________ ________ ________
2024-02-05 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
ISO 216:2007 defines sizes of paper, / _/ / /
specifically the A and B standards, a \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
standard most office workers the world over / \/ \/ / \
would be familiar with, A4 paper being an / _/ /_ _/
ISO standard A sheet cut in half four times. /- / _/ /
\________/\________/\___/____/
ISO ISO 4046-3:2002 defines five hundred sheets of paper (in our case;
A4, 80gsm) as a ream.
in an office a ream of paper serves a strict purpose, to be consumed by the
printer, have a laser or whatever inscribe information on a drum, creating a
pattern of letters, numbers and text through static electricity, attracting
dry toner to the pattern which is then fused to the paper with heat.
an office memo, a graph. etc.
an office worker wouldn't think much of the paper or why it's cut to that
size or received in that specific number of sheets but an engineer might. they
might look at that standard and think it is good that anywhere in the world
they can expect a sheet of A4 paper to be exactly 210mm x 297mm and a ream of
80gsm A4 paper to fit tidily in a printer paper tray and expect there to be no
deviation from the norm.
even an artist could appreciate the standard, a simple A4 page, suited to
photocopying a magazine, or maybe doodling a character, but an artist doesn't
necessarily stop there, the artist doesn't care about the standard and will
cut and tear and glue things to an A4 page, or stick the page to something
larger. an artist is destructive, chaotic, flying in the face of the ISO
standard of A size and ream.
now a hacker is a curious creature, they straddle a line between engineer
and artist, sometimes leaning further to one side than the other. in my
imperfect analogy, what would a hacker make of an A4 pice of paper. a hacker
understands the value of a standard but also appreciates the power of an
artist and, because a hacker is clever and creative, a hacker will find ways
to work within a standard without being destructive. a hacker sees a piece of
paper and wonders what would happen if they folded it in half, and then what
if they folded it again?
and could it be folded until it resembles something else like a cup or a
paper plane? imagination, curiosity, ingenuity and experimentation gives the
ISO standard A4 page a new form, beyond just a receptacle for numbers and
text. now it can hold water or maybe, if you can catch the wind just right, it
can even fly.
don't let authoritarians drown your creative drive, don't let a standard
hold you back, don't wait for permission to create. push boundaries, make
wonderful things, be well.
