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{{g}}The successor in “almost-immediately obsolete contraptions” to the [[telex]] machine and, before that, the canal, nowadays the [[facsimile]] machine is mostly useful for affording bragging rights, both for those who ''can'' remember having to use them and what they were for<ref>Experience and wisdom.</ref>, and those who ''can’t''.<ref>Youth and beauty.</ref> | {{a|g|[[File:Faxpaper.png|450px|thumb|center|OMG THE EVIDENCE YOU NEED IS UNDER THE DRESSER]]}}The successor in “almost-immediately obsolete contraptions” to the [[telex]] machine and, before that, the canal, nowadays the [[facsimile]] machine is mostly useful for affording bragging rights, both for those who ''can'' remember having to use them and what they were for<ref>Experience and wisdom.</ref>, and those who ''can’t''.<ref>Youth and beauty.</ref> | ||
The [[fax]] was desperate the last stand of the true analogue communication: a fax started out life as a nice piece of paper and ended up as one: a horrid, waxy, faded piece of parchment resembling the [[Loo paper rep|loo paper]] you used to get in nasty educational establishments. | The [[fax]] was desperate the last stand of the true analogue communication: a fax started out life as a nice piece of paper and ended up as one: a horrid, waxy, faded piece of parchment resembling the [[Loo paper rep|loo paper]] you used to get in nasty educational establishments. | ||
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Granted, there was a [[substrate|digital component to a fax transmission]] — the document was digitised and send across a PABX network as a series of ones and zeroes — only to be undigitised and rendered fully useless again at the other end, the usable digital information lost forever in a squeal and whirr of odd boinky noises and static. An analog version of the [[end-to-end principle]]: so close, but so far away. | Granted, there was a [[substrate|digital component to a fax transmission]] — the document was digitised and send across a PABX network as a series of ones and zeroes — only to be undigitised and rendered fully useless again at the other end, the usable digital information lost forever in a squeal and whirr of odd boinky noises and static. An analog version of the [[end-to-end principle]]: so close, but so far away. | ||
A [[fax]] that | A [[fax]] machine that dropped paper on the floor which curled up and rolled under a filing cabinet was an important [[McGuffin]] in the ''denouement'' of John Grisham’s [[espievie]] thriller, ''The Firm''. Not to be out-done, [[Hunter Barkley]]’s forthcoming novel {{br|The ISDA Protocol}} is going to involve a malfunctioning [[telex]]. | ||
{{Seealso}} | {{Seealso}} |