Hi Marc,
Back in 1994 I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, it was
essentially "stage 4" as it had metastasized throughout my body.
But, it responded to chemo and here I am today. In fact ironically
my original oncologist died a few years ago - on a fishing trip he had
an accident and drowned.
The Universe has an interesting sense of humor and likes to throw
curve balls. Take what you have been told about your "probability
spectrum" and toss it in the trash - hakuna matata. You could
accidentally step in front of a bus tomorrow and be dead. You could
live another 20 years. Statistics on people only have meaning on
large groups of people - they are irrelevant when it comes to the
individual.
I've met a number of people who had serious cancers. And I learned
one thing from that. The people who survived - every one of them,
fighters. And everyone fights differently. Some get on the food
bandwagon and try overdosing on green tea and every alleged anti-cancer
food out there. Others jump into yoga, and I knew one guy who went out
and binged watched Monty Python to spend as much time laughing as
possible. Me, I fought on a more mental approach. I dropped everything
in my life that I was not completely satisfied with - I turned my back
on my job, my apartment, etc. - every burden or responsibility that I
had which I didn't like and didn't really want - and dove into the
treatment, and I never let myself believe I was in any danger of dying.
Of course, not all who fight, survive. But I will say with absolute
conviction that everyone I ever met who had a serious cancer and had
that "attitude of acceptance", later died. You are a fighter or you
wouldn't even be here. Now, fight to win.
Ted
On 8/15/2016 10:22 PM, Marc Perkel wrote:
Well, this is kind of hard to say so just going to say it. I have stage
4 lung cancer and the probably spectrum is not good. I've been fighting
spam for the last 15 years and I'd like to keep fighting spam from the
grave. So I'm willing to share my technology with anyone interested.
Several months ago I talked about a new trick I came up with to fight
spam and also positively identify good email as good. I've been running
it now for 7 months and it is a breakthrough. At the time I had intended
to patent it just to get enough protection to license it to the big
boys, but now it is unlikely I'll be around long enough for that. I have
however noticed that because of my condition people are paying attention
to me more now that there's a deadline.
Here's my spam filtering trick. It's something that can be easily
integrated into SpamAssassin. Being that my programming is somewhat
sloppy at times it can probably be done even better than what I did. The
thing to keep in mind when reading this is that it's not bayesian
filtering. Many people in the spam filtering community make that
mistake. This is done with set operations using Redis. Here's the link.
http://wiki.junkemailfilter.com/index.php/The_Evolution_Spam_Filter
I'm still doing well for now and if not for this diagnosis I wouldn't
know I was sick, And I want to get as much done in this window as
possible. Since I live in Gilroy California I'm thinking I'd like to
contact the spam filtering person at Google and let them continue to
really develop what I started. So if someone could hook me up with the
right person(s) there I would appreciate it. And I'm willing to work
with anyone else that can make use of my work. (My way of cheating death.)
Below is a letter I wrote to EFF staff where I used to work. It
summarizes my situation. I'm still doing well considering.
Hi Cindy,
Hate to ruin your Monday morning but I have some bad news. I have stage
4 lung cancer and the odds are not with me. I'm slowly telling the world
and realizing the the problem with having so many friends is that I'm
making a lot of people very sad. And that is very difficult for me to do.
I'm dealing with it about as well as can be expected, maybe a little
better than that. My needs are covered for now, but dealing with rolling
out the information. Please pass this email on to the staff there. I'm
somewhat concerned about getting too much response at once. There is no
specific time frame for me yet but stage 4 lung is almost always fatal
and it's more likely months and not years.
I have a lot of friends who are offering to take care of me. I have a
paid for house, some savings, and I'm still doing well off my spam
filtering business. I am going to be looking for someone to take over my
small techno empire in the hopes of keeping my web sites and the people
who I host for online. While I plan to put up a good fight if I get 2
years that would be considered a win. Taking over my empire would be a
great opportunity for the right person and I need to find someone to do
that. I am unfortunately really good at what I do and might be tricky
getting someone to take that over.
I have lived a good life. I have done more than most people have done in
100 lifetimes. At the age of 60 I was already down to my last 1/4 tank
so if I don't get the last 20 years I really have little to complain
about. At this point my goals are to upload what's left of me to the
web, which is the afterlife in my world. I have to finish up certain
philosophical projects with my Church of Reality, which, interestingly
enough might lead to a solution for the control problem for Artificial
Intelligence. (Something I need to finish writing up.)
Oddly enough the idea of being dead doesn't worry me. And that might be
the denial speaking. However the process of getting there is going to be
overwhelming. And it's been just a week since I found out. And I'm
exploring the idea that there might even be an upside to being terminal.
Maybe new opportunities will open up.
I do want to say that working at EFF was some of the best times of my
life and I really appreciate having had that opportunity. The internet
is the new nervous system of humanity and is therefore sacred space, not
just in a religious sense, but in a Reality based sense. To protect it
is to protect the essence of humanity itself. The Internet is our common
mind and it is the core of who we are as a human species. (Note to legal
team, I think there is a legal argument opportunity in this statement.)
A person's story is everything they do from the moment they are born to
the moment they die. And then your story is the effect you had on
advancing the evolution of life from what we were, to what we are, to
what we will become. So my story will become part of the story of
humanity, which is part of the story of life on this planet, and part of
the story of the universe. And with the internet the essence of who I am
and what makes my existence have meaning will be preserved.
I have always believed that if a person decides to "own their story" and
choose to live a life worth living that when they are faced with the end
of their personal existence it would be much easier. And now that I am
there I can say it is definitely true. I have not lived a perfect life
and looking back there are quite a few things where I could have made a
better choice. But at this point I'm feeling unusually positive about my
situation as my last adventures unfold.
While I have spent much of my life writing software for cyberspace I
have also written quite a bit of software for meat space. This email is
an example of that. Meat space is coded in ideas and philosophies and
I'm hoping in the time I have left to see what else I can accomplish.
Facing death definitely sharpens the mind so I'm going to take advantage
of that.
I suppose I'll wrap this up here as I can ramble on forever. And forever
isn't as quite long as it used to be.
Marc Perkel
/root
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Marc Perkel - Sales/Support
supp...@junkemailfilter.com
http://www.junkemailfilter.com
Junk Email Filter dot com
415-992-3400
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