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Simon Willison’s Weblog

Curious emails

There follow two of the weirdest emails I have ever received through my contact form. The first is a fascinating rant against standards compliant client side scripting:

don’t use javascript don’t use netscape

Respectfully taking a leaf from you I would most strongly urge you to cease using JavaScript and instead use the much better script language, Microsoft’s VBScript.

In the smae vein, I beg of you to use the DOM.all of IE exclusively and turn your back on Netscape and its clones.

I feel very strongly about this. JavaScript’s syntax ism abominable...too many curly braces, semi-colons, square brackets, regular parentheses and all the claptrap symbols it borrowed from that abominable language—C—and its successor—C++ -. The hours I spent hunting for the missing semi-colon or the improperly inserted double colon and wading thru the false error messages of Borland’s C v.2. It was a horriblem experience. I need you to give me your unstinted and selfless support to kill off, once and for all, that abomination called JavaScript. This is a call for sanity in scripting. Let’s bring back simplicity, lets get rid of unnecessary complexity. Help ME!!!

The second is just plain odd. I can only guess it has something to do with this entry.

Grassfed beef

Eat grassfed beef...now its the real McCoy...full-flavored beef that is heart healthy and rich in Omega-3 and CLA. Try GrasslandBeef.com

Grain fed beef is not heart healthy...and I used to eat it all the time and really gained weight and increased my cholesterol...and now that I have found grass fed beef, it is going down and I actually prefer the taste of bland grain fed products.

Posted 14th September 2003 at 1:20 pm

This is Curious emails by Simon Willison, posted on 14th September 2003.

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11 comments

  1. Haha that sure is some weird stuff you get, but I'm not surprised considering the traffic you get. That VBScript one in particular doesn't make much sense (I can understand grass-fed beef :p) I was notified of this email that was sent through the contact form of a client's site: Dear Administrator We are sorry to inform you that your site has been targeted for hacking practice. The monthly hacking practice is organized since 1991. The targets are randomly chosen. We are sorry if your server is down, damged or formated. The first round of attack starts on 15th Sept 23:56, there will be at most 5 rounds, each last for 5-10 hours. Please backup your data. The hackers assigned to your server are level 2 hackers. (ranking from level 1 to 7 by increasing ability) note: this message is sent from an randomly picked unknown singapore host. please go ahead tracing. reply will not be receivable. Regards, CHU - Chinese Hackers Union 2003 http://www.cnhacker.net/homepage.htm

    Cheah Chu Yeow - 14th September 2003 14:24 - #

  2. I doesn't surprise me that you get odd messages like that. Your blog is a geek magnet, and geeks are a pretty strange bunch of people when you come right down to it.

    I'm a semi-geek blogger, with a few tutorials on CSS and XHTML littered around my site. I also have an area dedicated to the US Visa process (after going through it myself), a Star Trek tribute page, and a Nutella tribute page (done more as a private joke).

    Last month, I got this email tirade from some bizarre Lakers fan who thought I'd personally wronged Kobe Bryant. I had no idea what the hell the guy was talking about, until I discovered that Kobe Bryant's image is used to promote Nutella in the USA, and that they had dropped him from the campaign after it was discovered he'd dipped his wick where he wasn't supposed to (allegedly).

    ...too many curly braces, semi-colons, square brackets, regular parentheses and all the claptrap symbols it borrowed from that abominable language - C - and its successor - C++, is pretty damn funny LOL.

    Simon Jessey - 14th September 2003 14:44 - #

  3. That first one was just too damn funny.

    alanjstr - 14th September 2003 17:46 - #

  4. Strange strange people. I wonder if they will read this post and the corresponding comments.

    Allyn Edwards - 14th September 2003 21:52 - #

  5. Cheah Chu Yeow - I got that email today as well. I can't figure out if it's a hoax or not, so I've backed everything up just in case.

    Simon Willison - 14th September 2003 21:58 - #

  6. Another weird one to throw in the ring. I got this one off mezzoblue.com:

    I had approximately 40 e-mails in my account that I fully intended to read! Something came up and I had to leave my page and shut down my PC!

    For some unknown and perfectly mysteriously reason, I lost ALL of my e-mails and I am very angry! I didn't do squat to delete these important items from my e-mail! What do I need to do to retrieve those e-mails that were so important to me and keep this from happening again?

    I know factually that I lost probably 35 e-mails! I want to know that if they were a winning sweepstakes or a contest , and MSN just abruptly decided that I shouldn't need my e-mail, what they plan to do about that! I will most probably sue them as interferrence in my livelyhood and my relationship, as my husband is tired of my continuous entering and is prepared to sue them for fraud! Especially since we receieve over 150 pieces of SPAM a day! I feel that this is YOUR responsiblity and it is necessary that you take care of your devoted users!

    I would greatly appreciate your help in this matter! Any information into this difficult situation, that is ripping my PERFECT marriage, of 15 years, apart would possibly help!

    And for some weird reason I got spam for alistapart.com the other day, despite never having published an article on it. I can't figure out how that happened.

    Dave S. - 14th September 2003 22:30 - #

  7. (snip)... and I actually prefer the taste of bland grain fed products.

    He had me sold on grass fed beef until he contradicted his whole argument. What a nut.

    Lou - 15th September 2003 08:18 - #

  8. Hmmm, grass-fed beef, the last time I knew beef was not classed as an animal, perhaps it's horsemeat.

    Well, it's hardly surprising that if an animal doesn't get feed concentrate that it will taste slightly different when consumed.

    Just like UK homemade butter is generally a paler yellow in colour in winter than in the summer; due to carotene levels in winter forage, for example silage, as compared to summer grass.

    Robert Wellock - 15th September 2003 11:53 - #

  9. NO COMENT!

    Bubolino - 29th October 2003 21:19 - #

  10. NO COMMENT, TOO !! :)

    Michael Mantik - 26th November 2003 00:00 - #

  11. i want emails many pls send them to me now thanks

    steve - 22nd January 2004 05:05 - #

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