On the subtle art of getting in touch

Email. The best way to contact me is to drop an email to: oscar@randomwalk.eu (click to copy to clipboard).

While I like receiving thoughtful and interesting emails, I am only (one) human. Hence response time, however annoyingly, «tends to be an exponential function of message length».1 Writing properly helps make the curve less steep.

Before emailing me, please read the rest of this page. Especially if I don’t know you! I may silently ignore your message if you don’t—and I will be able to tell from your message if you didn’t!

Rule number 1. Here is the first rule of the now defunct Email Charter,2 the very first principle:

Respect Recipients’ Time. This is the fundamental rule. As the message sender, the onus is on YOU to minimize the time your email will take to process. Even if it means taking more time at your end before sending.

I expect all my correspondents to honour it.

Two other things to keep in mind:


  1. In the words quoted by Frank Stajano.

  2. It used to be found at http://www.emailcharter.org/.

  3. See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html.

  4. See https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/swedish-transport-agency-worst-known-governmental-leak-ever-is-slowly-coming-to-light/.