>you and i obviously have different opinions on spam. i only consider something to be spam if it is something that has been sent blindly to whatever mailing list. how i can make a million dollars from home, save 20,000 dollars on my next vacation, clean up my credit, etc.
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>if it's something to do with my job, i don't know how anyone can consider it spam. as Marcia stated, if she hadn't received the email, she wouldn't even have known about the conference. Same for me. Seems that you and Eric are the only 2 who have been complaining during this thread.
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>Especially if you are an independent developer, I would think you would welcome the email. I don't think you would have enough available time to be investigating conference posibilities on your own.
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>I also find it extremely incredulous that the 2 of you are so incensed over 1 advertisement, that we have a thread that, as far as I can tell, rivals the reports of Ed R's death in length.
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Well, as often happens on these threads, an issue comes up; there is discussion as to the particular event/issue; this moves on to discussion of the general underlying definitions, terms, and so on; and then several concurrent discussions take place among various groups. When a subjective issue comes up, this is a fairly common path. To paraphrase an earlier post, it's the nature of the internet.

(Do I sound incensed? I don't feel incensed. A little irritated, but mainly curious and interested in other folks' opinions. At what point did I sound incensed?)