Re: [tlug] Printers for linux, was: refurbished Thinkpad X60 with Coreboot & Linux

[Christian Horn <chorn@example.com>]

On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 10:51:12PM +0100, Benjamin Tayehanpour wrote:
> On 29 December 2013 01:30, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:
> > Maybe, but my experience with that has been rather disappointing.
> > Projects where documentation is neglected typically do not change
> > their practices simply based on public pressure.  I think there's also
> > a pretty strong pressure on copycat projects to get their user
> > documentation up to snuff, so the documentation they produce ends up
> > like commercial product documentation with video tutorials and screen
> > shots of menus and dialogs with the relevant entry fields circled in
> > red, you know the drill.
> 
> Ugh. Yes. This drill I know. While I suppose video tutorials might be
> a good idea for people with reading or other cognitive disabilities, I
> fail to grasp why (and when) they suddenly began to threaten to become
> mainstream. Images and videos are impenetrable blobs of
> human-eyes-only information. I don't want to listen to some dude
> wheeze for half an hour into my ears, I want to ^F (or ^S or / or
> whatever) and skip to the information I want, then absorb it at my own
> rate. Fscking videos.

I think some people or communities just feel more comfortable using 
video, instead of summing up something in a slidepack or paper.

Was just remembering this video series:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL20FE0C4A420FC6B0 which could
nicely in some slides sum up the basic idea (more or less "create
anki decks from japanese subtitles") instead of having people seek
through many minutes of video to understand that.

Reminds of "webforum vs. usenet" and "html vs. plainmail" topics.


Christian