Posted on 03/28/2014 5:37:46 PM PDT by mandaladon
Fourteen-year-old Suvir Mirchandani found a way to save the federal and state governments almost $400 million from their yearly budgets just by changing the typeface they use on handouts. The best choice? Garamond!
Mirchandani’s school was looking for ways to save money, but he noticed no one was paying attention to the ink used on its many handouts. He noticed that Hewlett-Packard printer ink is $75 an ounce, while an equivalent amount of French perfume is only $38.
Here is how he came to the conclusion that Garamond is the best choice:
Collecting random samples of teachers' handouts, Suvir concentrated on the most commonly used characters (e, t, a, o and r).
First, he charted how often each character was used in four different typefaces: Garamond, Times New Roman, Century Gothic and Comic Sans. Then he measured how much ink was used for each letter, using a commercial tool called APFill® Ink Coverage Software.
Next he enlarged the letters, printed them and cut them out on cardstock paper to weigh them to verify his findings. He did three trials for each letter, graphing the ink usage for each font.
From this analysis, Suvir figured out that by using Garamond with its thinner strokes, his school district could reduce its ink consumption by 24%, and in turn save as much as $21,000 annually.
He then used the data to project how much the government, both at the federal and state levels, could save via the switch.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
weve all got at least one of the beasts most likely connected to a printer....
The PRINT feature aint a new thing....
ah those were the good old naive days werent they
> He noticed that Hewlett-Packard printer ink is $75 an ounce, while an equivalent amount of French perfume is only $38.
Did he happen to notice that getting rid of the inkjets would save about ten times that without any typeface changes? Yeah, he’s a real brainiac.
but, but, but.......eyes.
By using less ink or toner, how much does it cost to remedy the eye strain?
Yep, smart kid. And Garamond is a nice looking font too.
Why is HP charging $75 per ounce for ink?
Everything should be printed in Cooper Black.
Because they can.
Not so smart kid since this same comparison test has been around for many years. I switched over to Garamond because of the test waaaay back when.
I’m sure taxpayers could save gazillions more without the government changing the use of any printing-type fonts, but merely by getting out of all but the very most basic things government has become involved in.
If his theory is proven to be true they will immediately go the the democrats in congress to seek a tax increase in order to pay for the non judgmental font currently being used.
If you used 3-point font, you could save lots of paper, too.
But of course, it would be harder to read... like Garamond.
Garamond is an old style font, with serifs intended to mimic the original, chiseled ones and the thick-thin strokes of the letterforms. It also isn’t the most compact of fonts meaning that a given paragraph is going to be somewhat longer because the letters themselves are. Garamond also has a low x-height, which adversely affects legibility because the bodies of the lowercase letters are smaller.
In other words, if this was to be adopted, the cost benefit would be eaten up due to people enlarging the point size for better legibility, and in more paper used because the same amount of text would require more space.
I applaud the kid for thinking in this manner, though. Copier consumables, particularly toner, are an absolutely astounding expense when tallied up over time. Like cell phones, the profit isn’t in the thing itself, it’s derived from the longterm use of it.
I guess this is what it says. Now if you go through a ream of paper a year and maybe buy new ink carts every other year like I do, you'll never notice.
But if you chew through paper like all these government parasites do, it would add up big time.
Paper is not the problem, the cost of ink is. I’m almost afraid to use my printer because the ink costs a fortune. Anything that reduces my ink cost is a boon to me.
Why does anybody pay for cell phone service? Internet calls are free. Also, printers? It is the 21st century, people.
“Why does anybody pay for cell phone service? Internet calls are free. Also, printers? It is the 21st century, people.”
My internet service comes through my cellphone. Beats dialup which is my other option.
I’m not saying there are not use cases for cell phones or printers, but most people could cut their usage by 80% by just thinking about it.
Internet is not free. You may be finding it free of charge to you, but it’s not free. It’s also spotty as far as availability, even in cities. Being unable to call or receive calls because you’re not in a free wifi hotspot is not practical for most. And, there are some things that cannot be migrated to a web page, PDF, etc., not at the present time and not in the foreseeable future.
So, if you’re able to make do with VOIP, Skype or whatever to cover your need for voice communications, great, good for you. It’s by no means applicable to even a majority though, let alone everybody.
I was assuming you had already paid for Internet, because how can you live without it? Cell phones, not so much.
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