Correction: I've been using my kinesis for 18 years now. Zero complaints. Solid product--worth every penny--especially considering my livelihood depends on my hands and it's what they touch all day long.
To elaborate:
Just looking at the layout I can already tell they haven't done a deep enough analysis. Comparing to my kinesis (which I'm typing on right now), in order to press enter requires radial flexion--so while it will still help, the kinesis requires virtually no radial flexion at all, and at most some ulnar deviation (and only to hit shift, one of the lesser-used, and not for any other key). 101-qwerty keyboards don't generally require any radial flexion at all, but incur a lot of ulnar deviation--so this much change in habit may feel better at first but may also just move symptoms around after a while for anyone with an existing injury.
Furthermore, by default they require a modifier for F keys, thus to do a normal modifier+F-key combination is now a 3-key chord-- Ctrl-F5 is now Fn-Ctrl-F5, with both modifiers on the thumb--so now it takes either both hands or an awkward thumb motion pressing it down flat to hit both keys. This would make emacs an impossibility. Compare that to a kinesis with dvorak layout. Ctrl-X and Alt-X are nearly a pinching motion between the thumb and first finger--about the most natural motion our hands ever do, and perfectly comfortable to do all day long.
I cannot make a judgement on the effectiveness of the depth of their keys, but it looks much shallower and likely to require curling the fingers more than the Kinesis does. My guess is the extra curl may become tiresome. The kinesis is "just right"--fingers completely relaxed just fall right on top of the home row, and the majority of keys are merely a single key away from home row. In addition, the keyboardio loses the bottom row, which makes it even less efficient for placement possibilities--requiring more keys to be only accessible via an additional modifier combination.
Their thumb keys arguably align a little better with keeping the hand and wrist in a neutral position, but they wholesale miss the great opportunity of using a second row of thumb keys--it is one of the most agile digits we have. Kinesis gets this right by putting backspace, delete, enter, and space, four of the most used items as the main keys for thumb access, plus an additional row for modifier and navigation keys--put those thumbs to good use. (Compared to a 101-qwerty that relegates both thumbs to share the singular duty of one key... the space bar--WTF--why is it a full on giant key--as if our thumbs are so poorly coordinated they have trouble aiming?)
I would definitely prefer one of these over a qwerty, but will continue to vote for kinesis until something even better comes along.
For people that aren't so picky, or like the bling-bling flashy lights, or need the loud clicks to feel good about typing I say go for it and tell us how you like it.
Yes, it has whizbang lights, and the split with thumb keys is moving in a better direction, but my 10-year old kinesis is still a superior layout and design.
Wake me when they improve on *that* rather than not even catch up.
There is no rate if there is no interval.
For that matter, look up "etc."
Does anyone know the origin of
Arguably the most important directory on a *nix computer, yet who remembers why/how it got that name?
I totally agree.
I've seen countless man pages that don't even bother to say what the command *does*, let alone *why* you would want to do that. They assume it is all self evident (I'm guessing the author's logic was: "or else why would you be reading about the flags if you didn't already know you needed it and for what?").
Also, sometimes explanations are vague--being precise about the behavior (especially if it is altering data) is important.
Haven't we all heard our mom's yell this at us?
How many people actually have any appreciable time away from technology in any given day anymore?
Our cars have radios, touch screens, navigation, and are interactive and immediately present when we sit down.
Our homes are filled with tablets, desktops, phones, and TVs with DVRs--so no more waiting through commercials even--we get *exactly* the stimulus we want *now* when we want it.
Seems we just inundate ourselves with stimulus.
Challenge: walk outside and sit on a park bench for 20 minutes a day with no batteries in sight. I bet it would help reset our internal patience reserves. Can you do it without squirming?
I use 8pen on my android phones and it works great--it could scale down pretty small.
Cobol -- there's old apps that keep on running that are valuable enough to companies to keep maintaining, yet they aren't willing to rewrite
RPG4 -- same boat as Cobol--although arguably one of the least pleasant language environments
CL -- many existing apps, plus there are companies writing brand new stuff with it, it's just as powerful as ever, and quite nice to work with
I'm sure there are others
Agreed--sounds to me as if "digital native" means someone that expects technology to "just work". We grew up surprised when things "just worked"--expecting to have to tinker (and indeed *enjoying* getting to tinker) to make machines do our bidding.
I've used 8pen on all my android phones for years. Much faster than handwriting or typing for that matter, and it can be used one-handed without even looking. Best $0.99 I ever spent.
Anyone can *easily* afford to live off of $70k a year, very comfortably, if their home and car are bought and paid for. All that remains is utilities, property tax, food and gas--which shouldn't amount to a great deal.
Most people spend upwards or even above 50% of their take home pay on just their mortgage, and another 10-30% on their car payment(s). So without those $70k/year is likely equivalent to $150k/year or more.
Where he's been taking $1million/year previously, he's got no excuse for not having his home and cars all paid for, and likely no other debts either. Now that his basic needs are met (and probably quite nicely), spreading the wealth seems like a very commendable thing to do.
Dunno what's wrong with the link.
The relevant part is:
...I often use the apparently plural pronouns "they," "them," and "their" after singular antecedents--such as, "You must approach someone for a job and tell them what you can do." This sounds strange and even wrong to those who know English well. To be sure, we all know there is another pronoun--"you"--that may be either singular or plural, but few of us realize that the pronouns "they," "them," and "their" were also once treated as both plural and singular in the English language. This changed, at a time in English history when agreement in number became more important than agreement as to sexual gender. Today, however, our priorities have shifted once again. Now, the distinguishing of sexual gender is considered by many to be more important than agreement in number.
The common artifices used for this new priority, such as "s/he," or "he and she," are--to my mind--tortured and inelegant. Casey Miller and Kate Swift, in their classic, "The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing," agree, and argue that it is time to bring back the earlier usage of "they," "them," and "their" as both singular and plural--just as "you" is/are. They further argue that this return to the earlier historical usage has already become quite common out on the street--witness a typical sign by the ocean that reads, "Anyone using this beach after 5 p.m. does so at their own risk....
Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file.
