9 articles
Published
Literacy is wonderful. I love reading. I spent most of this summer reading Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, fed to me by my coworker. So I went to the library for the first time this summer last week and got out the books you see in the stack on the right. Three of those books are the second or fifth book in a series, however, so I'll need to read the other books in…
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This is my third day of typing in Colemak. It's weird. At times I feel like I'm really getting it: my accuracy is great, my speed is better than I expected, I'm getting into a rhythm. Then I type a QWERTY-ism and all that progress disappears.
To learn I've been using Colemak lessons for TypeFaster. TypeFaster itself is a great program, and the lessons are helping. I like to use the hi-games.net typing test…
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Partly out of concern for my fingers, but mostly out of errant boredom, I have decided to try to learn Colemak. The QWERTY keyboard layout was intentionally designed to slow down typists, lest their typewriters jam. Now that computers have largely replaced typewriters, such a layout is inefficient, but we still use it anyway. Other layouts, such as the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, just didn't catch on.
Colemak is another alternative layout that comes…
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I've got a bunch of things I should blog about, so let's start with Digsby, a new free multi-service IM program. I have both an MSN (I suppose it's "Windows Live Messenger" now) account and an AIM screenname. Up until recently, I used two separate programs. I've tried Pidgin and Trillian; however, I found the former too spartan and the latter too bloated. I couldn't get comfortable with either--it's cool that Pidgin's free…
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Humans are an insane and suicidal species. This is not a new revelation to most of us, I'm sure. Nor is it news that the world is crazy. But let's stop and reflect for a moment on some recent events that underline such insanity, shall we?
First on the block is the situation in Georgia. When this originally happened, I could understand (but did not approve of) Russia's actions. The area is ethnically diverse…
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Right, so, I have a confession to make. I am a left-shift-key discriminator (or a right-shift-key abuser, your choice).
What is an LSKD (or RSKA)? Simply put, it is someone who uses his or her right shift key almost exclusively when capitalizing letters. Just reverse the terms if you abuse your left shift key.
I learned how to "touch type" (or whatever you want to call it) in grade 4, and I'm proud of my…
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George Orwell was an English author of great talent. In addition to Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, his two most well-known works of fiction, he was a journalist and an essayist. His topics varied; he covered politics and philosophy, as well as the evolving nature of language. Nineteen Eighty-Four has had a profound affect on our culture, introducing phrases like "Big Brother" into the English language. I'm certain that Orwell would shudder to learn…
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The back to school ads have landed.
Going back to university is different from going back to high school. For one thing, I'm not in school all day, so it feels like I have more free time. In general my schedule is more flexible. Since I'm in a fairly academic program, my school supplies are limited to notebooks, pens, and pencils. I can otherwise ignore the exhortations of sneakers, markers, pencil crayons, and whatnot.…
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Where would we be without villains? Well probably happier, and healthier ... maybe safer. But perhaps a little more ignorant when it comes to matters of the human soul....
On Saturday I went to see a performance of Zastrozzi: Master of Discipline by a local amateur theatre group as a fundraiser for their local Belegarth guild. The play consists of an insane artist on the run from Zastrozzi, master criminal of all Europe (apparently set…