What goes around comes around...

[jim_p]

Nearly two years ago I made a post to rec.food.cooking about my experience repairing a stripped gear in my KitchenAid[tm] mixer.

Tonight I received an email from a gentleman in New Zealand who was attempting the same surgery and had some questions as to the proper packing grease to use.

Tamara noted that the time and distance (two years, halfway around the world) was about the same as it would take a message-in-a-bottle to make the journey.

So has technology really given us anything over the old system? Food for thought...

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

my understanding was that until the mid-90s, Usenet in .au and .nz was read-only, via magtape flown in on commercial airliners once a week from a site elsewhere in the Pacific.

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

I believe it was Andy Tannenbaum who said "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of magtapes".

Yeah, amazing bandwidth if you don't mind the latency...

Big Advance

[dhs.livejournal.com]

It is very unlikely that a message-in-a-bottle on so specific a topic would get to someone who had an interest in it. With the web, the New Zealander gentleman who has a broken KitchenAid mixer was able to search out that specific information and then contact you directly with a question.

Re: Big Advance

[eleccham.livejournal.com]

And, he was able to pick it up at pretty much any time he felt like, thanks to Google and the like.

[eleccham.livejournal.com]

I will personally vouch that this was not true as of '93, due to the number of Australians posting to alt.callahans. Google reports that dmmaus was posting there as of 1991. I seem to recall folks from NZ posting there when I was first doing so, but I don't remember who.

That said, I wouldn't doubt in the slightest that this was true at some point, but I suspect it was earlier than the '90's.