Subject: Font?
From: Rotary Engine
Date: 3/10/2007, 2:50 PM
To: AARotary Engine


Paul,  I notice that some of my punctuation such a quotation  marks, are displayed as question marks when you repost to the  group.  Is this because of the font I am using?  Which font do you
recommend for the news letter?  Jerry
I use Western ISO-9959-1. It may not be the font. Are you  sending HTML? If so don't do that. Send everything plain text.  --  Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
Normally for e-mail I compose in the e-mail program.  Never a  problem.  In the last case, I composed in my word processor and  then cut and pasted into the email text window.   I wonder why that
would be a problem.  Perhaps someone can explain.   Jerry
Jerry,
The problem probably isn't in the font you're using per se in this  case; it's in using a Windows application to create the text.   (Those of you who love to hate Microsoft have yet another reason!)
Microsoft uses their own character code (Windows-1252) which  assigns a different hexidecimal code to the apostrophe in  particular (and maybe other symbols as well) than the Western  ISO-9959-1 does.
BTW, Paul, I think Western ISO-9959-1 isn't really a font at all.   I think it just tells your program which character to display from  the font being used.
Bill Garrett
Thanks Bill. We also get this stuff from people not using Windows.  In Jerry's case he is using a Mac. These proprietary O.S. guys are  always trying to set their own "standards" :)
I use the default Thunderbird email program set up and that is  what they list under "Character Encoding"
Here is the Thunderbird default font selected. See the attachment.  -------------------------------------------------------
I think I figured it out. My Thunderbird is allowing people to use  other fonts. I turned that off so it looks like that will fix it.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.

Maybe Jerry can send you a test document to see if this solves the
problem.  I think you'll find it doesn't.

ISO 9959-1 is pretty much like ASCII code.  All it does is tell your
program which character to display from the font set you're using or
what action to perform if it's not a printable character code.  ISO
9959-1 assigns the hexidecimal number 27 (two seven, not twenty-seven)
to the apostrophe and 3F to the question mark.  I expect Windows-1252
assigns 3F to the apostrophe instead since Jerry's message showed a
question mark everywhere an apostrophe should have been.

Regards,

Bill

Well lets try this:
Our little discussion about ?Safety? in so far as Tail Draggers are  concerned triggered a response in me that has been simmering for a  long while.  I will confine my remarks to aviation but they apply  to all endeavors  in life.   When I was a boy my father would take  me to the air port to watch the Cubs, Taylorcrafts and other  similar aircraft flying (in the pattern sort of) for the joy of  flying.  There was no control tower and not a single aircraft had a  radio.  Right over the air port, some adventuresome pilots, would  toss in an occasional loop.   Learning how to handle your  tail  dragger was a rite of passage into an exclusive club.  If there  were any nose wheels around, I did not see them.  Perhaps they were  cowering  behind the hanger doors where they belonged.

 My father was not a successful man and as his son I did not find  much to be proud of even though I desperately wanted to.  Then one  day, he and a buddy, managed to buy a war surplus Taylorcraft and  he learned to fly it.   He did get good at it, I?d say, since he  eventually  thought nothing of plopping down into any farmers field  or meadow that had enough clear space.  Think of how much skill  that takes.   Did it take courage?  I don?t know.   But imagine  doing that...

For sure, for my father  the scales had tilted dramatically away  from safety and in favor of adventure.  He developed a spring in  his step and a glint in his eye and, in the process,  became my hero.

If we conducted ourselves that way today,  the farmer would sue us,  the sheriff would cite us and the insurance company would drop us  faster than you can spell the word ?fun?.  Bureaucrats (FAA,  Insurance companies) hate adventure and they love to dredge up  safety anytime someone wants to have fun.  They limit our  activities and then charge us for the privilege.   The thing about  adventure is that it is always a little bit dangerous sometimes  very dangerous.  Do we really want to give that up?   Otherwise  ?adventure? would be as boring as, well,  a nose dragger.

I learned to fly (Luscomb) off  a dirt strip in the Mojave and my  80 year old instructor spent a lot of time  on cross wind landings  in the strong desert winds.  In fact he would sometimes make me use  the runway that the winds did not favor.  I learned to land on one  main and drive down the runway on that one wheel steering with the  rudder.  We practiced stalls and spins.  At altitude he had me  practice skidding as in a crappy approach and force the issue until  the plane would suddenly snap onto her back.   He never taught me  how to navigate or to talk on the radio.  If I wanted to learn  those things, there were books available.  He wanted to teach me  how to fly.   Flying is handling an airplane as if you are one with  it.  Anything less is just driving.

Think of all the gains in private aviation since the days of the  Barn Stormers.  I would trade all of them to live in that era- to  fly by the seat of my pants, needing no ones permission, and get  out of my airplane with the swagger that befits a real man.  Jerry

That seems to have worked.   Jerry


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