Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 14 March 2003
Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.
From: Sam
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: junk mail etc

I was just sent this email this morning which seems timely
in view of today's Aardvark...

----------------------------------------------
I suppose some degree of commerce would grind to a halt if
telemarketers weren't able to call people at home during
the dinner hour. But that doesn't make it any more
pleasant.  Now Steve Rubenstein, a writer for the San
Francisco Chronicle, has proposed "Three Little Words"
based on his brief experience in a telemarketing operation
that would stop the nuisance for all time.

The three little words are "Hold on, please." Saying this
while putting down your phone and walking off instead of
hanging up immediately would make each telemarketing call
so time consuming those boiler rooms would grind to a halt.

When you eventually hear the beep, beep, beep tone, you
know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which
has efficiently completed its task

When you get ads with your phone or electricity or gas
bill, include them with the payment. Let them throw the
stuff away. Think globally; act locally.

When you get those pre-approved letters in the mail for
everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and junk like
that most of them come with postage paid return envelopes,
right? Well, why not get rid of some of your other junk
mail and put it in these cool little envelopes! Send an ad
for your local chimney cleaner to American Express, or a
pizza coupon to the bank.  If you didn't get anything else
that day, then just send them their application back! Just
make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You
can send it back empty if you want, just to keep 'em
guessing!

Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin
getting all their junk back in the mail.

Let's let them know what it's like to get junk mail, and
best of all... THEY'RE paying for it! Twice! Let's support
our postal service. They say e-mail is cutting into their
business and that's why they need to keep increasing
postage. We can help!

Pass this along to all your friends and maybe we could get
enough business for the post office that they will not have
to raise rates in 2004.
------------------------------------------------




From: Sean Lynch
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Hydrogen (re: yesterday's colum)

It's nice to see intelligent people realizing what a waste
of time hydrogen is. Liquid hydrocarbons are still the
densest practical fuel known for powering automobiles, and
probably will be for the lifetime of anyone currently alive.
Really innovative batteries might one day pass up liquid
fuels by being easier to deal with and not requiring an
engine or fuel cell to convert their stored energy into
electricity, but internal combustion engines have a big head
start and they're still improving every day.

Hydrocarbons that come from renewable sources are probably
our best bet for reducing or eliminating our dependence on
petroleum. Biodiesel or straight vegetable oils like jojoba
oil are very similar in energy density to diesel and have
great properties for powering vehicles. Ethanol and methanol
have the advantage of being incredibly cheap and easy to
produce, but they are more volatile and have significantly
less energy density than gasoline. Ethanol will probably win
over methanol because it has greater energy density and can
be made from corn.

I think the future will probably see ethanol used (as it
already is in Alaska and Brazil) for powering internal
combustion engines in passenger cars, with a few battery
electrics, hybrids, and fuel cell cars thrown into the mix
in increasing numbers over time. Biodiesel or something like
it will probably eventually replace diesel fuel in trucks
and buses. The natural gas industry will likely be there the
whole time pushing for natural gas, but natural gas is not
carbon neutral and it's not dense so that won't go anywhere
without significant support from (corrupt and stupid)
politicians or gullible environmental activists.




From: Tim Hill
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Spam V Junkmail

The immediate point that comes to mind is in the behaviour
of the advertisers. To compare junk mail and junk email you
might want to look at the respect advertisers pay to some
one opting out.

    With real world junk mail, a simple "No Junk Mail" is
sufficent to stop almost every peice of commercial mail.
Your efforts to aviod their message is respected.

 When you look at junk email, the advertisers work
harder every day to get around the electronic equlivent of
that "no junk mail" label. As spam filters develop, the
advertisers try new tricks to get wround the filters. There
is no respect for your request not to recive this
information.




From: Richard
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Spam spam spam spam spam, spammity SPAM!

I spent a proportion of yesterday tracking down the source
of a mailing list that was sold to a company that proceeded
to send out an 'opt out' piece of spam.  I did get a
response from the company after complaining to the Direct
Marketing Association which the company belonged to.  They
claimed that one of the requirements was that their clients
only send out targetted e-mail.  The product has to be
relevant to the recipient or there has to be a previous
relationship.  I have to say that it was pretty poorly
targetted considering I have absolutely no interest in the
product being marketed whatsoever and had never had any
contact with the company either.

I explained my point of view and that it costs me
personally and the organisations I work for, that I
considered it outrageous that we pay for their advertising,
that double 'opt-in' mailing lists are the only really
acceptable way of building mailing lists and so.  I doubt
whether it will do any good.  This morning I e-mailed them
the link to MSNBC story on Aardvark today.

With regard to paper based junk mail I am just as offended.
Any I receive in my post office box is simply reposted in
the nearest postbox which happens to be on the other side
of the footpath from my post office box.  More people
should do this.

I have been known to shout at people delivering junk mail
to my letterbox at home but I my partner has made me stop.




From: Masonry
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Spam

Personally, I think the whole issue of spam is rather out
of proportion.  I pay for bandwidth.  It costs me a
comparable fee to download all the porn/drug/scam ads that
inundate my mailbox.
But it doesn't cost a whole lot.  Just as $1.50/bin rubbish
collection doesn't cost a vast amount (though I am sure we
could cut down on landfill issues if we cut the postal
junkmail).
However, media and a few influential types have managed to
make a big deal about it.  And that has snowballed.
I clear mail from some dozen accounts on about 8 different
domains.  My main (personal) account is only just starting
to pick up spam after about six years of usage.  Other
accounts have been used as disposable addresses on sites
where I expect to get spammed from.
It suits me to occasionally scan the junk, but for the most
part it is not a major issue.  A few mail rules set up
through my email client and through SpamAssassin on some of
the other domains flags most of it correctly as spam.  But
on the whole it is as much of a nuisance to me as Warehouse
offers, Real Estate brochures and my visa bill (oh hang on,
thats real mail - damn).
Some two thirds of my email is spam, but it takes about a
minute of my day to sort it from the real mail.
Can't say that raises my blood pressure any.




From: Andre Renaud
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: User pays for real junk mail

To be fair, most places have a recycling program for paper
waste, so in general real junk mail you get doesn't have to
be put in your $1.50 rubbish bags.




From: Rus
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Re Spam

It gets worse too - when new customers (and some not so
new) really really want systems to send their email
newsletter to all and sundry,

What's a web design company to do when it's custoners
say "We want you to create or reccomend a system to send an
email to this list of emails we have got",

We say - "It's SPAM and it's against your ISP's Acceptable
Use Policy"

They say - "But we get so much in our mail box - why can't
we do it...?"

Any ideas Bruce...? Or anyone else...?




From: TomV
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Junk Mail

The answer to your question is quite simple Bruce.

I get almost no junk mail, because I have a sign that
says "no junk mail", and the vast majority of advertisers
respect that. The few that don't get rung by me and told
that if I get any more junk mail from them, I will not use
their services again. This particularly applies to Real
Estate Agents who often seem to think they're exempt
from "no junk" signs.

As a result I receive less than 1 or 2 pieces of
unaddressed junk per fortnight.

I think the reason this system works (now there's a phrase
that wouldn't get past my email filters :) is because
postal spam is sent from reputable businesses with a
physical location. They can't afford to piss their
customers off. This doesn't apply to email spammers.

I can easily find the sender of postal junk, the same does
not apply to spammers, although if I ever meet anyone who
owns up to sending spam, I may well punch someone in the
face for the first time in my life.




From: Dave
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Spam vs Junkmail

Whilst I agree we don't scream blue murder over junk mail
in our letter boxes the way we do over spam, we can at
least easily stem the flow to our letterboxes with a
simple "No Junk Mail" sign.

Since I put that sign up, the only things I get are my
normal mail and the community newspapers.

Plus with normal junk mail, you don't normally run the risk
of opening the letter box to face hard core images, many of
which are sometimes not legal.

This raises an interesting point.  Hypothetical situation.
You get porn spam with graphic images of a paedophilic or
bestiality nature.  Could you be prosecuted for possession
of said images?

As they say, once something is on your computer, it's next
to impossible to delete it.  What if you computer was later
scanned by the police for some unrelated matter and they
find the images sitting in your temporary internet files
folder?
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