Ha! what’s that?
you thought I was done?
PDFs are so so bad
I couldn’t only do one
my hatred can’t be contained
to a single post
here’s part two to my poem
on why I hate—
why I hate PDFs the most
PDFs are so so bad
that I—
Look
you can’t even zoom
on your phone
without spreading your—
it takes up the whole screen
and two columns is just
Uh!
it’s a mess
Listen
to all the gatekeeping around
about papers with their
fancy headers
ACM approved
formatting and
templating too
No wonder
the field
is not diverse
when barrier to entry
is painful at best
and locked at worst:
Inclusion hidden behind
a command line
when you’re considered apart
from the in-group
lacking esoteric guidance
on esoteric practice
in an esoteric world
of PDFs
but Lu
it’s not as bad
or as dramatic as you say
sure it’s a bit hard
but it’s nothing that can’t be learned
if you’ve been properly trained
And who do we reach out to?
Who do we train?
Is it those who look different?
Or those who look the same?
“Anyone can do it!”
But they don’t!
They don’t!
Maybe they could!
I think that they could
but they don’t
Have you considered that they don’t?
and why that might be?
The barriers that stop us
may be big
may be small
every annoyance is a failing
to be more open
to reach more of us all
If academia can’t deal
with something as small
as PDFs
then what hope is there
for tackling the rest?
what hope is there?
there’s none
there’s no way to win
academia is done
put it in the bin
well Lu
that’s fair and all but
this seems like something bigger
I don’t see what this has got to do with—
Not to mention the text
that you—
most of the time you
can’t even drag to select
copy and paste captures
line numbers and clutter and
garbage pure garbage
trash trash trash
it always goes wrong
it’s a pain in my—
What do we do when something is rubbish?
What do we do when something is rubbish?
We put it in the bin
Put it in the bin
Put it in the—
back to the feed