Do you get irritated by the volume of spam you get - by email, by telephone, and in the post?

I don't know which is the worst. Phone calls demand your immediate attention and (personally) I find it very hard to get back into coding concentration once I've broken to speak to someone who's just doing a "market survey", to tell someone from an agency outside the UK (so not subject to TPS) that we're not interested, or to simply hang up on a recorded message. Emails that are clever enough to get through spam filters have to be hand sorted (and with a lot of domains to look after, I get a fair number). And junk in the post doesn't exactly help to keep the planet green, does it?

In the post this morning, Lisa received this piece of spam. "Mrs Ellis, make one gift and we'll never ask for another donation again". Hmm - that come across as a threat to me - "Pay us some money, or we'll keep hounding you". That's almost extortion according to my dictionary - "the taking of personal property by threat of future harm". And it's also on the "blackmail" page on Wikipedia, which does also say "Some US states distinguish the offenses by requiring that blackmail be in writing" ... oh, wait, it was in writing ...

I have a great admiration and respect for medics who operate on people - mostly children - with cleft lips. In preparing this item, I have had a look at their website and they're taking about admirable work. But what a pity that one of their marketing lines is to send out spam in the post that threatens to menace you with more until you contribute. Shame on them.

(written 2011-09-19)

 Z950 - Purely Personal
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  [3556] Aeryn at 1 - (2011-12-19)
  [3511] Melksham has a heart - have your picture taken and support the defibrillator appeal - (2011-11-06)
  [3413] If its Sunday, must it be Weymouth? - (2011-08-30)
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  [3224] Melksham Campus - a win / win opportunity, but a severely lacking decision process - (2011-03-31)
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  [3055] Zyliana Kyrei Cox - (2010-11-16)
  [3037] Looking back and forward personally - 6 years each way - (2010-11-08)
  [3034] Birth Notice - Aeryn Cassandra Ellis - (2010-11-07)
  [2982] Travel, Transport and Tourism - A vision for Melksham, 2026 - (2010-10-03)
  [2886] Congratulations, Kimberly - (2010-07-25)
  [2698] Ruth Davis, 1916 - 2010 - (2010-03-28)
  [2547] The great thing about snow .... - (2009-12-23)
  [2195] A two day gap - first time in five years? - (2009-05-24)
  [1051] Too busy to blog it - but it's great (mostly) - (2007-01-24)
  [1014] Christmas Season Piccies - (2006-12-30)

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Your PHP website - how to factor and refactor to reduce growing pains
Reading and using emails including enclosures on your web server.
Which or ATOC - who reads train fares right?
Why would you want to use a Perl hash?
A threat in the post? Poor marketing practise from Smiletrain?
Apache Internal Dummy Connection - what is it and what should I do with it?
Checking all the systems on a subnet, using Expect and Tk
Needle in a haystack - finding the web server overload
Awk v Perl
Perl and CGI - simple form, and monitoring script.