"Zaghadka" wrote

| you need to update your newsreader to modern standards.
|
| My newsreader handles, displays, and sends it fine. Eternal September
| chokes on it as invalid. I made an oopsie when I said "news readers." I
| meant "news servers."
|
| They probably use only 128 bit ASCII as a matter of principle.

This is a perfect example of ignorance in using computers.

There's no need to use a long UTF-8 dash. There isn't even
a keyboard button for it. UTF-8 is meant to handle
internationalization. It's fine for foreign languages in HTML.
But people using long dashes and curly braces restrict
adaptability for no reason. ASCII is valid UTF-8 but UTF-8
is not ASCII.

It's exactly the same thing people are talking about
with Powerpoint. People use it because it's what they
know, and often it's all they know. They don't realize that
some others use their computer for something other than
Word and Powerpoint. If they distribute class notes, that
could be in the form of plain text, for adaptability and
editability. Why don't they? Because they don't know what
they're doing and PPT looks more official. And why PDF?
Again, it's idiocy born of ignorance and trying to look
official. PDF is for precise printing. If I get notes from a
class I'd want to be able to edit them. The first thing I'd
do would be to convert them to plain text. But many
people won't know how to do that and/or won't have
software to do it.