Fuck Paper

http://thoughtinfection.com/2013/03/23/fuck-paperwork-part-1-fuck-paper/

by mcscom • 13 years ago

1 3 13 years ago

claudius2• 13 years ago

While the article points out many uses of paper that are indeed rather questionable, there at the moment appear to be no viable alternatives:

- I would rather get a bill on paper than an email saying that I can download said bill somewhere after logging in, re-entering my passwords and sometimes entering another PIN (German o2). Of course there are also companies capable of attaching a PDF file to an email, but these appear to be the exception rather than the rule.

- Tracking expenses by means of little strips of paper could be improved by putting little QR codes on said little strips of paper. You could scan the code, track the expense, drop the paper. But this would require a standard of sorts, and I doubt that it would be easy to implement in the fifty bazillion legacy checkout systems.

- Scientific work (read: calculations) either require paper or blackboards, the former being easier to handle if there are many calculations, the latter better if there are fewer calculations and more thinking. But then you also want to be able to see at least three different pages with four different formulae at the same time. Given that carrying around three iPads is rather unhandy, you’ll either need a book (or two or three) or print out those damn lecture notes.

And if you just printed 150 pages for some calculations, you can hardly complain if you get a few bills each month…

mcscom• 13 years ago

> logging in, re-entering my passwords and sometimes entering another PIN

Agreed this is really annoying. It should be just a PDF for sure

>Scientific work

I feel a white board (or even better a smart board) works for most purposes. Paper gets lost too easily. Although the ubiquitous lab book is going to be hard to kill off entirely

claudius2• 13 years ago

> I feel a white board (or even better a smart board) works for most purposes. Paper gets lost too easily. Although the ubiquitous lab book is going to be hard to kill off entirely

I get tired after writing on a whiteboard for half an hour or so. If it’s not a smart board, you will have to erase parts eventually – and even though boards are larger than A4, they’re not infinite (and markers make you writer larger than HB pencils).

The lab book is probably not only more convenient/flexible but also slightly harder to fake than an Origin table or some such thing.

Fuck Paper

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