Hi! We're idiots. That work you did is cool! Can we have it?

I've written about that thing called 10x10 before. There's this guy named Jonathan, and he's got this site which takes images that are timely and presents them in a certain cool way that lets you "see" what's going on in the world. You look and get a "feel" for what's happening, rather than just read about it. It's actually a pretty cool idea. Novel, certainly. And worth a look.

Where it concerns me is the guy running it, Jonathan, tries in vain to spam-proof his email address by spelling it out as jjh at number27 dot org. And so I get a lot of his mis-addressed mail at my domain 27.org. It's kind of annoying, but can also be somewhat amusing.

Normally, I don't even bother to read the mail that should have gone to him; I just delete it like the spam that it is. (I've asked that he spam-proof his email in a way that is technically viable as well as 27.org-friendly, but those requests fell on deaf ears.) I do have a bounceback in place that explains the situation in small words. So the Illiterati will eventually reach Jonathan. My concession to Net Karma. Yeah, I'm a softy.

Anyway, I was in the process of deleting one particular email, because I thought it had come though my normal spam filters. But for some reason, I opened it (probably to make sure that it wasn't addressed to me). I just about died laughing.

Here's the mail I got (personally-identifying information has been changed to protect the dimwitted). My translation is in the small blue font in between the lines of the original email.

We have no content of our own, and saw your site in USA Today or whatever. We think that the dupes who buy our rag would like to see content, and so we'd like to completely break the metaphor by just pasting your online zeitgeist stuff into our print magazine.
We found someone with money and also poor mental health to fund us again, so we're bringing back something nobody wanted in the first place in order to get another shot at relevancy. However...
I would be able to show you a sample of what our fine publication looks like, but my nephew the Web Dood got a job at Burger World and quit midway through the redesign of our web site. Look at some other unrelated examples of a print publication if you wish to see how low you can aspire, should you wish to let us paste in your content. See, we're pasting in their content as well.
Our magazine only contain 15 pages, but we'd like to devote 1/5 of that precious space to your pasted content. You might stand a good chance of having about 12 people see your name should you allow us to paste in your content. And you can drag your friends down too!
You'll have to figure out for us what part of your work we should paste in, because we can't be bothered to go through your site and pick something. This is because we only know one thing about our readership, should any turn up at the last minute or something.
Even though you're only getting 3 pages, we feel that it's the best use of our copious print space to include as many large images as possible. The one thing we do know about our readership is that they like to see lots of pictures, instead of words, if at all possible.
Even though we only need to paste in pictures of your content, we'd also very much like to see the source code to the software you've worked hard to write. We know it is what makes your web site unique, but we've found it's best to get not only content and ideas from other people, but it's also nice to have the source code as well. This allows us to make our intellectual property theft complete.
Instead of look through your site, we'd like to steal your source code. But this isn't really stealing. It's the part where we pretend to think for ourselves. See, we're going to put your software on a site of our own, so that we can run it too. So, ah, forget that bit above there where we asked you to find us something to paste in. Just, uh, you know, give us the crown jewels and we'll take it from there.
We can't pay you, as we have no money of our own. This is why it makes the best sense, fiscally, if we not only get you to do the work for us, but also tell us what parts of your work should appear in our magazine. Having your unique ideas purloined should be its own reward. And there's that whole "get your name out thing", so that's good! Right?
If you balk at this request for you to do our jobs, or that part where we want to steal your shit, then I'd be happy to try to come up with some reason why we'd need everything you have which makes your site unique. There are reasons why we need your stuff, trust me on that. Imagination's the limit when it's art!
Please reply soon. We have 3 blank pages in our otherwise unfinished magazine. We really gotta fill that hole, man, so be a pal and join the team and jump in for the big win, Tiger!

Send me all your third-class junk mail and sign me up for a 5 year Columbia House membership, please.
Comments for: Hi! We're idiots. That work you did is cool! Can we have it?

have.... not laughed (take breath)............ so hard in a long time. Thanks.

Posted by complx at April 12, 2005 3:07 PM

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