4 ms·

The case of the 500-mile email

169 points by kachnuv_ocasek 15y ago

eitally 15y ago
An oldie but goodie, but still worth a bump. If only more networks were c-limited!
mikeryan 15y ago
There's an associated FAQ which addresses some of the questions you may have about the technical veracity of the story. http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html
shrikant 15y ago
Interesting anecdote and discussion a previous time this came up here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652
monochromatic 15y ago
Seen it many times, but it's such a great story... who can complain about it being reposted?
arethuza 15y ago
Having been involved in "rationalizing" a systems of hundreds of emails servers dotted round the world down to something manageable I can honestly say that nothing about the weird and wonderful ways that email can fail surprises me any more.
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
I wonder how many times this has already been posted to HN. Not that I'm complaining: every time I re-read it, I'm charmed and delighted all over again.
- WalterGR 15y ago
  This Google query works fairly well: site:news.ycombinator.com link:http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html Link to said query: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibiblio.org%2Fharris%2F500milemail.html http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+l... Query returns: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068
  - re 15y ago
    I suspect that the link: operator doesn't work well (or at all) anymore, and that those results are only getting returned because the comments contain all the words in the URL (because someone invariably links to the FAQ). Other searches (to articles linked from http://news.ycombinator.com/best http://news.ycombinator.com/best) come up empty: http://www.google.com/search?q=link:https://github.com/blog/878-announcing-github-for-mac http://www.google.com/search?q=link:https://github.com/blog/... http://www.google.com/search?q=link:http://blog.instapaper.com/post/6830514157 http://www.google.com/search?q=link:http://blog.instapaper.c... http://www.google.com/search?q=link:http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.xml http://www.google.com/search?q=link:http://mobile.nytimes.co...
wgrover 15y ago
Worth reading just to find out about the units(1) program. How did I miss that all these years?
- btilly 15y ago
  If you like the program, read through the data file: http://futureboy.us/frinkdata/units.txt http://futureboy.us/frinkdata/units.txt Some pure gold buried in there. For instance search for candela.
  - Sniffnoy 15y ago
    Hm, is there an archive of old versions of units.dat anywhere? Occasionally units get deleted from it - I used to keep old versions but I'd forgotten about this some time ago and haven't done so in a while. (Also that was several hard drive crashes ago so I no longer have the copies I made.)
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - 3pt14159 15y ago
    Hahahahahhah Hilarious. Define the default symbol for the imaginary unit, that is, the square root of negative one. The default Unicode codepoint for the imaginary unit. (DOUBLE-STRUCK ITALIC SMALL I) \u2148 := <<IMAGINARY_UNIT>> Also used for the imaginary unit (especially by electrical engineers, who use "i" to indicate current. (DOUBLE-STRUCK ITALIC SMALL J) \u2149 := <<IMAGINARY_UNIT>> Redefine the letter "i" to also be the imaginary unit i := \u2148
  - wgrover 15y ago
    On the kilogram: "I dislike having a prefixed unit as the base reference. What a horrible decision. Why don't you just have it go to ten and make ten a little louder?" Exactly right.
- nfriedly 15y ago
  FYI units on OS X doesn't recognize millilightseconds, but you can do this: You have: 3 lightyears / 365 / 24 / 60 / 60 / 1000 You want: miles * 559.21802 / 0.0017882113
matthias 15y ago
It's good ol' chestnuts like this that made me think of the "rerun" button: http://bit.ly/ek6kqi http://bit.ly/ek6kqi Instead of upvoting you would click the rerun link to signal the content as duplicate (but worthy). This would move it out of the news and to a dedicated classics page of timelessly good content.
JonnieCache 15y ago
IMO the most amusing part of this story is the behaviour of the statistics professor.

169 points by kachnuv_ocasek 15y ago

An oldie but goodie, but still worth a bump. If only more networks were c-limited!

There's an associated FAQ which addresses some of the questions you may have about the technical veracity of the story. http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html

shrikant 15y ago

Interesting anecdote and discussion a previous time this came up here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652

monochromatic 15y ago

Seen it many times, but it's such a great story... who can complain about it being reposted?

arethuza 15y ago

Having been involved in "rationalizing" a systems of hundreds of emails servers dotted round the world down to something manageable I can honestly say that nothing about the weird and wonderful ways that email can fail surprises me any more.

RyanMcGreal 15y ago

I wonder how many times this has already been posted to HN. Not that I'm complaining: every time I re-read it, I'm charmed and delighted all over again.

WalterGR 15y ago
This Google query works fairly well: site:news.ycombinator.com link:http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html Link to said query: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibiblio.org%2Fharris%2F500milemail.html http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+l... Query returns: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068
- re 15y ago
  I suspect that the link: operator doesn't work well (or at all) anymore, and that those results are only getting returned because the comments contain all the words in the URL (because someone invariably links to the FAQ). Other searches (to articles linked from http://news.ycombinator.com/best http://news.ycombinator.com/best) come up empty: http://www.google.com/search?q=link:https://github.com/blog/878-announcing-github-for-mac http://www.google.com/search?q=link:https://github.com/blog/... http://www.google.com/search?q=link:http://blog.instapaper.com/post/6830514157 http://www.google.com/search?q=link:http://blog.instapaper.c... http://www.google.com/search?q=link:http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.xml http://www.google.com/search?q=link:http://mobile.nytimes.co...

wgrover 15y ago

Worth reading just to find out about the units(1) program. How did I miss that all these years?

btilly 15y ago
If you like the program, read through the data file: http://futureboy.us/frinkdata/units.txt http://futureboy.us/frinkdata/units.txt Some pure gold buried in there. For instance search for candela.
- Sniffnoy 15y ago
  Hm, is there an archive of old versions of units.dat anywhere? Occasionally units get deleted from it - I used to keep old versions but I'd forgotten about this some time ago and haven't done so in a while. (Also that was several hard drive crashes ago so I no longer have the copies I made.)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- 3pt14159 15y ago
  Hahahahahhah Hilarious. Define the default symbol for the imaginary unit, that is, the square root of negative one. The default Unicode codepoint for the imaginary unit. (DOUBLE-STRUCK ITALIC SMALL I) \u2148 := <<IMAGINARY_UNIT>> Also used for the imaginary unit (especially by electrical engineers, who use "i" to indicate current. (DOUBLE-STRUCK ITALIC SMALL J) \u2149 := <<IMAGINARY_UNIT>> Redefine the letter "i" to also be the imaginary unit i := \u2148
- wgrover 15y ago
  On the kilogram: "I dislike having a prefixed unit as the base reference. What a horrible decision. Why don't you just have it go to ten and make ten a little louder?" Exactly right.
nfriedly 15y ago
FYI units on OS X doesn't recognize millilightseconds, but you can do this: You have: 3 lightyears / 365 / 24 / 60 / 60 / 1000 You want: miles * 559.21802 / 0.0017882113

matthias 15y ago

It's good ol' chestnuts like this that made me think of the "rerun" button: http://bit.ly/ek6kqi http://bit.ly/ek6kqi Instead of upvoting you would click the rerun link to signal the content as duplicate (but worthy). This would move it out of the news and to a dedicated classics page of timelessly good content.

JonnieCache 15y ago

IMO the most amusing part of this story is the behaviour of the statistics professor.