Book Review - A Child's Wound

I just put up my review of Dwayne Kavanagh's book A Child's Wound on the Book Reviews page on my WordPress blog.

The (dot) Matrix - Lego Style

The output's a bit 'blocky', but then it is Lego.

_{Hat-tip: Pharyngula}

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CLS and the CLI

Nope. Nothing to do with crime scenes or forensics.

Those of you of a certain age (commonly known as getting on a bit) and of a sufficiently nerdy inclination, might recognise CLI as an acronym for Command Line Interface and CLS as the mnemonic command entered into the CLI, at the command prompt, to CLear Screen.

Okay. Nostalgia time over. We've moved on from there and now we have multi-touch screens, mouse gestures and voice recognition to control our computing devices.

But one thing hasn't changed.

Ten U.S. Lynx*

CLS also happens to be the initials of one Christopher Latham Sholes, the man largely responsible for the QWERTY keyboard layout that most English speaking people still use to input text to their computers. He invented it, along with the typewriter, way back in the 1870s.

I've heard it suggested (usually with an accompanying wink) that the layout was designed to slow typists down, but the reality is the reverse of that. The clever design of the mechanical typewriter, which ensured that letters were typed in perfect alignment, also had the unfortunate side effect that if two adjacent keys were pressed in quick succesion, the metal arms, which bashed the letters onto the ink ribbon, would jam together. The design of the QWERTY layout minimizes the liklihood of that happening, which helped typists achieve greater speed without jams.

So why on earth are we still using it now that our keyboards are electronic devices which cannot suffer from such mechanical jams?

Inertia? Probably. Apathy? Probably that too. The thing is that for all its quirkiness, it works well enough. The billions of words typed on it every day are testament to that. There are other layout designs, such as the Dvorak layout which has been around for years, but none of them have been able to topple king QWERTY from his dominant position.

It's not really an issue for me. I'm not a very proficient typist so the layout of the alphabetic keys won't make any significant difference to my output. But oh how I wish the pereipheral keys were in the same place on UK and USA keyboards. @Hello world@. That's what you'll get if you forget you are using a USA keyboard and hit the keys you would use on a UK keyboard to type "Hello World", and vice versa too.

I can understand that the £ and € symbols are superfluous on USA keyboards, but why oh why is it necessary to swap @ and ", both of which get the same amount of usage regardless of which country one happens to be in? It beats me. If someone can explain it I'd be all ears.

Perhaps it won't be long before it's no longer an issue. I can imagine a keyboard on which the keytop markings are displayed using LCD technology, or e-ink perhaps, and the user can select the layout of their choice via a pop-up menu. Or if they are really fussy, they could program the display for each key individually, and save it as a new layout.

Remember, you saw it here first!



* _{The sharp-eyed will have noticed that not all the lynx pictured are USA natives. Some are indeed Iberian. But come on, they're cute, and as tenuous links go, they're cuddly too!}

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Any old iron, any old iron?

We went in search of a new built-in gas hob the other day, but not necessarily exactly like the one pictured here. We had some basic selection criteria, such as the controls must be along the front edge rather than the side. But if I did want controls positioned at the side, I'd be mighty glad I'm not a 'leftie' because all the ones we saw had them on the right.

Other criteria included the number of rings (three, or maybe four, five even, or perhaps two mini-hobs with two burners each, or ...), and the materials used for the manufacture of the main bit which catches all the stuff that boils over (stainless steel - no, ceramic - no, stainless - no, ...)

What we hadn't given any thought to was the material used for the pan supports, but it soon became clear that this is in fact the most important criteria for choosing a hob.

"It's got cast iron pan supports."

It's obviously the 'new black', because I heard it so many times. Eventually I asked a particularly eager salesperson what was so good about cast iron as opposed to enameled steel. Quick as you like came the reply, "it's more durable."

I did a rapid memory scan and concluded that, in my experience, the cookers and hobs I've been aquainted with have all been cast aside due to the dictates of fashion, long before the durability of pan supports became an issue. Intrigued, I asked what the 'life expectancy' of an enameled steel pan support is.

"Ten years."

No hesitation, no doubt, not a flicker of uncertainty. I expect you want to know what it is for cast iron pan supports as much as I did, and I will resist the temptation to cruelly delay the imparting of the received information to you.

It's double that.

Well, they do say you learn something every day. I don't know about you, but when it comes to finding answers to metallurgical questions, my first port of call will always be my local kitchen appliance sales centre from now on.

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First Post

Perhaps I should have sub-titled this blog Irregularly Verbal Too because it will mirror what I post on my WordPress blog. Or if you prefer a more Google-centric view, I will mirror what I post here on my WordPress blog. Is that synchronicity?

With one breath, with one flow
You will know
Synchronicity

A sleep trance, a dream dance,
A shared romance,
Synchronicity

A connecting principle,
Linked to the invisible
Almost imperceptible
Something inexpressible.
Science insusceptible
Logic so inflexible
Causally connectible
Yet nothing is invincible.

If we share this nightmare
Then we can dream
Spiritus mundi.

If you act, as you think,
The missing link,
Synchronicity.

We know you, they know me
Extrasensory
Synchronicity.

A star fall, a phone call,
It joins all,
Synchronicity.

It's so deep, it's so wide
Your inside
Synchronicity.

Effect without a cause
Sub-atomic laws, scientific pause
Synchronicity..................................

The Police


Well, I do like the song but I'm just not sure about those lyrics!