burton@fortune.UUCP (01/19/84)
#R:fortune:-229800:fortune:14500018:000:165 fortune!burton Jan 18 18:21:00 1984 John, An inspiring message. Especially the part about indoor toilets. Anyway, you didn't mention us SCREEN users. Are we beyond hope? Regards, Phil Burton
crane@fortune.UUCP (John Crane) (01/24/84)
It seems that whatever the means of communications there will always be
those who say the comm line is being abused. I notice that this is
particularly so with the network. Personally, I think the net is one of
the last free (meaning libertarian not costwise) means of communication
left in this society and as such should be open to all commers.
However, those who gripe about others clogging the net may have a valid
point when they look at a lot of the trashy-looking messages that come down
the pike.
Don't some of you people know what W H I T E S P A C E is?
How about breaking up some of the long paragraphs? How about evening up
some of those right margins?
A tab or return is only one character. Will you really begrudge
your reader a little less eyestrain as the cost of more machine and
storage efficiency? It's no longer true that machine time or most
costly than that of human beings?
This memo is written with the Rand editor and so has a built-in text
justification feature. If you are using this program put the cursor
somewhere in a paragraph and type:
<command> just n
Where "n" is the number of paragraphs. Default: 1. Or you can <mark> a
group of paragraphs and do a: <command> just.
If you are using vi, go to the start of the document and type: !]]fmt This
causes all the text from the cursor point to the end of the document to
pass through the filter "fmt". It doesn't justify, but it does even out
the right margin a little.
To those poor souls who insist on using ed: I would also like to introduce
you to sliced bread, indoor toilets, "talkies", and girls who do!
I suppose some people won't like this message. Could it be that they are
the worst offenders? The rest of the red-eyed audience out there in net-
land, however, are probably yawning in agreement and hoping those yokels
will learn what the rest of the keys on their terminal are for.
You know how to talk to the computer just fine. Now talk to the rest of
us.
| John "Presentation is as Important as Content" Crane |