#AOL Email Not Sending

[andre-and-cal]

hiii!! this might be a stupid question, but do you have any headcanons on how andre + cal would act online? like would they have their own webpages, and how they would chat and stuff like that :p

also, i love your writing so much <3

Hii!! :3 That’s not a stupid question at all !! And TYSMM IM SO GLAD :D <33 These were fun to make, I hope you like these!

Andre and Cal Online Headcanons,,

Andre’s username on his favorite social/chatting websites is @ak47_0717, while Cal’s is @gunslinger83. The reasoning behind their usernames, first of all, is that Andre’s initials are AK. Because of his unsettling interest in firearms, he’s bound to be interested in one of the most popular guns in the world— the AK-47. He likes having his initials similar to the “AK” in AK-47. The four numbers at the end of his username are his birthday. Cal’s username is pretty self-explanatory; he calls himself a gunslinger, and the ‘83’ at the end of his username is the year he was born.

Andre and Cal talk to each other on AOL, which was one of the most popular online services for internet users at the time. They also chat on MSN Messenger, and they used to communicate on ISQ, which was more popular in their middle school years and early high school years— the late 90s.

With Blogger having been established in 1999, Andre and Calvin created accounts. They follow gun blogs and blogs dedicated to books, movies, and bands they like. Also, Andre follows— although he doesn’t really interact with— the Iroquois Track Team and Science Club blog pages. Cal follows the school band’s page. Despite following different blogs, they don’t really post much on Blogger; they like to stay relatively quiet and unnoticed. Andre does leave hate comments on posts from people he doesn’t like. Since anonymity wasn’t as robust as it would come to be in the mid 2000s— the years following Cal and Andre’s deaths— he made an alt account with a fake name for the sole purpose of hating on the Iroquois Wrestling Team blog page… for obvious reasons having to do with Brad Huff. He also leaves hate comments on Rachel’s posts. Cal mentions this mysterious user to Andre sometimes, mentioning how Rachel talks about how this unknown person on the internet criticizes her posts. Andre plays dumb and acts uninterested, yet he listens intently, replying with soft “Mhm”s, as well as a “Damn, that sucks”. He doesn’t want Cal growing suspicious.

They play girls’ flash games both for the hell of it and for the irony. They get relatively entertained from these online dress-up, salon, and cooking games, with Cal being aware these games are aimed at girls. He intentionally makes his character look ugly and goes into hysterical laughter over it— he absolutely laughs at the stupidest shit. However, Andre actually tries and is surprisingly concentrated on the game, face frozen with stoicism and focus. Andre would never admit it, but with his family having a cat, Mel, he finds pet care flash games to be genuinely fun.

Andre and Cal illegally download music and share it with each other by Napster or by email. They’ve sacrificed their computers for the sake of copying a System of a Down song onto their files for free, instead of physically buying the CD. In 1998, when Andre was still a freshman in high school, he ended up getting the CIH virus (Chernobyl virus) which practically wrecked his software and ruined his computer. Whole Calvin teased him for getting such a destructive virus on his computer, he ended up informing his parents. He’d told them that Andre needed a new computer, and he suggested that they pitch in to help Andre’s parents buy him a new computer for his 16th birthday in the summer. Because for the time being, Andre would have to use Cal’s.

Andre and Cal share similar humor in most areas. And since internet memes were beginning to rise in popularity, the two boys send or email each other dark humor memes and chuckle at them.

If they were alive in 2003, they would have used 4chan !!

Andre uses all types of different acronyms when chatting, such as but not limited to “ROFL”, “LOL”, “LMFAO”, “BRB”, “ILY”, “IDK”, and “BTW”. He often capitalizes the first letter of his messages and types faces like “:-)” and “>:(”.

Cal, too, uses many acronyms online. He also types with no capital letters, and he often takes shortcuts when he’s chatting with Andre. He creates little faces with the keys on his keyboard and copies and pastes special symbols online. When he’s typing to Andre first, his first message is usually a simple, “hi” of some sort.

They both play Doom together, considering how 1993 Doom was multiplayer when it first came out.

GeoCities !! Cal and Andre created their own website for the Army of Two. They didn’t necessarily say much on the site, and they didn’t give the site name to anyone they knew. But they still specified who they were and their interests without giving away their last names.

In addition, Andre and Cal used GeoCities to make a screamer site, and they made different alt emails to troll Brad Huff by sending the link to him, without him finding out who they were.

Sometime during the final week before Zero Day, their last few days of being alive, they’d both typed up a short, lovesick letter in their notepads— two messages they’d always wanted to tell each other but never got the chance to. Cal had gone on a tangent about how much he enjoyed being Andre’s comrade, how much he enjoyed Andre being his. Also, he was saying his goodbyes before their final mission and how he loved Andre and hoped he’d see him on the flip side. Whereas Andre was saying how he was looking forward to escaping the school with Cal and how he hoped they’d have a better life together, even while they were wanted from the cops. He mentioned how he loved Cal, too, but with his own phrasing of that declaration. But that ended up being an unrealistic expectation on Andre’s end.

[the-pea-and-the-sun]

every time i debate over whether to send a <3 or a :) i feel like im in one of those fuck ass teen rom com scenes where the protag is like texting or emailing or aol-ing their crush

[wonderful-emoji]

Hi! No need for any emojis. I just want to say i appreciate the effort you put into this blog :)

Thank you for the kind words! And even if you don't want a moodboard I'll give you an odd essay of blog lore. I do all of this because I'm hyperfixated in emojis, and I know the interest of my origin in the topic comes from something other than emoji.

Back when I was a little kid my parents had Aol 9, and they set me up an email so I could send clipart to grandma. On this first online experience of mine there were two things that I feel reflects my current emoji interest. The first was a series of smiles intended for AIM, but I didn't use aim so just used them in the aforementioned grandma emails

Basically it was about a dozen emoji expressions over countless themes, and I think you chose. I would be lying if I said the emoji fusions didn't remind me of these bad boys.

The other thing was the customizable favorites icons

Basically you could assign an emoji-esque symbol to each of your website bookmarks and it would all go on a bookmarks bar built into the browser hud

And those two things set the seeds for what I do today, so everyone thank those things

[depizan]

Honestly, a bunch of those retro things are things people are still doing--by choice.

I know there are people who like the feel of typewriters and use them. People still have records and CDs and cassette tapes, either because they prefer the sound or because they want to have physical media and that's the media they have. People still take pictures with film cameras and even learn to develop the film themselves. People still send postcards and use maps and dictionaries. (Probably even encyclopedias, though those go out of date much faster than dictionaries.)

Hell, people still have AOL email addresses.

Specific things (like MySpace) go away, but categories of things rarely do. They have to be replaced by something that does everything they do better. (Or they have to be actively sabotaged by another industry. See: streetcars.) This is why records keep reappearing as a thing.

There's a thriving industry of fountain pens. Classic car shows are a thing.

I'm not saying the past is always better. It's not. For all kinds of reasons. What I'm saying is that there's not a clear, clean delineation between the past and now. And, if anything, pretending there is feels like part of weirdly idolizing the past. It has to be a distinct thing for that to work.

If you acknowledge that, oh yeah, faxing is still more secure than normal email so of course people use it for certain things. And there are probably multiple subreddits dedicated to fountain pens and keeping old typewriters working. And people bake bread because they have the time and inclination and also fresh bread is tasty. That you can play video games and listen to records and love the convenience of a smart phone and keep paper maps in the glove box just in case and.... Basically if you acknowledge that life is (and always has been) a complicated mix of new and old and that which is better depends on the thing and the situation and all of that, then it's harder to sell you on either the past or the present being some vision of perfection.

[mariacallous]

Republican figureheads from Silicon Valley are rallying behind former president Donald Trump’s selection of Ohio senator J.D. Vance as his running mate.

Top Silicon Valley leaders like Elon Musk came out in support of Vance as Trump’s vice presidential pick in the hours after the official announcement was made on Monday. Musk said that the Trump-Vance ticket “resounds with victory” and called it an “excellent decision” by Trump. David Sacks, a prominent GOP donor and venture capitalist, wrote on the social media site X, “This is who I want by Trump’s side: an American patriot.”

Musk, Sacks, and former Fox News Host Tucker Carlson all lobbied Trump over the weekend to choose Vance, according to a Tuesday Axios report.

The tech industry’s excitement over Vance comes as little surprise. Vance, a venture capitalist himself, has worked alongside major investors like Peter Thiel and AOL founder Steve Case. When Vance ran for US Senate in 2022, Thiel donated $15 million to support his campaign. Sacks also donated $900,000 during the Senate election, according to Open Secrets.

Despite his investing history, Vance has also become a vocal critic of the tech industry over his two years in the Senate. He’s called for Congress to shrink the liability protections provided to social media companies by Section 230. He’s also supported efforts to break up big tech companies, accusing them of monopolistic behavior. Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan has received massive amounts of backlash from the tech industry for her efforts to rein in some of its most major players, and Vance has praised her work.

Vance’s past regulatory positions seemingly haven’t diminished his tech-industry support. “If Trump/Vance wins, it will broadly be extraordinary for startups and capitalism broadly,” Jason Calacinis, investor and All In podcast cohost with Sacks, wrote in an email to WIRED on Monday. “Silicon Valley is largely libertarian—not left … They consider Biden a “decelerist” (decel), so Trump/JD have won—it’s game over.”

The pick hasn’t wooed all right-leaning investors. On Monday, The Washington Post reported that Ken Griffin, manager of the hedge fund Citadel, opposed Vance.

Still, Vance’s Silicon Valley backers could offer massive amounts of cash to support Trump’s reelection. On Monday, The New York Times reported that the pro-Trump America PAC, a new group backed by tech entrepreneurs like brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, could receive significant financial support from Musk. Later, The Wall Street Journal suggested that Musk would be donating $45 million each month.

Many of the same tech entrepreneurs who announced their support for Trump over the past few weeks are America PAC donors, like Shaun Maguire.

“Billionaires and corporations are literally rooting for J.D. Vance: They know he and Trump will cut their taxes and send prices skyrocketing for everyone else,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, the Biden-Harris campaign chair, said in a Monday statement.

[malomaximus]

Today at work i had a very sweet older lady ask me point blank if I knew what 'gooning' meant...

...because her brother, who she was sending a gift to, has been an Arsenal fan and made that part of his email way back in the days of 90's AOL and was concerned that the email she'd provided for him would be inappropriate. 🥲

[thebananaiscold]

Just a friendly reminder to make sure the older people in your life aren’t doing anything stupid. Just found out my grandma is paying AOL 30 dollars a month to send emails. 30 DOLLARS TO HAVE AN ACCOUNT FOR A FUCKING EMAIL SERVICE THAT LITERALLY NO ONE USES ANYMORE!!! NOT EVEN FATHER TIME USES AN AOL ACCOUNT IN THIS DAY AND AGE!!!

[blazehedgehog]

hey! regarding people who are politely declining to comment their opinions on your Frontiers video, i don't think it's anything personal – i think some people just find engaging with the greater Sonic discourse to be exhausting (myself included!) and would rather respect the opinions and personal space of others than engage in debate.

which brings me to my question: how do you handle it? you've been fielding comments and asks from rabid Sonic fans for so long, you seem to have it down to a science!

I can understand being exhausted with discourse, yeah. There are some things I'm like that with. But... I dunno, the response to the Sonic Frontiers in general is also a little weird and I'm starting to think I made a bad first impression with some of what I had to say. Some people are taking it personally in a way that it's not directed at them.

But -- and I do not say this disparagingly -- that's Sonic fans. I get it. It's not true so much these days, but ten years ago, twenty years ago, this industry loved to beat up on Sonic and especially Sonic fans, eventually. Some people don't see that I'm one of them too, which is also understandable, because not everybody knows me.

I'm weighing options on how to deal with that. I've said it before but doing follow-up "correction/comment response" videos seem to be a good idea, but I don't know if I should wait until the final DLC is out or try and get it released sometime next week.

As for how I handle it... I don't know. Maybe it just comes naturally. I remember way back when I first got on the internet, when I was on AOL, the big thing everybody was doing back then before blogs was Mailing Lists. "MLs" for short. People would send you a message like "I would like to subscribe to your ML," so you'd write down their email address, and once a week or so you'd send out this gigantic email that was practically its own whole website.

And I juggled two or three MLs, for Sonic, for Pokemon, for Sailor Moon. I'd attach files for MP3s, I'd do Q&A sections, the whole nine yards, and I was like... 15. And I'd get comments (email replies) from people telling me that they loved how natural I sounded. Apparently people running other MLs were pretty wooden and robotic with their writing style, but I was always very conversational and approachable. And the numbers bore that out; I remember having several mailing lists crest 100+ subscribers, which felt like a huge deal.

And it's weird, because if you met me in real life, I'm maybe the most quiet, reserved person on earth. I have to force myself to speak out. I live in a house with five other people and I will go days where the only thing I say to anyone is telling my nephews good night. I feel like I can't talk. Like I don't know how. Which is a whole other kettle of fish, especially when it comes to recording voice over for a video.

But you sit me down in front of a keyboard, or even maybe a phone to some degree, where I can type out my thoughts? I used to be able to type as fast as some people could speak. And literally as I write this right now, I am more or less mouthing the words, either physically or in my head, as I type them. Like I am saying them. It's all a stream of consciousness. That goes for things I write here on this blog and it goes for video scripts, too. It's always flowed as naturally as running water (maybe too naturally, for how rambly I can get).

I would love to have the confidence to speak in the same way I type, and I know I have the capacity for it. I just get too nervous in the moment.

And as for how I handle people who are rude or don't understand me or whatever, I mean I have theories, but ultimately I don't know.

Like, something I learned early on was to distinguish the difference between people who are actually angry and people who are just trying to hurt you for laughs. I remember, all the way back when I was in Kindergarten or First Grade, some kids on the school bus were trying to get a rise out of me and in my head I kept thinking "They're just trying to make me mad, so I won't give them the satisfaction." And I just went totally stonefaced. When I objectively refused to react, they left me alone.

A few years later, I had friends who turned out to be bitter enemies that may or may not have ruined my life, and again, I learned new skills to deal with baseless people who were just trying to make me angry. I learned how to cope with or avoid some of that.

(Until eventually the bomb went off, I beat a kid black and blue, and was nearly charged with assault at 13 years old.)

And then a few of my first internet friends were deeply stubborn people who reveled in their ability to be rude, frustrating assholes. And, again, I learned ways to avoid, cope with, or defuse those people.

(Until I got tired of dealing with them and cut them out of my life entirely.)

Like, compared to some of the things I've had to endure, some of the things "friends" have said or done to me, an angry internet comment feels like a stiff breeze.

And I also just love putting myself in someone else's shoes. Thinking about how they came to a different conclusion than I have. Ask people who knew me 20 years ago and they'll tell you I used to (and still sort of do) live by a mantra that all arguments start as misunderstandings. If two people come to terms with their differences in perspective then all problems can be solved.

So I learned that when someone has a problem with me or something I've said, I just need to explain it better, or explain it more. If the scope of what I said is too small, then I need to provide a bigger picture view of where I'm coming from. And 90% of the time that is a great way to solve a problem, to come to terms and say "Tell me where you're coming from and I'll tell you where I'm coming from and we can meet in the middle." You're being heard, they're being heard, everybody (usually) wins.

I always try to come at everything in good faith like that. Even anger comes from somewhere. Understanding that helps everyone.

(Now, I don't always have the energy for that. There was a twitter thread last week where I incited quite a bit of Discourse™ and I eventually became exhausted by the endless supply of people who were looking for cheap dunks, or were being weirdly rude, plus I was deep into deadline stress... I ended up getting kind of punchy in a way I'm not super proud of)

And I guess just... all of this stuff, it all just combines into my ability to mostly handle it.

Which is why it can feel so weird when people don't want to engage me.

[crawlspacefics]

What's the secret lore origin story for your username?

It's so unique and lovely!

Thank you for asking! Let me dust off my memory here...

So back in ye olden days when AOL* was sending out floppy discs, I was using the freebies to try and find a stable local provider because AOL didn't have any dial-up numbers I wouldn't get charged long distance for. The concept of a handle was a new thing for me, so I was trying out random words and sounds I liked to set up email addresses. I wound up the most attached to Crawlspace and one other made-up word that became my primary email handle for the longest time.

Then fanfiction happened to me (yay college computer lab!). When I started writing it a few years later and getting into the SM fandom, I wanted something that wasn't fandom specific or too common as a handle/pseudonym. I started using Crawlspace more prominently for on-line stuff, and It's just kind of stuck for all these years.

*America OnLine. Not to be confused with ao3, because as much as we love our archive, they didn't give us so many free trial CDs in 6 months that we could build a dining table out of them.

[lydia-too-late]

GET TO KNOW THE AUTHOR

name: I go by some variety of "Lydia" in most online spaces, but my actual name is Michelle. Nice to meet you!

pronouns: she/her

preference  of  communication: Any, really. I'm fairly (read: brand) new to the RP side of Tumblr, and current-era Tumblr in general, so I'm still figuring out how business is conducted. Messages, email, discord. I'm around and happy to chatter.

name  of  most  active muse(s): Tula, for sure. She's been the framework around which I'm learning VtM, and I love it. She's also the one who's been the slowest and most deliberately developed, and I think it's paid off well. I have another, Grace Letts, who's lingering around, having made the jump from another story concept to WoD, but she's probably a Mage (!!!), and it's gonna be a minute before I'm ready for MtA. 

experience/how  long  (months/years?): The is the part where you realize that I'm rather old. 😂 (If the millennial emoji usage doesn't give it away first.) I first discovered RP on AOL in the late 90s. That's also where I first learned about VtM, but really just the general lore (Ventrue are business! Toreador are art sluts! Sabbat are the bad guys!). I've taken long stretches of time away, often years, but it's an itch I always return to. I usually lean more toward the writing/story side of things, but I'm down to try almost anything.

platforms  you’ve  used: Mostly play-by-post writing sites. Discord.

best  experience:  Teaming up with @silkenred! They are the creative partner I've been looking for since the day I started this journey. Working together on our story has renewed my interest in writing, roleplaying, and everything WoD. They are one of my favorite people on the planet. Fun Fact: When I met them, they were writing a series of haunted infomercials for a Twin Peaks-inspired group RP, and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever read. 😂

rp  pet  peeves  /  dealbreakers: Writing with partners who treat my character like their narrative sidekick. No. I'm not interested in playing plot support to your superstar. (Unless it's a really specific, well-communicated situation.) In a partnership our characters carry equal importance: I'll make yours look good, but I expect the same consideration in return.

fluff,  angst,  or  smut: All of the above? All at once? 😳 In all seriousness: I love some angst, with fluff to keep it from being a complete slog, and smut can be delightful if done right, but it isn't essential. 

plots  or  memes: I'm not really sure what this means exactly, in an rp context as either/or, but I'm pro-plots and pro-memes!

long  or  short  replies: My major project right now is a co-authored story, and the replies we send each other are generally between 750-1500 words. (In the past 15 months, we've written just over 100k words together! And guys, silkenred writes GOOD words.) But I think there's a lot of fun and merit in shorter, more casual formats as well.

best  time  to  write: Morning! Like, 7am-9am or so. It's generally a quiet time in my household, and easier to focus before the rest of the day smashes through.

are  you  like  your  muse(s): There are definitely elements of Tula, mostly emotional, that I've pulled from my own experiences, or things I've observed in those around me. Grace, the aforementioned eventual-mage, probably has life experiences that more specifically line up (thematically, at least) with my life. She's younger, though, and dresses better, and she's more likely to punch someone. She also sees ghosts.

tagged by: stolen from @gorbalsvampire (thank you!)  tagging: @silkenred, along with anyone who reads this and would like to partake!

[pinturas-segunda-guerra-mundial]

how do I send you some images for inclusion into your site reply Gangster6@aol.

You can attach them in this chat window and submit, see attached pic as example if not work, I will email you tomorrow

[aceparagoned]

out of uniform: sorry for not being around too much during the weekend. in regards to the post i made to explain some things, i decided to venture down memory lane, so to speak, about an incident mentioned in that post that i feel like the authors of the callout made about me thought that i was the sole person responsible for said incident when i wasn't. others also participated in the mess, so they are also at fault here. so this is my attempt to set things straight.

i'll discuss it further under the cut.

I've spent the past weekend combing through posts in relation to in 2011 where I've been accused of accusing someone of being a rapist, which turned out to be a false identification on someone else's part. Now, none of this is to absolve me of my involvement in the matter by trying to gather what information I could on the accused. It's here that I was, and I quote, a "dumbass plurk witch hunter" by participating in these two long-deleted plurks that, to my knowledge, have no archive elsewhere (Pastebin wasn't as commonly used back then to archive plurks for evidence down the line, and I have no idea how to search through that site to see if it's still archived, especially since the person could have set an expiration timer on it.) Again, this is just so that I can set things straight to where I wasn't the sole person responsible for this mess back in 2011.

This is the thread where I, and other people, were called a "dumbass plurk witch hunter" (playagame is one of my very old plurk accounts that has a lot of shit on it that I wish I never put out there) and the very last comment on the thread was from me saying that I did send him a PM to apologize. Evidence of this apology, though, was deleted by LiveJournal themselves because I know that I tend to not mass delete things, even if they're years old at this point. I also confirmed again, this time on my very old plurk account, that I had sent him an apology. (Please disregard the last comment I, as FREE☠JOKER made there since at the time, I had the emotional sympathy of a dumbass.) For even further proof that I apologized to him, here's a cap I took of my archived LJ post hosted on my Dreamwidth account. I am also still trying to log in to my Dropbox account where I at least have the conversation saved from Trillian and not LiveJournal.

This is the extent of my involvement where I tried to dig up information on him, but I was not the one who made the very false connection between him and the TC in question. This is from a private conversation I had with one of my friends that has known me since I was a cringy ass preteen who thought they knew everything about the world when, in fact, I knew nothing. If you'd like the full conversation for full context, then I don't mind providing it.

However, I did find these two posts from an account, whyljrpwhy, that is veritably not mine by a long shot. Whenever I made a new account, I tended to use keywords for my icons like these while whyljrpwhy uses keywords like these for their icons. That, and I've never had the email mostlybutthurt@priest.com before. I've normally used AOL, Yahoo, or Gmail for pretty much everything.

This originally was hosted on tumblr in the form of these PSAs: (this one has the link to the fandomsecrets post where the warning was crossposted here.) In the thread itself, you'll see where whyljrpwhy had some supremely bad takes in general for the whole situation that they were rightfully called out for, even when speaking to the TC that had been falsely accused of something as serious as this.

Once again, this post in no way absolves me of what I did back in 2011. I fully acknowledge what I did was wrong by trying to gather information on an individual that had nothing in common with the person being warned about, only that they both shared the alias TC. I've since tried, and still do try, my best to be the best person I can and learn from my mistakes.

Thank you, once again, for reading this post. Hopefully this is the last time I need to address this.

[yridenergyridenergy]

Hi again! It’s the anon that asked about kyo online last month - figured I’d give an update. Sadly, it looks like I may not be able to get membership, at least not for very long. I’ve tried gmail, yahoo, outlook, aol, and Comcast email addresses and none of them managed to get the registration link. I even tried my mother’s current college email - nothing. I tried whitelisting the @freewill.com addresses provided on the site, but still nothing came through. Some people on the original post also mentioned that they were able to email support and got help setting up an account, but it looks like I have no such luck. I sent an email from my gmail and my yahoo account, and after weeks of checking spam, it’s been radio silence. I also tried to register an account for utakata, which was successful, but it would not let me “log in” to kyo online. Unfortunately, I don’t have any other mobile accounts as this was the first time I tried to sign up for them. As a last resort, I decided to log in to my old college email to see if it would get a link despite being a gmail account - it did, but the account will be deactivated by my college at the end of August. I might try to send staff an email through that account and see if they can get one of my other email addresses registered instead, or if I can register that email and then have them change the account to a different address.

That said, thank you for answering my original questions, and thanks to everyone who commented under the post for all of the suggestions! Even though nothing has worked yet, I’m glad to at least give it a solid try! (And as always, thank you for your posts and thank you for the reports lately!)

Thank you for the update, even though it's a puzzling and sad one. I'm sure that your fan club account will continue to exist even after you lose access to your school email address, but obviously one of the attractions of being a member is to be notified first about news by email, or receive stuff for your birthday, so you would miss that chunk.

I just can't believe that Free-Will has let this major issue continue for over a year now, simply blaming several email providers for their strict junk mail filters. I haven't heard whether it stopped working for Japanese fans too, but hopefully Free-Will gets off its ass once they realise the loss in revenue...

[bernieanderson]

When Should You Declare Bankruptcy? (On Your Email!)

When to declare bankruptcy.

If you have 525,600 emails in your inbox, you may feel hopeless. Maybe a nuke and pave is your best option.

If someone is hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and they have no way of paying it off, sometimes bankruptcy is the only way.

Let’s be clear: Email bankruptcy is not even close to the seriousness of actual bankruptcy. For most people, deleting all emails and starting over is not the end of the world.

Sure, Aunt Edith might bring up the fact that she emailed you a cat video last summer, and you never responded. If an email’s been around for more than a month, it’s probably not helpful.

For some, hitting delete and starting over is not only the best solution, but if sets you free from the past (and email bankruptcy affects nothing. Your credit score is intact. You just might have lost some clout from Aunt Edith.)

For others — hitting delete on moths, or sometimes, years of email can be as scary as bungee jumping from the Burj Khalifa. If that’s you, here are some less scary options:

Pay for SaneBox

Seriously. I know some people don’t want to spend money on apps. But this one is worth spending a little something on. What will happen when you set this up will astound you. My guess is that at least half (probably more!) of your 525,600 emails will get moved to your later or news folders. With a bit of training, the basic Sanebox set up will put only the email you care about in your inbox. It’s a serious electronic mail lifesaver. (Use this link for signing up and you get $5 off, which is basically a free month, and I do too.)

Let your old address go to seed

If you've still got a dinosaur email from Yahoo, Hotmail, or AOL (anybody still got a Juno or MindSpring account?), this one's for you. Right now, Gmail's the best free email around. While, I’m not a huge Google fan, Gmail has some basic features I talk about in this book (including the ability to “snooze”, automated “newsletter” folders — and has excellent archive and search functions.) and it costs you nothing. Set up a Gmail account that is as close to your name as you can get and begin using that as your main personal point of contact. You can keep your old address, but slowly stop checking it. Use that address for a signup address to keep unwanted spam out of your new one. (Gmail is pretty good at detecting spam. In fact, sometimes it’s too good. Be sure to check your spam folder frequently in the beginning, as I’ve found it to be sometimes a little aggressive.).

Letting an old address “go to seed” is sometimes a better way to get out of email debt without going full on nuclear and blowing up the whole thing.

Search and Destroy

  The search function with most email clients is fantastically fast now. Don't want to go too wild with deleting? Check out your inbox and find the biggest offenders and delete those. If Billy Bob Appliances from three towns over keeps sending you three emails a day about their never-ending fire sale, do a search and destroy. Type “Billy Bob” in your browser, select all, and delete. This takes some time if you t have a lot, but can provide some precision before eliminating everything.

Be a Liberal Archiver

If “delete” is still freaking you out, remember you can archive everything. Archive your whole inbox. It’s fine. Do it now.

You’re losing nothing. Everything is still searchable. It’s all there. If you have a limited storage capacity, this might not be the best solution for you, as you may eventually run out of space. But email storage is cheap and this might be a suitable solution for anyone with email FOMO (fear of missing out).

Declare Bankruptcy

You may be done. Out of storage. Out of patience. Out of caring anymore.

At that point of frustration, email bankruptcy may be your best option. Elect all and delete. If you need to do so, empty your trash and start fresh. You might need to let a few people know that their old email is gone. Please send again. But most will be no worse off.

If you decide this is your best option, like financial bankruptcy, you want to put systems into place to prevent yourself from over going there again. I use the strategy and tactics of the Growability® Inbox method. It works. My inbox is empty nearly every day.

Let me know if you’re interested. I would love to coach you through it.

It’s possible.

You can do this.

You are doing better than you think. You have more potential than you know.

Book Bonus

I am currently in the middle of three books, some of you might find of interest:

Wool by Hugh Howey: This is a gripping story. Well written. Fast-paced. I picked this up because I thought the trailer for the upcoming AppleTV series looks great. But I usually like to read before I watch.

The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick: I read an article this week about AI being the sunset of the Information Age and the beginning of the Intelligence Age. History will determine this sometime in the future. Gleick’s work is really a masterpiece, in that it’s a well-researched history of information. Which one would think to be a snoozer. But I am finding it both entertaining and fascinating.

The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib: Sure. It’s basically how to build simple a sales funnel. But the “simple” part is good. I like things that have been distilled (and that’s more than just a good bourbon). That said, if want the most straightforward way for building a sales funnel that integrates with the rest of your business/nonprofit, I think you need Growability®. :-)

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Спам! Везде и всюду. Это уже порядком всех достало. Хорошо, что в почтовые ящики не кидают мясные консервы. Причем тут они, спросите вы? А при том, что спамом назвали когда-то консервы! Да-да) Мы подготовили для вас перевод целой истории об эволюции спама. Читайте и просвещайтесь. Перевод с английского языка Спам встречается в разных видах и формах — не только в жестяной банке (напомним, что слово «спам» пошло от названия американских консервов). Хотя «спамом» сейчас назы��ают разные виды нежелательных сообщений, объединяет их одно — они очень раздражают. И «раздражают» — это еще очень мягко сказано о тех тоннах спама, которые мы каждый день получаем на различные устройства. Давайте посмотрим, как спам менялся с течением времени. Доисторический спам 9500 до н.э. — Эпоха Неолита Нежелательные пещерные рисунки выводили из себя даже самых терпеливых и рассудительных из хомосапиенс. Электронный спам 1864 год — Телеграфный спам С изобретением телеграфа мошенники получили возможность нагреть руки на богатых американцах, отсылая им поддельные инвестиционные предложения. Неэлектронный спам 1935 — Письма счастья Письма «Send-a-Dime» (в переводе с английского — «отправь дайм») считаются первыми письмами счастья. Началась цепочка в Денвере и вскоре почтовые отделения Колорадо и близлежащих штатов наполнились сотнями тысяч подобных писем. 1937 — «Spam»  — мясные консервы Предприниматель по фамилии Хормель начал производить «Spam» — мясные консервы из свиной лопатки и окорока. Хормель и представить не мог, что его соленая закуска в итоге вызовет ��ескончаемый поток городских сплетен и шуточек, а позже этим именем назовут все виды нежелательных и рекламных сообщений. 1970 — Спам Монти Пайтона Слово «спам» позже закрепилось за сообщениями в интернете благодаря скетчу Монти Пайтона о консервах Spam, которые якобы включают в каждое блюдо ресторанного меню. Интернет-спам Расцвет Эпохи Интернета принес огромные возможности для мошенников, позволив им массово навязывать информацию ни о чем не подозревающим жертвам. 1978 — ARPANET спам Это был первый интернет-спам в современном понимании, хотя термин еще не был применен к этому случаю. Реклама нового компьютера Digital Equipment Corporation была разослана Гари Суэрком почти 400 пользователям сети ARPANET . Ранние 1980е гг — Спам занимает позиции Пользователи интернета принимают термин «Спам», пришедший из вышеупомянутого скетча Монти Пайтона. «Спамом» стали называть нежелательные сообщения, массово рассылающиеся с различными целями, иногда противозаконными. 1988 — Спам из электронных писем счастья Первые электронные письма счастья появились под заголовком «Make Money Fast» («Делай деньги быстро»), застав врасплох неподготовленных пользователей. Множество вариантов этого письма до сих пор ходит по свету. 1995 — Спам компании AOL Интернет-провайдер America Online (AOL) с целью привлечения новых клиентов рассылает миллионы непрошенных загрузочных дисков по всей стране. Середина 1990х гг — Спам по электронной почте Происходит неконтролируемый рост количества спама в сети Интернет, и с тех пор мир меняется навсегда. Этот феномен достигает таких масштабов, что к 2010 году спам составит от 88% до 91% всех доставляемых электронных писем. 2000 — Спам-битва Миллениума Смена тысячелетия ознаменовалась массированной атакой против спама и спамеров. Email-провайдеры интегрировали фильтры спама в свои платформы, и с тех пор продолжается битва между спамерами и «спамоненавистниками». 2002 — Спам в программах для обмена сообщениями В мессенджеры проникает в основном спам порнографического характера, он носит название «спим» (от слов spam + instant messaging, т.е. спам + мгновенные сообщения). Неужели никто не гов��рил этим спамерам, что влезать в чужой разговор некрасиво? Современный спам В наши дни спамеры заполняют своими сообщениями мобильные телефоны, интернет-игры и социальные сети. Спам в смс-сообщениях Также известный как «спаСМС». Спамеры — продавцы товаров массового потребления — рассылают смс-сообщения с рекламными предложениями всех сортов. Социальный спам В блогах и форумах содержится еще больше щелей, куда может пролезть надоедливый спамер. Вы часто можете увидеть длинные цепочки ссылок на различные коммерческие сайты, вставленные в виде комментариев внизу страницы. Вот так, например, Canadian Pharmacy распространяется по сети. Спам по электронной почте Спам в электронных письмах до сих пор большая проблема. В 2009 году было подсчитано, что убытки предпринимателей и частных лиц от спама составляют 130 миллионов долларов в год. Видимо, пресловутые фильтры спама работают не так уж и хорошо. Спам в онлайн-играх. Эта форма спама бывает очень разнообразной, но чаще всего она исходит от тех, кто пытается продать свои виртуальные продукты за реальные деньги — либо персонально играющему, либо через веб сайт. Как не оказаться спамером? Вот несколько советов на случай, если вы хотите использовать электронные письма для рекламы или информирования людей о вашем бизнесе: Не используйте обманных заголовков. Не старайтесь приврать в тексте сообщения. Сразу же сообщите, что письмо содержит рекламу. В тексте сообщения укажите настоящее местоположение/почтовый адрес. Предложите возможность отписаться от рассылки и немедленно реагируйте на такие отказы. Перевод выполнен специалистами бюро переводов iTrex. Разрешается свободное использование данной информации в некоммерческих целях. Другие интересные статьи и инфографики: - Эволюция блоггера - Насколько велик интерес к SEO-индустрии в сети интернет? - Все, что вы хотели узнать о контент-маркетинге Read the full article

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Simulated Human Conversations & ChatBots

A ChatBot is a software application used to conduct an online chat conversation via text or text-to-speech. The term “ChatterBot” was originally coined by Michael Mauldin (creator of the first Verbot) in 1994 to describe these conversational programs. ChatBots are typically used in dialogue systems for various purposes including customer service, request routing, or information gathering. While some ChatBot applications use extensive word classification processes, Natural Language processors and sophisticated AI, others scan for general keywords and generate responses using common phrases obtained from an associated library or database.

Today, most ChatBots are accessed online via website popups, virtual assistants such as Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa or messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger or WeChat. ChatBots are typically classified into usage categories that include: commerce (ecommerce via chat), education, entertainment, finance, health, news and productivity.

ELIZA (The first ChatBot)

In 1950, Alan Turing’s famous article “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” was published, which proposed what is now called the Turing test as a criterion of intelligence. The notoriety of Turing’s proposed test stimulated great interest in Joseph Weizenbaum’s program ELIZA, published in 1966 which seemed to be able to fool users into believing that they were conversing with a real human.

Malicious Use

Malicious Care is frequently used to fill chat rooms with spam and advertisements, by mimicking human behavior and conversations or to entice people into revealing personal information, such as bank account numbers. They are commonly found on Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and other instant messaging protocols. There has also been a published report of a ChatBot used in a fake personal ad on a dating service’s website.

Tay, an AI ChatBot that learns from a previous interaction, caused major controversy due to it being targeted by internet trolls on Twitter. The bot was exploited, and after 16 hours began to send extremely offensive Tweets to users. This suggests that although the bot learned effectively from experience, adequate protection was not put in place to prevent misuse. If a text-sending algorithm can pass itself off as a human instead of a ChatBot, its message would be more credible. Therefore, human-seeming ChatBots with well-crafted online identities could start scattering fake news that seems plausible, for instance making false claims during a presidential election. With enough ChatBots, it might be even possible to achieve artificial social proof.

ChatBots & CRM

Customer support is rapidly changing. Over the past ten years, customer contact centers have evolved quite a lot to meet the rising popularity of various digital communication channels. Nevertheless, phone calls still account for about 68 percent of all incoming support requests; another 32 percent comes from various digital channels such as live chats, SMS, email, and social media.

The key advantages of using ChatBots include: ChatBots greatly improve interactions with clients. Clients have questions and chatbots can give a lot of answers.

ChatBots are integrated into messenger apps, where people spend most of their time online nowadays.

ChatBots save considerable time for your customer support team.

ChatBots offer clients immediate responses.

ChatBots are available 24/7.

ChatBots allow you to reduce costs by hiring fewer people to staff call centers.