Email Ode
Email Innovation Timeline
Elizabeth Feinler & John Vittal | Computer History Museum | February 2022
Comprehensive timeline of email's invention and development. The earliest entries, from the mid 19C, deal with the emergence of the ability to communicate codes or images via wires — a vital precursor to what would become "electronic mail". The fax machine comes along in 1924, then the first civilian computer modem in 1962. Arguably, it was all downhill from there (43,063 words)
Ode To The Library Museum
Erica X Eisen | Paris Review | 24th July 2018
On the untouchable physicality of precious texts. "There are books made entirely of jade. There are picture scrolls featuring calligraphy by the brother of the Japanese emperor. There are papyrus codices that constitute some of the few surviving texts of Manichaeism... There are Armenian hymnals, Renaissance catalogues of war machines, and monographs on native Australian fauna" (1,699 words)
* NB: 'soon' is a vague term, and we reserve the right to outrageously abuse this ambiguity.