This has no particular focus and I am writing this on the fly. There will not be a version 1.2 or later. In fact, be happy that you got a version 1.0. It's not yours. I own it and reserve the right to cancel it, make changes to it, modify it or start going into your home and reading everything on your computer without warning beyond the EULA, because it's mine on your computer, so there.
Item ONE:
Hasn't the Spam for: WATCH! ^^Live %Streaming Team A vs. Team X** Free PPV, taken another noticeable rise in the feed lately? Well, it may not be *the* answer, but I have started to fight back. At least four times a day, I look at the "Recently Posted" feed on the left hand side of the Cover Page. I then quickly right click and "Open in New Tab" all the sports video Spam feeds and take the entire list. Once they are opened in the tabs I flag each and every one of them and list as my reason for flagging: "Just look at it, for fuck's sake!" Submit and move on to the next one.
Yeah, yeah, I know, it's not as spectacular as setting myself on fire, but goddamnit, I'm am burning up over it. Help me fight back the rising tide of spammers by becoming part of the Open Salon Spam Flagging Team. Only you can prevent spam fires.
Item TWO:
I have been casually noticing the adverisements in the boxes at the base of our posts lately. Just now I saw one for "The Sims 3." The slogan is, "Play with life." Catchy. On the front of the titles in the Sims 3 panoply is, "Sims Pets."
So I was wondering, just as I have with Ken and Barbie when playacting was real and not virtual, "Where's the expansion packs that make sense in this day and age?"
For example, where are the expansion packs titled:
"Corporate Raiders?" You get to choose between being a CEO, CIO, CTO or CFO and you can play a High Stakes Financier, a Real Estate Tycoon or an Oil Baron. Further additions to this expansion pack will most likely be based on customer feedback, but it's a pretty good bet that Contract Attorney: Arbitrage and Mortgage Securities Trader will be included in the next release. And don't miss the downloadable digital content that lets you play: Defense Contractor, Private Security Firm President or Bankruptcy Attorney! Fun!
"Political Scandals?" Now you get to play at being a crooked politician (are there any other kinds?) You have to figure out how to get your message out to your "peeps," build a warchest of campaign funds, demonize your opponent while spending as few dollars as possible. This expansion pack comes complete with two sets of books for you accountant types.
But wait, there's more! Using a virtual Twitter feed, which can really post to the real world, you have to navigate the virtual landscape between your spouse, your illicit lover (now including choices for LGBT!) , L-Street Lobbying concerns, and your constituents, and still hope to increase your "base." Exciting!
"Street Thugs?" Don't just sit on the sidelines, reading the news about all this rampant crime, become a part of the problem with Street Thugs! Yes, now you, too, can carry an illegal concealed weapon and wreack havoc amongst the neighbors. This pack comes with extras! Included inside are: A mask, a set of fake lockpicking tools, a Slim-Jim (not the food, silly! It's for carjacking!) and a fake Minnesota State Police badge and one genuine Monopoly (tm) Get Out of Jail Free Card!
And my personal favorite, the amusement park expansion, in the same vein as Bible Land, Opry Land and Fantasy Land, titled:
"Toxic Waste Land?" Imagine the thrill of riding in the heart thumping, fear inducing 55 Gallon Oil Drum cart on the "River of Sludge!" Or who could forget the breathtaking panorama as you ride over the skyline of "Burning Oil Fields?" (Don't forget your respirator mask!) Shake, rattle and roll to the earthshaking wonder of shaped charges and tons of dynamite as the Mountain Topper Exposition treats you to a shock and awe not seen anywhere else beyond a battlefield! Don't miss it!
Just some odd bits of random juxtaposition here.
Item THREE:
Social gaming. What is that, really? It used to be called Parlour Games and we played things like Monopoly, Sorry, Mousetrap, Ants in the Pants, Trivial Pursuit, Home Jeopardy, canasta, pinchole, bridge, charades and other such things. Today, social gaming is getting an invite from your brother, sister, friend or a total stranger to, "Play Slots at Zynga for free!"
Are you fucking kidding me? Is there anyone here who really thinks slots are fun when you're sticking money in them for real? Honestly? Who the hell wants to sit in front of their computer, clicking a mouse button to run a virtual slot machine? The house always wins, that's the rule, right? We know that and if you can still find a quarter slot machine, you figure, "I'll dump in maybe $10.00 worth of quarters (one roll) and when it's done it's done. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky."
A virtual slot machine payoff? Holy SHIT! I won! But what did I really win? Nothing, right? It's virtual money and means nothing. If I spend actual dollars and win, I might come out ahead, even if it takes me forty minutes to get a payoff with my roll of quarters. But a virtual payoff of fake dollars? Fuck me sideways, but that's just not going to do it for me.
Okay, I'm done now. Just had to get these out there and posted. At the very worst, it should at least get a better rating than the misguided and humorless post: What's Up With Open Salon post yesterday, I should think. That was more a waste of time than the virtual slot machine.
Remember: If you squint your eyes and grit your teeth, maybe they won't know you're not smiling. (No revisions, posted immediately and no preview -- I'm living on the EDGE man!)
TIP:
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Steven J. Gulitti
sagemerlin
Petitioner person
beauty1947
Jeanette DeMain
Poor Woman
Salon.com
Comments
Adverisements should read "Advertisements." This is not a true revision, it is included here under the rubrick of: Errata.
I foresee a new Sims game..
Open Salon- with no virtual payoff at all.. but was there ever??:)
HUGGGGG
"These sports posts are obviously coming from bots!!! And slowing your server to a crawl!!! Look at the activity log!!!"
This is the first post I've been able to comment on in nearly two hours!!
Maybe we all need to rise up to flag all the sob's as soon as the appear!!! OS needs security and verification before it opens any new accounts!!
It's easier to say I design roleplaying and wargames, but that isn't all I work at. I also basically do my best to create cultures, ideals and characters that the player must interact with and my intent is to do so in such a way that distinguishing between a "cardboard" non-player character and a regular human controlled character is difficult.
But I am NOT going to ever design a Slot Machine Game that isn't already part of a larger framework where the player can "play" the game within the game they're playing -- as their character and the situation warrants.
Yeah, Jmac, it's been horrendous and just getting worse in the last two weeks. It's starting to look an awful lot like it did when I joined OS about this time last year. Maybe if we really do create a loose federation of OS'rs to fight the spam by flagging it as quickly as we can, perhaps we can make a dent in it. That said, I used to administer and moderate a roleplaying game related website (no longer had funds to keep it running, but it was a solid seven year run) and our software was able to make sure the bots were kept out in the Internet Superhighway to get hit by the passing motorists instead of shitting all over our yard. What's that saying, "Good fences make for good neighbors."
Thanks for reading and commenting. This really was just a sort of -- hey wait, I have a couple of things on my mind -- post. It felt good to get it off my chest and hopefully make a point as well. Note that you never got an Inbox notification of this one. This was purposeful. I didn't think it warranted calling more attention to it and I was also wondering how many views this would get without the ubiquitous self-promotion.
LOL
YOu too? Guess we're both fighting the spammery in our own separate ways.
C'mon by and see what's shakin' over at my spot.
;)
Rated
Poor Woman, I'll be stopping by. I'm bringing a pen, pencils are for sissies!
JALI 17, I may have slightly over-represented my self as Supreme Commander of the Universe. I used to want that job, but not anymore. It just doesn't seem like enough. (tongue, cheek, in) I am most happy when I am out taking pictures, which I did on the way to and from the mailbox (my "driveway" is a little over 200 yards from the house, so almost a quarter mile there and back.) My second most happy thing is writing. That's just today. Tomorrow it may be the other way 'round.
Yes, jlsathre, I spotted a couple of the "Vacation" travelogue posts. The Flagman is on the job. I'm shooting for the low hanging fruit as they taught me in Statistical Process Control and Natural Workgroup training. That's taking the thing you can have the largest impact on compared to your efforts. I think the live streaming in the feed is the most prolific.
Personally, were I running the site, I'd be collecting IP Address data and then blocking entire ranges of net addresses from where those damn things are coming. It's not like I didn't have to do that running my own site.
Rock on, people, thanks for your reading and comments!
Feel free to invade my computer and read my blather. You'd be better off finding whatever credit cards I have and drain Wells Fargo, B of A, Chase or whatever banks fund whatever cards I might have. If they lose money then it's their own fault for making poor life choices and extending credit to humans (as she bats eyelashes and stares blankly). Some other credit card will be stupid enough to extend offers to me. Life goes on.
I really have no interest in any of those action games except if there should be one where I get to brutalize CEO's of large publicly traded companies. Oh, and politicians, maybe like where they kill those poor hookers but with scuzzbags instead. It would be especially fun to have former employees kick them repeatedly and then drive their cars over them after a mass layoff for profit. Hahahaha! Yes, those would be fun games, I think I should like very much to play them.
If it has been like this all week I didn't miss much (except the writing of people I like).
I have the Sims and use to love playing it, especially making a room with no doors and just letting the poor Sim die in the Swimming pool with no way out!! :D
Life, gotta love it!!
In reference to the Spammers, flag!! Maybe if enough people flag, they'll get the idea that this is a real problem or not. Probably more not!! But it makes me feel good to flag spammers, especially the ones who pretend to be real!!!
WANT TO TRAVEL TO OWLS' HOUSES, THEN CLICK HERE!!!
THIS REAL ARTICLE!! :D
Comment spammers piss me off too! No real way to report them but go around to some of the older EPed articles and note how many of the comments end with a link to some website!!!
Too many!!!!
You're Fired!
You get to play a disgruntled employee who leads a coordinated People's Assault against a large inhuman corporate entity (not inhuman like a zombie, but corporations are *not* people, my friends.) Your mission?
To seize control of the corporate headquarters with the main objective of making the Corporate Raiders "Walk the Plank." Defenestration is an option! Power to the People! Down with the Corps. The Corps are dead -- that's why they're corpses.
Okay a bit over the top, but if angry birds can be popular, so can this. I could try to make it funny and ludicrous, but I'd want it to be taken more seriously, I think. You know, that whole make a point thing.
FusunA, it has been crazy like this since about Monday, but it's definitely gotten worse as of yesterday. I wonder how many good stories I missed in the feed simply because the system is so bogged down I didn't have time (with all the page errors) to find them and then read them? Today has been frustrating.
Yesterday, I tried to make a post about it, but the system closed out my page three times, wouldn't let me load a page to copy information over to my blog and then asked me to log in right in the middle of my setting the page up. IN frustration and disgust, I just closed out and quit for the day.
Today, I am more determined and have had time to consider the situation. I am going to keep poking and prodding others and the PtB (Powers that Be) until something changes for the better -- or they rescind my username and account.
Thanks ladies, for your comments and reading.
Catpcha. It will also weed out comment spam as well -- because you have to have an account to comment and if the spammers are stopped from even creating and account -- problem solved on both ends.
Let's do it for the gipper.
It is another in a long list of "little" things one must learn to adjust to in using OS.
thanks again but it's going to take more than just me.