[Gllug] is KMAIL a good enough client for gllug?

[Nix]

On Fri, 09 Sep 2005, Rich Walker gibbered uncontrollably:
> Nix <nix at esperi.org.uk> writes:
>>>> to get tiny fonts and lots of colours and tabbed konsoles and session
>>>> management and the occasional bit of GUI here and there, for those
>>>> programs which actually benefit from it. (e.g. the book classification
>>> 
>>> I find w3m provides most of the GUIness I need when I need it - the
>>> ability to display images on a text console is one Monster Hack and well
>>> worth supporting...
>>
>> Well, it can only do that in an xterm... and yes, it's an *appalling*
>> hack.
> 
> It does it on the console as well. *That* one really surprised me. I
> can't remember if you need to be running an fbdev or not.

What?

*digs at code*

Yes, it's using the fb (which explains why I've never seen it: I've never
run an fb and don't plan to until it stops torpedoing acceleration in X).

>> If you wait a week I'll have given it a remote dcop interface. Wait another
>> week and I'll have it tied into XEmacs. :)
> 
> AAAARggggh... Wrong Emacs Fork ... gibber ....

Sorry, I'm a follower of the Zawinskian/Wingist Schism ;}

(dcop stuff 3/4 done, refactoring like mad now, argh, nothing is ever as
simple as it seems...)

>> Snap, except that I don't have enough books in textual form, and paper
>> *is* still far easier on the eyes.
> 
> Dark room, black background, green text in Courier, lie on your back,
> laptop balanced on beer-belly [optional - you can be thin and do this],

Ah. Laptop. :)

> one hand for the space bar and the other for your beer - what more do
> you need?

A strong arm, as a laptop is a hell of a lot heavier than a book?
Enough money to not worry about getting beer on your laptop?

> Oh, the *books*: well, I find gnutella has quite a lot, and since I'm
> substituting my existing paper infrastructure I only have one working copy
> at a time... [The other day I went to my local library, got a couple of
> books out, then read the electronics copies on my laptop...]

Hang on, you're transcribing books you don't have by hand?

Wow!

>> No, I didn't care about that. It's one of these:
>> <http://www.maltron.co.uk/images/press/maltron-ergonomic-english-trackball-tq-hr1.jpg>
> 
> Oooooh. Interesting. Can you use it to beat computers into submission?
> (the other advantage of the old IBM's)

It is tough, and lasts forever (as in I know people still using Series
Bs, which they stopped making in 1990 or thereabouts), but attacking
things with it seems like a seriously bad idea as it's >500 quid inc
VAT. :)

You can take it apart and fiddle with it, and I've never bought another
keyboard where the MD of the keyboard company asks you if you'd like any
keys moved around before they make it. It's all hand-made; they can't
afford mass-production because demand is too low (they've been making
them since the early 80s and, well, my six-month-old keyboard is serial
number 8062). I got it when I was heavily indebted, on Karl Fogel's
recommendation; it was `blow 1/3 of my bank account or be permanently
crippled' time.

It's an absolute joy to type on, once you get used to the vertical key
arrays: the hand support is fantastic, and going back to lesser
keyboards is a real pain (literally). The alternate layout is even
nicer, with seemingly every key used in common English words already
right under your fingers, but takes a *lot* of adapting to: it's
extremely non-QWERTY.

Even in QWERTY mode lots of keys are in odd positions: ' and " are all
the way over on the upper left, / and ~ are at the bottom of the right
ring finger's column, and the square and curly brackets are on shifted
keys. But * and _ and - are unshifted and there's a shift-lock key.

Strongly recommended. (Hey, it forced my RSI into retreat; it could have
had keys ten miles apart and I think I'd still like it.)

>> Selling conventional QWERTY keyboards and mice should be a criminal
>> offence. Warning labels won't cut it.
>>
>> (Semi-serious there. I've seen *so many* people permanently injured by
>> those fucking things...)
> 
> 1 in 50 in the UK, I heard recently, have work-related RSI.

That number doesn't surprise me at all. My colleagues are separated into
five classes: those who don't believe in it, those who are fighting it
and being careful, those who don't have it but can see what's going on
around them and are also being careful, those who have it and aren't
being careful enough because `it's just a few twinges', and those who
have been forced into disability and unemployment by it.

That last category is far, far too large, and growing all the time. (For
my sins, I used to be in the `knew about it but thought it would never
happen to *me*' category. O thou fool.)

> It's the modern version of black-lung disease.

With as little legislation against it. Stupid useless warning stickers
and nothing else. (Well, OK, so there *is* legislation, but legislation
that allows employers to foist more flat or nearly-flat QWERTY keyboards
on people is worse than useless. I tried an MS Natural keyboard once. I
didn't have RSI at the time but the damn thing nearly gave it to me on
its own. Ow.)

>> I *wish*. I can't even get them to buy me something non-hideous. Hell,
>> they won't even get a (totally useless) wrist rest, or a chair that's
>> adjustable to the right height, or a keyboard costing more than five
>> quid.
> 
> "Don't weep for me, boys: organise"
> 
> Seriously.
> 
> This is what you have a union *for*. 

I have a union?

The problem with unions is the problem of all human organisations: if
they're small they have no influence on employers (viz SAGE; nice idea,
guys), and the larger they get the more they attract into their upper
ranks the sort of people who like power for its own sake. And I really
don't want to give more of *that* sort of human vermin any power over
me.

> And if all else fails, contact the HSE, say you're worried about RSI at
> work, and see what happens...
> 
> <http://www.google.com/u/HSEC?q=rsi&sa=Go&sitesearch=hse.gov.uk&domains=hse.gov.uk>

I'll hold off that nuclear option until all other avenues are exhausted
(and then get my cousin the lawyer and my mother the counter-
bureaucratic scarily hypercompetent human nuclear weapon[1] equivalent
to do the dirty work).

>> (I'll probably have an official diagnosis of RSI soon --- I've actually
>> got around to booking a doctor's appointment at last --- and then
>> perhaps they can be forced to actually *do* something.)
> 
> Good luck with *not* having it -

Semi-constant pains in tendons that intensify when it's cold and after
lots of typing on crap keyboards and a left index knuckle that has been
swollen for five years and whose swelling varies according to the amount
of typing I do on crap keyboards... sounds like RSI to me. Not very
severe RSI, but by damn I'm not going to *let* it get severe.

>                                  but if you *do, then you *should*
> report it under RIDDOR.

It doesn't look like a RIDDOR-reportable event to me unless it leads to
complete inability to do my job. (In any case, I'm not self-employed, so
doing this is my employer's responsibility, right? Thankfully I know the
guy who's job it is to do this, and he's not a pawn of the Evil
Management. In fact the upper management is so un-evil that the ultimate
boss has said that if this keyboard seems to work for me, he wants one
to kill off *his* RSI. It's middle management that's being
obstructionist.)

>                         Mind you, if you do so, you will probably have
> to use IE to get through their website.

It seems to work for me in Galeon 1.3.21.


[1] that is to say, once she hits a problem, the problem is not a
    problem any more, and often the person who was causing the problem
    is no longer employed. In a couple of notable cases they emigrated
    shortly thereafter.

-- 
`It's really simple. Whatever connector you terminate will be the wrong
 one. If you terminate two or more, they will be the wrong two or more.
 If you terminate all of them, that will be too many, and if you don't,
 then it won't be enough.' --- Mike Andrews explains SCSI termination
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