==== the past and future of space time messaging====

Transmitting your transactions to tomorrow, today - at very reasonable rates!

Your thoughts of today beamed into the forward lightcone of tomorrows by our semi-trans-temporal delivery service and network of semi-trans-temporal information servers.

Future mail will be an open protocol for transmission into the unknown later times.

The forward mechanism is a protocol for the (physical or virtual) time capsule, and the backward mechanism is to be determined (pending only the existance of a sentient and curious future and of an adequate science).

===deep time:====

anti-instant-messaging : delaying ideas beyond the horizon of attention.. .

the geological mail.

===general operation:===

  * one way time travel, at a range of resolutions. 

  * an open, email-compatible server and network specification
  * an open protocol for sending telecommunication to the future.
  * an open protocol for sending telecommunication from the future. (pending implementation)
  * redundancies to insure confident cross-epochal communication. 

  * planned expansion to general object courier service.
  * preservation of any particular future timeline cannot be guaranteed. 

===email service:===

  * Issues:
    * security / legal
    * distribution: functional preservation of the protocol must be convincing
    * social etc 

  * Boring implementation details:
    * use a small server/pod/etc+ to talk to a 'proper' smtp server.
    * mail sent to the server/pod will contain instructions at the begining of the mail body. (something like the way a remailer works)
      * possible emails to try, in order
      * TIME/DATE to deliver
      * where to send failure messages
      * more?+ 
    * each futuremail pod will store/retry/etc+ at the appropriate time 

===physical service:===

  * a long-lifed network of offices, archives, and couriers for the transmission of future objects
  * skills: archival, preservation, detective
  * funding: fee based on postal-relativistic proper time of object transmission. cost calculated per postal-spacetime meter. (1 second = vp meters. vp is the postal speed constant).
  * Unstable items not accepted. 

===FAQ:===

  * Q: I transmitted messages to simultaneous events in the future, but am informed that the packages will not have been received at the same time. What gives?
  * A: The provided service is compatible with the laws of special-relativity. Simultaneity of spacelike separated events cannot be guaranteed. 

===related links:===

  * [[Thurn and Taxis]] 

  * Web interfaces for caching near-future email transmission:
    * http://www.mailtothefuture.net
    * http://www.future-mail.net 

  * Idea Futures: http://hanson.gmu.edu/ideafutures.html