*.VCF [NB _Xy-unrelated!_] (was: XyWrite installation and CD-ROM drives)

[Peter Evans xywrite@xxxxxxxx]

Charles in Tokyo:

>What is the attachment that always comes with [Nathan Sivin's] messages?
>It's entitled VCARD.VCF. . . .

As I understand it, it's Netscape's would-be standard for a sort of
quasi-business card to be attached to every message; software goes through
them to create a quasi-rolodex of the things.

On this notion, my learned friend Maynard Hogg comments:

>Why does my mind instantly segue to robots gleaning mailing addresses
>for internet messages for subsequent marketing to spam artists?

The files irritate me, too. However, they all have similar names and wind
up in the same
subdirectory/folder, so they're easy to zap. I suggest anyone who doesn't
want them does what I do: adds a line to the garbage-disposal batch file
along the lines of:

  del g:\attach\vcard*.vcf

I for one am quite happy to do this--perhaps because I'm using Win95, which
generates so many disposable files that I often run such a batch file, and
an additional line in it is hardly noticeable. But these files can be more
irritating. Another friend, Louise Bremner, writes:

>In MacSOUP, at least, they appear as ugly big .sigs at the bottom of
>each message. There doesn't seem to be a .sig-zapping feature....

+++++

As flagged in my title, nothing here is related to XyWrite. Sorry about
any misuse of "bandwidth", but I post it to answer a question that I think
was legitimately raised here. (I jumped in before Nathan Sivin because I
guessed he'd still be in bed.) Here, now, I don't want to comment on the
possible decline of civilization as indexed by software bloat, on the
desirability of serving one's government, or the proprietry of posting
messages here on such subjects. One suggestion, however: if you are
unhappy about the posting of messages on some issue, you may reduce the
risk of further screenfuls if you complain without expressing a
controversial opinion on that very issue.