Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: configurable delimiters needed in aliases file for x.400 addresses
Message-ID: <15691@bfmny0.BFM.COM>
Date: 23 Jul 90 05:40:35 GMT
References: <40888@think.Think.COM> <1990Jul22.123110.1198@tolerant.com> <40897@think.Think.COM>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Lines: 59

In article <40897@think.Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
>Addresses like this are OK for computer-literate email users, but ordinary
>people should be able to type addresses similar to the ones they use on
>ordinary correspondence.
>
>Given current email addressing technology, how would you send email to the
>VP of Marketing of Thinking Machines Corporation, not knowing his name,
>login name, nor the domain name of our computer?  RFC-822 addresses are
>fine for putting on business cards, but they're hard to generate without
>being told.

Back to the telephone analogy.  How would you CALL the VP of Marketing
at Thinking Machines Corporation, without knowing the number?  You'd ask
Directory Assistance.  (In fact you'd have to know where TMC was first,
so you'd have the proper area code.  To this extent the phone network is
also less than perfect!  When I'm stymied, I call 800 D.A. on the
off chance that the company has a toll free number of some kind.  It's
usually some sales rep who can't transfer me to the person I want, but
they DO tend to know the main number.)

What the Net needs is Directory Assistance -- an automated entity to
ask for machine addresses.

	To: assist@assist.net
	From: jschmoe@crudbox.com (Joe Schmoe)

	thinking



	To: jschmoe@crudbox.com
	From: assist@assist.net (Network Directory Assistance)

	You asked for:
		thinking

	There are 2 matching entries.

		NAME:     Thinking Machines Corporation.
		LOCATION: Cambridge, MA USA
		DOMAIN:   think.com
		CONTACT:  postmaster@think.com
		DATE:     Mon Jul 23 11:31:56 EDT 1990
		NOTES:    Development machine; UUCP (uunet!think), SMTP, MMDF

		NAME:     Institute of Holistic Thinking
		LOCATION: Granola, CA USA
		DOMAIN:   iht.org
		CONTACT:  like_wow@iht.org
		DATE:     Mon Sep 26 03:19:13 EDT 1988
		NOTES:    Hey man, like, meat is murder.


-- 
"Of course, this is a, this is a Hunt, you   |*==|  Tom Neff
will -- that will uncover a lot of things.   |===|  tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM
You open that scab, there's a hell of a lot
of things... This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky
that we have nothing to do with ourselves." -- RN 6/23/72