What do you get if you send out over 600 e-mails to elected candidates all over the country, and then monitor their responses for two months?

Well, a headache, for one thing. Lots of headaches, really. And a burning hatred of Excel documents, followed by elation when Excel actually does what you ask it to do after all…

And then you get a headline like that.

The backstory is, we e-mailed MPs in England, Wales and Scotland, asking them about the issue of technology recycling — on a national scale, and on a personal, “we’ve got two computers to get rid of” scale. There were several things at stake: whether they’d reply at all; whether their office would reply in their stead; whether they knew anything about the WEEE directive and local initiatives; and even if they had a published e-mail address at all.

Lots of them replied, several of them more than once, someof them very, very helpfully.

But 98 MPs didn’t reply at all. Which, considering how much cheaper and easier it is to bang out an e-mail reply compared with writing a letter, is a bit disgraceful. Five out of every six MPs did reply, though, which is probably more than would have done this time last year, and fewer than would do this time next year. Ah, the march of progress.

(Yes, this is pretty much just a big ol’ plug.)

According to a couple of major UK newspapers this week, social networking site Bebo has “won” exclusive rights to a UK spin-off of LonelyGirl15. It’s been a while since LG15 has been in the news, though things certainly haven’t been quiet in the Breeniverse. But more on that later.

The spin-off will feature the adventures of “Kate Modern”, a 19-year-old student living in London with a hideous pun for a name. Starting from July, her video diary will be posted on Bebo, where fellow Bebo users will be able to offer feedback, interact with the character, and even influence the outcome of the story, in some peculiar modern version of those Choose Your Own Adventure books.

The Creators of LG15 posted an announcement about this on their forums on Monday 16th April, which read as follows:

Just want to let you in on the good news since the press is breaking today. We are launching an LG15 spinoff in the UK! We formed a partnership with Bebo (www.bebo.com) and in July we’re launching a completely new storyline featuring new characters that live within the LG15 universe. Think Angel vs. Buffy. It should be a lot of fun, and because we have a budget in advance we’re going to be able to do a ton of interactivity and ARGish things. We’ll keep you posted as we make our way through the production process. Thanks!

After some fan comments, another clarification message was posted, reading:

Thanks everyone! We’re really excited! Joanna and the whole team at Bebo are really awesome and completely open to all of our ideas, so it should turn out great. We’ll be writing and producing all of the “top level” story development, puzzles, interactivity, etc. and then we’ll hire a London based team (writer, director, producer, actors, etc.). I’ll be moving out there to run the show for the duration… might direct a little if needed, do revisions, etc. We’re working on hiring more people here so that things on Lonelygirl15 continue… and get even better. We’re very excited.

This is interesting for any number of reasons; not least because this time around, the Creators will actually have a budget to work with. And sponsors. And integrated advertising. In other words, a way of actually making a profit out of this crazy thing they’ve created.

Since my last post about LG15, the Creators have managed to get some product placement into one video, which may have earned them some dosh. But right now they’ve got more problems with the series than ever before: without going into too much detail, a spin-off ARG was integrated into the story, causing a few alterations to the original story to be made to accommodate it; then, just as things were getting really interesting, something rather bizarre happened between the creators of the ARG, the Creators of LG15, and the forum members. Everyone’s very tight-lipped about it now, but as a result, the ARG characters, having only just been properly integrated into the real plot, were unceremoniously ripped back out again. An announcement on the forums explained in no uncertain terms that Tachyon, OpAphid, and Brother weren’t going to be seen again, and a supposedly ‘unofficial’ video attempted a retcon, changing the motivations of the aforementioned three characters and all but declaring them dead.

On top of that tangled mess, the central storyline has become tired and repetitive. Bree and her friends go on the run; they get kidnapped; they escape; they go on the run; they get kidnapped. The initial mysteries of the series still haven’t been satisfactorily explained, and it now doesn’t look like they ever will be. The enormous audience that the show gained are steadily dropping off; their loyalty unrewarded, their wallets unraided, and a universe of other YouTube clips clamouring for their attention.

I stick by my earlier assertion that the best thing to be done with LG15 now would be a blow-’em-away finale, a DVD, and some action figures. Maybe with the added experience and insight the Creators have gained, Kate Modern will be better: the signs are good, considering they seem to have a bit more business sense now. But if they can’t figure out a way to get out of this mess, LG15 will go down in history as one of the most spectacularly wasted opportunities of all time.

(With respect to my earlier article criticising the incomprehensibility of Internet slang and acronyms, here’s a quick glossary:

ARG: alternate reality game
Breeniverse: the universe inhabited by Bree, aka lonelygirl15.
LG15: LonelyGirl15 (that’s a pretty easy one, though)
Retcon: retroactive continuity - a way of fudging plot holes, basically.)

I love the idea of being able to wander about the house with my laptop and access the Internet no matter which room I’m in. I love the idea of being able to connect to the Internet using my desktop without having to trail wires throughout the house, and I’m quite keen on being able to take my laptop out to places and use wireless hotspots there, too.

Unfortunately, I’m still too new to Vista to entirely know what I’m doing, and in any case, setting up a wireless network just seems to be the most fiddly, annoying thing in the world. It shouldn’t be, I’m sure.

But it is.

Grrr.

Have I mentioned that I’m entirely incapable of functioning without Internet access? Oh dear.

I read something on CNET recently (okay, about a month ago, if you want to be picky) about the death of the smiley.* Personally, I’m in at least two minds about the topic.

As the recent call for a Blogging Code of Conduct demonstrates, even the most rational and mild-mannered amongst us can come unstuck online. Anonymity lets us say whatever we please with little fear of rebuke or consequence; similarly, it can be difficult to interpret tone online, and to take to heart something said (or, typed, anyway) lightly. Emoticons seem to be one way of fixing this problem — though writing more thoughtfully and clearly might be a better solution — and, moreover, they’re something that everyone seems to get the hang of right off the bat.

Internet acronyms can be difficult to figure out, since their meaning isn’t immediately apparent, and most of them have evolved to mean something completely different from their original meaning anyway. When was the last time you saw someone use “LOL” to actually mean they found something funny, rather than to be mocking/sarcastic/intentionally and painfully ironic? Emoticons, on the other hand, are a lot easier: you just have to squint, or maybe turn your head slightly to one side.

I’ve always felt a little uneasy about using them, though. My inner snob insisted on feeling that punctuation should be used to, well, punctuate; I love semi-colons, particularly, and using them to represent one half of an ASCII lascivious wink seemed somehow perverse. MSN Messenger’s obnoxious insistence on turning these symbols into hideous bright yellow faces didn’t help matters; AIM’s smiley set is even worse, and even Microsoft Word is at it. Suddenly, there are grinning faces everywhere, gurning away at me…

But reading that quote from the New York Times cited by CNET made me reconsider. (Oh, don’t get me wrong, I used smilies anyway; I usually just felt a bit guilty afterwards.) In 1969, Vladimir Nabokov was asked how he ranked himself among the greatest writers ever, and responded that “I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile – some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket.”

Frankly, if it’s good enough for Nabokov, it’s good enough for me. Long live the smiley!

* Not to be confused with similes. That’s a whole other kettle of fish. Or, like a whole other kettle of fish. Or something.

Phishing is a horrible thing. Identity theft is becoming more and more common and the burden is increasingly on the individual to protect themselves, with banks starting to grumble about protecting their customers from scams. Browsers now have anti-phising protection built-in, and we’re all sitting behind firewalls and running regular virus checks with our regularly updated virus protection software. (Right?) Still, the bad guys seem to be staying a few steps ahead of the white hats, using increasingly sophisticated attacks, and basically, it’s all quite scary.

But was there really any need for MySpace to block my account five times this afternoon?

The first time it did it, I was a little concerned, but happy to change my password. Well, I was initially happy, before I had to navigate all of the password-changing requirements: a password that was between 6 and 10 characters long, including a mixture of letters and numbers or at least one special character. I have a list of passwords I generally cycle around accounts, but most of them are around 12 characters long. Eventually I found a suitable one, only to be confronted with the most infuriating CAPTCHA I’ve ever seen. The letters were a mixture of upper and lower cases, some upside down or distorted, and quite frankly, I couldn’t read some of them.

So my efforts to reset my password were rejected and I had to start again.

And again.

And again.

MySpace continually found something wrong. And as soon as I managed to change the account, the “You’ve been phished!” message popped up again and made me go through the whole rigmarole again. I was getting increasingly paranoid that someone really was phishing my account at this stage, till I realised what was triggering it: I was trying to post a bulletin with a link.

Apparently MySpace thinks that’s something only phishers do.

Of course, if a phisher really had obtained control of my account, er, what’s to stop them clicking on the “change password” button and really screwing me up by changing it — and altering the e-mail address associated with the account, to boot?

Bah, humbug. I’m quite angry now. Especially since I can’t remember what the last password I came up with was. And I still haven’t posted that bulletin.

Okay, I’m about two months late to the party, but I’ve only just started playing with Vista, so I’ve not had a chance to get sick and tired of it yet.

Initially, I was dead set against the new Windows operating system — to the point where I was considering moving to a Linux distro or even (whisper it) a Mac. However, after lots of soul-searching and deliberation, I bought a laptop with Vista pre-loaded and accepted my fate.

And, er, I actually quite like it. Vista’s very, very pretty. That’s the first thing I noticed, and kept noticing. I’m running Home Premium, so Aeroglass is in full effect. Everything just looks a lot smarter, from the Start menu to the buttons on all the windows to the folders where documents are stored. Even the built-in Windows games are shinier; it seems a lot of those six years were spent working on the games, because as well as the standard Minesweeper and Solitaire, there’s Chess Titans, Purble Place, and the highly addictive Inkball. The card games all look a lot snappier, as does Minesweeper. It’s all completely unnecessary, but I’ve already admitted I’m a bit of a magpie, so I’m enjoying it.

The search function in Vista is blindingly fast, and I like the idea of tagging photos and rating files to make them easier to find. Everything I’ve tried to do so far has just worked, and Windows Defender isn’t being too obnoxious either. It all seems fairly intuitive; not much has really changed from XP, which is probably a good reason for most people not to bother till there’ve been a couple of Service Packs and more third party apps are offering Vista support, but I can’t say that I have any regrets about moving to Vista.

There’s something a bit ominous about the fact that I don’t have any complaints… yet.