"Get off my lawn" is thankfully under 140 characters.

December 17, 2009 2:29 PM

Celery is a fax-to-email gateway to let you communicate electronically with someone who doesn't have a computer on their end. So, now your grandparents won't miss out on your mass joke emails and baby pictures. Best of all, there's now a fax-to-Twitter interface. (via)
posted by mkultra (26 comments total)

Pepsi 20th Century
posted by DU at 2:33 PM on December 17, 2009

"Have you ever ... sent someone a fax ... from the beach? You will."
posted by Jaltcoh at 2:37 PM on December 17, 2009 [3 favorites]

At the top of the first page of the message, in large, capital block letters, simply write the first names (separated by commas) of those from your Celery address book whom you wish to receive it. Place your message pages in your Celery machine, press the B button, and then the C button. Your message pages are then scanned, sent to the Celery server, and routed and delivered to each addressee.

Yes, let's rely on the consistent letterforms of old people's handwriting.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 2:41 PM on December 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

This blue celery, it vibrates?
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 2:43 PM on December 17, 2009

Is this something I'd need a fax machine to know about?
posted by fixedgear at 2:46 PM on December 17, 2009

An elderly mother who doesn't wanna correspond with her child because she talks too much? That's fuckin' amazing.
posted by gman at 2:49 PM on December 17, 2009

I actually had cause to fax something a few weeks ago for the first time in about eight years (it was a request for college transcripts). So I printed out my form, signed it, and drove to the place where you can do that kind of thing.

Now, like most MeFites, I consider myself pretty tech-savvy. People come to me when they get new gadgets and don't feel like reading the fucking manual and ask me how to do stuff, hear about something new and have me explain it to them, etc.

So I got to the fax machine, form in hand, and just stared at it stupified. It may as well have been imported from the Soviet bloc or been some cash register from another world. I stood there feeling stupid as shit, frozen as a deer in headlights until the clerk came over, snatched my form, punched about 15 buttons, and walked off without saying a word.

So yeah, fuck a fax machine. It was a pretty stupid idea to begin with.
posted by Ufez Jones at 3:03 PM on December 17, 2009 [4 favorites]

"No, I ain't got a fax machine! I also ain't got an Apple IIc, polio, or a falcon!"
posted by vilthuril at 3:10 PM on December 17, 2009 [5 favorites]

Pepsi 20th Century


20th? Ha! Mid-19th century. 1861 to be exact.

About 14 years before Bell's telephone patents.*

*Granted, Philipp Reis had a telephone before then, but that one only could reproduce tones and couldn't handle speech well.
posted by chambers at 3:16 PM on December 17, 2009

Ufez Jones, I feel your pain. I stare dumbly at the one at work. I would be more likely to set up a wireless network than to send a fax.
posted by desjardins at 3:18 PM on December 17, 2009

I work for a voip company and faxing is the bane of my existence.
posted by empath at 3:26 PM on December 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

Motherfuck a fax machine.
posted by boo_radley at 3:29 PM on December 17, 2009

So, now your grandparents won't miss out on your mass joke emails and baby pictures.

Are you kidding me? Thanks to my Grandma's computer savvy, I now know that Obama is a racistnazisocialistcommunist baby killer that wants his death panels to get their filthy government paws all over her medicare.

Oh, and that Andy Rooney sure tells it like it is, doesn't he?
posted by chillmost at 3:37 PM on December 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

I work for a voip company and faxing is the bane of my existence.

Why the hell isn't there some fax over ip standard yet?

Also my first thought was whether one could set up a celery/efax endless loop, or if they have filters for that sort of thing.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:12 PM on December 17, 2009

This is nothing new. I've had a fax to email account for about 5 years, and have been sending faxes via email for a good 3 years. Have a look at efax and/or interfax. (I think we use the latter at work. There's really no better way of sending 700 faxes out at a time)
posted by seanyboy at 4:14 PM on December 17, 2009

Don't laugh too hard. My mother-in-law lives in a rural area with no DSL, no cable, and dial-up that tops out at 28.8. Yeah, there's satellite internet like WildBlue, but it's ridiculously expensive for what you get.

So last Christmas my brother-in-law gave her a fax-to-email box. And with that, she was now in the loop on all our family e-mails.

Of course, it also jams up with relatives sending KENYAN HITLER!!! but at least she's actually getting our various family e-mail updates.

Until we have a truly national Internet infrastructure, stuff like fax-to-email will remain a crucial bridge between the rural, old, and poor and the rest of the world. Just as the Rural Electrification Act brought power in the last century, we need a Rural Broadband Act in this century to close the communications divide between urban and rural.
posted by dw at 5:15 PM on December 17, 2009 [3 favorites]

Why the hell isn't there some fax over ip standard yet?

You've just won an AcaiBerryMafiaWarsFarmvilleLockerzCash4ViagraNigerianTwitterStatusUpdate!!

That's why.
posted by Avelwood at 5:20 PM on December 17, 2009

"No, I ain't got a fax machine! I also ain't got an Apple IIc, polio, or a falcon!"

I actually included that comic when some crappy two-bit online electronics retailer required me to FAX A COPY OF MY DRIVER'S LICENSE to authorize a credit card purchase. I've forgotten their name or I'd say it on the off chance that it may cost them business.
posted by DecemberBoy at 5:20 PM on December 17, 2009

we need a Rural Broadband Act in this century to close the communications divide between urban and rural

Yeah, if there's one thing we need more of, it's

relatives sending KENYAN HITLER!!!
posted by DecemberBoy at 5:23 PM on December 17, 2009

Ugh. That's brutal, dw. Faxes are like all the hate of dealing with an annoying copier plus the wonderful screeching of a dial-up modem plus the speediness of a Pony Express communique'.

I'd honestly rather learn morse code and use a telegraph.
posted by Ufez Jones at 5:25 PM on December 17, 2009

Why the hell isn't there some fax over ip standard yet?

There is, it's called t38. It's a way of carrying the fax protocol over tcp/ip. It kind of works, but not really. The advantage is that with an adapter, you can use a regular fax machine and fax to other fax machines.

The best way to do it would be to convert the scanned document to a pdf and email the fucking thing.
posted by empath at 5:26 PM on December 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

The best way to do it would be to convert the scanned document to a pdf and email the fucking thing.
posted by empath at 8:26 PM on December 17 [+] [!]

A-fuckin-men
posted by ShawnString at 5:46 PM on December 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

The best way to do it would be to convert the scanned document to a pdf and email the fucking thing.

Yeah, that's what I do, but that doesn't help the techies interface with the dinosaurs (AKA faxers).
posted by BrotherCaine at 7:49 PM on December 17, 2009

This is nothing new. I've had a fax to email account...

Vice-versa Seanyboy.

Where's the love for telegraph, semaphore, hollow logs, smoke signals, courier pigeons and Silbo Gomero I ask you?
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:00 PM on December 17, 2009

I use fax machines quite often here in Germany to send documents that require a signature. If you need to confirm or cancel a contract here with your gym/ISP/Domain provider, you do it via fax.
posted by chillmost at 1:07 AM on December 18, 2009

Faxes are the exception that proves the rule that you know more about technology than your parents/boss. It's galling to see the uber-boss gleefully faxing away while not having a clue about email.
posted by patricio at 1:56 AM on December 18, 2009