Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Unknown Target on April 08, 2011, 05:42:42 pm

Title: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: Unknown Target on April 08, 2011, 05:42:42 pm
An undo button for when you just sent an e-mail and realized it probably was not phrased quite rightly.

I've been using it for some time now and I must say that so far it has been excellent.

Here's a link to Google's official blog post about it (http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-in-labs-undo-send.html).
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: BlueFlames on April 08, 2011, 07:15:45 pm
I hate to say it, but AOL beat Google to the punch on this one by a couple of decades.  Whenever you sent an e-mail to another AOL account, you could unsend it any time, right up until the moment the recipient opened it.  Granted, you had to suffer through using AOL as your ISP (which I'm pretty sure subjecting someone to that constitutes a war crime), but this is more a reintroduction of a very old feature, rather than something brand-spankin'-new.
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: Spicious on April 08, 2011, 08:29:12 pm
I don't think you understand how email works.

Requiring that everyone involved use AOL would render it rather useless.
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: BlueFlames on April 08, 2011, 10:16:25 pm
I don't think you understand how email works.

Requiring that everyone involved use AOL would render it rather useless.

It was the largest ISP in the United States for a few years, so no, it wasn't totally worthless.
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: Unknown Target on April 08, 2011, 10:22:23 pm
That sounds like a really cool thing BlueFlames, I bet it's possible to do something like it today without everyone having to be under one giant telecom-esque ISP.
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: BlueFlames on April 08, 2011, 10:38:40 pm
All I said was that it's been done before.  Don't *****.
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: Unknown Target on April 08, 2011, 10:41:01 pm
...are you talking to me?
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: BlueFlames on April 08, 2011, 10:54:57 pm
There's nothing in between my last two posts, except one of yours.  Yes, I'm talking to you.
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: Unknown Target on April 08, 2011, 11:00:53 pm
I'll assume "*****" is a "naughty word" as I haven't yet turned off the word filter. You're telling me not to "*****" after I agree with you about the coolness of AOL's implementation and offer a solution to implement it once again?

At what point, exactly, was I "*****"ing?
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: redsniper on April 08, 2011, 11:02:44 pm
Watch closely, ladies and gentlemen. We see here a classic case of HLPers' desire to be mad, to actively seek out something to be mad about. Two well-meaning posters, neither of whom were meaning to cause any trouble, now through misunderstanding are about to get into a 5+ page argument for no good reason.

/me grabs popcorn
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: BlueFlames on April 08, 2011, 11:05:48 pm
I'll assume "*****" is a "naughty word" as I haven't yet turned off the word filter. You're telling me not to "*****" after I agree with you about the coolness of AOL's implementation and offer a solution to implement it once again?

At what point, exactly, was I "*****"ing?

Perhaps I was reading sarcasm into your post that wasn't there.  Apologies.

Let's gang up on redsniper.  ;)
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: redsniper on April 08, 2011, 11:08:52 pm
Ack! I was just here to watch! D:

Can you really blame me? Could anyone really expect reason and civility to prevail here in this place? :p
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: Unknown Target on April 08, 2011, 11:10:39 pm
Get him! *throws a fish at him*

Still, he probably broke any possibility of an argument, so let's make it a golden fish. Hope the impact doesn't kill him. :D


But yea, I can blame you, because I expect it to prevail here. :p It just did, for example. Minus the fish.
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: The E on April 09, 2011, 09:29:31 am
That sounds like a really cool thing BlueFlames, I bet it's possible to do something like it today without everyone having to be under one giant telecom-esque ISP.

Problem is that the e-mail protocol doesn't have a "revoke" function. AOL could do it safely because both sender and recipient were authenticated and because they controlled all the infrastructure. E-Mail, being the horribly insecure thing that it is, is unsuitable for the same functionality. So before this can be implemented the AOL way, the E-Mail protocol needs to get mandatory authentication support, so that revocations can be managed.

Oh, and that's all more or less rubbish, because it all depends on everyone using the same software; it wouldn't be hard to modify your own mail clients to simply ignore revocations.
Title: Re: I just want to applaud an amazing thing I enabled in Gmail
Post by: Grizzly on April 09, 2011, 10:10:55 am
Watch closely, ladies and gentlemen. We see here a classic case of HLPers' desire to be mad, to actively seek out something to be mad about. Two well-meaning posters, neither of whom were meaning to cause any trouble, now through misunderstanding are about to get into a 5+ page argument for no good reason.

/me grabs popcorn

/me applauds Redsniper's pacifying abilities.