"Finally," I think to myself, "a possible move in the right direction in the War Against Spam." A California court has fined a couple US$2,000,000 for civil violations of the state's anti-spamming law. In addition, ten years of injunctions against the people and their company should keep at least one spam house out of our hair. California is posed to unleash a new anti-spam law on the first of the year, which "prohibits unsolicited e-mail advertisements sent to or from any California e-mail address, unless the recipient gives prior permission (under current law the recipient has to opt out), or has an existing business relationship with the sender. It also permits private individuals to sue spammers and collect actual damages, plus $1,000 per e-mail and up to $1 million per incident."

I'm tempted to say, "It's about time." On second thought, it makes me wonder if we might be trying to solve a technology problem by enacting new laws.

Spam sucks, and it costs money - real money. Anyone who pays for internet services is subsidizing the volumes of spam emails that are transported over the backbone every second. While California claims 40%, most agree that fully 75% of all email that traverses the Internet is spam - Pure, unadulterated junk marketing mail. Do you know anyone who likes spam email? I know I don't, and while I am not a big fan of legislating change, this is one area I have to think about. It might be one area where I can support some kind of restriction.

But what's the best route to take in solving the spam problem? Is this really a problem that's best resolved by passing laws prohibiting mass emailing? Or is this situation an indicator of a technology that needs to improve? It mean, email is inherently open and pretty insecure. I, for one, am a big advocate of keeping the Internet free from legislation and legal action whenever possible. That said, is it time to take a look at email technology and maybe find a better way to communicate, or is it time to place legal restrictions on how and when it's done? My fear is that these new laws will kill email as we know it, and that the protections we put in place today will eventually make this useful (albeit fairly insecure) tool a thing of the past.

There are already arguments about California's new law, and it's questionable as to whether or not it goes too far. In fact, chances are it will be fought out in the courts there before too long. I don't buy the first-amendment-violation argument myself, but I would not be surprised to see some pretty heated legal battles.

And now the U.S. Senate comes along with an anti-spam bill, with probably more problems than the California version. And it would render any state anti-spam law defunct. Great, you gotta love that. It includes penalties of up to (get this) five years in jail, and a possible do-not-spam list controlled by the FTC, and "companies sending e-mail would have to provide their lists to the FTC so they could be checked and the coverage would be far broader than the FTC's telemarketer 'do not call' list, which only covers sales calls to consumers. The spam-blocking list would also cover business-to-business e-mails and companies could put their entire domain on the registry."

We're all looking at this problem from the same perspective: We hate spam, and want to do something about it. The question now is, what and how?

I have always enjoyed reading Chris Sells' site, mostly because he has lots of cool info on it and he's a friggin genius, but also because he's got a great sense of humor.

And every time I go to his site and start poking around in there, I find something really cool. He made mention of someone who took his bare-bones IM code and ran with it, which sounded cool to me, so I went to check it out. Hey, I thought, pretty nifty stuff. Download code, try it tout. But wait - I looked over in the navigation list of projects, and was (pleasantly) surprised to see something that jumped right off the page at me: SharePoint Syndication. Dude, perfect! Creates RSS feeds from SharePoint lists - syndication for the corporate masses. :)

- g

The South Park movie has to be one of the funniest damn things I've ever seen. I saw it when it first came out, and I still laugh when I watch it now. What the hell is it about South Park that makes it so damn funny?

A little late on the review here, and not much detail, but: I saw Kill Bill Volume One last weekend. OMG - Talk about bizarre. Violent, for sure - I don't think I have ever seen a movie more violent. But it's a sort of slapstick-sarcastic-unreal-yet-real violence. It's hard to explain. Heads and arms are graphically chopped off throughout the movie, in front of little girls and whatnot, but the *way* it happens is so unrealistic. It's sick, yet it was pretty darn good. QUENTIN TARANTINO is a freak, that's for sure, but he's a talented freak. Heck, Roger Ebert called it "brilliant." Wow. What the hell is happening to this world? :)

I want one of these. And this looks really cool, too.

I'll be traveling over the next few weeks a few times to speak at these big events. Kind of looking forward to it, kind of not too excited, kind of nervous. But I think once it gets started I will enjoy it.

- g

News.com has a little article on their site commenting about Microsoft's new once-a-month patch plan. Basically, the third Wednesday of the month is patch day (critical patches don't get held onto, but others do). Amusing, but really - if a company actually relies on just one guy to do all the patching, he's never going on vacation anyhow.

Well, I think I like it. I started doing something new this week, and it's been a fun and interesting process for me. Exercises the mind and I'm refreshing old skills. I have started writing for the Lockergnome Tech Specialist newsletter, which goes out to like 140,000 people or something like that several times a week. I started on Monday and have had something to say each day - I hope I can keep up the thought process and not get a brain block too early in the process. :)

Without going into any real detail quite yet, I decided to agree to try helping with a very cool project that I first started watching back around 1996 when it was brand new. People who know me will tell you I'm one for the gab (that's my wordy way of saying I talk a lot), so this should be an interesting adventure, since it will take advantage of that talent/curse. It's kinda exciting, and I'll be interested to see how it goes. It's something I'd be proud to be a part of if it works out, and it promises to be fun, too.

Funny how old stuff - things from years ago - can swing back around and catch up with you when you least expect it. For example, recently I've been chatting quite a bit with an old friend from where I used to live in New Mexico, which has been a lot of fun. Life has changed quite a bit since then, but it's good to know that for the most part, people have not. Well, some have - drastically. But it is good to see a few truly quality people who have remained positive and good to others.

It's nice to have things from the past be positive when they come back around. I know people who feel like they have to hide from their pasts. That's no fun. I'm grateful I don't have to do that.