7 ms·

Funny story - when I was in high school, my physics teacher used to get on my case about not printing my lab reports double-sided, and how I was wasting paper.

by ollien 3y ago

Funny story - when I was in high school, my physics teacher used to get on my case about not printing my lab reports double-sided, and how I was wasting paper. The next time I handed one in, I printed double-sided, but I put "This page was intentionally left blank." on every other page.

ikealampe200 3y ago
I have the strong feeling that he must have been a German high school teacher...
- 0_____0 3y ago
  Got any stories to share with the class?
  - maininformer 3y ago
    super appreciate this humor
jetrink 3y ago
I have a story from my high school physics teacher as well. Before he was a teacher, he worked at Kodak on digital imaging. His group had made a discovery, and after clearing it with management, they submitted a paper to a scientific journal. It was accepted, but just before the issue went to print, government censors decided that the idea had military applications and the paper was classified.* The issue had already been typeset and there was no time to make a new layout, so the journal published the issue with nine 'intentionally left blank' pages in the middle without explanation. He had the issue on his bookshelf and would show it off every year as the most significant achievement in his career. It was still classified at the time, so he couldn't say anything more about it. * Kodak worked on spy satellites for the DoD, among other things, so the work could have been funded by the military as well.
tombert 3y ago
Maybe I'm a bit out of the loop, but for every printer I've owned until my latest one has only printed on one side. I of course could print odds and then flip the pages over and print the evens, but when I would type up my homework in high school (which was most of the time because my handwriting is completely illegible), teachers never expected me to use both pages. It didn't even really occur to me to do anything else. ETA: My current printer is a nearly 20 year old, gigantic office printer, and it does indeed print two sides, but I think that printer cost on the order of $4,000 when it was new. Definitely was not considered "consumer grade". Happily, the generic Postscript driver and Bonjour on MacOS work fine with it, so I suspect it'll still serve its purpose as a printer for many years to come.
- semanticist 3y ago
  OP was in high school ~8 years ago, printers capable of doing both sides automatically were definitely commonly available in 2016 for well under four grand. Plus it could've been a school printer in any case.
  - ollien 3y ago
    Heh... did you look me up? (EDIT: I forgot I recently commented about my highschool tenure until now. Hah!) Yeah, this was 2015-2016. Yes, the school printer and my home printer supported it, I was just forgetful and a bit of a smartass :)
- throwanem 3y ago
  What printer, if you don't mind my asking? I currently make book blocks on an M203dw that's held up surprisingly well thus far, but eventually I expect it to fail; given how I use it, an old battlewagon with a duplexer is likely a much better replacement than another low-end SOHO model.
  - tombert 3y ago
    An HP P4515x. Tough to find accurate information on the actual price and release date, BUT this is what ChatGPT said (take with a grain of salt): > me: when was the HP P4515x released? Roughly how much did it cost? > ChatGPT: The HP LaserJet P4515x printer was released in 2008. It was designed for businesses with high-volume printing needs. At launch, the price of the HP LaserJet P4515x was around $1,800 to $2,000, although prices could vary based on the retailer and any additional features or accessories purchased with the printer. Keep in mind that the cost for such a printer model would likely decrease over time due to the introduction of new models and advancements in technology. So I was mistaken, it wasn't $4000 new, it was closer to $2000, and it's closer to 15-16 years old. That's what I get for writing stuff without double checking. I didn't pay anywhere near that, I bought it in 2020 used for like $150. The UberXL I had to take to get it back to my house was like another $80. ETA: I should point out that if you decide to buy one, make sure you buy a RAM upgrade as well. It comes with too small of memory for modern documents; when it prints even moderately sized PDFs you just get an out of memory error. I bought the 512MB RAM expansion for very little (I'm having trouble finding the listing that I bought from, but I think it was on the order of $25 on eBay with shipping). Once I did the upgrade, it's been a perfectly decent printer; it doesn't do color but I almost never need color; all I ever print are documents, generally created with LaTeX, and it works fine. Also, if you decide to buy this specific model, email me about the firmware upgrade process. HP's documentation on doing it is actually wrong and I had to figure it out myself, and the trial and error process cost me an entire ream of paper!
crtasm 3y ago
Is the joke that you were then wasting both time and paper?
- ollien 3y ago
  The joke is that I got to be a bit of a smartass and say "you asked me to print double-sided, well here you go!" I was a much different person then in terms of what I considered to be acceptable (who wasn't, at 16?), but I still find the story amusing.

by ollien 3y ago

ikealampe200 3y ago

I have the strong feeling that he must have been a German high school teacher...

0_____0 3y ago
Got any stories to share with the class?
- maininformer 3y ago
  super appreciate this humor

jetrink 3y ago

I have a story from my high school physics teacher as well. Before he was a teacher, he worked at Kodak on digital imaging. His group had made a discovery, and after clearing it with management, they submitted a paper to a scientific journal. It was accepted, but just before the issue went to print, government censors decided that the idea had military applications and the paper was classified.* The issue had already been typeset and there was no time to make a new layout, so the journal published the issue with nine 'intentionally left blank' pages in the middle without explanation. He had the issue on his bookshelf and would show it off every year as the most significant achievement in his career. It was still classified at the time, so he couldn't say anything more about it. * Kodak worked on spy satellites for the DoD, among other things, so the work could have been funded by the military as well.

tombert 3y ago

Maybe I'm a bit out of the loop, but for every printer I've owned until my latest one has only printed on one side. I of course could print odds and then flip the pages over and print the evens, but when I would type up my homework in high school (which was most of the time because my handwriting is completely illegible), teachers never expected me to use both pages. It didn't even really occur to me to do anything else. ETA: My current printer is a nearly 20 year old, gigantic office printer, and it does indeed print two sides, but I think that printer cost on the order of $4,000 when it was new. Definitely was not considered "consumer grade". Happily, the generic Postscript driver and Bonjour on MacOS work fine with it, so I suspect it'll still serve its purpose as a printer for many years to come.

semanticist 3y ago
OP was in high school ~8 years ago, printers capable of doing both sides automatically were definitely commonly available in 2016 for well under four grand. Plus it could've been a school printer in any case.
- ollien 3y ago
  Heh... did you look me up? (EDIT: I forgot I recently commented about my highschool tenure until now. Hah!) Yeah, this was 2015-2016. Yes, the school printer and my home printer supported it, I was just forgetful and a bit of a smartass :)
throwanem 3y ago
What printer, if you don't mind my asking? I currently make book blocks on an M203dw that's held up surprisingly well thus far, but eventually I expect it to fail; given how I use it, an old battlewagon with a duplexer is likely a much better replacement than another low-end SOHO model.
- tombert 3y ago
  An HP P4515x. Tough to find accurate information on the actual price and release date, BUT this is what ChatGPT said (take with a grain of salt): > me: when was the HP P4515x released? Roughly how much did it cost? > ChatGPT: The HP LaserJet P4515x printer was released in 2008. It was designed for businesses with high-volume printing needs. At launch, the price of the HP LaserJet P4515x was around $1,800 to $2,000, although prices could vary based on the retailer and any additional features or accessories purchased with the printer. Keep in mind that the cost for such a printer model would likely decrease over time due to the introduction of new models and advancements in technology. So I was mistaken, it wasn't $4000 new, it was closer to $2000, and it's closer to 15-16 years old. That's what I get for writing stuff without double checking. I didn't pay anywhere near that, I bought it in 2020 used for like $150. The UberXL I had to take to get it back to my house was like another $80. ETA: I should point out that if you decide to buy one, make sure you buy a RAM upgrade as well. It comes with too small of memory for modern documents; when it prints even moderately sized PDFs you just get an out of memory error. I bought the 512MB RAM expansion for very little (I'm having trouble finding the listing that I bought from, but I think it was on the order of $25 on eBay with shipping). Once I did the upgrade, it's been a perfectly decent printer; it doesn't do color but I almost never need color; all I ever print are documents, generally created with LaTeX, and it works fine. Also, if you decide to buy this specific model, email me about the firmware upgrade process. HP's documentation on doing it is actually wrong and I had to figure it out myself, and the trial and error process cost me an entire ream of paper!

crtasm 3y ago

Is the joke that you were then wasting both time and paper?

ollien 3y ago
The joke is that I got to be a bit of a smartass and say "you asked me to print double-sided, well here you go!" I was a much different person then in terms of what I considered to be acceptable (who wasn't, at 16?), but I still find the story amusing.