Re: CHAT: Email (was: Re: Yogh in the news)

On 1/13/06, Santalum Alba <madyaas@...> wrote:
>
> Of course, in my gmail account, your messages come back as base 64
> encoded messages. I haven't seen base 64 since about 1994 when my
> family gained access to the internets, and I discovered the magic of
> base 64 encoded porn.I actually had to search out a base 64 decoder
> online in order to read what you wrote.

That's quite odd.  GMail should decode all of that automatically - and since
I'm *using* gmail on this end to compose the messages, it makes no sense
that it would get messed up en route.  Sounds like a bug . . . anyone else
having this problem?  Maybe we should try exchanging email directly, rather
than through the conlang list server, to see if that helps?

Note that base64 isn't some quaint encoding technology; it's used every time
you send an attachment or a message with lots of non-ASCII characters.  It's
just that now, unlike in 1994, most mail user agents implement MIME properly
and do all the work for you, so the base64 stuff becomes an invisible part
of the plumbing, as it was meant to be.

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>