Hello from a Human
writing is technology
for thoughtful people

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What is Hello from a Human?

Hello from a Human is a personal messaging service. Starting on December 1st 2014 I will personally write a note for you and put it in the mail.

How do I access the service?

You simply email me what you want me to write and I will write it on a piece of paper. Then I will mail it where you want me to send it.

Who is behind this?

Here is a picture of me, the person who will write your note:

I don't look very attractive in it. I took it with my phone camera. But it shows that I am a human and not a robot. I didn't have time to embed a movie of me writing but you can imagine that part.

How does this technology scale?

It doesn't scale at all. I can probably do about one of these a day, at best. I'm pretty busy at work during the day, and the moment I get home it's dinner time and then bath and bedtime for the girls and by the time all that's done there isn't a lot of time left over before I need to go to bed myself. I mean, the 11-month-old sleeps really well but she still gets up at 5:30 so you know how that goes.

That's all to say that I'll do one of these each day, for the month of December. I probably will skip a few days, like Christmas.

How do I sign up for one of the days?

Email me with your proposed note and I'll fill the slots in roughly the order they are received. However I reserve the right to pick the interesting ones instead of the boring ones, and filter for length.

How long can each note be?

Well, you know, I can be flexible. We don't have to set a strict character count or something. If it's too long I probably can't do it, so think about how long it might take me to write out by hand, and aim for something I can manage. That said, there are no hard rules here.

How can there be no hard rules?

Friend, that's the joy of being human.

Do you have beautiful handwriting?

Not particularly. I mean, it's totally legible but I'm not going to claim it's beautiful. I like to think it has a certain charm. It's not chicken scratches or something.

How long does it take?

I will try to do one note a day, and put it in the mail the next day. So each one will probably take three, or four, or even five days from the time I start to the time your recipient receives the note.

When will you start mine?

I'll let you know when I mail it.

But when will you start it?

Dunno. One of the days in December.

Can I pick a day to make sure it gets to my recipient in time for a religious event or other important date?

You can certainly tell me about your preferences! I can't promise anything but I'll see what I can do.

How much does this cost?




Not even, like, the cost of postage?


Why aren't you charging a fee for this service? How will you make money?


I think you might be teasing me.

Is it okay if this is not about making any money?

I mean, I guess.

Cool, I appreciate that. I'll be honest, for a minute or two I was thinking about whether I should charge $10 ("personal, artisanal service!") or $1 or something, I mean I am an entrepreneur, I like making money! But then I got tired thinking about setting up some stupid payment form for all that, or PayPal link, or whatever. I would really like to do this just as a fun, silly little project, and I'll spend a little money on it and it's not going to be a huge deal. If you send me the words you want to share with another person, it will make me happy to write them down on a piece of paper and put them in the mail for the other person to read.

What kind of paper stock will you use?

Jesus, you're full of questions today. I don't really know. Look, to be totally honest I'll probably use whatever is handy at the time. Like, my company stationery, or a piece of printer paper, or some scrap paper from the recycling bin. I won't put a ton of effort into getting really nice paper, that's not really the point. If you want me to make this difficult by getting fancy paper it's probably not going to happen. But if we just make this about taking a moment where one person spends a little time to think about, and write to, another person, that's not so hard.

But... Really?

Yes, really. I will use a nice pen, though. It's so unpleasant to write with crappy pens.

Here are some pens I might use:

So you're clearly joking about all of this.

I am dead serious.

But, I mean, this obviously is completely ridiculous.

Is it?


I disagree.

This isn't a product, this is a farce! Unreliable service? Bad handwriting? Junky paper? No guarantees you'll even mail my note? Give me one reason I shouldn't just use Bond?

Because, friend: I'm a goddamn human.


All I'm saying is: You'd pay for a robot to give your writing a personal touch? And you're calling my service a farce?

So you're really serious about doing this.

Dead serious.

Assuming I decide I'm interested, how do I sign up?

Glad you asked! It's easy: Email me at hello@hellofromahuman.com

And you write it, and send it, and that's it?

Pretty much. If you give me permission I'll probably share an anonymized photo of what I wrote on this site somewhere, or at my Twitter account.

What if my note isn't accepted for one of the days you're doing this?

Your chances are good. Probably like ten people will ever see this page.

But what if it shows up on reddit or something?

It won't.

Okay but just assume, what if you get a lot of submissions?

Well, that's easy, we have a backup service.

A backup service?


How does it work?

In the case that I can't write your note and mail it for you, you can do it yourself.

And that part of the service, my friend, scales beautifully.