Now, continuing on from below, who is sending me all this email? Well, I decided to look at just the last log file that I took, which covers roughly the first 9 months of this year. This contained 7093 messages. After filtering out spam based on ignoring low frequency addresses, I was left with 4146 messages. 1779 of these came from mailing lists, most notably from the trivmiscers (you know who you are) who accounted for 988 in the period I was monitoring.

So, to break those figures down, they give a daily average of: 25.3 messages, of which 10.5 are spam. 3.5 are from trivmisc, which, after taking out other lists, leaves 8.4 real messages to deal with.

61% of mail addressed to me (removing spam and lists) is to do with my work. This is potentially depressing. More so may be that 20% of my mail comes from my boss, 13% from industrial researchers that I'm working with, 9% from students in a class, leaving roughly 16% from other sources. (that should add up to about 53%, but there is some rounding).

29% of my mail is personal, which is less than I might have imagined. 9% of my personal mail is from the loosely defined RDP conglomerate, for which I am greatly thankful. Another 20% comes from other assorted friends. That leaves the 10% of my mail which is to do with administrative matters. Which isn't so bad, I suppose.

Lastly, I'm sure you're all asking, on what days do I receive most mail? Well, it breaks down as follows. In total I recorded 33732 email messages. These were received as follows:
Mondays - 16%
Tuedays - 16%
Wednesdays - 18%
Thursdays - 21%
Fridays - 17%
Saturdays - 5%
Sundays - 5%
So, people send slightly more email on thursdays (or they spam more, I didn't bother with that breakdown). And there really is a slackening off at the weekend, perhaps the spammers take the weekend off. No real difference between saturdays and sundays.

Lastly, and I'm sure you're dying to know this, the time distribution of received emails.

  %

10.0                              ##              

9.75                              ##              

9.50                              ##              

9.25                              ##              

9.00                              ##              

8.75                              ##              

8.50                              ##              

8.25                              ##              

8.00                              ##              

7.75                              ##              

7.50                              ##              

7.25                            ####              

7.00                            ####              

6.75                            ####              

6.50                        ##  ######            

6.25                        ############          

6.00                      ##############          

5.75                      ################        

5.50                    ##################        

5.25                    ##################        

5.00                  ####################        

4.75                  ######################      

4.50                  ######################      

4.25                  ######################      

4.00                  ######################      

3.75                  ########################    

3.50                  ########################    

3.25                ##############################

3.00                ##############################

2.75                ##############################

2.50                ##############################

2.25##              ##############################

2.00##              ##############################

1.75##              ##############################

1.50####    ####  ################################

1.25##############################################

1.00##############################################

0.75##############################################

0.50##############################################

0.25##############################################

0.00##############################################

    0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2

    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3

Well, there you have it. Most email arrives between 3 and 4 in the afternoon. Makes you think, eh?

(Errors due to differences in local time, differing timezones, and such like, carefully and deliberately ignored).

OK, that's quite enough data mining for now.