From: Sean Kenny (seankenny@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Fri Jan 19 2001 - 11:34:15 MST
Kevin Kelly told us that someday, a small determined group
would use the Power of the Net to coagulate itself into a
enormous electronic hive-mind. He's a bee-keeper, so we
believed him. We just weren't expecting it to start so
early, or so much in UK.REC.COMPETITIONS. Regulars there are
already demonstrating the damage a highly-interconnected
mass-consciousness can wreak; between them (it), the uk.r.c
posters estimate they (it) win(s) over 5% of the UK's online
giveaways. So when BOL announced that its "Win 500 DVD
Players!" competition was over - and nobody on uk.r.c had
won a thing - they were, en masse, suspicious. BOL were
adamant: yes, the winners had been notified. No, uk.r.c
couldn't see the list. Yes, that was against ASA rules - but
BOL only had e-mail addresses. Then how are they sending the
DVD players out, responded the newsgroups' groupmind - as
attachments? Good point, replied BOL, have some DVD players
and go away. A happy ending - except for the knowledge that
perhaps BOL *would* have gotten away with it, if it is
wasn't for the unifying power of the froups. But are those
supposed competitors getting too pally? A few days later,
all of uk.rec.comps received a mail from BT. Dear Karen, it
said, you've won a lava lamp. Apparently, BT say now,
there's only one lava lamp - and only one Karen. And
uk.rec.competitions is she.
http://x53.deja.com/=dnc/viewthread.xp?AN=715709536
- don't mess with threads this long
http://www.deja.com/=dnc/viewthread.xp?AN=717027906
- no, i'm karen!
http://www.ntk.net/boldoh/
- historical perspective
from britains satirical net weekly Need To Know www.ntk.net
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