As a relatively old Internet company (row2k's 20th year starts in two months) with readers who are reading row2k on the Internet, it seemed worth noting the passing of Ray Tomlinson, who first used the @ sign in the context of email.

There's another reason for a rowing connection (although admittedly a bit of a stretch): while working with ARPAnet, Tomlinson applied the symbol, which was commonly used as an accounting symbol signifying "at a rate of," to the world's first email system that he was developing (read more here about the possible origins of the symbol).  The obvious rowing application of "at a rate of" needs little explanation.

 

Ray Tomlinson, who first used the  @ symbol for email, has died. In 1971 he created  the world's first e-mail system for the  United States government's Advanced Research  Projects Agency Networks (ARPAnet), adopting @ as  a stand-in for the long and convoluted  programming language indicating a message's  destination. This was a design decision of  extraordinary elegance and economyâ??repurposing  an existing, available, and underutilized symbol  to adapt the standard keyboard to a revolutionary  new technology. MoMA added the symbol to our  design collection back in 2010. Tap the link in  our profile to learn more about the symbol and  its history. [Ray Tomlinson. "@." 1971.  The Museum of Modern Art, New York]

A photo posted by MoMA The  Museum of Modern Art (@themuseumofmodernart) on  Mar 7, 2016  at 2:46pm PST