The good old 10-key numpad over there is one of the most useful parts of the keyboard. Sure, most of us don't use it all the time - but when I'm entering columns and columns of numbers into my spreadsheets, hell if I'm going to use that little row up top when I can just slip a hand over to the right and punching in numbers at three times the speed. There's a reason the 10-key is ubiquitous in data entry jobs - it works.
Just a bit elitist, are we? The audience of Slashdot is not uniformly as technical as you assume, antizeus. I particularly enjoy Jon's articles. He is a talented writer who has a knack for getting to the root of complex situations and ideas and explaining them in a way non-techies can understand - something the Linux and geek community desperately needs as the ideas and development going on begin to spread towards the mainstream of people who don't have a clue what an IP address is.
Recognize that there's a bigger world out there past the protocols and device drivers and benchmarks and distributions, one that is more than just ones and zeros. That's our target audience now. The tech community already knows Linux. The analog world doesn't. And until we as a community stop shunning them and begin embracing them, our chances of presenting a serious challenge to the big players are nil.
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The good old 10-key numpad over there is one of the most useful parts of the keyboard. Sure, most of us don't use it all the time - but when I'm entering columns and columns of numbers into my spreadsheets, hell if I'm going to use that little row up top when I can just slip a hand over to the right and punching in numbers at three times the speed. There's a reason the 10-key is ubiquitous in data entry jobs - it works.
Just a bit elitist, are we? The audience of Slashdot is not uniformly as technical as you assume, antizeus. I particularly enjoy Jon's articles. He is a talented writer who has a knack for getting to the root of complex situations and ideas and explaining them in a way non-techies can understand - something the Linux and geek community desperately needs as the ideas and development going on begin to spread towards the mainstream of people who don't have a clue what an IP address is.
Recognize that there's a bigger world out there past the protocols and device drivers and benchmarks and distributions, one that is more than just ones and zeros. That's our target audience now. The tech community already knows Linux. The analog world doesn't. And until we as a community stop shunning them and begin embracing them, our chances of presenting a serious challenge to the big players are nil.