Subjecting the E-mail

Spinner rode the electron surf, dodging the data packets that whizzed by. The relay computer at the University of New Mexico was down, so she took the bypass through the computer at the University of Toronto. The old DEC-Alpha sent her down to the Los Alamos Research Facility in New Mexico.

Spinner thought about playing there at the research facility. It would have been a trip whizzing around in their Cray super computers. Those Cray computers were the biggest and baddest computers around, thousands of times faster and more powerful than the computers people had at home. The thought made Spinner's head swim. Spinner decided not to play in the supercomputer. Not today. She hadn't brought her sweater, and it was COLD in those computers. They used liquid helium to cool them because the colder it got, the faster electrons went. At least that was what Rayzer had told her. Rayzer had said it was a science called "superconductivty". Long word that. It meant that if you made something cold enough, it's electrons would line up and run in an orderly way in the same direction, instead of bouncing all around like bumper cars at a carnival.

Thinking about liquid helium made Spinner's teeth chatter. It had to be really cold to make helium a liquid. Helium was really light stuff and normally gaseous like air. She wondered if it could ever become cold enough to freeze into a solid. Mrs. Mateussevich had shown her that water, when boiled turned gaseous. And she had seen snow at the Alaska meteorological station when last she had surfed that way.

Spinner zigged past a routing line and into the huge gateway computer. Before she knew it, the wave she was riding crashed onto a satellite feed that slingshotted her up to a communication satellite in geostationary orbit (that meant it was always at the same place above a spot on the earth). She bounced off the satellite, saw the world spinning below her, and slid down down to the dish antennae in North Carolina. She splashed down at the gateway computer there, throwing electron waves into the eyes of a Lycos web crawler.

"OOPS!" Spinner shouted as she whizzed on by the web crawler. those web crawlers were big spiders. They spent all their time pulling huge data packets behind them, plodding along from one computer to another collecting information about web pages at each computer. BORING...

Spinner let four of her eight feet relax and stood back on her rear feet. Now that she wasn't flying along a satellite feed, she was more confident. She didn't need to clutch her board so hard. She zigged and zagged through the slower web surfers, and relaxed, again enjoying the sight of data packets whizzing by.

She slowed down as she came to the CitizensNet gateway computer, Travelng through the huge T1 lines between the major gateway computers, Spinner could reach smokin speed, but going through the phone lines, well that was really crawlin. She felt like a snail and had to crouch as she rode the ebbing waves through the narrow telephone wire. It was a chore, but she finally got through the phone line and Rayzer's modem. She popped out of the computer to find Rayzer staring worriedly at the screen.

"What's up?" Spinner asked as she climbed up Rayzer's arms to her favorite spot on his shoulder. She sniffed in pleasure as she saw the bowl of popcorn Rayzer had next to the monitor. Carmel flavored, she decided. She certainly knew her exotic popcorns.

"It's the e-mail I've been getting." Rayzer replied. He grabbed a handful of popcorn, tilted his head back, and dribbled some into his mouth. Deftly, Spinner side tracked a few into her own mouth.

"So you've been getting e-mail. What's the problem?" Spinner said through crunching corn.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Rayzer advised, ignoring the fact that he had to stop chewing to tell her that bit of wisdom. Spinner swallowed and stuck her tongue out at him.

"It's that the e-mail I've been getting have no subject." Rayzer pointed to his list of e-mail. "Look here. I've gotten four e-mails in the last hour from people, and they haven't put anything in the subject field."

"So read the e-mail," Spinner suggested. She leaned forward to reach the bowl of popcorn and almost tumbled off Rayzer's shoulder. She had to grab on to Rayzer's ear, an action that was exciting for her, but painful for Rayzer.

"OUCH!" Rayzer exclaimed, rubbing his now longer ear. Spinner seated herself more safely on his shoulder. "Let me know when you want more, and I'll hand you some," he said. He passed her a few more popped kernels.

He returned to the subject of his e-mail. "You know people should put something in the subject header. Otherwise, how else am I going to prioritize what I read?"

"Pri-o-what?" Spinner asked. She sat back on four legs and began juggling kernels. With four free hands, she could juggle quite a few.

"Prioritize," Rayzer said. "It means to organize or line up in order of importance. If the sender puts a subject in his or her e-mail, I can decided whether I need to read the e-mail right away, or if I am in a hurry, whether I can wait until I have more time."

He pointed to an e-mail in his in-box. See that e-mail has a subject. It read Now that's a subject that would make me want to read it. It's much more interesting than an e-mail without a subject. In fact, I read the ones without subjects last."

Spinner thought that over. "Alexa once told me that writing e-mail without a subject was rude."

"Yes it is," Rayzer agreed. "I organize my e-mail every few days. You know. I put my e-mails in different folders depending on their subject or who sent them. It makes it easier to find important e-mail, like the ones for my homework, and the ones from my best friends." He pointed to two folders labled "Homework-Duh" and "Rad-Friends"

Rayzer grabbed another hand full of popcorn, tilted his head back, and dropped them into his mouth. Convenient since Spinner had already eaten the ones she had been juggling. She snagged a few more.

They munched for a few minutes, then Rayzer continued. "You know, I get really annoyed when I have to open old e-mail that don't have subjects to see what they are about. If they had subjects, I could see without having to open them up again. And if I need to find a certain e-mail later because something important is in it, well I don't have to waste my time opening and closing those e-mail without subjects. I like it better if I could just look in the subject field and tell right away."

"In fact," Rayzer said, creating a new message and busily typing away, "I'm going to tell everybody they should have a subject heading in their e-mail."

Spinner didn't respond. She was too busy munching on popcorn.