Braintube » thinking

Posting Styles

Matthew — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 01:57:14 +0000

The keepers of netiquette, have long fought over the correct way to reply to email, mailing list,forum, usenet, etc.. messages. Even though I almost always top or inline post, bottom posting is frequently expounded by digerati as the most appropriate and logical way to reply. Well this week I think I’ve come across what might be the definitive reason(at least for me) that top posting is in fact the one true way.

On a mailing list for a project I run, a list subscriber requested that replies sent to the list be top posted instead of bottom/inline. The subscriber happened to be vision impaired and it said that it was extremely difficult to follow a thread when his screen reader had to dig through all the extra/old text to find the new content in the reply.

So at least for me, until someone comes up with a screen reader that can deal with large amount of quoted text easily or somehow “skip to the content” in mail messages, I will stick with top posting and the rare occurrence that I need to inline post to clarify something.

Honda Fuel Cell

Matthew — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:26:06 +0000

Why am I just hearing about this now? I would have thought a commercially viable fuel cell vehicle to be big news. I do have some fear of that big pressurized tank of H in the trunk, however.

Steak Night

Matthew — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:52:45 +0000

It’s been a while since we’ve had an official “steak night”(nudge nudge, brian, poke poke) and I’ve been wanting to try this trick, so I broke down and cooked up to London Broil tonight. I can say without a doubt the “trick” works and the Broil was some of the best I’ve had.

Blade Runner

Matthew — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:49:24 +0000

Missed seeing it in the theater, I guess I was too young at the time and I think it only ran for like a week, but it totally blew me away the first time I saw it on TV.

“For the new director’s cut, the special-effects footage was digitally scanned at 8,000 lines per frame, four times the resolution of most restorations, and then meticulously retouched. The results look almost 3-D”… from the NYTimes

Man I wish it was playing somewhere close this time around.