Time: Tue Oct 29 06:02:43 1996
To: 
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: text wrappings
Cc: 
Bcc: Liberty Law

Charles,

It doesn't bother you when long lines start to wrap around and leave a
word
or two to wrap around, as in the case of this sentence, and lots of other
sentences
which I have to read formatted in this fashion?  Maybe we are failing to
agree
over style, but I do not prefer this style, if it merely means that I must 
resort to a narrower column
to fix the problem, as is
the case here, and in every
newspaper I have ever read
since day one.  

The other big advantage to
a narrow column is that 
people can speed-read a 
narrow column much more
easily than a wide column,
because each line can "fit"
on their retinas, whereas
long lines are too wide
to fit on their retinas,
particularly if one is using
a 17" monitor, which I much
prefer to prevent general
eye strain.  I recommend
Sony's 17" monitors without
hesitation, but there are
plenty of excellent competitors
now, e.g. Panasonic, Iyama, 
NEC, ViewSonic, and so on.

Just my musings.  I am really
turning off to text which
wraps.  I have to push myself
to bother, and I usually don't
(bother, or push myself to).

The other reason why I posted
my request is to see how many
people respond.  I am testing
an hypothesis that people prefer
to read their own writing, and
are using the Internet to 
compensate for the powerlessness
they feel in their lives.  The
Internet is a way to "make a
difference" by putting something
out there -- anything -- even
if the grammar, punctuation, 
spelling, and "style" are 
horrific.  As a rule, I find
good listeners (and good readers)
to be in a small minority.  

/s/ Paul Mitchell



At 12:03 AM 10/29/96 -0800, you wrote:
>I respectfully disagree with the proposed solution to an agreed upon
>problem, set forth by our valued collegue, Mr Mitchel, below.
>
>	I think people should set their margins between 70 and 74
>characters min/max. These screens have a default capability of
>carrying 80 characters per line. If everyone just sets down below
>74 , we hav the ability of carrying 6 replys to the original
>before it gets close to making any word wrap problem, as is the
>essence of Mr Mitchell's concerns, I believe.
>	The best gurus on the list almost never get their best
>messages responded to 6 times.
>
>	Mr Mitchel is a gentelman and a scholar, undeniably,
>
>	But I can find no logical reason to shove everything into
>those narrow lengthy hard to read collums, as Paul advocates. Paul
>is the only person I have ever come across who advocates this
>particular method of making posts.
>
>	In My Humble Oppinion (IMHO) the 35 to 40 characters which Mr
>Mitchell advocates below, is counter productive to the efficient flow
>of information. His basic concerns are valid, and I echo his plea to
>shorten the collums of the messages posted.
>
>	PLEASE SHORTEN THE LENGTH OF THE COLLUMNS POSTED.
>
>	But dont do so much over kill as to make the posts burdendsome
>to read and follow, as we seem to be stuck with in decifering Mr
>Mitchell's otherwise extreemly valuable input.
>
>Charles Stewart . . .
>
>
>On Sun, 27 Oct 1996, Paul Andrew Mitchell wrote:
>
>> A SPECIAL PLEA TO ALL EMAIL LISTS:
>>
>> Can you PLEASE set your margins
>> to 35-40 characters per line MAX,
>> to prevent further line wraps?
>> Or, develop the voluntary habit.
>>
>> Newspapers have been doing this
>> for years.  If you want to strip
>> paragraph marks, I can share
>> a word processor macro which will
>> do same.  In the meantime, I have
>> too much to read, and I am growing
>> intolerant of garbage style which
>> may be hiding some valuable substance.
>>
>> If your writing is worth the time,
>> take the time to make it look
>> worthwhile.  If your materials are
>> truly so, they will get forwarded
>> many times (hopefully), only
>> aggravating the line-wrap problem
>> down the line, as email software
>> shifts it to the right.
>>
>> Many thanks!
>>
>> /s/ Paul Mitchell
>>
>> ====================================================================
>> [Text is usually formatted in Courier 11 non-proportional spacing @]
>> [65-characters per line; .DOCs by MS-WORD for MS-DOS, Version 5.0B.]
>> Paul Andrew Mitchell, B.A., M.S., email address: pmitch@primenet.com
>> ship to: c/o 2509 N. Campbell, #1776, Tucson, Arizona state [We win]
>> We can decode all your byte streams, spaghetti code notwithstanding.
>> Coming soon: "Manifesto for a Republic" by John E. Trumane ie JetMan
>> ====================================================================
>>
>
>
      


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