[nukkad] Of Amazon, Spam and sperm

[Harshal Chhaya <>]

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A composite reply to a few messages from late last week.


Net Geek asked:
> I'm thinking about purchasing some "used books" (old second hand)from
> Amazon dot com. Anything odd about this?

Nothing odd but note that the used books are being sold by individuals 
and not directly by amazon. These people have signed up with Amazon to 
sell their goods. Your payment will be handled by Amazon who will then 
pass on the money (after deducting a comission) to the seller. But it 
will be the seller who will actually send you the books. Amazon also 
provides a gurantee upto US$ 250 so that if you have problems with the
product, you don't lose any money.


And last week Rohit asked:
> From our childhood days we hear that it takes hundred drops of red blood to
> form one drop of white sperm. ... Its difficult to digest.

I know many people have responded to this but let me say it again that this
is complete bogus. This lie is generally told to young men to discourage them
from um.. self-gratification. If this 'fact' were remotely true, you would see
many bloodless teenagers around you.


Rawat asked:
> >SPAM is named after Monty Python skit on the canned meat product
> What is that?

SPAM is a meat product that is widely available in the US and other 
places (see http://www.spam.com for details). Monty Python was a comedy
troupe from the UK that wrote and produced TV programs, plays and movies. 
One of their most famous skits involved a group of vikings that visit 
a restaurant and start ordering all dishes with spam (the meat product).
They also start singing 'Spam, Spam, Spam' loudly and over and over again. 
They make all other conversation impossible and are very irritating. 
This probably does not sound too funny when I describe it this way but 
it is actually quite entertaining. 

The initial waves of spam (junk mail) was in newsgroups. This large 
amount of unwanted crap made normal discussion impossible which reminded
people of the Monty Python skit about SPAM. Thus everyone started calling
these junk newsgroup mailings as spam.

When the spammers started sending their junk via email, it did not have
the same effect but since it was the same people sending the same junk,
everyone called it 'spam'. In the early days of junk email, some folks
insisted on calling it UCE (unsolicited commercial email) or 
UBE (unsolicited bulk email). But spam is much easier to say and most 
people were familiar with the term. So, all junk postings - on email or
on newsgroups or on web-based message boards - is now called spam.


Rawat also asked about the 'nukkad' header about Hades and Kerberos. 
Anna's answer was right on the dot as far as Greek mythology goes.
What makes this line interesting is that 'Kerberos' is the name
of a software package (http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/www/)
that is used on computer networks to control access to various 
network resources. Thus Kerberos controls who gets to access what
on a network. The line used in the header used the phrase 'Kerberos 
authentication system' in a punny sort of a way.

As an aside, it is interesting to see messages that discuss 
the 'nukkad' header. Chalo, at least people are reading it.

- 'shal

-- 
 http://www.mumbai-central.com : Where Mumbaikars meet


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