NO. NO NO NO.
How can you get SO MANY facts wrong when the freaking story is googlable?
Here's the original email: https://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles
Here's the FAQ that covers the ambiguous parts: https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html
This annoys me because I know the original author and I remember when this happened (he told the story a few times).
Let's recap:
> there was a university president
NO! It was the chairman of the statistics department.
> who couldn’t send an email more than 500 miles,
True. Being in the statistics department he had the tools to make actual maps.
> and the wise sysadmin said that’s not possible, so the president said come to my office
Kind of true. There was an office involved.
> and lo and behold, the emails stopped before going 500 miles.
True.
> There’s a lot to the story that’s obviously made up,
NO! Zero of this story was made up.
ALL the people that were involved in the story are still alive. You can literally get them on the phone and talk to them. We're not debating whether or not Han Solo ever used a light saber. THIS SHIT REALLY HAPPENED.
Sheesh.