HP stopping VMS paper documentation ?

[Simon Clubley]

I'm just sorting out my HP VMS contract for next year and there's the
following notice against my VMS paper documentation line item:

Please note HP can no longer support this item from: 31.12.2012

This is on part number QA-001AA-GZ "OVMS Full Documentation".

Has anyone else seen this on their contracts for next year ?

The line item is also listed on next year's contract at 0.00 UKP instead
of it's usual value (which I cannot state: work policy), which implies to
me that I should not expect to see any more VMS paper documentation out of
HP and that this is basically my 12 months notice.

After all these years, it will strange not having a current VMS doc kit
on my bookcase when the next VMS versions come out.

At the prices HP charge, they must make a profit on it, so I wonder why
they have stopped.

BTW: Personally, while I use online resources for reference material,
I still prefer to use paper for tutorial/conceptual type reading when a
paper option is available. Am I alone in this ?

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

[abrsvc]

On Nov 23, 11:01 am, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-

I too have had difficulty obtaining the paper docs. I have resorted
to printing them locally. When just looking up a single item, the
online version is fine. Many times however, a particularly difficult
rpioblem has me looking at several manuals at a time. While multiple
open windows can work, it is easier with paper. Perhaps this is a
throwback to earlier (pre-online) times...

Dan

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Simon Clubley wrote 2011-11-23 17:01:
> I'm just sorting out my HP VMS contract for next year and there's the
> following notice against my VMS paper documentation line item:
>
> Please note HP can no longer support this item from: 31.12.2012
>
> This is on part number QA-001AA-GZ "OVMS Full Documentation".
>
> Has anyone else seen this on their contracts for next year ?
>
> The line item is also listed on next year's contract at 0.00 UKP instead
> of it's usual value (which I cannot state: work policy), which implies to
> me that I should not expect to see any more VMS paper documentation out of
> HP and that this is basically my 12 months notice.
>
> After all these years, it will strange not having a current VMS doc kit
> on my bookcase when the next VMS versions come out.
>
> At the prices HP charge, they must make a profit on it, so I wonder why
> they have stopped.
>
> BTW: Personally, while I use online resources for reference material,
> I still prefer to use paper for tutorial/conceptual type reading when a
> paper option is available. Am I alone in this ?
>
> Simon.
>

I havn't used a pre-printed VMS manual in probably 15 years. I do not
think they have anything that the PDF's doesn't have, content wise.
I think they (HP) can spend there time better then to pack and ship
manuals.

[JF Mezei]

Simon Clubley wrote:

> This is on part number QA-001AA-GZ "OVMS Full Documentation".

Is there a separate line item for the documentation CDs ?


The question becomes whethyer paper documentation remains available for
purchase (say you have a new customer) or whether it will be digital only.

> BTW: Personally, while I use online resources for reference material,
> I still prefer to use paper for tutorial/conceptual type reading when a
> paper option is available. Am I alone in this ?

Paper is often better unless you have 5 displays on your desktop :-(
paper is also necessary when you do work at the SRM level or very low
level (such as SYSBOOT) where your system has not booted sufficiently
for you to access on-line documentation.

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Bull...

Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.

[Bob Eager]

I've put some of them on my Kindle!



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

[JF Mezei]

Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:

> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.

In which case, you need to ensure you have loaded all the relevant
documentation on your laptop before shutting down the server which hosts
that documentation.

[VAXman-]

Then, I guess I'm an un-"professionall". Kill them trees for me, I say.
I currently have a foot and a half high stack of manuals beside my desk
that I've been referencing quite regulary. Trying to fit a full page of
any PDF documentation on a laptop makes its print too small to be easily
read. Fine scrolling, when the manual is several hundred pages, is also
a PITA!

BTW, a "professionall" would know how to spell professional or would look
it up in a dictionary -- whether that be on-line or otherwise. You must
be using Micro$oft Mi$$pell Unchecker.

--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

All your spirit rack abuses, come to haunt you back by day.
All your Byzantine excuses, given time, given you away.

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

*I* never shut down any of HP's servers.
You are way out of reality.

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote 2011-11-23 20:22:
> In article<jajd9v$kpf$1...@news.albasani.net>, Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik....@telia.com> writes:
>> JF Mezei wrote 2011-11-23 18:58:
>>> Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>
>>>> This is on part number QA-001AA-GZ "OVMS Full Documentation".
>>>
>>>
>>> Is there a separate line item for the documentation CDs ?
>>>
>>>
>>> The question becomes whethyer paper documentation remains available for
>>> purchase (say you have a new customer) or whether it will be digital only.
>>>
>>>
>>>> BTW: Personally, while I use online resources for reference material,
>>>> I still prefer to use paper for tutorial/conceptual type reading when a
>>>> paper option is available. Am I alone in this ?
>>>
>>> Paper is often better unless you have 5 displays on your desktop :-(
>>> paper is also necessary when you do work at the SRM level or very low
>>> level (such as SYSBOOT) where your system has not booted sufficiently
>>> for you to access on-line documentation.
>>
>> Bull...
>>
>> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
>> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.
>
> Then, I guess I'm an un-"professionall".

Yes, sometimes it sure looks like that at least.
Knowing every single bit of the VMS kernel does not count.

It's also unprofessional to always deliberately misspell
Microsoft and Windows. Close to childish, I'd say.

[JF Mezei]

Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:

> *I* never shut down any of HP's servers.
> You are way out of reality.

Even my for Apple gear, I printed some of the "booting sequence options"
because if I have problems, I can't access the doc when the machine is
down. Finding that technical page on the Apple web site would be way too
time consuming even if you had acess to the web.


For my older router, I had printed its doc so that in times of problems,
I had the list of commands to enter to debug the PPPoE negotiations etc.

The thing with digital documentation is that it sometimes takes much
longer to get to the relevant place than with printed doc. (depending
on format and whether they created proper bookmarks).

[MG]

On 23-11-2011 20:35, Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
> It's also unprofessional to always deliberately misspell
> Microsoft and Windows. Close to childish, I'd say.

As an enthusiastic VMS user, I'm equally offended and heartbroken!
Who does that evil VAXman think he is that he can do that?!

- MG

[Single Stage to Orbit]

On Wed, 2011-11-23 at 18:29 +0000, Bob Eager wrote:
> > Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or similar,
> not
> > on the target system you are supporting, of course.
>
> I've put some of them on my Kindle!

What an excellent idea, as I've got a Kindle, it never occurred to me
that it could be useful as a manual reader :)
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

[Bob Eager]

So many people rail against having a Kindle and buying books solely from
Amazon.

There are so many other possibilities:
- free books from many sources
- music (in a limited way)
- manuals for things such as my camera, phone, etc.
- e-book copies of things such as my O'Reilly reference books (only $4.95
each)
- VMS manuals!
- various Word documents, e.g. large draft documents for meetings, to
save printing them for one use

The free Amazon conversion service is pretty good, too.

[Michael Kraemer]

JF Mezei schrieb:

> Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
>
>
>>*I* never shut down any of HP's servers.
>>You are way out of reality.
>

> For my older router, I had printed its doc so that in times of problems,
> I had the list of commands to enter to debug the PPPoE negotiations etc.
>
> The thing with digital documentation is that it sometimes takes much
> longer to get to the relevant place than with printed doc. (depending
> on format and whether they created proper bookmarks).

Mirroring the HP doc pages to a local server
and printing the most important manual(s) on recycling paper,
wouldn't this settle the feud?

[JF Mezei]

Michael Kraemer wrote:

> Mirroring the HP doc pages to a local server
> and printing the most important manual(s) on recycling paper,
> wouldn't this settle the feud?

Nothing short of foam bats or the full grey wall will solve this feud !

[VAXman-]

Then be offended and heartbroken with your toys.

[VAXman-]

It seems that HP will go to any and all ends to sell you more ink! ;)

[Simon Clubley]

On 2011-11-23, JF Mezei <jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
> Simon Clubley wrote:
>
>> This is on part number QA-001AA-GZ "OVMS Full Documentation".
>
> Is there a separate line item for the documentation CDs ?
>

Yes, the Alpha binaries/online documentation cdrom is still on the contract.

>
> The question becomes whethyer paper documentation remains available for
> purchase (say you have a new customer) or whether it will be digital only.
>

Good question. Are HP only abandoning the incremental paper updating of
VMS manuals, or are they abandoning the whole paper documentation
distribution supply chain ? I don't know.

>
>> BTW: Personally, while I use online resources for reference material,
>> I still prefer to use paper for tutorial/conceptual type reading when a
>> paper option is available. Am I alone in this ?
>
> Paper is often better unless you have 5 displays on your desktop :-(
> paper is also necessary when you do work at the SRM level or very low
> level (such as SYSBOOT) where your system has not booted sufficiently
> for you to access on-line documentation.

At home, I routinely have to read through 500+ pages of a dense PDF format
reference manual for (say) a manufacturer's MCU part (I am a embedded
hobbyist) in order to put together the information I need. It looks like I
am now going to have to start doing the same thing at work.

BTW, I would not keep the PDF manuals on a server. That information should
be kept on your workstation/desktop PC/laptop. My problem here is my
preference for paper documentaion for certain things.

Thanks to everyone who answered.

[MG]

On 24-11-2011 14:20, Simon Clubley wrote:
> Good question. Are HP only abandoning the incremental paper updating of
> VMS manuals, or are they abandoning the whole paper documentation
> distribution supply chain ? I don't know.

If so, to come to think of it: strange decision coming from a leading
printer manufacturer.

- MG

[Michael Kraemer]

In article <4ece4595$0$6962$e4fe...@news2.news.xs4all.nl>, MG

<marc...@SPAMxs4all.nl> writes:

>
> If so, to come to think of it: strange decision coming from a leading
> printer manufacturer.

Not at all.
You'll have to print it yourself.
And for that you need: An HP printer and HP ink cartridges.

[Neil Rieck]

On Nov 23, 12:56 pm, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
wrote:

Us too. As soon as electronic docs were available on CD-ROM (IIRC this
was 1998-1999) we stopped the paper docs. It was better for us (cuz
the stuff was searchable) and better for the planet.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/

[MG]

On 24-11-2011 14:30, Michael Kraemer wrote:
> Not at all.
> You'll have to print it yourself.

With the current ink and toner cartridge prices...?

> And for that you need: An HP printer and HP ink cartridges.

Most people (in my experience, from what I've seen at university
and elsewhere) who, nowadays, want to print large documents go to
print shops. It's not exactly cheap, but still much cheaper than
to 'print it yourself'.

- MG

[MG]

On 24-11-2011 14:30, Michael Kraemer wrote:

> Not at all.
> You'll have to print it yourself.

With the current ink and toner cartridge prices...?

> And for that you need: An HP printer and HP ink cartridges.

[VAXman-]

Not here. After HP essentially made my d|i|g|i|t|i|a|l LCNO2 worthless
by refusing to support it and provide consumables for it, I decided that
I would not purchase *ANY* HP products -- save for the Integrity. Canon
produces, by far, the superior ink jet photo printers anyway.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

The price, per copy, goes down as quantities go up. If you want 400
copies of a large document you can probably do it for $30 to $40 per
copy. The big ticket is making the plates and installing them on the
press. Once that's done your costs are basically paper and ink!

[Paul Sture]

Not quite. You are free to pick offerings from other manufacturers.

Incidentally a new HP Color Laser arrived in the office the other day.

The paper trays don't have a "stop" on them as you pull them out. I can
easily see quite a few getting dropped on the floor by someone who is
used to feeling some resistance.

--
Paul Sture

[John Wallace]

On Nov 24, 4:11 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber...@comcast.net>
wrote:

I guess you haven't looked at the print industry for a decade or more?

Look for a writeup of "digital printing" somewhere.

At the moderate volume end, there are no "plates" any more. You can
get "print on demand" from anything from the usual A4/A3 stuff to
(effectively) paperbacks on demand (have a look at lulu.com). Printing
done on what is basically an overgrown laserprinter.

At the medium and high volume end, where real plates are still used,
the cost of a plate vanishes into the other costs.

DEC's Software Distribution Centre in Ireland were using print on
demand technology to produce paper manuals back in the 1990s, if I
remember rightly.

Alpha (and in particular NT/Alpha) also had a role in the death of
"camera ready copy"; an Alpha with the right 3rd party application and
imagesetter interface card was the quickest way of getting from
PostScript to imagesetter, ready for printing. DEC also had some
interesting software for pre-flight-checking PostScript before you
actually fed it to the PostScript->raster process.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 11/24/2011 2:21 PM, John Wallace wrote:
> On Nov 24, 4:11 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert"<rgilber...@comcast.net>
> wrote:
>> On 11/24/2011 10:08 AM, MG wrote:
>>
>>> On 24-11-2011 14:30, Michael Kraemer wrote:
>>>> Not at all.
>>>> You'll have to print it yourself.
>>
>>> With the current ink and toner cartridge prices...?
>>
>>>> And for that you need: An HP printer and HP ink cartridges.
>>
>>> Most people (in my experience, from what I've seen at university
>>> and elsewhere) who, nowadays, want to print large documents go to
>>> print shops. It's not exactly cheap, but still much cheaper than
>>> to 'print it yourself'.
>>
>>> - MG
>>
>> The price, per copy, goes down as quantities go up. If you want 400
>> copies of a large document you can probably do it for $30 to $40 per
>> copy. The big ticket is making the plates and installing them on the
>> press. Once that's done your costs are basically paper and ink!
>
>
> "making the plates and installing them on the press"
>
> I guess you haven't looked at the print industry for a decade or more?
>

That's about right! My wife used to publish "fan fiction" in the
"Startrek" universe. Later, she did the same using the universe of a
show called "Beauty and the Beast" That's probably fifteen to twenty
years in the past!

This was the low volume end. She could sell two to four hundred copies.
She would bring the originals to the print shop and order the number of
copies she wanted.

From about 1999 to 2004 I worked for a printing company Called
RapidForms that did short run printing. You wanted 500 business cards?
They could do that. You wanted envelopes, and letterhead, they did
that too. Checks were a big seller.

They had a cross between a copier and a laser printer that did about a
hundred pages per minute. They also had old style printing presses.

The company is gone now. A company called "Deluxe" bought the parent
company (NEBS). Deluxe was acquired in turn but I've forgotten who
bought them.

[Michael Kraemer]

Neil Rieck schrieb:

> Us too. As soon as electronic docs were available on CD-ROM (IIRC this
> was 1998-1999) we stopped the paper docs. It was better for us (cuz
> the stuff was searchable) and better for the planet.

Is there any evidence that usage of (recycling) paper does
more damage to the planet at the bottom line than production
(and disposal) of equivalent electronic devices?
As far as I remember the production of an ordinary PC
requires about a metric ton of raw material and quite
a bit of energy. And it is thrown away after three years.
Even recycling that stuff costs energy
and requires poisonous chemicals.
And all this should be more ecological than a few hundred
sheets of paper? Hard to believe.

[Paul Sture]

Since we are talking about paper, what about the energy and subsequent
recycling problem of throwaway ink cartridges.

For as long as I can remember HP has had a recycling program for toner
cartridges (do they still have that?), but I don't think I've ever seen
the same for ink cartridges.



--
Paul Sture

[Roger Ivie]

On 2011-11-25, Paul Sture <paul....@sture.ch> wrote:
> For as long as I can remember HP has had a recycling program for toner
> cartridges (do they still have that?), but I don't think I've ever seen
> the same for ink cartridges.

The place where I buy my ink cartridges does *something* with them; they
give you a small break on price if you bring an old cartridge in when
you buy a new one.
--
roger ivie
ri...@ridgenet.net

[Richard B. Gilbert]

I'd make a small bet that somebody is "re-manufacturing" those cartridges!

[Paul Sture]

I've just never seen that. Perhaps I haven't been looking hard enough.

--
Paul Sture

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <jp6dnT-kqbYzelPT...@giganews.com>, "Richard B.

Gilbert" <rgilb...@comcast.net> writes:

> That's about right! My wife used to publish "fan fiction" in the
> "Startrek" universe.

Are we talking KS here? (If you don't know what it means then, trust
me, you really don't want to know.)

[Fritz Wuehler]

Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik....@telia.com> wrote:

> JF Mezei wrote 2011-11-23 18:58:

> > Simon Clubley wrote:
> >
> >> This is on part number QA-001AA-GZ "OVMS Full Documentation".
> >
> >

> > Is there a separate line item for the documentation CDs ?
> >
> >

> > The question becomes whethyer paper documentation remains available for
> > purchase (say you have a new customer) or whether it will be digital only.
> >
> >

> >> BTW: Personally, while I use online resources for reference material,
> >> I still prefer to use paper for tutorial/conceptual type reading when a
> >> paper option is available. Am I alone in this ?
> >

> > Paper is often better unless you have 5 displays on your desktop :-(
> > paper is also necessary when you do work at the SRM level or very low
> > level (such as SYSBOOT) where your system has not booted sufficiently
> > for you to access on-line documentation.
>

> Bull...

>
> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.

I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
reference. Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
manual in PDF is extremely disruptive, and searching using Acrobat takes
longer than finding the information in a manual (even a very large one) if
you know the manual from years of using it. Paper manuals are a clear win
on this alone. I like having a full set of printed doc around and I prefer
real books as well.

[VAXman-]

Hear, hear!

[JF Mezei]

Fritz Wuehler wrote:

> I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
> definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
> reference. Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
> manual in PDF is extremely disruptive,

I do not disagree with the above.

BUT.... If you added a supplemental display on your desk to display
docuemntation in .PDF with proper bookmarks, perhaps the experience
would be different.

The ability to copy/paste subroutine definitions into your code so you
can just fill in the arguments to ensure you have right number of args
in correct location is a plus, and this is something you can't do with
printed docs.


But I agree that with a single display, printed docs are a must. OR,
perhaps having an ipad on your desk to display the docs while you type
your program on your computer display.


Now, for VMS doc, I was used to the grey binders (with a sprinkling of
orange ones). lay flat on desk and pages remained opened where you left
them.

But if you forced me to use the urrent paperback doc set, I would have
hated it because I couldn't leave a bookopened on the page describing
the terminal driver $QIO options without some brock over it to prevent
the book from closing. So from that point of view, .pdf would be far
superior to paperback documentation.

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Fritz Wuehler wrote 2011-11-26 22:07:

> Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik....@telia.com> wrote:

>> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
>> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.
>
> I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
> definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
> reference.

You missed the point.
What I was commenting was reading the manuals on the VMS system itself.
This part :

>> JF Mezei wrote 2011-11-23 18:58:
>>> paper is also necessary when you do work at the SRM level or very low
>>> level (such as SYSBOOT) where your system has not booted sufficiently
>>> for you to access on-line documentation.

That was just silly. Noone would use the VMS system itself to
read the docs. Today...

> Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
> manual in PDF is extremely disruptive, and searching using Acrobat takes
> longer than finding the information in a manual (even a very large one) if
> you know the manual from years of using it. Paper manuals are a clear win
> on this alone. I like having a full set of printed doc around and I prefer
> real books as well.
>

Then you expect to do all your work at some specific physical place.
Or do you always bring your bookshelf (the "wall") with you?

I do have an "office" but I'm not very much there. Mostly I work from home
or at the customer sites. The PDF's weight *way* less then the binders! :-)

For lookup reference I prefer PDF.
For *reading* I prefer real books, but they are never about VMS. :-)

[urbancamo]

> I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
> definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
> reference. Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
> manual in PDF is extremely disruptive, and searching using Acrobat takes
> longer than finding the information in a manual (even a very large one) if
> you know the manual from years of using it. Paper manuals are a clear win
> on this alone. I like having a full set of printed doc around and I prefer
> real books as well.

Worse thing about PDFs is that you cant 'browse' the same way as paper manuals. I love PDFs (or indeed the internet in general) if you have a problem to solve. However, generally getting a feel for a system/programming language/you pick the subject happens much quicker if you can browse paper manuals.

I am fortunate that I have a fairly complete set of VMS manuals. Occasionally I'll pick one at random and flick through. I can guarantee I learn something everytime.

I do print out manuals (on a laser printer - not sure why all the discussion is focused on inkjets. I've a Kyocera FS1020D, the cheapest to purchase/run duplex printer at the time. You just have to know about Platenclean after about 18 months). Sometimes they get read cover to cover. Sometimes I realize it was a mistake.

Just my tuppence, as always...

Mark.

[VAXman-]

In article <4ed164a5$0$8491$c3e8da3$cc4f...@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei <jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> writes:
>Fritz Wuehler wrote:
>
>> I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
>> definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
>> reference. Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
>> manual in PDF is extremely disruptive,
>
>I do not disagree with the above.
>
>BUT.... If you added a supplemental display on your desk to display
>docuemntation in .PDF with proper bookmarks, perhaps the experience
>would be different.
>
>The ability to copy/paste subroutine definitions into your code so you
>can just fill in the arguments to ensure you have right number of args
>in correct location is a plus, and this is something you can't do with
>printed docs.

Use the named argument Macros!

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article
<efe68e9c4118d4fc...@msgid.frell.theremailer.net>, Fritz
Wuehler <fr...@spamexpire-201111.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> writes:

> > Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
> > similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.
>
> I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
> definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
> reference. Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
> manual in PDF is extremely disruptive, and searching using Acrobat takes
> longer than finding the information in a manual (even a very large one) if
> you know the manual from years of using it. Paper manuals are a clear win
> on this alone. I like having a full set of printed doc around and I prefer
> real books as well.

While I agree with your sentiments regarding the advantages of a paper
manual (I have a full set of the Grey Wall), to be fair Jan-Erik was
comparing reading the documentation on a system other than the one one
is working on to reading the documentation on the system one is working
on itself, which is obviously a problem if said system is booting etc.
(I do disagree with Jan-Erik regarding "working on the system"; I like
to work on the server itself as far as possible, not logged in remotely
from a Windows laptop or whatever. But that is another issue.)

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <4ed164a5$0$8491$c3e8da3$cc4f...@news.astraweb.com>, JF
Mezei <jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> writes:

> Now, for VMS doc, I was used to the grey binders (with a sprinkling of
> orange ones). lay flat on desk and pages remained opened where you left
> them.

Those were the days!

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <jarodg$qm7$1...@news.albasani.net>, Jan-Erik Soderholm

<jan-erik....@telia.com> writes:

> That was just silly. Noone would use the VMS system itself to
> read the docs. Today...

Actually I do, and I'm sure many others do as well. I prefer the
BOOKREADER version for online docs. Yes, the latest docs aren't in that
format, but for basic stuff, that is where I go first, and only if
necessary do I go to the web documentation (then at HP, not locally).

> Then you expect to do all your work at some specific physical place.
> Or do you always bring your bookshelf (the "wall") with you?

I think that's the issue. Many of us actually do all of our work at a
specific place, or maybe two (home and work). Of course, the situation
is different for someone who travels from place to place.

> I do have an "office" but I'm not very much there. Mostly I work from home
> or at the customer sites. The PDF's weight *way* less then the binders! :-)

In that case, having the documentation on one's laptop makes sense.

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote 2011-11-27 11:12:
> In article
> <efe68e9c4118d4fc...@msgid.frell.theremailer.net>, Fritz
> Wuehler<fr...@spamexpire-201111.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> writes:
>
>
>>> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
>>> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.
>>
>> I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
>> definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
>> reference. Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
>> manual in PDF is extremely disruptive, and searching using Acrobat takes
>> longer than finding the information in a manual (even a very large one) if
>> you know the manual from years of using it. Paper manuals are a clear win
>> on this alone. I like having a full set of printed doc around and I prefer
>> real books as well.
>
> While I agree with your sentiments regarding the advantages of a paper
> manual (I have a full set of the Grey Wall), to be fair Jan-Erik was
> comparing reading the documentation on a system other than the one one
> is working on to reading the documentation on the system one is working
> on itself, which is obviously a problem if said system is booting etc.

Exactly... :-)

> (I do disagree with Jan-Erik regarding "working on the system"; I like
> to work on the server itself as far as possible,

You mean, like using a screwdriver ? :-)
It's not clear what "to work on the system" actualy means.

> not logged in remotely
> from a Windows laptop or whatever. But that is another issue.)
>

From the systems point of view it doesn matter if I'm working "remotely"
from a VT-terminal on the local lan or remotely over a VPN link
over the internet usng Relfection. I do the same things anyway.
And to me, that is always "to work on the system".

Or are you talking about using some windowing system ?
I have never used that, mostly because it's tied to some
specific hw/sw setup, it usualy performes worse then
VT-emulation remotely and it puts extra demands on the
customer environment.


Jan-Erik.

[ChrisQ]

On 11/26/11 21:07, Fritz Wuehler wrote:

>> Bull...
>>
>> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
>> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.
>
> I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
> definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
> reference. Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
> manual in PDF is extremely disruptive, and searching using Acrobat takes
> longer than finding the information in a manual (even a very large one) if
> you know the manual from years of using it. Paper manuals are a clear win
> on this alone. I like having a full set of printed doc around and I prefer
> real books as well.
>

I agree with that sentiment, but pdf is very convenient and takes up far
less
room than hard copy. Still have memories of 3 or 4 grey wall volumes
open on the
desk at once and it is very cumbersome and not ideal. For embedded work,
the
solution has been to ring bind just the register definitions for the
various on
chip peripherals, but it still takes up a lot of space. Perhaps a couple
of hundred
pages out of > 1000.

The solution that would tick all the boxes for me would be a pdf reader
with
tabbing and bookmarks, as per Firefox, to enable moving from sparse
matrix style
page to page with a single mouse click...

Regards,

Chris

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

> tabbing...

I get "tabbing" when opening multiple PDFs in Firefox.

> ...and bookmarks,

I can add "comments" to any PDF file. And then open a list of all comments
in the reader with direct linking to the page where I put the note.
It works as a bookmark and a written note-to-myself at the same time.

Any user-added comments are saved back into the PDF and are available
next time it is opened. Works very much as sticking yellow "Notes"
into a paper manual for quick lookup later. It's both a page-marker
and you can make a personal note on it at the same time.

And you can send the PDF including your bookmarks and notes to
someone else *much* easier then sending a printed manual ! :-)

Below is an example PDF where I have set 5 bookmarks/comments.
It is regarding setting the analog functions of an I/O pin
on a Microchip PIC microcontroller, but it could be about
anything, of course. :-) :

Use View => Comments => Notes (or similar, I have a Swedish
version of the Reader) in Acrobat Reader.

http://jescab2.dyndns.org/pub_docs/41262e.pdf

Regards,
Jan-Erik.

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <jat7je$akn$1...@news.albasani.net>, Jan-Erik Soderholm

<jan-erik....@telia.com> writes:

> > (I do disagree with Jan-Erik regarding "working on the system"; I like
> > to work on the server itself as far as possible,
>
> You mean, like using a screwdriver ? :-)

Yes, occasionally. :-) But also: doing essentially everything on one
machine (or cluster) (the "server").

> It's not clear what "to work on the system" actualy means.

Read documentation etc.

> > not logged in remotely
> > from a Windows laptop or whatever. But that is another issue.)
>
> From the systems point of view it doesn matter if I'm working "remotely"
> from a VT-terminal on the local lan or remotely over a VPN link
> over the internet usng Relfection. I do the same things anyway.
> And to me, that is always "to work on the system".

Yes, but you have to have something to run reflection. In your case,
this makes sense.

> Or are you talking about using some windowing system ?

I do use DECwindows (but also real terminals). (At work, I used to have
a DS10 beside my desk; I had several DECterms on it from which I logged
in to various machines, ran MOZILLA on it etc. After we moved to a new
building, this is no longer possible, so I am forced to use Exceed on a
Windows PC. I use this to start the CDE interface then from there have
my DECterms as before. It works well enough, but a) the PC is a single
point of failure and b) I don't like the keyboard. (I could plug a
VMS-style USB keyboard into the PC, but I haven't figured out how to get
the DECterms to react to it as if it were "directly" connected and not
via Exceed, i.e. numeric keypad works as it should etc.)

> I have never used that, mostly because it's tied to some
> specific hw/sw setup, it usualy performes worse then
> VT-emulation remotely and it puts extra demands on the
> customer environment.

If you have server-heavy clients, they might not even have a license.

[Fritz Wuehler]

Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik....@telia.com> wrote:

> Fritz Wuehler wrote 2011-11-26 22:07:
> > Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik....@telia.com> wrote:
>
> >> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
> >> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.
> >
> > I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
> > definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
> > reference.
>
> You missed the point.
> What I was commenting was reading the manuals on the VMS system itself.
> This part :
>
> >> JF Mezei wrote 2011-11-23 18:58:
> >>> paper is also necessary when you do work at the SRM level or very low
> >>> level (such as SYSBOOT) where your system has not booted sufficiently
> >>> for you to access on-line documentation.
>
> That was just silly. Noone would use the VMS system itself to
> read the docs. Today...

Ok, but then what does professionalism have to do with it? BTW I guess this
means there's no Adobe reader for VMS? Bastards! ;-)

> > Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
> > manual in PDF is extremely disruptive, and searching using Acrobat takes
> > longer than finding the information in a manual (even a very large one) if
> > you know the manual from years of using it. Paper manuals are a clear win
> > on this alone. I like having a full set of printed doc around and I prefer
> > real books as well.
> >
>
> Then you expect to do all your work at some specific physical place.
> Or do you always bring your bookshelf (the "wall") with you?

At one point I did have an office with a full library in a room next
door. On my desk I had an interesting binder system that held a full manual
set (not VMS) and each book could be unclipped and replaced when needed.

> I do have an "office" but I'm not very much there. Mostly I work from home
> or at the customer sites. The PDF's weight *way* less then the binders!
> :-)

I mostly work from my home office and I don't have nearly enough books as I
did when somebody else was paying for the library. But I do have much old
printed doc that will do in a pinch. Point taken if you travel you don't
have many options, a netbook is the way to go. But for your home server room
why not have a full printed library? To each his own preference, but I find
working with online doc very difficult except for the times you need to look
up something very specific like an error code or API call.

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article
<45842f75635d835a...@msgid.frell.theremailer.net>, Fritz

Wuehler <fr...@spamexpire-201111.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> writes:

> Ok, but then what does professionalism have to do with it? BTW I guess this
> means there's no Adobe reader for VMS? Bastards! ;-)

Actually, Ghostscript will display PDFs. Don't know if it will display
everything Adobe reader does, though.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

I had to dig a bit before I remembered what "KS" was. If we are talking
about the same thing, "KS" was a homosexual fantasy starring
Kirk and Spock. I will refrain from commenting on the authors thereof! ;-)

Remember any fan fiction by "P.S. Nim"? Or artwork? I married the
lady and lived happily thereafter.

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <YMSdnXHAFei8Mk_T...@giganews.com>, "Richard B.

> I had to dig a bit before I remembered what "KS" was. If we are talking
> about the same thing, "KS" was a homosexual fantasy starring
> Kirk and Spock.

Indeed. :-) Liberal use was made of the idea "in an alternate reality,
anything is possible". In the novelization of the first Star Trek
movie, Roddenberry has Kirk think some thoughts which can only be
interpreted as a dig at this kind of story.

I will refrain from commenting on the authors thereof! ;-)

:-)

> Remember any fan fiction by "P.S. Nim"? Or artwork? I married the
> lady and lived happily thereafter.

I have seen all episodes of the original series many times as well as
all of the movies up to but not including those with Picard. I have
seen only a few episodes of the later series. I went to a Star Trek
convention or two 30 years ago (getting an autograph from Walter Koenig
and hearing Grace Lee Whitney sing) and subscribed to the magazine TREK
(and maybe another one). However, these were not fan-fiction magazines,
but rather discussed what went on behind the scenes or explored topics
related to Star Trek (such as time travel). I never got into fan
fiction. My Star Trek fiction reading was confined to the adaptations
of the television series (including the animated one) and the first
movie.

I was never in uniform. :-)

[Fritz Wuehler]

Ghostscript is ok, I use it to verify PDFs are really broken when Acroread
won't open them. But I haven't been able to get a 2-up display with anything
but Acroread and Adobe still updates Acroread for SPARC so I run a local
webserver with doc on one of my SPARC boxes for when I don't have a real
manual. It's kind of neat to have the book displayed like a real book with
both pages visible. If I could scrounge a 30 inch monitor I could probably
read it without my bifocals ;-)

[Alan Feldman]

On Nov 24, 7:13 am, Neil Rieck <n.ri...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> On Nov 23, 12:56 pm, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Simon Clubley wrote 2011-11-23 17:01:
>
> > > I'm just sorting out my HP VMS contract for next year and there's the
> > > following notice against my VMS paper documentation line item:
>
> > >    Please note HP can no longer support this item from: 31.12.2012

>
> > > This is on part number QA-001AA-GZ "OVMS Full Documentation".
>

> > > Has anyone else seen this on their contracts for next year ?
>
> > > The line item is also listed on next year's contract at 0.00 UKP instead
> > > of it's usual value (which I cannot state: work policy), which implies to
> > > me that I should not expect to see any more VMS paper documentation out of
> > > HP and that this is basically my 12 months notice.
>
> > > After all these years, it will strange not having a current VMS doc kit
> > > on my bookcase when the next VMS versions come out.
>
> > > At the prices HP charge, they must make a profit on it, so I wonder why
> > > they have stopped.

>
> > > BTW: Personally, while I use online resources for reference material,
> > > I still prefer to use paper for tutorial/conceptual type reading when a
> > > paper option is available. Am I alone in this ?
>

> > > Simon.
>
> > I havn't used a pre-printed VMS manual in probably 15 years. I do not
> > think they have anything that the PDF's doesn't have, content wise.
> > I think they (HP) can spend there time better then to pack and ship
> > manuals.

>
> Us too. As soon as electronic docs were available on CD-ROM (IIRC this
> was 1998-1999) we stopped the paper docs. It was better for us (cuz
> the stuff was searchable) and better for the planet.
>

> Neil Rieck
> Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
> Ontario, Canada.http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/

Better for the planet? The planet's been around for approximately 5
billion years. It'll likely be around for another 5 billion years. Not
to worry.

AEF

[Alan Feldman]

Damage to the planet? OK, I know what you "mean".

Grow some more trees, I say. Paper is a *renewable resource*! It's
also recyclable!

Can you recycle your pdf files? I think not!

Another problem (real) with pdf's is that they're hard to read and
Acrobat is a brain-dead program. Even Preview on the Mac has problems.
I recently was given a pdf by my boss (uh, "manager") to read. It
contained screenshots that were near impossible to read. I printed out
the whole document (several dozen pages!). Now I can actually read the
damn thing, screenshots and all.

I think I read somewhere that all this "paper saving" doesn't really
do a smidgen's worth of good, and just makes tree-huggers feel good.
It may not have been "paper saving", maybe it was recycling -- I
forget. It was _some_ environmental-type thing.

Another step toward unreadability is the new Word default font. The
spaces between words are barely visible. Obviously this was done by a
tree-hugger, surely to allow more print to fit on a page, and hence
less printed paper overall.

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 23, 1:16 pm, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
wrote:

> JF Mezei wrote 2011-11-23 18:58:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> > Simon Clubley wrote:
>
> >> This is on part number QA-001AA-GZ "OVMS Full Documentation".
>

> > Is there a separate line item for the documentation CDs ?
>
> > The question becomes whethyer paper documentation remains available for
> > purchase (say you have a new customer) or whether it will be digital only.
>

> >> BTW: Personally, while I use online resources for reference material,
> >> I still prefer to use paper for tutorial/conceptual type reading when a
> >> paper option is available. Am I alone in this ?
>

> > Paper is often better unless you have 5 displays on your desktop :-(

> > paper is also necessary when you do work at the SRM level or very low
> > level (such as SYSBOOT) where your system has not booted sufficiently
> > for you to access on-line documentation.
>

> Bull...

>
> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.

Why?

BTW, how's that Euro working out?

AEF

[AEF]

ANOTHER problem with using "electronic manuals" is the following: I
bought a digital camera a couple of years ago for a trip. The manual
is a pdf! Now am I supposed to schlep a fricking laptop and
accessories around on vacation? OK, it did come with a small printed
"quick start" manual. But you get the idea. Yeah, I could print it
myself, but it wouldn't be bound nicely; the pages would be harder to
turn.

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 25, 5:09 am, Paul Sture <paul.nos...@sture.ch> wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 04:44:00 +0100, Michael Kraemer wrote:
> > Neil Rieck schrieb:
>
> >> Us too. As soon as electronic docs were available on CD-ROM (IIRC this
> >> was 1998-1999) we stopped the paper docs. It was better for us (cuz the
> >> stuff was searchable) and better for the planet.
>
> > Is there any evidence that usage of (recycling) paper does more damage
> > to the planet at the bottom line than production (and disposal) of
> > equivalent electronic devices? As far as I remember the production of an
> > ordinary PC requires about a metric ton of raw material and quite a bit
> > of energy. And it is thrown away after three years. Even recycling that
> > stuff costs energy and requires poisonous chemicals.
> > And all this should be more ecological than a few hundred sheets of
> > paper? Hard to believe.
>

> Since we are talking about paper, what about the energy and subsequent
> recycling problem of throwaway ink cartridges.

If those who wanted printed manuals would get them they wouldn't need
the throwaway ink cartridges in the first place!

>
> For as long as I can remember HP has had a recycling program for toner
> cartridges (do they still have that?), but I don't think I've ever seen
> the same for ink cartridges.

I'm expecting to take mine to Staples and let them deal with it. They
even give me "coupons" for such stuff.

>
> --
> Paul Sture

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 24, 7:13 am, Neil Rieck <n.ri...@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> On Nov 23, 12:56 pm, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>

> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Simon Clubley wrote 2011-11-23 17:01:

[...]

> > I havn't used a pre-printed VMS manual in probably 15 years. I do not
> > think they have anything that the PDF's doesn't have, content wise.
> > I think they (HP) can spend there time better then to pack and ship
> > manuals.

Hey! We need more jobs! Wrecking the economy is not the answer. (!)

[...]

AEF

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

For those dumb enough to actualy use/have the Euro there are
some troubles at the moment. Personaly I couldn't care less.
To me it's just another "foreign currency".

[AEF]

On Nov 26, 5:15 pm, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
wrote:

> Fritz Wuehler wrote 2011-11-26 22:07:
>

> > Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>  wrote:

> >> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
> >> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.
>
> > I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
> > definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
> > reference.
>
> You missed the point.
> What I was commenting was reading the manuals on the VMS system itself.
> This part :
>
>  >> JF Mezei wrote 2011-11-23 18:58:
>  >>> paper is also necessary when you do work at the SRM level or very low
>  >>> level (such as SYSBOOT) where your system has not booted sufficiently
>  >>> for you to access on-line documentation.
>
> That was just silly. Noone would use the VMS system itself to
> read the docs. Today...
>
> > Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
> > manual in PDF is extremely disruptive, and searching using Acrobat takes
> > longer than finding the information in a manual (even a very large one) if
> > you know the manual from years of using it. Paper manuals are a clear win
> > on this alone. I like having a full set of printed doc around and I prefer
> > real books as well.
>
> Then you expect to do all your work at some specific physical place.
> Or do you always bring your bookshelf (the "wall") with you?

Yes, some of us don't travel from site to site like you do.

Even if you do, you can still use the wall at your regular workplace.

>
> I do have an "office" but I'm not very much there. Mostly I work from home
> or at the customer sites. The PDF's weight *way* less then the binders! :-)

"weigh way" reminds me of a push-cart hot dog street vendor who has
this on his push cart: We're on a roll!

>
> For lookup reference I prefer PDF.

Why do pdf's always come up in some stupid format/size/whatever. You
always have to adjust it to fit a single page in the window. WTF isn't
the default view ever something reasonable. Why is it often some
random, "non-prime" fraction of a page that fills the window at
startup? Then the font is too small to read easily. And one of the
scroll bars does, or used, do stupid things.

PDF files are great for two things: searching and printing. Yes, a
printed pdf file is a beautiful thing.

Books don't require electrical power to read, just your own muscles.
The books are "recyclable"; the electrical power isn't. (Well, I
suppose you could put turbo on your PC to convert some of the heat
into electricity, but there will always be a significant amount of
waste heat that escapes.)

> For *reading* I prefer real books, but they are never about VMS. :-)

Mind over matter? Sure. It's called muscles.

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 5:36 am, Alan Feldman <alanfeldma...@gmail.com> wrote:

Actually, given all the printouts I see by the printers at work, I
don't think these sliver-spaces are doing much good anyway. OTOH, I
still recommend using one space after a period instead of two when
typing.

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 6:00 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
wrote:

_Some_ troubles? How about bankrupting member countries and wreaking
havoc with markets around the world? Riots in Greece? Yep, troubles
all right.

Well, you _were_ defending it last round.

AEF

Hey, how about doing some post-trimming? You'll save space on the
servers that store all this stuff and help keep wasting bandwidth.

AEF

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

I don't. I adjust it so it is easily readable, of course.
Usualy (for me) that means "adjust to window width". I use full
page for quick browsing ("paging") through a document. But the
text itself is hardly readable in full page, of course.

There is nothing that matches a PDF for electronic docs today.

> WTF isn't
> the default view ever something reasonable.

As far as I know, it was set when the PDF was saved/created.
So it's (or can be) different from PDF to PDF.

> Why is it often some
> random, "non-prime" fraction of a page that fills the window at
> startup? Then the font is too small to read easily.

Isn't the font even smaller in full page view ?

[Michael Kraemer]

AEF schrieb:

> _Some_ troubles? How about bankrupting member countries

Those sitting in a glass house ...
US are at least as bankrupt as some EU states.
Doesn't China already own half of the US,
if not more?

> and wreaking
> havoc with markets around the world? Riots in Greece? Yep, troubles
> all right.

I remotely remember this Occupy stuff originated somewhere
across the pond ...

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

AEF wrote 2011-11-28 12:18:
> On Nov 28, 6:00 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
> wrote:
>> AEF wrote 2011-11-28 11:40:
>>
>>
>>
>>> BTW, how's that Euro working out?
>>
>>> AEF
>>
>> For those dumb enough to actualy use/have the Euro there are
>> some troubles at the moment. Personaly I couldn't care less.
>> To me it's just another "foreign currency".
>
>
> _Some_ troubles? How about bankrupting member countries and wreaking
> havoc with markets around the world? Riots in Greece? Yep, troubles
> all right.

That says more about Greece as such then the Euro.

>
> Well, you _were_ defending it last round.
>

Can't be possible. I voted "NO" to the Euro when Sweden voted.
I just can't have spoken *for* the Euro.

It must have been something else. Maybe you are thinking about when
we discussed the 70's style US bank system still using paper checks ?

Anyway, I have definitely never defended the Euro.

Jan-Erik.

[Johnny Billquist]

You know, Jan-Erik, this might also be a good time to point out that
Sweden do not use the Euro... Some people might not know that not all EU
countries are Euro countries.

The list consists of (as far as I can remember): Sweden, Denmark, England.

There are probably some "new" EU countries who don't have the Euro, but
still want to get it, and who are in the process of applying (although
they might have changed their minds now).

But the above three are the "old" EU countries that I can recall, which
have decided to stay out of the Euro.

Denmark and England both have a clause in their EU membership conditions
stating that they are allowed to stay out of the Euro. Sweden just
invented saying "no" (after a referendum) when the question was popped.
Very upsetting to the EU, and I think EU still haven't figured out how
to classify Sweden in this regard. Sweden is one (of a very few)
countries who actually fulfill the conditions for converting to the
euro, and they really did expect that anyone would want to say no at
that point, so they have not provisioned for that situation.

Johnny

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Johnny Billquist wrote 2011-11-28 13:21:
> On 2011-11-28 12.33, Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
>> AEF wrote 2011-11-28 12:18:
>>> On Nov 28, 6:00 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> AEF wrote 2011-11-28 11:40:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> BTW, how's that Euro working out?
>>>>
>>>>> AEF
>>>>
>>>> For those dumb enough to actualy use/have the Euro there are
>>>> some troubles at the moment. Personaly I couldn't care less.
>>>> To me it's just another "foreign currency".
>>>
>>>
>>> _Some_ troubles? How about bankrupting member countries and wreaking
>>> havoc with markets around the world? Riots in Greece? Yep, troubles
>>> all right.
>>
>> That says more about Greece as such then the Euro.
>>
>>>
>>> Well, you _were_ defending it last round.
>>>
>>
>> Can't be possible. I voted "NO" to the Euro when Sweden voted.
>> I just can't have spoken *for* the Euro.
>>
>> It must have been something else. Maybe you are thinking about when
>> we discussed the 70's style US bank system still using paper checks ?
>>
>> Anyway, I have definitely never defended the Euro.
>
> You know, Jan-Erik, this might also be a good time to point out that Sweden
> do not use the Euro... Some people might not know that not all EU countries
> are Euro countries.

I guess many also have difficulties seeing the difference between EU
("European Union") and the EMU ("Economic and Monetary Union of the
European Union").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_and_Monetary_Union_of_the_European_Union

> The list consists of (as far as I can remember): Sweden, Denmark, England.

England and Denmark are not members of the EMU at all.
Sweden is, partly, but is not using the Euro.

>
> There are probably some "new" EU countries who don't have the Euro, but
> still want to get it, and who are in the process of applying (although they
> might have changed their minds now).
>
> But the above three are the "old" EU countries that I can recall, which
> have decided to stay out of the Euro.
>
> Denmark and England both have a clause in their EU membership conditions
> stating that they are allowed to stay out of the Euro. Sweden just invented
> saying "no" (after a referendum) when the question was popped. Very
> upsetting to the EU, and I think EU still haven't figured out how to
> classify Sweden in this regard. Sweden is one (of a very few) countries who
> actually fulfill the conditions for converting to the euro,

Yes, in in the case of Greece, they falsified their national depts :

> Up until 1995, Greece recorded very high deficits, for some years above
> 10% of GDP. Then it miraculously melted down. In 2000, given a deficit
> below 3% of GDP, Greece was accepted as the 12th member of the European
> monetary union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Financial_Audit,_2004

[VAXman-]

In article <javucj$gao$1...@Iltempo.Update.UU.SE>, Johnny Billquist <b...@softjar.se> writes:
>{...snip...}

>You know, Jan-Erik, this might also be a good time to point out that
>Sweden do not use the Euro... Some people might not know that not all EU
>countries are Euro countries.
>

>The list consists of (as far as I can remember): Sweden, Denmark, England.

I knew that. I've spent Pounds, Krones and Kronas as well as Euros there.
--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

All your spirit rack abuses, come to haunt you back by day.
All your Byzantine excuses, given time, given you away.

[Roy Omond]

On 28/11/2011 12:21, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> [...snip...]

>
> The list consists of (as far as I can remember): Sweden, Denmark, England.
>

> [...snip...]

You know, it really really really annoys some of us when someone like
Johnny Billquist, who should know better, uses the word "England" when
he really means "the UK" (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland).

England is not a member of the European Union, nor of the Eurozone.
It is, however, part of the UK, which in turn *is* a member of the
European Union.

Grrrrr....

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Yes, you are of course absolutly right there.

And isn't "Great Britain" realy "England + Wales + Scottland" ?
And adding Nothern Ireland make it into "the UK" ?

Jan-Erik.

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 6:33 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>

wrote:
> AEF wrote 2011-11-28 12:18:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Nov 28, 6:00 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
> > wrote:
> >> AEF wrote 2011-11-28 11:40:
>
> >>> BTW, how's that Euro working out?
>
> >>> AEF
>
> >> For those dumb enough to actualy use/have the Euro there are
> >> some troubles at the moment. Personaly I couldn't care less.
> >> To me it's just another "foreign currency".
>
> > _Some_ troubles? How about bankrupting member countries and wreaking
> > havoc with markets around the world?  Riots in Greece? Yep, troubles
> > all right.
>
> That says more about Greece as such then the Euro.

You missed the point. The point is that Greece would have been able to
take its own corrective monetary measures to defuse the crisis. The
problem is that Greece can't print Euros. If it could, it would 1)
have a far better chance of fixing its problem and 2) it would not
affect the rest of Europe, and the rest of the world, in fact,
bringing about worldwide economic woes.

>
>
>
> > Well, you _were_ defending it last round.
>
> Can't be possible. I voted "NO" to the Euro when Sweden voted.
> I just can't have spoken *for* the Euro.

OK, I recall now that you said it was doing well. Well, I recently
read a headline about saving the Euro. It's not doing well, defensible
or otherwise. That was my point.

>
> It must have been something else. Maybe you are thinking about when
> we discussed the 70's style US bank system still using paper checks ?

Yes, it was.

>
> Anyway, I have definitely never defended the Euro.

See above.

>
> Jan-Erik.

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 6:26 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
wrote:

> AEF wrote 2011-11-28 12:04:
>

[. . . big snip of unneeded quoted material . . .]

Hey, how about some quote trimming!

> > Why do pdf's always come up in some stupid format/size/whatever. You
> > always have to adjust it to fit a single page in the window.
>
> I don't. I adjust it so it is easily readable, of course.
> Usualy (for me) that means "adjust to window width". I use full
> page for quick browsing ("paging") through a document. But the
> text itself is hardly readable in full page, of course.

In "zoomed in" mode it is more readable, but it's like looking through
a mask. I don't know exactly what's annoying about it. I'll take note
the next time it happens.

But screenshots are unreadable at any zoom level.

>
> There is nothing that matches a PDF for electronic docs today.
>
> > WTF isn't
> > the default view ever something reasonable.
>
> As far as I know, it was set when the PDF was saved/created.
> So it's (or can be) different from PDF to PDF.
>
> > Why is it often some
> > random, "non-prime" fraction of a page that fills the window at
> > startup? Then the font is too small to read easily.
>
> Isn't the font even smaller in full page view ?

Yes, but there's something annoying about other views. More on that
later.

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 6:32 am, Michael Kraemer <M.Krae...@gsi.de> wrote:
> AEF schrieb:
>
> > _Some_ troubles? How about bankrupting member countries
>
> Those sitting in a glass house ...
> US are at least as bankrupt as some EU states.
> Doesn't China already own half of the US,
> if not more?

I don't know, but I cannot believe it's that much.

>
> > and wreaking
> > havoc with markets around the world? Riots in Greece? Yep, troubles
> > all right.
>
> I remotely remember this Occupy stuff originated somewhere
> across the pond ...

The U.S. is not bankrupt. The U.S. dollar is still reigns. Interest
rates for U.S. Treasury bonds are lower than probably any other
country, yet people still flock to them. And people bought even MORE
when Standard and Poor's downgraded them! There is no credible threat
for inflation troubles, allowing for monetary policy to be used as a
tool (OK, that's largely exhausted at this time, aside for some tricks
I believe can still be done, but cannot describe).

Occupy Wall Street is a whole other issue. It relates to economic
unfairness and the like, and they are right. I was talking about the
Euro, not economic unfairness, and was typing up a loose end with the
discussion of the Euro from a previous thread.

AEF

[AEF]

Clearly a good move on their part!

>
> There are probably some "new" EU countries who don't have the Euro, but
> still want to get it, and who are in the process of applying (although
> they might have changed their minds now).

S***, I'd certainly hope so! Those who don't learn from
history . . . .

>
> But the above three are the "old" EU countries that I can recall, which
> have decided to stay out of the Euro.

Again, smart move!

[...]

>         Johnny

AEF

[AEF]

Make that "tying up a loose end".

> discussion of the Euro from a previous thread.
>
> AEF

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 8:14 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
wrote:

Yes, but he didn't say otherwise. He said, in effect, E is part of U,
not that E + NI = U.

AEF

>
> Jan-Erik.

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

I wasn't correcting, just adding.


> AEF
>
>>
>> Jan-Erik.

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2011-11-28 17.20, AEF wrote:
> On Nov 28, 6:32 am, Michael Kraemer<M.Krae...@gsi.de> wrote:
>> AEF schrieb:
>>
>>> _Some_ troubles? How about bankrupting member countries
>>
>> Those sitting in a glass house ...
>> US are at least as bankrupt as some EU states.
>> Doesn't China already own half of the US,
>> if not more?
>
> I don't know, but I cannot believe it's that much.

You should research more before making bold claims.
However, in this case, you are right. China owns about 8% of all US
debts, or China owns 26% of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities,
if you want to put it another way. (In the year 2000, it was 6%, so they
have seriously increased their stake in the US over the last 11 years,
but looking at just the last year, they have begun to sell off).

Foreign powers owns about 47% of all US public debts.

However, something more worrying is that US is one of a few countries
where debt is now more than GDP, hitting 100% in August (way earlier
than previously predicted).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt for more
information.

>>> and wreaking
>>> havoc with markets around the world? Riots in Greece? Yep, troubles
>>> all right.
>>
>> I remotely remember this Occupy stuff originated somewhere
>> across the pond ...
>
> The U.S. is not bankrupt. The U.S. dollar is still reigns. Interest
> rates for U.S. Treasury bonds are lower than probably any other
> country, yet people still flock to them. And people bought even MORE
> when Standard and Poor's downgraded them! There is no credible threat
> for inflation troubles, allowing for monetary policy to be used as a
> tool (OK, that's largely exhausted at this time, aside for some tricks
> I believe can still be done, but cannot describe).

Those statements are simply not accurate. But I'll let you read up some
before trying to start a flamewar. :-)
Or actually, I'll keep quiet. This is really not the place for arguing
politics, economics, or being a nationalist.

By the way, the euro might well sink. Who knows. I'm not going to try
defend it. :-)

Johnny

[Johnny Billquist]

Terribly sorry. I should know better, I know. I'm just way too sloppy
when it comes to the England/UK distinction.

I do apologize.

Johnny

[JF Mezei]

AEF wrote:
>
> BTW, how's that Euro working out?

If China were to uncouple their current from the USD, you'd be asking
the same question about the USD which is indiretly supported by the Yuan.

Since China basically works un USD, all the exports they make to the
rest of the world helps boost the USD. This good from an ego point of
view since the USD appears stronger, but it greatly hirts export
potential for the USA, amd continues to make chinese imports so low
priced that american jobs continue to be lost.

So the USA should be hoping for a devalued USD because this would help
create jobs in the USA, even if your TV sets and iphones would end up
costing more.

[JF Mezei]

Johnny Billquist wrote:

> You know, Jan-Erik, this might also be a good time to point out that
> Sweden do not use the Euro...

But they still have very pretty girls with long blond hair and perfect
bodies. OK, Maud Adams *Octopussy" doesn't have blond hair, but she was
very beautiful too. Adams also played in The man with the golden gun.

[JF Mezei]

Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:

> Yes, in in the case of Greece, they falsified their national depts :

Who is "they" ? The greek government or Lehmen Brothers who wanted to
put a coat of paint to hide the stinky finances so they could lend even
more money ?

All of the worlds problems are due to wall street casino bankers. :-) :-)

And that is why the "Occupy" movement started there.

[JF Mezei]

AEF wrote:

> But screenshots are unreadable at any zoom level.

When you create a .PDF, you need to have proper settings to make it good
enough quality.

When DEC first started to create .PDFs, the docset had proper bookmarks
which made the documents quite usable. Locate the routine name in the
list fo bookmarks and click on it, and voila you got it doc.

Then, something changed and they stopped producing bookmarks and you had
one long flowing document without any PDF "table of contents"
(bookmarks). And you had to use "search" feature which is nowhere near
as good.

Same thing wih how images are compressed or have their resolution
redused to 72dpi (which means that the image stops looking good the
minute you zom in, or your screen has greater than 72dpi resolution.

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

JF Mezei wrote 2011-11-28 23:38:
> Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
>
>> Yes, in in the case of Greece, they falsified their national depts :
>
> Who is "they" ? The greek government or Lehmen Brothers who wanted to
> put a coat of paint to hide the stinky finances so they could lend even
> more money ?

OK, so they payed someone to help them. :-) Goldman Sachs was one.
The point was that the Greece economy wasn't what it looked like
at the time. The statistics was not correct.

At the same time (as they correctly points out) was the rest of
(the then current) EU was very eager to get Greece on the boat.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

> ANOTHER problem with using "electronic manuals" is the following: I
> bought a digital camera a couple of years ago for a trip. The manual
> is a pdf! Now am I supposed to schlep a fricking laptop and
> accessories around on vacation? OK, it did come with a small printed
> "quick start" manual. But you get the idea. Yeah, I could print it
> myself, but it wouldn't be bound nicely; the pages would be harder to
> turn.
>
> AEF

Don't tell us! Tell the vendor that on-line documentation is not
convenient for you and ask for a printed and bound manual! If the
vendor gives no satisfaction, find a different vendor for your next
purchase!

[Bob Eager]

On Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:43:58 -0500, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:

>> ANOTHER problem with using "electronic manuals" is the following: I
>> bought a digital camera a couple of years ago for a trip. The manual is
>> a pdf! Now am I supposed to schlep a fricking laptop and accessories
>> around on vacation? OK, it did come with a small printed "quick start"
>> manual. But you get the idea. Yeah, I could print it myself, but it
>> wouldn't be bound nicely; the pages would be harder to turn.
>>
>> AEF
>
> Don't tell us! Tell the vendor that on-line documentation is not
> convenient for you and ask for a printed and bound manual! If the
> vendor gives no satisfaction, find a different vendor for your next
> purchase!

I agree. But if you have to....it's another use I have for the Kindle.




--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 11/28/2011 11:09 AM, AEF wrote:
> On Nov 28, 6:33 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
> wrote:
>> AEF wrote 2011-11-28 12:18:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Nov 28, 6:00 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> AEF wrote 2011-11-28 11:40:
>>
>>>>> BTW, how's that Euro working out?
>>
>>>>> AEF
>>
>>>> For those dumb enough to actualy use/have the Euro there are
>>>> some troubles at the moment. Personaly I couldn't care less.
>>>> To me it's just another "foreign currency".
>>
>>> _Some_ troubles? How about bankrupting member countries and wreaking
>>> havoc with markets around the world? Riots in Greece? Yep, troubles
>>> all right.
>>
>> That says more about Greece as such then the Euro.
>
> You missed the point. The point is that Greece would have been able to
> take its own corrective monetary measures to defuse the crisis. The
> problem is that Greece can't print Euros. If it could, it would 1)
> have a far better chance of fixing its problem and 2) it would not
> affect the rest of Europe, and the rest of the world, in fact,
> bringing about worldwide economic woes.

Printing Euros is one sure way to bring down the entire EU!
Germany tried this "solution" in the late 1920s and the 1930s. The
Deutchmark became wastepaper! If people start printing Euros instead of
putting their houses in order we could see the collapse of the EU!

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 11/28/2011 6:18 AM, AEF wrote:
> On Nov 28, 6:00 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
> wrote:
>> AEF wrote 2011-11-28 11:40:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

>>> On Nov 23, 1:16 pm, Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>

>>> wrote:
>>>> JF Mezei wrote 2011-11-23 18:58:
>>

>>>>> Simon Clubley wrote:
>>
>>>>>> This is on part number QA-001AA-GZ "OVMS Full Documentation".
>>
>>>>> Is there a separate line item for the documentation CDs ?
>>
>>>>> The question becomes whethyer paper documentation remains available for
>>>>> purchase (say you have a new customer) or whether it will be digital only.
>>
>>>>>> BTW: Personally, while I use online resources for reference material,
>>>>>> I still prefer to use paper for tutorial/conceptual type reading when a
>>>>>> paper option is available. Am I alone in this ?
>>
>>>>> Paper is often better unless you have 5 displays on your desktop :-(

>>>>> paper is also necessary when you do work at the SRM level or very low
>>>>> level (such as SYSBOOT) where your system has not booted sufficiently
>>>>> for you to access on-line documentation.
>>

>>>> Bull...

>>
>>>> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
>>>> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.
>>

>>> Why?

>>
>>> BTW, how's that Euro working out?
>>

<snip>

If you allow your politicians to print money you need only to look in
the mirror to find the source of the problem!

Germany in the 1930s is the classic example. You could get more heat
burning inflated Deutchmarks than by burning the coal you could by with
them.

I've noticed that there is no longer anything that you can buy for a
penny! When I was young you could buy candy or chewing gum for a penny,
or a pack of matches.

God help us!

[JF Mezei]

Richard B. Gilbert wrote:

> Printing Euros is one sure way to bring down the entire EU!

But if al countries printed more currency and used it solely to pay back
their loans, then the western workd would remain balanced since all
currencies would essentially be devalued at the sae rate and ths not
really devalued.

> Deutchmark became wastepaper! If people start printing Euros instead of
> putting their houses in order we could see the collapse of the EU!

Sorry, I saw this documentary about 2012. Los Angeles will slide into
the ocean before Europe colapses. :-) (remember that the world ends in
december 2012).


Star Trek predicted a world without money.

More and more, I am starting to wonder if this might not happen sooner
rather than later with governments printing as much money as is needed
to pay for health care, education and collecting garbage. Money could
become worthless.

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 11:42 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
[...]

> Star Trek predicted a world without money.

I beg to differ.

Kirk at least once said to Spock, "Do you know how much Star Trek has
invested in you?"

In another episode, Kirk says, "Scotty, you just earned your pay for
the week," or something to that effect.

In the Gamesters of Triskelion, the "brains" gambled in quatloos.

In "The Trouble with Tribbles" a tribble costs several credits. Of
course you only need to buy one and then feed it to get more.

Check out the "Mudd's Women" episode, in which Mudd is hired to find
husbands for lonely ladies.

In "Errand of Mercy," Spock tries to pass as a trader.

There simply wasn't much need to show monetary transactions and the
like. It was a little like going to the rest room -- not terribly
interesting, so it was not shown, but you know it must have happened
every now and then. Getting back to money, it really wasn't relevant
in most of the episodes. I don't think shopping or trade are high
priorities when you're doing battle with the Klingons or Romulans.

I'm talking Star Trek TOS, here. I can't speak for other Star Trek
shows.

>
> More and more, I am starting to wonder if this might not happen sooner
> rather than later with governments printing as much money as is needed
> to pay for health care, education and collecting garbage.  Money could
> become worthless.

Funny!

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 9:07 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber...@comcast.net>
wrote:

Hmmm. The Euro is already collapsing. Austerity doesn't seem to be
working.

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 7:43 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber...@comcast.net>
wrote:

Just making a point of an advantage of a real printed manual; not
complaining to the group about it.

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 11:02 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber...@comcast.net>
wrote:

> On 11/28/2011 6:18 AM, AEF wrote:
> > On Nov 28, 6:00 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
> > wrote:
> >> AEF wrote 2011-11-28 11:40:
>
> >>> On Nov 23, 1:16 pm, Jan-Erik Soderholm<jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>> JF Mezei wrote 2011-11-23 18:58:
>
> >>>>> Simon Clubley wrote:
>

[...]

> >>> BTW, how's that Euro working out?
>
> <snip>
>
> If you allow your politicians to print money you need only to look in
> the mirror to find the source of the problem!
>
> Germany in the 1930s is the classic example.  You could get more heat
> burning inflated Deutchmarks than by burning the coal you could by with
> them.

Well, I'm sure there's more to it than that. The U.S. gov't (the Fed,
actually) printed money during the current crisis and the US dollar
hasn't become worthless.

You can almost always overdo a good thing: too much salt on your food,
drinking too much water, etc.

>
> I've noticed that there is no longer anything that you can buy for a
> penny!  When I was young you could buy candy or chewing gum for a penny,
> or a pack of matches.

I don't see why this is a problem. Actually, when a penny could buy
something, the increment of a cent is too coarse. What if the cost of
gum were 0.1 cents? Charging a penny would be a rip off!

The real problem is that there still *are* pennies! :-| I heard
recently that it costs two cents to make one cent. (!) Maybe that's
why the world economy is a wreck! (~_^)

[...]

AEF

[AEF]

> Actually, given all the printouts I see by the printers at work, I
> don't think these sliver-spaces are doing much good anyway. OTOH, I
> still recommend using one space after a period instead of two when
> typing.
>
> AEF

I meant all the printouts that the users never pick up.

AEF

[AEF]

On Nov 28, 2:32 pm, Johnny Billquist <b...@softjar.se> wrote:
> On 2011-11-28 17.20, AEF wrote:
>
> > On Nov 28, 6:32 am, Michael Kraemer<M.Krae...@gsi.de>  wrote:
> >> AEF schrieb:
>
> >>> _Some_ troubles? How about bankrupting member countries
>
> >> Those sitting in a glass house ...
> >> US are at least as bankrupt as some EU states.
> >> Doesn't China already own half of the US,
> >> if not more?
>
> > I don't know, but I cannot believe it's that much.
>
> You should research more before making bold claims.
> However, in this case, you are right. China owns about 8% of all US
> debts, or China owns 26% of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities,
> if you want to put it another way. (In the year 2000, it was 6%, so they
> have seriously increased their stake in the US over the last 11 years,
> but looking at just the last year, they have begun to sell off).
>
> Foreign powers owns about 47% of all US public debts.
>
> However, something more worrying is that US is one of a few countries
> where debt is now more than GDP, hitting 100% in August (way earlier
> than previously predicted).
>

> Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debtfor more

> information.
>
> >>> and wreaking
> >>> havoc with markets around the world? Riots in Greece? Yep, troubles
> >>> all right.
>
> >> I remotely remember this Occupy stuff originated somewhere
> >> across the pond ...
>
> > The U.S. is not bankrupt. The U.S. dollar is still reigns. Interest
> > rates for U.S. Treasury bonds are lower than probably any other
> > country, yet people still flock to them. And people bought even MORE
> > when Standard and Poor's downgraded them! There is no credible threat
> > for inflation troubles, allowing for monetary policy to be used as a
> > tool (OK, that's largely exhausted at this time, aside for some tricks
> > I believe can still be done, but cannot describe).
>
> Those statements are simply not accurate. But I'll let you read up some
> before trying to start a flamewar. :-)
> Or actually, I'll keep quiet. This is really not the place for arguing
> politics, economics, or being a nationalist.
>
> By the way, the euro might well sink. Who knows. I'm not going to try
> defend it. :-)
>
>         Johnny

The U.S. is not bankrupt. It is still paying its bills, and can borrow
at near zero percent interest rates. That is not bankrupt.

The danger of the high level of debt is controversial, as the article
itself demonstrates!

AEF

[Richard B. Gilbert]

The paper, toner or ink, maintaining the hardware and depreciation are
all costs that must be paid by someone. Some organizations charge users
for each page printed!

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Clearly, you understand the problem! There are millions who do not
understand. There are also those who understand but do not care as long
as they are in charge and get a fat pay check!

Do you know what your senators and representatives are paid?

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 11/28/2011 11:42 PM, JF Mezei wrote:

[AEF]

On Nov 29, 12:49 am, AEF <spamsink2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Nov 28, 11:42 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > Star Trek predicted a world without money.
>
> I beg to differ.
>
> Kirk at least once said to Spock, "Do you know how much Star Trek has
> invested in you?"
>
> In another episode, Kirk says, "Scotty, you just earned your pay for
> the week," or something to that effect.
>
> In the Gamesters of Triskelion, the "brains" gambled in quatloos.
>
> In "The Trouble with Tribbles" a tribble costs several credits. Of
> course you only need to buy one and then feed it to get more.
>
> Check out the "Mudd's Women" episode, in which Mudd is hired to find
> husbands for lonely ladies.
>
> In "Errand of Mercy," Spock tries to pass as a trader.
>
> There simply wasn't much need to show monetary transactions and the
> like. It was a little like going to the rest room -- not terribly
> interesting, so it was not shown, but you know it must have happened
> every now and then. Getting back to money, it really wasn't relevant
> in most of the episodes. I don't think shopping or trade are high
> priorities when you're doing battle with the Klingons or Romulans.

Make that ". . . shopping _and_ trade . . ."

>
> I'm talking Star Trek TOS, here. I can't speak for other Star Trek
> shows.

[...]
AEF