RFC 1437

RFC 1437: The Extension of MIME Content-Types to a New Medium 🦋

Okay bestie, so this one is dated 1 April 1993, so read it with a little wink 😉. It's written by Nathaniel Borenstein from Bellcore and Mark Linimon from Lonesome Dove Computing Services, and it's part of the Network Working Group. The title block doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates, so it's a totally independent main character 💅.

Status of this Memo ✨

This memo is here to provide information for the Internet community. It is not an Internet standard, and distribution of it is unlimited 🌸.

Abstract 🎀

Okay so the earlier document, RFC 1341, sets up the format and general framework for representing a whole bunch of data types in Internet mail. This document zooms in on one specific type of MIME data, the matter-transport/sentient-life-form type 🧚. The whole point is to make life-bearing email interoperate better, meaning emails that carry entire sentient life forms, like human beings 🫶.

Other informally proposed subtypes, like "non-sentient-life-form", "non-sentient-non-life-form", and the orthogonally necessary but honestly puzzling "sentient-non-life-form", are not described here 🙈.

The matter-transport/sentient-life-form MIME type 🧚

Bestie, this is the core of it 🔥. To promote better interoperability of life-bearing email, this document defines a new MIME content-type, "matter-transport", with an initial subtype, "sentient-life-form". The subtype was designed around four criteria:

1. Criterion one: the syntax must be extremely simple to parse, so there's minimal risk of accidental death from misinterpreting the standard 💀.
2. Criterion two: the data format must be extremely robust. It needs redundancy so individual life forms survive and get reconstituted looking nearly indistinguishable from their initial state, no matter how many bizarre email gateways they pass through 🌈.
3. Criterion three: the syntax must be extensible, so it can describe all the yet-undiscovered aspects of life forms that will be required for transporting non-human species (e.g. dolphins, Klingons, or politicians) 🐬👑.
4. Criterion four: the syntax must be compatible with SGML. With an appropriate DTD (Document Type Definition -- the standard mechanism for defining a document type using SGML), a general SGML parser could be written to parse the data structure and produce directives to a lifeform-reconstitution mechanism. Despite that compatibility, the syntax will most likely be far simpler than full SGML, so no SGML knowledge is required to implement it. It's anticipated that the full complexities of SGML won't be necessary to describe even arbitrarily complex organic life forms 🧠.

The syntax of the new content-type is very simple, and it's honestly iconic how much efficiency it sacrifices for simplicity 💖. It describes a three-dimensional rectangular solid, with the height, width, and depth (calibrated in centimeters) given as parameters on the content-type line. Ideally this should be a cube that completely contains the life form being transported. But where high bandwidth isn't available, a somewhat smaller cube can be used, provided that facilities are known to be available at the recipient's end to administer the medical first aid that could be necessary if someone gets reconstituted sans some of their extremities 🩹😭.

A fourth parameter gives the resolution of the matter scan, calibrated in Angstroms ✨. So this Content-type value:

Content-type:  matter-transport/sentient-life-form;
        height = 200; width = 60; depth=60; resolution=10

means the cube being described is 60 cm by 60 cm by 200 cm, and it's described to a resolution of 10 Angstroms. The resolution is the quantization unit, so it decides how good the reproduction is 🍓. The data stream then reads out the molecule found at each location, using that resolution. If the resolution is high enough that more than one molecule is found in a given location, the molecule whose nucleus is closest to the center of the cube gets used 🎯.

Each molecule is described by its molecular formula, written in ASCII for maximum readability, in case matter-transport mail is accidentally delivered to a human recipient and shown on a terminal screen 👀. Each molecule is followed by a space (ASCII 32) to separate it from the next molecule description 💅. Extremely long molecules may require a content-transfer-encoding such as quoted-printable. This makes sure line-wrapping mail systems don't, for example, accidentally break complex proteins down into their constituent elements 😱.

The following is a message that gives a somewhat simplified rendition of a well-known American politician, starting from the top 🇺🇸:

From:  "Nathaniel S. Borenstein" <nsb@bellcore.com>
To: Mark Linimon <linimon@lonesome.com>
Subject: Think hard before reconstructing
Content-description:  Dan Quayle, low-res version
Content-type: matter-transport/sentient-life-form
        height = 200; width = 60; depth=60; resolution=100000

Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe  Fe
Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe  Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe  Fe
Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe  Fe

Obviously, a real politician's skull is more complex than pure iron, as is its interior. But this simplified example should give the general flavor of the protocol 🫠✨.

(A caveat, however, in the reconstitution of Vice-Presidents of the United States: allegedly, some of the matter-reconstitution schemes currently under development are reputed to perform less than optimally while trying to reconstitute areas of relatively high vacuum, for instance, their skulls. A recommended acceptance test might be to experiment with subjects whose skulls are only at partial vacuum, such as Vice-Presidents of Marketing 💀🙈.)

Content-Description: Mark Linimon

Content-type: matter-transport/sentient-life-form height = 200; width = 60; depth=60; resolution=100000 --NextAuthor--

okay and Mark really said "give me a sentient life form with those exact measurements" 😭🫶 the audacity, the iconicness 🧚

Authors' Addresses 💌

these are the bestie-approved ways to reach the two authors ✨ Nathaniel is at Bellcore, and Mark is at Lonesome Dove Computing Services 🌸

   Nathaniel Borenstein
   Bellcore Room MRE 2D-296
   445 South Street
   Morristown, NJ 07962-1910

   Phone: (201) 829-4270
   EMail: nsb@bellcore.com


   Mark Linimon
   Lonesome Dove Computing Services
   P.O. Box 20291
   Roanoke, VA 24018

   Phone: (703) 776-1004
   EMail: linimon@LONESOME.COM

and that's the whole RFC, babe!! 💜👑