Just Been Having..

[BlackadderV]

...a conversation with an old colleague re the merits of email v snail mail. My main point was that it costs 60p per stamp (12 shillings in real money). I got to wondering; I pay £15 for 2G of data, which lasts me ages. If I used that solely for the purpose of emailing, how many emails could I get for that amount? Anyone any idea?

[Peter Pedant]

yeah
kids are trained to do this at skool these days ( estimate )

say each email is half a kay - 0.5k. taht would give you 4 million emails

[ because 500 times 4 million gives you 2000 million or 2G )

Years and years ago someone worked out that in your lifetime in long hand you would be unlikely to write more than 750, 000 alphabet letters

this would fit on one side of CD - 750 k and would be around the length of the New Testament

[DTCwordfan]

well that's me sunk, Peter, my latest tome is at 650,000 characters and I haven't finished (without spaces).

[sandyRoe]

If a writer averaged 6 letter words, 650,000 would produce a typescript of just over 100,000 words. Isn't that shortish by today's standards?

[Old_Geezer]

Well for your posts Sandy

[BlackadderV]

Thank you for your replies. Assuming then, that each email was the length of one side of A5, 4m emails would cost me £15 as opposed to £2,400,000 for stamps, not to mention the cost of paper and ink. Did you know that a bottle of ink, ml for ml, is dearer than the finest champagne?

Thank God for the internet.

[Old_Geezer]

Of course ! Have you ever tried writing in champagne ?

[BlackadderV]

Last year I bought a bottle of Parker Quink @ £7.99. The last bottle I bought before that was 2/6d

[Khandro]

But the advantage of snail-mail is that no one else can read it.

[hc4361]

khandro, unless the postman steals it or it gets posted to the wrong house :(

[Gromit]

It depends on the size of the emails.

If you have attachments - logos, photos, video, then they take up far more bandwidth that an email containing just words. But 2Gb will get you a very lot of emailing.

[BlackadderV]

I think it's gigabytes, but don't confuse me. I don't know the difference between a gigabyte and a gigabit.

[Peter Pedant]

//Last year I bought a bottle of Parker Quink @ £7.99. The last bottle I bought before that was 2/6d//

o I put water in mine and it makes it look eighteenth century,
without the wait ! - and I find an eentsy drop of washing up liquid makes it flow better

[BlackadderV]

PP, I'll try that.

[Gromit]

// But the advantage of snail-mail is that no one else can read it. //

Yeah, that is a well proven fact.