Backup Mail Server Questions

[Danny MacMillan]

On Mon, Sep 27, 2004 at 01:38:15PM -0600, Bill Moran wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> When I have a choice of punishing idiots or smart people, I punish
> idiots.

This is excellent.  It should be on a bumper sticker or something.

> <snip>
>
> Look at the vehicle situation.  If people would force stupid drivers
> to wise up, instead of trying to cover up their stupidity with airbags,
> we'd have a lot less deaths due to vehicle accidents.

Another bumper sticker:  "Airbags:  The Backup Mail Exchangers of the
Automobile Industry"  You could probably add a couple of {fnord}s in
there for good measure.

> <snip>
> 
> Others would rather just have their doctor prescribe something when thier
> shitty diet makes them sick.  Then I have to pay the elevated health
> insurance costs ... now they want to turn the US into a socialized
> medicin country, so every citizen is _forced_ to pay for all the people
> who don't take care of themselves.

Speaking as a citizen of a country that has socialized medicine (Canada),
I can say that the expense probably does not nearly approach what you
think.  I compared notes with an American friend just the other day.  She
pays in a month what I pay in a year.  I think our health care is
subdisized by our income tax (we pay much more than you Americans as I
understand it) but even that probably doesn't make up the difference.

That having been said, I do agree with your point as it relates to
user education, simply because by adopting a policy of misinforming users
you are committing yourself to maintaining a more and more elaborate
structure of, essentially, lies.  Reductio ad absurdum &c.  Better to let
them know off the bat what the limitations are.

Example:  Users already have a completely unjustified perception of
email as being a reliable and immediate transmission medium, which it
clearly is not.  Since users are the ones who will have to bear the cost
when reality pays them a wake-up call, it serves everyone to disabuse them
of this notion as quickly as possible.  Gently if you have to, rudely if
you can.  :)

> <snip>
> 
> --
> Bill Moran
> Potential Technologies
> http://www.potentialtech.com

-- 
Danny