You've got Spam!

If you are the owner of an email address, chances are you've received Spam.  Most of us see these emails for what they are and delete them immediately.  There are people, however, mostly the gullible newcomers to the wondrous web, who actually open spam and read it.  Those same people are the ones who send chain emails to all their friends.  If you are lucky enough not to know what a chain email is, I envy you.  It's a type of spam that basically tries to get people to forward the email to as many people as possible through emotionally manipulative stories, get-rich quick pyramid schemes, and the exploitation of superstition to threaten the recipient with bad luck if he or she "breaks the chain."  In fact, by the late 90s, approximately 572% of all email was a chain email. 

Thankfully, it's not as widespread anymore, as people have mostly wised up, though I still find one in my inbox every now and again.  Most recently, I got this one from a co-worker:

"Pass this on...

This year we are going to experience 4 unusual dates: 1-1-11; 1-11-11; 11-1-11; 11-11-11 and that's not all.... Take the last two (2) digits of the year you were born - now add the age you will be THIS year, and the result will be 111 for everyone!!! This year October will have 5 Sundays, 5 Mondays, and 5 Saturdays. This only happens every 823 years...."

This is the reply email I fired off shortly afterwards:


I hope to Edward Cullen and Jacob Black's love child that this is supposed to be satire and you're just making fun of the feeble-minded sorority girls passing this around to all their friends. I would have expected this from my sweet old great aunt Ethel, as she always sends me chain emails about cats with bowties and Bill Lumberg giving away half his Microsoft fortune to people who perpetuate the chain ("keep the cycle going and it will bring you good luck"); but not you, Chris.

First of all, October, 2011 will not have 5 weekends.  That was last year.  Yes, the first two statements are true, but of course your age plus the year of your birth will be 111, because we are in 2011. (19)84 (year of birth) + 27 (age I will turn this year) = (20)11. Holy Twilight! It's merely a coincidence. In the same way as next year it will be 112, and in 2023, the last two digits of your birth year plus your age that year will add up to 123.

As for the 5 weekends in October happening every 823 years, let's think about this, a year can only start on one of seven days, so there are seven possible basic calendar years. Add leap years, and there are fourteen basic calendars. Period. And one of those calendars only gets used every 823 years? How would that be possible? It's not of course, all 14 calendars get cycled through regularly; in fact 2010 uses the exact same calendar as 1999.

So 1999 ALSO had 5 Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in October. So did 1993. 1982 as well. 2021 (the next time it will happen) will probably see another round of pernicious chain emails (or thought messages or whatever we will have by then) going around telling people to "Rejoice, for this only happens once every 823 years!! Just send me your banking information and I'll see that all your astrological dreams are fulfilled"
 For more information on Twilight and other nonsense, refer to the article I wrote on the subject: http://spacebetweenmyears.blogspot.com/2011/03/twilight-blows.html