NEWS FLASH!

[Trevor Smith]

On Fri, 15 Sep 2000 19:30:28 -0400, Larry Ebbitt wrote:

>I can't in anyway see that screwing up email with
>a bunch of useless eye candy is any sort of evolution. At the moment, I'm

Well, evolution works in *all* directions simultaneously. Only a
minute fraction of mutations prove beneficial. Natural selection,
OTOH, is the term for the process by which beneficial mutations get
propagated.

Now if only this clearly misshappen mutation called HTML email would
just die like it should, we could evolve a better, cleaner email
markup language.

Unfortunately, sometimes "good enough" mutations also take off, just
by plain luck or lack of competition and then when better ones come
along, they get drowned out in the mass of mediocrity. Evolution,
after all, is a statistical thing and not all beneficial mutations
can be guaranteed success. There's also some luck involved in the
initial generations.

>stuck with Netscape for email on Linux, so I see plenty of HTML email, and 
>I hate it.  It takes extra time, extra bandwidth, and extra disk space. It
>adds nothing of any value to me.  Things are more difficult to read, not
>improved. I have no desire to e4volve that way, I want things to be
>improved.

You know what? Even when I'm using PMMail 2K where I could
potentially see the HTML email, I don't think I've ever received one
that was specifically sent to me. I've seen lots of spam with HTML
(just deleted two a few minutes ago) but can't remember ever getting
even *ONE* legitimate mail from a friend, associate, acquaintance,
relative, etc. with HTML in it.

I'm sure I *must* have gotten some sometime but just can't remember.

Oh wait, I think some commercial mail I get (like from record stores
or online book stores, etc.) might have HTML in it.

What does that tell you about how useful the "average" person finds
HTML email? Seriously, it's a joke that we argue about this so much.
The only people who really want to send HTML in email are probably
people trying to sell you something.

Like many people on this list, I get quite a bit of email, so this
isn't like me saying, "my 3 friends and my aunt Jenny never send me
HTML email and I get, oh, at least 12 emails a month!" I'm talking
thousands of messages per month and literally (aside from spam) it
must be in the single digits the # of HTML email I get from
legitimate sources.

Maybe I tend to communicate with sensible people.


-- 
 Trevor Smith          |          trevor@haligonian.com
 PGP public key available at: www.haligonian.com/trevor