In our glory days of myspace, facebook, bebo, hi5, friendscout and other social network communities, writing emails to friends in the days of yore starts drifting into the register of nonaddressable memory. Oblivion, for that matter.
Or not? And whatever happened to letters?! When did you last write one? And do you still call people on their landline? Texting is ever so much more convenient, don’t you think :idea: :?:
The first time a person used ‘texting’ I didn’t understand the term. I refer to it as SMS, I still do. And in this Godforsaken place I am residing, people sometimes do not get my messages.
Oh yes, I enjoy letters too, I have a penpal and the last time I wrote was in June.
When replying emails get difficult, I think it would take much more determination to write letters.
How do you mean?
I like receiving emails, but I am just happy if there is a paper mail waiting in the mailbox 
(ads and bills excluded!)
This is just a personal reason, I work very late, if I am lucky, I can go back at 7 or 8p.m. Still, I feel a bit guilty because everybody else is still working. Once I am home, all I want to do is sleep. Sometimes I put off updating my inbox( I know, bad habit!) And when come weekends, I jump to the earliest train I can get and go to Tokyo to spend time with a friend. Except for this weekend, I am holding myself back because I think I’ve been playing too much and I need to slow down a bit.
Did I mention how small this town is? I have to walk 20 minutes from my flat to the nearest convenience store to post letters. Writing them in the right mood is another matter.
In the end, I decided that emails are much more convenient
How do I usually communicate with friends?
Over a beer in an obscure japanese dialect
“Texting is ever so much more convenient than talking.”
Shouting and grunting are more convenient than talking. In either case
you don’t have to communicate anything.
Hasn’t anyone noticed that SMS is no more than a fun toy? Do your
shouting and grunting in a ball park. If you have anything meaningful to
say it will take more than 160 characters to communicate it. It’s like
someone invented writing, and no one wants to get rid of his crayon.
SMS was invented for one purpose only. To allow cell phone service
providers to use extra space on their control tower channels, which are
always active, to convey more than a trillion messages that don’t say
anything, and earning thirty billion dollars for doing it. Average cost per
call 14.7 cents. WHEEE! The messages are painful to enter, and so
difficult to use that one must learn a new dictionary of English perversions
to say anything.
I’ve been out of work for a year, and as a plan B I’ve done most of the
engineering for a landline telephone stand. It has a forty character display
and a drawer containing a full sized folded keyboard and editing software.
The user can create as much text as she chooses, using ten fingers, and
only then place a call and send the message (or book) on its way at
perhaps 800 words per minute. The signals are indistinguishable from
voice messages. In other words, there’s no extra charge. She’ll never spend
another dime for texting. The text travels from one device’s memory to the
receiver’s memory, ready for reading or printing. No computer, no internet
access, just some twisted copper wires. This is an adult texting method.
There are millions of telephones on business desks that can actually
convey real information with it, using perfect English.
I don’t have the resources to patent or make a business out of it, so I
have nothing to sell but a harebrained idea. I’ve been trying to find a
telephone manufacturer with the courage to allow me to prototype a few. It
would be wonderful to have a tiny fraction of thirty billion dollars.
Bert Rackett bertrackett@atlinkwifi.com