Instant messaging, video conferences, social media are all good ways of staying in touch with family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances while you’re in social isolation.  But they’re all… sort of … cold.  Something’s missing.  Wouldn’t it be nice, to receive an actual, handwritten letter?  That’s the premise of a new collaborative project called Quarantine Connections.  Sign up — yes, online — and you agree to send an envelope, through the mail, with a postage stamp on it, and you get one in return from someone, somewhere out there, who you’ve never met before, but with whom you might share a connection.  The project is the brainchild of three primary collaborators, two of whom join us by phone now.   U-W Milwaukee professor of art and mechanical engineering Nathaniel Stern is a familiar voice to longtime Buzz listeners. We also  have Chris Butzen, a Milwaukee native web developer currently living and working in Toronto.