[Info-vax] Process a .pdf file ?

[Paul Sture]

In article 
<b2c58153-8a5a-4825-aa0f-f70c239d19ee at r24g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
 John Wallace <johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> On Nov 18, 4:07 pm, Paul Sture <paul.nos... at sture.ch> wrote:
> > In article <hdqrfs$va$0... at news.t-online.com>,
> >  Michael Kraemer <M.Krae... at gsi.de> wrote:
> >
> > > Richard B. Gilbert schrieb:
> >
> > > > Frequently a PC is the best tool for the job.  You can sneer at the
> > > > "click and drool" interface but millions use it and it works for them!
> > > > Frequently the PC or paper and pencil are the only tools available.
> >
> > > > There are tasks that cannot be easily accomplished using Windows and
> > > > that's the reason I keep both VMS and Solaris systems around and 
> > > > wasting
> > > > electricity!  None of the three is the best tool for EVERY job.
> >
> > > The majority of people (and customers) don't want to have three
> > > vastly different systems. They standardize on the one they
> > > use for reading mail, and everything else has to follow.
> >
> > Unfortunately that mentality has managers suggesting Windows for
> > production control systems.
> >

> Of course one size fits all.
> 
> Just look outside the IT world. One size always fits all. You don't
> get civil engineers building different kinds of bridges depending on
> circumstances, production engineers always use the same kind of
> machine tool regardless of requirements, motor vehicle engineers
> always use the same engines regardless of application, there's only
> one kind of steel and engineers use it in all known applications, etc.
> A plumber only ever uses one kind of pipe, an electrician always uses
> the same kind of cable whether it is for general duties or whether it
> needs to be fire resistant, a carpenter's toolbox only ever has one
> tool in it.

You've just brought back a memory there. A schoolmate did his 
engineering sandwich year at a naval gearbox manufacturer (David Brown, 
as in tractors and the DB in Aston Martin DB), and commented how 
"positively ham" car gearboxes were in comparison.
 
> That's the way it works isn't it?
> 
> Or is it only "one size fits all" when the PHBs and their "Powerpoint
> culture" have been allowed to take over.

Long before I'd heard of PowerPoint there was the "customer we didn't 
want" who ordered an 11/730 with a tiny disk, 2 floppy drives (!!!) and 
VAX-BASIC - his son had a a home PC and was going to program it (we 
didn't know whether to laugh or cry about that one).

> ""PowerPoint was used to Œdemonstrate¹ engineering rather than explain
> a proper technical analysis. When engineering analysis and risk
> assessments are condensed to Þt on a standard form or overhead slide,
> information is inevitably lost. ... PowerPoint can ... be dangerous,
> mesmerising, and lead to sloppy (or nil) thinking.".
> 
> Those are not my words, they are the words of the recently published
> UK Government report into the death of 14 servicemen in an RAF Nimrod
> aircraft crash in Afghanistan in 2006, which turns out to be a result
> of a whole trail of avoidable errors and unnecessary shortcuts, for
> which as yet no one has been prosecuted. In fact for a traditional UK
> Government inquiry, the report is exceedingly scathing and even names
> individuals.

There's also "PowerPoint Does Rocket Science", a case study of PP's role 
in the 2003 Columbia disaster:

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB 

> But as many of us round here know from our own experience,
> inappropriate use of "Powerpoint culture" extends far, far beyond the
> military and their suppliers.
> 
> You could also argue that the big commercial players in the IT game
> have largely built up a self-preserving Microsoft-dependent
> monoculture, but that's a different subject for a different day.
> 
> Ref: 
> 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/29/nimrod-crash-inquiry
-raf-afghanistan>

And I had someone telling me today that I _must_ produce something in MS 
Word format. I've read enough about incompatibilities between different 
versions of Word that even getting Office for Mac might not solve that 
problem. It's vicious.

-- 
Paul Sture