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Grafitti Causes Paralysis?
wtpooh writes "Some researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that writing on PDAs like the PalmPilot can cause a special kind of paralysis, as your mind has to adjust to a new kind of writing. Check out the story "
(please don't send me flame mail for posting satire... I just
thought it was funny, but considering I can't feel much below
my neck after moving furniture all day, I might be wrong :)
At last - nature fighting back against the sales wankers. Alas - it wasn't so.
"This one looks too much like an april fools or something you'd read at segfault... Hoax?"
;-) My hoaxometer is working truly well ;-)
Well it was
I could be wrong here but isn't it true that some things can only be written in Kanji? And isn't the pronounciations all different?
After learning Smalltalk, I am unable to even code "Hello World" in C++. My brain is forever damaged. Just thought I'd share.
Yeah, I remember forgetting how to make capital G's. Very annoying.
I have actually found myself writing "teh" for "the" and "ti" for "it" while taking notes in class. I also had a math final where the teacher insisted that no calculators that could do complex numbers were allowed. After years of using a TI-85 I found that I could not remember how to use my old calculator. Then again I have been programming in Lisp this week at work, and I think it may have screwed up my brain worse that anything else.
Is this related to carpal tunnel syndrome?
Sorry about AC-posting, I'm too blastedly lazy to log in anyhow.
There seem to be many Palm users identifying with this [satirical] article to a certain degree, at least during the "training" phase. It seems that, for a while at least, Grafitti characters get mixed up with normal letters until the brain reflexively seperates the two.
My comment is, would the same thing happen with QuikWriting (or did that take a "C"? I can't recall)? It's a far more stylized language, [debatably] better-suited to an input environment where characters are written on top of each other, and it's quick to pick up. I'm just wondering if any users have had to deal with unconsciously writing weird triangles and double-lines all over sheets of paper after training themselves to it?
Since QuikWriting is far more abstract, it would seem that the delineation between it and normal writing would be far sharper and harder to confuse. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
(I don't own a Palm, BTW. I learned to QuikWrite with my Trackman Marble+, and occasionally found myself wiggling my thumb instead of writing anything down of the sheets of people I'd automatically taken out. This didn't last very long).
This is going to be the year that April never ended.
Userfriendly, Segfault, Slashdot, and a million others. Am I the only one who is tired of it? If I wanted BS news I'd turn on my TV.
This would have been a problem for them too.
But 200 people out of how many million PDA's? Not exactly an epidemic.
Hell, I have a similar problem when I switch between VI and Emacs.
Mark
I know, I quit writing on paper. Now I write on stacks of tiny post-it notes, one letter at a time.
I use my Palm Pilot all the time and I unhhh... don't... unhh... can't... move...
I have problems writing with a pen, because the only time I ever do it is when I am signing a credit card slip, and that is mostly a one-shot pre-packaged behaviour, where I don't actually think about the letters. (My surname is just a line anyway...)
The worse thing is that ever since I started using my Trust Ergonomic Keyboard with separated left and right halves I have found it very difficult to type on 'ordinary' keyboards. If God forbid, I ever get a job somewhere I'm taking my keyboard with me- it's an extension of my hands...
My date is happy to accept Visa, MasterCard, or Amex. :)
Besides, when you learn a foreign language like japanese you have to learn to write from scratch, not in just one new writing systems but *three* (kanji, hiragana, katakana). So, if this article is to be taken at face value, learning japanese nearly equals braindeath!
G.
gudmuner@lexis.hi.is
Though I think the article is in jest, after I got my palm pilot, I had difficulty writing normally. 'Went a way, however. I think it's kinda like when I learned to ice skate it threw my skiing off for a while. That cleared up too.
I have been avoiding writing by hand for a long time - it kind of hurts after half a page. I use the keyboard even to write small notes.
I've suffered from this too. After spending long
hours of frequent "jots" onto the writing pad
of my PalmPilot I was unable correctly and
legibly handwrite more than sentence without
sliding into writing gibberish into one spot
on my paper. After getting used to the special
"dot" commands and modifiers of the PalmPilot,
I tried switching to a number 1 pencil while
writing in an effort to avoid crushing the writing
point and jamming the pencil through the writing
pad into my knee or table or back of insurance
salesman.
Just when I thought all hope was lost I picked up
a copy of Half-Life and joined in on the network
here at work for lunchtime games. It forced me
to spend lots of time hunting and pecking on my
keyboard, and firing off quick flurries of
messages such as "If you didn't camp so often
your kill ratio would be higher" or "I like
camping cause then I can watch you get blown
to smithereens without having to dodge bullets"
or "aw come on, I don't do that to you".
I hear that the Quake and Hexen variants can
also be beneficial, Duke 3D too.
Yeah, I have that problem! I was actually always really slow at writing, and only wrote in script when I absolutely had to. Even my signature is more like print characters and some other weird shapes connected with lines.
Anyway, recently I've noticed that writing English
sentences by hand is really hard. I make lots of mistakes, and, of course, it hurts like it always has (I hold my pen in my right hand the way many left-handers hold it in their left hand: bent wrist, etc.). On the other hand, writing mathematical expressions still works pretty well. And it's a lot easier to write those 3 dots, double & single arrows, the backwards E and upside down A, etc.
When I first started using my Pilot, I went through a transition period where my brain was confused. For the first two weeks, there was no problem because I still had to think about making the Grafitti characters. It was only when I had internalized the characters that the problem began.
During the third and fourth weeks after I got my Pilot, Grafitti characters kept slipping into my handwriting all the time. After about the fourth week, my brain had separated "write on pilot" and "write on paper." I have not had any relapses since. I think this is probably very common at the beginning...
-benjy
Though I live in the US in a 100% English speaking environment, I think in French. Unfortunately, I don't understand a word of French.
ba-da, bump!
Don't you mean jiffy overflows as opposed to buffer overruns? (see link)
I didn't used to be, but now I'm very punctual, never forget groceries, and always have my telephone numbers straight. I've changed from Mr. Forgetful into Mr. Perfect overnight.
That, and I've started to gravitate towards sites light Slashdot. Hmmm...
That's a simple case of "Use it or lose it".
>
OK, from what song are you quoting in your sig? It's on the tip of my tongue and it's driving me nuts. I can remember that I love the song...
I haven't read the article yet. Is it about how Palm Pilots cause cancer? Because that's what I've heard, too.
Maybe I should read the article now.
Yeiwoq!A fioew ZLDKc $WE sOSJfiew 5342SD43
Does this count? Can I get workers' comp now?
heehee
I know a couple of the guys who worked on the pilot. They'll get a laugh out of this one.
Why was this even posted in the first place? Hell, I better put up a web box so I can come up with all sorts of new Quantum Linux Technology (TM)(R)(C)
I suppose that artists would also develop such problems since they draw odd shapes constantly with a paintbrush. This is stupid.
The fact that many people are capable of writing
in multiple languages makes it difficult to
believe this is real. OTOH, there is no one to
sue if learning French mangles your English...
I believe 3COM would make a juicy dependent for
something as nebulous as this.
Whew! Maybe they will discontinue the disorder too ;) (joke/hoax not withstanding...)
actually kanji, hiragana and katakana aren't separate "writing systems" the same way that uppercase and lowercase characters aren't. They're simply different character sets.
:)
;) -- Or else we'd all go insane when we learned cursive in 3rd grade!!
Besudes the hiragana and katakana are technically subsets of the kanji anyway.
Sorry, I felt I needed to be anally retentive and correct a technicality
But your point about learning new ways to write not destroying the old is valid
Sindrome?
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
EVrrryyyyhtigns phiyneee hwwwithhhdt meeee...EEYYye kinnn wriiit uhkayy
(I think I'm gonna hurl...)
BLEEEAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!
**>>BELCH
Am I just paranoid or this really is a MS inspired FUD.
:-) [that was fud btw] ).
Methinks there is a method to this madness.
- A ploy to push a bloated win CE in your palm (your entire arm actually -- you need to carry
your car batteries...
- Note Win CEs don't have a scribbling pen input.
- Palm rocks! I am a happy palm user. And I will
stand by its usefulness. If you don't like
graffiti use its competetors like upcoming
quickwrite.
- now with MS-ATT even the cable tv will sport a
blue screen of death! MS wants us to see blue
everywhere -- afterall sky(blue) is the limit
(abyss).
- ak.
We're all gonna DIE! Game Over, man! Game Over!
This looks like a class action suit waiting to happen...
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Did anyone read the page source? They have Jabba The Hutt and Jabberwocky as keywords :-)
this is a joke, read the article entirely... i just got home and checked my mail (this was posted on the wearable list) and i was going ot post as a "it's funny, laugh" post.
Have any of you ever started to stutter a lot right after you've been typing something or coding a lot? Or after you've been highly thinking for awhile?
:->
With me, say I've been coding for 2 hours and then I all of a sudden try talking to someone I can't hardly talk without saying, "Well I was going to, uh, I-I-I" it's like my mind is already 10 sentences ahead while what's coming out of my is still 10 sentences behind and then you forget where you are at the 1st half of what you're saying because you're thinking on the last half already. It's really weird, I have to put my mind on, "slow mode" to even speak correctly. People also say I speak kind of fast too and that's after I've been using the computer. Hmm weird stuff. Oh, plus I can't even read my own signature too. I just kinda scribble something and try to pass that off as my sig.
Anyone with some psychology background would know about "encoding specificity," which says that recalling knowledge and skills is much easier when you have retrieval cues that are similar to those under which you learned the info and when you usually use the info.
In other words, when holding a palm and the palm pen, your brain can switch to and from graffiti mode relatively easily.
On the other hand, when typing at a keyboard, all your environmental cues are identical, whether you are using dvorak or qwerty. (That is, unless you only use dvorak or qwerty under certain specific settings, like one at home, the other at work.) Having to mental-mechanically memorize two sets of keymappings is much more challenging and torturous.
I still use vi all the time. And EMACS. (Ctrl-X Ctrl-C isn't quite as convenient, as it's now a two hander). But do what's best for you.
Anonymous Cowards: Proving daily that human beings are innately jerks.
satire.
:-)
looks like somebody got their revenge for the 'every site in the world got simultaneously sued and taken off-line' april fools joke.
Nice article...i laughed out loud when I read the disclaimer at the end.
:)
Werd.
...and the Graffiti E, and the Graffiti K. People must think I learned writing not until a few weeks ago...
Regards, Jochen
Regards, Geewiz
it's not so much my hands are unused to writing, but my mind has lost the ability to structure large bodies of text without the ability to move and modify freely anywhere in the document!
Gotta be FUD.
I'll bet if one hired a PI to investigate this author, and the "doctors" cited therein, payola tracks would lead to Redmond.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Does this mean that people who write in both roman and non-roman languages (english and korean) are subject to this too? I don't understand how learning how to write a few different ways is linked to this disorder.
after my last big CS assignment (a 2700 line
program that I stupidly decided to do at in the
last few days) I tried to write the manual, and
realized after a while that I had been ending
sentences with semicolons.......
>I would pick up the pen, start writing, and nothing but doodles would come out -- it was scary."
When I saw that, I scrolled up to see if it was dated April 1. I saw that it wasn't and started looking around for some kind of BS flag and saw the disclaimer.
Still funny.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
I thought that some V.E.s were allowing keyboard copy for Morse code exams. I could be wrong... 73 de KF9FR
But I don't own a PDA. I'll wait till they accept voice (or telepathic) input.
An esoteric scratched itch:
Homeworld Map Maker Tool
My signature is extremely unstable. What does this say about my personality? Besides, of course, the fact that I'll be driven crazy when signature biometrics become de rigeur...
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
This is just rob's evil attempt to manipulate Palm Pad devices so he can pick em up real cheap.
Good idea maybe Ill grab one too.
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
It is no longer a myth.
Here is the proof.
Joke or not, the use of electronic equipment does have an affect on "analogous" writing and similar operation. This was proved a couple of years ago, that overuse of electronic devices to write letters, versus good ol' pen-n-paper, gradually makes you inapt at writing with a pen.
I can transpose this to other things I usually do on computers or other electronic devices; the other day, I had to do some divisions. No computers, no calculators around. Pen and paper was it. Well, damn! I couldn't remember how to divide on paper! Took me nearly half an hour to get this thing right. (I have since remembered properly how to devide on paper, but the point is that a couple of more years and I wouldn't have been able to teahc my kid.)
They should've mentioned something about noticing the same effect in secretaries that learned Shorthand. Not mentioning Shorthand tipped me off.
I guess I'm going to have to get some practice in between now and then (I've been meaning to for a while, and this article might just have done me a favour by prodding me in the right direction). But in the long term, I can't help wondering if (hand)written examinations are actually a fair way to assess people any more.
but then I saw the tiny text at the bottom of the article
The South to the Future World Wide Wire Service is a weekly feed of technology and media news commentary and satire published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Quotations attributed to public figures who are satirized are often true, but sometimes invented. Some fictional statements may, in fact, be true. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental.
Still, I wouldn't be surprised if M$ used this to get people to buy wince [god I love that name :-) ] instead of Palms. Me, I'm sticking with my Newton MP2100 and writting on it like I do on paper!
As i read this I was reminded of Steve Martin's "The Jerk", in which Steve's Character invents a little eye-glass grip on the nose piece, and gets ued cause It makes everyone cross-eyed.
And then I saw It was a Satire, So its Art imitating Art .
This Signature does Not Exist !! FNORD
This is what I would have liked for the April fools jokes recently. This is something everybody laughed at, which was flawlessly executed.
I enjoyed reading that. It's quite interesting trying to examine yourself while reading this.
Headline:
Excessive use of Internet's point-and-click environment causes debilitating reading disorder in computer users. Thousands unable to read all the way to the end...
They had me going for a while...
(Hehe)
"I don't think I ain't" -Thompson's Corollary to Descartes
Amateur Radio Volunteer Examiners must make reasonable accommodations for people taking tests. You may have to supply the keyboard or typewriter for the test. Contact your preferred testing team for its policy. The team with which I work usually requires candidates to supply their own headphones or copying methods other than pen and paper.
N5RDV - affiliated with ARRL and W5YI VECs as an occasional volunteer examiner.
Michael S. Keller, green at null punct net.
I saw the disclaimer, but I agree on the possibility of having trouble based on making radical changes to one's normally-used motor skill set. I know Dvorak and Sholes keyboards. I use both. Sometimes I have to stop and breathe before switching layouts. Particularly when working a Unix shell from Dvorak.
I also have to work sometimes to keep my handwriting usable.
And I use a Newton MP2K, which, for the most part, accepts my handwriting.
I'll wait for other natural handwriting interfaces, ala tablets, or verbal input, or break down and find a Gateway Handbook 486 and put Linux on it. But the battery life sucks.
I loathe lugging around a computer that will run for only two hours, then require a recharge. So I keep my wildly versatile Newton.
Take my ramble for what you paid for it.
-Michael S. Keller
green @ null punct net
leftshift pi 2 / leftshift sin
It's normal. You've just been using your HP calculator for too long.
RPN kicketh ass.
The real question is:
Why does this guy have to write a check at the end of a date?
Hmmm?
The Computational Beauty of Nature
The Palm isn't intended to replace your computer; it's intended to supplant your computer. You can't put a keyboard in a shirt pocket (not a usable one, anyway). If you have to do much data entry with the Palm and you aren't entering it on your (real) computer and syncing it to the handheld, you're Doing It Wrong.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Hmmmm... I seem to recall an interview on 20/20 or something where a handwriting analyst (someone who can ID a person through comparing handwriting samples) likened scriptanalysis to astrology or "reading" the bumps on someone's skull (I forget the name of this "science")... In short, utter bunk.
Well, I was taken for a minute... but I really don't understand the problem anyway. I seem to be unique among my friends in that I routinely change my handwriting for different tasks: I write my lower-case x differently in math equations than I do in words, and I last week changed the way I wrote my 1s, 2s and Is... does anyone else out there do this? I consider all of my habits (from the way I brush my teeth to the way I tie my shoes) mutable and change them frequently to try and improve on them.
/.'d was interesting though, the NYU demo...
One reason I have been working on my handwriting is for my comics - I don't want to have to use a lettering guide, so I just have been trying to write in straight lines in all cases...
Graffiti is wonderful, though I find myself using the keyboard for long stretches of text (like copying quotes into my outliner). I tried using the Fitaly keyboard for a while but found it too small... or something. I just didn't like it. That gestural keyboard recently
I hate CSS! Come to my web site and find out why!
I have to admit, this had me going until near the end - nicely done, but the very last paragraph gives the game away (emphasis added):
...).
"The South to the Future World Wide Wire Service is a weekly feed of technology and media news commentary and *satire* published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Quotations attributed to public figures who are *satirized* are often true, but *sometimes invented*. Some fictional statements may, in fact, be true. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental."
So... While Pilots may help to give you RSI, or exacerbate existing RSI, they definitely don't give you a debilitating neurological disorder (other than the compelling need to manage your entire life on them, of course
Aren't they all aliens? I know Bill Gates just has to be. And what about that Balmer guy, what a lousy disguise. ;)
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Try typing on one of those tiny, little, itsy, bitsy, tiny, weenie keyboards found on WinCE machines. Start -> Shutdown.....augghhhhhhh!
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Whenever I have to help someone with a problem and they are running one of the many versions of Windows, I can't think straight. I start wondering if the system is working right or if the label of a button really means what it says. I get all confused, is another application causing the problem, a device driver, or maybe that paper-clip thing that keeps showing up. It is like being in the lower levels of LA in "Blade Runner". DON'T ASK ME ABOUT MY MOTHER! :)
I can always look forward to the calming OS/2 desktop or my Linux developement system. ahhhhhh
;)
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Go back and read the small print at the bottom of the page.....
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I guess I get to be one of the few "Luddites" who once averaged 12 hours of logged-in-ness a day :)
that's why I use *PAPER* when I'm not in front of my computer! I don't want a damn PDA or whatever these things are called; for these cases where I have to write down a bit of info at a random place, a good old piece of paper, or a post-it note, will do. even laptops I find kind of distasteful; their keyboards suck, their screens suck, and they're way too expensive. I just don't care enough to play Tetris on a train, I'll read a book, or just think about how I'll do something (which is a very important part of work, and requires no computer).
I think thinking too fast might be my problem. I try to force my hands at the speed I usually type.
Hmmm. Writing isn't much good if it is so slow.
Interesting. Maybe I can convince my university to let us take our tests on a computer.
(Sure miss having a backspace key when I write tho.)
This sig is false.
SFBG is pretty funny, and their satire is quite convincing sometimes. I dunno how many people (myself included) were at first astounded by their article on THC-Enhanced Oranges. I kept seeing comments praising this "discovery", for weeks afterwards.. ;)
Did you just happen to read that in the jargon file ("You know you've been hacking too long when...") and think no one on /. reads the file, or are you one of the people ESR cites as living proof of this tendency? (When he first wrote it, he thought he was making it up.)
STTF are the same folks that put out that story about the THC-producing orange tree a few months back.
More importantly, vi would be pretty ugly on a Dvorak keyboard. 'h','j','k,'l' would be very, very unhandy on a Dvorak. And if I couldn't vi, I would probably die.
Damn that rhymes!
hahah.. so true. i was reading through this and thought it was so bunk. i'd love for someone more creative than I to write a good segfault article on this. pretty funny stuff, amazing what writing letters on top of each other can do to a person. enuf to drive them mad!!! muahahah
don't overflow your jiffies about it...
Say the Python (Monty, not the language) foot stomping a Palm Pilot?
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
That's why I use a newton!! It uses REAL handwriting and it's pretty accurate for me. I've noticed that other people dont' like it though :) Oh well....
phrenology - don't ask me how I know that.
"BadTimes will make you fall in love with a penguin" - Laika
I emailed the URL to some friends who own Palms, and then after I sent it I see everyone's comments about it being a joke. *Sigh* Now I'm gonna have to check and double-check every single story inside out before I ever forward a URL again.
Ok I'll admit to having, on ocasion, halted for a moment to *remember* how to write, before I can actually start doing it... but that's a LONG way from paralysis... I think this article is total and utter alarmist B.S., because if it were a mere bad choice of words they wouldn't stress the PARALYSIS mumbo-jumbo.
So it is my opinion that this article has no credibility, both medical or scientifical, other than it could be the basis for a study, and not mere Supposition and Conjecture as it is in its present form.
To those of you who see my point, I thank you for your understanding. To those who don't, don't bother to flame, and please try to think with your own heads.
P.S.: If the problem with PDAs was related to their alphabet, what in blazes would happen to those of us who happen to write arabic, cantonese, cyrillic and western alphabets... boy would we be stumped.
...and the time will have come. And the name shall be known... The Kylrathi Viper Clan.
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I've played bass and piano for a long time... It's only improved my muscle control and memory.
The same is true of my handwriting since I've started using a Pilot.
It's amazing what bullshit people will write, given a stupid thesis and some money to research with.
This particular article looks like a hoax, but I did experience a similar problem after months of using my Newton MP2K.
I managed to narrow it down to a change in my hand position; I've never used Graffiti, so that couldn't have been the cause. I had slid my hand closer to the tip of the stylus/pen which, from what I experienced, caused my hand to cramp up when using the same position on "traditional" media. By consciously sliding my hand back up the stem, my style returned (mostly) to normal.
Unfortunately, I have little opportunity or reason to write lengthy prose on paper anymore, so I haven't completely succeeded in making the position an unconscious one again.
--The more you know, the less you know.
"The South to the Future World Wide Wire Service is a weekly feed of technology and media news commentary and satire published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Quotations attributed to public figures who are satirized are often true, but sometimes invented. Some fictional statements may, in fact, be true. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental."
--
..!!in an intastella burst i am back to save the universe!!
Look at the very end of the article before panicing, foaks.
Silly signature limit . . .
"By the time our signature stabilizes," explains Miezkowsky, "so does our personality. Hence, a change in signature often signals a major shift in personality.
"Hence" usually implies a logical cause-and-effect relationship.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
I see I'm not alone in not writing anymore. I never write anything in cursive other than my signature. I have piles of scratch paper by my computer at home and work, but I only write down diagrams, equations, bitpattens and other programming stuff. Writing an actual paragraph of english text, that hurts as much as keyboarding for 8 hours.
I remember when I took the GRE, the hardest part was where you had to copy this paragraph, in cursive, about not cheating. I had to rest after every few words and by the time I was done my right hand hurt so much I had to fill in bubbles with my left hand for a while!
I hate those little finger keystrokes. That why I type with my right hand moved over 1 key, so it rests on kl;' instead of jkl; This way it's much closer to the keys like [];'./\ control, alt, enter and backspace, things I push a whole lot in UNIX and C programming that one did writing english on a typewriter 50 years ago.
read the bottom. Satire. Plus, a search of Johns Hopkins Medicine site shows no Miezkowsky in the Neurology/Neurosurgery/Neurosciences departments.
So I read the article, and thought "Hey, cool! I use a Pilot and I run the network for all these Johns Hopkins neuro-people." Then, I realized there's no such thing as Dr. Miezkowsky. Grumble.
Maybe I should move over to the Psych department. Their researchers go on CNN. Neuro just gets made fun of in phony websites.
-Chris
Well, if you were using aix, and typed "no" at the prompt, you'd be confused too. This is the AIX command for "network options"
Lowmag.net
Perhaps this PIP is a real phenomenon. I can barely print without transposition of letters. i also write entire functions backwards instead of :
arcsin(pi/2) i'll write (pi/2)arcsin.. But i know what i'm writing, so it doesn't much matter.
and i'll go between cursiveish and printingish, and get really mangled "the"s. like an h with a line through it c.
Lowmag.net
I agree. Everytime I need to actually write a reasonable amount (eg a note in a B'day card) my hand gets _really_ tired, _really_ fast.
:-)
As for signing checks and credit card slips, well I'm lucky that most people don't even bother checking the signature these days
As an owner of a 3x, I can only say it has helped my handwriting....
My signature still seems to be illegible, though....
Karnal
This is the best I've seen here in the last 6 months, less Katz' Hellmouth series. Way to go!
Yeah, me too. Can be quite a problem, in my case.
Tom F^HD^H@^H(dammit)Gidden
I know this story is suppose to be serious, but doesn't sound a little like a Segfault article?
I have had every palm out there (with a V now) and this seems a bit extreem to me. Ofcourse my amount of use may be no where near or even simular to these users.
Wait a minute
Its not serious
Please disregard my last post and blame my lack of judgement on the fact that its the end of the day, and I really want to go home.
I went into it wondering if it was a joke, then after reading through the whole thing I caught the disclaimer near the bottom.
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
"[this column is]...a weekly feed of technology and media news commentary _and satire_...some fictional statements may, in fact, be true."
too bad this is a hoax...
People would start using their Newtons again -
they don't require that you draw funny doodles instead of real characters...
I didn't lose my ability to write normally, but after getting to a high level in Giraffe, the strain of trying to remember some obscure graffito would trigger a kind of petit-mal seizure-like state. I fought it by deliberately not practicing Graffiti. It feels a lot better to just look at chart for anything non-alphanumeric.
I started using dvorak a while back and ive been noticing that some of my typing mistakes (like swapping r,c or o,a) have started to show up in my writing, while others, that I had before dvorak have disapeared. The way your brain works sure is strange.
No,I'm not a cognitive psychologist, but I have some real-world experience with this.
Negative transference is when some you've learned makes it harder to learn something new than if you'd never learned the first thing. It's a real phenomenon.
First, there's the muscle-memory thing. But put that aside, and you've still got problems.
Ever try to support 4 different UNIX vendors ?
Some support -k to the du command, some don't. Some have "ps aux" and some have "ps -eaf". And it goes on an on. Argh!
And then there was moving from the old VMS UIS/DECwindows to the X-based DECwindows, and then to MS-windows. When you click on a menu and release, does it stay open ? Or doesn't it ?
Move from a DEC VT2xx keyboard, to a PC keyboard, and then to a Sun keyboard ? The Sun keyboard drives me nuts every time I try to use it because I've now spent some much time on PCs ! I still liked the VT52 best, although the IBM 3151 terminal has a real nice keyboard too.
It's all a Microsoft conspiracy! Everything is a Microsoft conspiracy!!!
I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but this site looked just at tad too professional not to be taken at face value. Furthermore, this story should be in the "humor" category, not the PalmPilot category.
There are simply too many people out there who might take this story by a literal interpretation. Laziness would drive people not to read all the way to the end, where the tiny disclaimer was.
April 1 was over a month ago. Let's have some real news.
For more information, click here.
I often find myself using the graffiti 'T' while writing. It's really annoying...
get nemulator
you really need that bigger monitor
...or glasses, but a bigger monitor is more fun. Then you'd see the disclaimer at the bottom.
I'd be happy to take one off the hands of some poor rich guy suffering from inability to adapt.
Any studies linking learning Arabic or Japanese writing to the loss of ability to write english?
there's already a HANDFUL of researches exploring what's affecting more than 200 people. That's an awful high researcher-to-affliction ratio for the seriousness considering there's a very simple cure already -- stop using the devices and write your mom every once in a while.
I guess the phrase "If I have to learn one more thing I'm going to go insane" really applies to some people.
This sounds awfully hoaxy.
The page even lists it at the bottom that any relation to people living or dead, and simliarites are uh, fictional.
I find too that I get so absorbed in writing HTML that I can't "speak". hee hee, I've developed a habit of closing my eyes and pointing at my forehead to try and tell people what I'm doing.
On the other hand, it's good that they recognize it as a disorder. My mother has fibromylagia. After five years and nine doctors, we finally discovered what it was. Sadly, too many health professionals believe it's a "women's disease" and psychological as well. Men are affected by it too, it's just attributed to something else.
RPN kicketh ass.
You probably mean:
RPN ass kicketh ENTER
;)
I actually had a problem with handwriting the first day after I got my PalmPilot and learned how to use Grafitti writing, but it by the next day I was next to normal.
I imagine this is something you have to be predisposed to. I have to disagree with the articles opinion that a change in handwriting affects your personality. I think a change in handwriting does reflect a change in personality, but I don't think changing your handwriting can change your personality. That seems to be more than a slight fallacy.
Overall, I wouldn't worry about this.
-- Geoffrey
"Sometimes an appropriate response to reality is to go insane." - pkd
this has got to be some kind of joke... as a once-time student of a mechanical drafting and writing class, i think i can safely say that this story, if to be taken seriously, is rediculous at best.
There is a keyboard. It has a port like the dock for the pilot to slide into, and then you type.
One of a computer's primary purposes is to save us some of the effort of handwriting. Taking the keyboard away and making the Palm a stylus-only device was IMHO pretty dumb. But I gues some usability "expert" declared keyboards to be user-unfriendly or somesuch.
I was wondering the same thing! I thought this article was very timely, and it reminded me a bit of Jonathan Swift's satire from the 18th century; particularly A Modest Proposal. If anyone is interested in taking a gander, here is a URL for the essay. http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html
I Can't belive how many times I have endorsed a check at the bank, only to realize that I have written my entire name in one block (each letter on top of each other), and in graffiti. It certenly shakes up the bank teller...
Plus it happens a lot more at work...at work I cary a little notpad about the size of my palm pilot, and I naturlay write near the bottom every time...I have to actualy make shure I'm writing across...but I still have a hard time not writing in graffiti.
http://www.xpurple.com
"written my entire name in one block (each letter on top of each other), and in graffiti. It certenly shakes up the bank teller"
Back in my PDP-11 assembler days I spent three hours trying to figure out why my checkbook didn't balance, only to find that at some point I had started doing the arithmetic in octal. I fixed that problem - I stopped balancing my checkbook.
sPh
I bought a Pilot this week and I started reading this in disbelief. I use both the dvorak and qwerty keyboard layouts without problem and I was thinking, what a bunch of wimps that cannot adapt to a minor handwriting dialect.
Oh, this article had me fuming at the possible lawsuits about the latest technology. I hit the floor laughing when I saw this comment. This was a rich one that came a month and a week too late!
As far back as I can remember, my handwriting has been terrible - both cursive and printing. My cursive has always been much slower than my printing. Now if I have to write cursive for anything besides my illegible signature, I have to really really concentrate on it. My printing has suffered alot since I've switched to typing most everything. When I write things now, I have to watch as I write things, otherwise I don't get useful stuff on the paper. The really weird part is, sometimes I skip letters, and I havn't really thought about it much, but I think there's a correlation to which letters I miss... I think most of the letters I miss are ones that I would type with the other (left) hand... Now I'm gonna have to pay attention tommorow when I write something at work, and see if that theory holds up...
The more I think about it, part of it is probably that I type much faster than I can print... So I'm probably thinking too far ahead, and getting buffer overruns. Part of it might also be the fact that there's no backspace key on the paper.
I'll definately have to do some tests at work tommorow and see if I can see the pattern.
It's gonna be a royal pain to have to use paper for the exam when I finally get up to 13wpm with morse code... Wonder if I can convince them I have to use a keyboard/typewriter to copy code.
I'd say this post serves as a fairly accurate measure of how many slashdot readers actually read and/or finish the stories posted, and how many just skim the title, maybe the first paragraph, look at 1 or 2 comments, and then spout off.
--
Ian Peters
I suffer from this too, even writing a paragraph or two causes me considerable pain, but I can type a small novel on my M$ Natural (1.0) keyboard with out even minor irritation. Thank god I'm graduating in 48 hours, these last essay tests about did me in. I think if I have to ever write any essays again, I'm going to get special permission to bring a lap-top to class. Maybe this is something that should be seriously studied, even if the "PIP" is total crap, I could see how neglecting to write a substantial amount could lead to a loss of penmanship or rapid muscle fatigue when being forced to write. I too have a signature that is wildly variable, thank god no one checks.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
Me too, me too...
I've actually had someone question my signature. The bank computers asked me to do it again a while ago. I've recently radically simplified my signature, and I've _almost_ got it down. I'm 25 - pity me.
Seriously, who writes anymore? I can't remember the last time I hand wrote more than a single sentence.
Kris.
Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)
I noticed that if I ever write anything anymore I (besides having terrible handwriting) I tend to skip letters too.
Do you tend to also swap letters around? That is begining to really get on my nerves. I haven't looked at the patern yet. Think I'll do that.
This sig is false.
Similar sindromes have been known with typing versus handwriting, stenography versus handwriting, etc.
It just happens to some people (usually if they change the way they work after 30-35).
And this does not mean that it happens to everyone of course.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I read through this article, getting a little nervous as I scrolled down. Then I stopped. Heck, I'm 17, addicted to caffeine, suffering from mild carpal tunnel, and I perpetually drive 80mph. Degenerative heart disease on my dad's side, diabetes on my mom's. I'm allergic to almost everything. I'll die young, leave a pretty corpse...
I shrugged, took another swig of espresso and rubbed my wrists.
Then I read the disclaimer.
...
Dang.
Thank you, Rob, for making everyone's day a little more surreal...
--RawkettPenguiN
"My Palm Pilot is named Arthur. Perhaps that's why it locks up."
Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me...
Of course, I get this already and I don't even have a PDA. I just type so much that my writing skills are vestigial. He talks about anxiety over signing a check - I got that. Well, maybe not the anxiety bit, but I take a long time to remember what the heck my hand is supposed to be doing.
--
--
Jason Eric Pierce
Heh, I find it hard to use a "normal" (algebraic) calculator... I'm so tempted to just do 1 2 3 + +
As for writing, I transpose letters and drop them (or half-write them), which gets worse the faster I have to write (aka "taking notes"). No wonder my notes are so illegible to me.
Better yet, I don't make much sense sometimes, when the ideas come too fast for the transcription medium (keyboard/writing/speaking)... What I need is a neural interface (and I can't upgrade the buffer... it's way too small for my needs now).
Blah, I think it's getting to me, now.
I really hope Taco wasn't taking that at face value (viz. "from the that-ain't-so-hot dept.").
As I was reading it, I thought "gee, I wouldn't be surprised to read something like this in The Onion". Imagine my contentment at having my judgement about a 'news' story shown correct.
Althought, there is something to be said for the concept. I know a little about scriptanalysis, and while the jury is still out on the completeness of the theory, there is something to it.
Certain personality types seem to correlate with particular styles of writing pretty strongly.
Intense people tend to have spiky, angular writing, while easy going people tend to write in rounder letters. The nuances of crossed t's and dotted i's suggest certain personality traits - but it's far from an exact science. It's pretty interpretive, much like dreams and free association exercises.
But it makes me wonder. If there are in fact correlations, and one's writing style betrays one's personality, then why could it not work the other way? After all, it might be a bio-feedback mechanism - just like facial expression and posture.
Consider that changing one's tempo of writing, slowing it down and concentrating more on the spacing between words and other penmanship artifacts just might feed back onto one's personality. This puts all those penmanship lessons in Catholic school into a different perspective. The good nuns intended for us all to have nice handwriting, but they were also shoehorning us into a uniform personality type. Another example of religious brainwashing.
Now, a PDA, with it's typically jerky and disjointed grafitti might instill those tendencies in the user.
Give a little thought to the appearance and style of your handwriting. Is it small and intense - focused on details and careless of the reader's experience? Is it permeated by short, angular upstrokes into sequencial letters in a word? How about that bursty tempo? And the afterthought crosed t and dotted i? Is it pretty and elegant, or more concerned with getting the meaning across?
Congratulations, you intuitive, cerebral, stressed egomanical hacker type.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
"The South to the Future World Wide Wire
Service is a weekly feed of technology and media news commentary and satire published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Quotations attributed to public figures who are satirized are often true, but sometimes invented. Some fictional statements may, in fact, be true. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental. "
Fooled you all!
No, I must confess, I did not read the part at the end where they say they are a satire mag. Someone at work forwarded the link to me, and I fell for it all the way. I've got a feeling he'll be coming over and laughing at me any time now.
Of course, if I had known it was a joke I would still have submitted it, but I wouldn't be quite so red-faced now :).
I realize that the artice was a joke, but I've actually seen something similar. I decided to learn how to type on a Dvorak keyboard a few years ago, and almost totally immersed myself in it for a few months. At first, I could switch back to QWERTY without any problem, but once Dvorak felt "natural", it was suddenly a lot harder. I would sit at a QWERTY keyboard and know what I wanted to type, but my hands refused to move for a couple seconds while my brain "switched keymaps".
Oddly enough, once I started typing a sentance (just a couple of letters in, even), it would come back to me effortlessly, but as soon as I stopped for a few seconds, I'd have that hesisation again!
Oh, and for those who think that Dvorak is overhyped-- you're right. My objective with learning Dvorak wasn't speed. I was in a dorm room where *everybody* wants to check email on any computer they can beg their way onto. Changing the keymaps was a pretty effective deterrant.
Humorous aside: Dvorak may be "optimized" for typing in English, but UNIX commands (and programming symbols like ";") are clearly optimized for typing in QWERTY! To type "ls\n" on a Dvorak keyboard, you hit the QWERTY keys "p;\n" -- three consecutive little finger keystrokes. Ick! And if you mess up while learning and accidently type in a QWERTY "ls", a dvorak keyboard will show "no". It's quite odd to be at a bash prompt, tell your computer a simple command like "ls" and have "no" appear on the screen. I thought my computer was rebelling against me the first time I did it!