Max OS-X: Shrink PDF files in the Finder
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- Published: Sunday, 05 May 2013 00:00
Today I finally got around to use Automator, and make one of the command line scripts I have been running for ages a little easier to use.
The problem I have been trying to solve is the fact that the PDF files that a Mac creates are normally of very high quality and hence large. If you just want to send someone a document for reading on screen, a much smaller PDF file would do. The open source package “ghostscript” has a tool called ps2pdf that can be (ab)used to adjust the size of components for PDF files. I installed this in /opt/local/bin using the “macports” software.
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Some of the computing services at universities become paid services. And the primary reaction in the science groups often is a fight because the realistic costs of operating the existing infrastructure are high. And if the fight does not work, there is a flight towards running decentralized infrastructure. This can look cheaper but maintenance and incident control are rarely accounted for.
Thinking about Poisson statistics I was wondering how much use a clock would be that would count the seconds with counting statistics or Poisson statistics. That is: it has the irregularity of radio-active decay. Some people put their watch a few minutes ahead of the true time to make sure that they are never too late, but the problem is that they can start counting on that after a while. A true random clock might be unreliable enough that you would need to always stay carefully ahead….
Computer infrastructure used in universities is not part of a market, let alone of a "transparent market" in which everyone has a clear view on what alternatives exist and what their relative merits and costs are.
