeated posting of the same message. The unwanted message would appear in many if not all newsgroups, just as Spam appeared in nearly all the menu items in the Monty Python sketch. The first usage of this sense was by Joel Furr in the aftermath of the ARMM incident of March 31, 1993, in which a piece of experimental software released dozens of recursive messages onto the news.admin.policy newsgroup. This use had also become established—to spam Usenet was flooding newsgroups with junk messages. The word was also attributed to the flood of “Make Money Fast” messages that clogged many newsgroups during the 1990s. In 1998, the New Oxford Dictionary of English, which had previously only defined “spam” in relation to the trademarked food product, added a second definition to its entry for “spam”: “Irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of newsgroups or users.”
Wow. That is very interesting. And I did not remotely know that, despite having spent a lot of time on BBSs as a youngster.
Yeah… as I was reading the article, I remembered a lot of stuff I’d forgotten about this topic. At least I did remember the Monty Python connection.
I knew that. The Spam sket in Monty Python spams the word Spam, and people would type the words to the Spam song (sung by Vikings) from that sket… Case in point…
Spam
Spam
Spam
Spam
Spam
Spam
Spam
Spam
I’ve seen it happen back in the day (when the shit was real… in the ’90s) on text MUDS.
Annoying as hell.
And that’s why it’s called Spam.
You haven’t talked about very much on Revolution on the podcast.
Re: Inexplicable accents – James Marsters did an accent for Torchwood because that show is RTD’s consolation prize to himself for never being able to write for Buffy/Angel. (This is me being harsh.)
Walking – I have SERIOUS issues with my hamstrings. If you can find a foam roller, that’s pretty good for working out your legs. Here’s one…
http://tinyurl.com/95hf7yf
More on walking –
Are you waling DOWN the stairs at work? Start with that. There was a sign in a hospital I used to volunteer at that said, “Up one, down two. Take the stairs, it’s good for you!” Which I find difficult not to think of any time I’m going up or down stairs. And now, hopefully, you will be similarly afflicted.
That’s probably because the first episode sucked so badly and might be because Tony gave up on it last episode.
Tony gave up on Revolution after first episode. I was tempted, but decided to tough it out. I finally watched the second episode this weekend and thought it was better. Or maybe I just expected it to be terrible this time?
Also, I know it’s late in the thread, but I want to point out how dissapointed I am in you guys that you’re recording from some other house while the owners are out WITH THEIR PERMISSION.
Re – Political Calls and mail – I’m getting mail from people running for office in CA… to my Texas address…
BIG BADA BOOM!
Re: Cats and Dogs – I guess I’m a Cat Person, but I see the pros and cons for both… Also, I love how a discussion about cats and dogs turns into a serious political discussion.
Yes, we can hear the PAH-RA-D… it’s great! You need to have a parade going by while you’re podcasting more often!
Re: William wants a cat – If you get an indoor/outdoor cat make sure it gets all the shots ever.
Tony – So you’re saying your cat is you.
Nobody says, “Screw dogs!” because nobody wants to screw a dog. Just saying.
You should really clean that box out more often Tony.
I was going to say that Dogs are babies and Cats are teen-agers… But you go with whatever works for you Tony.
I have a cat myself yes.
I was going to answer the question about if I was angry but I want to wait and see what the other Hardhats say and whatever the consensus is, I’ll go with that.
I forgot to include a picture of my cat. Click the link.
Catching your (not you’re) own grammer typos – I prefer “Grammer Dalek” to “Grammer Nazi” because, as a friend says, “they’re still all about the dominence of their race, but they never actually existed”.
Back to the Spam topic – Spamming used to be a verb. You would flood a chat channel, usually with the word spam, so that nobody could actually have a conversation. People started applying it to junk emails, which filled your inbox and made it hard to find the emails you actually wanted to read.
In verbal terms, it’s called a “filibuster”. And the reason we don’t call THAT spam is because filibuster is a great word itself.
I laughed at Tony’s comparison of dogs to special needs children, so apparently I’m not mad about that. And the other thing, I already forgot about it, so it wasn’t important enough for me to be mad about. What I am mad about is our cat scratching Mr. Bee’s leather desk chair as I sit here typing.
That being said, I’m a cat person, and have lived with and around cats since I was a kid. I like them for their independence, and I appreciate that I don’t have to care for them like one would a small child. The cat we own now has even taken it to the next level, as she isn’t much of a lap cat or snuggler. I’m not totally opposed to dogs, and if we owned a home with some land we’d probably consider getting one, but right now I’m happy with the way things are.
I’m a total grammar Nazi, and share the annoyance at the mixup of “affect” and “effect.” Their, there and they’re are also confused by many, too often for my liking.
Wow, this episode sounds slightly echoy but your voices are much clearer and easier to understand.
William: Have you read any books by Harry Turtledove? He does a lot of alternate history/sci-fi books. Also, you might want to check out Wikipedia for info on what was happening in 1831. They have category & individual pages for various years throughout history which might be useful to your research.
The Producer hasn’t given up on Revolution??!?!?!?!??!!? I must now seriously question her sanity.
Elementary was fun, if uneven. And yeah, I totally didn’t realize that guy was British. His American accent totally fooled me.
Tony: I gave up on being a registered independent years ago, simply because I was getting contacted waaaaaaaaay too much. These days I’m registered with a single party and haven’t received a single political phone call or really even any political mail this year. Also, I’m pretty sure you can change your party affliation when you vote.
William’s Spanish accent: It’s still better than Sean Connery’s.
Cats vs Dogs: That’s easy. Cats rule, dogs drool. Also, Capt Jack was our first cat; he passed away several years ago. Our next cat was Munchie (we didn’t name her) who passed away two years ago. Our current cat is Raja.
I’m amazed that neither of you knew where “spam” came from. Side note: when I was a kid one of my favorite “homemade meals” was fried spam with mac & cheese. Also the spam recipies Tony was referencing are partly controlled by the “Web Clips” setting in Gmail. This setting lets you see litte head lines for various things which are partly dependent upon what emails you’re looking at and partly on what source you select (the default was 101 Cookbooks).
If you’re not part of the solution; you’re part of the base (not the problem, you silly vocal extensions)!
I’m a pet person. We currently have a cat, whom I adore, but if we had a fenced in yard we’d also have a dog. Throughout my life I’ve had fish, birds, hamsters, cats, etc. So, yeah. Pet person.
Wow everyone – we just had a “your” vs “you’re” discussion at work this morning. We had two post-it notes, left by other (different) people, where it was used incorrectly (one of each). Way to go everyone.
I’m registered independent too, but I just get calls from democrats. I haven’t got much mail for either one, but the guy who lived in my apartment before me gets TONS of republican mail. I wish they’d all stop.
I’m not a huge fan of pets either way – I’d much rather spend time with people because they are able to reason and usually can take care of themselves. Pets are like having a 1 year old – and as wonderful as 1 year olds are, they’re even cooler when they grow up, learn complex things, and become independent people.
BF and I have been watching revolution – it is pretty terrible, but I’m starting to enjoy how terrible it is (very much like the Bring it On movies). None of the characters are particularly compelling. Guess we’ll see how long it lasts.
I think that next year, you should set up your recording “studio” along the parade route and give us the play-by-play color commentary of the parade goings on. Podcast 133. Count it.