Slashdot Mirror
Email Turns 34
34019 writes "The original Gmail engineer, Paul Buchheit, reminisces on the creation of email, and how he designed Gmail in hopes of it improving the way we communicate. From the article: 'Of course that wasn't the only reason why I wanted to build Gmail. I rely on email, a lot, but it just wasn't working for me. My email was a mess. Important messages were hopelessly buried, and conversations were a jumble; sometimes four different people would all reply to the same message with the same answer because they didn't notice the earlier replies. I couldn't always get to my email because it was stuck on one computer, and web interfaces were unbearably clunky. And I had spam. A lot of it. With Gmail I got the opportunity to change email - to build something that would work for me, not against me.'
We were plotting against Paul. We were trying to destroy his life, bit by bit.
-- Paul's former email
E-mail is throwing a birthday party! It's next week, the same day as Spam.
Unfortunately, they agreed that Spam should send the invites. Expect them in your mailbox soon along with the free drugs and Nigerian relatives.
wow... i wish i was on the AOL 34 years ago. I bet I could download the whole AOL over my modem in just one minute!
Maybe google is waiting for gmail to turn 34 in order to promote it to a finale release and left the beta in the past.....
Your calendar needs spellcheck.
Google is good, good! See, they have the same three first letters! Goo!
And you're on Slashdot! How dare you disrespect the great Google! Take that talk to Redmond, mister. It's not welcome here!
(Yes, I'm kidding. No, seriously. I'm kidding. As in not flamebait).
"From the article: 'Of course that wasn't the only reason why I wanted to build Gmail."
;) .
People tend to react badly if you come out and say, "strive toward complete world domination by the Google Corporation"
Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
34 is a round number in base-34 notation. That's why it's so important to observe this anniversary, in case any non-geeks who happened to be misdirected to this page for some strange reason were wondering.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Apple's # 64, in 1987.
Microsoft as usual played catch up in 1991, according to WHOIS records...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
That's easily fixed; just edit Wikipedia.
It's electronic. It's words. It counts.
Heck you could even argue it's digital.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Joe: "I can't find things on the Internet."
Google: "We solved your internet search problems!"
Joe: "Search the Internet!?"
Google: "Yeah, we indexed the Internet."
Google: "Also, we solved your desktop search problems!"
Joe: "How did you do that?"
Google: "We indexed your hard-drive."
Joe: "Oh, cool I guess."
Google: "We solved you email organization problems!"
Joe: "How?"
Google: "We indexed your inbox!"
Joe: "Wow, this brute force thing never gets old with you guys huh?"
just 12,761 unread messages? pfsht.
I have rules that send all new messages to one of 32 different printers in my building. When I'm walking around I just snatch an email off a printer, skim it, crumple it up and throw it away! If there's something I need I have my assistant do it. Simple as that.
bite my glorious golden ass.
I just have /dev/null in my .forward file, since if it's really an urgent matter the sender is going to come and see me later or maybe phone me and immediately get routed to my voicemail (which I manage with a philosophy similar to that of my email). Always remember all technology, including your employer's, is for your comfort and convenience, not anyone elses.
Oddly enough, the average penis size increased by three inches that year too.