"--All You Zombies--" title
Ross Presser
Heinlein story. It seemed to be a quotation, but what was he quoting
from?
Today I finally got it.
The story is quoting from itself. The beginning of the story, its
title, progresses from the body of the story -- the same way that the
beginning of the protagonist's life progresses from details of his
later life.
Form follows function.
Probably this was obvious to most of you already. But I felt proud of
myself for a few tenths of a second.
Dorothy J Heydt
Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I've experienced confusion and curiosity about the title of this
>Heinlein story. It seemed to be a quotation, but what was he quoting
>from?
>
>Today I finally got it.
>
>The story is quoting from itself. The beginning of the story, its
>title, progresses from the body of the story -- the same way that the
>beginning of the protagonist's life progresses from details of his
>later life.
Yes. "I know who I am -- Jane -- but where did all you
zombies come from?" Since every important figure in his life
has been himself.
>
>Form follows function.
>
>Probably this was obvious to most of you already. But I felt proud of
>myself for a few tenths of a second.
There were a whole lot of stories in the late fifties and
sixties -- a large percentage of them by Harlan Ellison --
that used an important line, and/or the last line of the
story, as title. I suppose everyone knows about "I Have No
Mouth and I Must Scream_, but there was also "I See a Man
Sitting On a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg."
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Ross Presser
> There were a whole lot of stories in the late fifties and sixties
> -- a large percentage of them by Harlan Ellison -- that used an
> important line, and/or the last line of the story, as title. I
> suppose everyone knows about "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream_,
> but there was also "I See a Man Sitting On a Chair, and the Chair
> Is Biting His Leg."
Yeah -- but the point that hit me over the head today is that
Heinlein actually made it significant. It's not just a Significant
Phrase From the Story; the whole concept of self-quoting IS to text
what self-engendering is for the protagonist.
As an additional measure of cleverness, he kept me wondering for
decades of my own life whether there was some other text he was
actually quoting from, like he did with the chapter titles in "Lost
Legacy". Puns always hit harder when you're not expecting them.
Bill Patterson
One of the things titles do is give you a clue how to read the story
-- what things are significant and pregnant. He did a lot of pun-
titles, but this one seems to capture some of the queasy-despair-
tragedy-horror of the mood.
Matthew Malthouse
Heydt) wrote:
> There were a whole lot of stories in the late fifties and
> sixties -- a large percentage of them by Harlan Ellison --
> that used an important line, and/or the last line of the
> story, as title. I suppose everyone knows about "I Have No
> Mouth and I Must Scream_, but there was also "I See a Man
> Sitting On a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg."
"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman?
Only right this moment I can't remember if that was a self-quotation.
Matthew
--
Mail to this account goes to the bit bucket.
In the unlikely event you want to mail me replace usenet with my name
Wayne Throop
: "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman?
My memory says it was.
"They used Raoul Mitgong, but he didn't help much."
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Howard Brazee
<WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>One of the things titles do is give you a clue how to read the story
>-- what things are significant and pregnant. He did a lot of pun-
>titles, but this one seems to capture some of the queasy-despair-
>tragedy-horror of the mood.
One thing I liked about "By His Bootstraps", is that often gets
overlooked is that he demonstrated that me in 20-30 years (past or
future) is not "me".
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
Bill Patterson
> On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:14:51 -0700 (PDT), Bill Patterson
>
Yeah. I kind of suspect he was planning to pull a "By His Bootstraps"
on the World As Myth books but died before he could finish the series.
Cryptoengineer
The central mcguffin of "Lost Legacy" (Atlantean/Lemurian sages living
in Mount Shasta) is clearly derivative of "A Dweller on Two Planets",
by Frederick Spencer Oliver (1894).
pt
P. Taine
wrote:
I just ordered a copy of "A Dweller on Two Planets". I had never heard of it
until I read (in "The Hindus" by Wendy Doniger) that some Tamils are claiming
that some part of other of southern India is really Lemuria, and referenced the
book. I haven't read "Lost Legacy", but it triggered memories of "I Remember
Lemuria" and the rest of the "Shaver Mysteries" from reading Amazing Stories in
my youth. I even realized that they weird at 10 or 11!
P. Taine
Endymion9
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:Kn5H8...@kithrup.com...
> In article
> <7703eaac-d669-4846...@k20g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>,
> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>I've experienced confusion and curiosity about the title of this
>>Heinlein story. It seemed to be a quotation, but what was he quoting
>>from?
>>
>>Today I finally got it.
>>
>>The story is quoting from itself. The beginning of the story, its
>>title, progresses from the body of the story -- the same way that the
>>beginning of the protagonist's life progresses from details of his
>>later life.
>
> Yes. "I know who I am -- Jane -- but where did all you
> zombies come from?" Since every important figure in his life
> has been himself.
The part that still confuses me, is who is the baby? I was expecting the
narrator/future time traveller to be the baby, but that was dispelled by the
line above, since the narrator is future Jane. The story tells us we should
be able to figure out who the baby is, but I'm lost. Help?
--
--
Dennis/Endy9
~Some will sink, but we will float. Grab your coat. Let's get out of here.
You're my witness, I'm your Mutineer.~ Warren Zevon
--
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<endym...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
>news:Kn5H8...@kithrup.com...
>> In article
>> <7703eaac-d669-4846...@k20g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>,
>> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>I've experienced confusion and curiosity about the title of this
>>>Heinlein story. It seemed to be a quotation, but what was he quoting
>>>from?
>>>
>>>Today I finally got it.
>>>
>>>The story is quoting from itself. The beginning of the story, its
>>>title, progresses from the body of the story -- the same way that the
>>>beginning of the protagonist's life progresses from details of his
>>>later life.
>>
>> Yes. "I know who I am -- Jane -- but where did all you
>> zombies come from?" Since every important figure in his life
>> has been himself.
>-snip-
>
>The part that still confuses me, is who is the baby? I was expecting the
>narrator/future time traveller to be the baby, but that was dispelled by the
>line above, since the narrator is future Jane. The story tells us we should
>be able to figure out who the baby is, but I'm lost. Help?
He's the baby, too. They're all the same person.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Mike Schilling
The baby grows up to be Jane.
The part I've never understood comes near the end, all about The
Mistake of '72 and how orders dated 1992 are the most important. Is
it meant to be too compressed to be comprehensible?
Lawrence Watt-Evans
I think that's just a throwaway, something to let us know there's a
lot of history here we aren't getting.
Endymion9
news:h9km65pj1kdr9sfcj...@news.eternal-september.org...
we know that. I did listen to the podcast, rather than read it. Maybe I'll
get a copy and read it to see what I missed.
Dorothy J Heydt
I think it's just miscellaneous back-filling (like "the door
dilated") meant to make the story more realistic (to the
extent that a time-travel story can be). It hints, though,
that either Jane did some other things in his time-travelling
career, or that somebody else did, mucking up the timelines
even among the time-travellers, so that certain versions of
reality have had to be declared superior to others.
At this point I cannot resist referencing Desmond Warzel's
story "Wikihistory," which you can read here.
http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
Dorothy J Heydt
Endymion9 <endym...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
>news:Kn5H8...@kithrup.com...
>> In article
>> <7703eaac-d669-4846...@k20g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>,
>> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>I've experienced confusion and curiosity about the title of this
>>>Heinlein story. It seemed to be a quotation, but what was he quoting
>>>from?
>>>
>>>Today I finally got it.
>>>
>>>The story is quoting from itself. The beginning of the story, its
>>>title, progresses from the body of the story -- the same way that the
>>>beginning of the protagonist's life progresses from details of his
>>>later life.
>>
>> Yes. "I know who I am -- Jane -- but where did all you
>> zombies come from?" Since every important figure in his life
>> has been himself.
>-snip-
>
>The part that still confuses me, is who is the baby? I was expecting the
>narrator/future time traveller to be the baby, but that was
>dispelled by the
>line above, since the narrator is future Jane. The story tells us
>we should
>be able to figure out who the baby is, but I'm lost. Help?
The narrator is also the baby.
S/he was born of a peculiar form of incest and left in an
orphanage. She grew up and was seduced by a mysterious man
who got her pregnant. In the hospital, the medical staff
discovered that her female organs had been badly damaged
by the delivery, but also that she was a theoretically
functional hermaphrodite; they performed the necessary
surgery and made him a functional male. Meanwhile, somebody
stole the baby from the nursery. He found a way of making
a scant living by writing unwed-mother stories for confession
magazines. One day the barkeep at a pub he frequented lured
him into a time machine and took him back several years where
he met a pretty girl and went to bed with her. The barkeep
then picked him up again and recruited him into the
time-traveling organization, then went back to the time of
the birth and stole the baby and put her in the orphanage.
A number of (subjectively measured) years later he went back
and got a job as a barkeep, biding time till it was time to
kidnap himself, transport himself back a generation and let
him seduce himself and get himself pregnant with himself.
No wonder that at the end of the story he says, I know who
*I* am, but who are all you other people?
EVERYBODY in the story (except the medical staff and other
spear-carriers) are the same person at different stages of a
timeline more thoroughly twisted than David Bowman's or even
Bob Wilson's.*
*The protagonist of "By His Bootstraps," also by Heinlein.
Endymion9
dissecting the movie "Primer" and when I heard this story on Escape Pod,
knew he would find it interesting and made him a copy. I'm sure we will be
discussing it at work and I'll bring alone your analysis!
Endymion9
That wiki is hilarious!
Dorothy J Heydt
Isn't it? I love it to pieces and have so far bookmarked it
on three successive computers.
Dorothy J Heydt
Endymion9 <endym...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Thanks for the detailed analysis Dorothy! A friend at work and I have been
>dissecting the movie "Primer" and when I heard this story on Escape Pod,
>knew he would find it interesting and made him a copy. I'm sure we will be
>discussing it at work and I'll bring alone your analysis!
You're welcome. I think this is a prime example of how
something can be blindingly obvious to A while B, of equal or
greater intelligence, can't figure it out nohow.
I understand there are still lots of people who haven't
figured out _2001._
Mike Schilling
> Dorothy,
> That wiki is hilarious!
Yeah, it's terrific. It captures the bureaucratic self-righteousness
of the Wikipediods perfectly.
Dan Swartzendruber
> In article <6bmdnQi7bN2kw_bX...@giganews.com>,
> Endymion9 <endym...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >Thanks for the detailed analysis Dorothy! A friend at work and I have been
> >dissecting the movie "Primer" and when I heard this story on Escape Pod,
> >knew he would find it interesting and made him a copy. I'm sure we will be
> >discussing it at work and I'll bring alone your analysis!
>
> You're welcome. I think this is a prime example of how
> something can be blindingly obvious to A while B, of equal or
> greater intelligence, can't figure it out nohow.
>
> I understand there are still lots of people who haven't
> figured out _2001._
What, specifically?
lal_truckee
>
> Help?
Lot's of help was offered, but I didn't see a reference to the timeline ...
<http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/works/shortstories/images/Zombies.gif>
lal_truckee
> ...
>
> S/he was born of a peculiar form of incest ...
Incest or masturbation?
Dorothy J Heydt
They're still asking, what are the black monoliths? what went
wrong with HAL? Why does Bowman keep seeing himself in the
bedroom?
Simon Slavin
<h9km65pj1kdr9sfcj...@news.eternal-september.org>Lawrence
Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
> <endym...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> The part that still confuses me, is who is the baby? I was
>> expecting the� narrator/future time traveller to be the baby, but
>> that was dispelled by the� line above, since the narrator is future
>> Jane. The story tells us we should� be able to figure out who the
>> baby is, but I'm lost. Help?
> He's the baby, too. They're all the same person.
List all the people mentioned (not just appearing) in the story.
Nowidentify which ones are not the protagonist.
Simon.
--
I'm using an evaluation license of nemo since 208 days.
You should really try it!
http://www.malcom-mac.com/nemo
Simon Slavin
Schilling"<mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> The part I've never understood comes near the end, all about The
> Mistake of '72 and how orders dated 1992 are the most important. Is
Pretend it's entirely true and relevant. What does it tell you about
the story ? How could a mistake at some date lead 20 years later to
something so important that clearing it up takes precedence over
everything else ?What else in the story takes about 20 years.
You can guess a certain amount from that passage and when it's
mentioned. Not conclusive, but suggestive.
Howard Brazee
Heydt) wrote:
>>Dorothy,
>>That wiki is hilarious!
>
>Isn't it? I love it to pieces and have so far bookmarked it
>on three successive computers.
I'm not finding it in this thread. Could you post the URL again?
Howard Brazee
Heydt) wrote:
>You're welcome. I think this is a prime example of how
>something can be blindingly obvious to A while B, of equal or
>greater intelligence, can't figure it out nohow.
>
>I understand there are still lots of people who haven't
>figured out _2001._
Weird. And lots of people had trouble with _Total Recall_. They
don't have trouble with the purposeful taking out of something too big
to fit in his nose, and don't recognize that as a clue.
Dorothy J Heydt
Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:49:04 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>>Dorothy,
>>>That wiki is hilarious!
>>
>>Isn't it? I love it to pieces and have so far bookmarked it
>>on three successive computers.
>
>I'm not finding it in this thread. Could you post the URL again?
http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
Linda Taber
> In article <vman65l1lubllm4h08dlianlabo2aiv...@4ax.com>,
> Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:49:04 GMT, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
> >Heydt) wrote:
>
> >>>Dorothy,
> >>>That wiki is hilarious!
>
> >>Isn't it? I love it to pieces and have so far bookmarked it
> >>on three successive computers.
>
> >I'm not finding it in this thread. Could you post the URL again?
>
> http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
>
> Dorothy J. Heydt
> Vallejo, California
> djheydt at hotmail dot com
> Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
> Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Great! I e-mailed the url to sister and daughter, both of whom read
the right sorts of things. This discussion of AYZ comes close upon my
first reading of _The Little Book_, which immediately struck me as
"AYZ" meets _Time and Again_.
Doug
Mike Schilling
> In article <h4fjp5$kir$1...@news.eternal-september.org> "Mike
> Schilling"<mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> The part I've never understood comes near the end, all about The
>> Mistake of '72 and how orders dated 1992 are the most important. Is
>> it meant to be too compressed to be comprehensible?
>
> Pretend it's entirely true and relevant. What does it tell you
> about
> the story ? How could a mistake at some date lead 20 years later to
> something so important that clearing it up takes precedence over
> everything else ?What else in the story takes about 20 years.
The answer to the last question is obvious, but please elaborate on
the others..
Jack Bohn
>In article <MPG.24d531377b946872989841@localhost>,
>Dan Swartzendruber <dsw...@druber.com> wrote:
>>In article <KnCsC...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com says...
>>> You're welcome. I think this is a prime example of how
>>> something can be blindingly obvious to A while B, of equal or
>>> greater intelligence, can't figure it out nohow.
>>>
>>> I understand there are still lots of people who haven't
>>> figured out _2001._
>>
>>What, specifically?
>
>They're still asking, what are the black monoliths? what went
>wrong with HAL? Why does Bowman keep seeing himself in the
>bedroom?
How did protohumans have a chimpanzee baby?
Why did old, bedridden Bowman whisper "Rosebud" before he dropped
and shattered the last monolith?
--
-Jack
William December Starr
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
> I understand there are still lots of people who haven't figured
> out _2001._
And I repeat, why was the several-decades-older Bowman wandering
around the hotel suite *in his spacesuit*? With a side order of "Oh
yes he was too."
-- wds
Keith F. Lynch
> At this point I cannot resist referencing Desmond Warzel's
> story "Wikihistory," which you can read here.
> http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
This is yet another page which gives a "406 Not Acceptable" error when
viewed with the Lynx browser. This error is trivial to work around
once you know the trick, which is to change the user agent string with
the -useragent switch. It doesn't much matter what you change it to.
Maybe set it to something humorous or insulting.
Another example of this is the Worldcon's site,
http://anticipationsf.ca/. Most of the pages work anyway, despite
giving you that error, but some don't. For instance the Hugo voting
page did not. I reported this to them, but got no response.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Dorothy J Heydt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>> At this point I cannot resist referencing Desmond Warzel's
>> story "Wikihistory," which you can read here.
>
>> http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
>
>This is yet another page which gives a "406 Not Acceptable" error when
>viewed with the Lynx browser. This error is trivial to work around
>once you know the trick, which is to change the user agent string with
>the -useragent switch. It doesn't much matter what you change it to.
>Maybe set it to something humorous or insulting.
Sorry, Keith. I have no idea how to do what you're talking
about. Does anybody else? Can someone with more computer-fu
than I have, figure out how to fix the link (I nearly typed
lynk) for Keith's benefit?
Keith F. Lynch
> Sorry, Keith. I have no idea how to do what you're talking about.
> Does anybody else?
Instead of typing
lynx http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
at the command line, you can type
lynx -useragent fubar http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
> Can someone with more computer-fu than I have, figure out how to fix
> the link (I nearly typed lynk) for Keith's benefit?
It's not for my benefit, but for the benefit of those Lynx users who
don't know this trick. It's not as if the error message gave the
user any useful hints. In full, the error message is:
Alert!: HTTP/1.1 406 Not Acceptable
406 Not Acceptable
Not Acceptable
An appropriate representation of the requested resource
/200710-wikihistory.html could not be found on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to
use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/2.2.10 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.10 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 DAV/2
mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635
PHP/4.4.9 Server at www.abyssandapex.com Port 80
This error message is not at all helpful.
There is of course no good reason why it should reject Lynx.
Especially when it works fine with Lynx when the user agent string
is set to almost anything else whatsoever.
Mike Schilling
Presumably the toolkit used to construct that page can create HTML
that isn't Lynx-compatible, though it didn't in this case. When it
sees a useragent string it doesn't recognize, it assumes it's a
browser created in the 21st century that can understand the version of
HTML it uses.
pan
The URIs work with W3m.
In lynx.cfg you can set HTTP_USER_AGENT in the
LYNXCGI_ENVIRONMENT section.
No need to type it out on the Go line then.
Wayne Throop
: Instead of typing
:
: lynx http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
:
: at the command line, you can type
:
: lynx -useragent fubar http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
Or, type
links http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
( though of course by "type" I mean "type 'links' and paste in the url"
( does anybody type unaided at a command lin in this day and age? ) )
The links browser does a better job than lynx, for most things.
And doesn't have such a gawd-awful choice of colorcoding by default.
Though I suppose if you want REALLY REALLY dead simple, then lynx is
your pidgin; links tries to get all fancy-schmancy and deal with tables
and such, as well as one can in a dumb(ish) terminal.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Dorothy J Heydt
This is all getting very reminiscent of an exchange we had
back in 2000 on rasseff, when I was complaining about all the
flashy advertising that came up on the Web when I was trying
to find something else. I've learned to ignore it now, but
at the time I found it horribly distracting and I got into a
long argument with Gary Farber who kept telling me I could
search on Yahoo for ad-blocking software and it was so
SIMPLE, ANYbody could do it, you aren't STUPID, are you?
Anyway, this is that all over again, with Keith telling me to
something I Do Not Understand. This time around I'm not
gonna argue.
But I'll quote what I said at the time.
>Gary really *IS* speaking Outer Mongolian. He's been
>speaking it for several years and although he still has
>an accent, other speakers can understand him. But,
>because it's not his native language and because he isn't
>a professional Outer Mongolian bard, he assumes that
>everyone he meets here in Manchuria, not far from the
>Outer Mongolian border, speaks it at least as well or
>better than he does.
>
>Stretching the analogy to breaking point....
>
>So here I come, and I don't speak Outer Mongolian, I barely
>speak Manchurian, and I'm complaining about those nasty
>little flies I run into every time I go to Outer Mongolia,
>and he says, "Oh, the paddy flies? All you have to do is
>burn zwoot on the household altar."
>
>I say, "I don't think we have a household altar, and what's
>zwoot?"
>
>........
>
>Many, many misunderstandings later, we finally figure out
>that what's been bothering me is not paddy flies but house
>flies, which he doesn't even notice because they don't sting,
>and anyway the remedy for *them* is not to burn zwoot on
>the household altar but to sacrifice a gledehopper and
>bury it under the threshold.
>
>By which time Gary is in despair over how dense I am and I am
>three-quarters decided never to try visiting Outer Mongolia
>again.
Not this time.
Wayne Throop
: This is all getting very reminiscent of an exchange we had
: back in 2000 on rasseff, when I was complaining about all the
: flashy advertising that came up on the Web when I was trying
: to find something else. I've learned to ignore it now, but
: at the time I found it horribly distracting and I got into a
: long argument with Gary Farber who kept telling me I could
: search on Yahoo for ad-blocking software and it was so
: SIMPLE, ANYbody could do it, you aren't STUPID, are you?
Well..... except that in this case, he's not saying
"you could do this", he's saying "if anybody is using lynx
as a browser and has a problem with this web site, then *they*
could do this".
Sort of like "all you Noo Yawkers out there might could try
this nifty diner I found" Anybody not from there, shrug.
Except of course, there are probably many times the number
of NYers in this newsgroup audience than frequent lynx users.
I'm guessing, but probably.
ANYways, anybody not from lynxland, hit the metaphorical "n", etc.
Charlton Wilbur
DJH> Sorry, Keith. I have no idea how to do what you're talking
DJH> about. Does anybody else?
He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to serve
content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround, and complaining
as if this were a personal affront to him.
Charlton
--
Charlton Wilbur
cwi...@chromatico.net
Dorothy J Heydt
Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
>>>>>> "DJH" == Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> writes:
>
> DJH> Sorry, Keith. I have no idea how to do what you're talking
> DJH> about. Does anybody else?
>
>He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to serve
>content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround, and complaining
>as if this were a personal affront to him.
*sigh*
Am I to understand (a) that this workaround is one he
understands and (b) the said workaround is one he can apply
to an URL given him?
OK. In that case, as my daughter is wont to say, it's not my
brain tumor.
Keith F. Lynch
> He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to
> serve content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround,
> and complaining as if this were a personal affront to him.
Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. I was under the
impression that I was providing helpful advice to Lynx users who might
want to view that website, the Worldcon's website, or other websites
that have the same bug. I learn something new every day.
Keith F. Lynch
> Presumably the toolkit used to construct that page can create HTML
> that isn't Lynx-compatible, though it didn't in this case. When
> it sees a useragent string it doesn't recognize, it assumes it's a
> browser created in the 21st century that can understand the version
> of HTML it uses.
Possibly. But in the one case where I contacted the hosting company
about this bug and got a response, they claimed it was to block Lynx
because some people were somehow using Lynx to break in.
This seems as bizarre as permanently closing an Interstate highway
because bank robbers had once or twice used it to get to or from their
crime scene. And completely pointless, since clever malicious people
are more likely to know that they can get around the block by changing
the useragent string that are legitimate users. It's like a lock that
keeps out the homeowner and his guests, but doesn't stop burglars.
There's no point in blocking Lynx from a page that may or may not be
compatible with Lynx. Give an opaque error message to safeguard the
user from the risk of encountering a different opaque error message?
What next, a web filter that prevents anyone from seeing web pages in
French in case they might not be able to read that language and might
be permanently traumatized by seeing it? Zut alors!
Wayne Throop
: I was under the impression that I was providing helpful advice to Lynx
: users who might want to view that website, the Worldcon's website, or
: other websites that have the same bug.
Well, not a bug so much as a wart. Or perhaps a misfeature.
In any event, it is likely an intended behavior of the site,
wrong-headed as it may be.
--- http://catb.org/jargon/html/W/wart.html
--- http://catb.org/jargon/html/M/misfeature.html
Wayne Throop
: Possibly. But in the one case where I contacted the hosting company
: about this bug and got a response, they claimed it was to block Lynx
: because some people were somehow using Lynx to break in.
Pffft. Anything you can do with lynx in terms of web site hacking
can be done with a perl script. Or even a shell script with netcat.
Or a shell script and telnet, for that matter.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
>> He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to
>> serve content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround,
>> and complaining as if this were a personal affront to him.
>
>Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. I was under the
>impression that I was providing helpful advice to Lynx users who might
>want to view that website, the Worldcon's website, or other websites
>that have the same bug. I learn something new every day.
I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still enough
Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Frank Mayhar
> On 26 Jul 2009 22:41:06 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net>
> wrote:
>
>>Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
>>> He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to serve
>>> content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround, and
>>> complaining as if this were a personal affront to him.
>>
>>Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. I was under the
>>impression that I was providing helpful advice to Lynx users who might
>>want to view that website, the Worldcon's website, or other websites
>>that have the same bug. I learn something new every day.
>
> I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still enough
> Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
Yes.
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/info/people/raman/raman.html
--
Frank Mayhar fr...@exit.com http://www.exit.com/
http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/
http://www.zazzle.com/fmayhar*
Dorothy J Heydt
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On 26 Jul 2009 22:41:06 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
>>> He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to
>>> serve content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround,
>>> and complaining as if this were a personal affront to him.
>>
>>Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. I was under the
>>impression that I was providing helpful advice to Lynx users who might
>>want to view that website, the Worldcon's website, or other websites
>>that have the same bug. I learn something new every day.
>
>I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still enough
>Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
I have no idea how many there are.
Hal comments, "The trouble is that lynx is about fifteen
years out of date; there may still be people maintaining it
(I wouldn't be surprised); but the Web has moved on."
pan
>> On 26 Jul 2009 22:41:06 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
>>>> He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to
>>>> serve content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround,
>>>> and complaining as if this were a personal affront to him.
>>>
>>> Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. I was under the
>>> impression that I was providing helpful advice to Lynx users who
>>> might want to view that website, the Worldcon's website, or other
>>> websites that have the same bug. I learn something new every day.
>>
>> I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still
>> enough
>> Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
>>
It's useful if you want to check if a website is machine readable
for the blind.
Charlton Wilbur
LWE> I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still
LWE> enough Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
There aren't; but Keith is one of them, and he likes to make noise.
Mike Schilling
> This is all getting very reminiscent of an exchange we had
> back in 2000 on rasseff, when I was complaining about all the
> flashy advertising that came up on the Web when I was trying
> to find something else. I've learned to ignore it now, but
> at the time I found it horribly distracting and I got into a
> long argument with Gary Farber who kept telling me I could
> search on Yahoo for ad-blocking software and it was so
> SIMPLE, ANYbody could do it, you aren't STUPID, are you?
>
> Anyway, this is that all over again, with Keith telling me to
> something I Do Not Understand.
Keith's giving advice to others who use the same anciest browser he
does. Since that page already works for you, you're not in his target
audience. Nor should you care one way or the other about what I
wrote, which is in defense of people who can't be bothered to ensure
that the few die-hards like Keith can read their pages easily.
Really, feel free to ignore the rest of this (I can see, already
protracted) discussion.
Mike Schilling
> Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Presumably the toolkit used to construct that page can create HTML
>> that isn't Lynx-compatible, though it didn't in this case. When
>> it sees a useragent string it doesn't recognize, it assumes it's a
>> browser created in the 21st century that can understand the version
>> of HTML it uses.
>
> Possibly. But in the one case where I contacted the hosting company
> about this bug and got a response, they claimed it was to block Lynx
> because some people were somehow using Lynx to break in.
Yeah, that rates hanging up on them immediately, possibly preceded by
"I'm sorry, I was hoping to speak to someone who wasn't a moron."
Mike Schilling
> In article
> <4e8q655s823l9vgck...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>> On 26 Jul 2009 22:41:06 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch"
>> <k...@KeithLynch.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
>>>> He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to
>>>> serve content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround,
>>>> and complaining as if this were a personal affront to him.
>>>
>>> Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. I was under the
>>> impression that I was providing helpful advice to Lynx users who
>>> might want to view that website, the Worldcon's website, or other
>>> websites that have the same bug. I learn something new every day.
>>
>> I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still
>> enough Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
>
> I have no idea how many there are.
>
> Hal comments, "The trouble is that lynx is about fifteen
> years out of date; there may still be people maintaining it
> (I wouldn't be surprised); but the Web has moved on."
Hal is a smart guy. (And no, this isn't the first time I've noticed
that.)
Mike Schilling
You talk abour browser.
I wish you could use mine
You talk abour browser.
I wish you could use mine
You talk abour browser.
I wish you could use mine
Every time it fetches pages
It brings websites to the blind
mimus
> On 26 Jul 2009 22:41:06 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
>>
>>> He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to
>>> serve content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround,
>>> and complaining as if this were a personal affront to him.
>>
>> Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. I was under the
>> impression that I was providing helpful advice to Lynx users who might
>> want to view that website, the Worldcon's website, or other websites
>> that have the same bug. I learn something new every day.
>
> I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still enough
> Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
Version 2.8.5 is provided in my Ubuntu Linux Breezy Badger
software-package repository, four years old at most (the repository, not
necessarily the Lynx version) . . . .
--
When a system is set up to accomplish some goal, a
new entity has come into being--the system itself.
Now the system itself has to be dealt with.
< _Systemantics_
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:41:55 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>
>> On 26 Jul 2009 22:41:06 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to
>>>> serve content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround,
>>>> and complaining as if this were a personal affront to him.
>>>
>>> Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. I was under the
>>> impression that I was providing helpful advice to Lynx users who might
>>> want to view that website, the Worldcon's website, or other websites
>>> that have the same bug. I learn something new every day.
>>
>> I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still enough
>> Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
>
>Version 2.8.5 is provided in my Ubuntu Linux Breezy Badger
>software-package repository, four years old at most (the repository, not
>necessarily the Lynx version) . . . .
Sure, but do you USE it? I have lots of software I don't use.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>pan wrote:
>>
>> It's useful if you want to check if a website is machine readable
>> for the blind.
>
>You talk abour browser.
>I wish you could use mine
>You talk abour browser.
>I wish you could use mine
>You talk abour browser.
>I wish you could use mine
>Every time it fetches pages
>It brings websites to the blind
Thus I am reminded why I still read Usenet.
Wayne Throop
: Sure, but do you USE it? I have lots of software I don't use.
I use lynx and links occasionally. Most often, to translate gratuitous
html content in email messages as part of various scripts. I've also
used it to do primitive, simple web crawls over some sites, and a few
other things. For actually reading web sites as a browser, not so much.
David DeLaney
>>>>>> "LWE" == Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> writes:
> LWE> I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still
> LWE> enough Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
>
>There aren't; but Keith is one of them, and he likes to make noise.
the squeaky reader gets degrees?
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Michael Stemper
>In article <h9km65pj1kdr9sfcj...@news.eternal-september.org>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>> He's the baby, too. They're all the same person.
>
>List all the people mentioned (not just appearing) in the story.
>Nowidentify which ones are not the protagonist.
What about the bartender?
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding;
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.
Michael Stemper
>In article <nemoSat07...@news.demon.co.uk>, Simon Slavin <sla...@hearsay.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>List all the people mentioned (not just appearing) in the story.
>>Nowidentify which ones are not the protagonist.
>
>What about the bartender?
Oops, never mind.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
No animals were harmed in the composition of this message.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>: Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net>
>: Sure, but do you USE it? I have lots of software I don't use.
>
>I use lynx and links occasionally. Most often, to translate gratuitous
>html content in email messages as part of various scripts. I've also
>used it to do primitive, simple web crawls over some sites, and a few
>other things.
Huh. Okay. I haven't used it this century.
> For actually reading web sites as a browser, not so much.
More what I thought.
Michael Stemper
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> S/he was born of a peculiar form of incest ...
>
>Incest or masturbation?
That's kind of a definitional issue, isn't it?
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.
Richard Todd
> Hal comments, "The trouble is that lynx is about fifteen
> years out of date; there may still be people maintaining it
> (I wouldn't be surprised); but the Web has moved on."
Well, no. The "trouble" was that someone at that website had
*deliberately* configured his web server to tell any browser calling
itself Lynx to fuck off. It's not that the web server was doing some
new variation of the HTTP protocol or HTML standard that lynx hadn't
been updated to cope with. IIRC Keith pointed out that the web site
was perfectly readable with lynx as long as you told lynx to lie about
which browser it was.
This is really just a case of a web server admin being an idiot and a
douchebag. In case you hadn't noticed, there are a lot of websites out there
run by idiots and/or douchebags.
Charlton Wilbur
RT> Well, no. The "trouble" was that someone at that website had
RT> *deliberately* configured his web server to tell any browser
RT> calling itself Lynx to fuck off. It's not that the web server
RT> was doing some new variation of the HTTP protocol or HTML
RT> standard that lynx hadn't been updated to cope with. IIRC Keith
RT> pointed out that the web site was perfectly readable with lynx
RT> as long as you told lynx to lie about which browser it was.
Keith also has made it abundantly clear that he does not care for
graphic or interactive web sites, so I do not put much stock in his
assessment of "perfectly readable."
It's quite possible that the server admin considered graphics or plugins
or Javascript-based interactivity essential to the site -- none of
which, you may note, lynx will handle.
Konrad Gaertner
>
> Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> >> I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still
> >> enough
> >> Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
> >>
>
> It's useful if you want to check if a website is machine readable
> for the blind.
The webcomic Dark Red has an option to view each page's script
instead of the image (explicitly so blind people can follow the
story). Anyone want to see what it looks like in lynx?
(The script for the latest page isn't available yet; try reading
from the beginning.)
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - email: kgae...@tx.rr.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll
Dorothy J Heydt
Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>> Hal comments, "The trouble is that lynx is about fifteen
>> years out of date; there may still be people maintaining it
>> (I wouldn't be surprised); but the Web has moved on."
>
>Hal is a smart guy. (And no, this isn't the first time I've noticed
>that.)
>
He says, "That's kind of him" (meaning you). "I've been
around the block once or twice."
(We have just, laboriously, got him home from the doctor's
office and the X-raying place where it has been determined
that he's broken the tibial plateau on his right leg. He
sees an orthopod tomorrow morning.)
Dorothy J Heydt
Hal says, "There are also a lot of sites that claim to accept
nothing but IE; but if you lie to them and tell them you are
IE, they'll work perfectly well."
All this high-level stuff about lying to websites is
COMPLETELY beyond me.
Mike Schilling
>
> Hal says, "There are also a lot of sites that claim to accept
> nothing but IE; but if you lie to them and tell them you are
> IE, they'll work perfectly well."
>
> All this high-level stuff about lying to websites is
> COMPLETELY beyond me.
No, you just think it is. When a browser send a message to a website
that says "Please give me page X", part of the message is "Oh, and by
the way, I'm IE (or Firefox, or Lynx, etc."), just in case you want to
send me a special version of X." Sometimes one browser has extra
features (or extra bugs) that make this special version necessary.
Lying simply means configuring your browser to claim to be something
else, like Firefox claiming to be IE.
Simon Slavin
<h4k9ae$s38$1...@news.eternal-september.org>mste...@walkabout.empros.com
(Michael Stemper) wrote:
>>> List all the people mentioned (not just appearing) in the story.
>>> Nowidentify which ones are not the protagonist.
>> What about the bartender?
> Oops, never mind.
Don't be embarrassed. I didn't catch it either the first time around.
Simon.
--
I'm using an evaluation license of nemo since 210 days.
You should really try it!
http://www.malcom-mac.com/nemo
Wayne Throop
: All this high-level stuff about lying to websites is
: COMPLETELY beyond me.
Well, except that, in terms of the computer protocols, it's low level.
More or less. Low-ish.
Basically, if you view a web browser as having a conversation with the
web server, (which is pretty much what's occuring, really, except for the
intelligence that the notion of "conversation" implies), then what's going
on is that the web sites involved here are asking a bunch of impertinent,
rude questions about topics that are none of their business before
they'll deign to enter into substantive conversation. Like, "What brand
of toothpaste do you use... Fleem toothpaste? Heh, bugger off, you!".
So, obviolusly the thing to do next time you need someothing from the
site and it asks the rude question, you answer "CoalGate, of course,
as God intended!" to humor the nosy creep, since you really need to get
him to discuss substantive things rather than your toothpaste.
Well, except that it isn't toothpaste, of course. More like
"Hi, I'm a web browser, I want to see that wikihistory thing."
"Well, I dunno. What kind of software are you?"
<exasperated, but humoring it>"I'm a copy of lynx."
"Bugger off! <hangs up>"
So, next time
"Hi, I'm a web browser, I want to see that wikihistory thing."
"Well, I dunno. What kind of software are you?"
<sneakily> "I'm a copy of ... um, "foobar", yeah that's the ticket."
"Oh, well that's all right then. As long as you're not one of
those lynx browsers, I guess it's OK. Them lynx guys are just
*awful*, they planned 9/11, didn't you know? And they make the
baby Jesus cry. Anyways, here's that page you wanted."
Or of course, more commonly, accepting only one rather than
rejecting only one: "I'm a copy of firefox" / "Bugger off!";
"I'm a copy of, uh, epiphany?" / "Bugger off!"; "I'm a copy of... um,
Internet Explorer?" / "Well, OK, at least you aren't one of those
gawd-awful free software zealots, trying to cheat Microsoft of their
due and make the baby Bill Gates cry, and turn us all into wretched
General Public Technopeasants..."
Dorothy J Heydt
Michael Stemper <mste...@siemens-emis.com> wrote:
>In article <nemoSat07...@news.demon.co.uk>, Simon Slavin
><sla...@hearsay.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>In article
><h9km65pj1kdr9sfcj...@news.eternal-september.org>Lawrence
>Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>>> He's the baby, too. They're all the same person.
>>
>>List all the people mentioned (not just appearing) in the story.
>>Nowidentify which ones are not the protagonist.
>
>What about the bartender?
Him too. The bartender is the narrator, who after some
number of years in the time-traveling business, goes back to
meet himself (male version) and takes him back several more
years to seduce himself (female version), and then takes him
to time-travel central (and then goes back to kidnap the
baby, who is also himself, and put her in the orphanage.)
Dorothy J Heydt
Still beyond me, Mike. I couldn't do it if my life depended
on it.
Garrett Wollman
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>Still beyond me, Mike. I couldn't do it if my life depended
>on it.
If you were using Opera (I assume you're not), you most certainly
could, just by clicking the "Identify as ..." button at the bottom of
the browser window. (Unless they've moved it.)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are
wol...@csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry
Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape
of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness
Garrett Wollman
>office and the X-raying place where it has been determined
>that he's broken the tibial plateau on his right leg. He
>sees an orthopod tomorrow morning.)
My sympathies. I had a "depressed laterial tibial plateau fracture"
two and a half years ago. I'll have a steel plate and eight screws in
my knee for the rest of my life, or until the whole knee has to get
replaced, whichever comes first.
Wayne Throop
:: that says "Please give me page X", part of the message is "Oh, and by
:: the way, I'm IE (or Firefox, or Lynx, etc."), just in case you want
:: to send me a special version of X."
True, except that many web sites abuse it, and use it to implement
"I won't bother sending you anything, not even a lowest-common-demoninator
version, you worthless incompatible bit of slime, you". This sort of thing
gets more and more common as more and more sites use all kinds of fancy
java and/or javascript nonsense to embed multimedia inside a bunch
of buttons and bells and whistles they think is nifty, rather than
just STREAMING ME THE BLIGHTED MEDIA AND LETTING MY BROWSER HANDLE
IT AS THE INVENTOR OF THE WEB INTENDED.
But I'm not bitter, no, I'm not bitter.
: djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
: Still beyond me, Mike. I couldn't do it if my life depended
: on it.
Ah, well, how to *do* it, yes, that's just arcane incantations,
all different for each browser. But that's not lack of brainpower or
anything, just lack of Initiation into the proper set of Rites, possibly
coupled with the Eight Deadly Words: "I Don't Care What This Agravating
Page Contains" and/or "Couldn't Pay Me To Deal With This Crap". (Although
I admit... they probably could. Code Monkey not crazy, just proud.)
Which means, I don't know how to do it either for most browsers.
It's kind of irrelevant, mostly. Just relevant often enough to be very
annoying, and my reaction is usually to avoid the website rather than
bend myself into a pretzel and sacrificing a chicken over my keyboard
just to get to the page I want.
"Code Monkey very simple man.
Big warm fuzzy secret heart."
--- Jonathan Coulton, "Code Monkey"
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>:: No, you just think it is. When a browser send a message to a website
>:: that says "Please give me page X", part of the message is "Oh, and by
>:: the way, I'm IE (or Firefox, or Lynx, etc."), just in case you want
>:: to send me a special version of X."
>
>True, except that many web sites abuse it, and use it to implement
>"I won't bother sending you anything, not even a lowest-common-demoninator
>version, you worthless incompatible bit of slime, you". This sort of thing
>gets more and more common as more and more sites use all kinds of fancy
>java and/or javascript nonsense to embed multimedia inside a bunch
>of buttons and bells and whistles they think is nifty, rather than
>just STREAMING ME THE BLIGHTED MEDIA AND LETTING MY BROWSER HANDLE
>IT AS THE INVENTOR OF THE WEB INTENDED.
>
>But I'm not bitter, no, I'm not bitter.
Oddly enough, I hit some sort of genuine, and quite unfamiliar,
incompatibility today. On the Girl Genius site, Firefox loads
about the top 1/3 of the jpg for today's strip, and then says
"Done." Looks fine in <spit, *anyway*> IE.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Mike Ash
Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
Will he then deny the site to me if I turn off JavaScript or plugins but
otherwise have a fully capable browser?
At the MOST, a web site should ADVISE that a certain browser is required
but allow you to load the page anyway if you believe you know better
than the admin does. A site should NEVER block a browser just because
the admin thinks that the browser won't work well on his site.
Completely blocking unsupported browsers from viewing your site is
stupid, even if potentially well-intentioned.
--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
Walter Bushell
Dorothy J Heydt
Garrett Wollman <wol...@bimajority.org> wrote:
>In article <KnGMs...@kithrup.com>,
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>(We have just, laboriously, got him home from the doctor's
>>office and the X-raying place where it has been determined
>>that he's broken the tibial plateau on his right leg. He
>>sees an orthopod tomorrow morning.)
>
>My sympathies. I had a "depressed laterial tibial plateau fracture"
>two and a half years ago. I'll have a steel plate and eight screws in
>my knee for the rest of my life, or until the whole knee has to get
>replaced, whichever comes first.
We'll see. I have a plate and ten screws in my right wrist.
The bummer is, he's a contractor so he doesn't get sick
leave. This leaves the five of us living on one income, not
two.
Dorothy J Heydt
Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote:
>
>Oddly enough, I hit some sort of genuine, and quite unfamiliar,
>incompatibility today. On the Girl Genius site, Firefox loads
>about the top 1/3 of the jpg for today's strip, and then says
>"Done." Looks fine in <spit, *anyway*> IE.
Interesting. It worked fine for me in Firefox. (I use IE
anyway ... inertia.)
Dorothy J Heydt
Aka orthopedist. Specialist in (inter alia) bone-setting.
Wayne Throop
: Oddly enough, I hit some sort of genuine, and quite unfamiliar,
: incompatibility today. On the Girl Genius site, Firefox loads about
: the top 1/3 of the jpg for today's strip, and then says "Done." Looks
: fine in <spit, *anyway*> IE.
Odd. Which version of firefox? Works fine for 3.0.8 and 3.0.10
for me (slight version variation on some servers vs others).
A premature "Done" is most often, ime, a problem with the network
and/or socks proxy and/or http proxy. And of course, one browser
could tickle net or proxy slightly differently than another.
Keith F. Lynch
> This sort of thing gets more and more common as more and more sites
> use all kinds of fancy java and/or javascript nonsense to embed
> multimedia inside a bunch of buttons and bells and whistles they
> think is nifty, rather than just STREAMING ME THE BLIGHTED MEDIA AND
> LETTING MY BROWSER HANDLE IT AS THE INVENTOR OF THE WEB INTENDED.
Indeed. "Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser
X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days,
before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document
written on another computer, another word processor, or another
network." -- Tim Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996
But what do he, you, and I know? The *important* thing is whether
one is using the newest and shiniest version of whichever browser is
currently fashionable. Next year, it will be a different browser,
none of next year's websites will work with this year's browser, and
none of this year's websites will work with next year's browser.
Those who like stable bug-free exploint-free browsers are as SOL
as those who put a great deal of work into placing vast amounts of
archival material online with the quaint expectation that it would
remain readable for decades.
> But I'm not bitter, no, I'm not bitter.
Me neither. Why, I just *love* getting weird error messages instead
of useful content. It saves me so much time.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Keith F. Lynch
> This is really just a case of a web server admin being an idiot
> and a douchebag. In case you hadn't noticed, there are a lot of
> websites out there run by idiots and/or douchebags.
Right. And not just abyssandapex.com, but several other websites I'm
aware of, including the Worldcon's website, anticipationsf.ca. Most
of the latter works despite giving that error message, but not all of
it. If anyone tried to vote on the Hugos using Lynx, and didn't know
the workaround, I doubt they were amused at being shown the door. I
warned the webmaster of this problem, but got no response.
Keith F. Lynch
> Hal comments, "The trouble is that lynx is about fifteen years out
> of date; there may still be people maintaining it (I wouldn't be
> surprised); but the Web has moved on."
The whole *purpose* of the Web is to be compatible, not to "move on."
How would you and Hal like it if everything in your home or workplaces
that was over fifteen years old were to suddenly stop working?
You still use Latin. That's over fifteen years old. So is English.
Wayne Throop
:: plugins or Javascript-based interactivity essential to the site --
:: none of which, you may note, lynx will handle.
I doubt it. I've looked at the page in question.
It and other pages on the site are really quite vanilla. Plus there was
a cited rationale, from a query to a webadmin (this one I think?) which
was completely prejudice-against-lynx based and nothing else.
Dorothy J Heydt
My husband says of the Firefox on my machine (which brought
up today's GG just fine), "Should be 3.0." FWIW.
Keith F. Lynch
> It and other pages on the site are really quite vanilla.
Yes. I had no trouble reading them with Lynx once I changed the user
agent string Lynx reported to the site.
> Plus there was a cited rationale, from a query to a webadmin (this
> one I think?) which was completely prejudice-against-lynx based and
> nothing else.
The offending webadmin was at vervehosting.com.
Wayne Throop
:: (slight version variation on some servers vs others).
: djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
: My husband says of the Firefox on my machine (which brought up today's
: GG just fine), "Should be 3.0." FWIW.
To get more version info about firefox, click Help->About Mozilla Firefox.
Brings up a window that shows the version of firefox, as well as the
versions of mozilla and gecko (the rendering engine) it's based on.
Dorothy J Heydt
Wayne, dear, I don't really *care* what version of Firefox
I've got; I mostly use IE (inertia, as I said upthread) and
use Firefox only to look at I Can Haz Cheezeburger, which
takes a long time to load with IE.
pan
>> pan wrote:
>>>
>>> Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>
>>>>> I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still
>>>>> enough
>>>>> Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
>>>>>
>>>
>>> It's useful if you want to check if a website is machine readable
>>> for the blind.
>>
>> The webcomic Dark Red has an option to view each page's script
>> instead of the image (explicitly so blind people can follow the
>> story). Anyone want to see what it looks like in lynx?
>>
>> http://www.darkredcomics.com/
>>
>> (The script for the latest page isn't available yet; try reading
>> from the beginning.)
>>
Looks o.k.
Word picture seems adequate to the visual for the few pages
I looked at.
It fails Section 508 standards (~55 errors), but the scripting solution
seems to detect
non-graphical browsers well.
John F. Eldredge
> In article <7qds659to646g60dh...@4ax.com>, Bill Snyder
> <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote:
>>
>>Oddly enough, I hit some sort of genuine, and quite unfamiliar,
>>incompatibility today. On the Girl Genius site, Firefox loads about the
>>top 1/3 of the jpg for today's strip, and then says "Done." Looks fine
>>in <spit, *anyway*> IE.
>
> Interesting. It worked fine for me in Firefox. (I use IE anyway ...
> inertia.)
>
It also worked fine for me in Firefox. The situation that Bill Snyder
described sounds like the server was bogged down, and Firefox timed out.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
pan
>> pan wrote:
>>> Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>>>> <k...@KeithLynch.net>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
>>>>>>> He's complaining that the site that that link is on refuses to
>>>>>>> serve content to his pet web browser, providing a workaround,
>>>>>>> and complaining as if this were a personal affront to him.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. I was under the
>>>>>> impression that I was providing helpful advice to Lynx users who
>>>>>> might want to view that website, the Worldcon's website, or other
>>>>>> websites that have the same bug. I learn something new every
>>>>>> day.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are still
>>>>> enough
>>>>> Lynx users for anyone to give a tinker's dam.
>>>>>
>>>
>>> It's useful if you want to check if a website is machine readable
>>> for the blind.
>>
>> I wish you could use mine
>> You talk abour browser.
>> I wish you could use mine
>> You talk abour browser.
>> I wish you could use mine
>> Every time it fetches pages
>> It brings websites to the blind
This would be more interesting if it were illuminating.
I was hoping you were alludung to some Burns or
Kipling I had forgotten, but it's not.
A pop music lyric?
The repeated line suggests top 40 stuff.
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>: Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net>
3.0.12. It's consistently done this, and Friday's loads OK. I
just tried it a couple more times, same deal -- fine in IE, but
Firefox quits with the edge of the graphic just a tiny bit above
the bottom edge of Gil's "Coming!" speech balloon.