Firsts

From: Captain Napalm <spc_at_armigeron.com>
Date: Mon Jan 19 18:08:27 1998

It was thus said that the Great John Higginbotham once stated:
>
> At 11:57 AM 1/19/98 -0800, you wrote:
> >YEAH! And not all of us have Windows to read email with -
> >I got to ^Q thru all that...
>
> Don't have windows??? How'd that neanderthal get in here?!? :)
> (Ow! I'm kidding! Ow! I said I was kidding! OwOwOwOw!!!!)

  Not only do I not use Windows, but I don't use the Mac to read me email
either. Nor do I use a POP-aware email client. Large emails I can handle,
but MIME on the other hand ...

> Seriously, some people just assume that everyone else can support their
> standards. I've been partially guilty of it too. I send all my attachments
> as MIME, mainly because that's the standard in my main working environment
> (win95/NT). I'm a graphic artist and web page designer. I could only do 30%
> of my job in a text based environment if it came down to that (sometimes it
> does). Then again, everyone I know that I send attachments to have mail
> clients than can handle MIME.

        "The wonderful thing about standards is that there
         are so many to choose from!"

  (WARNING: The following is very seriously "In My Not-So-Humble Opinion."
You have been warned 8-) MIME is probably one of the worst things to have
been created, especially since there already exists a medium to transfer
files through the Internet: FTP (okay, I realize that for Windows/Mac users,
sending a file to someone using FTP may not be the easiest thing to do, or
even possible).

  The email standard (at least on the Internet) has always been defined for
7bit ASCII only. Hence UUENCODE or base64 that most files get munged into
when being transmitted via email. And that is what I really dislike about
MIME - in stead of creating a new 8-bit clean multimedia email/file
transport protocol (it's not like there isn't formats already available to
do this) people decided to still use the old 7-bit ASCII transmission
medium. Sheesh!

  (Oops, I'm starting to rant. Then again, I tend to do that after reading
half-backed standandards documents).

  But, getting somewhat back to the list charter - the software I use to
read email is approximately 10 years old (and in fact, I started using it on
machines that are over 10 years old this year) and while it has been patched
to recognize MIME, the support is such that it isn't seamless enough to be
painless, but enough of it is there to be exceedingly annoying (like driving
on the freeway and hitting a brick wall to mix metaphors).

  Most MIME encoded email I get is simply ignored as it's faster for me that
way (unless I get around to ripping MIME support out of my email program).
That, and the crap that Microsoft mailers send out (since I'm not using a
Microsoft product).

> So, uh, speaking of Commodores... Anyone know where I can pick up an Amiga
> 500 or 1000 real cheap? :)

  Uh, not really. I'm holding onto my Amiga real tight.

  -spc (Maybe I'll starting sending email out in TeX format ... 8-)
Received on Mon Jan 19 1998 - 18:08:27 GMT