getting hatted by project upstream

This may be old news to all of you, but it was new news to me. While enjoying my morning coffee, up popped this instant message.

Hmm, I'd never heard of this person "ExpeditedCoho." And the message didn't seem like your normal AIM bot, looking to start a chat about hot things. A little Googling turned up that this was the work of Project Upstream.

Project Upstream is an organization dedicated to promoting social ideals through the use of exciting new technology. Our most well-known service is our swarm of robotic fish, which connects AIM users to each other.

Which means that when I replied "Hello, ExpeditedCoho" Upstream connected me to another AIM user in their database, and, presumably, cloaked my username as another *Coho. Randomness ensued:

ExpeditedCoho: I IMed you first. If I deny this later, I'm lying.
msippey: Hello, ExpeditedCoho.
ExpeditedCoho: who art thou?
msippey: michael
msippey: but i'm sure my screenname appears to be something that ends in "Coho"
msippey: we've been randomly connected through project upstream
ExpeditedCoho: wait which michael
msippey: http://project-upstream.awardspace.com/
ExpeditedCoho: i dost not understand

There's a great LiveJournal community all about Project Upstream, with a perfect FAQ.

Q: What cool lingo do you use? I'm so confused!
A: "Salmoning/Trouting/Cohoing" is being IMed by a fishbot (see, similarly: "salmoned"/"trouted"/"cohoed"). "Hatting" is being hit by--you guessed it--a hat bot (also see: "hatted"). "Project Upstream" is the name of the group that created the fishbots. The "Hatmaster"/"Salmonmaster"/etc. we use to refer to the creator of that specific kind of bot, and an "operator" is a person operating the bot (not necessarily the creator).

I love the Internets.

Comments

[chrismear]

Funny, I'd been blocking these assuming they were some kind of spam bot trying to sell me colocated hosting services.

[Michael Sippey]

I'd recommend chatting with them; maybe someday you'll actually get connected randomly to someone who is using it to sell colocated hosting services. And wouldn't that be great.

[raul gutierrez]

When I worked for Paramount we used to use 3 way calling to crank call Michael Ovitz and David Geffen (who hated each other) through their assistants and would play the results on speakerphone. "You called me." / "No you called me." Sort of the same idea

[Michael Sippey]

Oh man, that's great. Classic.

[David]

I also assumed they were some kind of random spambots. Thanks for the enlightenment.

[dave nav]

Remind me of the nickname for outsized gamers
Twitch
Spastic
Spaz
MSippey was worthy but now

So I've been slowly making my way through

And then, unable to string together Three instant messages Sippey seems over caffeinated.

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.