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From: Rowland McDonnell on 1 Jul 2010 21:19 Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > zoara <me18(a)privacy.net> wrote: > > > (despite what I said on Facebook, they look worse today than in that > > photo; at least I no longer look like I've spilled tomato sauce all over > > my face. Find it amusing that almost nobody at work has asked what's > > happened). > > Work isn't the Internet; people can be perfectly polite. One wonders why people are so rude on the internet - what makes you think it's perfectly okay to go around calling people `paranoid' when on the 'net? Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 1 Jul 2010 21:19 Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > > > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > > > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> > > > > > >wrote: [snip] > > > > > Obviously the speed of reading either is dependant on how both are > > > > > laid out. assuming they are the same there is probably not much in > > > > > it. > > > > > > > > There's more to it than that. > > > > > > > > Particular drawbacks of e-reading (dedicated reader or PC screen or > > > > whatever) compared to ink-and-paper: > > > > > > > > The screens always reflect light from the front surface, partially > > > > obscuring the image below to a greater or lesser extent, depending on > > > > screen tech, angle to the light, angle to the eye, and so on. > > > > > > Almost always, yes. In the dark they don't > > > > If it's dark, there is no light. if there is light, it's reflecting off > > the screen. Have you never been troubled by the reflection of your own > > face from a backlit screen in the dark? I have. > > Oh no, but then I am beautiful! Not as pretty as I am, I promise you. Oh dear, did I really write that? yes, I did. So, who are we going to pick to be judges in the beauty contest between me and you, then? > Anyway, I don't get that on an ebook as it is not at the same angle as a > screen. <shrug> If I'm reading from a screen, I'll be annoyed by the reflections off it, no matter what. > > >but otherwise agreed. > > > > > > > Proper printing is higher resolution. > > > > > > On the devices I have, true, however probably not for ever. > > > > I don't see why not. > > > > > > Proper ink on paper printing is higher contrast. > > > > > > Thats not true. > > > > <puzzled> But poor constrast is one of the big unsolved problems of > > electronic displays. > > I clearly have a much better contrast from one of my screens upstairs > than any book I have. Some books more than others. What you think based on what you think you can see is nothing remotely like a contrast measurement. You cannot make a determination like that with your eyes - quite impossible. > so I guess it isn't unsolved. I know for a fact that the problem remains an issue for the engineers, regardless of what you think. Look, just because your eyes are happy reading the screens doesn't mean it's all sorted out. > Ok, the sony reader is definately low contrast but it doesn't cause any > problems. Of course it does - it's just that you're okay with it. > > > > Proper ink on paper printing can be read at a wider range of angles - > > > > and if you've seen me with a book, you'll understand why that's > > > > important to me.[1] > > > > > > I have two screens where the screen can be read at close to 180 degrees. > > > Possibly a higher angle than a piece of paper that isn't straight. > > > > The reflection problem and other issues means that /in practice/, > > paper's better for angled readings. > > > > One example: > > > > Glancing angles of reflection tend to result in total internal > > reflections from ambient light sources bouncing off the screen, and > > *that* totally wipes out any view of the words behind. > > > > > > I don't see any way that you could lay out an electronic document the > > > > same way as a book in the case of most e-book readers in particular > > > > (display on computer screen is a different matter) except in the case of > > > > some of them, because the screens are just too small. > > > > > > I don't get what you mean, if you mean that a bigger book has more scope > > > for being laid out well than a smaller ebook, then yes, but then the > > > converse is also true, so I can't really see a point there. > > > > The layout on a book is meant to be seen one page at a time. > > Electronically supplied documents are, mostly, only practical to read in > > scrolling down the page mode. > > > > Get my point? > > I get your point, but this depends on the book. On books (as in fiction > style), they are displayed in one page at a time mode. I've not met an e-book reader that's big enough to do that and is small enough to be convenient. > > > > Not many of them can display a full page - in fact, it's only been > > > > recently that my desktop Macs have been able to display a full A4 page > > > > at decent resolution and size. I saw A4 Mac displays back in the 1990s, > > > > but never had one myself - and they weren't high resolution, not by > > > > modern standards. > > > > > > Agreed. When it comes to A4 books, ebooks are definately a second class > > > thing, which is why my sony ebook was not as good as the iPad for a4 > > > stuff (although I didn't have the iPad until very recently) > > > > When it comes to normal paperbacks too, if you ask me. Big books are > > totally not possible to replace by electronic versions. > > For me very much so. What's with the mindless contrarianism? There's no way a book containing large art prints can be rendered in a form that can be enjoyed on an e-book reader in the same way. > > > > Proper ink on paper printing is easier for flipping back and forth by > > > > one or two orders of magnitude - the difference in *that* respect is > > > > staggeringly huge and is the main reason e-books are a total no-no for > > > > me. > > > > > > I don't have a problem with it. > > > > Obviously not - which is good for you, because it means you can use this > > very convenient method of carting words around and then using them. > > It is very convenient. It means I can access the information I want a > lot easier than I could before. I find electronic books/etc make it much harder for me to find the information I want - compared to having a paper copy. > > > > > If the > > > > > electronic book has a sensible indexing system rather than slavishly > > > > > copying the book, I will find it faster. > > > > > > > > Hmm - what's a sensible indexing system for your needs, then? I seek > > > > information. > > > > > > Well, instant search (not like PDF), > > > > Do tell. > > Indexed search. PDF does a linear non stemmed search Could you translate that into English? > and it is fairly > useless, getting more useless the bigger the document. Not that I've seen. > > > proper index (ie, not having to go > > > to the back of the book), > > > > Eh? But the back of the book is where the index is if it's a proper > > index. What do you mean? > > The index should be where you want it. In an electronic book, why would > you have to go to the back of the book to find an index? Why not just open whatever page the index is on? If the book is electronic, what does it matter? > The fact you have to go to the back of a book for it is a limitation of > a paper publication, it shouldnt' be copied across to an electronic > document The index needs to be accessible via some mechanism. Putting it at the back in the conventional fashion seems like a sensible idea - and if you're looking at it in electronic form, that's no disadvantage if you open up more than one window looking at the same file, is it? > > > proper TOC (ie, not having to go to the front > > > of a book). > > > > Eh? Ditto - so what do you mean? > > Ditto above You have failed to achieve meaningful communication. > > [snip] > > > > > > When it comes to looking up information, I've often given up on the > > > > electronic version in disgust and gone and grabbed the paper version. > > > > Yeah, often. > > > > > > I am the opposite with that, which is where I really go for electronic. > > > Recently when I was doing an OU course, I had the A4 docs and the PDFs. > > > For looking up info, I would use the PDF, and bearing in mind how poor > > > PDFs are for that sort of thing, > > > > PDFs are best for that sort of thing in my experience - when they are > > created properly with internal structure. If it's just a paper document > > slapped into a PDF without adaptation, of course it'll be rubbish. > > That is the problem with PDFs, they don't have an internal structure, They can be given one. > they have a physical layout (PDFs take quite a lot of my day job some > days). A PDF is stuck in the layout that it is made, regardless of the > form that you are looking it in. Well, yeah. > Basically PDF is the most like a book, > it has the disadvantages of a fixed layout, with the disadvantages of > not being paper. <puzzled> Not the way it looks to me here. > > [snip] > > > > > > Well crafted pdfs generated by pdfTeX with help from hypertex (TeX > > > > code to add internal and external hyperlinks to a TeX doc), indexing > > > > machine-generated too - ah now, they are often a great pleasaure to > > > > work with, because it's so easy to find the bit of the document > > > > you're after. > > > > > > Well, I have a lot of PDFs made with XSLT, which can be ok, although it > > > has flaws. > > > > Surely XSLT is just a method of converting between XML variants? > > It is a way of converting XML to something else, it doesn't have to be > XML. Hmm - not the impression that Wikip gave; don't worry, I'm assuming you're the more accurate information source on this one. > > - so > > you'd do the conversion to pdf with something else - something meant to > > convert XML to PDF. > > yes, XSL-FO (or a FOP). You know that's meaningless to me. So why write it? >which is what i meant (XSL being the major part > of my day job) > > > If you specify the document with sufficient subtlety and then use decent > > software to turn it into a pdf, you should get results as good as anyone > > could manage with anything. > > As good a result as anything, except it is still a pdf. And what could possibly be the problem with that? [snip] > > > > > > Now that's weird... > > > > > > > > > > What is? That I don't have the time to clear the books up or that > > > > > I buy more? > > > > > > > > 1) That you're so uninterested in the books that you'd not care if they > > > > vanished. > > > > > > well, that is a separate point already covered. is there nothing you > > > have that you feel the same way about? > > > > I don't know what you mean - feel like what about what? <shrug> > > Is there nothing you have that you wouldn't care if it dissapeared We're talking about books. I'd be pissed off if all my books were destroyed - but that would not change my relationship with the books in question. I don't see what relevance your question has to that point. Anyway, things are just things. They're not really important. People are important. > > > > 2) That you keep them in your house. > > > > > > Its the only place I have to keep them > > > > But why not throw them away? > > That would require some time that I haven't got to give them. A small investment in time now would save you more time than you'd spent - but later. If, that is, you've got a lot of clutter. [snip] > > > > > Hint: about twice as many of the one than the other, but > > > > huge huge huge huge heaps, so much so that I'm glad they're out of the > > > > loft so as to reduce the risk of a ceiling collapse. Yeah, it was that > > > > bad. (probably not too bad - I tend to be paranoid about that kind of > > > > thing. Comes of having had so much to do with health and safety and > > > > what happens when it's not applied...) > > > > > > I never had anything to do with health and safety (well, apart from > > > fire/rescue and air traffic safety, at least one of which isn't that > > > much of an issue for me) but I get paranoid about that twice. > > > > If you've ever worked for a firm as an employee or as a contractor, or > > been a pupil in a school, or visited a hospital, or employed people, > > or... if *ANY* of those things, you have had health and safety concerns > > and obligations on you to meet certain H&S regulations so as to avoid > > endangering yourself and others to an troublesome extent. > > I was refering to a level beyond the normal level that everyone has to > deal with. You're not making sense. > > I get really annoyed when people say that they've got more immediate > > concerns than health and safety, or that it's not important, or... > > Noone said that here. Oh yes they have. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Pd on 2 Jul 2010 01:55 D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk> wrote: > Oh, that's awful! You should never do portrait photography with a > wide-angle lens. Don't be so damned rude - that's just what he looks like. -- Pd
From: Woody on 2 Jul 2010 04:22 Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > > The screens always reflect light from the front surface, partially > > > > > obscuring the image below to a greater or lesser extent, depending on > > > > > screen tech, angle to the light, angle to the eye, and so on. > > > > > > > > Almost always, yes. In the dark they don't > > > > > > If it's dark, there is no light. if there is light, it's reflecting off > > > the screen. Have you never been troubled by the reflection of your own > > > face from a backlit screen in the dark? I have. > > > > Oh no, but then I am beautiful! > > Not as pretty as I am, I promise you. Oh dear, did I really write that? > yes, I did. > > So, who are we going to pick to be judges in the beauty contest between > me and you, then? Well, I am happy to judge, but then, I know I win, I have seen your xface :D > > > > > Proper ink on paper printing is higher contrast. > > > > > > > > Thats not true. > > > > > > <puzzled> But poor constrast is one of the big unsolved problems of > > > electronic displays. > > > > I clearly have a much better contrast from one of my screens upstairs > > than any book I have. Some books more than others. > > What you think based on what you think you can see is nothing remotely > like a contrast measurement. You cannot make a determination like that > with your eyes - quite impossible. In which case it is not an issue for me, as my eyes are the only way I have to measure these things. > > Ok, the sony reader is definately low contrast but it doesn't cause any > > problems. > > Of course it does - it's just that you're okay with it. Agreed. > > > The layout on a book is meant to be seen one page at a time. > > > Electronically supplied documents are, mostly, only practical to read in > > > scrolling down the page mode. > > > > > > Get my point? > > > > I get your point, but this depends on the book. On books (as in fiction > > style), they are displayed in one page at a time mode. > > I've not met an e-book reader that's big enough to do that and is small > enough to be convenient. I think most of the eReaders do it a page at a time, the sony that I have certainly does. The iPad does with the books application > > > > Agreed. When it comes to A4 books, ebooks are definately a second class > > > > thing, which is why my sony ebook was not as good as the iPad for a4 > > > > stuff (although I didn't have the iPad until very recently) > > > > > > When it comes to normal paperbacks too, if you ask me. Big books are > > > totally not possible to replace by electronic versions. > > > > For me very much so. > > What's with the mindless contrarianism? Its not mindless, it is that you have an issue that I don't have. > There's no way a book containing large art prints can be rendered in a > form that can be enjoyed on an e-book reader in the same way. ok, I will give you that. Didn't occur to me as I wouldn't be looking at large art prints. However pictures in general I wouldn't have a problem with on an iPad style screen (the proper ereaders are very bad at pictures), just not crammed into a proper book form. > > > > > Proper ink on paper printing is easier for flipping back and forth by > > > > > one or two orders of magnitude - the difference in *that* respect is > > > > > staggeringly huge and is the main reason e-books are a total no-no for > > > > > me. > > > > > > > > I don't have a problem with it. > > > > > > Obviously not - which is good for you, because it means you can use this > > > very convenient method of carting words around and then using them. > > > > It is very convenient. It means I can access the information I want a > > lot easier than I could before. > > I find electronic books/etc make it much harder for me to find the > information I want - compared to having a paper copy. > > > > > > > If the > > > > > > electronic book has a sensible indexing system rather than slavishly > > > > > > copying the book, I will find it faster. > > > > > > > > > > Hmm - what's a sensible indexing system for your needs, then? I seek > > > > > information. > > > > > > > > Well, instant search (not like PDF), > > > > > > Do tell. > > > > Indexed search. PDF does a linear non stemmed search > > Could you translate that into English? You type in a group of letters, the word you want to find, it starts at the beginning, checks every letter and stops when it finds that combination of letters anywhere. > > and it is fairly > > useless, getting more useless the bigger the document. > > Not that I've seen. I search a lot of technical documentation. But then that is what I do, generate and format technical documentation. The manual that just went for printing (and I normally have nothing to do with printing) is 1066 pages (actually now split into two) and that is just a limited subsection. Searching that with a linear search is not that useful. > > > > proper index (ie, not having to go > > > > to the back of the book), > > > > > > Eh? But the back of the book is where the index is if it's a proper > > > index. What do you mean? > > > > The index should be where you want it. In an electronic book, why would > > you have to go to the back of the book to find an index? > > Why not just open whatever page the index is on? If the book is > electronic, what does it matter? I don't understand why you would want to go to a page in a book in an electronic system to get to an index? > > The fact you have to go to the back of a book for it is a limitation of > > a paper publication, it shouldnt' be copied across to an electronic > > document > > The index needs to be accessible via some mechanism. Agreed. > Putting it at the > back in the conventional fashion seems like a sensible idea - and if > you're looking at it in electronic form, that's no disadvantage if you > open up more than one window looking at the same file, is it? If you have windows maybe not, except you have to find the start of that index. But what advantage would you have by scrolling to the back of a book looking for an index, when you could just select something and go to an index? Really don't understand why you would want to do this. > > > [snip] > > > > > > > > When it comes to looking up information, I've often given up on the > > > > > electronic version in disgust and gone and grabbed the paper version. > > > > > Yeah, often. > > > > > > > > I am the opposite with that, which is where I really go for electronic. > > > > Recently when I was doing an OU course, I had the A4 docs and the PDFs. > > > > For looking up info, I would use the PDF, and bearing in mind how poor > > > > PDFs are for that sort of thing, > > > > > > PDFs are best for that sort of thing in my experience - when they are > > > created properly with internal structure. If it's just a paper document > > > slapped into a PDF without adaptation, of course it'll be rubbish. > > > > That is the problem with PDFs, they don't have an internal structure, > > They can be given one. Other than a very very primitive one of which words are in which order, no they cant. They can be given a table of contents saying what page something is on (you can't go finer than page number, like where on the page), you can put in bookmarks (again on the page) and that is it. A PDF can not be set up in such a way to let you know what a piece of information means. Really at a basic level it is quite useless for structure. Even a table is a collection of words with lines drawn in it - there isn't the constructs inside a pdf to let the information within a table relate to itself. Once information has gone into a PDF, it is just words, any structure it has is completely lost. It is a purely display only format. For a book or your art prints, that is probably acceptable. I produce technical documents, and the information on the page has some meaning, and a definate (and very fully specified) structure. > > > [snip] > > > > > > > > Well crafted pdfs generated by pdfTeX with help from hypertex (TeX > > > > > code to add internal and external hyperlinks to a TeX doc), indexing > > > > > machine-generated too - ah now, they are often a great pleasaure to > > > > > work with, because it's so easy to find the bit of the document > > > > > you're after. > > > > > > > > Well, I have a lot of PDFs made with XSLT, which can be ok, although it > > > > has flaws. > > > > > > Surely XSLT is just a method of converting between XML variants? > > > > It is a way of converting XML to something else, it doesn't have to be > > XML. > > Hmm - not the impression that Wikip gave; don't worry, I'm assuming > you're the more accurate information source on this one. The input certainly needs to be XML, but the output has the option of being XML (including xhtml if you want), html, or plain text. > > > - so > > > you'd do the conversion to pdf with something else - something meant to > > > convert XML to PDF. > > > > yes, XSL-FO (or a FOP). > > You know that's meaningless to me. So why write it? Well, you seem to know something about XSLT when I said it, (and looked up wikipedia) I had no way of knowing you didn't know (or wouldn't look up) about XSL-FO. It is a page description layout, you can take XML, process it with XSLT to produce XSL-FO which you can use a formatting object processor (FOP) to produce PDF. Generally you can skip the intermediate FO code with most formatters. > >which is what i meant (XSL being the major part > > of my day job) > > > > > If you specify the document with sufficient subtlety and then use decent > > > software to turn it into a pdf, you should get results as good as anyone > > > could manage with anything. > > > > As good a result as anything, except it is still a pdf. > > And what could possibly be the problem with that? As above. Display only with a complete loss of structure. > [snip] > > > > > > > > Now that's weird... > > > > > > > > > > > > What is? That I don't have the time to clear the books up or that > > > > > > I buy more? > > > > > > > > > > 1) That you're so uninterested in the books that you'd not care if > > > > > they vanished. > > > > > > > > well, that is a separate point already covered. is there nothing you > > > > have that you feel the same way about? > > > > > > I don't know what you mean - feel like what about what? <shrug> > > > > Is there nothing you have that you wouldn't care if it dissapeared > > We're talking about books. > > I'd be pissed off if all my books were destroyed - but that would not > change my relationship with the books in question. > > I don't see what relevance your question has to that point. The relevance being you don't seem to understand how I have something I don't care about. > Anyway, things are just things. They're not really important. People > are important. Agreed. > > > But why not throw them away? > > > > That would require some time that I haven't got to give them. > > A small investment in time now would save you more time than you'd spent > - but later. If, that is, you've got a lot of clutter. I do. But it is not my way, and over the years I have found that how ever much I try, I can't change the way I do things. It would be handy if I did my VAT as I went along, but I don't, I rush it all in the last week. Ditto assignments and most other things. > [snip] -- Woody www.alienrat.com
From: Jochem Huhmann on 2 Jul 2010 05:18
usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk (Woody) writes: > A PDF can not be set up in such a way to let you know what a piece of > information means. > > Really at a basic level it is quite useless for structure. Even a table > is a collection of words with lines drawn in it - there isn't the > constructs inside a pdf to let the information within a table relate to > itself. > > Once information has gone into a PDF, it is just words, any structure it > has is completely lost. > > It is a purely display only format. There is tagged PDF though, which tries to address exactly this problem. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery |