Mail Archives: cygwin/2003/04/10/22:51:38
On Thu, 10 Apr 2003 19:24:46 -0700, Randall R Schulz <rrschulz AT cris DOT com>
wrote:
> Chalres,
>
>
> [ Sorry everyone, I'm feeling peevish. ]
>
>
> At 18:25 2003-04-10, Chalres "grey wolf" Banas wrote:
>>> That is a strawman argument and false in its own right.
>>
>> i personally don't see how. mail using JPEGs to convey text is the same
>> general effect and idea of using HTML to do the same. when you throw
>> CSS into the mix, you might as well use JPEGs. same visual result - you
>> just can't copy and paste.
>
> One is gratuitously excessive. The other is not. And as you admit,
> accessing the content as text requires manual transcription. They do not
> "achieve exactly the same thing."
>
visually. they acieve the exact same visual result. sorry i wasn't clear.
> It is clearly a strawman argument.
>
try as i may, i don't understand that expression.
>
>> so say you. i and all of the people i know need no more than text to
>> convey simple thought. take the smileys for instance. :)
>
> You beg not to be taken seriously. You and everyone you know interacts
> with solely via plain-text email? You and they have no need for any form
> of communication but unstyled text?
>
> Besides, emoticons are for the expressively challenged.
>
expressively challenged. hmm. i would expect that pertains to those who
DON'T use emotes.
/me is expressive.
>>
>> bandwidth. CPU power.
>
> What bandwidth? What CPU power? Are you using a 50 MHz 386 with a 2400-
> baud modem? Do you saturate you Internet link and your CPU with other
> important traffic and computation that is impeded by the small percentage
> increase in the size of a message with a little styled text?
>
and what if i was? i'd be pretty upset with having to wait another minute
for every HTML email. and another 3 minutes for every image.
and yes, i do use a great deal of bandwidth on more important things.
> This is all just nonsense.
>
so is your 50MHz 386 example. i wish i'd had one that fast. but AFAIK
they don't exist.
>> not everyone is on a T1 or DSL. a lot of people are still on dialup. a
>> 50-100% increase in message size is a burden to some. and with JPEG or
>> GIF backgrounds and so forth, that's even more burdensome. not to
>> mention storage. i rarely delete messages from this list.
>
> Read my other post. I use a dial-up and I save all my non-spam mail.
>
i read it.
> The burden argument just doesn't hold.
>
it does more than you think. some clients save each email as a separate
file. that consumes a minimum 1 block for every message.
try unpacking the linux kernel source (or any other large project) onto a
filesystem with 4kb blocks. that space disappears FAST. and with me, both
of my hard drives are nearly full. i can't afford to buy a new drive and
so i'm stuck with 40MB left for miscellaneous email. that'll get sucked up
quick.
>
>> or in the case of other people, their inept mail client is incapable of
>> rendering HTML mail for some reason - take AOL 5 and 6 for example.
>> i've heard they don't parse HTML mail. and look at Opera 6 and 7 (which
>> i use). Opera is designed to not render images in an HTML email. in
>> fact, there are a lot of HTML emails i get that say simply "This cannot
>> be viewed in plain text." or some similar warning. on the other hand,
>> Opera parses HTML quite happily, as its mail system is entirely XML-
>> based. it's a burden for me to receive HTML emails because of the way
>> Opera handles them by default.
>
> Hearsay doesn't count for much.
>
it counts for more than your arguments and calling everyone else's a
"strawman argument".
> If the software you're using is deficient, find better. There's good
> stuff that is both free and open source. Software offers no excuse for
> not accommodating rich-format communications.
>
it's not deficient. i consider Opera 7's M2 the best client i've ever
used. i also use Pine and similar readers fairly often.
>>
>> but i'm digressing from the point.
>
> Which is that you don't like HTML mail so everyone should fall into line
> with your preference, right?
>
s/HTML/ASCII/
that's your argument.
>
>> i don't like seeing fancy text. bold, pink, 20pt. Times New Roman is
>> incredibly difficult to read and even moreso annoying. another burden
>> on me. some people are colorblind - if the sender chooses to send in a
>> color the recipient can't even SEE - don't you think that's a problem?
>
> Another strawman. If Chris enabled HTML postings on this list, do you
> truly think you'd see such a thing? I do not and I don't believe you
> really do, either. Instead of all the lame work-arounds for the lack of
> simply italics, bold and underline, you'd see the real thing and the
> added overheads those embellishments entailed could not even be measured,
> let alone noticed.
>
yes, i do think i'd see something like that. maybe not often, but i'm sure
it would happen at least once. and it would be noticed.
> People with colorblindness, even complete achromats, still see luminosity
> variations. You're just full of these red herrings, aren't you?
>
yes, luminosity. but not the color variations. if someone used a poor
color (for example pink) on a poorly-contrasting background (like white in
this example), it would be nearly impossible to make out. people with good
vision would often have a hard time even noticing that this might be a
problem.
so no, not red herrings. transparent ones. :)
>
>> sure, i miss not being able to bold my text or throw an underline under
>> book titles in my emails. but i make up for that by making it READ
>> BOLDLY like so, or _emphasizing_ my text in /various/ ways.
>
> So you like these silly limited fall-back forms of markup but not the
> real thing? Ever more ridiculous.
>
i may not like them per se, but i use them to make up for it. i don't even
use them very often since i rarely see the need to YELL at people.
>> did i mention smileys? :)
>
> You did. Smileys are for people who cannot communicate well verbally.
> That's no dishonor, since not everyone is trained or practiced in
> effective written communication, but obviously those people are the ones
> that most need extra means to enhance their communication.
>
you make it sound as if it were a dishonor. if i feel i need to add an
emoticon to my text, i will. i often do. in fact, i often use a less
popular style: ^_^ sometimes, if i think my text needs emotion, i'll add
it. what's the harm in that?
oh, none? you don't sound like that's how you think, despite what you say.
and forgive the use of words like "sound" and "yell" in reference to
written text. in this medium, that is a legitimate part of how this tex
tis percieved.
TYPING LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME GETS YOU BRANDED AS A YELLER.
>>
>> ...and the sender. if you send me an HTML email and i choose to bounce
>> it, then it's also your loss that you didn't get your message through to
>> me.
>
> Let me get this straight. Because someone burdens your Internet link and
> your CPU, you're going to double that burden by bouncing the message back
> to the sender?
>
maybe not bounce, but a simple block that blocks before even bothering to
download? would that suffice for your mind?
i chose the word bounce because it was what was on my mind. if i don't
want someone to email me, i'll bounce their message so they think my
address doesn't exist. thus, no more HTML mail. very nice, ne?
>
>> and if you don't make the effort to get past whatever mechanisms i have
>> in place - which i place for a _reason_ - then your mail isn't important
>> to me. so, no loss. so YOU'RE the one SOL, not _me_.
>>
>> :)
>
> I am not at a loss if you ignore things I write. Why would I care? My
> messages to this list are well over 90% answers to questions. Probably
> well over 95%, especially if you ignore this sort of off-topic missive.
> And you, sir, have contributed exactly one answer on this mailing list.
>
i contributed one answer because it was the only time i felt i had the
knowledge and/or expertise to do so. you have more knowledge and
expertise, so you obviously have first stab at questions. i'm mainly on
this list for the learning potential. it was my mistake to get mixe dup in
an argument i wanted to diffuse.
> So it's no skin off my nose if you ignore me.
>
nor mine. it's no problem for you to make your block list one entry
longer, is it?
>
>> ew, that sucks.
>
> And that's offensive language, but so what? I doubt you care and I don't
> care if you don't care.
>
you seem on-edge today. i was hoping to add somethign friendly to try to
diffuse and ultimately end the argument. i see my judgment in that was
wrong.
ew, that sucks.
>
>> as well as many other things. if i wanted tripe discussions, i would
>> have joined the tripediscussions AT yahoo DOT com mailing list.
>
> Then why are you contributing your own intestinal expulsions?
>
as i said, i wanted to diffuse this.
>
>>> Randall Schulz
>>
>> --
>> Charles "grey wolf" Banas
>> http://the-junkyard.net tech advisor
>
> Advisor, eh? I don't think that's advisable.
>
with knowledge 6 times that of everyone at the junkyard, i have a perfect
right. i was given the position based on my merit. if you disagree with
that, take it up with the guy in charge.
no skin off my nose, as you put it.
>
> Randall Schulz
>
>
--
Charles "grey wolf" Banas
http://the-junkyard.net tech advisor
--
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