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Paper sizes

royvanrijn.com

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Re: Paper sizes

#51

Post by talideon »

andrepd wrote: post #40
talideon wrote: post #3

I've tried in the past to explain how awesome the sqrt(2) ratio used as the basis of DIN/ISO page sizes is, but there are some very dumb people on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7821947

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the point of the guy you were arguing with in that thread was that the Ax standard was defined in terms of SI units as the US imperial units are?

And I was trying to get across to him that the units used really didn't matter at all, but he didn't seem to get that point.

If you read the parent (by somebody else, not Turing_Machine), it said that the ISO/DIN page sizes are part of the metric system. I corrected him saying that they were only based on it (in that the sizes were defined in terms of metric units) and not part of it, but that what really mattered was the ratio between the long and short edges of the sheets being √2.

Then Turing_Machine came in with this total non sequitur:

> How are factors of 2 and sqrt(2) "based on metric"?

And then things went completely off the rails.

Edit: s/same/came/

Re: Paper sizes

#52

Post by raldi »

talideon wrote: post #3

I've tried in the past to explain how awesome the sqrt(2) ratio used as the basis of DIN/ISO page sizes is, but there are some very dumb people on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7821947

Instead of blaming others for being dumb, you might want to take the following brief blog post to heart:

http://blog.codinghorror.com/but-you-did-not-persuade-me/

Re: Paper sizes

#53

Post by maxerickson »

talideon wrote: post #3

I've tried in the past to explain how awesome the sqrt(2) ratio used as the basis of DIN/ISO page sizes is, but there are some very dumb people on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7821947

They are more or less agreeing with you that convenient scaling is a feature. They just use a bad analogy, and you talk past each other a lot.

(I agree that they miss the point that you aren't promoting metric)

Re: Paper sizes

#54

Post by talideon »

raldi wrote: post #52
talideon wrote: post #3

I've tried in the past to explain how awesome the sqrt(2) ratio used as the basis of DIN/ISO page sizes is, but there are some very dumb people on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7821947

Instead of blaming others for being dumb, you might want to take the following brief blog post to heart: http://blog.codinghorror.com/but-you-did-not-persuade-me/

No, in this case, he was being dumb. He started out with a complete non sequitur, and then got fixated on that.

Clarification: the guy was being dumb, but I was dumb for engaging with him in the first place. I'm in no way 'blaming' somebody for being dumb.

Re: Paper sizes

#55

Post by [deleted] »

delinka wrote: post #27
StefanKarpinski wrote: post #5

When someone claims uncritically that the ratio of any two integers is √2, I get a little edgy. I'm also having a hard time following this simplification: A / √A = A × A / A = A Huh? This only holds if √A = A = 1. I haven't checked the rest, but this doesn't give me much confidence. Of course, knowing those Europeans, these sizes do probably make tons of sense on paper (see what I did there?), even if this isn't the…

The article's not claiming that the ratio of any two integers is √2, he's claiming that when the ratio of the lengths of the sides (the aspect ratio) is √2 that it's easy to keep that ratio with smaller pages by cutting the longer dimension in half. As for your equation above, A/√A != A x A / A, but I'm not seeing where in the article you got this either.

[deleted]

Re: Paper sizes

#56

Post by rsynnott »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #8

Why did Americans simplify and streamline the English Language, but they didn't bother with all of the systems of measurement?

Americans didn't simplify and streamline the English language, certainly not intentionally. If you're talking about the spelling thing, there were no standard spellings at the time when the US broke away from Britain; standards were independently created at a later date.

Re: Paper sizes

#57

Post by michaelhoffman »

RVuRnvbM2e wrote: post #49
willvarfar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The A0 being 1m^2 is important too, if you're ordering paper by area?

The A0 being 1m^2 is important because paper weight is given in gsm - grams per square metre. Thus when calculating postage weight by counting the number of sheets you can calculate that, for example, the weight of one A4 sheet is 1/16 the gsm of the paper - 1/(2^4).

Oppose the totally insane system used along with U.S. paper sizes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_density#Basis_weight

In order to figure out the actual mass of a sheet of U.S. paper from the reported basis weight, you must know how many sheets of paper were in the "basis ream" and what dimensions they were. The basis ream sheet dimensions may have nothing to do with your final sheet of paper, and the number of sheets varies too.

Re: Paper sizes

#58

Post by mxfh »

glitch wrote: post #9

I really wish we'd switch to the ISO-216 sizes. A4 to A3 is so much more enjoyable and painless than Letter to Tabloid. This kind of thing came up often while making posters for campus because it was cheaper to NOT print out all of the posters on Tabloid. Rather, using a mix of Tabloid (for the important poster posting spots) and Letter (for unimportant spots and as flyers for handout). Always ended up having to spen…

Is there are reason that B5 sized paper sheets are only available as imports from Japan in Europe?

The strict interpretation of the B series as a packaging format for the A series only seems somewhat archaic.

Re: Paper sizes

#59

Post by ajuc »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #8

Why did Americans simplify and streamline the English Language, but they didn't bother with all of the systems of measurement?

English is far from being streamlined.

In fact it's the only language I know that requires you to learn how to pronounce EACH word.

Most languages only require learning how each letter sounds, and maybe a few dozen di/trigraphs, the rest is regular. Not so in English.

Re: Paper sizes

#60

Post by teach »

talideon wrote: post #54
raldi wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of blaming others for being dumb, you might want to take the following brief blog post to heart: http://blog.codinghorror.com/but-you-did-not-persuade-me/

No, in this case, he was being dumb. He started out with a complete non sequitur, and then got fixated on that. Clarification: the guy was being dumb, but I was dumb for engaging with him in the first place. I'm in no way 'blaming' somebody for being dumb.

raldi didn't say that anyone was or wasn't being dumb. He said that "instead of BLAMING OTHERS for [x], YOU might want to [y]".

Blaming others is a poor lifestyle adaptation. Whether or not the other guy was actually dumb or not isn't relevant.

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