[MR] post orders and threads that won't go away

[David W. James]

At 11:05 PM -0400 6/17/02, mebrett at VASSAR.EDU wrote:
>Oh ye great employed computer types:

>why does this happen? I am always confused by these wayward messages 
>which appear so late, and also those which appear to have come from 
>the future. I understand the latter, but the former leaves me quite 
>confused.

>Greatfully and in service to the Dream,

>Ana bhecc
>of the Hills

	Will you accept the words of an unemployed one?

	Sometimes people hit 'send' when their computer isn't on the 
network; the message is queued until the connection is established 
and sent then (I once got a message over a year old that way; they 
had shut down the computer and moved to a different country in 
between.)  ("Your letter carrier is sick, and your mail won't be 
picked up until he gets better.")

	Email is handled by servers handing it off to one another. 
Sometimes one server can't get to the next one for a while, and it 
patiently holds it and tries resending until a time limit expires and 
it is bounced back to the sender or it finally gets through.  Less 
common than it used to be (with the Internet allowing most mail 
servers to connect directly or nearly so to each other) but it does 
still happen.  ("Your letter carrier tried to deliver it, but there 
wasn't anyone there.  He'll try again tomorrow.")

	Sometimes mailing list software flags a message for the list 
admin to approve before it is sent out.  Or the mail makes it to the 
machine that the mailing list is on,  but the list software has died 
and not restarted.  In both cases the message is held until the right 
thing(s) happen.  ("Your package looked like a bomb, so your letter 
carrier's boss had to check it out." and "We delivered it by shoving 
it under the door, but we don't think anyone is home.")

	Sometimes email messages decide to take a quick vacation to 
the Antarctic Pole Station just to see what it is like.  ("We don't 
know what happened to your letter.")

David/Kwellend-Njal,
who doesn't do that kind of thing for a living any longer, but does 
still run a couple of small mailing lists.
-- 
David W. James			vnendNOSPAM at adelphia.net
                     Remove spam block to send email.
   "Ignorance is the mother of adventure." Hagar the Horrible