Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

30 Jan 2008, 12:06 p.m.

Sending Creates The Recipient?

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2008 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

Once I start my job at Behavior tomorrow, I'll have a mailing address for packages, one that doesn't depend on Leonard being home during the day and doesn't reveal where I live. Thus, this week I've given out my not-yet-existent address (Sumana Harihareswara c/o Behavior) twice. These packages shipped before the person/address combo existed, but by the time they arrive I'll be there. This says something to me about networking architecture, ephemerality, lazy evaluation, worse is better, and Le Guin's lines from The Dispossessed:

"To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past; therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future. If time and reason are functions of each other, and if we are creatures of time, then we had better know it, and try to make the best of it. To act responsibly."