On Jan 4, 2008, at 8:03 PM, Derek Finch wrote:
I am genuinely and deeply dissapointed. I was on the web looking for nothing and came across your site and as such I feel this as an intrusion on my right to find nothing if that is what I am searching for. You claim to offer nothing but in fact such a claim is by definition a contradiction. When I search for nothing I expect a blank page with no links, no text, not even any color. Your site, on the other hand, is offensively full of content. I am so upset I have decided not to order anyting from you. If you are unable to deliver I will refer your organisation to the BBB and hope they sue you for every last noncents you have.
DF
To which I responded:
Derek,
I appreciate the disappointment you suffered when you found something about nothing when you were searching for nothing. May I ask though, would you have continued your search forever if you hadn't found this site? Or indeed, would you have stopped searching once you didn't find the nothing.net web site?
I submit that you were looking to start a big fuss over nothing so you thought anyone claiming to offer nothing would be an easy target. I must admit you have quite a pair of "huevos del ganso" to pick a fight with the leading authorities on nothing.
Since you started off trying to find nothing, perhaps you are simply trying to finish what you started. Ideally this would end in nothing. Am I on the right track here? If so, that means that you win if you lose this argument. However, if I let you win you'll lose.
Either of these options is a losing proposition for me, because win or lose you win and lose. Ideally, I would accomplish nothing, yet at the same time I would need to prevent you from accomplishing nothing, not because I wouldn't love for you to have nothing, but because you want me to not give you anything retroactively and it's not polite to try to make people travel through time just to make less things happen to you than would have happened if you weren't out looking for something regarding nothing to cause trouble about. Plus, it's impossible, which makes it all the more rude and disrespectful.
Although my following statements could appear to make me the winner (and thus the loser) of this argument, I must take this tack for a moment. You say that when looking for nothing, "I expect a blank page", yet a blank page is something. My point here is that you really were looking for something, you simply wanted that something to APPEAR to be nothing. Seeing that you browsed the site, you must have realized that no matter how content rich it may appear, we are all about nothing.
Knowing that you knew that you were not serious about anything you wrote in your letter, means that both of us were fully aware that there was no point to your initial letter or this lengthy reply. This means you must have written your letter with full knowledge that I would not reply, thus you felt that you had accomplished nothing by your e-mail complaint. Since I chose to respond, your e-mail did not actually accomplish its intended purpose which was nothing. Yet, my letter (being a totally unnecessary response about nothing) remains totally pointless. This means that while I have accomplished nothing, you haven't.
All that being summed up, the paradox is broken, I win. But in a way don't we all?
--Xymyl (KON)
Friday, January 4, 2008
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Top level communication: No Contest!!
Well, it's that time of year again (for the first time) the time when we pretend that we've always had a nothing essay competition. Wasn't it great last year when it was a tie between all of earth's inhabitants? Or wasn't it even better the year before when everyone thought we were joking and didn't bother to do anything? This year promises to be no better as we expect a very poor turnout. But wouldn't be great if... some number just shy of everyone got involved?
Here are the rules for this years competition:
Write an essay 500 words or less explaining why you ____ nothing.
Blank entries will be accepted, but keep in mind that there will be several blank entries and you will need to find a way to make your blank entry stand out beyond all others. If your blank entry bears a striking resemblance to all others you will receive 1st place. Remember to tell us that your entry is for the essay contest. Also remember to provide your name and address so that we can send you the prize you probably won't get.
All duplicates or ties will receive 1st place.
Awards:
1st place: All first place winners will receive nothing.
2nd place: The second place winner will receive the nothing users manual, except in the case of a tie in which case all second place winners will receive the 1st place prize.
3rd place: The third place winner will get a tee shirt that says nothing on it, except in the case of a tie in which all third place winners will receive the 1st place prize.
Last place: The last place winner will receive all the prizes left unclaimed by the previous winners except in the rare case that there are no ties which would mean that last place gets nothing at all.
Here are the rules for this years competition:
Write an essay 500 words or less explaining why you ____ nothing.
Blank entries will be accepted, but keep in mind that there will be several blank entries and you will need to find a way to make your blank entry stand out beyond all others. If your blank entry bears a striking resemblance to all others you will receive 1st place. Remember to tell us that your entry is for the essay contest. Also remember to provide your name and address so that we can send you the prize you probably won't get.
All duplicates or ties will receive 1st place.
Awards:
1st place: All first place winners will receive nothing.
2nd place: The second place winner will receive the nothing users manual, except in the case of a tie in which case all second place winners will receive the 1st place prize.
3rd place: The third place winner will get a tee shirt that says nothing on it, except in the case of a tie in which all third place winners will receive the 1st place prize.
Last place: The last place winner will receive all the prizes left unclaimed by the previous winners except in the rare case that there are no ties which would mean that last place gets nothing at all.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Q&A: How many is a shirt?
On Jan 1, 2008, at 12:54 PM, Josh wrote:
the website makes this a bit unclear, if i pay 20$ for a shirt, do i got 1 of my choice color, or 2, one in each color?
-josh
To which I replied:
Josh,
Thank you for your interest in nothing and tee shirts that promote nothing. When we created this site over 12 years ago, our intention was to make everything clear so that you could see through it to nothing. Now that someone was finally confused about something on our site, we can see that we have failed. If only we could have made nothing clear in the first place so that you would know you had gone too far when you saw anything. But as they say, hindsight is good for nothing. I can understand why you may have been confused about how many shirts you get and what colors they are because we are so focused on nothing that often the details are treated as unimportant. Although we don't apologize for this, we are sorry that we made it clear where you could get answers. Can we meet you halfway on this one and make everything semi-opaque?
The answer to your exciting question is: You get a single shirt in your choice of color (black with black lettering or white with white lettering).
If you have further questions, may I suggest that you ask yourself the question first. If you agree that the question legitimately deserves to be recognized and addressed in this forum, then by all means send it to us. If you think it is silly to ask yourself questions or you find the question to be unintelligible, please do not send it to us.
Sorry if this seems harsh, but this is our standard screening process, and without meaningless rules, obeying meaningless rules would be meaningless. And don't try and tell me it is already meaningless, ask yourself if it's meaningless, and don't answer yourself with another question, follow the rules.
Xymyl (KON)
the website makes this a bit unclear, if i pay 20$ for a shirt, do i got 1 of my choice color, or 2, one in each color?
-josh
To which I replied:
Josh,
Thank you for your interest in nothing and tee shirts that promote nothing. When we created this site over 12 years ago, our intention was to make everything clear so that you could see through it to nothing. Now that someone was finally confused about something on our site, we can see that we have failed. If only we could have made nothing clear in the first place so that you would know you had gone too far when you saw anything. But as they say, hindsight is good for nothing. I can understand why you may have been confused about how many shirts you get and what colors they are because we are so focused on nothing that often the details are treated as unimportant. Although we don't apologize for this, we are sorry that we made it clear where you could get answers. Can we meet you halfway on this one and make everything semi-opaque?
The answer to your exciting question is: You get a single shirt in your choice of color (black with black lettering or white with white lettering).
If you have further questions, may I suggest that you ask yourself the question first. If you agree that the question legitimately deserves to be recognized and addressed in this forum, then by all means send it to us. If you think it is silly to ask yourself questions or you find the question to be unintelligible, please do not send it to us.
Sorry if this seems harsh, but this is our standard screening process, and without meaningless rules, obeying meaningless rules would be meaningless. And don't try and tell me it is already meaningless, ask yourself if it's meaningless, and don't answer yourself with another question, follow the rules.
Xymyl (KON)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)