Just google it people! · 16 August 06
I freakin’ hate spam. I seriously do. Perhaps more than is necessary. Perhaps more than is advisable.
I also hate forwards. The joke ones (that usually aren’t funny), the ones that promise you wealth and riches for forwarding it on to 10 people within 3 minutes or doom for those who delete it, and the mushy hallmark ones that some 16 year old emo girl wouldn’t even be moved by. But, I must say, the forwards I hate the most are the ones that try to pass themselves off as news.
In the last few weeks I have received the The Red Planet is about to be spectacular! email about 5 times. “This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history.” Yeah, back in 2003! A quick google of any key sentence in this email will reveal that fact. It’s a quick and easy step that anyone can take to avoid spreading misinformation and clogging up email servers around the world with some crap that should have been deleted upon receipt.
Now I am not angry at the people who forward these to me. They are really just trying to be helpful and spread what they thought was an interesting tid-bit BUT it is easy to avoid this sort of problem.
Here are some rules, that I am just making up now, to help stop the scourge of email forwards on our (or at least my) inbox:
- Only forward a joke that you really thought was hilarious.
- Only forward that joke to people who have also forwarded funny jokes to you.
- Do not ever ever EVER forward anything that claims it will bring you luck or doom if you do or do not forward it.
- Google the subject line, or a key sentence, from a “newsy” forward to find out if it is a hoax or not BEFORE you send it out to all your friends (especially something as alarming as the Progesterex scare email).
Sounds easy right? Yes, it does. But I will still keep my delete finger in good shape. I have a feeling this war is far from over.
[ File under: Irritants & Geek ]