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Written by Bohb

Thursday, 24 July 2008

I was looking at an email I received recently from a friend in Detroit, it is important to note for relative spatial placement and contextual story following that I live and received this email in Chicago. I noticed something that I found a bit odd that began in me a pondering of the actual and proverbial rates of ‘success’ in our modern world.
I received the email at 9:53pm, but the header showed that it was sent at 9:34pm. It took nearly 20 minutes for a message that I think of as instantaneous to travel to me. 20 minutes is not instant. Detroit is not far. When one compares the first forms of distance communication of the stagecoach, it would take about 2 weeks to get a letter that was going regionally between 2 cities. There was then the Pony Express. Two cities in the same region (such as Chicago and Detroit, which were pelt trading posts at that time) could share communication letters in 2 days. Obviously stagecoach through US Postal system didn't improve on that much until FedEx introduced premium costs to get communication there in one day. But email travels instantly, yet it doesn't. It takes 20 minutes. In all this time we have only improved the speed of communication by a factor of 144. Sure, 144 is progress, but we are not in the instantaneous future we’ve been sold quite yet. .

One person has commented on this article.

1. Untitled
Jephro, Registered

I'm more familiar with the Tramp Stamp

Posted 2008-07-24 14:30:37

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