Yeah ... we read Enigma code throughout most of the war, but we were reading
Purple before Dec. 7th 1941 as well.
~Larry
"Richard Hintehoeller" wrote in message
news:3DCA74C3.7070605@hfx.eastlink.ca...
> There are several reasons why I prefer books.
>
> 1/ Your retention is better. Many years ago, before computers had the
> horsepower or storage space to check spelling, someone realized that
> proofreading on the screen was only 20% as effective as reading the hard
> copy. After playing around with different colour combinations, they
> improved it slightly - perhaps that's why DOS versions of Word Perfect
> were grey letters on blue. It turns out that the artistic hemisphere of
> the brain (left I think) interprets backlit information as presented by
> a monitor, whereas the technical side of the brain (right hemisphere)
> interprets reflected light as found on the printed page. The computer
> monitor may be superior for reading a romance novel, but the printed
> page is better for a technical manual.
>
> 2/ If you're doing design work, you are likely strong in your spatial
> abilities. If you've read a manual, chances are you can open the book
> within a few pages of the information you need. That's lost in the
> on-line help.
>
> 3/ As you mentioned, the manual can go to the beach with you.
>
> 4/ The argument in favour of on-line help is that it saves trees.
> Sounds honourable until you factor in people printing the on-line help,
> single-sided on a laser printer.
>
> 5/ The only bonus to on-line help is that it can search for you - if you
> know the right keywords. The winner on this one a couple of releases
> ago, I haven't tried it recently, is looking up functions. You had to
> know the keyword "Edit box functions" to find it. If the Germans had
> encryption this good in WW II, the world would be a different place today.
>
>
> Richard
>