RE: The "Offended" re-replies....
Judy, Without going into excruciatingly boring detail, using a PC spam filter and/or ISP spam filter is an absolute must for Microsoft users. Trust me I do everything I can to ward off dangerous e-mails. As obnoxious as spamenators can be, they do have a legitimate purpose. And no we can't use the UNIX tools that you do (although there is a PC version of Pine). For me personally I quit using Pine many many years ago and never looked back. Figuratively speaking, if Microsoft didn't have their head up their collective hard drive they could solve this problem. In their defense they do make security patches available frequently (and BTW there are tons of security patches that are issued for UNIX systems as well.) I am truly sorry that you don't engage the internet with a graphical user interface or modern e-mail clients, you are missing a lot. But back to the point, having your system corrupted by a worm or virus is a life altering event for most of us these days. I have over 1,000,000 files on my PC and trying to rebuild a corrupted system is usually impossible to do quickly and safely. Re-installing and restoring is also a bummer and usually means weeks of system rebuild and software re-installs. I can rebound from hardware failures with relative ease but virus infections are non-sequiturs even for the most geeky of us, resulting in man weeks of lost productivity and time. So please don't take these defenses personally, they aren't intended that way. Don Bryant -----Original Message----- From: Judy Seigel [mailto:jseigel@panix.com] Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 8:45 PM To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca Subject: Re: The "Offended" re-replies.... Dear all, I kind of dreaded logging on today, expecting I'd be trashed. So A), glad I wasn't and B), sometimes stuff needs saying. But let me point out two things. 1. In my opinion there's a matter of ethics involved. That is, to quote the ethicist for the ages, Emanual Kant, "Act so that the maxim of your action could be universal law." In other words, if every one of the subscribers to this list, all of whom must have a problem with spam, whatever the size of their penii, used a "blocker" similar to John's, the list would be unusable. Which is to say, this kind of "blocker" on a list of this sort, needs to be the exception not the rule. Kant would object, correctly IMO. 2. My system is crude, that is, dial up to a unix shell, writing in Pine, text only. So I'm a Neanderthal, but AFAIK, this list doesn't have to be schizophrenic, that is, if we love old processes we DON'T have to do it with broadband. My digitons already torment me nigh unto death, I don't deal with them more than absolutely essential -- and I'm otherwise preoccupied at present. BUT -- the Spam filter offered by Panix has been, as noted, very effective. Today, for instance, I had only one Spam (after, if memory serves, 2 days). I believe their website is reachable by the public.. (I'm not sure I could get there again -- my entire computer is in extremis, sending me ominous messages at odd moments & crashing me 20 times per hour. I know I have to deal with it, and I will -- when book is at the printer.) But, is there some reason why a filter like this doesn't work for most people? I also had a filter for the Post-Factory ISP (a different one at the time), very effective too. The arrangement there was that Spam went to a folder which I checked every few days -- there would be 70 or 80 e-mails in it, none of which I ever wanted to read. I also note that I got several inquiries about Post-Factory from folks who neglected to notify their Spam blocker, so I got a notice similar to the current one. I figured they were too stupid to appreciate great literature & left it at that. Anyway, John, sorry if I was overwrought... It's been that kind of a year. But kudos to you for the mea culpa... best, Judy
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