What *is it* with the thin skins around here? I read someone just expressing his perspective, his "personal preference based on his style" as you put it; I didn't read any cavalier condescension, judgments, "dismissing or marginalizing" other folks' perspectives, or anything that justifies calling him a "jerk" as in J.W.'s post.
Do these things invariably have to elicit defensive ad hominem and straw man arguments? Aside from those, I find your post below as valid and interesting as the OP's and although I see some things differently I don't feel insulted or condescended to in the least. If I say that I personally don't see any point today in laboriously using Pine and my 8x40 display M100 (or Chuck's Kobo ;-) to read my email (even though I did actually use an M100 back in the 80's), does that really automatically imply that I think that anyone who does get a kick out of that sort of thing is an imbecile and that I'm smarter or better somehow than they are? m ----- Original Message ----- From: "Swift Griggs" <swiftgri...@gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk@classiccmp.org> Sent: Friday, April 22, 2016 1:47 PM Subject: Re: shell accounts [was RE: strangest systems I've sent email from] > On Thu, 21 Apr 2016, Tony Aiuto wrote: >> Actually, I don't get this discussion at all. > > Okay, well you are entitled to your view, just like the rest of us, > obviously. However, a bit less caviler condescension might lubricate the > discussion more effectively. > >> I had a panix account years ago. About the same time I ran a FULL suite >> of servers in my basement, DNS, STMP, HTTP & mailman. > > I don't run a "full suite of servers". I run an SGI Challenge S that runs > on minimal power (about 14-30W most of the time, thus sayeth my > Kill-a-watt meter). It's the only system in my entire constellation of > systems that stays on all the time. At my electricity rates, it costs me > about four to eight dollars a year. So, it's not like it requires a full > rack of mainframes spinning the meter and burning a hole in my pocket. > It's likely _less_ than I'd pay to get decent hosted + managed version of > the same service. I use free dyndns so I don't even pay a NIC. I guess I > could hook up an old AMD Geode board or use a RPI+ or something and lower > my costs a bit more. > >> Then I realized that was just because I *could*, rather than I needed to >> or because it served any interesting historical purpose. I switched it >> all to outsourced services and never looked back. > > I don't trust corporations. Most of them are crooked as a dog's hind leg > and I have no doubt they'd do _anything_ with my data if it made them a > dollar (and that despite whatever they'd said or agreed to in the past). > I _know_ where *my* backups are and when they were last taken. I don't > have to depend that the low-paid foreigners working for some hosted > version of the service are actually rotating those tapes out of the silo > etc... I've worked for these people all my life (dirty corporations) and > I know how the sausage is made, unfortunately. > >> The bottom line is that what i really care about is the beauty of old >> hardware and the elegance of software that had to run in that limited >> environment. > > Cool, but that's definitely just your personal preference based on your > own style, not some immutable logic which failed to make itself apparent > to me in the same epiphany you experienced. If someone else gets a kick > out of running an old application, what is the harm in that? > >> The speed/cost/accuracy tradeoff is the essence of software engineering. > > I respectfully disagree. Creativity and problem solving are the essence > of all engineering, in my opinion. The tradeoffs you mention are simple > considerations that factor into a constellation of variables leading to a > finished effort. > >> If I read information about it with Lynx rather than a modern browser, I >> only penalize myself. > > Again, that's your style and your preference. I have vision problems. I > often read pages in elinks (I dislike lynx) for the purpose of having > strict control over the fonts without having to create CSS, faster load > times, exclusion of advertisements, availability over text-only > connections such as ssh or telnet for testing sites from alternate > locations, and finally so I can focus on the content to the exclusion of > any surrounding graphics. That's just a few of many reasons folks use text > browsers. > >> I reduce my bandwidth for some abstract notion of "purity". > > That's not at all what I'm thinking when I do it (regularly). > >> Look at it this way. Archeologists care about history, but they are smart >> enough to realize they don't have to write their papers in charcoal on >> cave walls. > > If they did write it on a cave wall they might have a prayer of someone > finding it 10,000 years from now. They will likely store them on digital > media that will be worthless in less than 100 years if some corporate > dirtbag doesn't deign to store them on their $$$-only server. If it's > "cloud" storage, then it'd go away as soon as they quit paying. If it was > CDROM, Floppy, HDD etc.. it'll degrade. So, to extend your analogy, > perhaps the Archaeologist should consider using a medium that might see > their work survive to be meaningful far into the future. That might be a > MOdisc or it might be a clay tablet. One size does not fit all when humans > are involved since they all have different needs and preferences. The > reason we know more about the Babylonians versus some much newer literate > cultures is that they wrote on stone (clay) tablets. Laugh all you want > (privately, please) at the "luddites" but it worked for them, and > continues to do so. > >> Do not conflate the subject matter with the medium to talk about it. > > Frankly, I find your advice condescending and bereft of merit. I disagree > that is was what we were doing in our discussion. > >> I love ancient hardware, and I will use the best tools I have available to >> talk about it. > > "Best" != Newest. I can ssh into my place from anywhere and read my mail > faster than using webmail (no contest, there are no graphics, and ssh keys > get me in hyper-fast). What's best for you isn't always going to best for > me or others and visa-versa. > >> Limiting myself to shell accounts and elm as a mail reader misses the >> point. > > At best, it misses your point from your perspective. You seem to be > completely dismissing and marginalizing folks who have some categorically > bulletproof reasoning to run older applications that you don't seem to > have considered at all. One of those reasons is "some people think it's > fun" and that's totally valid, too. Another (more common) reason is that > it's what they know. My father-in-law built a reproduction of a clock > from the 1600's and he used an _ancient_ version of IBM CAD for DOS to > design various parts since that's what he knew best and he already had an > interface built between IBM CAD and his milling machine. It turned out > wonderful and there wasn't any good reason why I should have stopped > marveling at the work he did to harangue him to "upgrade" to AutoCAD. > The _results_ matter far more than the tools, in my opinion. The > preferences of the people using the tools, matters, too. > > There is also the fact that some folks *like* using tools that might > actually be slower or less effective. I do woodworking 100% with hand > tools. It's MUCH slower than using power tools and often the results are > almost always less precise and sloppier than what a C&C rig could give me. > I could care less. I do it because it relaxes me and focuses my mind. > >> We *live* in 2016. We talk about 1970. > > Which has little or no bearing on any of your assertions. It's also > condescending which is counterproductive to moving a discussion toward a > meaningful destination. > >> Using technology from 1990 is neither historically accurate, nor useful. > > I believe you are wrong, on both points, sir. It's completely > historically accurate since they are the exact digital duplicates (or > originals) running in many cases on the exact hardware. How is that > inaccurate in the slightest way besides the fact that it's not 1990 ? > > Your second point that it's not useful leaves me stunned at the factual > bankruptcy of the statement. Do you have any idea how much "legacy" tech > is still out there doing both trivial and critical jobs? Things that you > depend on every day like power and water are most likely operated in large > part on "historical" applications. I won't bother making a list, since I > doubt the list-server is going to accept a 100MB email. > > Did you know that George RR Martin writes all his books using a DOS > machine running Wordstar? Do you think he'd have turned out better work > fighting the paper clip in MS Word ? Will you eschew his work since he > used a not "useful" application to create it ? > > -Swift >