MKleber> There's no theoretical way to prevent this, right? That is, any system in which connectivity might be lost must in some case either claim a message was sent when it wasn't, or that it wasn't when it was? --Michael On Sep 1, 2012 3:53 PM, "Bill Gosper" <billgosper@gmail.com <http://gosper.org/webmail/src/compose.php?send_to=billgosper%40gmail.com>> wrote:
I said> [I have no idea how or why GMail sent two copies of this.]>> Due to marginal connectivity, > ½ the time I click Send, GMail says> "An error occurred and your message was not sent". This sometimes> gives me a chance to add a couple of afterthoughts before retrying.> But GMail turns out to be lying--the message *was* sent, at least to> some recipients, so it looks like I'm bothering you all with resends of> trivial afterthoughts.> --rwg> _______________________________________________
I think you're right, it's like the Synchronization Problem--a single memory can't serve two synchronous computers in bounded time, and instant service four-way red lights must sometimes malfunction (Hang, or split-pulse double green). A flipped coin might land on edge. But this often?? It happened again when I sent the foregoing, only this time, somebody other than math-fun got the extra copy. --rwg PS, Neil says There seems to be an inverse trend associated with the price of (certain) text books and their length. Stewart's Calculus (Stewart being the guy who built a mansion off the profits), at 1250 pages, is $80. The Heart of Mathematics (Burger & Starbird) , 640 pages, is $114. Linear Algebra (David C. Lay), 429 pages, was bought for $160 at the Barnes and Noble SJSU Bookstore.