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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Ever wondered why so many people don't read instruction manuals, or how many calories are in the human body? Or whether stabbing a voodoo doll representing your horrible boss with pins could help reduce workplace tension? The winners of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes have got you covered. These and other unusual research topics were honored tonight in a ceremony at Harvard University's Sanders Theater.
Established in 1991, the Ig Nobels are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes, honoring "achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." The prizes have always been perceived as a celebration of scientific silliness, an impression strengthened by the unapologetically campy awards ceremony. The festivities feature mini-operas, scientific demos, and the 24/7 lectures, whereby experts must explain their work twice: once in 24 seconds, and the second in just seven words. Acceptance speeches are limited to 60 seconds, strictly enforced by an eight-year-old girl nicknamed "Miss Sweetie-Poo," who will interrupt those who exceed the time limit by repeating, "Please stop. I'm bored." Until they stop.
It's all in good dorky fun. But there's also a serious side to the Ig Nobels. The research being honored might seem ridiculous at first glance, but that doesn't mean it is devoid of scientific merit. Take the 2006 Ig Nobel for physics, awarded to French researchers for investigating why dry spaghetti often breaks into more than two pieces when it is bent. That work led to a new bendy paintbrush in Adobe Illustrator 5. More importantly, studying how cracks form and spread in various kinds of materials is critical to detecting imminent failure in, say, bridge spans or human bones. Just last month MIT physicists published a follow-up paper. But more people are likely to read about breaking spaghetti than peruse an academic paper entitled "Controlling fracture cascades through twisting and quenching."
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Aiwendil on Saturday September 15 2018, @04:04PM (9 children)
Read the research, really.
It specifically tests for "online manuals" and not paper manuals. And incidently also doesn't include the technical manuals (ie, the manuals that actually are useful).
Would be darn interesting to see a follow-up on that one on printed-vs-online and techref-vs-userguide.
(How many you can easily pour through a printed tech-ref with ease but still rather just read the sourcecode than bother with an online userguide?)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 15 2018, @05:06PM (3 children)
Either one is better than yet another fucking youtube video for illiterate ADHD millennials that spends 15 minutes fiddling with the camera, mic, and yakking about bullshit before showing me the two commands I need to run.
(Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Saturday September 15 2018, @05:40PM (1 child)
Accusing someone else of ADHD because you don't have the attention span to get through the thing they made is funny. I'm with you though. Sick of have to page through a massive life story about why you like that dish to get to the recipe. This post is the 4th time I've made this rant in 2 days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 15 2018, @05:53PM
Agreed, it is a newer trend in "reporting" that I blame on reality TV. I'm curious if the average reader does enjoy the format or not, drives me nuts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 15 2018, @11:33PM
Youtube changed their ad policies so that videos longer than 10 minutes get paid more (I don't know the details). Ever since then, terseness and succinctness no longer survive on youtube.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday September 16 2018, @01:29AM (4 children)
Like I would never read a Project Gutenberg book unless I printed it out.
What's really vexing is that I need to print envelopes - from ANY application at all - on a Xerox I think a 6605.
There is no doc anywhere on the tubes that explains how to enable the manual sheet feeder.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 16 2018, @04:46AM (3 children)
Your google-fu is sadly lacking, grasshopper.
http://download.support.xerox.com/pub/docs/WC6605/userdocs/any-os/en_GB/wc6605_ug_smp_en-us.pdf [xerox.com]
Start at page 122 for media types. You load envelopes in the bypass tray, and then select which tray in printing options in whatever program you are printing from. No windows, heat activated glue, or metal bits on the envelopes.
If you don't have the option to select which tray when printing then you need to install the correct drivers.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday September 16 2018, @06:11AM (2 children)
that's my whole point:
There is no tray selection UI in any of the printing options I've been able to find.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 16 2018, @09:23AM
Then install the correct driver:
http://www.support.xerox.com/support/workcentre-6605/downloads/enus.html?operatingSystem=winxp [xerox.com]
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:36AM
With cups try similar drivers, if the printer supports PCL the generic drivers are usually excellent.
However, did you look for the manual tray in the printer control after you loaded the manual tray? Some printers only report for slots that currently has paper in them (a really good feature for shared network printers).
Also, I assume you did try to just load the manual slot and then send a print? Quite a few printers deplete the manual slot first for any print job and doesn't bother with the tray selection option until manual is depleted.
(I know - very basic stuff but the last couple of times I've met people complaining they can't print from manual slot the above two was the solution)