September 23, 2004

Comment Spam - again...

This is cute... Blogs have an ongoing problem with comment spam -- people will post comments to older blog entries with the hope that the websites they link to will be picked up by search engines and given a higher "page rank". Many times, they try to disguise their content with some text (since it is really obvious to the blogger when a comment has been posted -- I get email as well as an indication on my editing screen). Tonight brought a wonderful wonderful entry: bq. Severe Acronym Shortage Cripples Computer Industry SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (SVC) -- According to a recent study by the Blartner Group, 99.5% of all possible five letter combinations have already been appropriated for computer industry acronyms. The impending shortage of 5LC's is casting a dark shadow over the industry, which relies heavily on short, easy-to-remember acronyms for everything. bq. "Acronym namespace collisions (ANCs) are increasing at a fantastic rate and threaten the very fabric of the computing world," explained one ZD pundit. "For example, when somebody talks about XP, I don't know whether they mean eXtreme Programming or Microsoft's eXceptionally Pathetic operating system. We need to find a solution now or chaos will result." bq. Leaders of several SVC companies have floated the idea of an "industry-wide acronym conservation protocol" (IWACP -- one of the few 5LCs not already appropriated). Explained Bob Smith, CTO of IBM, "If companies would voluntarily limit the creation of new acronyms while recycling outdated names, we could reduce much of the pollution within the acronym namespace ourselves. The last thing we want is for Congress to get involved and try to impose a solution for this SAS (Severe Acronym Shortage) that would likely only create many new acronyms in the process." Heh... The other five were banal -- quotes from historical and political figures. This one was cute. They are all gone gone gone... Posted by DaveH at September 23, 2004 8:51 PM