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Letter: Muck spreader

Published 26 September 1998

From Gerald Dorey

Logging onto my e-mail after a day out of the office, I was annoyed to find
that among my 40 or so new messages I had received 15 identical copies of a news
update from the Monsanto list server, part of that company’s useful website.
Today I received an apology—a mere five times.

Do you think there could be a modified genetic algorithm at work here which
has escaped to contaminate neighbouring programs?

Kidlington, Oxford

Issue no. 2153 published 26 September 1998

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