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Is it ever appropriate to use profanities in an email?

It's hard to ever say never, especially when it comes to email. The advice committee decided 4-1 that while cussing online isn't necessarily a good thing, it can come in handy every once in awhile. Click here to read the final opinions.

If you need advice about something, and you, too, think many mainstream columnists don't understand today's world, email the Good Advice Committee. Surely we'll come up with something you can use to justify your position ... there's five of us!

GAC: Is it ever appropriate to use profanities in an email?

QUESTION

Is it ever appropriate to use profanities in an email?

LAEL: YES

It's okay by my standards to use profanities in email to people that you would normally say profantities when speaking. However, you should becareful not to tell grandma to kick @ss in tomorrow's bingo tournament ... As with all things email related, you should be careful what you write because you never know who is going to see it.

AMANDA: YES

Analyzing recreated events can be a good thing, even in JFK game

I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and say the new video game JFK Reloaded is a disgrace. More importantly, a game like this could revolutionize our way of regarding historical events.

Amazingly, Hawaii and basketball do mix

I have returned. Oh yeah, you probably didn't even know I was gone. I took a little vacation to Hawaii for snorkeling and a basketball tournament. Although there were many high profile people there in the stands

More domain names coming your way

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has added .post and .travel to its list of allowable domain names. Businesses and groups apparently will have the right to apply for these domain names soon, it's not quite clear just when someone would expect to actually see them live on the web. For more information about the additions, read a recent USA Today story about it.

From the Archive

Authorities getting faster at catching hackers

More than 10 years ago, if someone unleashed a computer virus, there was close to zero chance at catching the criminal. Five years ago, the cops might catch up with the hacker, eventually, after months or years of searching.

Website selling personal info ... but how much?

Is it possible to obtain someone's personal information online? There's a site that proclaims this is the case ... for a price.

As reported by Snopes.com, ZabaSearch.com will tell you everything the site can find regarding a particular person. Snopes coughed up $20 and received some personal information, but nothing that couldn't be found already through public records.

First book excerpt available

As you may or may not know, I'm in the process of writing a book. It was fun, but I'd like to finish it, get it published, sign some books and start working on the next one.

In the meantime, I'm going to provide you a few excerpts so you can see what I'm working on.

To set the stage for the first one, one of the book's main characters is meeting a blind date who happens to closely resemble her favorite celebrity.

Read the excerpt

If you cannot believe your email, at least believe this

There's a lot of talk about truth going around these days. Not that it is any different than any other period of mankind's history, at least after truth was invented. It's mildly interesting to imagine how truth started.

"Me kill buffalo! Me eat buffalo!"

"No, me kill buffalo! You don't eat buffalo!"

"No, me kill buffalo!"

This surely ended with one caveman eating the buffalo, and the other grabbing a Happy Meal at McDonald's.

What to do about those political emails from the other side

I've been fortunate enough to not receive too many political emails, and virtually none that made me angry toward one side or another. But I know these emails are circulating everywhere, so I'm going to be on guard for the rest of the election.

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