whatEVER did google do to deserve ME?

dear people i actually like (and the one i don't),

ohhhh shit, look who got the hook-up... ;)

_______@gmail.com


please fuck with your palm pilots accordingly. thanks!
hope you are all well,

A,
who thinks state senator Liz Figueroa is a mewling, puling dork (read: unclear on the m.f. concept), even though she was Liz's favourite intern, back when Liz was just the humble assemblywoman from chandni chowk in the california legislature...


p.s. _________ is what my sorority/friends from davis call me.


p.p.s. "akka" is what my beloved sachin, virushini, and all other respectful south indian peeps call me...ask someone tamil.


p.p.p.s. please stop using

irockyourfuckingworld@anna.org,

i'mrickjamesbitch@playedout.com

etcetera ad nauseum.
if you were still using

lajp75@hotmail.com

... then lord help you, because that's been dead for two years.


p.p.p.p.s. this email address WILL still work, i'm just never going to check it. happy kwanzaa!


p.p.p.p.s. how am i, you ask? still not working, still not married, still not boring. thank you for wondering. ;)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

a few hours later...

anna,

you know this gmail stuff from google reads the email you write to friends/co-workers, and then spams you pop up ads based on your email right??

example, you write, "manav, seen finding nemo yet?" and the next thing you know, you've got the little mermaid all up in your inbox and in banner ads.

just letting you know,...but then again, maybe you like spam.

-Manav

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

manav:

thanks for the unnecessary concern, but your facts are off.

what i find particularly interesting is how you unbelievably assume that i'd be thrilled about, gloat over, advertise something that is (in your eyes) so

...lame.

there ARE no pop-up ads...there is no spam...you are, on several significant levels, mistaken. there IS relevant, salient, contextual advertising, which is consummately superior to the bullshit adverts on yahoo and hotmail. i don't give a rat's ass about lava life or match.com...but that's all i see on those two providers, when i merely want to check my damned mail.

i accept this, however, b/c my email is free. life is a series of trade-offs, isn't it? but wait one bleeding minute...the one hotmail account i pay actual money for in order to get a paltry 20 megs of storage space...oh my...THAT has ads too! wtf? how dare they?

the american people are the ultimate definition of unreasonable. they want free services, but they'll bitch about reasonable transactions like advertising that subsidize their email-grubbing little fingers. are you really that worried about your privacy online? b/c unless you want me to call you a hypocrite, you'd BETTER have cookies disabled (damn, you'll have to fill in info over and over and over again), you should NEVER fill in demographic data and you'd do well to NEVER write anything more exciting than the most perfunctory vanilla-scented prose-- EVERYTHING exists forever on the internet. EVERYTHING. btw? that demographic data helps target...you guessed it, ADS. ads on those multitudes of other sites...the same ads that gmail has, except on gmail, they are superior. why will everyone meekly, wordlessly tolerate it on a million other URLs, but when it's on the sidebar of your gmail page...oh, well. we can't have THAT.

it makes no fucking sense.

but this is not about sense. no. it is about privacy. privacy my 19% body-fatted ASS.

there is merely the ILLUSION of privacy on the net. we are at its mercy, not vv. the hue and cry over gmail is so much bullshit vitriol sensationalised by a press that is rarely examined for its own bottom-line...news isn't a non-profit enterprise, it behooves the media to inflame the passions of ignorant retards who will then send messages such as these to long-suffering people like me. the media is a hemorrhoid that makes your ass itch, and this discomfort leads to unnecessary, sanctimonious virtual finger-waving in the faces of those who actually know what the fuck they are talking about.

read me now and remember me later: i love gmail's functionality--

~i will NEVER have to waste time looking for anything that my black little manav-resistant heart desires, ever again.

~i can easily "star" (read: flag) messages in a format that conforms to my unique needs. *my* stars are going to go to emails that i simply MUST reply to, no matter what. all of you who have been frustrated with my tardy replies...fear not, the future is here, and it looks like a van gogh painting.

~i will NEVER worry about running out of space in my inbox, and having msgs bounce back b/c i'm on vacation...

~nor will my credit card get groped for an annual fee for shitty ad-saturated hotmail.

~i won't mindlessly seek out missives from three days ago to see how a current email thread commenced, b/c, imagine this, it will be helpfully STACKED with the most recent message, as a real "conversation". et voila. instant context. my world-famous memory will grow dusty with neglect. ;)

etc, etc...ad infinitum.

if you insist on being needlessly punctilious regarding your precious privacy, feel free to utilise one of my other email accounts. i meticulously specified which of them would still exist, post- my conversion to gmail. happily for you, there is no need to compromise your enlightened ideals for worthless, clueless, spam-lovin' ME.

gmail is going to revolutionise webmail; its interface is pure elegance, its operation is beyond intuitive, its entire premise is genius. i'm not surprised though. it's from google. you know what else is hardly surprising? how much i love the ultimate oracle of everything. i sweat google the way i sweat ivy league chem e's...i'm aroused by the best of the best.

cordially,

anna

p.s. enjoy this excerpt from a FANTASTIC article that totally has my six, MFs...oh...and appositely enough...i found this column via my home page-- GOOGLE NEWS.

"Finally, you've probably heard much of the hot air surrounding Google's plans to push ads at Gmail users. The first night we started using Gmail, late April 9, we saw the text ads, which were nearly identical to the text ads you're used to seeing in on the right side of the screen after a Web search at Google.com. As of this morning, we noticed no text ads at all.

E-mail is an inherently insecure medium. For the most part messages are sent in the clear, meaning almost no attempt is made to obfuscate the contents of a message from someone with prying eyes. All Internet service providers store e-mail on a server in order to deliver it to you. Technicians with time on their hands and lousy ethics can--if they want--read your mail...Google insists quite clearly in its privacy policy that "No human reads your mail to target ads or other information without your consent." The process by which it pushes ads at its users is fully automated. Fears about privacy problems inherent with the Gmail service are, in our opinion, overblown. "

word, homey.

Comments

[miniscule manicotti midget]

what have i been telling you for years? he was so unworthy of you anyway...that guy won the lottery the day you decided to have a crush on him, senior year.

to hell with him. speaking of google and mail, since you're such a huge fan, i vote that you end up with "google" himself...even if he isn't ivy. you guys were the cutest couple. he works for a company that you foam at the mouth over. and best of all, he's not one of these losers from davis. perfect!

[the dj]

Ah...a Davis hate fest. Well, Nekes since you started it, let me end it.

People, the "one" she's referring to in her opening line?

"Dear People that I like (and the one that I don't),"?

I know who the "one" is. And thanks to his weak email, that was ripped to shreds here, so do all of you. Maybe he recognized himself and hated accordingly. Maybe. Oh, and the MMM person who commented is right...he SO was not your max.

DRAMA!!! It's like 1995 all over again!

[SD]

I love Manav.

Without him, I'd never have seen a rant, and that too one complete with a LIST. ;)

And another thing. Who the fuck else calls you MY name for you? You HAD to know that would incite this miniature rant of my own, ya lil monkey. I should trademark that shit and have you brand it on your 19% (really? teens again?) lightly cheesed ass to stake my claim.

Mwah, Boo.

[Jessica Simpson]

Ooooh. Do we get to vote? Is this like one of those reality dating shows?

What was the name of the show where her friends and family got to pick her husband -- like arranged marriage for white folks .... maybe we should do that!

We could vote suitors off the island, one by one! Open casting call or by select invitation only? [Hey Anna -- no casting couch for you :P You have to wait until after the wedding].

This is *so* much fun -- almost as good as the new season of the Simple Life!

[FluidSecurity]

Listen up boys and girls. This article is true to a degree, yet there are levels of security established for the internet. Anna makes a good point, there are trade offs. If you want something for free most likely there isn't much else going on with it. Corporate emails, using groupware services can encrypt emails to a higher degree, yet there still lacks some security.

The flat out truth is the internet was not designed for security, it is a system built on trust...One machine sends data to another and trusts that data, hence why viruses spread with such efficiency. Compare it to train tracks, if they were all diff shapes and sizes, trains wouldn't get anywhere..the train is built on the basis of trust.

Where I disagree with the article is the discussion of a lousy tech with low ethical qualities. Please. The amount of safegaurds in place makes it highly unlikely someone will break into random accounts and just start reading emails. I won't go into details, but the digital fingerprints you leave behind are easily traceable by the 'ethical technicians.' Of course, given the theory of probability, im sure once in a blue moon it happens.

The most secure computer is one that is six feet underground in a slab of concrete with no wires connected to it at all. Again, there are degrees to security. The difference between a hotmail admin or a hacker or google mail is evident to us in the security field. A hotmail admin's has to go outside his/her job function to attain email info, a hacker the same. Google is doing it as part of the service, and yes, a computer might be responsible for all the advertising items, but until the rise of the Terminators or the Matrix is invented, a human will still have to dump the cache of the mail server, log IPs, check routing protocols, admin acct info if required....

Just follow some basic guidelines with email as we all know :

dont send anything that is vital to your existence via a free email account such as passport info, social, cc#s etc.

if youre unsure about an attachment, delete the email even if its from someone you know.
always delete email. dont turn into a packrat.

if you want to packrat,your laptop im sure has enough HD space, open up ms word or notepad and copy/paste old emails in. you can search via text nowadays anyways on better operating systems with greater accur than most search engines on the web.

since no one owns the internet per se, the business model is to own the pc attached to it. turning off cookies is a start no doubt, but it will make the internet less enjoyable. Bottom line is you really want security, call us and we'll send you the bill because securing a non secure environment as large as a universe costs $$$$.

[persona non grata]

Anyone with eyes is aware of your beauty.

Anyone with ears is aware of your wit.

Anyone with a heart is touched by yours...

You have so many great qualities, but after reading this, I'm going to vote for Loyalty as my favorite. I don't even care about your take on Google and their products. I barely agree with you most of the time. But that doesn't mean that I can't be in awe of how live your life like a Lioness guarding her cubs. The man who wins your hand is obviously lucky for all of the reasons I started this comment with, but the fierce, protective, unyielding nature of your loyalty might be his greatest asset. No wonder Rani is such a devoted pet. She takes after you.

[slazman]

I personally think 1Gig Free Email is about time. Hey if google can do it - so be it. For all you privacy activitsts, I have one thing to say to you.- DONT SIGN UP!. Let the rest of us who think its awesome enjoy it. GO GOOGLE!

[Sin]

Ah, Anna. I think we're both going to need the 1-gig Gmail accounts, if only to make room for our fabulously onanistic, mutally-complimentary e-mails to one another :)

Akka :) I like it.

[A N N A]

sin darling...

i'd need at least TWO gigs to finish discussing the perfection that is *you*

mwah, on both of your flawless cheeks...

[shree]

anna! I just got hooked up with gmail too! I didn't realize what a big deal it was...I thought it was available to everyone...so far I'm lovin' it! :)