T. V. Raman is the developer of Imax Speak, an access solution for Linux.
kelly
URL: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/publications/colored-paper.html
Welcome To The Universe Of Fancy Colored Paper!
T. V. Raman
Email: [log in to unmask]
WWW: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman
Abstract
This paper attempts to raise awareness of the importance of
interchangeable electronic information. It describes a (fortunately as
yet fictitious) universe where information is exchanged on colored
bits of paper marked with fancy ink. The the several contradictory
morals that arise in detailing this universe are sketched out in the
hope of preventing such a world from coming to pass in our own all too
real world of electronic documents.
Introduction
It's interesting to consider the question of interoperability in the
world of electronic information and the ludicrous nature of the
current day situation that users tolerate after contemplating the
following (fortunately, as yet non-existent ) fancy colored paper
universe for a few minutes.
Welcome To Fancy Colored Paper Universe
The fancy colored paper universe is characterized by humans exchanging
ideas by using fancy pieces of colored paper to intermediate
information interchange. These colored pieces of paper are marked with
various types of fluorescent ink to make them glow in curiously
satisfying ways depending on the lighting conditions that prevail.
A Competitive Marketplace
Companies operating in the fancy paper universe have exploited the
available physical properties of this universe to create proprietary
solutions for information interchange that are differentiated and
feature rich as compared to the competition. In doing so, these
companies are motivated by the desire to capture increasing market
share by locking in users to a particular solution. They therefore hit
upon the marvelous idea of selling ``custom spectacles'' that when
used to peruse their proprietary pieces of paper deliver maximum
reader satisfaction.
Cementing Ones Dominant Market Position
These companies succeed beyond the wildest dreams of the marketing
executives who dreamt up the idea of the fancy spectacles. These same
executives then decide to link their fancy glasses, ink and paper
combination to the light fixtures that are commonly installed in
buildings; this leads to a thriving self-supporting monopoly. To read
the most commonly used form of paper, you need the right glasses; you
also need to install the right brand of lighting if you want to read
anything. And if you want to read anything in the light you are likely
to find most often, you had better use the right kind of paper and
sport the right brand of glasses or else, ¼.
User Experience
Life for the inhabitants of the fancy paper universe, as can be
guessed, is now quite complicated. Everyone has at least several desk
drawers full of fancy custom glasses, each supposedly optimized for
viewing a particular genre of colored paper. Not only does one need to
have different brands of glasses; it's also important to never throw
away an old pair -all too often, a new pair of glasses from a specific
vendor may not always be able to view older pieces of paper produced
for that same vendor's older glasses. Worse, people are finding
themselves increasingly forced to install a particularly obnoxious and
fail-prone form of lighting in their homes and offices.
In fact things have gotten so bad that when people want to interchange
ideas, they first put them down on their favorite colored piece of
paper (which they absolutely swear by and believe to be the best of
breed solution) and then pick up the phone to ask the recipient if she
has an appropriate pair of glasses to view their great creation.
Often, not owning the exact pair of spectacles can cause the recipient
to be able to see part or none of the information being conveyed. A
serious mismatch in glasses can cause the reader to curl up and die in
agony.
A Popular Revolution
A few renegades in this fancy paper universe rebel against this
tyranny by using plain blue ink on white paper, but they are roundly
condemned by the rest of their peers as ``friends of flat ASCII who
will never be able to express themselves!''. In the meantime, the
renegades have rediscovered an ancient art -that of marking up their
information in a manner that can be processed by machines; such marked
up documents can be automatically projected onto the various forms of
colored paper floating around.
The Battle For Mind Share
Proponents of colored paper fight back initially by saying ``but those
angle brackets look like something that escaped from a hardware store
-they will never be as pretty as our beautiful colored pieces of
paper!''. But the proponents of those plain old angle brackets
persist;They weave a fancy web around their creation that comes to
encompass the world!
One major proponent of colored paper who has pretty much won the
battle over specialized glasses and lighting by shoving their own
particular pair of horn-rimmed abominations down everyone's nose sees
the writing on the wall (paper?). In a game struggle for survival,
they decide to subvert the budding threat by claiming ``do not worry
-our colored paper can hold angle brackets too!''. The subversion will
come when users (too late) discover that the angle brackets on the
colored paper though mostly standard do have a particular proprietary
shade that causes it to curl up and die in a blue screen of death if
one attempts to be so bold as to attempt to interoperate with
renegades and other non-conforming types.
Conclusion
Exercise for the student; If you have read this far, it's left as an
exercise to map the fancy paper, glasses and specialized lighting to
today's (or fortunately yesterday's) world of electronic information.
References
This article was originally published on the Internet on the emacspeak
mailing list and the original version can be found by searching for
emacspeak fancy paper on search engines like http://www.google.com. It
is being republished as a live evolving document on the Internet after
the author received several private requests for a copy after
mentioning it on mailing lists in an attempt to encourage the use of
interchangeable document encodings.
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