Managing Google Groups headaches

[Cameron Simpson]

On 03Dec2013 17:39, rusi <rustompmody at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 4, 2013 6:10:05 AM UTC+5:30, Cameron Simpson wrote:
> > My first act on joining any mailing list is to download the entire
> > archive into my local mail store. I have a script for this, for
> > mailman at least.
> 
> and you happen to own >1 thingys that have general computing
> functionality -- phones, laptops, desktops, etc -- do you sync
> all your mailing-lists with all of them?

No. I'm using a laptops my primary host, and it has the mailing
lists (and all my email). It is usually on and fetches and files
my email; it also forwards _specific_ stuff to a separate mail
account accessed by my phone.

I used to use a home server, but the remote access, while fairly
transparent (script to "ssh then run mutt"), was irritating. And
when I didn't have remote access, very very irritating.

So I'm choosing the better environment with my email local to the laptop and
a select copy of important things (work and friends) copied to an account for
my phone.

[...]
> And inspite of all that it still sometimes happens that one has
> to work on a 'machine' that is not one's own.  What then?

Fingers crossed the important stuff gets to my phone. If urgent I
can reply from that, and I'm somewhat up to date on what I care
about. The phone also has (disabled) access to my primary mail spool
for circumstances when the laptop is offline. When online, the
laptop empties that spool ad forwards particulars. When offline, I
can consult what's queuing up.

> The unfortunate and inexorable conclusion is that when the 
> (wo)man <-> computer relation goes from 1-1 to 1-many, data and
> functionality will move away from 'own-machine' to the cloud.
> Will the data be subject to privacy-abuse and worse? Sure
> Will the functionality be as good as something one can fine-tune
> on one's own computer? heck no!

I'm striving to resist that for now. Privacy. Security. Dependence
on others' hardware and (not mine => wrong!) technical choices of
software.

Cheers,
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au>

All it takes is working on someone elses program to understand why they call
it "code".      - Henry O. Farad <lrc at netcom.COM>