Entries for October 2006
October 3, 2006 at 9:07PM Family death
This is a short message for anybody who might need to know, but I haven’t contacted yet.
My grandmother died only a short while ago. I don’t think it’s quite hit me. To be frank, I’m feeling rather numb right now. Whatever projects or work I was going to be doing over the next while, I’m suspending until further notice.
I think I need some peace and quiet for now.
October 11, 2006 at 2:15PM I cannot, for the life of me, think of a title for this post, so this’ll have to do
First time back properly at the computer since the third. I was going to write up what went through my head over the week, but I’m afraid my heart just isn’t in it right now. I know in my hearts of hearts that the act of writing it all down would do me good right now, but I’m not sure if I should publish it, and part of me’s a bit frightened of doing it.
Just getting myself back into a relatively normal state of mind right now, catching up on email, reading the enormous backlog of stuff I’ve sitting in Bloglines, and a few other things. The only thing of interest I have to write is that I’ll be up in Dublin for Hard Working Class Heros this weekend. Should be good; I think I need something like that right now.
I don’t really know what I’m going to do with myself over the next couple of days. I might hack some code I’ve sitting here, but, like writing, my mind isn’t right.
October 23, 2006 at 7:14PM I am Spartacus!
As Tom, James, Bernie, Donncha and many others have mentioned, Damien Mulley’s Thinkhouse PR troubles continue. The latest events in the saga are that his open letter to them has disappeared from Google (yet if you search Yahoo! or MSN, there it is) and that the Data Protection Moron has apologised--yes, apologised--to Thinkhouse PR because they had to investigate the complaint, something they’ve a statutory obligation to do. And to top it all off, apparently they’re not going to follow up and take action against Thinkhouse PR in spite of the fact that Damien’s complaint fits the profile of a valid one.
There are corrupt little banana republics in the world where you wouldn’t expect this kind of thing to happen, yet it happens in what is supposedly one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Then, as is often demonstrated, wealth, intelligence and backbone do not necessarily coincide.
So, in the tradition of these things, here’s Damien’s open letter reproduced verbatim:
I’m writing to make a formal complaint against Thinkhouse PR for continually sending unsolicited emails to one of my email accounts despite being asked not to. The email account in question is info [at] irelandoffline.org a part-time non-commercial voluntary group.
Enclosed are 5 sets of documents. Thinkhouse contacted info [at] irelandoffline.org (which is shared with a colleague John Timmons) initially on behalf of their client Imagine who were releasing a new broadband product. We did not ask to be put on further email distributions for Imagine or for anyone else.
Despite this, on Fri August 4th Jane McDonald from Thinkhouse sent an email promoting an initiative from Ben and Jerry’s. (See document No. 2) Ben and Jerry’s are a client of Thinkhouse. My reply to this unsolicited email is at the end of the document.
Jane McDonald replied to this (see document No. 3) and gave the excuse that there was some kind of slip and my email address was put into a personal circular. I would not consider it was a personal mail. Jane seems to suggest that Thinkhouse are aware of spamming laws.
On August 18th Thinkhouse PR sent me another mail, a press release for the mobile phone operator “3”. (See document no. 4. This document is the back and forth communication between myself and Thinkhouse PR.) At the top of the document is a communication from Jane McDonald telling me once again I’m off everyone’s list after I again requested it. Jane also admits to using my email address without permission to add me to their mailing lists.
On August 22nd (see document No. 5) Andrea Horan from Thinkhouse PR again sent me a PR, this time for another of their clients. This one for Moviestar.ie.
I wish for the Data Protection Commissioner to investigate this and carry out a prosecution if needs be. I am willing to travel to Dublin, I am willing to make a written statement and I am willing to testify in Court if the need arises. Thinkhouse PR is contravening the Irish Spam Legislation and it is totally disregarding my repeated requests to stop being sent information. I have also asked for my contact details to be removed from their systems and this has been disregarded too.
Please contact me on receipt of this complaint. Contact details are above.
Regards, Damien Mulley
Any Googlejuice I can give is given, especially if this helps bypass the apparent ban.
Update: Here’s the DPC’s ruling. The word “whitewash” comes to mind...
Another Update: Adam Lasnik posted a reply over on James’ blog explaining that the page’s disappearence was simply down to a bizarre coincidence caused by an update in Google’s search algorithms. Ok, it’s quite possible that what Adam’s saying is true, but I’ve sat through lectures on how Google’s search infrastructure works (see this video on BigTable for some details), and the only way I can think of that would cause this could happen is if there was some catastrophic data loss. Otherwise, all it should have happened was that the page might have dropped down the listings, which obviously didn’t happen. Very, very odd...
Addendum: Jane McDaid of Thinkhouse PR is quite an odd woman. She posted a comment on James’ blog stating that the DPC had “apologied (sic.) [to THPR] for having to follow the complaint up” and then, then, contradicts herself in a later comment on the very same post in a “clarification”, stating the DPC “did not apologise for having to follow the complaint up”. THPR don’t appear to be the brightest bunch.
October 31, 2006 at 4:38AM Warlords of Pez in Whelan’s
I’m going to try to get to the Halloween Warlords of Pez gig in Whelan’s. That means getting the 11.30 bus from Charlestown to Dublin. Should be able to do that. The only potential problem I might have is getting a costume because, it seems, the gig is fancy dress. Or rather, I’ll improvising a costume, specifically a ghoul or zombie, by getting some facepaint and hair gel but I don’t have a clue where it get the facepaint. I phoned Niamh about it, and she says that my best bet is Smyth’s Toys on Jervis Street. Fingers crossed!
