The great thing about standards is there are so many of them, you get to pick your own

While we are on a sequence of tech-ish posts, here is another one. Followed by usual nonsense.

Techies who want to try and make a name for themselves have started some email standards projects. Whoop-de-do, you all say. At last. But hold on a minute. The telling phrase is The project was formed out of frustration with the inconsistent rendering of HTML emails in major email clients. Hello? What does rendering have to do with email standards? That is an application issue, nothing to do with headers, HELO or stupidly long disclaimer sigs. Or am I just missing the point? But they do seem to be conflating several ideas here. Although how they could conflate one idea is left to the reader to decide, as long as they don’t decide on pointing out redundant sentence construction.

After all that, they don’t even rate my client of choice, mutt. So does it render HTML properly then? Well, I use an external web client, so yes, yes it does.

Of course, my standard disclaimer is that I am probably not the target audience. I don’t feel the need to involve myself in pointless updates and upgrades for the sake of them being there. YMMV.

People: You need a new phone!
Me: My eight year old phone still works, receives calls and texts.

People: You need a new iPod!
Me: My three year old model holds and plays music, and hooks in to Caitlin as well.

People: You need a new load of pedals and outboard gear
Me: Err, why yes, yes I do.

Need is a very misused word these days.

I have nothing against consumerism. In fact, I positively endorse it. It is just I am probably not your best choice as a what-the-populous-want barometer. (Editor’s note: This looks like it is about to descend into another why-Statism-is-bad rant, a socialism-is-the-greatest-evil soliloquy. I shall try to steer a course away from that.)

As opposed to trying to educate people that collectivism is bad, I shall just …

Collaborate and listen