To: Everyone

Hi, Everyone – we’d like to get your feedback about a service we’re offering. What do you think about it?
Let us know,

Jenny

To: Jenny
CC: Everyone

Hi, Jenny – I think it’s good, but this bit needs work here and here.
Thanks,

Airen

To: Airen
CC: Jenny, Everyone

Can people please only reply to Jenny and not hit reply all?
Thanks,

Stephanie

To: Stephanie
CC: Airen, Jenny, Everyone

Hi, Jenny
I agree with Airen
Cheers,

Hugo

To: Hugo
CC: Stephanie, Airen, Jenny, Everyone

Again, could we please reply only to Jenny to avoid a flood of emails to everyone?
Cheers,

Kenny

To: Hugo
CC: Stephanie, Airen, Jenny, Everyone

Hi, Jenny
Additionally, it would be good if it did this other thing also.
Thanks,

Mini

To: Mini
CC: Hugo, Stephanie, Airen, Jenny, Everyone

It would be appreciated if everyone could stop replying all to the email. You only need to send it to Jenny.
Regards,

Sion

From Jenny:

BCC: Everyone

Hi, Everyone

Sorry for the avalanche. Does everyone know what ‘reply all’ does?
Please email me directly from now on

Regards,

Jenny

(Edited for clarity, names unchanged to implicate the guilty.)

Image via Wikipedia

I’m not interested in talking about the antics of the Sea Shepherd any more; unless they repay the money my government has had to spend on rescuing their ADHD addled cronies from a Japanese whaling ship in the southern ocean. Seems they sink or swim on free publicity.

No more from me.

Oh, by the way, we’ll be having that GST back, too, thanks.

Idiots.

UPDATE: Here are the public facts about where the money comes from. Love the part about them being unable to seek charity status because, to paraphase, they don’t actually help the whales. Best government decision evar.

UPDATE II: It cost us one million dollars – the same one million dollars that had been allocated for policing of the whale sanctuary. Feeling sheepish yet, stupid hippies?

Image via Wikipedia

The main reason this whole thing sounds like a TV show is that it IS a TV Show based on the shifting fortunes of a celebrity-centered fundraising organisation. Complete with expensive flying robot camera coverage.

Interesting to note that Animal Planet is hinting that this might be the last season for the mission’s reality show. A cynic might suggest that a manufactured series of desperate, headline-grabbing incidents – captured exclusively by the embedded television crew – would stave off the axe, and the lucrative sponsorships, for a year or two. It’s not like the captain is shy about his ‘interventionist’ approach to activism.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Japanese whaling industry isn’t glistening with rectitude over its admissions that part of the Tsunami relief funds have been redirected into the whaling industry, ostensibly to help revive the fortunes of the devastated city of Ishinomaki.

Hello, is that Mr. Cook?

Yes, it is.

Who am I speaking to?

It’s Ami, calling from the Windows Service Center – I was calling to ask if you have a Windows computer at your location in (wrong suburb)?

Yes, I do.

And are you the main user of that computer?

Yes, I am.

I see. Mr Cook, we are calling to let you know that our systems here are detecting a large number of error messages that are causing Internet users to complain to us, and they are coming from your address in (wrong suburb).

I see; that’s very strange. Why did you need to ask me if I had a Windows computer here? Wouldn’t the error messages tell you that information?

Oh, yes, Mr Cook, we know, but we needed to make sure we were talking to the right person, and that you know.

That sounds silly – i understand what you are trying to do, and I don’t have time to talk to you now.

Not even five minutes?

No, I think I’ve been already more than generous with my time. Thank you.

As always, the best advice in these situations is to end the call quickly without providing specific information beyond the phone book entry they have already consulted, and call your friendly local computer geek if you need more reassurance.

A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.

via Waldo Jaquith – On the impracticality of a cheeseburger..

As my duly elected representative in a representative democracy, I write to remind you that your ‘Concience Vote’ in parliament does not belong to you.

You are elected to reflect the collective conscience of my electorate. The extent to which you reflect it will determine your success in the next ballot.

Please do not think that because you have been freed from the confines of party policies that you are entitled to reflect your personal views in parliament. You were elected because people believe you reflect views that closely match their own, and made promises which people felt were worthy of support. You are your electorate.

However, it is unreasonable to expect that you will be in-step with your electorate on every issue, especially those which carry significant moral and ethical contention. You must consult widely and reflect the view of the electorate in your conscience vote.

You are not in Canberra as my gladiator or superstar. I will not support your ‘courageous’ or ‘deeply held’ convictions if you cannot claim a broad consensus. I expect you to vote against your personal beliefs if you cannot convince your own electorate – your own neighborhood – of the merits of your position. If you are unable to represent my own position in Canberra, I will still support you if you can show that my own view is in the minority.

Because your conscience vote does not belong to you, it is not a commodity that can be bought or traded. You do not have my permission to consult with anyone other than my fellow electors when deciding the vote you will cast on my behalf. I expect you to be transparent and explicit about this process.

I wish you well in parliament. Please consult me, represent me, and let me know how you get on.

David

We spoke about some of the ways that technology can help you stay informed when trouble strikes, but the real trick is preparation: knowing who to trust for information, and what to do with it.

(More episodes here)

Related Posts:

• Perth Fires Via Social Media – The Aftermath
• Three Reasons Why Managing Emergencies via Social Media Is A Dumb Idea
• Perth Fires via Social Media

Amex knows something we don’t know: after years in the wilderness, the Palm-and-stylus form factor is set to return.

(From the latest Amex marketing collateral)

To think that all those years ago there was no such thing as a ‘blogs’, ‘social networks’ or ‘web content management systems’ – BONWAG was ahead of its time as a web journal, lovingly crafted out of raw, grain-fed ASCII and free-range command line FTP and terminal sessions. It’s been many years since I needed to CHMOD 777 my CGI (as Geoff Petersen would say: is that code? Why, yes: yes it is.)

In the past year, I’ve probably shoveled more words into Twitter than this blog, but fear not – fairding.com will remain the one stop shop for all flavours of bonwaggery – from MySpace and Geocities to Unthink and Google Plus, and whatever comes next.

(BTW: why is is that even today, no-one ever gets the ‘fairding.com’ joke?)

For a dose of history; visit the first post, or visit the archive of the earliest known version of BONWAG.