Rambling Rant: And the e-mail says...

The stupid things that get passed around via e-mail constantly amaze me. Unnecessary warnings, faulty medical advice, and useless petitions are constantly being passed hither and yon via the medium of e-mail.

I would like the recipients of any of these e-mails to say to themselves, "Do I believe this?" If not, don't send it to twenty other people in a fit of Pavlovian obedience just because it says to at the bottom.

Whenever someone sends me an e-mail I make the assumption that this person believes what they are sending me is true. And if the claims of the e-mail are either too fantastic to be true or have been proven false, then I figure the sender is an idiot.

If the answer to the "Do I believe this?" question is undecided, then do some research. There are several urban legend sites available for checking the most common of this e-mail clutter. I tend to use www.snopes.com, but any will do. If you have any doubt about the claims any e-mail makes, check it out. It usually take me only a minute or two to determine that the Microsoft corporation is not going to pay me $5000 if I forward the e-mail to thirty friends.

If a friend met you on the street and said "I just heard from a guy at work that I can live longer if I stand on each foot for an hour a day", you would say that person is nuts. But if it comes to e-mail, most people send it on because you never know...

Well, I know. And it has to stop. Use your brain, use the web, and stop filling people's minds and e-mail boxes full of information that they do not need or want.

End of rant.