The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Science & Nature => Topic started by: theinevitable on March 25, 2006, 06:49:55 pm
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guys, you must all learn to type Dvorak.
http://dvzine.org/zine/01-toc.html (http://dvzine.org/zine/01-toc.html)
do it.
...and if you buy a new keyboard, send me one too.
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NO.
What problem would this solve? I already type faster than I can think. No point in typing even faster unless someone comes up with a cure for the slow-wittedness first.
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avoiding carpal-tunnel and other repetitive stress injuries. typing faster in the situations where you think of what you're going to say before you type. being cool? I don't know. I just thought it was interesting.
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Yeah, I already learned how to touch-type using a standard keyboard. Like wombat, I can type way faster than I can think. There are no advantages to the Dvorak keyboard that are practical - even if you decided to switch, good luck ever using a computer anywhere else in the world.
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It kind of reminds me of the relative failure of Esperanto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_as_an_international_language), to the extent that it seemed like a good idea at the time, but then (almost) no one was willing to become really dedicated to it.
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Oh god, 24 pages preaching devorak? At least chick tracts are usually less than ten.
The fact that I'm going to read them after that outburst is almost certainly the Saddest Thing.
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One time I had rearranged all the keys on my keyboard. Every key was moved, so no key would produce the correct letter. A friend that lives down the block showed up for some reason I can't remember and asked to use my computer. I let him compose an email while I ate a meal.
When I was done, I came into the room and he was like, "Rich, I... I can't use this."
The monitor displayed a scrambled mass of random letters. It was effin' classic.
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On review I take it all back, the panel of the guy staring at the keyboard about to cry is tragicomic enough to gain my favour. I smell a new avatar.
EDIT: Also the way they all depress themselves by the end of their spiel.
Also: Mr. Software being so depressed by them typing a semi-colon but thrilled that "now he's hitting the same key, but it's an s!"
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damn, guys. I thought it was cool.
*goes into corner to cry*
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Don't cry, little guy! If Doc gets rid of that creepy avatar, you have done a very good thing!
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The "jumbled mass of letters" thing actually happened to a friend of mine when she appropriated the computer of a Dvorak-using mutual friend (whose keyboard was just remapped QWERTY). "BRIAN! I was Googling something and all that came out was this crap! What's wrong?! ... Stop laughing, Brian! Jesus!"
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It kind of reminds me of the relative failure of Esperanto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_as_an_international_language), to the extent that it seemed like a good idea at the time, but then (almost) no one was willing to become really dedicated to it.
On the other hand, learning Esperanto doesn't impair your English functionality, while I can see how training yourself on Dvorak could be seriously problematic when trying to touchtype with a QWERTY (i.e. any computer that is not your own). The worst-case scenario with Esperanto is that you feel embarrassed because you could have learned Italian instead in the hopes of going on a Mediterranean vacation.
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The "jumbled mass of letters" thing actually happened to a friend of mine when she appropriated the computer of a Dvorak-using mutual friend (whose keyboard was just remapped QWERTY). "BRIAN! I was Googling something and all that came out was this crap! What's wrong?! ... Stop laughing, Brian! Jesus!"
Well, that's just going too far now. Devilish, really.
...
...
I just realized I have to get a Dvorak keyboard.
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The worst-case scenario with Esperanto is that you feel embarrassed because you could have learned Italian instead in the hopes of going on a Mediterranean vacation.
That sums up the problem brilliantly. There were people who were very dedicated to Esperanto, but they couldn't convince sensible folks to go along with them. Because who wants to learn a language that won't help you take a trip or order in restaurants?
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the thing is, it doesn't make you forget how to do QWERTY. it's just an alternative. Also: most computers can easily switch back and forth.
I don't really understand how having a different look to the keyboard matters. if your friend had a Dvorak keyboard, couldn't the person have figured out that the letters were in different places? Or was the issue that it was a normal keyboard, but the computer was set to dvorak?
Anyway, the thing is, the utility of me learning dvorak has no relation to other people's use of it. Other people's keyboard usage does not effect mine. Even if I were the only person in the world to use it, it would still be a benefit to me-- so I really don't see the problem.
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Let us know how this works out for you. But please don't become a bitter fuck like the dudes that produced that zine. That would be the saddest thing.
~Paul
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the thing is, it doesn't make you forget how to do QWERTY. it's just an alternative.
Well, since you're just learning dvorak, a good experiment would be to get some kind of typing software that tests your current WPM and then try again after learning and using dvorak only for a while.
I don't really understand how having a different look to the keyboard matters. if your friend had a Dvorak keyboard, couldn't the person have figured out that the letters were in different places? Or was the issue that it was a normal keyboard, but the computer was set to dvorak?
"I'm pressing W, but it keeps printing a B on screen!"
Anyway, the thing is, the utility of me learning dvorak has no relation to other people's use of it. Other people's keyboard usage does not effect mine. Even if I were the only person in the world to use it, it would still be a benefit to me-- so I really don't see the problem.
There is no problem as long as you always only ever use your own PC. Me, I can pretty much use any PC in the world and have no problem typing something. You'd have a bit of a hard time finding a keyboard with a dvorak layout.
And what benefit is there over Qwerty? If you already know how to touch-type on a QWERTY layout how is Dvorak faster?
Also, carpal tunnel comes from repetitive stress. Switching keyboard layouts will just change the location of the repetition. The best way to avoid carpal tunnel is to take frequent breaks when typing, and to assume correct typing posture so as to avoid injury.
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Despite the assurances of the pamphlet, it would be hell of inconvenient to have to put in time and effort into learning Dvorak, just getting the hang of it, and then realising it will only ever serve me when I am at home on my own computer. Long, boring lunchtimes mean I spend a lot of time on computers at school, and using Qwerty during the day and Dvorak in the evenings would likely result in me being none-too-proficient in two styles, rather than being speedy in one. The same daytime/evening problem goes for people who use computers at work (though I suppose at workplaces everyone has their 'own' computers anyway.)
In a nutshell: No.
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I type about 75 wpm with Qwerty. Maybe Dvorak would bump me up to 100 wpm. But I really have no need to increase my typing speed. The effort to retrain myself isn't worth the benefit of Dvorak's increased efficiency.
If I was learning to touch-type anew, I'd consider it. But at this point I see little benefit.
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the thing that I'm trying to get across: any keyboard can be used to type in Dvorak. When I'm at school, I can just go to the control panel, tell it I want to type in Dvorak, and it will let me. It is not a hard thing to do.
anyway... whatever. I thought it was interesting and worth trying.
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the thing that I'm trying to get across: any keyboard can be used to type in Dvorak. When I'm at school, I can just go to the control panel, tell it I want to type in Dvorak, and it will let me. It is not a hard thing to do.
anyway... whatever. I thought it was interesting and worth trying.
They locked the fackin' control panel at our school after everyone in my class decided to invert the peniss, make 'em move real slow and put little dinosaurs where the arrow should be. Pah, they don't know WHAT they're missing now.
I suppose I'm acting like the Upaka to your Buddha, and for that I am sorry. Thanks for trying to enlighten us all!
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the thing that I'm trying to get across: any keyboard can be used to type in Dvorak. When I'm at school, I can just go to the control panel, tell it I want to type in Dvorak, and it will let me. It is not a hard thing to do.
anyway... whatever. I thought it was interesting and worth trying.
It's okay, theinevitable; we still love you! Yes, it is an interesting concept, and if you want to try it out, more power to you. Thank you for the Education.
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judy-- at my school, people figured out how to use DOS to send messages to each other.
it would come up in a little box like it was a message from windows... we used to use it to fuck with computer-illiterate people.
it was great. until one kid sent another kid one saying something about deleting the hard disc, and that kid told the teacher, who told the computer-person of the school, who figured out what we were doing. and blocked it.
yeah, really, I dont care if you use dvorak or not. I just thought it was cool.
Y'all are welcome for the Education.
an interesting thing I've noticed: I get confused when the letter is on the opposite side from QWERTY. The most common mistake I make is using the correct finger, but on the wrong hand. I guess it's that damn muscle memory.
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Yeah, Dvorak would've been better had we started that way but I don't see us switching any time soon. It's like people that harp on how much better BETA was than VHS when it clearly doesn't matter any more. I guess we'll still have to see how the Blu-Ray debate plays outs.
I've seen a couple of complete keboard redesigns that were supposed to be even better than dvorak, mainly at Think Geek, but it doesn't look like any are for sale any more. There was a qwerty where the board itself was concave on both axes so the keys used by your middle fingers were lower than those for your pinkies so you could keep your fingers in a more natural position. Sounded cool but it cost like $250.
Then there was the abkey (http://www.ohgizmo.com/2005/07/07/the-abkey-revolution-a-new-sort-of-keyboard/) that completely changed the form. Explain to me why the U is that friggin' large. Who uses that many U's?
Then of course there's every geek's wet-dream and one of the most anticipated pieces of vaporware from 2005 The Optimus (http://www.ohgizmo.com/2005/07/14/best-keyboard-evar/). Every single key is an OLED which can be independently altered in both function and appearance. There's also two columns of user keys by the caps lock, not unlike an old Commodore keyboard in reverse.
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cortjstr-- I saw go betty go. (they are on your last.fm thingy)
yeah, that keyboard where you can change every key is basically like heaven.
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cortjstr-- I saw go betty go. (they are on your last.fm thingy)
yeah, that keyboard where you can change every key is basically like heaven.
eMusic recommended them to me as similar to The Soviettes. They're not nearly as good but still pretty decent.
If you read the follow up posts on the Optimus it's not looking very good. Last I heard they were taking pre-orders (at $100) for a 3 button version that you could keep next to a real keyboard. That's a long was from a full 100+ programmable keys.
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I don't really understand how having a different look to the keyboard matters. if your friend had a Dvorak keyboard, couldn't the person have figured out that the letters were in different places? Or was the issue that it was a normal keyboard, but the computer was set to dvorak?
Just to clarify, although Jough pretty much got it -- the computer was a laptop with a QWERTY keyboard, so the keys were still labeled in QWERTY orientation, but the computer had been set to interpret with Dvorak. Ergo, there was no external sign of the settings until the computer started spitting out gibberish.
I don't have anything against Dvorak, but I don't really feel like learning it because of something kind of like what Ben mentions -- since it's all just typing, learning Dvorak wouldn't actually increase my capacity for activity at all, and it'd require me to futz with every computer other than mine (or Brian's, I guess). Right now I type as quickly as I need to, and while Dvorak might improve my speed, it just doesn't feel necessary. If I end up going into a typing-intensive field and need higher WPM/protection against RSIs, I'd consider it.
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ok, now I get it.
I was like: It's a dvorak keyboard set to qwerty? What? what?
Anyway, yeah. I guess the only hope is to get people to learn it when they learn to type.
I dunno, I'm in favor of anything that's different and lets me feel slightly superior. As long as it doesn't make me feel like a jerk.
This will probably end up like when I tried Linux. It lasted... actually, almost a year. I just couldn't figure out how to make my damn wireless network work consistently-- it would stop working after about an hour. Eventually I just got tired of screwing with it. Also: I suddenly got back into playing computer games, and althought it theoretically can work, i couldn't get Neverwinter Nights to work on linux.
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I dunno, I'm in favor of anything that's different and lets me feel slightly superior. As long as it doesn't make me feel like a jerk.
Then Das Keyboard (http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/7727/) is the product for you.
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oh my god, that is great.
I'd actually seen that before. But, that is over the line. I don't think I could convince myself that paying 70$ for a keyboard was legit-- it only counts if it's cheap, and has a semi-logical explanation.
"linux is free! it never breaks!"
"dvorak is faster!"
"vintage clothes are more stylish!"
"used vinyl is cheaper than used cds!" (not actually true. I normally just fess up and say it's because I think it's cool.)
"she said she was 18!"
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I dunno, I'm in favor of anything that's different and lets me feel slightly superior. As long as it doesn't make me feel like a jerk.
You might want to also give some thought to whether it makes you look or act like a jerk. I think a lot of people get irritated with people who like to feel 'slightly superior'. You're gonna have to get a job sometime....
Also, how does this work when the keyboard market is worldwide? The story of this entire 'movement' is fo rme summed up by the little picture of a Mac in one of the frames of the comic.
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hm. I dunno. I'm just using my normal keyboard. my computer is a laptop, so, buying a keyboard seems silly.
also: I believe that I am generally concieved as acting like a non-jerk. Mostly because I keep my pretensions to myself. (also, most of those things got old after like a week. when you're a teenager, you can get away with this.)
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I've always been baffled by the crap on ThinkGeek. Do people really buy it? Like, seriously? I'll confess that I was tempted to buy my weird RenFesty friend the pocketwatch with a little Stonehenge replica inside once, but damn, seriously?
Also, is looking at the keys really what keeps people's typing slow? I mean, I'm not an uberfast typist (sorry, can't be bothered with the umlaut -- I'm a plebe) and I never have to look at the keyboard to tell me where a key is. Is this really a huge issue for anyone who can touch-type reliably?
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I've always been baffled by the crap on ThinkGeek. Do people really buy it? Like, seriously? I'll confess that I was tempted to buy my weird RenFesty friend the pocketwatch with a little Stonehenge replica inside once, but damn, seriously?
Also, is looking at the keys really what keeps people's typing slow? I mean, I'm not an uberfast typist (sorry, can't be bothered with the umlaut -- I'm a plebe) and I never have to look at the keyboard to tell me where a key is. Is this really a huge issue for anyone who can touch-type reliably?
For myself I've bought a couple things. I got a golf/polo shirt with the infinity symbol on the breast and the big green blanket with a 42 which is astoundingly warm. Maybe a little itchy but really really warm. If I'd seen it before I bought a similar Timberland hat I would've bought the 1-Up Mushroom wool cap.
As for non-apparel we bought the SO's dad the Swiss Army USB drive and he loves it. I also got him the ethernet loopback and crossover adapters which he uses all the time as poeple are always asking him to fix their home networks.
I need to look at the keys for the symbols over the numbers because I can never keep any of them straight other than ! for some reason.
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I got so confused the other day when I realized that the ! is over the 1. I'm not sure where I thought it was instead, but I didn't think I knew any of the ones over the numbers. Hmm.
Yeah, I mean, I don't really look at the keys... I dont' see how that would make you much faster.
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I type faster when I'm not looking at the keyboard or the screen, so that I can't see the mistakes I'm making. I also make fewer mistakes this way.
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OK, everyone go play this game.
http://www.2addicted.com/domains/words
I can usually get up around 2000.
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When if comes to odd words I suck at typing. My fingers work in their own little way so words that I don't ever type are a bit slower and messier. That is a fun game though.
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2580, 5th place at this moment. Yay me.
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That rocks, Carlos.
I got 44th place. One problem I have is that when the words start moving fast I have trouble seeing them. The letters get hard to visually distinguish.
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I'm excited to know a celebrity! Are you going to go for the WIN Carlos? Because I have money on you within the 2addicted underground online black bookie.
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August, I had that problem too. The physical "what the hell is that blured word?" was way harder than trying to type fast.
Also, I find that words I do not know how to spell properly are much slower for me to type than words where I know how to spell the whole word quickly.
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22d
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man, I was bad at that. I make a lot of errors typing. Hm. Mostly that I'd skip letters, and keep going because of my raw speed.
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I've always been baffled by the crap on ThinkGeek. Do people really buy it? Like, seriously? I'll confess that I was tempted to buy my weird RenFesty friend the pocketwatch with a little Stonehenge replica inside once, but damn, seriously?
Dammit, I so want a genuine 1up Mushroom (http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/1upmushroom.shtml?cpg=28H). I demand somebody get to genetically engineering these immediately.
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Man - I hate to go against the grain right after returning to the boards, but I use dvorak, and I love it. It's a lot easier on my wrists, and I can switch back and forth to QWERTY easily when I need to. The only thing that sucks is having to switch it back on my computer at work whenever anyone wants to use it.
It didn't take long to learn, really. And I'm amazed at how differently both of them feel. QWERTY just feels awkward to me now.
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I like you already.
This inspires me to go back to trying to do it. My computer has started being a pain, so I started focusing on "why does my computer think my screen is 6 inches across?" instead of practicing my typing.
there's just like, a 2.5 inch thick black border around the screen. I cannot figure out why this is. I am not enjoying it. And I've restarted my computer many, many times.
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It sounds like your monitor (a CRT, right?) is set for the wrong resolution.
You can adjust it by using the settings on your monitor. Rebooting will not help. You should align the display vertically and horizontally, and then use the vertical and horizontal stretch to make the screen have just the tiniest of black border around the visible portion of the screen.
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yeah, I've tried doing that. the problem is, I have a laptop-- there aren't those little buttons to do the stretch/shrink/etc. It doesn't do anything to change the resolution.
wait... WOW I was doing something dumb. For some reason, despite the fact that I only have one monitor, my computer thought I had two monitors. I was changing the resolution on the imaginary second monitor.
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Ah, so you have an LCD display on your laptop, of course.
Yeah, the problem was probably software, then.
So did you fix the resolution problem?
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yeah.
this one game I had been playing does this. It used to fix itself if I restarted the computer.
anyway, thanks.