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\title{{\Huge the codex}\\{\footnotesize Life with Linux — A Zine\\Typeset in \LaTeX}}
\date{\begin{small}2021.09.16\end{small}}
\date{\begin{small}2021.09.23\end{small}}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
@ -77,7 +77,14 @@ FYI, this is made in \LaTeX \,using the report document class. It then gets expo
I'm pushing this to my own git server as I write this. You can find it \href{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex}{here}: \texttt{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex}. New issues will be pushed after they are complete.
The image of Linus Torvalds on the front cover is courtesy JericoDelayah from the WikiMedia Commons. The image is \href{https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4_RETAT_04_Linus_Torvalds.jpg}{over here}: \verb|https://commons.wikimedia.o| \verb|rg/wiki/File:4_RETAT_04_Linus_Torvalds.jpg|. You can also find a link to the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license there, as well.
The image of Linus Torvalds on the front cover is courtesy JericoDelayah from the WikiMedia Commons. The image is \href{https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4_RETAT_04_Linus_Torvalds.jpg}{over here}:
You can also find a link to the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license there, as well.
The image on the back cover is one that I highly agree with. We built it, it's ours, and we shouldn't be charged for using it. I want my tax dollars to serve my needs. I don't want my tax dollars used to make rich white old men richer.
@ -101,7 +108,7 @@ I mean, \textit{sure} you can get your kid that Casio, which has all the same fe
\textbf{Oh my, a diversion already.}
\begin{multicols}{2}
A little off track here, but this begs two questions: 1) Why is it always a TI calculator that's required, and 2) Are we teaching kids to learn math or to learn how to operate a calculator? The answer to the first question is that Texas Instruments and the Major Textbook Publishers\texttrademark\, have colluded to produce expensive books that need to be replaced every two to three years [thereby costing the school district money] and that require expensive calculators\footnote{A few years ago, I bought a scientific calculator at the \textbf{dollar store} and tested it against my very expensive TI-92. It was just as accurate as the more expensive calculator, and cheaper by two orders of magnitude. Did I mention that this is a racket? I really should do a YouTube video or blog post about this.} [thereby costing you as a parent money]. It's a racket, but that's capitalism for you.
A little off track here, but this begs two questions: 1) Why is it always a TI calculator that's required, and 2) Are we teaching kids to learn math or to learn how to operate a calculator? The answer to the first question is that Texas Instruments and the Major Textbook Publishers\texttrademark{} have colluded to produce expensive books that need to be replaced every two to three years [thereby costing the school district money] and that require expensive calculators\footnote{A few years ago, I bought a scientific calculator at the \textbf{dollar store} and tested it against my very expensive TI-92. It was just as accurate as the more expensive calculator, and cheaper by two orders of magnitude. Did I mention that this is a racket? I really should do a YouTube video or blog post about this.} [thereby costing you as a parent money]. It's a racket, but that's capitalism for you.
The answer to the second question is that we are teaching kids how to use calculators. Teaching them how to do actual math would require thought on both the parts of the teachers\footnote{To be fair, a lot of teachers would like to teach kids how to do actual math. But they also need to eat and when it comes down to the difference between doing what is right and doing what pays the bills, they will do the latter. It's not their fault, really; it's just that the system does not like anybody who sticks out. Keep your head down and the worksheets graded—that's what the system rewards.} and the parts of the students, not to mention on the parts of parents and especially of administrators, who would also be required to grow a spine—and learn how to use it. Again, education in the United States has become a racket, but that's capitalism for you.
\end{multicols}
@ -474,20 +481,72 @@ This directory contains files who content is expected to continually change duri
\chapter{Miscellany}
\section{A Scanner Darkly, but with a workflow}
I suppose I should have been an archivist.
\chapter{A Scanner Darkly, but with a workflow}
I suppose I should have been an archivist. I am always trying to preserve the written word in digital form.
And this makes sense. It's easier to share a digital file of something than to share the thing itself, because as my experience with sharing books highlights, you rarely get them back. Also, the further you spread something, the more like it is to be preserved. \textit{Preservation through dissemination.}
So I scan a lot of things. Because this can be a messy, complicated process, I've developed workflows around this. (I am big into workflows, because once you have one down, it's easier to anticipate and deal with interruptions or disruptions. Unless you run into a mule.\footnote{If you've read Asimov's \textit{Foundation} series, you'll know what I'm talking about.} So here is my workflow for scanning things.
My hardware is a Brother MFC-J805DW printer/scanner/fax machine.\footnote{One day, we will eventually give up faxing, which is archaic at this point. I don't know if we'll just start calling these machines ``printer/scanners'' or if we'll continue to call them ``multi-function machines'' because they still can make copies. Futurists tend not to care about the details.} And this is where we run into problems, because while Brother does make Linux drivers for this machine, the printer driver works great and the scanner driver does not. If I install it, it works fine for three or four scans and then it starts to hang. I can uninstall it, reinstall it, and get a few more good scans out of it before everything goes pear-shaped again. I could live with this if I only did the occasional scan, but I scan on a regular basis.
Alas, this is the one case where I have had to rely upon commercial software: VueScan. The company which produces it, Hamrick Software, creates their own drivers, update it often, and respond to issues incredibly quickly. It costs me \$100 a year, but this is money that I am happy to pay. (And if there were an open-source version of this software, I would be happy to pay that \$100 to it, as well.)\footnote{It also has an auto-deskew function, which is handy when the paper I am scanning is narrower than the minimum width my document feeder can handle.}
My Brother scanner does \textit{not} have a duplex scanner. Since books are printed on both sides of a sheet of paper, this presents a problem. But before we dig into things, let's get some terminology out of the way.
A \textbf{sheet} of paper (also called a \textbf{leaf}) has two sides, which are called \textbf{pages}. If you open a book, you'll notice the pages on the right side have odd page numbers. This is the \textbf{front side} of the pages, also called the \textbf{obverse} side. The pages on the left side have even page numbers. This is the \textbf{back side} of the pages, also called the \textbf{reverse} size.
My basic workflow works like this:
\begin{enumerate}
\itemsep-0.30em
\item Separate the document to be scanned into groups of ten sheets.
\item Scan the front side of a group.
\item Scan the reverse side of a group.
\item Interleave those two scans, so that the front sides and back sides are in order in a single pdf.
\item Repeat until all sheets have been scanned.
\item Concatenate all the two sided scans from step 4 into a single document.
\end{enumerate}
It helps to be have a naming scheme for your files, because you're going to end up deleting a lot of them. So let's run through this again, and include file names.
tips about pdftk. (What were these? from the man pages.)
\begin{enumerate}
\itemsep-0.30em
\item Scan the front side of the first group and name that file \verb|001a.pdf|.
\item Scan the reverse side of the first group and name that file \verb|001b.pdf|.
\item Interleave the two scans, and name the resultant file \verb|001.pdf|.
\item Delete all files that have \verb|a| or \verb|b| in the file name.
\item Concatenate all the remaining files into a new filename that \textit{doesn't} have numbers in its filename.
\item Delete all files except the one we created in the previous step.
\end{enumerate}
All of the scanning is done through VueScan. Afterward, the magic happens with \verb|pdftk|. (See \href{https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/}{www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/}.)
\bigskip
\noindent{}Okay, how do we do all of this stuff with pdftk?\footnote{I won't bore you with how to install it, since there are multiple ways to install it. You can easily find this information online.}
\medskip
\noindent{}We can interleave two scans with the pdftk command \verb|shuffle|. The basic command looks like this:
\begin{verbatim}
$ pdftk A=001a.pdf B=001b.pdf shuffle A B output 001.pdf
\end{verbatim}
\noindent{}What's happening here? pdftk allows us to assign \textit{handles} to files whenever we want to use just parts of those files, whether it's a single page or a range of pages. In this case, we are assigning the file 001a.pdf (which contains the front, odd-numbered pages) to the handle `A' and the file 001b.pdf (which contains the reverse, even-numbered pages) to the handle `B'.
We are then telling pdftk to interleave the two files via the \verb|shuffle| command. So if A contains the pages 1 3 5 7 9 and B contains the pages 2 4 6 8 10, the output pdf (001.pdf) will contain the pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Pretty nifty, huh?
However, there is a problem. When you flip the group of sheets over and run them through your scanner, the reverse sides will be scanned in reverse order, because the highest numbered page will be the first to be scanned. So 001b.pdf will actually contain the pages 10 8 6 4 2. This is a problem.
Fortunately, pdftk has a way around this. Take a look at this command:
\begin{verbatim}
$ pdftk A=001a.pdf B=001b.pdf shuffle A Bend-1 output 001.pdf
\end{verbatim}
\section{Is This Really a Hack? Or Is It Just a Tip?}
\chapter{Is This Really a Hack? Or Is It Just a Tip?}
The word ``hacker'' has a lot of definitions, and if you just google it, you'll find a lot of scary ones on the websites of companies that want you to be scared of ``hackers'' and then spend hundreds of dollars on their security products, some of which may actually protect you against actual threats, and some of which may provide protection against a threat which isn't actually real.
(And yes, there are bad people out there who use their advanced technical knowledge to attain access to systems that they shouldn't have in order to obtain information they're not supposed to have. I'm not talking about those people, who technically should be called ``crackers'' a l\'{a} ``safe crackers''.)
@ -519,6 +578,8 @@ So let's look at some things that have been called ``hacks'' but may or may not
So, 15 ``cooking hacks'' and only two of them are actual hacks, and one of them is pretty questionable. I'm pretty much calling it a hack because I'm trying to be generous. The thing that strikes me is not so much that these aren't actually hacks, but the difference between a ``tip'' and a ``technique.'' Maybe I'm just tired, but it seems like it's a technique if you use it on a regular basis and a tip if you're in a jam and someone tells you about it. But that's an argument for another day in another zine.
\chapter{Coda}
\section{What I Learned About \LaTeX\, While Creating This Issue}
I'm still a relative newbie to LaTeX, so there's always something to learn. Here's a running list of what I've learned so far:
@ -576,5 +637,6 @@ Also, there is no easy way to get a word-count from a LaTeX document, nor is the
I'm not there yet (and I definitely won't be for a while—I've got bills to pay) but perhaps the nicest thing about LaTeX is that while there are a lot of packages available, if you can't find one to do what you want to do, you can always create your own. It will be a while before I get to that point because first I need to find something I want to do in LaTeX that isn't covered by an existing package, but I someday might. Remember, with the level of control you get with Linux, you also get opportunity. And it's always good to have a challenge to look forward to.