A Thousand Words is Worth not Having to Draw a Picture

I’m a dreadful artist, always have been. I always used to say, when writing stuff at work, that I’d rather write an extra thousand words than have to supply a picture. The graphic artists, after experiencing my attempts at sketching, tended to agree...

I rather felt that I’d discovered an example of too much information full stop when I bought a pair of noise-cancelling headphones recently. The arrived with a wodgy manual. Now, admittedly, it contains instructions in multiple languages, but it’s still 14 pages for each. 14 pages! I doubt that very few of the purchasers ever make it to the fact that the maximum operating temperature is 104˚F.

Compare that to the insert with an Amazon Kindle, bought about the same time. A bit of a difference here. Whilst I’ll admit that the Kindle has the advantage of being its own instruction manual, in these days of the Internet, are big thick paper manuals really needed for something as straightforward as a pair of headphones?