- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] why all my email is plain text
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 02 Jul '21

02 Jul '21

Jeffrey Jonas via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> writes: > >I have been a rather effective email user since the 80s. It's the >MESSAGE that counts. The CONTENT. Not the glitz, cute fonts, colors, >icons, logos, stickers, emojis or other decorations. > >panix is my main ISP (Internet Service Provider). I usually ssh into >their NetBSD server and use the PINE email program. It's fast, >responsive, and allows me to manage my email effectively. It also means >that it's nearly impossible for malware, spyware, tracking cookies and >other HTML atrocities to run. [admittedly, PINE has a LYNX ability to >text-display HTML]. > >I archive emails by person or topic. Those are plain text files, so I >can GREP them and easily use any editor to manipulate the content. > >HTML emails are usually 3x the file size of plain text. That counts >against my disk quota. I don't appreciate folks filling my files with >fluff. > >I prefer the digest so I get complete conversations albeit delayed up to >a day. Kudos!

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Topics for Bil Herd at VCF East 2021
by Jeffrey Brace 02 Jul '21

02 Jul '21

Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker. He is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about? Reply here or send me a message privately. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Off Topic: Confirmed fix for your messages being in an attachment
by Herb Johnson 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

Two points: one about "lost in history", one in opposition to embedded content. On "lost in history", from Douglas Crawford: > Worse I just learned today (and this was the LAST STRAW) > that every message that everyone has sent in HTML *mode*, where the > text body became an attachment, has been lost in history because the > mailman digest strip these attachments off. Its all gone. > Years and years of messages. > All due to misunderstanding of this facility. Doug, the operation of the VCFed midatlantic email list is outside my skills set. But I don't understand your "lost in history" statement as a factual matter, within my incomplete knowledge which I'll spell out. I read the list *exclusively* with a Web browser, accessing the list at the link below and then for the month as the messages are accumulated monthly. https://lists.vcfed.org/mailman/listinfo/vcf-midatlantic I am one of very few posting-members who do this, apparently. Never mind why few do or why I do. That being the case, I'll describe what I know if others don't know it. So as I look with my Web browser, on the mailist Web site, at the June 2021 list; and then look at your June emails - which have the "scrubbed attachment" feature - I was obliged to do as you noted, to click another link, to read your message text. To my point now. Your attached text is not "lost to history". The attached file is also archived, just as the messages are archived. For instance one such attached/detached email content is linked as: > https://lists.vcfed.org/pipermail/vcf-midatlantic/attachments/20210615/eae4… To read it, you follow the link. The link and content is "preserved". So I don't understand your "lost" statement. Now your statement focuses on "digest" mode, which I don't use, and if I recall sends a daily? email packaging several emails of the day. I do not know, if these links are part of the digested messages. If the links are, apparently you can recover the attachments as I've described. If not, recover them from the maillist Web page interface. Also: the maillist on the online Web interface, provides an accumulative monthly gzip package of emails. That also excludes the attached texts BUT it includes Web links per message (like the link above for a June message, I just checked). Doug, it's possible you mean other attachments such as photos or documents, which may not be processed as I just described. Simply put: it's outside my skills and time available to make a determination about that. I leave that to the email list administrators and/or yourself. All that, addresses the "lost in history" comment. ------------------------- About embedded content: Dave McGuire makes quite a case for not supporting HTML and not providing various attachments. Others have also. To me they appears to be a "traditional" view of email, one I happen to agree with. But others may not be interested in traditional views of email, and so not persuaded. I observe that in other email list schemes (such as groups.io) which support embedded content and various schemes, I don't care for the result. Which is, to embed important information among a bunch of other emails that can only be found by tedious keyword search. By "important", I mean content an email list member would like to find later; or content that someone doing Web search, might like to find for its value. In my vintage computing work, I've done such searching many many times. It's tedious enough, just to treat emails as a text file. It's more tedious, to be obliged to read the emails with whatever email-reading tools are available. I don't care for email systems to be used for hobby collaborative environments, for many reasons not the least being the inability to *edit and supersede old content*. While not "lost", that content is obscured. But as I noted earlier in this email: others may not be persuaded by what amount to "traditionalist" views in modern use of the Internet. To old people it should not be a surprise that young people may not be interested in prior practices. ----------------------- These are all matters for the email list administrators to consider. Who they are, what they know, and how they take actions, are all mysterious to me. (shrug) They did not address Doug's comment (so far) so I chose to address it. Others provided their opinions on the matter, so did I. regards, Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT comcast DOT net

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OT: On the merits of plain text email
by Douglas Crawford 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

Here you go, have at it. > I guess that's the problem with HTML for ya'll? It encourages too > much formatting? Or is it bulky? I don't need it, certainly we > don't need it functionally, but I don't understand what the huge > prob is with it, educate me. There are philosophical issues with sending frequently tens or hundreds of kilobytes when a few hundred bytes will do. That doesn't matter as much as it used to, but it still matters to some people for real (i.e. financial) reasons. There ARE still metered network connections. I myself am not on one, but I know a great many people who are, and smartphones nearly always are. Next, HTML is for web pages. Email is not web pages, it is a textual communications medium. The fact that uneducated developers who don't know any better added HTML capability in some email clients does not automatically mean it's a good idea. At least in Thunderbird (which I use) that drivel can be turned off. All of this crap started when the floodgates of nontechnical people opened up onto the Internet, and they seemed to think that anything is really just fine as long as they found it in a drop-down menu. Otherwise, why would it be there, right? That fallacious logic assumes that the developers of the email program knew what they were doing. But most importantly for me, *I* choose the text size, text color, background color, etc that works best FOR ME to read email on all of the devices on which I do that. People are not welcome to attempt to override that. What they send is really their business...and whether or not I bit-bucket their flowery purple fonts is mine. That crap is distracting and it's a waste of time, and I'm not a person with a lot of time to waste. Next, honestly, who has so much free time as to think playing around with "stylizing" their textual communications is a reasonable use of their time? On 7/1/21 11:33 AM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > Dave McGuire makes quite a case for not supporting HTML and not > providing various attachments. Others have also. To me they appears to > be a "traditional" view of email, one I happen to agree with. But others > may not be interested in traditional views of email, and so not persuaded. Speaking of "a traditional view of email" suggests that there are other views, and it further suggests that this is a matter of "views" in the first place. The RFCs have not changed. The protocols have not changed. The reasoning behind the design decisions made during the creation of both have not changed. The drawbacks to abusing the protocols and the problems that this causes have not changed. And (for me) above all, my desire to not allow J. Random Mouthbreather who wants to use complex tools without learning anything about them first to override how MY computer systems display textual content intended for me to read has most definitely not changed. > But as I noted earlier in this email: others may not be persuaded by > what amount to "traditionalist" views in modern use of the Internet. To > old people it should not be a surprise that young people may not be > interested in prior practices. It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close: If I'm standing before a judge in a courtroom, I probably would not have a very good day if I were to explain to the judge that I, as a person with my own "view", was not interested in prior practices regarding speed limits and was not "persuaded" by others who were trying to keep me out of jail. A person can use a crescent wrench to pound in a nail. It will probably eventually get the nail in, but the person is still an idiot. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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Off Topic: Confirmed fix for your messages being in an attachment
by Douglas Crawford 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

In your address book for entry VCF-Midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org, set the drop down: "Prefers to receive messages formatted as: Plain Text" If Mailman ever allows HTML, we can switch back.

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Off Topic: Confirmed fix for your messages being in an attachment
by Herb Johnson 30 Jun '21

30 Jun '21

>> Uh, no, please don't. HTML mail sucks. Leave HTML in web pages where >> it belongs. > > I second the motion. Email doesn't need HTML. I concur. One other off-topic matter. Didja happen to notice, that the monthly accumulation of emails on the pipermail server, opened the "July" folder, with the first message that was dated "Thu Jul 1 01.41.00 UTC"? That is, sometime after 6PM Eastern Time. It's mildly annoying to be on Greenwich Mean Time from here from New Jersey. But it's a small matter. Regards, Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT comcast DOT net

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Off Topic - Possible fix of email body inside an attachment - Test
by Douglas Crawford 30 Jun '21

30 Jun '21

I use thunderbird email client, and apparently all my message bodies are attached instead of in-line. I have just switched for this recipient to be text only. Would one person please respond if this message is in the body rather than included as an attachment?

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Oregon Trail
by Duane Craps 28 Jun '21

28 Jun '21

Back during the Oregon Trail anniversary. People were talking about running DOS to run it. I assembled a source I found with QB64 (a hobbyist Quick Basic clone). Seems to run OK. I'm not into text games so I have not thoroughly checked it out. Here is a link to the file in my dropbox : https://www.dropbox.com/s/y3qi21j5j266sx3/oregon.exe?dl=0 -- DuaneCraps sdɐɹɔ ǝuɐnp

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estate sale in RI
by W2HX 28 Jun '21

28 Jun '21

Mostly ham stuff but some vintage micros here and there: https://www.estatesales.net/RI/Providence/02904/2942061 73 Eugene W2HX

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First Request for Consignment Submissions for VCF East 2021
by Alexander Jacocks 27 Jun '21

27 Jun '21

All, If you're considering doing consignment at VCF East, please start filling out the consignment forms, located here: https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/vcf-east-cons… Please fill out the form and email it to vcfeast(a)vcfed.org, or if that's not possible, bring it with you to the event. Please do not do all your form filling at the event, as that will cause a lot of confusion for the consignment staff. It would help us greatly if you get those back to us as early as possible. Thanks! - Alex

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