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Comment by jgrahamc

3 months ago

Ooh. I found the original email from him.

    From: VoicePro@aol.com
    Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 22:16:04 -0500
    Subject: Your files :)

    Hi, John.

    Thanks for your order.  Here are your files... and I included a 
    "You've got mail, John" file, too.  Enjoy!!

    El Edwards

So, now I can upload "Use the source, Luke!" (https://soundcloud.com/john-graham-cumming/use-the-source-lu...) and "You've got mail, John!" (https://soundcloud.com/john-graham-cumming/youve-got-mail-jo...).

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jgrahamc

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atonse  3 months ago

What a cool piece of internet history. (And awesome that he was a good sport)

JGC, you seem to be one of those people that always has a finger in many little internet trivia things.

I'd be bold to say, almost like a Forrest Gump of the internet.

  • jgrahamc  3 months ago

    I just have a high-degree of curiosity and a tendency to email random people and see if they'll respond. And I got on the Internet in 1986 so I've been around a while.

    Fun story about that. Back in 1996 Nicholas Negroponte wrote a column in Wired lamenting the fact that laptop batteries didn't show their charge state. This mattered because all of us who travelled a lot carried multiple batteries to switch them in our laptops (some laptops could have two batteries at once allowing hot swapping without a shutdown). See: https://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired/WIRED4-12.html: "I now carry eight to ten battery packs during long trips. I won't even consider a laptop design that includes unstackable batteries. The fact that most batteries don't indicate their charge state is pathetic."

    I emailed Negroponte with my solution: before a trip I'd charge all my batteries up (I think I had five) and I had numbered them by writing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on them with a sharpie. Then, I'd simply use them in numerical order. He graciously replied something along the lines of "Sometimes the best solution is the simplest".

    • smm11  3 months ago

      I emailed a suggestion to, and received a response from Steve Jobs in the late-90s. Didn't think a thing about it, changed jobs a time or two, business I was at closed. Yeah.