41–46 of 46 posts
You can't use HTML, because it's totally inconsistent. You can't use Word docs, because they're totally inconsistent and not cross-platform.
What format can you think of that you can use to describe how each page looks, right down to fractions of a millimetre?
It's a print format. They're meant to replicate the printed output. Sometimes I wonder how in touch Nielsen is with the real world.
For someone who talks about accessibility and usability, his personal website was always an absolute shitemare to read.
> the content is static Why are you saying this like it's a bad thing? Why would you want dynamic content in a document format? You can't give someone an epub and tell them to read page 197. You can't look at a webpage and know how it will look when you print it out. You also can't just netcat an ebook to your printer and get useful output. What alternatives do we really have? PDF is the most widely supported format…
> You also can't just netcat an ebook to your printer and get useful output. Can you 'just netcat' a PDF to a printer? Which port number? How could I control features such as printing to both sides of the page? I imagined there would be some wrapping protocol (or conversion to postscript?) Does the printer that receives just a PDF binary, and no other control signal, just decide to use a default mode (like always pri…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You also can't just netcat an ebook to your printer and get useful output. Can you 'just netcat' a PDF to a printer? Which port number? How could I control features such as printing to both sides of the page? I imagined there would be some wrapping protocol (or conversion to postscript?) Does the printer that receives just a PDF binary, and no other control signal, just decide to use a default mode (like always pri…
Yes, it works on most printers. My Brother laser printer has a menu option to print out it's network settings, which gives ~20 different protocols with ports which can be used. I don't think you can control the print settings with netcat, but I'm probably wrong. Mostly I use lpr, but the netcat trick is very useful sometimes.
9100 Printing = Enabled
cat something.pdf | nc 192.168.1.2 9100
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those sheets of paper have a really long history and humans have evolved it to be just the right size ... to handle and hold. And ergonomically two columns on a sheet of A4 (whatever by 11 in) is a pretty good default for the human visual system. And ... printers work pretty well with it and while even I have to admit that digital documents are superior for most documents, paper still has a lot going for it: underlin…
The physicality of paper makes it substantially easier for my brain to map and relate content on the page. Each time a digital scroll or zoom is involved, my mental state machine experiences some corruption.
Get a 10" tablet or a laptop. It's painful to read any format on a phone.