Who’s the boss of the internet?
This is a funny story I got from Geenstijl.nl (so unfortunately the source is in Dutch).
It’s about a guy called Eric Naeyaert, who calls himself a medium. You know, someone who can speak to deceased relatives, who can see into the future, who can help you create better karma etc.
Anyway, apparantly lots of people were complaining about him on the web (blogs & forums and such) claiming he is a fraud and a cheater.
So what did mr. Naeyaert do? He send an email to Jeroen van der Wiel, who runs a Google SEO blog, demanding several websites to be deleted from ‘the internet’. Unfortunately for him, Jeroen van der Wiel is not the boss of the internet.
This reminds me of a website I currently run. One of the items that got featured on it was the book ‘The Secret’ from Rhonda Byrne. Then one day I got an email from a lady (through my contactform) addressed to R. B. herself. I guess the lady thought the website was run by R. B. On top of that her email was in Dutch … This show the ignorance (or stupidity) of people.
Below the email:
Website Formulier van www.jeroen.com
() on Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 18:43:56
—————————————————————————
Betreft:: Contact
Name: ERIC NAEYAERT
Emailadress: eric.naeyaert@***
Uw Telefonenumber: ***
Comp.: .A.EXBUNA INT EN C° B.V.B.A
Message:
DELETE
http://forum.skepp.be/viewtopic.php?p=12494&sid=b1e9dbc3f450ab508a43d66bfaac8e6b
http://forum.filosofie.be/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2176
http://www.grenswetenschap.nl/permalink.asp?grens=2024
http://sereniteit.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/het-ware-gezicht-van-de-beroemde-belgische-paragnost/
http://nederlands.skepdic.com/relaas.htm
http://nederlands.skepdic.com/relaas.htm
http://www.grenswetenschap.nl/permalink.asp?grens=2024&p=3
http://koan.filosofie.be/index.php?/archives/698-Pitbull-astrologen.html
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Beveiligd
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Beveiligd
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The clash of generations
Today some old lady (70+ or so) walks into the store and comes up to my desk with a piece of paper in her hand. So far, nothing new and exciting there. She wants to order a book, which she found out about on the internet. A website called rugpijnweg.nl. The site itself is in Dutch, but for those of you that can’t resist to take a look, you’ll probably figure out what’s to come.
Anyway, I search for this title in our system and come up empty. Because she remembered the website I said okay, lets take a look at it, see if we can find any more information about it.
So I put in the domain in the browser and what do I see? E-book only.
I explain to the lady that we, as a bookstore, can’t order an E-book, because technically an E-book is not a book, etc … blabla. She looks at me as if I just slapped her in the face.
She then points at my screen, indicating the word e-BOOK, and says: “It says book right here, so order me the book already okay?“. I then try again and explain to her that this e-book is available in digital form only and that unfortunately, I can’t help her.
Again, she looks at me like I’m some sort of scum that enjoys ripping of old people, and says: “Then I will just have to order it in another bookstore. If this is how you provide service then I’ll never shop here again.”
Now, I get my daily dose of ignorant, annoying, rude … (fill in the blanks yourself) customers. But this lady will stick with me some time. Sometimes the gap between generations is to big for even me to fill :).