Facsimiles

[gfish]

'Fax' is a cool word. Why did we waste it on such a stupid technology? I think it's very telling that faxes are the only form of long distance communication ever invented that never attracted a geekish/hacker following. There is nothing interesting or aesthetic about the technology. There is only suck.

Comments

[tylik.livejournal.com]

In fact, there was apparently a whole subculture around faxing humorous notes and drawing between different offices... which I'd compare to the inspirational spam my mother (still! after several family conversations wherein we all begged her to stop and tried to explain the applicable nettiquette) sends me.

Kind of anit-geek.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

er... anti. *sigh*

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

I've read that at least in Japan, where formal business communication was still written with a brush when faxes were invented, faxes fit into the culture better than they did here. I wonder if that's still true.

[mdlbear]

It's still true.

I work for a Japanese company that makes fax machines. Typing a Japanese character requires three keystrokes on a PC keyboard with half-a-dozen extra shift keys; it's not hard to see why handwriting is still popular.