From: Dwayne (ddraig@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Mar 10 1998 - 19:45:50 MST
Michael Lorrey wrote:
> > You can see if someone has read your message using the "return receipt
> > requested" or whatever it is called in most email anyway.
>
> And using Netscape's browser, if you have your security flags set, you are always
> prompted before intrusive javascript, cookies, or other privacy and security
> penetrating actions are taken.
Well, yeah, that's why I didn't respond to that bit.
Besides, as I see it it, it's not a security issue, it's more a matter of everyone being
able to read mail.
> > I generally use elm on a linux box, but I'm using my Dad's win95 machine for a
> > bit. So I can currently *see* HTML mail, but I'd rather have the option of being
> > able to telnet into my mail server from anywhere and read my mail, than be able
> > to see differing fonts and colours (as if that will make a message more
> > intelligible).
>
> That even ascii based browsers like ALPHABrowser now support HTML email indicates
> that even the most primitive interfaces are capable of rising above their origins.
hmm, I wasn't aware of this. Do you have a url?
> Its people, and their stubborn resistance to change that is the sticking point. As
> extropians, we need to get the anti-change meme out of our systems through regular,
> habitual purging of obsolete techniques, tools, etc. from our regular use.
I entirely agree. However, I really don't think that plain-vanilla ascii email is
"obsolete", and I'm not really sure why HTML is so vastly superior. All I've seen so
far is the ability to change fonts and colours. Woopee doo is my reaction to that. It
in no was changes the -content-, merely the presentation. We're still reading text,
it's just text prettified up slightly.
I agree with what you are saying in principle, it's just that I don't think it applies
to email. If even one member of the list cannot read HTML, why should the rest of us
exclude this person, when it really serves no valid purpose? Is the ability to mix and
match fonts going to make the list more useful than the opinions/thoughts/rants/agitprop
of that individual? I doubt it, although suffering through the interminable abortion
thread makes me doubt this conclusion.
> > I'd thought that the umlauts in german can be swapped for a following "e"??
>
> Most european accent systems can be replicated in an HTML compatible mail reader by
> using tags that specify a standard international character set that is 7 bit, and is
> recognised as an alternate font.. Microsoft has several as does DEC. Microsoft
> International and DEC Multinational are two that I have come across regularly in
> mail data files customers in other countries send me at work for processing. I don't
> understand, though, why Germans would use a capital B with a tail as a replacement
> for the 'ss' in -strasse ??? Is it a different pronouncement?
No, it's a double s.
Dwayne.
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