What can you do in 15 seconds?

You are at one of the busiest intersections in the city. The timer is showing 15 seconds for the light to go green. What do you do? Select from the folowing:

  1. Ignore your surroundings and wait for the light to go green
  2. Survey your fellow motorists and pass the time until the light goes green
  3. Hum your favourite song
  4. Make a mental note of the things you need to do as soon as you reach home

What, none of the above? Then how about the following?

  1. Weave your way between the stationary vehicles while ogling at the females of the species
  2. Keep honking and try to cross the intersection while motorists are still coming from one direction
  3. Almost get hit by a bike coming from the aforementioned side
  4. Then listen to a torrent of abuses from the said biker
  5. Still try to move ahead and almost get run over by an SUV
  6. And just when you feel you’ve made it, get caught by the traffic policemen

I know what I would prefer. And it doesn’t involve performing an utterly moronic and needless act trying to look cool. Sadly, that is not what a lot of boneheads on bikes would do. ‘Waiting at the traffic lights ain’t cool’, they seem to think.

Well, acting like idiots and getting caught by the cops ain’t cool either, fellas. And neither is getting your brains splattered all over the road. :|

Spam Magnets

The amount of spam being generated all over the world shows no sign of going down. If I had access to the stats, I’d be able to tell you that [a very large number under 100] % of all mail is spam. Okay, so I do have access to the bloody stats but I’m too lazy. Now moving on, in times like these you’d think that one must follow some basic rules of the Internet. No, I’m not talking about clearing your browsing history after each session. The rule I’m talking about is – ‘You should not give out your e-mail address on public bulletin-boards, forums etc’. But do people listen? NO.

These days I’ve been wasting entirely too much time on Orkut and I must admit, if I were a spammer I’d be laughing all the way to the bank right now. On Orkut, there are babe-magnets (everyone likes to think he is one) and there are spam-magnets. Specimens of the latter can be found hiding in all sorts of places here. All you need is bait to make them come out and walk right into your trap.

The people on this particular social-networking site are not exactly the brightest bulbs on a Christmas tree. But how stupid can you get? I came across a thread in a community, saying -

‘Hey guys instead of wasting time using net why not we start earning for free using iinternet, if u are interested then scrap ur email ids i will send u the info which is needed’.

That’s the exact unedited text. And you think people will fall for that? Of course they will, silly. At the time of writing, this thread has already received 85+ replies. I’m no one to question the integrity of a person, and maybe there really is some money to be earned through this. But posting e-mail addresses in public is surely one of the dumbest things you can do on the Internet. And this is not an isolated case. There have been more. Another one was something like this -

I have yahoo password crack software. Reply your email here, i will send you’

This was also a booming success. What’s even funnier is, when someone with a sane mind tries to warn people not to reply with their e-mails, no one actually listens. After a couple of warnings, the wannabe saviour mutters a few choice expletives at the imbeciles and disappears.

So, if you’re a spammer and looking for an easy and no-risks-involved method for harvesting e-mail addresses, look no further than Orkut. Get an account, lure people with honey-coated promises of jobs, free stuff and what-not, then coax them into parting with their mail-IDs.

Easy as pie. ;)