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Stop Microsoft users sending 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header

neilzone.co.uk

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Re: Stop Microsoft users sending 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header

#251

Post by [deleted] »

yason wrote: post #185
Iridescent_ wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just reminds me of my theory of Microsoft's checklist-driven development: Some PM writes down some single-sentence description of a feature (e.g. "Share Wi-Fi passwords with contacts") and the developers just read the list and find the single least-effort way of implementing it. Once done, they can tick the item off the list and go home having done their job, although often in the most excruciatingly stupid way…

Because this is Microsoft we shall apply Gates' razor and must thus conclude that "never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice".

[deleted]

Re: Stop Microsoft users sending 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header

#253

Post by philipov »

yason wrote: post #185
Iridescent_ wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just reminds me of my theory of Microsoft's checklist-driven development: Some PM writes down some single-sentence description of a feature (e.g. "Share Wi-Fi passwords with contacts") and the developers just read the list and find the single least-effort way of implementing it. Once done, they can tick the item off the list and go home having done their job, although often in the most excruciatingly stupid way…

Because this is Microsoft we shall apply Gates' razor and must thus conclude that "never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice".

What you're thinking of is called Grey's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from Malice"

Re: Stop Microsoft users sending 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header

#254

Post by mgkimsal »

p_l wrote: post #203
Iridescent_ wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just reminds me of my theory of Microsoft's checklist-driven development: Some PM writes down some single-sentence description of a feature (e.g. "Share Wi-Fi passwords with contacts") and the developers just read the list and find the single least-effort way of implementing it. Once done, they can tick the item off the list and go home having done their job, although often in the most excruciatingly stupid way…

I do wonder of is partially not caused by the fact that underneath, Outlook and Exchange aren't massively using SMTP or MIME, they use MAPI which is built around X.400 even if it's no longer available to run Exchange work external X.400 connectivity. Take that background, and how MAPI essentially prioritises internal email capabilities, and slowly a perfect storm for creation of such misfeatures emerges. Internally t…

2001(?) I got an email from a client and it said "Debbie would like to revoke the earlier email". Might not have said 'revoke' but something like that. And there were a lot of extra headers I hadn't seen before. After some questioning, I got that they'd just installed some Exchange server setup (or whatever the direct predecessor was?) and you could undo email. But the 'undo' was to send an email revoking the earlier one. MAPI/internal clients understood it; to external clients like me, it was just another email. I'm not sure they (the client) quite understood that they couldn't 'undo' emails to me, because they could do it just fine to everyone else (inside the company).

Re: Stop Microsoft users sending 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header

#255

Post by snapcaster »

frumiousirc wrote: post #232
snapcaster wrote: post #45

Can an anti-reaction person explain what they find so distasteful about them? Is it that the other person wasn't willing to make the effort to type is seen as disrespectful? struggling to see what the problem is

It isn't distasteful, it is harmful. I asked a question recently to someone and got a "like" back as the "answer". I then spent one minute pondering wtf this message even was (it was the first of its kind that I received) and another pondering wtf the respondent meant as the question was not of the form "do you like XXX?". This "feature", at least in this case, was not a form of communication of but a disruptive form…

I guess i fail to see how your example is different from someone responding with "K" or some other equally unhelpful non-reaction response

Re: Stop Microsoft users sending 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header

#256

Post by quesera »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #224
yason wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this is Microsoft we shall apply Gates' razor and must thus conclude that "never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice".

Can you elaborate why you would see Gates as a malicious actor?

This is a difficult question to answer without knowing whether your Bill Gates context includes his years at Microsoft, or only as a philanthropist with sketchy friends.

If the former, you'll need to present an argument that Microsoft did not hold back the entire industry for 20 years with low quality products, severe user-hostility, and monopolistic practices.

If the latter, you should read up about the 1980s and 1990s and early 2000s.

Re: Stop Microsoft users sending 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header

#257

Post by izacus »

kelnos wrote: post #129
voltaireodactyl wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes such a database is necessary in this first place, which in my mind would require serious justification to prove, given that it creates a situation where the customer’s security is degraded by default.

I do wonder how much it actually does improve location accuracy on phones. Certainly if you have no GPS signal at all it'll give you something rather than nothing, but if you do have GPS, does it really improve things?

Without it, your phone's location services would be next to useless in any kind of more urban area (next to useless = you'd have to wait for minutes for the phone to get a fix and burn a lot of battery in the process). It would not function inside a lot of buildings _at all_.

People HATE HATE HATE and complain loudly at their phones if they fall back to pure A-GNSS positioning.

Re: Stop Microsoft users sending 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header

#258

Post by ubermonkey »

whyoh wrote: post #65

This kinda reminds me of a feature Windows (Phone) used to have, where it would share your Wi-Fi password with the device's contacts automatically. To opt-out you had to add _optout to the SSID name. https://www.theregister.com/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sens... It looks like this feature was removed eventually, but it's just one of those tasteless things that MS does every once in a while.

Holy crap that's amazingly bad!

Re: Stop Microsoft users sending 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header

#259

Post by quesera »

withinboredom wrote: post #245
renewiltord wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iOS implementation of this feature is perfect.

It isn't perfect if you are the wifi owner and people who have credentials then give it away to people you'd rather not give credentials.

It's still an improvement though.

In the iOS way, your guest can share the creds privately to another person.

In the normal way, your guest can share the creds verbally to another person, which might be overheard by other unintended listeners.

I guess the ideal would be to allow the network owner (which would be determined by what method?) to share to guests with a flag set for no further sharing (and no viewing of credentials).

Re: Stop Microsoft users sending 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header

#260

Post by ubermonkey »

withinboredom wrote: post #245
renewiltord wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iOS implementation of this feature is perfect.

It isn't perfect if you are the wifi owner and people who have credentials then give it away to people you'd rather not give credentials.

It's still perfect, because guests can share passwords verbally or in writing too. Not supporting a digital password share just means the sharing will happen another way.
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