QUESTION
Is it OK to email someone you are interested in dating, even if that person didn't give you his/her address personally?
AMANDA: NO
My opinion is no, unless you want to look like a stalker. The obvious response to the email will be, "So, how did you get my address?" And what will the reply to that be? "Oh, I decided to look at member directories at every email service I could think of to try to find out how to contact you." Talk about scaring someone off!
The Good Advice Committee had to answer an interesting question this week: Is it OK to email someone you are interested in dating, even if that person didn't give you his/her address personally? The committee members outlined a couple scenarios where this would be OK, and some that would be totally off limits.
The final decision was close, but in the end, the committee voted no, 3-2. Click here to read their opinions.
Sometimes, technical manuals are hard to read and understand. Occasionally, they may even include pictographs that are supposed to help the user better understand the instructions. But what happens when even the pictographs make no freakin' sense?
Perform a Google news search on "olympic gymnastics controversy" and you'll notice 1,230 articles (at least, at this point) pertaining to what seems to be evolving into a silly event.
I don't want to take away the athleticism of the participants. They do things that not even the best breakdancer, which is what I want to be when I grow up, cannot do. But the reward for their efforts is a couple of judges apparently randomly giving out scores. One time, I think I saw the South Korean judge with a Scantron, trying to create a flag pattern with his scoring.
Two teenagers in Grand Rapids, Mich., set a new Guinness World Record recently by watching TV for 52 hours straight. And, of all places, they performed their feat at an International House of Pancakes.
The father of one of the young men said, "He has to be good at something, this is just as well." Is this for real? People don't have anything better to do than set records watching TV? Better yet, did they try the stuffed French toast?
I must be a little out of touch with large amusement parks or something. I recently visited Kings Island, which I've been to numerous occasions. Unfortunately, I stumbled directly into Walk-On Weekends, which allows some season pass holders to skip waiting in lines in order to ride the bigger rides almost immediately.
Actually, it's not as bad as I thought. Only the first 1,500 Gold Passholders are eligible, and they receive only a couple of tickets, with scheduled times to ride.
I hope you're not one of the many people who has experienced receiving a piece of junk email from (gulp!) yourself.
The good news is that it's probably not your fault. The bad news is someone you know probably has an infected computer.
Many computer viruses going around multiply themselves by grabbing a person's address book and sending emails out to many of the addresses.
Even though there's a growing number of websites that allow visitors to pay chump change for a song from your favorite artist, many people are still using free sites as their main way to obtain songs.
This question was posed to the Good Advice Committee, which is comprised of five individuals (including me) who well aware of the numerous dilemnas posed by today's technology. The GAC will tackle online ethical situations in upcoming editions.
More than two years ago, I wrote a column about how people think I look like other people. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you see this), I'm not the only person who experiences this look-a-like problem. Here are some comments: