Proud Geek

Ritz Camera has declared bankruptcy.

Why do I care?  Ah, let me tell you.

I wanted a high-quality camera.  After shopping around at various stores, both big-box and small, I bought a Nikon D40 camera with two lenses (18-55 and 55-200 VR) from Ritz Camera last summer.  What won me over was Ritz Camera’s package pricing, customer service, and exceptional warranty.

I paid extra so that if the camera gets broken or dirty, Ritz would clean or replace it free of (additional) charge.  Insurance, ya know, in case a bouncing ball hits my camera while I’m focusing on it.  Happened to a friend of mine, who got a set of replacement lenses from Ritz.  Free and without fuss.

And now Ritz Camera has declared bankruptcy.  Argh.

Silver lining?  Ritz Camera “plans” to continue operation, despite the bankruptcy filing.  Nonetheless, time to be extra-careful of my camera.

(Thanks, I think, to DCist for the news.)

Now that FCC is mandating 10-digit numbers for our videophones, the major video relay / videophone companies have been busy assigning new phone numbers to our videophones.  For some of these numbers, hearing people can also call and be connected directly to you via video relay (or instant messaging or email).  In addition, we may have signed up for additional personal VRS phone numbers independent from our videophones.

The result?  Many, many new phone numbers to keep track of!  I now have SIX personal VRS phone numbers that I need to keep track of, with several different VRS providers!

So, a reminder: please do not forget to register ALL of them (and your mobile phone number) with DoNotCall.gov — or else you’ll start getting lots of telemarketing calls.

Consider yourself reminded.

Trivia: once you register a phone number on donotcall.gov, it will stay on the list permanently.  Used to be deleted in 3 years, but a recent change in law now makes registration permanent.  Hooray.

And thus, this blog post snaps my recent streak of Google-loving posts …

(See my ancient reminder on DeafDC.com)

With a tip of the hat to Living La Vida Alpo and the Banned Books Week, here’s a list of banned books. Read ‘em! The ones I’ve read in the past are bolded. Hmm, looks like I need to read quite a few more. Wonder if any of these are available via ereader.com. Some books I understand why are on the list, but for some others, I’m like “WTF?” Fellow bloggers, pass this on via your blog!

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (I saw the movie – does that count?)
SexybookwormSex by Madonna
Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What? by Mem Fox
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Over 230 years ago, an American editor and a friend developed a forerunner of the modern typewriter. However, if someone operating the “typewriter” typed too fast, the keys would jam together. So, over the next several years, they developed what would become known as the QWERTY keyboard that we all use and (?) love.

(Image from Wikipedia)

This early QWERTY layout was slightly different than the modern QWERTY layout. The “0″ and “1″ keys were missing, and users would use the “L” and “O” keys instead. The “M” key has migrated downward, and the “C” and “X” keys are now reversed. Punctuations keys have moved to different parts of the layout as well.

The layout of keys were designed to actually SLOW the user down by having the user alternate hands between each keystroke. The left hand was the one actually doing most of the typing. In addition, the most-used keys were mounted on an upper row to further slow the user down.

Does this mean that our typing speed today could have been faster than it actually is, thanks to how the QWERTY keys are positioned? Exactly right! The QWERTY layout has been rendered an anachronism, still being used way past its useful lifespan, because of drastic advances in technology.

Various keyboard layouts have been proposed to improve the typist’s speed, and the more well-known of these layouts is the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard.

(Image from Wikipedia)

As seen from the picture of the layout, the key placements are drastically different from those in the QWERTY keyboard. The most commonly-used keys are on the initial row and the least-used keys are on the bottom row. Some of the commonly-used punctuations have been moved around as well.

According to Wikipedia, August Dvorak had several factors in mind when designing this keyboard layout:

• Letters should be typed by alternating between hands.
• For maximum speed and efficiency, the most common letters and digraphs should be the easiest to type. This means that they should be on the home row, which is where the fingers rest, and under the strongest fingers.
• The least common letters should be on the bottom row, which is the hardest row to reach.
• The right hand should do more of the typing, because most people are right-handed.
• Digraphs should not be typed with adjacent fingers.
• Stroking should generally move from the edges of the board to the middle. An observation of this principle is that, for many people, when tapping fingers on a table, it is easier going from little finger to index than vice versa. This motion on a keyboard is called inboard stroke flow.^[3]

There are Dvorak keyboards and keyboard overlays available for sale, and most computers would recognize these keyboards.

If the Dvorak layout is so much faster, why ain’t I using it? Ah, because I’ve become too successful at learning the QWERTY layout. It would be too much of a struggle for me to switch to the Dvorak layout at this stage, and besides, just about every electronic device has the typical QWERTY keyboard. Too difficult for me to switch, and I suspect for just about everyone else as well.

Why am I telling you all this, then? Ah, I like the “trivia” of this info, and there’s hope yet for yet faster typing …

Seven years ago, I gave this speech at the 2001 Jewish Deaf Conference.  In preparation, I did some of research into the Jewish perspective on “justice,” and I wanted to share this result with you all.  Happy reading!

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Read the rest of this entry »

I live 40 miles away from my workplace, so I sometime take the commuter train and other times take the commuter bus to work.  I see the same people over and over again, each day, going to work and then from work.  On the bus, we don’t say a word to each other — but on the train (not subway), people greet each other all the time.

So, it’s quite a shock for me to read about a guy being stabbed and beheaded while travelling home on a bus in Canada.

I read about this yesterday actually, and this morning on the bus I couldn’t help but glance from passenger to passenger wondering …

*GULP*

Thursdays are becoming the new Fridays, as more people take Fridays off or make special plans for Thursday evenings.

But please don’t work too hard. This guy died while designing the Toyota Camry hybrid.

In Japan, deaths from overwork — called “karoshi” — have been increasing in the past 21 years since this type of death was officially recognized.

So, for your own sake and for your children, partner, family, or friends’ sake as well, take it easy! And be sure to relax and read Proud Geek. :-)

Last week, I blogged about the longest word in the English language, a 189,819-letter technical word, and even included the word itself on the blog post. (Don’t open the link till you read the rest of this post!) This single word is causing the Proud Geek blog itself to take ages to load on most Internet browsers. So, in an effort to push that particular post onto a “previous page” on my blog, I’m gonna post a few new articles today and tomorrow.

To give you an idea of how long my longest-word blog post is, the first Harry Potter novel had 76,944 words. If an average word (especially for a children’s novel) has four to five letters, that means the first Harry Potter novel had 307,776 to 384,720 letters. The longest word in the English language, a SINGLE WORD, would take up half of the first Harry Potter novel! No wonder why that post takes forever to load onto my browser.

EDIT: Here’s the first several lines, if you’re curious enough:

Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucyl-

phenylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylgl-

ycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycyla-

spartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylserylleucyllysylisoleucyla-

spartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanylglycylalanylaspartylalanylleu-

cylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylalanylserylaspartylproly-

lleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylglutaminylasparagin-

ylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylth-

reonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethiony-

lleucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreony-

lisoleucylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparag-

inylleucylvalylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartyl-

glutamylphenylalanyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamylly-

sylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvaly-

lprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanylarginyl-

glutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalanylproly-

(and so on and on and on and on and on and on ad nauseum …)