[LINK] Problems with Tsunami warning system

[Adam Todd]

And if many of the messages are being sent to an area affected by an 
earthquake and the mail server is waiting for a timeout before releasing 
the child to move onto the next one, the delay will no doubt multiple 
exponentially.

It's sad to think that although e-mail is an almost instant process, again 
it's like SMS, it's guaranteed to be delivered (or returned after 7 days) 
but there is no guarantee it will be delivered instantly or immediately.

I keep telling people, email and SMS are not "instant" services.  The only 
assurance you have that a person has received a message INSTANTLY is to 
make voice to voice contact with the person.  Or perhaps use an Instant 
Messenger service with the expected "Yes thanks for the message, got it" reply.

It's amazing how many people think because they say or type something that 
it's been noticed.

Bit like that tee falling in the forest really.  If you aren't there to 
hear it, did it really fall and make a sound?

And just for the record, I don't have a solution to this kind of 
problem.  We seem to have some kind of human demand that technology will 
prevent harmful things happening to us, but really technology can only 
alert us to something that IS happening, or that something has happened.

Too many people think that (and sell the concept that) security cameras for 
example, prevent theft, but they only do that if you stop the person 
stealing before they steal.  Once they have it in their pocket, it's theft, 
not prevented.  If they walk out of the shop, it's stolen.  Sure you can 
see it later, but that doesn't help.

Same with home security, having cameras doesn't prevent invasion, but it 
can help expose idiots!



At 11:25 AM 20/07/2006, Michael Still wrote:
>Tom Worthington wrote:
>
>>The message headers indicate the first message took .43 seconds and the 
>>second .17 seconds to get from UNESCO to my mail system. But they were 
>>not sent by the UNESCO system until 8:50:40 and 8:54:04 respectively. It 
>>is not clear if the delays of three and seven minutes are in the message 
>>system, or human delay in sending the messages.
>
>It seems to me that these delays are likely from their mail servers. Think 
>about it -- each recipient on the mailing list is going to be a separate 
>email sent, and if there are many recipients, then that's a lot of email 
>to send...
>
>Mikal
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