The Case of the 500-Mile Email

December 26, 2018

Trey Harris, writing to sage-members:

I was working in a job running the campus email system some years ago when I got a call from the chairman of the statistics department.

“We’re having a problem sending email out of the department.”

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“We can’t send mail more than 500 miles,” the chairman explained.

I choked on my latte. “Come again?”

“We can’t send mail farther than 500 miles from here,” he repeated. “A little bit more, actually. Call it 520 miles. But no farther.”

While it’s an older story, it’s a fantastic one. And it’s a great reminder to check your software versions.