Friday, June 22, 2012

*CC: Al Gore


Well.....


Not quite yet.



*
CC was used at the base and closing of a letter or memo to show the other party/parties  were to receive the knowledge. In the context of correspondence, blind carbon copy (abbreviated Bcc:) refers to the practice of sending a message to multiple recipients in a way that conceals the fact that there may be additional receivers  from the complete list of recipients. 


This concept originally applied to paper correspondence and now also applies to email  In some circumstances, the typist creating a paper correspondence might ensure that multiple recipients of such a document did  not see the names of other recipients. To achieve this the typist added the names in a second step to each copy, without carbon paper; Set the ribbon not to strike the paper, which leaves names off the top copy (but may leave letter impressions on the paper). 


 With email, recipients of a message are specified using addresses in any of these three fields: To: Primary recipients Cc: Carbon copy to secondary recipients—other interested parties Bcc: Blind carbon copy to tertiary recipients who receive the message. The primary and secondary recipients cannot see the tertiary recipients. Depending on email software, the tertiary recipients may only see their own email address in Bcc, or they may see the email addresses of all recipients.  Talk about wasting work moments.


Think of sitting at your work desk, machines loudly clacking while the room is full of blue smoke from your co-workers.  If there is a computer, it takes up an entire wall.  If there is a photocopy machine it is locked and only used for special purposes and usually sits on a large platform like an industrial god.  And there you are, with your boxes of colored carbon paper in pastels like pink, green, blue and yellow.  At some point, you or your company have decided who gets what color.  


 Inky fingers from un-jamming a typewriter ribbon.  Inky fingers from pulling those carbon copies apart.  Inky fingers from ball point pens.  Inky fingers from rubber stamp pads, from when you reloaded the toner into the copying machine.  You had to think long and hard about wearing white on this hot, summer day.  


...and now we have the carbon footprint.  By the way, the street surface has to be between 144-158 degrees F to cook that egg.  We aren't there...yet.

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6 Comments:

Anonymous Phil said...

Always interested in your posts, but I'm distracted - what is the thing that is embedded in the asphalt (a "stamp" of some sort, for lack of a better description).

I'm sure it's some ancient "DC" thing.

4:08 PM  
Blogger Washington Cube said...

Phil: You are absolutely correct, it is an ancient "D.C. thing." It is a symbol for WSSC: Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission that provides water to the greater D.C. area. I'm not sure, but it may be pryable if they have to get under the street, but I think they have larger plugs to access that. There are many water plants around town, but my favorite was always "The Old Reservoir." Officially called "The McMillian Reservoir."

If you use "The Google" and type in "McMillan Reservoir," you can see how the old site looks like something out of King Arthur...if you squint and use your imagination. It's down on it's legs.

4:32 PM  
Anonymous suicide_blond said...

my first summer "office" job had a "computer room" for you know..THE computer....
xxoxo

7:14 PM  
Blogger Washington Cube said...

Ms. Blond: I always learned how to use anything technical, whenever I could. I have a typewriter from the 1800's. I used to have one of the first electric typewriters. It was like a tank, sitting on the desk. I love watching "not that old" movies and they are using cell phones as big as a shoe box.

7:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Royal typewriters were satisfyingly heavy and made great clacking sounds when the keys were struck.

grince

12:46 PM  
Blogger AbbotOfUnreason said...

I wonder if it's hot enough inside a car to cook that egg...

11:04 PM  

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