According to the official gmail blog, they’ve come up with a way to prevent the modern equivalent of the drunk-dial from happening: emails you’ll regret the next day. (Like that time I blank-blank-blanked then sent it to her mom. Grrrreat.)
The new feature called Mail Goggles determines the credibility of a message by barricading “Send” with several math problems. (Because there’s nothing like math to try and bitchslap you into sobriety.)
You could set it to question your emails on specific days and times that you are most likely to be drunk … or stoned. Say, from 3pm Fridays ’til Monday. Or a Tuesday, because there’s really no other excuse for drinking on a Tuesday other than it being a Tuesday.
Although no amount of math obstacle course could’ve prevented this:
(Okay, so I tried — really tried to post the *actual* content of that particular email from years ago — ‘cept that what little hairs I have on my arms stand up like bristles on a toothbrush, trying to claw their way back into the skin when the mouse cursor goes over “Publish”.)
Originally, I thought the new feature would mean that gmail would analyze the coherence of the content, before it decides if a message was written on a drunken stupor.
bad.grammer = true;
mail_draft_edit = i’m not so think as you drunk i am;
Which would force me to go mathbusting before some of my personal messages are sent.
P.S. Would they build this into blogger? If you look hard enough, I remember getting home stinking of booze one exam day, punching in details of how a friendly little afternoon drink turned into a friend almost pushing me into the highway. Plus that mysterious ghost-raft in the Marikina river that I even called Jaimee about.
[Images from the official gmail blog.]
