The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Monday, Debtember 04, 2017

Yet another case where a spammer didn't bother to actually read the page

From
Jen Miller <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
To
sean@conman.org
Subject
Research on Mattresses
Date
Mon, 4 Dec 2017 09:13:34 -0800

Dear Editor,

My name is Jen and I’m a writer at Jen Reviews. I was doing research on mattresses and just finished reading your wonderful blog post: http://www.conman.org/asg-x/links.html

In that article, I noticed that you cited a solid post that I’ve read in the past: https://www.slumberland.com/

I just finished writing a guide that is even more detailed, updated and comprehensive on how to choose a mattress - 9 factors to consider according to science. It is over 7,000 words and packed with practical tips and advice. You can find it here: https://www.jenreviews.com/mattress/

If you like the guide we’d be humbled if you cited us in your article. Of course, we will also share your article with our 50k newsletter subscribers and followers across our social platforms.

Either way, keep up the great work!

Warmly,
Jen

I swear, my pagerank must be increasing or something, because I'm getting a lot more of these types of email lately. And it's clear the sender never bothered to look at the page as the page in question isn't even a blog post. It's from way in the past—October of 1998, to be exact (and I know that because this page caused Welcome Wagon International, Inc. to send a “cease and desist” letter to my previous host for violating their copyright, thus forcing me to register my own (and still current) domain).

The http://www.slumberland.com/ link on the page was actually linking to Wendy Dunlap's homepage and not to a matress company. To tell the truth, I would be surprised if any of the links on that page work—even the link to me (where my last name is mispelled “Connor”) points to a non-existant domain (which wasn't even correct when I mirrored that page in October of 1998). The only reason that page is still here is because “cool links don't change” and I was doing the smooth transition from the old host to new one. In fact, until today, I had forgotten that page even exists.

And as for what ASG-X actually was, will have to wait for another time.

Obligatory Picture

[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]

Obligatory Contact Info

Obligatory Feeds

Obligatory Links

Obligatory Miscellaneous

You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent links to that entry only. The format for the links are simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are interested in, say 2000/08/01, so that would make the final URL:

https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01

You can also specify the entire month by leaving off the day portion. You can even select an arbitrary portion of time.

You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that important.

It is assumed that every brand name, slogan, corporate name, symbol, design element, et cetera mentioned in these pages is a protected and/or trademarked entity, the sole property of its owner(s), and acknowledgement of this status is implied.

Copyright © 1999-2024 by Sean Conner. All Rights Reserved.