[HN Gopher] Show HN: Make your PDF look scanned in browser
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Show HN: Make your PDF look scanned in browser
Implement scanyourpdf.com in JavaScript. No backend servers needed.
Author : seedgou
Score : 395 points
Date : 2022-04-19 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lookscanned.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (lookscanned.io)
| robszumski wrote:
| Show an example on the homepage!
| d1lanka wrote:
| Yes!
|
| C'mon, show us an example/demo
| barbazoo wrote:
| You get a sample PDF when clicking "Start Scanning".
| bin_bash wrote:
| You can see a demo image if you click "Start Scanning"
| zw123456 wrote:
| True story:
|
| A friend of mine got a letter from his neighbor's attorney
| bitching about his tree or something stupid. So he literally
| wiped his ass with it and then took a picture of it and emailed
| it back with the body of the email saying thanks, I was running
| out of TP.
|
| can you add that feature ?
| tyingq wrote:
| A somewhat related back-and-forth legal letter between two poo
| related companies:
| https://abovethelaw.com/uploads/2020/04/Poop.pdf
| ada1981 wrote:
| This is a great PR move.
|
| I'm sure this letter made the rounds; clowns on this big
| brand; and gets free exposure for the underdog. Worth the
| $500 to write the letter.
|
| Will consider similar tactics in the future.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| How did that story end?
| nervousvarun wrote:
| Not OP but almost certainly just fine (for the sender).
|
| From personal experience 99% of what attorneys are paid to do
| is send threatening letters that have nothing to back them
| up.
| [deleted]
| DaltonCoffee wrote:
| Probably like most shitty litigation
| 323 wrote:
| Some services require a photo with valid EXIF.
|
| So maybe a variant which makes it look like a photo - fake
| background, some perspective warping, bad lighting, with fake
| phone EXIF and selectable geolocation.
| supermatt wrote:
| was interested in how its handling the PDFs - looks like it uses
| magica (a wasm compiled imagemagick) to do the processing:
| https://github.com/cancerberoSgx/magica
| seedgou wrote:
| Use PDF.js and magica to do the rendering and processing. You
| could see the credits in GitHub repo page.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| Thank you. This is super useful.
| whoibrar wrote:
| Thankyou for making this
| artful-hacker wrote:
| This project reminds me of another way to avoid dealing with
| taxing corporate policies that are nonsensical; receipts. If you
| are interested in this, you might also be interested in
| https://makereceipt.com/
| alias_neo wrote:
| This one seems a little grey.
|
| What would one need a receipt for other than tax purposes? I
| suspect submitting one of these with your tax return to HMRC or
| the like, is quite probably "fraud" of some description.
|
| Submitting it to your employer simply puts you or them on the
| hook for that same fraud if it happened to get picked up in an
| audit by the tax office.
|
| Is there some other less legally grey use for these (because I
| like the idea)?
| leros wrote:
| Say I get lunch on a business trip and lose the receipt, I
| now can't expense it. In a world where I never keep receipts
| normally this happens all the time. Being able to recreate a
| receipt so I can expense looks super cool.
| codethief wrote:
| Careful, in some jurisdictions forging receipts is a
| serious criminal offense.
| leephillips wrote:
| Really? Can you give an example of a relevant statute?
| jedberg wrote:
| Every expense system I've ever dealt with allowed me to
| submit my CC bill as proof.
| dheera wrote:
| Some places want it itemized. Also if you use cash you
| don't have a CC bill. Back when I was a student I had to
| often buy things for student events with several hundred
| dollars in cash because the CC company wouldn't give me a
| higher credit line at the time. I didn't want to use a
| debit card, that's risky.
| jedberg wrote:
| Then you're back to the original problem of having to
| perfectly remember what you bought and for what price,
| otherwise you're committing fraud.
| dheera wrote:
| That's easy, because the prices might still be physically
| listed somewhere if it's a store, or you might still have
| the Craigslist email thread, or whatever.
|
| If you simply lost or don't have a receipt and it's done
| in good faith I don't think it should be considered
| fraud.
| ozim wrote:
| Yes we all are going to trust you that you are forgetful
| enough to loose receipt but have perfect memory of amounts
| and items :)
| smashface wrote:
| Unless you paid cash, your bank or credit card company
| will remember the amount for you. I don't know if most
| restaurants receipts are going to itemize the bill. But
| even if most do you can just say you went to one that
| didn't.
| ozim wrote:
| How does restaurant being accomplice in deception make
| being a dipshit right?
|
| So you got a meal and 6 beers and restaurant puts "meal"
| on receipt but you put your beers as business expense.
|
| You can explain that waiter is OK with it (mostly because
| he expects you to come back next days or get a nice tip)
| but it still makes you a dipshit.
| bcherry wrote:
| It may "look super cool" but it's still fraud...
| leephillips wrote:
| It's only fraud if the information on the fake receipt is
| false, and if you used this false information get money
| or a benefit that you're not entitled to.
| dheera wrote:
| I don't know about legally, but if you actually bought
| something for business and _actually_ lost the receipt or
| they weren 't willing to give you a receipt, I'd consider it
| ethically okay to write up a receipt.
|
| Presenting a self-written receipt as a fake of a real
| receipt, not so much.
|
| But if they aren't willing to take a self-written receipt,
| what do you do ...
| xyst wrote:
| Fun project. Thanks for sharing. Got a good laugh at this. Maybe
| add a "creased corner" feature and residual staple holes.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Would a residual ass print show up on scanned images? Asking
| for a friend.
| matt_heimer wrote:
| Inserting fax headers and footers should be an option.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Great idea and props for shipping.
|
| There's something extremely wrong with your implementation as it
| just takes too much to render every page.
|
| I've done plenty of work in the past with both canvas and pdf.js
| (which is what you're using) and it shouldn't be that slow, at
| all. Perhaps you have a rogue loop that's calling a very
| expensive function on each pixel of every page, maybe?
|
| Who knows, but for sure performance on that could be near real-
| time.
| redman25 wrote:
| I wrote a similar program using PDF.js that renders near real-
| time (https://parepdf.com). You should be able to queue it up
| without too much trouble. If you're doing pixel level
| manipulation, you want to make sure you're finishing within the
| browsers frame budget.
| seedgou wrote:
| I didn't manipulate the data in pixel level. Maybe because I
| render PDF in 2x which causes 4x more pixels?
| moralestapia wrote:
| That could be the case yes, still I feel it should be better,
| let me do a quick test as I have some spare time.
| seedgou wrote:
| The rendering logic is in `src/utils/pdf/renderPage.ts` and
| has only 26 lines.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Here's a very naive blur implementation (which is your most
| expensive operation there),
|
| https://codepen.io/almosnow/pen/abEXBZP?editors=0011
|
| (at the end of the blur pass it prints the elapsed time to
| the console)
|
| You're right, it does get kind of slow at 2x, but not that
| slow, on my laptop it takes around 1 sec/page, while on
| your site takes 20-30 secs/page. Also, my very naive code
| does not take into account "warming up" and some other code
| optimizations to make the blur much faster, you could
| easily get it down to 100ms/page, I'm sure!
|
| Best luck!
| seedgou wrote:
| Oh! You mean the scanning speed. I thought you was
| talking about the original PDF preview. For now, scanning
| is using emscriptened ImageMagick Wasm. Due to the
| translation from C++ to Wasm, the scanning speed is very
| slow. Maybe re-writing blur, rotate and noise algorithm
| will speed up the scanning.
| hobo_mark wrote:
| Ah, wasm... The site managed to almost kill my machine
| until the tab committed OOM suicide, I guess this
| explains why.
| zikohh wrote:
| yeah even playing with the preview and using the sliders it's
| super slow apart from that it's amazing! Do some work on the
| perf pls.
| obeattie wrote:
| You are right about performance, but does it really matter?
|
| It feels like this is the sort of tool one needs (very)
| infrequently, and those cases don't seem like the sort of
| thing where seconds really matter. I think it's plenty good
| enough.
|
| I prefer to focus on how grateful I am that the author has
| made this and published it for free.
| moralestapia wrote:
| I believe it does matter.
|
| When one first opens the site and nothing happens for 30
| secs. you assume that the pdf you're looking at is the
| actual result (that happened to me, at least), then the
| other one pops up and you're like ... ooooh I get it!
|
| Most users wouldn't be as patient and just leave.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| Very nice. On thing I would like to see a rotation range for
| multi page PDFs. A 10 page document won't all be identical
| rotation. One might be -0.2 and the next 0.3.
| seedgou wrote:
| Good idea! A random distribution on rotation seems a more user-
| friendly way instead of setting 10 rotation values.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Obviously you need to randomly fold an edge and wrinkle a
| page too. Goddamn paper feeders.
| shard wrote:
| It could, if the 10 pages are fed through a automatic feeding
| scanner which gives the same skew to all scanned pages.
| abruzzi wrote:
| the one feature it needs is the ability to add punched holes down
| one side, or optionally other binding techniques like spiral
| binding.
| pantulis wrote:
| A staple mark, maybe.
| shard wrote:
| Additional features could be the inclusion of coffee cup
| stains, such as offered by these scripts for Latex:
| http://legacy.hanno-rein.de/hanno-rein.de/archives/349
| mdavidn wrote:
| When I scan documents with my phone camera, it introduces some
| skew as well. Or it doesn't detect the edges accurately,
| cropping or padding the sides.
| InTheArena wrote:
| I can't wait for this to show up in court the first time.
| abhgh wrote:
| Here's an even easier way to make your pdf look scanned: open it
| up on your laptop, take a picture of the screen with your phone
| using CamScanner or Adobe PDF scan.
|
| Of course this becomes cumbersome if you have more than a few
| pages
| wavee wrote:
| how is that easier?
| abhgh wrote:
| Hmm, I guess it depends on the task and workflow. I find this
| easy if I have to send out the document via Gmail, WhatsApp
| etc. After I open up the PDF document (which I have to,
| anyway), the remaining steps happen on my phone. I find
| picking the right scan filter convenient on the phone
| (relative to point-and-click on a laptop) - I guess this
| talks more to the UI of the scanner apps. Then "sharing" the
| final document via the right app (mail etc) right from the
| interface of the scanner app is also fast.
|
| Overall, I have noticed this takes me 5-15s to "scan" and
| send, per page.
| gglitch wrote:
| So, what's the easiest way to get an image of my signature with a
| transparent background, and apply it to a pdf?
| giomasce wrote:
| I did it once with GIMP, and apply it every time with xournal.
| In my experience people do not really require that the PDF
| looks printed and scanned, so I never cared about that aspect.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| +1 for xournal, and I can anecdotally confirm that this has
| never been a problem for me for a decade.
| leephillips wrote:
| Same. Has always worked.
| Ishmaeli wrote:
| I found this GIMP tutorial several years ago and have used this
| method ever since. I insert my signature into PDF documents
| using the stamp tool, unless the software has a more
| sophisticated method.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efAOsvfi4sU
| cuttysnark wrote:
| OSX's Preview allows you to import your signature by writing in
| on a white notecard or similar and holding it up the webcam. It
| then stores a vectorized version which can be added to PDFs.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Caution that a vector graphic could look too clean in some
| situations. Clearly an issue per the OP.
|
| See my note above re blurring the lines a little in
| Photoshop.
| ki85squared wrote:
| Thanks for this tip! Preview has evolved so many little
| features the name is borderline misleading at this point.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| I scanned a signature and set of initials, traced them in
| Illustrator to neaten them up, colored the ink blue and blurred
| the lines a little in Photoshop, then saved with transparent
| backgrounds in a couple of formats. PNG and TIF are the ones I
| mainly use.
|
| In my ancient version of Acrobat I created rubber stamps from
| the PNGs. Two clicks to drop them in, a quick resize and adjust
| the placement, and Bob's your uncle. Never need a pen again.
| seedgou wrote:
| This is inspired by baicunko/scanyourpdf and previous HN link:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23157408
| bgro wrote:
| PDF is the new fax. It's also the old fax, but it's the new fax
| as well. We need a better replacement.
| prismatix wrote:
| Small suggestion: put an example photo on the site so if you're
| on mobile or don't want to upload a document you can still see
| what it looks like
| iamandras wrote:
| What is the use-case? Why should I have a PDF that looks scanned?
| fatnoah wrote:
| I've also had to do something similar to "forge" supporting
| documentation for medical claims. In order to claim FSA money,
| I had to provide detailed invoices. My hospital, however, was a
| big Kafka fan. They would only provide invoices that had a date
| and an amount, and those would take about 8 months to arrive.
| In order to get a detailed invoice, you had to call...but the
| catch is that detailed invoices were no longer available after
| 6 months. After every service, I'd have to immediately call for
| the detailed version, but if there were any after-the-fact
| adjustments due to insurance, I'd never be able to get a
| detailed statement.
|
| To remedy this, I'd doctor previous invoices, and then print,
| scan, and fax to hide any editing artifacts. Keep in mind, this
| is all to get my own money that I'd contributed to the FSA.
| After that year, I just stopped using the FSA because it was
| such a pain.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Wow what a pain in the ass.
|
| The last FSA I had was the exact opposite. They put my FSA on
| a Visa card, then I went to the optometrist and forgot to use
| it and paid on my own credit card. A week later, I got a
| check in the mail from my FSA with a note basically saying
| "Hey, you could have used your FSA for that, so here's an
| automatic reimbursement."
|
| EDIT: It may have been an HSA, not an FSA. I don't remember.
| fatnoah wrote:
| Oh, that's the best part. I did have the Visa, but for
| whatever reason they hospital never coded things properly,
| so I had to fall back to the manual reimbursement.
| Toreno96 wrote:
| At some point in my education, it was pretty common that some
| teachers sent us scanned PDFs instead of the original PDFs _or_
| even more hilarious, gave us the printed scans of the PDFs.
|
| I assumed that this software is basically a tongue-in-cheek
| reference to that, I had no idea this can actually have a
| practical purpose.
| Minor49er wrote:
| Some colleges require students to scan pages and submit them
| for their homework rather than simply submitting document files
| solmanac wrote:
| In the situations where you are supposed to manually sign and
| scan a printed out pdf, this way instead you can paste your
| signature with transparency onto it, reform as pdf and then
| make it looked scanned.
| Conlectus wrote:
| I believe because some organizations require "wet" signatures
| on documents, and ask to be emailed scans of those signatures.
|
| This would assumedly let you use an image of your signature
| rather than printing and signing.
| xyst wrote:
| I really hope this isn't real. I thought this was just a fun
| project.
| lxgr wrote:
| This is unfortunately entirely real.
|
| A lot of companies in the EU are still refusing to accept
| eIDAS PDF signatures (which are actually verifiable, and
| required by EU and national law to be accepted for all
| purposes previously requiring a "wet" signature).
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| No, this happens -- in really horrifying situations.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| Existence proof: I have personally encountered it. QED.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| It is very real, unfortunately. I handles contract often
| and have clients who demands for wet signature, even during
| the pandemic. Majority of that coming from public sector.
| mcbishop wrote:
| We just bought a home, and the bank required wet signatures
| on a few of the (then scanned) documents. This app would
| have saved me time.
| jstanley wrote:
| But if the bank requires a wet signature and you try to
| pass off a non-wet signature as a wet signature, isn't
| that fraud?
| bombcar wrote:
| Likely, but it probably ends up being "harmless fraud"
| and even if prosecuted the judge would be like "what?".
|
| If the bank really cared, they would ask for the PDF
| _and_ have you mail the wet signed documents in.
|
| Likely the requirement for a wet signature is left over
| from earlier times (think fax machines) OR they are
| trying to ensure that the person actually signing is the
| person signed (in other words, YOU did the signature, not
| you asking your wife/broker/whoever to apply it for you).
| ianmcgowan wrote:
| This really happens, especially at big companies. The lack
| of logic in requiring a literal wet signature but then
| scanning and emailing the resulting document gets lost in
| the "but the policy says...". It's mostly been with
| compliance and security groups in my experience.
| gpvos wrote:
| Oh yes, this happens. A lot.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The crazy thing is everyone is carrying around devices that
| would provide much better proof than a "wet signature".
|
| It is trivial to take a timestamped and geo stamped video in
| this day and age of a person agreeing to a contract, and yet
| the standard is still "signatures".
|
| Meanwhile people are posting video clips of themselves and
| their locations all day on
| WhatsApp/instagram/tiktok/youtube/facebook.
| OJFord wrote:
| For fun of the implementation, I imagine.
|
| But you could use it to get one over people who insist on
| receiving (scanned) 'originals' or 'wet-ink signature's, by
| combining it with something like handwritten.js [0]..!
|
| [0] - https://alias-rahil.github.io/handwritten.js/
| dantondwa wrote:
| It has happened to me that my nice and clean PDF was rejected
| because my signature was digitally applied. I can definitely see
| a use case for this!
| sp332 wrote:
| Cool idea, could you add some before/after samples?
| treesknees wrote:
| If you click 'START SCANNING' and then click Preview, there is
| a sample document already.
| Markoff wrote:
| just click on Start scanning to see example
| seedgou wrote:
| There's an example PDF after clicking "START SCANNING" button.
| Maybe add more real-world examples.
| ottobonn wrote:
| On the topic of PDF tools running in the browser, I made a simple
| app to split apart large-format pages for printing at home:
| https://splitpdfs.com/
|
| I use it to print posters and big templates for cutting out e.g.
| foam board from plans.
| modeless wrote:
| Needs a way to add a plausible looking signature and handwritten
| date. Then I would actually use this.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| once i spent a few months trying to fool a website and their
| "fraud assessment team" into giving me a login. i was being asked
| to "give notarized copy of your business license" and what not. i
| tried all these things and more, went to the extent of making
| rubber stamps online, pasting images in random sizes, place and
| then pseudo scanning them.
|
| sadly i ended up being busy in other work and they dropped the
| application because i hadn't submitted some "important" docs. oh
| well
| Minor49er wrote:
| This is a fun project. If there was an option to have a Xerox
| effect, this could be fun for zinemakers too. I found a
| discussion where people were figuring out how to recreate GIMP's
| "Photocopy" effect in ImageMagick:
|
| https://legacy.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.ph...
| picture wrote:
| It would be great if some more sophisticated effects can be added
| like blur with a gradient intensity to simulate the page being
| not perfectly pressed to the glass, and per page randomization
| isaachawley wrote:
| previous discussion with DIY command-line approaches
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23157408
| supermatt wrote:
| Thats a different site, where the pdf is uploaded to the
| server. This one does it client-side.
| gvx wrote:
| Fun! It might be an idea to include an option for some form of
| over/underexposure or bleed.
| alttab wrote:
| I built a version that takes your PDF, prints it, chutes it into
| a scanner, and uploads it to S3. The realism is unmatched.
| seedgou wrote:
| GitHub URL: https://github.com/rwv/lookscanned.io
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Funnily enough, the site is blocked by my college's security
| software: "Access to this web page has been restricted due to
| Federal/State Legislation and/or official xxx College policies."
| FateOfNations wrote:
| If only they were that smart... they probably have the "block
| all sites with no reputation information" option turned on...
| which is functionally "all sites the vendor hasn't indexed yet"
| and hits brand new sites.
| Coryodaniel wrote:
| This is awesome. I've been using a gist[1] for years when
| dinosorgs need a wet signature
|
| 1.
| https://gist.github.com/andyrbell/25c8632e15d17c83a54602f6ac...
| seedgou wrote:
| The site's logic is nearly identical to this gist: use
| ImageMagick to do the rotate, noise, etc.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Reminds me of patio11 talking about the phenomenon of having
| bureaucracy only accept wet signatures so services like this
| would help automate that.
|
| https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1249630998788108288
| dannygarcia wrote:
| My biggest concern with an online service is privacy (either
| bad actors or the web app getting hacked). I used an online
| mortgage service that was fully paperless with the exception of
| a single document. Just ran it through a few imagemagick
| commands to add rotation, noise, contrast, etc. My home printer
| wasn't working so it was either that or buy a whole new one.
| paulgb wrote:
| > My biggest concern with an online service is privacy
|
| In this case it's all run client-side. You're still trusting
| that the code you're served wasn't maliciously replaced, but
| if you want to be careful you could run it in an incognito
| tab and temporarily disable your internet connection.
| krossitalk wrote:
| How would you download the payload without an internet
| connection?
|
| Let's presume it is malicious, and the mere act of
| downloading the WASM starts an injection.
| paulgb wrote:
| Ah, I was ambiguous about that, but I mean these steps:
|
| 1. load the site in an incognito tab
|
| 2. disable internet
|
| 3. run the conversion and download the result
|
| 4. close the incognito tab
|
| 5. re-connect the internet
| achn wrote:
| Are there browser extensions that simply disable all
| future requests from being sent from the immediate tab?
| paulgb wrote:
| It's possible for an extension to intercept and block
| requests, but as Kevin mentions in your sibling comment,
| it's not enough because they could write data to local
| storage and then read it later when you're back online if
| you ever visited that domain again. An extension would
| have to cover a lot of bases to ensure that data couldn't
| leak, and I wouldn't trust one to cover them all.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| In Chrome, open the Inspector, go to "Netork", then in
| the dropdown that says "No throttling" choose "offline".
| jannes wrote:
| In Chrome dev tools you can set the network throttling to
| "Offline".
|
| In Firefox this is not possible (per tab), but at least
| you can set the entire browser to offline mode by
| clicking "File -> Work Offline"
| kevin_nisbet wrote:
| While this may work for unsophisticated attacks, wouldn't
| it still be possible for a more sophisticated adversary
| to do something more like store the document in browser
| local storage, and then later with internet access to
| post the contents?
|
| I haven't spent a huge amount of time in the browser
| security space, but I do think there is quite alot of
| surface area if you give the browser session sensitive
| data.
| paulgb wrote:
| If you are using an incognito tab, anything in local
| storage, cookies, even caches should go away. I am not
| 100% up on the details but I believe modern browsers are
| pretty strict about isolating incognito state.
|
| You're right though in general, that's why the incognito
| tab is important.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| This is correct, but you need to close ALL incognito tabs
| for storage to get wiped, not just the tab you loaded the
| site in.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| I just had to do this dumb dance with TD Ameritrade. I did a
| coin toss on print/scan v.s. learning to do this with
| ImageMagick. Since I had a bunch of other deadlines to hit I
| wasted paper so they would accept my electronic submission.
|
| Personally, from a workflow standpoint I'd prefer a PDF Printer
| driver that would add the effect. I'm sure the website is
| better for Mobile.
| crismigo wrote:
| crismigo wrote:
| [deleted]
| mminer237 wrote:
| I know my scanner also sharpens images a lot (by darkening and
| increasing contrast?), which with the noise and blurring makes a
| pretty distinctive look. These still look very "clean" compared
| to this: https://i.imgur.com/tBkVVic.png
| [deleted]
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| The philosophy of technology behind this is fascinating. The
| _need_ is the clearest case of non-functional requirements I have
| ever seen. When a process owner brazenly does not care about the
| outcome, but cares only about forcing people to go through their
| arbitrary steps, it is to stamp their seal of authority and
| control upon the other.
|
| As Bill Hicks says "Hey, pretend like you're working!"
|
| Everything else is post-facto rationalisation. In other words,
| they'll dream up anything as a way to explain _why_ you have to
| conform to their process, variously invoking "standard
| practice", "regulation", "security", with total disregard for the
| truth. It is the _process_ with which they identify vicariously,
| are attached to, and are obliged to defend. _The process owns
| them_.
|
| As for the solution. Funny as it is, it's an example of tragic
| new realm of digital technology whose purpose is to fake human
| agency, and create desired appearance over any actual reality.
|
| I'm not just talking about spambots, or automated essay mills for
| students to buy their way to a degree one cheat at a time. These
| are what Douglas Adams called "Electric Monks". They believe in
| make-work bullshit so that real people don't have to. This is the
| future of AI, the adversarial workplace, a technological arms
| race around make-work wage-slavery which creates no tangible
| economic value; avatars that stand in for people remote working
| so they can sunbathe in the garden... like that little pecking
| bird that Homer Simpson gets to run the nuclear plant by pecking
| on the Y key.
|
| Whoever can afford the best Electric Monks wins the game, because
| they will be able to free their attention for real life.
|
| edit: italics
| hackernewds wrote:
| Great commentary. I'd add shamelessly that whoever can _build_
| the best electric monks dominates the game. The price of
| developing them will be miniscule.
|
| Really hoping AI ushers us into the resource based economy
| where humans are freed from rudimentary labor.
| bjackman wrote:
| I've actually never seen the phenomenon through this lens, but
| I like it!
|
| I think the clearest indicator that this is going on is when
| you can circumvent the process arbitrarily. Two example
| memories spring to mind:
|
| In a visa office: "fill out form X, you can get one from the
| table over there" / "There are none left" / "OK never mind give
| me your passport and I'll stamp it".
|
| At my Big Tech employer: "please fill out this document
| template detailing the update and version history of your
| service, for an audit" / "really? This looks time consuming and
| I don't really understand the the reason why you need it" /
| "OK, never mind then"
|
| (Actually, at Big Tech I have found that replying along the
| lines of "really though?" is a very good first response when
| confronted with Processes. Sometimes when reporting bugs the
| template asks you to e.g. gather traces with browser extensions
| or whatever. I always say "I will do that if you first confirm
| that it will actually be useful for this bug" and haven't yet
| received such a confirmation)
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| A Tulane student got a bunch of funding because he developed a
| stand-in for folks for zoom meetings. Logs in, records,
| transcribes, the works. He developed it so he wouldn't have to
| attend lectures during Covid. What you're describing reminds me
| of this project.
|
| It's also called "Buelr," which really captures the energy of
| what you're talking about.
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ferris-bueller-inspired-produ...
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > It's also called "Buelr," which really captures the energy
| of what you're talking about.
|
| Brilliant. Thanks for that. Exactly the kind of thing I'm
| thinking of.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Hey man you were the one with that brilliant write up. I
| saved your comment to review again later. Incredibly
| insightful stuff. Already passed it to a few coworkers.
| postingposts wrote:
| We have a word for it within the domain of philosophy and
| literature: _Kafkaesque_.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > We have a word for it within the domain of philosophy and
| literature: Kafkaesque.
|
| I was thinking of something a little different and even
| considered specifically excluding Kafka and indeed Weber
| (I've read a lot of Franz Kafka but am a Cliffs Notes
| imposter on Max Weber) from my comment.
|
| In The Trial, or Before the Law, the anxiety lies in not
| knowing the mind of a, possibly ambivalent, judging other. In
| modernity, Weber's modernity, it is spelled out in intricate,
| mind numbing detail, in reams of forms that must be
| gymnastically navigated. One step further in the direction I
| am describing is the officers of Jaroslav Hasek's _Good
| Soldier Svejk_ In this incarnation bureaucracy is not an all-
| powerful force to be feared, it is a stumbling, stuttering,
| inconsistent fool of a thing that can be easily tricked. It
| brings tedium not anxiety. I 'll wager many hackers relate to
| that experience of encountering systems.
|
| That is what I mean by the vision of AI versus AI. Two broken
| retarded robots sprawling about in the mud while humans
| gather around in a circle and laugh. But the last laugh is on
| us for building them and getting enchanted by the spectacle.
| postingposts wrote:
| Fantastic comment. You gave me both something to think
| about and research!
| crispyambulance wrote:
| touche!
|
| But there is something about the aesthetic of such things, it's
| why the IETF RFC's (example https://www.rfc-
| editor.org/rfc/rfc8200.html) are made to look like typewritten
| pages even decades after typewriters stopped being in common
| usage. I am surprised that they don't "go all the way" with
| that look and also apply some simulated coffee stains, dog-
| ears, and stapling artifacts.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| It's not just the looks. That way it is possible to reference
| something by line and column.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| No man, it's a deliberate look which sacrifices readability
| for some kind of retro-aesthetic whether they admit it or
| not. It's easy enough to reference things by section
| numbers.
|
| And really, if they cared about being able reference things
| to the n-th degree, the figures would have been captioned
| and have their own figure-number instead of just sort-of
| "in there" like a paragraph (https://www.rfc-
| editor.org/rfc/rfc8200.html#section-4.4).
| anthk wrote:
| ASCII is read everywhere. Perfect to read standards on any
| machine since 1970.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Typewriters have hard line breaks. This aesthetic makes
| RFCs harder to read than necessary on the majority of
| consumer devices sold since 2012.
|
| Form should match the shape of the medium, not fight it.
| tedunangst wrote:
| The html version looks pretty good even on my iPhone. The
| words are small but legible. The text version is zoomed
| in, but wraps unnaturally, and is hard to read. The pdf
| is hard to read, too zoomed out.
|
| I think they did a pretty good job making a document that
| can be navigated as people are accustomed to, while
| adapting to the medium. The aesthetic is not without
| function.
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| Interesting concept. However there are a few issues that surface
| quickly (this is all assuming a feed through scanner and not a
| flatbed).
|
| #1 - It rotates AND scales to fit. It's not obvious until you
| rotate a stupid amount, but pages don't shrink when scanned for
| real.
|
| #2 - The scanning rotation is way too uniform. Most scans twist a
| bit, typically near the top when more of the page is in the
| scanner to straighten it out.
|
| #3 - With #2 there should be some stretching/skewing that isn't
| uniform.
|
| #4 - The noise is way too uniform as well. It looks like static.
| Typical scanned documents have noise that is much more variable.
| You also get other scanning artifacts like streaks for dirt on
| the scan head.
|
| #5 - The page ends often aren't even and introduce artifacting as
| well.
|
| #6 - Needs an option for chewed up staple corner and/or
| holepunch.
| acchow wrote:
| Funny, my scanner has software that automatically corrects for
| most of these errors to make it look as non-scanned as
| possible.
| fourstar wrote:
| No need for this to be a website.
| https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/94523/simulate-a-sca...
| darkwater wrote:
| Mmmh the preview doesn't work for me with Firefox on Android. Or
| maybe it just takes too long? Nice implementation though! Thanks!
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| It should have an option to show the wooden table behind the
| paper.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Yet here I am trying to make my scans look not-scanned.
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