Dilip
<
[email protected]> 15 Dec 2020
========================================================================
A failed attempt at snail mail.
Last week, a friend in San Diego broadcasted a call for aid. He was
looking for a USB-C <==> Lightning cable and was having trouble
obtaining one through regular channels. I happened to have exactly one
of those cables sitting unused on my desk, right next to another unused
USB-C <==> USB-C cable. I offered to send mine over.
I have always loved using postal services. I usually have a collection
of postal stamps and envelopes at home. I pulled out a tiny envelope,
plopped the cable inside, stuck a stamp, wrote his address and dropped
it off at a mail box in my neighborhood.
I returned to my desk and discovered that I had just mailed the wrong
cable. Fortunately, I had more envelopes and stamps available. From the
previous mailing experience, I learned that writing an address on the
envelope is much harder once the cable is already inside. So this time,
I decided to be smarter about it. I also decided to write in a "From"
address on the envelope.
I plopped the correct cable in, stuck the postal stamp and made a
second trip to the neighborhood mailbox to send aid to my friend. The
only thing better than sending mail to a friend is sending two mails on
the same day. I returned to my desk contented.
Two days later, the second envelope showed up in my mailbox. It had all
the stamps and seals to indicate that the postal service considered
this a successful delivery. The best explanation I can come up with is
that the computer vision algorithm that the United States Postal
Service uses to figure out the postal address decided that it liked the
"From" address on the envelope and routed the mail back to me.
