Dragaera

warning to newbies

Tue Feb 10 11:59:56 PST 2004

On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 01:44:08PM -0500, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod <jda3 at njit.edu> wrote:
> > What amazes me is not that Microsoft wrote software to encourage 
> > top posting... not that people do it... but that they think it's 
> > their own idea.
> Actually... Microsoft Outlook gives you the option to top or bottom post
> depending on your preferences. 

And how long did it take to get that option?  Which option is the 
default?  If you change it, how well does the change work?

Don't start this argument; you won't win it.

> Either way, PINE is lame. 

I don't use Pine.  I used to use elm, but Pine Is Not Elm.  After 
elm, I moved to mutt.  Mutt is my client of choice.  Why are you 
talking about pine?

> There is no reason to use Telnet/Unix based programs anymore 
> unless you want to be "cool" and avoid proprietary programs 
> such as Microsoft Outlook. 

Well, I'll confess to wanting to avoid proprietary programs like 
Outlook.  Hell, I'll even confess to wanting to avoid FREE 
programs like outlook.  As for the cool thing, to each their own; 
I was using UNIX before it was cool, and I'll probably be using 
it after it stops being cool.  

But as for there being no reason to use UNIX based programs, I'll 
have you know a few facts:

1) Telnet is not UNIX.  Telnet is a network protocol.
2) Even UNIX types don't use telnet anymore; they use SSH.
3) UNIX has a GUI these days.  
4) Linux is not UNIX.
5) I'm sitting in front of my desktop at work.  Each character I 
type is encrypted, then passes through a T1 to a firewall at a 
colocation facility, and from there to the Internet, until it 
is received by my computer at home, decrypted, and passed as 
input to my email program (mutt, not pine, remember?), and a 
response is generated to send back along the same path, all as 
fast as if I was sitting in front of the computer at home...
6) ... which I couldn't do anyway, because it doesn't have a 
keyboard or a monitor; it is the loud, whirring, square thing in 
the closet and nothing more...
7) ... and after I finish writing this email, it will be saved 
to a file on a 5-disk software-based SCSI RAID and passed into a 
mail server which I compiled with custom local modifications...
8) ... and from there, it will be passed on to the server 
hosting this mailing list using a protocol significantly more 
efficient than SMTP to the server, after looking up the DNS 
records for that server using another piece of customized 
software.

> Outlook does everything you need.

Everything I need?  I need to eat, I need food, I need a shelter 
>from the elements.  Outlook does these things?  

What I want is different.  I want a platform that can do the 
things I described above.  And whatever else I can think of.  And 
I want software that can do it *well*.  Outlook not only does not 
qualify, Outlook is not even in the running.

-- 
Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org)
Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt
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