From: Allan Goodall <agoodall@a...>
Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:18:47 -0500
Subject: Attachments, HTML, and Some Digest Replies
As you probably know by now, I only get the digest of the list. It's readily noticeable that some of the members on the list have their e-mail programs set to send HTML. This is easy to do if you use AOL, Hotmail, or MS Outlook. The problem is that you end up sending your message twice, along with a lot of useless bumf. Not to name names, but here's a sample. The original, text version of a message included this: > In a message dated 10/5/04 2:01:00 AM,=20 Later on, the following was added to the message due to sending HTML, too: > - --part1_12b.4d44bc01.2e94189d_boundary FACE=3D"Gen= > eva" FAMILY=3D"SANSSERIF" SIZE=3D"2"><BR> 5px;=20= > MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px" TYPE=3D"CITE"></FONT><FONT I can't speak for all of us receiving the digest, but I know I would appreciate it if folks could turn off sending HTML to the mailing list. I know from past experience that most people don't know their e-mailer is doing it. On another topic, for two days now the digest received an e-mail from Doc Agren with the subject "[ft] Revised Viggen Spinal Mount" that seems to include an attachment. I don't know if the mailing list is filtering these out, but they are getting through to the digest. The GZG mailing list is a "no attachments" list. This has been the policy (mostly unofficially) since I joined back in '96. A lot of folks on the list are from outside of North America where they often have to pay per minute of connect time. Attachments, particularly of images, can cause all sorts of problems for people with slow dial up. Now that a buffer overflow exploit was found in the way some Microsoft (and other manufacturer) products handle JPEGs, and the first malicious use of JPEGs has been found "in the field", it's a good idea for security sake not to send pictures to the mailing list. The proper way to handle attachments is the way Indy did with SpaceshipOne pics: post them to a web site and point a URL there. A number of us on the list have space that we would happily allow mailing list folks to use on a temporary basis, and there are a number of free web hosting companies out there. While on the subject of Indy's pictures, I'd like to say "Thank you!" I missed seeing SpaceshipOne's flight on CNN at lunch by about a half an hour. It was great to see the shots from the flight. Not mentioned on the list, which was a little surprising, was the passing of Gordon Cooper, one of the "Original Seven". He had a history of heart problems and had suffered hear failure over the weekend. Ironically, he died the same day SpaceshipOne won the X Prize. The astronauts of my childhood are all getting up there in age, so their passing shouldn't be surprising, but somehow it still is. The remaining Original Seven are Scott M. Carpenter, John H. Glenn, and Walter M. Schirra, Jr.Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom died during the Apollo I fire. Donald K. "Deke" Slayton passed away in 1993, and Alan B. Shepherd, Jr.passed away in 1998. NASA maintains an astronaut biography site at: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/astrobio.html Just out of curiosity, I looked up the biographies of the deceased astronauts. Except for those who died in NASA service (the two shuttle crews, Apollo 1, and several in trainer accidents), 17 former astronauts have died. Six of them died from cancer, four in aircraft accidents, four from heart failure, one in an automobile accident, one in a motorcycle accident (Pete Conrad, one of my favorite Apollo astronauts), one from complications due to pancreatitis, and one due to heart and respiratory failure during a climb of Mt. Everest. I don't know why, but I thought I'd pass on that bit of morbid information. > From: Andy Cowell <andy@cowell.org> A friend of mine is writing an alternate history series set in a world where Napoleon died early, Britain took over the Louisiana Purchase land, and Canada extends down the west bank of the Mississippi. It covers an American Civil War set in 1850. I'm painting up some armies so that we can play out some of the battles in his novels. Piquet is great for this, as he is able to take Piquet events and twist them to suit the purposes of his narrative. Of course this can be done with other games, too. We played out one small battle using GDW's _Soldiers Companion_. At one point a company suffered an officer casualty. While taking notes, he looked up at me and said, "That company has one of the characters in the book. I wanted him to be wounded during the battle!" I smiled and said, "Looks like you just found out when it happened." It was a very enjoyable moment. > From: Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> Subject: [LST] was Re: The GZG > >...Chris/Laserlight (who explained to Doug the difference... Mea culpa! I actually intended to write Doug/Beast, but I got distracted and missed it! My apologies Doug/Beast! > From: Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> (Note: > if this already came up in the discussion, my apologies.) For some reason I'm having problems figuring this out. You mean you shuffle each player's deck, split out some cards (so you now have a total of four decks), and then draw only from a player's partial deck? I'm not sure how this would change things in Piquet. I'm probably just being dense today. > On another question: overwatch, in most games I've seen, is fairly People have tried systems where an entire action is held back, to be used any way they want. The argument against this is that it usually lets the unit with the held action react too much to the enemy. It doesn't represent realistic overwatch, where a unit is ordered to stay put and fire at targets of opportunity. It gives the unit a little too much flexibility. I don't know if this is a truly valid argument against it, or if it's just from a preconceived bias. Certainly just allowing a unit to hold an activation or an action is a simple solution. In some ways it may even be more realistic. Would an overwatching squad just sit still and fire if an entire brigade were bearing down on it, or would it take the opportunity to run? This is the sort of thing that is decided after playtesting. > From: Robert Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: The GZG Thank you. As I mentioned, I never had much of a problem leaving it optional. So, consider that idea "well playtested". ---