eMail Facts

Date:    Tue, 11 May 1999 17:38:57 PDT
To:      jsexton
From:    
Subject: Re: EMAIL FACTS OF LIFE

>
> EMAIL FACTS OF LIFE
>
> 1. Big companies don't do business via chain letter. Bill
> Gates is not giving you $1000, and Disney is not giving you
> a free vacation.
>
> There is no baby food company issuing class-action checks.
> You can relax; there is no need to pass it on "just in case
> it's true." Furthermore, just because someone said in the
> message, four generations back, that "we checked it out and
> it's legit," does not actually make it true.
>
> 2. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is
> waking up in a bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a
> friend swears it happened to their cousin. If you are
> insistent on believing the kidney-theft ring stories, please
> see: http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm
> And I quote: "The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly
> issued requests for actual victims of organ thieves to come
> forward & tell their stories. None have.  That's "none," as
> in "ZERO". Not even your friend's cousin.
>
> 3. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe.
> And even if they do, we all have it. And even if you don't,
> you can get a copy at:
> http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html Then, if you make the
> recipe, decide the cookies are that awesome, feel free to
> pass the recipe on. (But I hear they stink.)
>
> 4. We all know all 500 ways to drive your roommates crazy,
> irritate CO- workers, gross-out bathroom stall neighbors,
> and creep out people on an elevator. We also know exactly
> how many engineers, college students, Usenet posters, and
> people from each and every world ethnicity it takes to change
> a light bulb.
>
> 5. Even if the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain
> plutonium that went to particulate over the eastern seaboard,
> do you REALLY think this information would reach the public
> via an AOL chain-letter?
>
> 6. There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should
> never, ever, ever forward any email containing any virus
> warning unless you first confirm it at an actual site of
> an actual company that actually deals with virii. Try:
> http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
> And even then, don't forward it. We don't care.
>
> 7. If your CC: list is regularly longer than the actual
> content of your message, you're probably going to be punished
> eternally. (Ever heard of BCC:?)
>
> 8. If you're using Outlook, IE, or Netscape to write email,
> turn off "HTML encoding." Those of us on Unix shells can't
> read it, and don't care enough to save the attachment and
> then view it with a web browser, since you're probably
^M> forwarding us a copy of the Neiman-Marcus Cookie Recipe anyway.
>
> 9. If you still absolutely MUST forward that
> 10th-generation message from a friend, at least have the
> decency to trim the eight miles of headers showing everyone
> else who's received it over the last 6 months. It sure
> wouldn't hurt to get rid of all the ">" that begin each
> line. Besides, if it has gone around that many times, we've
> probably already seen it.
>
> 10. Craig Shergold in England is not dying of cancer or
> anything else at this time and would like everyone to stop
> sending him their business cards. He apparently is also no
> longer a "little boy" either.
>


    

The Museum of eMail


Questions and comments to jsexton@agora.rdrop.com
or back to Jeff's home page...