Am I the only one who thinks that incorperating what amounts to a small camera and microprocessor into a mudane device like the mouse a bit of overengineering? A bit of fuzz on the rollers aside, current SIMPLER mechanical systems work just fine. Actually, a hybrid like the Logitech visually trackballs that track movement using dots on the ball seems still to be a cleaner solution.
I guess it's a sort of cool idea, but the Microsoft corperate mindset seems to be "added complexity=innovation" with little regard to the implications of this "innovation" (=added complexity). Go figure.
I wrote a small program called joy2key which takes joystick events and translates them into keyboard events. It works in both X and the console, and is great for games...
Considering microsoft is a a $40 billion international cooperation employing tens of thousands of people, and Red Hat is still basically a small, privatly held startup (although this is certainly changing) employing only a little over 100 people, such a challange does not hold water. Gates has something like $6 billion to his name - if charities were really paramount to him, he could easily give far, far more than he has so far...
The Cobalt Qube is an all-in-one, easy to set up low-end server solution, runs Linux, and costs $899. Why the hell would anyone want to pay $1000 - $2000 for something that runs on pricy Intel hardware and unstable MS software?
It's about economics, not technical superiority
on
The Myth of QWERTY
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· Score: 1
I mean c'mon, if someone regretted trying out Dvorak, would they have stayed with it?
Er sorry, that is a bit badly phrased. What I was really trying to say that you shouldn't discount the MANY personal testimonials (including my own) in favor of the dvorak layout and instead cite some stodgy economist saying "it isn't worth it TO BUSINESSES to retrain a bunch of people to type differently for a 5% gain in speed" [even if the better keyboard layout reduces the risk of carpal tunnel or similar RSI...]
It's about economics, not technical superiority
on
The Myth of QWERTY
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· Score: 3
You'll notice that most articles that say the dvorak layout "isn't worth it" mostly say that it isn't worth the costs of retraining hundreds of people. They do not make the case well against an individual learning dvorak. They point out the fact that the tests of the dvorak keyboard were biased and this is true, but also a large part of the issue up until the last ten years has been that to retool for dvorak would for a business or agency involve scrapping thousands of dollars in QWERTY typewriters and buying new dvorak layout ones. With moderns PCs, remapping one's keyboard layout is trivial.
Now, as for specific technical issues... The QWERTY layout has to it's advantage the fact that the keys are all splayed out, as so that while you are typing one key your fingers can set up to type the next key. While this gets you pretty good speed, it tends to be at the expense of good typing style and in the long run can be absolute hell on your wrists. The dvorak layout tends to induce better typing style because the home row is where the most used keys are - no jumping around the keyboard to hit everything. Just comparing the two keyboards is rather telling - with QWERTY, you can type something like maybe 100 common words using the home row. With dvorak the number is something like 600. Qwerty graces the home row with such useful characters as "j", "k", and the ever-useful ";" - useful for programming perhaps, but the majority of typing I do each day is not code. Analyzing a bit of english for letter frequency and mapping it onto qwerty and dvorak shows commonly used letters all splayed all over with qwerty - with dvorak, the home row is most common, then the top, then the bottom, with the more common letters in the middle and moving out to the edges of the keyboard.
Lastly, ask the average person who has taken the plunge and stayed with it and they will tell you they havn't regretted it at all. It just feels better to type dvorak, and when you try to type quickly on qwerty it just feels like you are moving your hands way too much. Finally, you really aren't risking all that much. You won't lose your precious QWERTY skills when you are forced to use other people's computers - once you can comfortably touch-type dvorak (it takes about 2 weeks) going between QWERTY and dvorak takes very little effort - for example, I only use dvorak in X. At the console, it's qwerty all the way. Often when I'm playing a game or doing something where key position matters and I'm not touch-typing I'll switch back to QWERTY because that's what the key labels still say on my keyboard:)
If you've been sold on the wonders of dvorak, check out my page which has an xmodmap file to load a dvorak mapping (it also has some tweaked-out shifting bits - Super, Meta and Hyper baby!:)
This bit of unabashed dvorak advocacy was typed on a dvorak keyboard
Wow, what a bizzare site... But I like it. The images are really cool, too. How were they generated? Some of them look like photos of molecules taken through a microscope, some just look like someone spent entirely too much time fiddling with really nifty filters and stuff. It's really sort of mind-boggling...
What Berst doesn't understand is that because of the free nature of Linux, while it may lose popularity it can never "die". If Microsoft were to close up shop tomorrow (we can dream, can't we?) quite a lot of Windows users would be left out in the cold. If Linus were to quit and Red Hat and Caldera and S.u.S.E. and VA Research and Pacific HiTech etc. were to close up shop tomorrow you would STILL have the source code and the Internet to fall back on. It's the nature of the system - there is a build-in safty net in having the source code out there. Berst is backpedaling a bit from "Why you should use Linux", which does go to show that he's willing to say whatever the mood of the moment encourages - perhaps this high and beautiful wave in popularity Linux is experiencing is beginning to see some backlash. There are certainly plenty of entrenched IT guys that have a vested interest in NOT seeing Linux take off.. "I'm sorry, this is a Linux shop. Your Windows NT skills are not needed. NEXT!"
I bet it takes longer than that if you're a vi user...
This is true. I have been using the arrow keys instead of hjkl for vi ever since, so vi is not as efficient as it used to be. On the other hand, I've been using Emacs more and more so... *shrug*
Apparently the Navy did tests, but the chap that did the tests had a vested interest in seeing Dvorak win.
This is also true, but the fact is that it feels much nicer than qwerty. The Navy put in an order for 4000 Dvork-layout typewriters but since it was the middle of WWII the order was squashed on budget grounds (or something like that.) If you've spent too much time reading Dvorak pages (like I have:) there is a paper that takes Dvorak down a few notches, but doesn't bother to mention the fact that all the world's fastest typest use Dvorak, and the focus of said paper is more the economics of retraining people to a new layout, not whether the layout really is superior to qwerty. In the computer age, when you don't have to buy a new typewriter or keyboard to try out a new layout, I think it makes sense it give it a shot. It's really a personal choice anyway. I use Linux in a Windows world, I use Dvorak in a QWERTY world.
Probably the cheapest thing to try the Dvorak keyboard layout. It takes a couple of weeks to get back up to a non-frustrating typing speed, but once you can type proficiently you'll cringe whenever you have to use qwerty:). Once you can touch-type dvorak going switching between it and qwerty becomes very easy - so you really aren't in any danger of screwing yourself up in the long run. Get an xmodmap for XF86 here. One personal keyboard mappping I use that really helps my wrists is moving the delete key from it's place in the upper right corner of the keyboard, where I have to flick my wrist over to hit it, to the left alt key, where I can easily hit it with my thumb - so I don't have to move my hands at all in normal typing (the xmodmap above includes this - along with a full complement of shift bits - shift, control, alt, altgr, meta, super, and hyper (if XF86 supported them, I would have a top and front too:))
Interestingly, this article was almost entirely about the social aspects of Linux, not the technical ones. A bit more technical detail would have been good for the more so inclined readership... Although that would have created more opportunity for mistakes, so maybe it's a good thing. They also should have included a few URLs to Linux-related sites.
I'm currently enrolled at UNLV and I'm having a tough time finding anyone else that uses Linux... *sheesh*
So convert your friends:) Since I came here as a freshman last semester, I have seen something like nine new Linux installations just in my dorm building, and my roommate, who works for university software support, says that they are gearing up to formally support Linux along with Windows and MacOS:)
Those big *things* floating across the page really remind me of some sort of weird ghosts that have come to take over my computer:) Interestingly, the major slowdown experienced due to those nice floating pictures isn't due to netscape, but actually the bottleneck is X itself. I checked with a process listing, and watched X consume 90% CPU while netscape consumed a mere 25% CPU (yes, I know that adds up to more than 100%, I'm on an SMP system:)
Singlethreaded, monolithic X servers can really suck sometimes.
... I hardly think it would be responsible of a major technology company to write a check with their mouth that their asses can't cash. In other words, if they pay lip service and don't follow through, they lose credibility, which is what the business is all about. Unless of course you are Microsoft...
I talked to a computer science researcher at the university of Kyto last summer, and he explained something very interesting about the way the language barrier worked:
Of course, you have to know english to be able to do comp sci. It's what the vast majority of programming languages are based on (I've yet to see otherwise, in fact). Understanding english-based programming languages is not a problem for the japanese researchers. The problem is generating new ideas, and expressing them in english. If, for example, they want to create a new language, it has to be in english if they expect anyone outside of japan to use it. However, not being native english speakers they cannot conceptualize and express it effectivly, and this really hurts their position in comp sci reseach generally.
Japan's main software industry is in entertainment. Otherwise, they use the Japanese version of Windows, the Japanese version of MS Word, etc... Software is imported and translated, rather than created at home. Basically, the American programmer is in no danger simply because of a natural language advantage, and an already dominating position in the global marketplace.
Good grief. After reading all the flames I'm very dissapointed in the slashdot community. You people seem to be amazingly intolerent and hard-headed.
When Katz first got here and posted some "geek culture" spiels, he was accused of being a poser. Well, to remedy that, he's gone out and bought a new computer for the primary purpose of proving himself to the slashdot crowd. As this article shows, he has had some perfectly legitimate problems (broken hardware) just getting the damn thing running, and, unlike some of us, I suspect he has other things to do with his life than the necessary fiddling to get Linux going right now. Not all of us have assembled our own computers and know hardware inside and out, but that doesn't mean we are lesser people. Running Linux is not the only that makes one a geek, in fact geekiness is not at all restricted to the world of the computer. Katz is a liberal arts geek. When he talks about geek culture he gets it remarkably right, he understands the mindset, even though he isn't a technical whiz.
The title to this article may be a bit badly named, but Katz is trying to explain why he isn't quite there yet. Probably, "if it isn't one thing it's another" sort of problems have been dogging him (no pun intended) ever since he decided to set out on this mission to come closer to understanding the Linux community. People just don't seem to want to cut him some slack. This is disapointing and I honestly hope that it doesn't discourage him. He says he has a thick skin for flames, but slashdot these days is like walking over a bed of hot coals.
Anyway, people really need to lighten up. Contrary to popular opinion, as long as there is a Linux community of active developers and interested users that is helpful instead of flaming to new users, we have no reason to reject the poor huddled masses seeking the freedom of our favorite free operating system. Yes, Jon Katz is interested in Linux for it's social and political aspects, rather than it's technical ones, but weren't those the reasons that prompted RMS to start the GNU project? The technical execelence of free software was, to Stallman, a "side effect" of the intened goal - software you could share with your neighbor, and a community of programmers where you help each other rather than necesitating competition. A rather noble goal, and one that has, to a large extent, succeeded.
Anyway, please give Katz a break. I'm sure he's trying his hardest, and you can't really blame someone for that, can you?
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahaah...
on
ZDNet Does Linux
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· Score: 1
Isn't Jesse Berst the same one that wrote the infamous "Could You Get Fired for Choosing Linux?" article last year?
Now it's "Take the Linux Plunge? How to Persuade Your Boss"
Has anyone gotten Starcraft to work under WINE without a FAT drive or any Windows files at all? I have tried several times, and every time I end up with some error telling me it can't find some file like "fonts.prf" or something (I don't remeber what it exactly is now, but I know that it doesn't seem to exist anywhere in the Starcraft directory, or anywhere on anyone's computer I've tried for that matter.) This is copied right off my roommate's W95 PC, where it works just fine... Would grabbing the contents of his C:\WINDOWS directory help any? I'd really like to play Starcraft on my own computer:)
Actually I fine the windows keys to quite useful for "meta" in Emacs. In fact, I have a full complement of shift bits - shift, control, alt, altgr(language shift), meta, hyper, & super. Hop over to here to see my xmodmap map. Oh, one catch - it's for a dvorak layout:)
Slashdot Mirror
Just to nit pick, I don't *think* Linus has a Ph.D. Please correct me if I'm wrong :)
Am I the only one who thinks that incorperating what amounts to a small camera and microprocessor into a mudane device like the mouse a bit of overengineering? A bit of fuzz on the rollers aside, current SIMPLER mechanical systems work just fine. Actually, a hybrid like the Logitech visually trackballs that track movement using dots on the ball seems still to be a cleaner solution.
I guess it's a sort of cool idea, but the Microsoft corperate mindset seems to be "added complexity=innovation" with little regard to the implications of this "innovation" (=added complexity). Go figure.
I wrote a small program called joy2key which takes joystick events and translates them into keyboard events. It works in both X and the console, and is great for games...
Considering microsoft is a a $40 billion international cooperation employing tens of thousands of people, and Red Hat is still basically a small, privatly held startup (although this is certainly changing) employing only a little over 100 people, such a challange does not hold water. Gates has something like $6 billion to his name - if charities were really paramount to him, he could easily give far, far more than he has so far...
The Cobalt Qube is an all-in-one, easy to set up low-end server solution, runs Linux, and costs $899. Why the hell would anyone want to pay $1000 - $2000 for something that runs on pricy Intel hardware and unstable MS software?
I mean c'mon, if someone regretted trying out Dvorak, would they have stayed with it?
Er sorry, that is a bit badly phrased. What I was really trying to say that you shouldn't discount the MANY personal testimonials (including my own) in favor of the dvorak layout and instead cite some stodgy economist saying "it isn't worth it TO BUSINESSES to retrain a bunch of people to type differently for a 5% gain in speed" [even if the better keyboard layout reduces the risk of carpal tunnel or similar RSI...]
You'll notice that most articles that say the dvorak layout "isn't worth it" mostly say that it isn't worth the costs of retraining hundreds of people. They do not make the case well against an individual learning dvorak. They point out the fact that the tests of the dvorak keyboard were biased and this is true, but also a large part of the issue up until the last ten years has been that to retool for dvorak would for a business or agency involve scrapping thousands of dollars in QWERTY typewriters and buying new dvorak layout ones. With moderns PCs, remapping one's keyboard layout is trivial.
Now, as for specific technical issues... The QWERTY layout has to it's advantage the fact that the keys are all splayed out, as so that while you are typing one key your fingers can set up to type the next key. While this gets you pretty good speed, it tends to be at the expense of good typing style and in the long run can be absolute hell on your wrists. The dvorak layout tends to induce better typing style because the home row is where the most used keys are - no jumping around the keyboard to hit everything. Just comparing the two keyboards is rather telling - with QWERTY, you can type something like maybe 100 common words using the home row. With dvorak the number is something like 600. Qwerty graces the home row with such useful characters as "j", "k", and the ever-useful ";" - useful for programming perhaps, but the majority of typing I do each day is not code. Analyzing a bit of english for letter frequency and mapping it onto qwerty and dvorak shows commonly used letters all splayed all over with qwerty - with dvorak, the home row is most common, then the top, then the bottom, with the more common letters in the middle and moving out to the edges of the keyboard.
Lastly, ask the average person who has taken the plunge and stayed with it and they will tell you they havn't regretted it at all. It just feels better to type dvorak, and when you try to type quickly on qwerty it just feels like you are moving your hands way too much. Finally, you really aren't risking all that much. You won't lose your precious QWERTY skills when you are forced to use other people's computers - once you can comfortably touch-type dvorak (it takes about 2 weeks) going between QWERTY and dvorak takes very little effort - for example, I only use dvorak in X. At the console, it's qwerty all the way. Often when I'm playing a game or doing something where key position matters and I'm not touch-typing I'll switch back to QWERTY because that's what the key labels still say on my keyboard :)
If you've been sold on the wonders of dvorak, check out my page which has an xmodmap file to load a dvorak mapping (it also has some tweaked-out shifting bits - Super, Meta and Hyper baby! :)
This bit of unabashed dvorak advocacy was typed on a dvorak keyboard
No, the two men are completely unrelated, as far as I know.
Wow, what a bizzare site... But I like it. The images are really cool, too. How were they generated? Some of them look like photos of molecules taken through a microscope, some just look like someone spent entirely too much time fiddling with really nifty filters and stuff. It's really sort of mind-boggling...
What Berst doesn't understand is that because of the free nature of Linux, while it may lose popularity it can never "die". If Microsoft were to close up shop tomorrow (we can dream, can't we?) quite a lot of Windows users would be left out in the cold. If Linus were to quit and Red Hat and Caldera and S.u.S.E. and VA Research and Pacific HiTech etc. were to close up shop tomorrow you would STILL have the source code and the Internet to fall back on. It's the nature of the system - there is a build-in safty net in having the source code out there. Berst is backpedaling a bit from "Why you should use Linux", which does go to show that he's willing to say whatever the mood of the moment encourages - perhaps this high and beautiful wave in popularity Linux is experiencing is beginning to see some backlash. There are certainly plenty of entrenched IT guys that have a vested interest in NOT seeing Linux take off.. "I'm sorry, this is a Linux shop. Your Windows NT skills are not needed. NEXT!"
I bet it takes longer than that if you're a vi user...
This is true. I have been using the arrow keys instead of hjkl for vi ever since, so vi is not as efficient as it used to be. On the other hand, I've been using Emacs more and more so... *shrug*
Apparently the Navy did tests, but the chap that did the tests had a vested interest in seeing Dvorak win.
This is also true, but the fact is that it feels much nicer than qwerty. The Navy put in an order for 4000 Dvork-layout typewriters but since it was the middle of WWII the order was squashed on budget grounds (or something like that.) If you've spent too much time reading Dvorak pages (like I have :) there is a paper that takes Dvorak down a few notches, but doesn't bother to mention the fact that all the world's fastest typest use Dvorak, and the focus of said paper is more the economics of retraining people to a new layout, not whether the layout really is superior to qwerty. In the computer age, when you don't have to buy a new typewriter or keyboard to try out a new layout, I think it makes sense it give it a shot. It's really a personal choice anyway. I use Linux in a Windows world, I use Dvorak in a QWERTY world.
Probably the cheapest thing to try the Dvorak keyboard layout. It takes a couple of weeks to get back up to a non-frustrating typing speed, but once you can type proficiently you'll cringe whenever you have to use qwerty :). Once you can touch-type dvorak going switching between it and qwerty becomes very easy - so you really aren't in any danger of screwing yourself up in the long run. Get an xmodmap for XF86 here. One personal keyboard mappping I use that really helps my wrists is moving the delete key from it's place in the upper right corner of the keyboard, where I have to flick my wrist over to hit it, to the left alt key, where I can easily hit it with my thumb - so I don't have to move my hands at all in normal typing (the xmodmap above includes this - along with a full complement of shift bits - shift, control, alt, altgr, meta, super, and hyper (if XF86 supported them, I would have a top and front too :))
Interestingly, this article was almost entirely about the social aspects of Linux, not the technical ones. A bit more technical detail would have been good for the more so inclined readership... Although that would have created more opportunity for mistakes, so maybe it's a good thing. They also should have included a few URLs to Linux-related sites.
I WANT THAT GAME! :)
I'm currently enrolled at UNLV and I'm having a tough time finding anyone else that uses Linux... *sheesh*
So convert your friends :) Since I came here as a freshman last semester, I have seen something like nine new Linux installations just in my dorm building, and my roommate, who works for university software support, says that they are gearing up to formally support Linux along with Windows and MacOS :)
I'm at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, by the way.
Those big *things* floating across the page really remind me of some sort of weird ghosts that have come to take over my computer :) Interestingly, the major slowdown experienced due to those nice floating pictures isn't due to netscape, but actually the bottleneck is X itself. I checked with a process listing, and watched X consume 90% CPU while netscape consumed a mere 25% CPU (yes, I know that adds up to more than 100%, I'm on an SMP system :)
Singlethreaded, monolithic X servers can really suck sometimes.
... I hardly think it would be responsible of a major technology company to write a check with their mouth that their asses can't cash. In other words, if they pay lip service and don't follow through, they lose credibility, which is what the business is all about. Unless of course you are Microsoft...
I talked to a computer science researcher at the university of Kyto last summer, and he explained something very interesting about the way the language barrier worked:
Of course, you have to know english to be able to do comp sci. It's what the vast majority of programming languages are based on (I've yet to see otherwise, in fact). Understanding english-based programming languages is not a problem for the japanese researchers. The problem is generating new ideas, and expressing them in english. If, for example, they want to create a new language, it has to be in english if they expect anyone outside of japan to use it. However, not being native english speakers they cannot conceptualize and express it effectivly, and this really hurts their position in comp sci reseach generally.
Japan's main software industry is in entertainment. Otherwise, they use the Japanese version of Windows, the Japanese version of MS Word, etc... Software is imported and translated, rather than created at home. Basically, the American programmer is in no danger simply because of a natural language advantage, and an already dominating position in the global marketplace.
Blastit, I can't seem to find any mirrors that have it... Guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow when everthing gets updated...
Dude, those are low-end 486s. It would take at least five of them just to equal a single pentium... Not a very cost-effective beowulf.
Good grief. After reading all the flames I'm very dissapointed in the slashdot community. You people seem to be amazingly intolerent and hard-headed.
When Katz first got here and posted some "geek culture" spiels, he was accused of being a poser. Well, to remedy that, he's gone out and bought a new computer for the primary purpose of proving himself to the slashdot crowd. As this article shows, he has had some perfectly legitimate problems (broken hardware) just getting the damn thing running, and, unlike some of us, I suspect he has other things to do with his life than the necessary fiddling to get Linux going right now. Not all of us have assembled our own computers and know hardware inside and out, but that doesn't mean we are lesser people. Running Linux is not the only that makes one a geek, in fact geekiness is not at all restricted to the world of the computer. Katz is a liberal arts geek. When he talks about geek culture he gets it remarkably right, he understands the mindset, even though he isn't a technical whiz.
The title to this article may be a bit badly named, but Katz is trying to explain why he isn't quite there yet. Probably, "if it isn't one thing it's another" sort of problems have been dogging him (no pun intended) ever since he decided to set out on this mission to come closer to understanding the Linux community. People just don't seem to want to cut him some slack. This is disapointing and I honestly hope that it doesn't discourage him. He says he has a thick skin for flames, but slashdot these days is like walking over a bed of hot coals.
Anyway, people really need to lighten up. Contrary to popular opinion, as long as there is a Linux community of active developers and interested users that is helpful instead of flaming to new users, we have no reason to reject the poor huddled masses seeking the freedom of our favorite free operating system. Yes, Jon Katz is interested in Linux for it's social and political aspects, rather than it's technical ones, but weren't those the reasons that prompted RMS to start the GNU project? The technical execelence of free software was, to Stallman, a "side effect" of the intened goal - software you could share with your neighbor, and a community of programmers where you help each other rather than necesitating competition. A rather noble goal, and one that has, to a large extent, succeeded.
Anyway, please give Katz a break. I'm sure he's trying his hardest, and you can't really blame someone for that, can you?
Isn't Jesse Berst the same one that wrote the infamous "Could You Get Fired for Choosing Linux?" article last year?
Now it's "Take the Linux Plunge? How to Persuade Your Boss"
Too savage.
Too aggressive.
Thresh of Doom/Quake asskicking fame reads Slashdot? Cool! :)
Has anyone gotten Starcraft to work under WINE without a FAT drive or any Windows files at all? I have tried several times, and every time I end up with some error telling me it can't find some file like "fonts.prf" or something (I don't remeber what it exactly is now, but I know that it doesn't seem to exist anywhere in the Starcraft directory, or anywhere on anyone's computer I've tried for that matter.) This is copied right off my roommate's W95 PC, where it works just fine... Would grabbing the contents of his C:\WINDOWS directory help any? I'd really like to play Starcraft on my own computer :)
Actually I fine the windows keys to quite useful for "meta" in Emacs. In fact, I have a full complement of shift bits - shift, control, alt, altgr(language shift), meta, hyper, & super. Hop over to here to see my xmodmap map. Oh, one catch - it's for a dvorak layout :)