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Can an email go 500 miles in 2025?

(flak.tedunangst.com)
304 points zdw | 1 comments | 04 Jul 25 16:49 UTC | HN request time: 0.525s | source
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robin_reala ◴[08 Jul 25 14:02 UTC] No.44500076[source]▶
If you’re one of today’s lucky 10,000 and haven’t heard the original 500-mile email story, you can read it at https://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles.

(discussed previously on HN 5 years ago – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23775404 – and 10 years ago – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338708)

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hahahacorn ◴[08 Jul 25 14:13 UTC] No.44500186[source]▶
Even after reading the 2025 updated version, reading the original made me absolutely giddy at the end.

I can only imagine the euphoria of reconciling the inputs of “the things I know to be true of computers and email” and “my emails won’t send further than 500 miles”. What a great story - thanks for posting the original.

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vghaisas ◴[08 Jul 25 15:12 UTC] No.44500786[source]▶
I collected a list of fun stories of this form a while ago!

- Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt

- Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p...

- OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...

- The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining: https://predr.ag/blog/wifi-only-works-when-its-raining/

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1. b3lvedere ◴[08 Jul 25 20:40 UTC] No.44503882[source]▶
I’ve seen some weird technical glitches in my career. One that i will always remember is that a customer was very happy with his new big computer, but could not work for multiple hours on it, because his office would get colder and colder when he kept using it. After some mailing and talking over the phone i suggested a visit to his office where i quickly found the cause of the problem: The big computer fan was aimed directly at the thermostat knob of the radiator, so it assumed the entire office was well heated and closed.
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