Slashdot Mirror
War Declared on Caps Lock Key
pieterh writes "I've launched a campaign to rid the world of the caps lock key. Sure, there are more serious problems to solve but please, think of the children! How am I going to explain to my kids why some of the most valuable keyboard real estate is squatted by a large, useless key that above all you must not press! Our campaign mission is simple: to send a message to the computer industry to force it (by any means necessary) to retire the CAPS key. It's going to be a hard, long, and possibly very embarassing war on uppercase, but some things just need to be done. "
bEST oF lUCK wITH yOUR fIGHT
Must be a slow news day, again!
Stories to be seen soon on Slashdot:
"Jihad declared on SysRq key" and "Crusade declared on 'Scroll Lock' Key"
Accentuate the positive, don't waste your mod points on the negative.
IN HONOR OF THE SUBJECT MATERIAL, I HAVE CHOSEN TO USE THE CAPS LOCK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE FOR THIS POST.
... but of course that would just be sacrilegious and a very dangerous process (don't try it at home!).
On second thought, that's far too annoying.
If the proposed abolishment of caps lock keys is successful, I grow concerned about what myself and my predecessors will celebrate on INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY which happens to be October 22. And don't tell me it's not a real holiday because that is one convincing website. It has a news flash with a picture of a potato, uses the word "bitches" and has a countdown for the days remaining to INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. And look at this other reputable site, Out House Rag that also backs INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. That's more than Adults Day in Japan has to say! Please, if I have to put up with one more Nevada Day (October 31) the least you can do is let me have my INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. Please don't remove your caps lock key because they're not evil!
You know, there's this horrible site that actually encourages you to remap your caps lock to a more suitable function
My work here is dung.
What a toally useless key to have in such a prominent keying position. The old school 'boards had it right: big-ass Control key next to the A, tiny Caps Lock in the bottom left corner. It made even more sense when Windows starting adopting the Mac's Command-letter keyboard shortcut as Control-letter, like Cut/Copy/Paste.
DOWN WITH CAPS LOCK!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Slashdot seems to have a solution. Tried to post a funny message in all Caps and Slashdot responded:
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
bUT hOW wILL pEOPLE KNOW wHEN I aM BEING sUPER CEREAL? cEREALOUSLY! (fucking lameness filter)
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
What? Get rid of it? How will I make posts on EBay and Craigslist? ;-)
Hopefully, with only one button left. It should be big and blue and convey a sense of well being and security, and provide the user with a sense of accomplisment and success when pushed.
rewriting history since 2109
W shld gt rd f thm psky vwls fr strtrs!
I mean, seriously, I know some people really hate the caps lock key (despite its usefulness to other people), but this is one guy who started a group on Google and acts like it's some massive grassroots campaign. I think Slashdot got punk'd on this one.
And really, if you don't like a key, remap it or remove it. I myself have removed the "Windows" key (it always interfered with my Doom playing) and the letter Q (because who the hell needs to use that one?).
And remember, whatever you do, do not use what you have just learned here to remap your collegue's keyboard when goes out for lunch. It would cause him a certain amount of consternation, especially if he isn't the sort that would know about these things.
Maximum effect is actually obtained by only changing a few keys, not just messing everything up.
But remember, if anyone should ask where you got the idea, I specifically said "do not."
KFG
If we get rid of the Caps Lock key, how will the Hard-Of-Hearing be able to read messages?
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
1. Remove Caps key.
2. Add drop of super glue.
3. QUICKLY REPLACE KEY.
4. OH CRAP!
Then how about the four of you keep your old keyboards?
Karma: 2.71828182846 (Mostly due to small, fun pills)
Hold on. Take a step back and look at the big picture:
Doing some basic, preliminary research while reading the article (and extrapolating the data), I've found that I use the escape key an average of 2983742 times per day. Now, that inch-and-a-half may not seem like much, but do some conversion: that's around seventy extra miles I'm moving my arm per day. Now, I'm an above average escapist, so I figure that if I'm moving my arm an extra 70 miles, the average user is probably moving only about 68 miles per day. I'm not an expert, but from what I gather from 60 Minutes, I'm probably burning calories equivalent to those I would take in consuming an entire cow. We know that forfty percent of cows are fed on the burning corpses of amazon rainforest trees. I saw a movie once (starring Sean Connery and someone else) in which they found the cure for cancer in the Amazon! And think of all the heat emitted from those trees, coupled with the MEGAJOULES of energy being emitted in the form of heat from the burning of the cows (for food) each day, per person. Now, INSFBCL (I'm Not Some Fancy Big City Lawyer), but you don't have to be teh inventor of the intarweb to know that that much heat escaping into the atmosphere is at least quintupling the effects of Global Warning every year.
Move the escape key to the caps-lock slot? Is there really any question? Is there really any choice?
Think of the children. And their melty ice-cream cones.
And cancer.
STOP using vi and you won't have to hit escape 2983742 times per day.
According to my calculations, you died about 7.4 years ago, from inadequate nutrition. You just couldn't get enough calories in between using vi and backing up to see the gallery so you could pick the *next* Cindy Margolis pic.
RIP, my friend, RIP.
rick
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
What is really wrong with caps lock is that IF you hold down shift while caps is on, it lowercases everything - on windows.
While the first solution here is not to use Windows, the real problem is "why would a button named 'Caps Lock' perform a task against its very nature?"
The button should be called "Maybe Caps Lock. Maybe Not." But that would require an even larger button.
But then the poor NIGERIAN SCAMMERS will have to hold down the shift key while typing their sob stories in all caps. Hmmmm.
I vote to remove it.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Lets do some math together....
2983742 times in 24 hours, or 124322.6 times an hour, or 2072 per minute, or about 34.5 per second. Now, Given your estimate of 1.5" to the key, and another 1.5" back, or 3" of total travel, being traversed 34.5 times every second yields about 103.6"/s, or roughly 8.5 feet per second. This of course assumes you are solely focused on this activity 24hours a day nonstop. Take out 5hours for sleep (yes, even codermonkeys get sleep sometime, and we are going off averages here), another 2 for restroom breaks, coffee intake/refilling and food, and another hour for pr0n (though the velocity and reps might still be obtained over a similar distance, that is a different discussion outside the scope here...), we get only 16 hours for typing. This bumps the speed up to about 13 feet per second, at 52 presses per second. Taking into account that the esc key has to be at most half of the keypresses to allow for the full travel to it and from it such that a letter key is getting pressed at least as fast and often as the esc key, this also means your average typing wpm is (using the avg of 5char/word) is about 620.
tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Wow. If I'm ever on trial for murder, I'm hiring you as my defense attorney.
See, now I know you're making stuff up.....those three words don't go together.
Layne