October 5, 2018
Dear Everyone:
Pop quiz! Do you know anyone
under the age of 60, not including small children, who does not have at
least one email
address?
Anyone? Anyone?
I got my first email address in the early to mid-1980s.
At that time, it was something of a status symbol.
Only “important” people rated getting email.
Of course, this was strictly an “internal” email address; it only
worked inside the Company.
Nevertheless, it caught on quickly.
Large organizations, like
multinational companies and
universities,
which could afford the big
mainframe
computers required, began to realize that using the internal email
system was to their advantage.
It cost a lot less than paying temporary workers to stand outside
every building handing out important notices on special occasions.
Instructors could send out changes in class schedules in minutes,
to every student on their roster.
Before you knew it, everyone was
required to have an email address.
Then it became a status symbol to claim that you didn’t have one.
“My assistant takes care of all that.”
But they were still only within the company or organization.
If you had an email address, it was “someone@bigcompany.com”,
or “student@university.edu”.
Very few people had email “outside” of their business.
Some of us paid for services like
America Online (AOL),
that provided access to the
Internet as well as
a “personal” email address.
That meant that we had a
Personal
Computer outside of work.
Then the price of computers dropped and everybody started getting in on
the act. And companies like
Google and
Microsoft made
email “free” to everybody.
Now everyone and his pet squirrel has an email address.
These days, you can hardly do business without giving it away to
somebody. Even at
traditional “brick-and-mortar” stores, they frequently want your email
address to avoid the cost of printing a receipt.
Not to mention being able to flood your Inbox with
advertisements.
When I moved to
San Ramon
some 21 years ago, I decided to “splurge” and get
broadband access
to the Internet with the
cable
company. So they gave me an
email address, which I used for many, many years, and still do.
But then I had a reason to want an email address that wasn’t associated
with the cable company and started one with “Hotmail”,
which was Microsoft.
However, I kept the old address as well.
The cost was already included in the monthly subscription and it
meant I didn’t have to go to all those establishments that already had ”me@cablecompany.net”
and change it.
In fact, I discovered the advantage of have a “public” email address and
a “private” one. Whenever
I’m forced to reveal my address, I use the “public” one.
Thus, all the unwanted ads from various merchants all go into the
one and don’t bother the other.
So now I have two email addresses.
If I was still working, I would have three.
In fact, I sort of have more than that.
Some years ago, I wanted to buy something on
eBay for “Alice” for
Christmas. But I didn’t want
“Alice” to know that I was the person possibly outbidding her for the
item. So I created a new
address that she (hopefully) wouldn’t recognize.
In Shakespeare’s
As You Like It,
the heroine,
Rosalind, runs away from home, disguising herself as a young man
named
Ganymede. At the end of
various romps through the
Forest of
Arden, Rosalind ends up paired with young
Orlando.
Hence, ”rosalind.g.orlando@hotmail.com”.
You would be amazed at the amount of unsolicited mail the fair Rosalind
got, much of it aimed at her (supposed)
Hispanic ethnicity;
and her understandable annoyance at the obvious stereotyping,
considering the fact that the play takes place entirely in
France.
After a while, it got tiresome logging in as Rosalind each month
to change her password.
Rosalind was nothing if not conscientious.
Come to think of it, Rosalind was nothing, period.
So I let her retire, gracefully.
In the meantime, I was forced at one point to get a
Google email address.
Even though I haven’t actually used it for anything, I kept it
because I just knew that someday, I would need it.
And, just like Rosalind, I log into it every month and change the
password, just for form’s sake.
So that’s three addresses and I’m not even working for anyone.
Pop quiz! How many email
addresses do you have? Are
you sure?
Love, as always,
Pete
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