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How Darwin Managed His Inbox
An anonymous reader wrote to mention an MSNBC article on how Darwin and Einstein managed their inboxes. From the article: "A new study finds that the correspondence of Albert Einstein, as well as that of Charles Darwin, followed patterns similar to modern e-mail communication. Einstein sent more than 14,500 letters. But he received more than 16,200, and responded to only a quarter of them. Darwin mailed more than 7,500 letters. He responded to 32 percent of the roughly 6,530 letters he received."
But how many Rolexs did each of them buy via special offer correspondance, and did anything that turned up in the post make their wife any happier?
Just think how the world would be should Einstein had a gmail account!
Hosting 20G hd, 1Tb bw! ssh $7.95
...what a spammer!!
Einstein sent more than 14,500 letters.
That's in his lifetime. Since 1998, I sent 27,171 emails (granted, an e-mail is much easier to sent than a snail mail letter). It's hard for me to count how many I received (counting spam it's probably in the millions).
Yea... But come on - how many of them asked him to sign up for a credit card...
I really wonder what they used as spam filters? As I am sure Google will come running to their feet for the tech. And it wont be long for half a dozen open source implication to show up.
He used Evolution, of course.
It's much easier to read/respond to e-mail when you're slacking off at work and reading /. (not that I'd ever do that, boss!) but when you're on a boat studying birds on a far away island or working on important and complex physics problems it's a little more difficult to sit down and read through a letter and actually pen a response. The more interesting thing to note is that they actually did write 1,000s of letters that were probably well-written and well-formatted, unlike most modern e-mails (Or /. comments)
However, if their letters had really been like modern inboxes, they'd be getting letters like "Is your chalk too soft? Take c1al1s to harden it up!!" or "Do you want to refinance your home, the Beagle?" or "Hot Physics action here!"
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Yay! I'm like, Einstein!
Of course they were, they are respectively the most important Physicist and Biologist ever. If they had the intelligence to conceive their theories, it should be rather obvious that sorting their mail was not outside the realm of their wit.
So why didn't he reply to all?
Oh, he didn't have time?
Boy, this strange system sure takes an Einstein to understand!
the heading threw me off. i was thinking some kind of new spam filtering technology in which good emails with non-spammy qualities get through to the inbox. i imagined a darwinian inbox that shrinks on it's own as crapy messages are deleted in favor of good ones. guess i gotta stop smoking early in the morning.
and Inboxes too!
This is just celebrity research. So Darwin and Einstein handled paper mail like we handle electronic mail. Guess what? I handle paper mail that way too. I bet most people do, and pronbably always have. The article doesn't talk about that, however.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
yeah but how many did they receive from friendly nigerian businessmen asking for help to move millions out of the country?
As a lawyer working for Bohr & Associates, we recently discovered the sum of 8*10^16 Joules held inside 1g of Uranium 237. If with your help, we can free this energy, through a fission reaction, you will receive 0.1% of it in the form of heat, which can be used to drive turbines.
Wishing you long life,
Asumemwe Obugo,
Lawyer
Nigeria
To Albert Einstein,
Gr0w ur p3n1s with ...
Was not replied to.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Umm, so they both sent and received mail. Both only replied to some of the mail they got? ME TOO! I wonder what else we have in common. Perhaps they enjoyed watching The Simpsons in their underwear as well.
Thats what it takes to get a story on MSNBC these days?
I reply to nearly 100% of legit messages.
Did Darwin and Einstein get mail telling them they could improve their penis size too, that they didn't respond to?
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
At least back then Nigeria 419 did not exist, and spam was a common household dinner... As for viagra and cialis, well, *real* men are geeks and they don't use "enhancements".
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Most of Einstein's mail was probably from a crackpot claiming Relativity was a hoax and that in all the months he'd been writing to Einstein, Einstein hadn't provided a reply he liked.
Who ordered that?
ROFL!
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Really, it's sad when I see Darwin and think Mac.
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
What is the point of saying he responded to "only" 32% of the letters. Many communications I get in email do not warrant a response. Granted, it's quite simple that I will respond with a "thanks" message. But if it were sent in a letter, I don't think I would bother to write (literally) back with an acknowledgement if it didn't extend the context of the message.
My name is Olunjwe Ramanujan son of late Mr. Srinivasa Ramanujan of Madras. Shortly before his death he confided to me the location of $1,000,000 (US) and some mathematical equations. In order of recovering this moneys I am in the need a Spiritual Christian Gentleman to represent me at my account. Please if you can assist me send your bank account number and steamer tickets
So, is this news for nerds or stuff that matters? Maybe they also coined the practice of hitting the alarm just one more time in the morning.
Well, well. This really is specific stuff. I mean, usually these such stories, you get a fake statisic or two thrown in, but this is pushing it.
The upshot: Einstein and Darwin exhibited a "fundamental pattern of human dynamics" that plays out every morning when you check your inbox.
Oh, I suppose Einstien was 'just like me(tm)'? Who really gets 16,500 legitimate emails, even in their entire lives? Let alone sends 14,500?
I don't reckon this should really go into the science category.
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
From TFA:
In other news, if you're like Einstein, you eat breakfast early sometimes, sometimes you eat breakfast late. And, of course, sometimes you don't eat breakfast at all.
"How did JESUS sort his inbox?!?!?!"
Maybe sorting through spam for Jesus is one of the torments in hell?
After reading this article, I closed the window and wondered where my browser with FARK.com had gone. I was sure the "obvious" tag had trumped "amusing" or "interesting". I was genuinely shocked to find this post on Slashdot (but not so suprised to find it coming from MSNBC...) Seems this one was too obvious to make it even to Fark. Maybe it will show up later in the day, though... Heh.
Beisdes that, since they were nerds, what other type of intercourse could they get?
And the reason they both dies pennyless is because of a response they mailed back to a certain african fellow whose inheritance was in jepoardy of being taken by the government... (Ok they didn't really die pennyless...lighten up)
I'd like to see the real statistics involved (number of letters in various times to reply). It sounds like it might be a power-law distribution, but with coverage this lame, it's hard to tell.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Hmm... Then Ill bet Darwin started the whole...
Full evolution
Long duration of species
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The women will think you have evo1ved
2 popular med!cines:
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The beatings will continue until Morale Improves!
So, this means that mankind got lazy and then we created email to compensate?
It depends on how fast it's moving relative to my frame of reference.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I wonder how many of those letters Einstein received were from Ed Mcmahon. I get lots of letters, too. I trash most of them. Fek
And unbeknownst to historians, Darwin invented the first spam filter, based on his patented Natural Selection algorithm.
He didn't....
;-)
Monkeys don't have thumbs!
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
Darwin had a particular interest in phishing letters.
"Einstein sent more than 14,500 letters. But he received more than 16,200, and responded to only a quarter of them."
I'll admit that my math isn't the best around... but I'm pretty sure that 1/4 of 16,200 is less than 14,500...
I think the assumption that each of the 14,500 letters he sent was a response to one of the 16,200 he received might not be correct ;)
In other news, historians have discovered that both Einstein and Darwin favored the Non-simultaneous Leg Insertion method for putting on their pants - much like you and I.
If you read between the lines in TFA, you'll discover that Darwin and Einstein were working on a magnificent unified theory of everything (which they sometimes referred to as mute in their correspondence). According to this controversial theory, everything is relative even evolution. Darwin originally conceived the idea when he read Einstein's paper on relativity. He wrote, "Dearest Al, after our previous correspondence, I will have read your paper on relativity, and I agreed completely. Clearly evolution and relativity were related: every offspring has been related to its biological parents. I shall leave it up to you to release this information in your own time. Sincerely, Charlie." Obviously, Darwin was a tad confused by the time machine, and unfortunately, it also looks like this is one of the letters Einstein forgot to read (either that or it routed to the wrong century by the time machine). Either way, I think mute fell on deaf ears.
p.s. The dates of their deaths are eerily similar.
Charles Darwin - b. 12 February 1809, d. 19 April 1882.
Albert Einstein - b. 14 March 1879, d. 18 April 1955.
..what emails they would get.
"Mr Einstin,
plz xplain theori of relativaty 4 me as i hav midterm 2morow morn and i skipd all my classs 2 hang wiv a gurl in my dorm(i culd giv u her myspace lnk if u wan??? she has nudez up lol).
thx,
killin_burd9123"
Some people write letters on their own initiative. It may be safe to assume 1/4 of the letters he wrote, he recieved a response to, and didn't require response from himself, again. So in theory a whole quarter of those recieved could been "Gee thanks Einstein" and required to response. So only half the letters that could have warrented a response were not responded to. Leaving 1/2 Fully unresponded. I think somewhere in here is a related rates problem, but i'm too lazy to do it. +mod for who does.
You call it excessive, I call it ambitious.
What sort of nonsense article is that? I mean, so what? It's silly to infer that they were so far ahead of their time. They got an butt-load of mail and they answered it like ANYONE else who gets lots of mail--electronic or post.
Albert Einstein probably received letters like this:
Dear Albert,
Your theory of relativity rocks, dude. You da man. I've got some good absinthe and some opium. Maybe we can hang out some time?
Joe Nobody
Would you answer that? (Well, some of you would...)
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Study suggests modern e-mail habits similar to older, letter-writing ones
It's almost as if modern e-mail was created as an electronic replacement to mail!
Sig Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Many of the posters here are say in various ways, "Big Deal, they responded to mail the way we respond to email, so what?". But it is an interesting finding.
But there are many components of the analysis that need to be understood. First, assuming that the mail was from their celebrity period then we should ask does pre-email celebrity present a parallel to email in terms of unsolicited incoming messages. If so does it present a way of trying to manage it.
Second, the fact that people in the pre-email days are responding to the same kind of fractions as we are with email then we can try and understand if email is a complete parallel for regular mail. In which case many things follow, for exampl the question about whether the "massive" penalties for mail interference should be extended to email.
Then we could think about the social impact of mail. Is the proportion of responded email a "guilt" thing or a measure of the relevance of the mail. In otherwords do we reply to X% of our mail because to do less makes us feel bad and if we bump up the number of incoming does the amount of responding increase, or do we settle for a lower X.
These are all interesting questions and historical data from a parallel, perhaps corellated, source is a worthy place to do analysis.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Nahh, it must have been Intelligent Design.
You're right, I mean, it's not like God throws dice or anything...
My goodness, so now I've learned that both Einstein and Darwin recieved mail, some of which they answered quickly, some less quickly and some not at all.
I think I can expand on this and tentatively claim that the entire population of people who receive letters respond in exactly the same manner !
Yes, an amazing revelation I know but I can go further and state for a fact that people who receive e-mail sometimes answer it quickly, sometimes less quickly and sometimes not at all - in EXACTLY THE SAME way as Darwin and Einstein ! Please, this insight should immediately be posted to Slashdot and form the basis for a whole new in depth discussion of it's ramifications.
How were their mails counted?
Who counted them?
Who keept track of their mail?
Was there privacy violation in doing so?
I'd be really fraked out if somebody keept track of all my emails... even more if they were actual snail mails!
Perhaps bringing mail home became a possibility only after a change of address.
US postage at $.37 (right?) that would be $5365 for Einstein and $2416 for Darwin.
That's covers about 7.5 years of Comcast HS, or about 45 years of free-$10 service (Juno, NetZero, Netscape, etc). Whence millions of messages can be freely sent (as is evidenced by my Junk folder).
I think communication has gotten cheaper. Especially international.
Marques Johansson
I can't see anything eerily similar in those dates ?
News Flash: Journalist Has Nothing To Write About, Still Needs To Submit An Article.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
The last of a trilogy
1) Darwin's Radio
2) Darwin's Children
3) Darwin's Emails
Because all good trilogies come in threes.
Are you referring to this theory?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Simple maths can tell us how many letters both Darwin and Einstein sent every and received every week, based on their letter writing careers beginning at age 18.
Darwin: Sends 2.6 letters a week and receives 2.2 a week
Einstein: Sends 4.7 a week and receives 5 a week
On average I send ( not including postcards ) 2 letters every year but receive between 10 - 12 a week.
How else could they fling their own poop with such accuracy?
Thunderbird was created along with everything else by the Flying Spaghetti Monster with his noodly apendage. Everyone knows that.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Oct 27, 1950.
Dear Sir,
Enclosed is $2.00 and my receipts for this month. Please send 1 package of Sea Monkeys.
[signed]
Al Einstein
If you're like Einstein, you respond to some e-mails immediately and let others wait. And, of course, some you never answer.
And every now and then, you find an old one in your inbox that you didn't even realize you had, and you reply.
Wow!!!! That is some deep journalism, right there!
Time travel by surfing the web? Yes! Read slashdot comments for just 60 minutes and you'll find yourself 1 hour in the future!
There's no place like ~/
She would have forced them to get down and ASK FOR DIRECTIONS !!!! :-)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Darwin's great achievement was as an author and a popularizer of science, not as a biologist.
The mechanism of evolution through natural selection had already been deduced by others (if you read Darwin's corpus, he generously acknowledges prior work) but Darwin was the first to write about it for the average reader, rather than for philosophers, engineers, or scientists.
Exalting Darwin above Linneaus, Lamarck, Mendel, Dawkins, Crick and Watson as a biologist is probably unfair. However, as a science writer, he was a giant, so your point still stands - it's unsuprising that he could handle a large volume of correspondence.
do you think I come here?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I wrote about 100 e-mails per workday and 50 in the weekends, at least. But I spent about 16 hours/day in front of a computer -- including in the weekends.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
This is very interesting from a literary and historical point of view.
If you read 19th and earlier 20th-century letters, you find that many of them are simply messages. (From a Civil War soldier to his brother: Please use the money I sent you to buy some loaf suger and brandy for my dysentery and give it to Charlie Scroggs to bring to me). It's true that the delivery of messages took a lot of time, but on the other hand, one was busy during a significant part of one's day sending letters and reading and replying to letters, so that the experience wasn't all that different in some ways from managing an e-mail correspondence. Besides, there were services more rapid than the mails for accelerated messaging--for example, various sorts of couriers. the telegraph, and the celebrated "pneumatique" of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Paris.
The case could be made that the accelerated use of the telephone and telegraphy during the twentieth century largely replaced the more purely functional uses of letter-writing. One could also argue that "artistic" letter-writing in the absence of a practical communication function becomes lifeless and artificial.
In this scenario, the unexpected emergence of e-mail as a Web-based "killer application" allows for the revival of letter-writing as a primary means of communications--thus in part reviving an ancient art, not creating a new one; and at least potentially increasing the uses of literacy, not diminishing them.
Or the Theory of Mail Evolution...
Where unpaid bills will eventually develop into bill collectors given enough time and the proper incentive?
You dumb arse. Maths obviously isn't your only major weakness.
Oh for the old days. Einstein only got 16,000 letters in his life.
I wonder how mauch junk mail he got:
Dear Mrs. A.Einstein,
You may have already won $100,000! Just return the enclosed form with the "YES" sticker attached...
Just like English isn't your only weakness.
http://www.nd.edu/~networks/Publication%20Categori es/03%20Journal%20Articles/Social%20Science/Corres pondencePatterns_Nature%20437,%201251%20(27Oct05). pdf
i es/03%20Journal%20Articles/Social%20Science/Corres pondencePatterns-Suppl_Nature%20437,%201251%20(27O ct05).pdf
and the Supplementary Material at
http://www.nd.edu/~networks/Publication%20Categor
If the sysadmin sends out an email to development@somecompany.com saying "The main server will be going offline from 2am to 8am for maintenence, please ensure any applications are not scheduled for this time.", imagine how pissed off he would be if he got back 500 emails saying nothing but "ok".
The way email is used in a modern company, there is often no need or desire to reply. I would say a good 75% of the emails I recieve fall into this bucket.
so what they are trying to get at is that sending email is like sending a letter. wow.
This morning when we were on the way to work at nearly the speed of light, I watched you eat breakfast. When I looked at my watch, you where clearly not on time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Just like English isn't your only weakness.
Actually, his English was completely perfect. "Maths" is simply the British abbreviation for "Mathematics" as opposed to the American term "Math". It is still singular, so there is no problem with his sentence whatsoever.
What packrats. Who saves 16,000 letters over the course of his life. I mean, I understand saving some, but if they have enough to make statements like that about them, I'm more concerned that he kept it all... Crazy! Not to mention copies of sent mail, despite a lack of a photo-copier :)
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
I've read the pertinent chapter of Matthew's (boring) treatise on naval timber as well as Darwin, and (as Darwin himself said) there is nothing missing - you are factually incorrect in your statement that "Darwin was the first to ... come up with a unified and fairly complete method for how evolution worked".
Since several other people, decades before Darwin (and without ever having seen the Galapagos!) came up with the idea of evolution by natural selection, I don't see how you can support the claim that Darwin's (admittedly independent) discovery was more important than any other biologist's work.
Darwin was a great science writer (better than Gould, IMO, who wrote up punk eke) but calling him the greatest biologist of all time is a bit over the top. His work on worms is very good, certainly, but it's not like he isolated DNA, came up with the germ theory of disease, or derived the laws of inheritance (for example).
I also disagree with your statement that Darwin's work "gave a _why_ to biology". At most, a "how" - Lamarck and Teilhard were the ones who tried to put a "why" to biology, although their work is generally scorned today.
Damn, there's really nothing OT in this post at all, is there? OK, I'll shut up now.
Unitarianism is a featherbed for falling Christians -- Charles Darwin
Not weird at all. Could even be true. No, I like your theory - really. Good thinking.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
Didn't they say there were unexplained holes in Darwin's Theory of Inbox Efficiency? I heard there were some crackpots going around promoting some intelligent inbox agent ... but most critics agree it's really just another Microsoft cartoon character telling you how to run your life.
CK.
Newton Pwnz Einstein any day of the week.
Sir, you are an ignorant troll