I’ve been experimenting with some Google Labs Gmail options, and came across the mail goggles feature. When enabled, a simple Ajax menu with basic math appears whenever you attempt to send an email. You must answer five basic arithmetic problems correctly in order for the mail to send. It’s intended to prevent you from sending unintended emails that you’d regret afterward–likely ones that you send late-night or while inebriated.

Initially I was surprised that such an add-on even existed; how often do we send unintended emails? I don’t think I ever do. But hey, accidents do happen. I get emails every week from hospital administration notifying us of an upcoming conference, only to see them retracted (via Outlook). Surely misdirected emails could possibly only come from misdirected souls, right? How could an electronic sobriety meter ever save me from email embarassment?

In any case, I fired up the mail goggle feature last night, and enabled it for the hours from 10pm until 6am. Since I’m working night float this week, it was a great way to test out its efficacy. Early on, I had little problem sending mail. Around 3:45am, however, the problems surfaced. 343-88? 403-159? Damn subtraction. As I was fumbling to send an email I wrote to Joe about how much I hated my rotation, the 60 second timer expired, and I was presented with five new arithmetic operations. Damnit! As I cursed at myself for being stupid, I glanced at the header field and realized that I had erroneously addressed the email to Janine.

While I’m sure Janine, Jacob, or Jim would probably not have known that my email was intended for Joe anyway, Mail goggles had validated its existence. Mistakes happen to even the best of us, especially with sleep deprivation.  If there were only a similar invention that worked for vocalizing thoughts…

computing tech