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@ -222,7 +222,7 @@ I purchased this computer from the back of a K-Mart, in much the same way the me
Unfortunately, when you bought a computer in those days you got exactly that in the box: a computer. There was no monitor, there was no disk drive, there was no printer. You just got a computer in a box with a power cord. I had scrimped and saved forever to buy this, and had fortunately also managed to save enough for a monitor, which in those days was a big, heavy cathode-ray tube device (CRT, for short). One of the selling points of the C-64 was that it was portable. You could just pick it up and take it with you. (It seems like all computers in the movies back in the day either took up entire rooms or buildings---think Hal-9000 in \textit{2001: A Space Odyssey}---or were something you could carry in your hand---think the tricorders in \textit{Star Trek}. We've never managed a happy medium.) The monitor, however, was anything \textit{but} portable. It was heavy, it was bulky, and it was fragile. Slam a lid closed on a modern laptop and everything will probably be fine. Knock a CRT off the table and it's toast. If it lands on your foot, you'll probably end up in the emergency room.
The second computer I ever owned was a Commodore 128. Whereas its predecessor only 64 kb of memory, the C-128, as we called it, had a whopping 128 kb of memory—twice the memory for nearly the same price. While the C-64 could only run in the 1 Mhz\footnote{megahertz—a measure of a computer's computing speed} mode, the C-128 could run in 1 Mhz mode or 2 Mhz mode, but such were the demands on its resources that running in 2 Mhz mode meant the screen would go blank—it simply didn't have the power to process fast and display that processing on the screen at the same time. For comparison, I just pulled up a cheap Lenovo laptop on Best Buy's website that has an Intel i3 processor with 8 GB of memory and a 256 GB solid state drive and is on sale for \$389. It has a clock speed of three \textit{gigahertz}.
The second computer I ever owned was a Commodore 128. Whereas its predecessor only had 64 kb of memory, the C-128, as we called it, had a whopping 128 kb of memory—twice the memory for nearly the same price. While the C-64 could only run in the 1 Mhz\footnote{megahertz—a measure of a computer's computing speed} mode, the C-128 could run in 1 Mhz mode or 2 Mhz mode, but such were the demands on its resources that running in 2 Mhz mode meant the screen would go blank—it simply didn't have the power to process that fast and display that processing on the screen at the same time. For comparison, I just pulled up a cheap Lenovo laptop on Best Buy's website that has an Intel i3 processor with 8 GB of memory and a 256 GB solid state drive and is on sale for \$389. It has a clock speed of three \textit{gigahertz}.
\begin{wrapfigure}[]{l}{0.5\textwidth}
\vspace{-12pt}
@ -252,29 +252,29 @@ I hope you really like that meal, because you're going to be eating it every day
\section{High School Computer Class}
I went to high school in a very small,\footnote{We had one stoplight when I left there in 1990. I visited a few years ago, and they are now up to three stoplights. Progress.} very rural, very midwestern small town. My graduating class was 55 people, 51 of which actually managed to show up to graduation. (I showed up to graduation with a black eye, but that's another story for another zine. Also, our class president got on a plane the day after graduation, flew to California, and moved to a pot farm. That's the story, anyway.) We only had two high school science teachers: Mr. Fusko, who taught all the biology classes and Mr. Dick, who taught chemistry, physics, and advanced mathematics.\footnote{His real name; I'm not kidding. His first name was Joe, which means that I learned a lot of chemistry, physics, and advanced mathematics from Joe Dick. He was the nicest guy in the world, though. I can't remember the name of the math class I had with him my senior year. It was probably Finite Math, but who knows? I don't remember anything about matrices, but it damn sure wasn't an accounting class.}
I went to high school in a very small,\footnote{We had one stoplight when I left there in 1990. I visited a few years ago, and they are now up to three stoplights. Progress.} very rural, very midwestern small town. My graduating class was 55 people, 51 of which actually managed to show up to graduation. (I showed up to graduation with a black eye, but that's another story for another zine. Also, our class president got on a plane the day after graduation, flew to California, and moved to a pot farm. Progress. That's the story, anyway.) We only had two high school science teachers: Mr. Fusko, who taught all the biology classes and Mr. Dick, who taught chemistry, physics, and advanced mathematics.\footnote{His real name; I'm not kidding. His first name was Joe, which means that I learned a lot of chemistry, physics, and advanced mathematics from Joe Dick. He was the nicest guy in the world, though. I can't remember the name of the math class I had with him my senior year. It was probably Finite Math, but who knows? I don't remember anything about matrices, but it damn sure wasn't an accounting class.}
Mr. Dick also taught computers.
This was the mid 1980s, and my very small, very rural, very redneck filled high school had a computer lab. In reality, it wasn't an \textit{actual} computer lab. It was just a room where they took all the student desks out, replaced them with chairs and tables, and plopped computers on them. Our high school had been built in the 1960s, when computers took up an entire wing of a building. Nobody thought to design a classroom with more than four outlets in those days, so there were wires everywhere.
This was the mid 1980s, and my very small, very rural, very redneck-filled high school had a computer lab. In reality, it wasn't an \textit{actual} computer lab. It was just a room where they took all the student desks out, replaced them with chairs and tables, and plopped computers on them. Our high school had been built in the 1960s, when computers took up an entire wing of a building. Nobody thought to design a classroom with more than four outlets in those days, so there were extension cords everywhere.
Still, it had computers in it, and that's what counts.
I don't know if I actually was able to take a computer class with Mr. Dick or not. I remember spending a lot of time in that room, but as a nerdy kid with a crappy family and not much of a social life, it's only natural that I would have migrated here during my free time before school, after school, during lunch hour, or whenever I decided to skip class (which was often). I remember that this room had a \textit{lot} of Trash-80s in it, with they dark silver metallic cases and black highlights, but it also had five or six CP/M machines in it, with their off-white cases and their neon green displays. (Does anybody remember CP/M? Does anybody remember laughter?\footnote{You may remember this from a Led Zeppelin song, but I always remember the version by \textit{Dread} Zeppelin. It's one of the few cases where I feel the cover is better than the original.}
I don't know if I actually was able to take a computer class with Mr. Dick or not. I remember spending a lot of time in that room, but as a nerdy kid with a crappy family and not much of a social life, it's only natural that I would have migrated here during my free time before school, after school, during lunch hour, or whenever I decided to skip class (which was often) or whenever I wasn't leading a meeting of the Millard Fillmore Fan Club.\footnote{See my other zine, \textit{just13} issue \#3 for more details} I remember that this room had a \textit{lot} of Trash-80s in it, with their dark silver metallic cases and black highlights, but it also had five or six CP/M machines in it, with their off-white cases and their neon green displays. (Does anybody remember CP/M? Does anybody remember laughter?\footnote{You may remember this from a Led Zeppelin song, but I always remember the version by \textit{Dread} Zeppelin. It's one of the few cases where I feel the cover is better than the original.}
Anyway, if I did take a computer class with Mr. Dick, it was a very pale experience compared to my seventh grade experience,\footnote{See the first issue of this zine.} because I don't remember it at all. No doubt there was a curriculum\footnote{Not a bad thing when well done, but years of experience teaching have proven to me that these things are largely designed to take any and all fun out of learning.} for the class, complete with quizzes, assignments, tests, and long lists of vocabulary to memorize. It would have been completely dreadful and I would have hated it, and would have naturally forced all remnants of it from my memory, so that I would have room for terrible memories of terrible jobs.
Anyway, if I did take a computer class with Mr. Dick, it was a very pale experience compared to my seventh grade experience,\footnote{See the first issue of this zine.} because I don't remember it at all. No doubt there was a curriculum\footnote{Not a bad thing when well done, but years of teaching experience have proven to me that most curricula are largely designed to take any and all fun out of learning, to say nothing of teaching.} for the class, complete with quizzes, assignments, tests, and long lists of vocabulary to memorize. It would have been completely dreadful and I would have hated it, and would have naturally forced all remnants of it from my memory, so that I would have room for terrible memories of terrible jobs.
Here's the flip side though. Let's assume I \textit{didn't} have a computer class with Mr. Dick. In that case, what I have are very fond memories of a room that I should not have had access to but was welcome to. For a very narrow spot in the space-time continuum, there a place where I was welcomed and people were okay with me just wandering around and pushing buttons.\footnote{I have for a very long time wanted to write a science fiction story about an alien race who loves pushing buttons so much that they build devices that are essentially just buttons to push that do absolutely nothing. Imagine a PlayStation controller without the actual PlayStation.}
Here's the flip side though. Let's assume I \textit{didn't} have a computer class with Mr. Dick. In that case, what I have are very fond memories of a room that I should not have had access to but was welcome to. For a very narrow slice of the space-time continuum, there a place where I was welcomed and people were okay with me just wandering around and pushing buttons.\footnote{I have for a very long time wanted to write a science fiction story about an alien race who loves pushing buttons so much that they build devices that are essentially just buttons to push that do absolutely nothing. Imagine a PlayStation controller without the actual PlayStation.}
Considering the huge problem that the modern tech industry faces with inclusivity and diversity, I feel pretty lucky to have had the opportunity that I need. We need to create more of these places. Maker spaces are becoming a thing, and I hope that they are as warm and inviting as I remember that earlier space to be. Tech should open a lot of doors for a lot of people who normally find themselves locked out of opportunities, but tech is \textit{expensive} and these costs are gatekeepers in too many instances.\footnote{Which is one reason that I am interested in getting a Raspberry Pi and playing around with it, but in this case, I lack time, not money.}
Considering the huge problem that the modern tech industry faces with inclusivity and diversity, I feel pretty lucky to have had that opportunity. We need to create more of these places. Maker spaces are becoming a thing, and I hope that they are as warm and inviting as I remember that high school computer lab to be. Tech should open a lot of doors for a lot of people who normally find themselves locked out of opportunities, but tech is \textit{expensive} and these costs are gatekeepers in too many instances.\footnote{Which is one reason that I am interested in getting a Raspberry Pi and playing around with it, but in this case, I lack time, not money.}
If Oprah were really interested in changing the world, instead of handing out cars to a few hundred members of her studio audience, \footnote{Watch it while it lasts: \href{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pviYWzu0dzk}{\texttt{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pviYWzu0dzk}}} she should be handing out Raspberry Pis and Arduinos to hundreds of thousands of poor kids. But her viewers understand cars, not Raspberry Pis and Arduinos, and Oprah does not what is good for society, but what is good for her bottom line. (The real privilege in getting a free car from Oprah is that you are able to actually take time off from your job and your life and go to Chicago to attend a taping of her show. But nobody really thinks about \textit{that}.)
If Oprah were really interested in changing the world, instead of handing out cars to a few hundred members of her studio audience,\footnote{Watch it while it lasts: \href{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pviYWzu0dzk}{\texttt{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pviYWzu0dzk}}} she should be handing out Raspberry Pis and Arduinos to hundreds of thousands of poor kids. But her viewers understand cars, not Raspberry Pis and Arduinos, and Oprah does not do what is good for society, but what is good for her bottom line. (The real privilege in getting a free car from Oprah is that you are able to actually take time off from your job and your life and go to Chicago to attend a taping of her show. But nobody really thinks about \textit{that}.)
It saddens me that we are now at a price point where technology should be able to transform the lives of millions of people, and free them from the situation they are in now. I know a lot of people say that kids are so much more comfortable with technology now, but this really isn't a great thing. When I was a kid, you used technology to change your life. There wasn't a lot of technology, so it basically boiled down to learning how to use an extremely slow computer to do tasks you'd rather not do, and using a VCR to record shows so that you could watch them at a late time, and duplicating cassettes and creating mix-tapes. As I grew into young adulthood, and started teaching, I saw more and more how kids could use computers to do a lot of that. Mix-tapes were replaced by mix-CDs.
It saddens me that we are now at a price point where technology should be able to transform the lives of millions of people, and free them from the situation they are in now. I know a lot of people say that kids are so much more comfortable with technology now, but this really isn't a great thing. When I was a kid, you used technology to change your life. There wasn't a lot of technology, so it basically boiled down to learning how to use an extremely slow computer to do tasks you'd rather not do, using a VCR to record shows so that you could watch them at a later time, and duplicating cassettes and creating mix-tapes. As I grew into young adulthood and started teaching, I saw more and more how kids could use computers to do a lot of that. Mix-tapes were replaced by mix-CDs. You could manipulate technology to improve your life, and when you were done, you shut if off and called it a day.
Now it's the other way around: technology manipulates you. Websites (I'm thinking of Amazon here, as they are the best at it, but plenty of other websites do this as well) now \textit{tell} you what you want to buy. You can buy things on subscription, so that you don't have to think any more. Streaming services control what you watch or listen to. No longer can you just walk into a record store or a video store and get what you actually want. People have become addicted to their phones in a way I'd never imagined possible. (If you are ahead of me at a red light, and the light turns green, but you don't go because you don't notice it because you're looking at your phone, believe me—I \textit{will} let you know that the light is now green and you can proceed through the intersection. Oh yes, indeed will I let you know.)
Now it's the other way around: technology manipulates you and you \textbf{can't} shut it off. Websites (I'm thinking of Amazon here, as they are the best at it, but plenty of other websites do this as well) now \textit{tell} you what you want to buy. You can buy things on subscription so that you don't have to think any more.\footnote{It can be devilishly tricky to actually unsubscribe from some of these things, to the point where it's easier just to absorb the expense (we can always get the kids vaccinated \textit{next} year, and just decide that this is how you live now.} Streaming services control what you watch or listen to. No longer can you just walk into a record store or a video store and get what you actually want. People have become addicted to their phones in a way I'd never imagined possible. (If you are ahead of me at a red light, and the light turns green, but you don't go because you don't notice that the light is now green because you're looking at your phone, believe me—I \textit{will} let you know that the light is now green and you can proceed through the intersection. Believe me, you will know.)
Advertisements are everywhere, on every app, on every streaming service. They are constantly telling you that you need this product or this service, and it becomes very difficult to screen that out, so much so that even drunk purchasing is being a substantial part of the economy.\footnote{\href{https://www.finder.com/drunk-shopping}{\texttt{https://www.finder.com/drunk-shopping}}, \href{https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-is-prime-territory-for-drunk-shoppers-2019-03-25}{\texttt{https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ \\ amazon-is-prime-territory-for-drunk-shoppers-2019-03-25}}, \href{https://www.techtimes.com/articles/240241/20190326/drunk-us-adults-spend-48-billion-shopping-online-and-amazon-is-so-happy-about-it.htm}{\texttt{https://www.techtim \\ es.com/articles/240241/20190326/drunk-us-adults-spend-48-billion-shopping-online-and-amazon-is-so-happy-about-it.htm}}.} Before, you had to leave your house to get manipulated into buying something, now you don't even have to leave the house. You can literally shop yourself out of house and home without ever leaving your home.
Advertisements are everywhere, on every app, on every streaming service.\footnote{Include mindfulness meditation apps—see the back cover.} They are constantly telling you that you need this product or this service, and it becomes very difficult to screen that out, so much so that even drunk purchasing is being a substantial part of the economy.\footnote{\href{https://www.finder.com/drunk-shopping}{\texttt{https://www.finder.com/drunk-shopping}}, \href{https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-is-prime-territory-for-drunk-shoppers-2019-03-25}{\texttt{https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ \\ amazon-is-prime-territory-for-drunk-shoppers-2019-03-25}}, \href{https://www.techtimes.com/articles/240241/20190326/drunk-us-adults-spend-48-billion-shopping-online-and-amazon-is-so-happy-about-it.htm}{\texttt{https://www.techtim \\ es.com/articles/240241/20190326/drunk-us-adults-spend-48-billion-shopping-online-and-amazon-is-so-happy-about-it.htm}}.} Before, you had to leave your house to get manipulated into buying something, now you don't even have to leave the house. You can literally shop yourself out of house and home without ever leaving your home.
What was promulgated as a potential servant, ever willing and able to come to our assistance, has now become our master. For more about this, I've created a YouTube playlist that you can watch here:
@ -288,6 +288,12 @@ What was promulgated as a potential servant, ever willing and able to come to ou
It's amazing how in many ways, we've far surpassed the technological capacities we imagined earlier, but rather than freeing up our time to improve ourselves (in true \textit{Star Trek} style), we are merely slaves to our own creations. I shudder to think how ``Hotel California'' has become a daily reality for so many of us.
It needn't be that way, however. If more of us had been able to experience what I experienced in that seventh grade computer class, perhaps our relationship to technology today would be different. Perhaps we would realize that, like the wheel or fire, technology is a tool to help us improve our lives, not to be led around by it. Of course, look at what we've done with both wheels and fire—we are destroying each other and ourselves as well with them. Perhaps we never should have climbed down out of the trees onto the grassy savanna.
I don't know. It seems that our philosophy, or at the very least, our ethics, surrounding technology and what we do with it always lags far behind the cutting edge of that technology. If there are other species in the universe that have managed to travel faster than the speed of light, certainly they \textit{must} have come to a philosophical decision about the role of technology in their daily lives.
What strikes me most about some of the videos in the the playlist I've linked above is that the emphasis on using technology is always that it will free up our time to spend time improving ourselves and relaxing. But do any of us really have more spare time as a result of technology today?
\chapter{A Scanner Clearly, or More Thoughts on Being an Archivist}
In the first issue of this zine, I wrote about a basic workflow for archiving books through scanning them into pdf files. While I covered about everything I wanted to cover on the computer end of things, I barely talked at all about the physical labor that goes into scanning a book. For those who are interested, here's what happens behind the scenes before you even get to the computer.
@ -350,7 +356,7 @@ Now we are \textit{finally} ready to start scanning.
You may be wondering why I am spending so much time talking about using scissors and pencils and rulers when this is a zine about Linux. Sure, this is what I need to do to get ready to scan and put all those scans together using the command line application \texttt{pdftk}, but what is the point here?
If you recall back in the first issue, I said that doing things on the command line makes you think about \textit{outcomes}. Thinking about outcomes doesn't matter just on the computer. Like I said earlier, there is no ``undo'' button in real life.\footnote{Although I sometimes think that lawyers are just rich people's undo buttons.} Once you've cut something apart, there's no putting it back together. You \textit{have} to think about what you want the next step of the process to be so that you don't do something in this step that makes the next step afterward difficult or even impossible. You have to think ahead about what you want to end up with. You have to know what you want.\footnote{And here I readily admit that you are probably going to do this a few times before you figure out a process for getting to that point. The workflow I laid out in section 2.1 took a few books to develop.}
If you recall back in the first issue, I said that doing things on the command line makes you think about \textit{outcomes}. Thinking about outcomes doesn't matter just on the computer. Like I said earlier, there is no ``undo'' button in real life.\footnote{Although I sometimes think that lawyers are just rich people's Undo buttons.} Once you've cut something apart, there's no putting it back together. You \textit{have} to think about what you want the next step of the process to be so that you don't do something in this step that makes the next step afterward difficult or even impossible. You have to think ahead about what you want to end up with. You have to know what you want.\footnote{And here I readily admit that you are probably going to do this a few times before you figure out a process for getting to that point. The workflow I laid out in section 2.1 took a few books to develop.}
I sometimes think that a GUI is like the menu at the McDonald's drive through.\footnote{It's no wonder that the menu in a GUI is called a \textit{menu}, when you think about it.} If you are lucky, you are behind the person that knows what they want. They planned ahead. They thought about the outcome they wanted (full stomach, happy taste buds) and chose something ahead of time that would get them to that outcome. But a lot of people (too many people, in my opinion\footnote{Just one of many reasons I don't eat fast food any more.} get up to that order screen and \textit{that's} when they decide to start thinking about outcomes. They are so used to seeing a menu in front of them that they can't even begin making a decision without seeing it.
@ -376,7 +382,7 @@ Despite all my prattling on about the many advantages the command line has for y
\medskip
I'm not going to get into the difference between the command line, the terminal, and bash (the Bourne Again Shell, if you are interested\footnote{You may not be, but after all, you are reading \textit{this} so you very well may be. I'll talk about that in a future issue.}) For now, let's just assume that you know about \texttt{ctrl alt t} opening a terminal window to get you access to the command line.
I'm not going to get into the difference between the command line, the terminal, and bash (the Bourne Again Shell, if you are interested.\footnote{You may not be, but after all, you are reading \textit{this} so you very well may be. I'll talk about that in a future issue. (Also, it's called that whether or not you are interested in that. I know of very few things that have a conditional name.)}) For now, let's just assume that you know about \texttt{ctrl alt t} opening a terminal window to get you access to the command line.
If you are used to using the command line, chances are that you have a certain set of commands that you use a lot. For example, if you're pushing to your Github repos all the time, you probably are typing \texttt{git push origin main} quite often. You can create a bash alias that makes your life a lot easier.
@ -522,9 +528,9 @@ Second, these words are highly contextual. What does ``beginner'' even mean? Som
Third, people may self-select out of things. Many years ago, I taught computer classes at my local community education center.\footnote{One of the things I learned is that is a right way and a wrong way to teach people how to use computers. I should write about that sometime.} It was a tremendous amount of fun, both for me and my students, who came from all walks of life.\footnote{A bit of a clichè that, I know. But I can't think of a better phrase.} They were \textit{occassionally} intimidated by certain things, but for the most part, they were eager to learn as much as they could.
The class was extremely inexpensive, but it was rarely ever full, which made me wonder why more people didn't take this class. There are two answers here. First, this was the early 90s and a lot of people didn't even have computers at home, so what would be the point for them? (You don't need a car if you have no place to go.) Second, a lot of people were terribly intimidated by computers, because they thought you had to be really smart to use them. So they self-selected out of something they were perfectly capable of learning because they thought it was too advanced for them.\footnote{People are really afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid, but that's a by-product of our public education industrial complex. You can't learn \textit{anything} without making mistakes. In fact, people are truly experts about things often point out that they learn as much or more from their mistakes than they do from their successes. But we have turned making mistakes into something to be ashamed of, rather than something which will help us learn and understand things.} Let's encourage people to self-select \textit{in}, rather than out, because once they get here they'll have a lot of fun. Let's not be gatekeepers.
The class was extremely inexpensive, but it was rarely ever full, which made me wonder why more people didn't take this class. There are two answers here. First, this was the early 90s and a lot of people didn't even have computers at home, so what would be the point for them? (You don't need a car if you have no place to go.) Second, a lot of people were terribly intimidated by computers, because they thought you had to be really smart to use them. So they self-selected out of something they were perfectly capable of learning because they thought it was too advanced for them.\footnote{People are really afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid, but that's a by-product of our public education industrial complex. You can't learn \textit{anything} without making mistakes. In fact, people who are truly experts about things often point out that they learn as much or more from their mistakes than they do from their successes. But we have turned making mistakes into something to be ashamed of, rather than something which will help us learn and understand things.} Let's encourage people to self-select \textit{in}, rather than out, because once they get here they'll have a lot of fun. Let's not be gatekeepers.
Fourth, it implies that there is a hierarchy, which I hate. There are many ways in. Because math is so strongly allied to computer science, we tend to view learning about computers as hierarchical as well. \footnote{I think this is one of the reasons that most people aren't good at math and don't like math. Sure, you need to know \textit{some} algebra to do geometry, but you don't need to be an algebra expert. If you really like geometry, and are encouraged to apply yourself to it, you'll eventually learn all the algebra you need. The same is true of trigonometry and even calculus. You don't need to become an expert in those earlier forms of math; you only have to become good enough at them to move on to the next step. People who write math curricula should take note, but they won't.} But that just isn't the case. I started learning how to write BASIC when I was in sixth grade because that's all that was available to us. But basic BASIC is no different than basic Fortran, or basic Cobol, really. The only difference is that BASIC is fairly limited in scope, which was, sadly, all that was deemed appropriate for kids. It's like giving kids little fake plastic tools when they really want to build something. Give kids real tools and let them experiment with them and figure out how they work. But we never do that.\footnote{This is, coincidentally, the same sort of thinking that doesn't like sex education, despite the many studies that have shown, conclusively and repeatedly, that when kids have access to high-quality, non-biased sex education, the rates of teen pregnancy and teen STDs decrease, often dramatically.}
Fourth, it implies that there is a hierarchy, which I hate. There are many ways in. Because math is so strongly allied to computer science, we tend to view learning about computers as hierarchical as well.\footnote{I think this is one of the reasons that most people aren't good at math and don't like math. Sure, you need to know \textit{some} algebra to do geometry, but you don't need to be an algebra expert. If you really like geometry, and are encouraged to apply yourself to it, you'll eventually learn all the algebra you need. The same is true of trigonometry and even calculus. You don't need to become an expert in those earlier forms of math; you only have to become good enough at them to move on to the next step. People who write math curricula should take note, but they won't.} But that just isn't the case. I started learning how to write BASIC when I was in sixth grade because that's all that was available to us. But basic BASIC is no different than basic Fortran, or basic Cobol, really. The only difference is that BASIC is fairly limited in scope, which was, sadly, all that was deemed appropriate for kids. It's like giving kids little fake plastic tools when they really want to build something. Give kids real tools and let them experiment with them and figure out how they work. But we never do that.\footnote{This is, coincidentally, the same sort of thinking that doesn't like sex education, despite the many studies that have shown, conclusively and repeatedly, that when kids have access to high-quality, non-biased sex education, the rates of teen pregnancy and teen STDs decrease, often dramatically.}
\chapter{Coda}
@ -547,7 +553,7 @@ As a big part of the reason I created this was to learn more about LaTeX, I'm ke
\item As with most things that *nix-based, there is usually more than one way to get to where you are going. Often, there are many ways, and they lead you down paths you hadn't even imagined. A little research goes a long way. (See the next two sections as examples of this. I had not even thought about this before I sat down to write this.)
\item There are ten characters that have special meaning in \LaTeX{}. To typeset: \\ \tabto{3.5cm} \& \% \$ \# \_ \{ \} \\ \\ you have to prepend them with a backslash (\textbackslash). To write \textasciitilde, \textasciicircum, or \textbackslash, you have to use the macros \verb|\textasciitilde|, \verb|\textasciicircum|, and \verb|\textbackslash|.
\item There are ten characters that have special meaning in \LaTeX{}. \\ \\ To typeset: \\ \tabto{3.5cm} \& \% \$ \# \_ \{ \} \\ \\ you have to prepend them with a backslash (\textbackslash). \\ \\ To typeset: \\ \tabto{3.5cm} \textasciitilde \hspace{2mm} \textasciicircum \hspace{2mm} \textbackslash \\ \\ you have to use the macros \verb|\textasciitilde|, \verb|\textasciicircum|, and \verb|\textbackslash|.
\end{enumerate}
@ -593,7 +599,7 @@ file.log
file.pdf
\end{verbatim}
I have noticed that when I generate the pdf file using the former method, I get a much smaller file than I do the second time. As an experiment, I ran the \texttt{integral.tex} file I created earlier through both of these methods. Running the file through \texttt{latex} and then through \texttt{dvipdf} resulted in a pdf file that was only 7.0 kb in size. But when I ran it solely through \texttt{pdflatex}, I ended up with a pdf file that was 30.5 kb big. This is most likely due to a difference in compression methods\footnote{See this for more information: \href{https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/38145/why-does-pdflatex-produce-bigger-output-files-than-latexdvipdfm}{\texttt{https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/38145/why \\ -does-pdflatex-produce-bigger-output-files-than-latexdvipdfm}}} so this could make a difference for you if you are working with large documents.
I have noticed that when I generate the pdf file using the former method, I get a much smaller file than I do the second time. As an experiment, I ran the \texttt{integral.tex} file that I created in the next section through both of these methods. Running the file through \texttt{latex} and then through \texttt{dvipdf} resulted in a pdf file that was only 7.0 kb in size. But when I ran it solely through \texttt{pdflatex}, I ended up with a pdf file that was 30.5 kb big. This is most likely due to a difference in compression methods\footnote{See this for more information: \href{https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/38145/why-does-pdflatex-produce-bigger-output-files-than-latexdvipdfm}{\texttt{https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/38145/why \\ -does-pdflatex-produce-bigger-output-files-than-latexdvipdfm}}} so this could make a difference for you if you are working with large documents.
Go forth and manage your mischief.
@ -625,7 +631,7 @@ The source code looks like this:
That's it; that's the entire document. Let's take a closer look at what is happening here.
Lines 3-6 use the \texttt{geometry} package to give us some pretty tight margins. This is a good thing, as this is going to be clip art. We could set them to zero if we needed to (and which might not be a bad idea, actually).
Lines 2-7 use the \texttt{geometry} package to give us some pretty tight margins. This is a good thing, as this is going to be clip art. We could set them to zero if we needed to (and which might not be a bad idea, actually).
Line 9 is where the magic happens. It allows us to set the actual page size of this example.And yes, I could have just used the \texttt{geometry} package to declare the page size in the preamble. It's what I do with this document. But doing that affects \textit{all} the pages in our document. This lets us handle page size on a page-by-page basis, as we shall see. All we need to do is add a new page and resize everything again. Take a look at this: