On 80 columns should (not) be enough for everyone

Nick Sabalausky a at a.a
Sun Jan 30 15:00:40 PST 2011


"Walter Bright" <newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:ii4p8u$2ico$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> 80 colums is an artifact of the old age.
>
> An elegant width, from a more civilized age.
>
> > Any remotely modern computer is perfectly capable
> > of speeding up voice playback by 10x, but nobody does it that fast 
> > because
> > the human user is the limiting factor.
>
> People who use screen readers often crank up the playback rate to 2x. The 
> software adjusts the pitch so it doesn't sound like the Chipmunks.
>
> I've often wondered why DVRs don't do this (I've sent the suggestion to 
> Tivo, they ignored me). I'd like the option to play the news (or other 
> talk shows) at a faster rate, with pitch adjustment. I've found I can 
> watch Tivo at 3x with the closed captioning on, and can almost keep up. 
> The problem with DVRs at any fast forward speed is they turn the sound 
> off! Grrrr.
>
> A golden opportunity missed.
>
> I'd also love it if youtube etc. did this. It's so boring looking at 
> youtube presentations because they talk so slow. I'd love a double speed 
> youtube viewing option.
>
> Remember I posted this in case some troll tries to patent it.

I wish someone would finally just patent getting patents. (IBM's come close 
from what I hear, but it's not quite there yet.) That's probably the only 
way the US will ever be rid of the dammed things. Heck, with the USPTO being 
as grossly incompetent as it is, it would probably be granted: it would just 
have to be written in a sufficiently ultra-pedantic style.




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