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OT: Keyboard scheme
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| skearney@accessbee.com 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| The subject of the Dvorak keyboard has come up in this newsgroup half a
dozen times, so maybe this proposal isn't too far off topic.
Aset keyboard
It has been said that the most common letters were taken off the home
row of the first typewriter keyboard to slow down the typist and
prevent jamming.
On a Dvorak keyboard almost sixty percent of average text is typed from
the home keys. Transposing the letters 'etni' with 'dfjk' would put
more than 55% of text on the home keys, up from only 26% on the qwerty
layout. Thats more than twice the text typed without lifting a finger.
The change is quite pleasant and easy to learn. I hope you will pass
this on.
To put e, t, n and i back where they belong, there is a keyboard
remapping program that is free, downloads quickly and is very easy to
use. I am typing this post on a keyboard remapped to the 'etni'
transposition layout. The program is called 'Keytweak 2.11' and can be
googled up by that name. It is available from several sites, including
PC magazine.
1) After you have loaded the program click start.
2) Click the "KeyTweak" icon and a graphic of a keyboard will appear.
3) Click the "Full Teach Mode" at the bottom of the screen.
4) A box will appear. Click "Begin Teach Mode".
5) Press the key you want to reassign, then the key you want it
reassigned to, in this case D to E.
6) Click "Remap Key#1 to Key#2"
7) The box will disappear and the scancodes of the keys will appear in
the "Pending Changes" window at the bottom right.
8) Follow the same procedure (from 3) for E to D, and the remaining
six remaps.
9) Click "Apply" and you will be asked if you want to turn off the
computer to apply the changes.
At the top there is also a clickable "Restore Defaults" to give
you back your qwerty layout.
I was able to remap in under three minutes and restore qwerty in
thirty seconds, not including the restart.
You can try out the sample lines of text below to discover that your
fingers already know where etni should go.
nineteen lean little saints settle in a nest
jkjdfddj ldaj lkffld sakjfs sdffld kj a jdsf
an alien eats an ant antenna in atlanta
aj alkdj dafs aj ajf ajfdjja kj aflajfa
elite sense entails a siesta in a satin seat
dlkfd sdjsd djfakls a skdsfa kj a safkj sdaf
a stain is seen at a linen sale
a sfakj ks sddj af a lkjdj sald
a latent latin talent tast tests in seattle
a lafdjf lafkj faldjf fasf fdsfs kj sdaffld
insane santa sails in sea salt
kjsajd sajfa sakls kj sda salf
Many thanks
| |
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| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| skearney@accessbee.com wrote:
It's been said, but it's not true. The layout of the keyboard was fixed
before touch-typing was invented (and therefore before there was a "home
row").
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:[color=darkred]
> I think it's totally off-topic and irrelevant. Everyone chooses
> whatever layout they like, and Scheme away in it.
Agreed.
> I don't know how much simple 4-letter transposition gives you with how
> little learning curve.
FWIW, the best-known study showed that there's no significant benefit to
typists already trained in QWERTY; they benefit more from additional
QWERTY training than they do from re-training with Dvorak. Also, there's
the problem that you can't easily share keyboards with other typists,
which is a big deal in many circumstances.
Alternative keyboards might improve productivity if everyone used them,
but that's unlikely to happen so long as there's a large pool of QWERTY
typists, because (1) compatibility is important, and (2) the alternatives
don't actually help much unless it's what you learn first.
> I'm certainly happy with my Dvovak layout and recommend it if you are
> willing to exercise a lot for two w s with much reduced typing speed
> for maybe a w after the switch (I switched only after a w of
> exercising the layout).
Then again, research shows that you can get similar benefits if you're
willing to exercise your QWERTY skills for two ws, and you can still
use other people's keyboards.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
> FWIW, the best-known study showed that there's no significant benefit to
> typists already trained in QWERTY; they benefit more from additional
> QWERTY training than they do from re-training with Dvorak. Also, there's
> the problem that you can't easily share keyboards with other typists,
> which is a big deal in many circumstances.
The first point makes sense, but I could never shake off my bad
four-finger typing habit with qwerty. Relearning in Dvorak worked
quite well for me that way, so now I'm 10-finger.
The second point is a good one, but most systems allow you to just
switch the layout in a heartbeat, so it isn't too bad these days.
> Then again, research shows that you can get similar benefits if you're
> willing to exercise your QWERTY skills for two ws, and you can still
> use other people's keyboards.
(1) yes, probably
(2) just switch the layout in 10 seconds or so
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| Matthias Buelow 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
>
> Alternative keyboards might improve productivity if everyone used them,
> but that's unlikely to happen so long as there's a large pool of QWERTY
> typists, because (1) compatibility is important, and (2) the alternatives
> don't actually help much unless it's what you learn first.
Besides.. who needs ultra-fast typing? Secretaries perhaps but who else?
mkb.
| |
| Joe Marshall 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| "Bradd W. Szonye" <bradd+news@szonye.com> writes:
> FWIW, the best-known study showed that there's no significant benefit to
> typists already trained in QWERTY; they benefit more from additional
> QWERTY training than they do from re-training with Dvorak. Also, there's
> the problem that you can't easily share keyboards with other typists,
> which is a big deal in many circumstances.
I don't consider that a problem. It keeps away the riff-raff.
| |
| Adrian Kubala 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| skearney@accessbee.com <skearney@accessbee.com> schrieb:
> The subject of the Dvorak keyboard has come up in this newsgroup half a
> dozen times, so maybe this proposal isn't too far off topic.
You're right that there seem to be more Dvorak users here than average.
I wonder if it's some kind of personality trait that also makes people
interested in Scheme. Like they're looking for the "right" way to do
things, even if it's not as practical in the short term. In that case,
I'd say your proposal is to Dvorak as Python is to scheme -- steals some
 ideas, but misses the core, and if you're going to go that far why
not go all the way?
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:[color=darkred]
> The second point is a good one, but most systems allow you to just
> switch the layout in a heartbeat, so it isn't too bad these days.
Just don't forget to switch it back!
There's a more subtle issue with layout compatibility. Software with a
lot of shortcut keys (like vi and many videogames) typically uses a
combination of mnemonic and layout-based keys. For example, vi uses
layout for movement (HJKL) and mnemonics for input (AIOS). Alternate
keyboard layouts can only lead to madness (or at least extensive
reconfiguration) in that situation.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| Matthias Buelow 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| Adrian Kubala wrote:
> In that case,
> I'd say your proposal is to Dvorak as Python is to scheme -- steals some
I really do think that this comparison is a little bit stretched...
mkb.
| |
| skearney@accessbee.com 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
|
Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
> skearney@accessbee.com wrote:
home[color=darkred]
>
> It's been said, but it's not true. The layout of the keyboard was
fixed
> before touch-typing was invented (and therefore before there was a
"home
> row").
>
> Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
>
> Agreed.
>
how[color=darkred]
>
> FWIW, the best-known study showed that there's no significant benefit
to
> typists already trained in QWERTY; they benefit more from additional
> QWERTY training than they do from re-training with Dvorak. Also,
there's
> the problem that you can't easily share keyboards with other typists,
> which is a big deal in many circumstances.
>
> Alternative keyboards might improve productivity if everyone used
them,
> but that's unlikely to happen so long as there's a large pool of
QWERTY
> typists, because (1) compatibility is important, and (2) the
alternatives
> don't actually help much unless it's what you learn first.
>
are[color=darkred]
speed[color=darkred]
>
> Then again, research shows that you can get similar benefits if
you're
> willing to exercise your QWERTY skills for two ws, and you can
still
> use other people's keyboards.
> --
> Bradd W. Szonye
> http://www.szonye.com/bradd
While Frank Gurrin might have been the first touch typist it is
probable that common letters were entered in fairly rapid succession
even prior to touch typing. There are two fingered typists that can
manage sixty words a minute. The earliest typewriters might have been
very prone to jamming. The letters from d to l are in alphabetical
order with the exception of e and i. The letters a and s are on the
home row but under the weakest fingers. The evidence is atleast
suggestive that they were removed for a reason.
The limited research done so far does suggest that your time is better
invested in drilling on the qwerty keyboard that you already know than
learning a new layout, as far as typing speed goes. But Dvorak users
complain that qwerty is just uncomfortable and there is some evidence
that qwerty users are more prone to making errors when typing the most
common words.
It is ironic that now that typing is much more common than even just a
few decades ago, and the software necessary for a thorough tracking of
typing skill would be easy to apply without requireing subjects to
leave there own keyboard, that there has been no modern study.
The letters etni are five times more common in average text than dfjk.
If having etni on the home row is the principle advantage of the
Dvorak, then simply swapping the letters is a less painful way to
acomplish it. Keeping the letters under the same fingers makes it more
of a qwerty varient than a whole new layout.
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| skearney@accessbee.com wrote:
Bradd W. Szonye wrote:[color=darkred]
[color=darkred]
> While Frank Gurrin might have been the first touch typist it is
> probable that common letters were entered in fairly rapid succession
> even prior to touch typing.
Yes, and it occasionally caused jams. As far as I know, that led the
designer to move some key combinations to alternate hands, because
keystrokes from alternate sides were less prone to jamming. For example,
typing the word "the" alternates from left hand to right to left. Many
touch typists believe that this is a major advantage, just as important
as putting common keys on the home row.
In any case, the keyboard was not designed to slow anybody down,
especially not touch typists (who did not even exist). The inventor
wanted people to type quickly and even held typing speed contests.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| skearney@accessbee.com 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
|
Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
> skearney@accessbee.com wrote:
typist[color=darkred]
>
> Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
>
succession[color=darkred]
>
> Yes, and it occasionally caused jams. As far as I know, that led the
> designer to move some key combinations to alternate hands, because
> keystrokes from alternate sides were less prone to jamming. For
example,
> typing the word "the" alternates from left hand to right to left.
Many
> touch typists believe that this is a major advantage, just as
important
> as putting common keys on the home row.
>
> In any case, the keyboard was not designed to slow anybody down,
> especially not touch typists (who did not even exist). The inventor
> wanted people to type quickly and even held typing speed contests.
> --
> Bradd W. Szonye
> http://www.szonye.com/bradd
Your point about alternating hands is well taken, qwerty is almost as
strong as Dvorak in this respect. Still it does seem odd that e and i
are not on the home row where they would be alphabetically expected.
I have only my own limited subjective experience to judge from, and the
transposition has been easy to learn and pleasant to use. My hope is
that a keyboard maker or typing tutor company might see a niche market
and develope the software to determine if there is any benefit.
It would make for an interesting research project, even independent of
any benefit. How fast can something like this be learned by comparison
to Dvorak? What kind of mistakes are typically made? Is the learning
time better spent in many short sessions or a few long ones? Last but
not least, how well can qwerty skills be maintained?
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
> There's a more subtle issue with layout compatibility. Software with a
> lot of shortcut keys (like vi and many videogames) typically uses a
> combination of mnemonic and layout-based keys. For example, vi uses
> layout for movement (HJKL) and mnemonics for input (AIOS). Alternate
> keyboard layouts can only lead to madness (or at least extensive
> reconfiguration) in that situation.
Yes, that's why I'm off of vi, actually.
Getting used to the different Mac-shortcuts was easy, but I don't
use vi enough anymore to really adapt to it -- that's what Lisp
does to you ;)
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| skearney@accessbee.com wrote:
> Your point about alternating hands is well taken, qwerty is almost as
> strong as Dvorak in this respect. Still it does seem odd that e and i
> are not on the home row where they would be alphabetically expected.
> I have only my own limited subjective experience to judge from, and the
> transposition has been easy to learn and pleasant to use. My hope is
> that a keyboard maker or typing tutor company might see a niche market
> and develope the software to determine if there is any benefit.
> It would make for an interesting research project, even independent of
> any benefit. How fast can something like this be learned by comparison
> to Dvorak? What kind of mistakes are typically made? Is the learning
> time better spent in many short sessions or a few long ones? Last but
> not least, how well can qwerty skills be maintained?
Funny. I don't care much at all about alternating hands when
typing (although it sucks when one hand's index finger has to type
two chars in a row). Dvorak is good for hitting combinations with
one hand, since the home row is full of common characters.
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| skearney@accessbee.com 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
|
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> skearney@accessbee.com wrote:
as[color=darkred]
and i[color=darkred]
expected.[color=darkred]
the[color=darkred]
is[color=darkred]
market[color=darkred]
of[color=darkred]
comparison[color=darkred]
learning[color=darkred]
but[color=darkred]
>
> Funny. I don't care much at all about alternating hands when
> typing (although it sucks when one hand's index finger has to type
> two chars in a row). Dvorak is good for hitting combinations with
> one hand, since the home row is full of common characters.
>
> --
> Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
I have read that the alternation between vowels, on the left side of
the Dvorak, and consonants on the right is one of its greatest
advantages. Wouldn't making a qwerty varient with a home row of common
characters yeild some of the same benefit?
The Dvorak puts about 70% of text on the home row, the etni swap about
60% and qwerty about 32%. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but it
does build on qwerty skill. It would be interesting to see tests done.
I have no doubt that Dvorak is a superior layout, qwerty has that quirk
that there are a lot of characters that have to be typed two in a row
by the same finger, like 'ed'.
Thanks for your posts, even critical ones, in this ng and in forth.
Corresponding with Dvorakians is the closest I can come to keyboard
elightenment.
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-13, 4:13 pm |
| skearney@accessbee.com wrote:
> I have read that the alternation between vowels, on the left side of
> the Dvorak, and consonants on the right is one of its greatest
> advantages. Wouldn't making a qwerty varient with a home row of
> common characters yeild some of the same benefit?
Putting the most common letters on the home row may not be the best
approach, because fingers don't naturally fall in a straight line. For
example, if I relax my hands and put them on the "home row," my middle
and ring fingers actually fall on the top row. For me at least, those
top-row, middle-finger keys are a shorter reach than the home-row center
keys (G and H on a QWERTY keyboard).
Taking hand shape into account, the "easiest" QWERTY keys (for me,
anyway) are A, W, S, E, D, F, J, I, K, O, L, and semicolon. After that,
I'd rate the other index-finger keys the easiest: R, T, G, V, B, U, Y,
H, N, M. The most difficult reaches are to Q, Z, P, and slash (long
travel for the weakest finger).
Compare that to lists of the most common letters at the Oxford Web site:
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexpe...words/frequency
ETAINOSHRDLUCMFWYGPBVKQJXZ (Samuel Morse's data)
EARIOTNSLCUDPMHGBFYWKVXZJQ (Frequences in the OED)
For easier comparison, here they are grouped by "ease of typing" (based
on my personal experience, and ignoring non-alphabetic characters);
Common/easy Rare/hard
ETAINOSHRDL | UCMFWYGPBV | KQJXZ (Morse)
EARIOTNSLCU | DPMHGBFYWK | VXZJQ (OED)
AWSEDFJIKOL | RTGVBUYHNM | XCQZP (QWERTY)
^ ^^^ !^!^^ ^^^^^^ ^ ^!^^
I've marked keys in the right general group with a caret (^) and keys
clearly in the wrong group with an exclamation mark (!). That's 17/26
"good" keys and 3/26 "bad" keys. For a simple measure of keyboard
quality, subtract the bad from the good: QWERTY is about 14/26 or 54%
well-suited to my personal ergonomics.
> The Dvorak puts about 70% of text on the home row, the etni swap about
> 60% and qwerty about 32%.
I'd be curious to see how these two other layouts match up according to
my ergonomic measure (which may not be valid for other people -- hand
shapes and dexterity both vary).
> I'm not saying it's for everyone, but it does build on qwerty skill.
Honestly, I don't think that swapping fewer keys would make it easier to
learn than Dvorak. If anything, it might create more confusion, by
relying on muscle memory for some keys but not others. A clean break
might be better.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-14, 4:08 pm |
| Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
> For easier comparison, here [are the English letters grouped by
> frequency and QWERTY] "ease of typing" (based on my personal
> experience, and ignoring non-alphabetic characters);
>
> Common/easy Rare/hard
> ETAINOSHRDL | UCMFWYGPBV | KQJXZ (Morse)
> EARIOTNSLCU | DPMHGBFYWK | VXZJQ (OED)
> AWSEDFJIKOL | RTGVBUYHNM | XCQZP (QWERTY)
> ^ ^^^ !^!^^ ^^^^^^ ^ ^!^^
>
> I've marked keys in the right general group with a caret (^) and keys
> clearly in the wrong group with an exclamation mark (!). That's 17/26
> "good" keys and 3/26 "bad" keys. For a simple measure of keyboard
> quality, subtract the bad from the good: QWERTY is about 14/26 or 54%
> well-suited to my personal ergonomics.
I looked up the Dvorak layout to see how it compares on this measure:
Common/easy Rare/hard
ETAINOSHRD | LUCMFWYGPB | VKQJXZ (Morse)
EARIOTNSLC | UDPMHGBFYW | KVXZJQ (OED)
AOEUHCTRNS | PYIXKGFDBM | QJWVLZ (Dvorak)
^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^!^
The Dvorak layout puts 20 out of 26 characters in the right group (i.e.,
common letters in strong typing positions, rare letters in weak typing
positions). It puts only one character in a "bad" group; the common L is
in the same odd position as QWERTY's letter P. That makes the Dvorak
layout about 19/26 or 73% in agreement with my personal typing
strengths.
Were I to design a keyboard, I'd lay it out something like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = Backspace
Q D O F G C U K S V [ ] \
A I E T , . H J L N ; Enter
Z Y X W B ' M P R / Shift
This mixes many of the same advantages as Dvorak and QWERTY: common
letters in the "home arc," common digraphs on alternating hands, rare
keys in the weak corners, and vi compatibility. It measures up thus:
Common/easy Rare/hard
ETAINOSHRDLU | CMFWYGP | BVKQJXZ (Morse)
EARIOTNSLCUD | PMHGBFY | WKVXZJQ (OED)
ADIOETHKJSLN | FGBWUCM | XYPRQZV
^^^^^^^!!^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^ !^^^
This also has 20 out of 26 good keys. It has two more "bad" keys than
Dvorak (K and J), but those keys make an inverted tee pattern out of
HJKL, which should be ideal for vi users. (That is, it's not perfect for
typing English, but people who rely on the HJKL movement keys use K and
J much more often than ordinary typists.)
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| skearney@accessbee.com 2005-05-14, 4:08 pm |
|
Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
> skearney@accessbee.com wrote:
of[color=darkred]
>
> Putting the most common letters on the home row may not be the best
> approach, because fingers don't naturally fall in a straight line.
For
> example, if I relax my hands and put them on the "home row," my
middle
> and ring fingers actually fall on the top row. For me at least, those
> top-row, middle-finger keys are a shorter reach than the home-row
center
> keys (G and H on a QWERTY keyboard).
>
> Taking hand shape into account, the "easiest" QWERTY keys (for me,
> anyway) are A, W, S, E, D, F, J, I, K, O, L, and semicolon. After
that,
> I'd rate the other index-finger keys the easiest: R, T, G, V, B, U,
Y,
> H, N, M. The most difficult reaches are to Q, Z, P, and slash (long
> travel for the weakest finger).
>
> Compare that to lists of the most common letters at the Oxford Web
site:
> http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexpe...words/frequency
>
> ETAINOSHRDLUCMFWYGPBVKQJXZ (Samuel Morse's data)
> EARIOTNSLCUDPMHGBFYWKVXZJQ (Frequences in the OED)
>
> For easier comparison, here they are grouped by "ease of typing"
(based
> on my personal experience, and ignoring non-alphabetic characters);
>
> Common/easy Rare/hard
> ETAINOSHRDL | UCMFWYGPBV | KQJXZ (Morse)
> EARIOTNSLCU | DPMHGBFYWK | VXZJQ (OED)
> AWSEDFJIKOL | RTGVBUYHNM | XCQZP (QWERTY)
> ^ ^^^ !^!^^ ^^^^^^ ^ ^!^^
>
> I've marked keys in the right general group with a caret (^) and keys
> clearly in the wrong group with an exclamation mark (!). That's 17/26
> "good" keys and 3/26 "bad" keys. For a simple measure of keyboard
> quality, subtract the bad from the good: QWERTY is about 14/26 or 54%
> well-suited to my personal ergonomics.
>
about[color=darkred]
>
> I'd be curious to see how these two other layouts match up according
to
> my ergonomic measure (which may not be valid for other people -- hand
> shapes and dexterity both vary).
>
skill.[color=darkred]
>
> Honestly, I don't think that swapping fewer keys would make it easier
to
> learn than Dvorak. If anything, it might create more confusion, by
> relying on muscle memory for some keys but not others. A clean break
> might be better.
> --
> Bradd W. Szonye
> http://www.szonye.com/bradd
The failure of the Dvorak to ever win any significant market share
became the prime argument for path dependence economic theory. Posters
have provided a link to the Liebowitz and Margolis 'The Parable of the
keys' article at least a dozen times. Your 'Rating of the keys' gives
the best insight I have read, into the 'why' of the parables conclusion
that Dvorak offers no real advantage that can't be had by using the
same time to practice on your qwerty.
The 'arc of the fingers' is a design element of some high end ergonomic
keyboards, the arc of keys is usually about a quarter of a key in
height. Often the keys are unstagered, in vertical columns. You might
check out 'Kinesis' or typematrix, but there are a lot of variations
out there.
My fingers do rest on the home row, and I use the feel of the home keys
to register the position of my fingers. That said, the upper row is
nearly as accessable and fast.
Even if putting etni on the home keys proves to be no better than
qwerty, it is worth finding out, there are a few insights about motor
skills to be gained from it with only a few minutes practice, that bear
on your suggestion that a clean break might be less confusing.
If you try out a line like: 'tall silent titan senses teen in tennis
net is tense' as if etni were on the home keys (fall skldjf fifan
sdjsds fddj ij fdjjks jdf ks fdjsd), you will likely find that you can
master it after a few dozen trys. If you try out ordinary text with
dfjk it becomes dramatically more difficult, you will be typing these
letters in their old locations and the effort it takes to reach the new
correct positions will make your fingers feel like they are made of
lead. It is this effort that lets you know you are going for the right
key, you know it will use the same finger. It would really be
interesting to find out if it can be learned faster and interferes less
with qwerty competency than learning the Dvorak or maltron layout. You
may be right, I hope some Phd candidate might find it suitable for a
thesis. Remembering to press where you would previously have reached,
and vice versa, might offer a significant advantage to 'motor
memorization' and the ability to 'switch without a glitch' back to
qwerty, or not. It is an intriguing question.
| |
| Ray Dillinger 2005-05-14, 4:08 pm |
|
Does anybody know where someone could get a custom
keyboard built? Searching on search engines reveals
scads of people willing to put different labels on
the keys of a standard keyboard, but what I actually
want is another row of keys between the spacebar and
the bottom row.
That would put the spacebar further back, which would
make it easier for me to hit with my thumb, and open
up more keys for some IPA and/or Gr characters.
Bear
| |
| skearney@accessbee.com 2005-05-14, 4:08 pm |
|
Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
> Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
keys[color=darkred]
17/26[color=darkred]
54%[color=darkred]
>
> I looked up the Dvorak layout to see how it compares on this measure:
>
> Common/easy Rare/hard
> ETAINOSHRD | LUCMFWYGPB | VKQJXZ (Morse)
> EARIOTNSLC | UDPMHGBFYW | KVXZJQ (OED)
> AOEUHCTRNS | PYIXKGFDBM | QJWVLZ (Dvorak)
> ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^!^
>
> The Dvorak layout puts 20 out of 26 characters in the right group
(i.e.,
> common letters in strong typing positions, rare letters in weak
typing
> positions). It puts only one character in a "bad" group; the common L
is
> in the same odd position as QWERTY's letter P. That makes the Dvorak
> layout about 19/26 or 73% in agreement with my personal typing
> strengths.
>
> Were I to design a keyboard, I'd lay it out something like this:
>
> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = Backspace
> Q D O F G C U K S V [ ] \
> A I E T , . H J L N ; Enter
> Z Y X W B ' M P R / Shift
>
> This mixes many of the same advantages as Dvorak and QWERTY: common
> letters in the "home arc," common digraphs on alternating hands, rare
> keys in the weak corners, and vi compatibility. It measures up thus:
>
> Common/easy Rare/hard
> ETAINOSHRDLU | CMFWYGP | BVKQJXZ (Morse)
> EARIOTNSLCUD | PMHGBFY | WKVXZJQ (OED)
> ADIOETHKJSLN | FGBWUCM | XYPRQZV
> ^^^^^^^!!^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^ !^^^
>
> This also has 20 out of 26 good keys. It has two more "bad" keys than
> Dvorak (K and J), but those keys make an inverted tee pattern out of
> HJKL, which should be ideal for vi users. (That is, it's not perfect
for
> typing English, but people who rely on the HJKL movement keys use K
and
> J much more often than ordinary typists.)
> --
> Bradd W. Szonye
> http://www.szonye.com/bradd
I wanted to look over your design more closely before commenting on it.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = Backspace
Q D O F G C U K S V [ ] \
A I E T , . H J L N ; Enter
Z Y X W B ' M P R / Shift
I notice that a, e, t, f, g and h use the same fingers. Moving the I
to the left side makes good sense for alternating vowels and consonants
between hands like the Dvorak.
Keeping some of the other letters like zxcvb in the same place might
not really be better but I think it would sell better. It's not what
is the best but what people judge to be the best. I'll refer to the
Brad aiet keyboard as the brae akdf idyboare for the purpose of finding
it on google. Who knows, you could start a movement (or atleast maybe
a debate).
Thanks for taking the time to come up with something interesting.
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-14, 4:08 pm |
| skearney@accessbee.com wrote:
> I wanted to look over your design more closely before commenting on it.
>
> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = Backspace
> Q D O F G C U K S V [ ] \
> A I E T , . H J L N ; Enter
> Z Y X W B ' M P R / Shift
>
> I notice that a, e, t, f, g and h use the same fingers.
Yes, many keys are in the same vicinity as the QWERTY version. The
letters A, B, L, M, Q, U, and Z were already in good locations. I also
tried to avoid putting common digraphs (TH, HE, etc) on the same finger.
QWERTY is already pretty good about that, so I kept many of the same
clusters, especially A, Q, Z and B, F, G, T.
I'm not entirely happy with the result; I would've liked a better place
to put R, for example. It would also be nice to put the brackets and
arithmetic keys closer to center for programming, but that would've
meant moving some letters out of the center, and I just couldn't bring
myself to do it.
> Moving the I to the left side makes good sense for alternating vowels
> and consonants between hands like the Dvorak.
Yeah, I switched several letters to the opposite side (relative to
QWERTY) based on common digraphs. The basic plan was to put common
starting & ending letters (A, D, E, T) on the left -- opposite the
right-handed period and space bar -- and to put the vi movement keys on
the right "home arc." From there, I filled out the keyboard by putting
common digraphs on alternating hands as much as possible, with common
letters on the home arc, uncommon characters on the index fingers, and
rare letters in the corners. I moved the most common punctuation to the
center and left the uncommon punctuation almost identical to QWERTY.
> Keeping some of the other letters like zxcvb in the same place might
> not really be better but I think it would sell better.
I left some of them alone, but I found better homes for X, C, and V.
That breaks up the Windows "cut/copy/paste" keys, but they should still
be easy to type. Ctrl+Z (undo) and Ctrl+Y (redo) are now adjacent. (I
actually put the Y there because it's the I-finger, and YI/IY is a very
rare digraph.)
> It's not what is the best but what people judge to be the best. I'll
> refer to the Brad aiet keyboard as the brae akdf idyboare for the
> purpose of finding it on google. Who knows, you could start a
> movement (or atleast maybe a debate). Thanks for taking the time to
> come up with something interesting.
Heh, no problem. I'm pretty happy with QWERTY already; my typing speed
is about 60 wpm for programming and 70-80 wpm for text, so I don't have
much incentive to change. However, if I were king of the world, this is
how I might design a keyboard.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-14, 4:08 pm |
| Ray Dillinger <bear@sonic.net> wrote:
> Does anybody know where someone could get a custom keyboard built?
> Searching on search engines reveals scads of people willing to put
> different labels on the keys of a standard keyboard, but what I
> actually want is another row of keys between the spacebar and the
> bottom row.
I don't know of any custom keyboard manufacturers, but it is possible to
make your own keyboard. Here's a guy who built his own one-handed
keyboard (to free up his right hand for mousing):
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~ian...k/keyboard.html
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| Neil W. Van Dyke 2005-05-14, 4:08 pm |
|
This thread reminded me that most US keyboards (and probably others)
require a shift key modifier to type parenthesis characters.
Quack 0.28 can now kludge around these Lispophobic keyboards, letting
you type the unshifted square-bracket keys to insert paren characters.
See the "Quack -> Options -> Smart Open-Paren" toggle menu item.
http://www.neilvandyke.org/quack/
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-14, 4:08 pm |
| Neil W. Van Dyke <neil@neilvandyke.org> wrote:
> This thread reminded me that most US keyboards (and probably others)
> require a shift key modifier to type parenthesis characters.
>
> Quack 0.28 can now kludge around these Lispophobic keyboards, letting
> you type the unshifted square-bracket keys to insert paren characters.
Related to this, I found the "Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator," which
lets you create your own keyboard layout for Windows. It's a great tool,
but I have one major complaint: For some reason, when I load my own
layouts, Ctrl+[ tends to stop working as "escape" in Vim. No clue why.
Get the tool here, and put the parens anywhere you want:
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| Matthias Buelow 2005-05-14, 7:14 pm |
| Bradd W. Szonye wrote:
> Heh, no problem. I'm pretty happy with QWERTY already; my typing speed
> is about 60 wpm for programming and 70-80 wpm for text, so I don't have
> much incentive to change. However, if I were king of the world, this is
> how I might design a keyboard.
If you were king of the world, however, it would be better to design a
keyboard for the whole world and not just the english speaking part.
This probably isn't possible in one layout, so you'd have to design a
whole set of layouts.
mkb.
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-15, 8:57 am |
| Matthias Buelow <mkb@incubus.de> writes:
> Besides.. who needs ultra-fast typing? Secretaries perhaps but who else?
I write fiction, scripts and song lyrics. I need fast typing.
I've done volunteer work as a secretary, too.
I switched to dvorak not for speed, but for safety. Dvorak-fingers
have to do a fraction of the work compared to qwerty-fingers. I don't
want to hurt my hands.
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-15, 8:57 am |
| "Bradd W. Szonye" <bradd+news@szonye.com> writes:
> skearney@accessbee.com wrote:
>
> It's been said, but it's not true. The layout of the keyboard was fixed
> before touch-typing was invented (and therefore before there was a "home
> row").
The keys were moved around in order to prevent jamming. That's the
history. Nothing about "slowing down" (the moving was done in a way
that disregarded typing speed; of course, it can be argued that a jam
will slow you down significantly, anyway) or "home row".
Just a few years after Sholes' QWERTY-layout typewriters without such
a significant jamming problem were invented.
The original keyboard layout was IIRC alphabetical.
> Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
>
> Agreed.
Disagreed; since some argue that the keyboard layout affects the
choice of IDE in which to Scheme in.
>
> FWIW, the best-known study showed that there's no significant benefit to
> typists already trained in QWERTY; they benefit more from additional
> QWERTY training than they do from re-training with Dvorak. Also, there's
> the problem that you can't easily share keyboards with other typists,
> which is a big deal in many circumstances.
Most of the badmouthing of dvorak historically has come from
pro-market economists who were terrified with the idea that the "best"
product (Dvorak) didn't succeed on the all-knowing (QWERTY-choosing)
market.
Of course, this is before the idea of network externalities was
studied as a concept in economics. "Network externalities" is a fancy
term for an idea that's obvious to the level of well-duh-ness - that
the choice of those you interact with strongly affect the choice you
make - i.e. if everyone around you use keyboard layout X, you're
likely to do so as well. (The same goes for operating systems, by the
way.)
> Alternative keyboards might improve productivity if everyone used them,
> but that's unlikely to happen so long as there's a large pool of QWERTY
> typists, because (1) compatibility is important, and (2) the alternatives
> don't actually help much unless it's what you learn first.
Remapping a keyboard these days is done in seconds on most major OS:s.
> Then again, research shows that you can get similar benefits if you're
> willing to exercise your QWERTY skills for two ws, and you can still
> use other people's keyboards.
That research has been seriously questioned, and regardless - it only
discussed speed benefits, not ergonomical benefits.
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-15, 8:57 pm |
| Adrian Kubala <adrian-news@sixfingeredman.net> writes:
> In that case, I'd say your proposal is to Dvorak as Python is to
> scheme -- steals some ideas, but misses the core, and if you're
> going to go that far why not go all the way?
At risk of sounding like I just came off AOL, I agree fully with the above.
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-16, 4:00 pm |
| Sunnan wrote:
>
>
> Disagreed; since some argue that the keyboard layout affects the
> choice of IDE in which to Scheme in.
Switching layouts didn't change anything about my IDEs, except (of
course) the keyboard shortcuts, but those you just switch along
with the rest (or remap them).
In what way did switching to Dvorak preclude you from certain
IDEs? Usually they have an event-layer for input and don't even
know that such things as keyboard layouts *exist*.
> Of course, this is before the idea of network externalities was
> studied as a concept in economics. "Network externalities" is a fancy
> term for an idea that's obvious to the level of well-duh-ness - that
> the choice of those you interact with strongly affect the choice you
> make - i.e. if everyone around you use keyboard layout X, you're
> likely to do so as well. (The same goes for operating systems, by the
> way.)
Of course that affects your choice, but in the end I consider
group pressure only a form of stupidity. I choose most things
based on value in my opinion. I was the first among people I know
to try out all kinds of OSes, alternative prog. languages, the
first to buy a Mac, even though everybody liked to make fun of me
for that, the, argh, second to try out a different keyboard-layout
(a friend of mine uses some layout adapted to the German
language). Why should I care if everybody else uses Windows,
smokes, buys clothes with huge brand-tags (such as FILA) on it
(that I find embarrassing and ridiculous), and listen to the same
music as everybody else (I pretty much listen to the union of
music tastes of narrow-minded individuals; great way to shock
people to put on Destiny's Child or Sepultura, Jazz or Freestyle
Techno, Classical or Funk, whoever you're with ;) )? Only for
computer gaming is there a reason to use the same system (that
determines what games you can play with your friends), but then I
don't play at all, so I just pass on that activity.
> That research has been seriously questioned, and regardless - it only
> discussed speed benefits, not ergonomical benefits.
I agree. My major reason when switching was also to reduce work
for my hands to prevent all those programming disorders you can
get from too much typing.
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-16, 8:58 pm |
| Ray Dillinger <bear@sonic.net> wrote:
> Does anybody know where someone could get a custom keyboard built?
> Searching on search engines reveals scads of people willing to put
> different labels on the keys of a standard keyboard, but what I
> actually want is another row of keys between the spacebar and the
> bottom row.
>
> That would put the spacebar further back, which would make it easier
> for me to hit with my thumb, and open up more keys for some IPA and/or
> Gr characters.
Have you tried using a European or "US International" keyboard layout?
While it won't help you with the physical location of the space bar, it
will give you access to many more characters from a standard keyboard.
Most international layouts turn the right Alt key into an "AltGr" key,
giving you access to an additional shift state.[*] The layouts then
assign AltGr+key and Shift+AltGr+key to access new characters. An
international layout could produce up to double the characters of a
standard US layout.
Some layouts go even farther and use the Caps Lock key to create another
set of shift states. This approach is called "SGCAPS," after the Swiss
German keyboard that uses it. It effectively turns Caps Lock into a
quick language-switching key.
If you use Windows, you can use the MSCKL software to create your own
layouts. It works pretty well, with one major exception: It doesn't set
up the standard control keys for ^@, ^^, ^[, ^\, ^], and ^_, which makes
it very difficult to use some terminal emulators and Unix-style editors.
For example, Vim 6.3 and CRT can simulate some of those control
sequences themselves, but they rely on the keyboard driver to translate
Ctrl+[ into ^[ (escape), and MSCKL-created layouts don't do that.
Also, some Windows software doesn't cope well with characters from
outside the current code page. For example, in Vim I can enter both
Latin (cp1252) and Gr (cp1253) characters in the same document by
switching keyboard layouts or using the compose key, but if I try to use
a keyboard layout that mixes cp1252 and cp1253, Vim gets  . I was
actually a bit surprised by that, since Vim's multilingual support is
otherwise very impressive.
[*] Well, not exactly. The AltGr key is actually equivalent to pressing
Ctrl+Alt, so it's not actually a "new" shift state. However, AltGr
makes it /practical/ to type Ctrl+Alt+key.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| Matthias Buelow 2005-05-16, 8:58 pm |
| Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> In what way did switching to Dvorak preclude you from certain IDEs?
> Usually they have an event-layer for input and don't even know that such
> things as keyboard layouts *exist*.
If you're used to certain keybindings (e.g., vi, emacs, wordstar) it's
very hard to switch to a different layout, even if you can remap (some)
keys. That may not be relevant for you but for people who've been using
the same keybindings for 10 years, or even several decades, it certainly
is. Especially when those keybindings are optimized for querty-style
keyboards and destroy all the (theoretically) improved ergonomics that
might exist on the new layout (try using vi's hjkl or emacs'
ctrl+b/ctrl+f on a dvorak keyboard all the time...)
> but then I don't play at all, so I just pass on that
> activity.
Who would've guessed...
mkb.
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-16, 8:58 pm |
| Matthias Buelow wrote:
> Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
>
>
>
>
> If you're used to certain keybindings (e.g., vi, emacs, wordstar) it's
> very hard to switch to a different layout, even if you can remap (some)
> keys. That may not be relevant for you but for people who've been using
> the same keybindings for 10 years, or even several decades, it certainly
> is. Especially when those keybindings are optimized for querty-style
> keyboards and destroy all the (theoretically) improved ergonomics that
> might exist on the new layout (try using vi's hjkl or emacs'
> ctrl+b/ctrl+f on a dvorak keyboard all the time...)
Sure it's hard to switch, but that's because you switch *all your
keyboard*. I found it easier than I feared initially to switch to
the newly translated shortcuts; it comes with changing your
typing; you think of cmd-S and hit the new S :) ... Admittedly I
didn't use vi ever since, but that's more because I'm happy with
the Mac's normal editing features.
hjkl doesn't feel too weird I guess, it's all about getting your
brain to hit it automatically. When I was new to vi, I found the
hj thing totally weird, got used to it ;)
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| Matthias Buelow 2005-05-16, 8:58 pm |
| Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> newly translated shortcuts; it comes with changing your typing; you
> think of cmd-S and hit the new S :) ... Admittedly I didn't use vi ever
I don't think consciously about keybindings.. my fingers autonomously
press the right spots on the keyboard when I type.
> hjkl doesn't feel too weird I guess, it's all about getting your brain
> to hit it automatically. When I was new to vi, I found the hj thing
> totally weird, got used to it ;)
When I visualize "left" or "right, etc. the appropriate fingers start
itching. It doesn't work if the keys all of a sudden are somewhere
else. You basically have to reset the muscle memory and train it anew.
In addition, on dvorak, the keys for the basic cursor motion bindings
for both emacs and vi are badly positioned (hjkl not consecutive,
ctrl+f/b stretch [at least my] hands) so I'd think that the practical
ergonomics of that layout will in fact be a lot worse than querty. It's
bad enough already here in thunderbird, where I have to use the godsdamn
arrow keys, and ctrl+w closes the window.
mkb.
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-17, 4:00 pm |
| Ulrich Hobelmann <u.hobelmann@web.de> writes:
> In what way did switching to Dvorak preclude you from certain IDEs?
> Usually they have an event-layer for input and don't even know that
> such things as keyboard layouts *exist*.
The discussion of Dvorak specifically came up in the context of vi's
hjkl movement keys.
>
> Of course that affects your choice, but in the end I consider group
> pressure only a form of stupidity. I choose most things based on
> value in my opinion. I was the first among people I know to try out
> all kinds of OSes, alternative prog. languages, the first to buy a
What you're saying above does nothing but suggest the reality of
network externalities - even if group pressure is merely "stupitidy",
it *does* exist, and it does explain the popularity of QWERTY better
than any staged research can. (I'm referring specifically to _The Fable
of the Keys_ here.)
> Why should I care if everybody else uses Windows, smokes, buys
> clothes with huge brand-tags (such as FILA) on it (that I find
> embarrassing and ridiculous), and listen to the same music as
> everybody else
Most (not all) smokers I've talked to: "Yeah, I don't really want to
smoke. I made a mistake starting."
Most brand-wearers I've talked to: "Huh? I've never thought of it like
that."
Most mac-users/advocates I've talked to: "Yeah, I'm so alternative, I
would never fall for any advertising, peer pressure is for idiots. I'm
Thinking Different (tm). Oh, and I drink OK Soda."
FWIW, I *am* affected by advertising ("corporate propaganda") and it's
takes effort to resist, and I try my best not to fall for it. I'd be
happy to see less of it.
Sunnan
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-17, 4:00 pm |
| "Bradd W. Szonye" <bradd+news@szonye.com> writes:
> [*] Well, not exactly. The AltGr key is actually equivalent to pressing
> Ctrl+Alt, so it's not actually a "new" shift state. However, AltGr
> makes it /practical/ to type Ctrl+Alt+key.
This equivalence holds for Windows only, not for, say, the X window system.
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-17, 4:00 pm |
| Matthias Buelow <mkb@incubus.de> writes:
> ctrl+f/b stretch [at least my] hands) so I'd think that the practical
C-b is actually easier to hit on dvorak than on QWERTY. I use C-e more
often than C-f.
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-17, 4:00 pm |
| Sunnan <sunnan@handgranat.org> wrote:
> "Bradd W. Szonye" <bradd+news@szonye.com> writes:
>
> This equivalence holds for Windows only, not for, say, the X window system.
Correct. I was mostly talking about Windows in this article.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-17, 4:00 pm |
| Bradd W. Szonye <bradd+news@szonye.com> wrote:
> If you use Windows, you can use the MSCKL software to create your own
> layouts. It works pretty well, with one major exception: It doesn't
> set up the standard control keys for ^@, ^^, ^[, ^\, ^], and ^_, which
> makes it very difficult to use some terminal emulators and Unix-style
> editors.
I figured out how to fix this. If you're interested in the tool, and
this might be a problem for you, drop me an e-mail and I'll explain how
to enter the necessary data in the tool.
> Also, some Windows software doesn't cope well with characters from
> outside the current code page. For example, in Vim I can enter both
> Latin (cp1252) and Gr (cp1253) characters in the same document by
> switching keyboard layouts or using the compose key, but if I try to
> use a keyboard layout that mixes cp1252 and cp1253, Vim gets .
> I was actually a bit surprised by that, since Vim's multilingual
> support is otherwise very impressive.
Still can't figure out what causes this. Vim doesn't normally care about
code pages, and it'll accept any Unicode character on Unix, but for some
reason it filters keyboard input through a code page on Windows. This is
annoying, because I'd like to use one layout with both Latin and Gr
characters (for math & CS type stuff). Although Windows chokes on the
huge number of dead keys required to support two complete scripts
anyway, so I may as well use two languages (Latin & Gr). Still
annoying, though.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-17, 4:00 pm |
| Sunnan wrote:
> What you're saying above does nothing but suggest the reality of
> network externalities - even if group pressure is merely "stupitidy",
> it *does* exist, and it does explain the popularity of QWERTY better
> than any staged research can. (I'm referring specifically to _The Fable
> of the Keys_ here.)
Sure, it exists and indeed explains (non-) popularity of many
things. I'm just saying that everybody can make decisions on
their own (can't they?) and with the keymap-switching integrated
in at least Windows 2000+XP and Mac OS X there's no real problem
for anybody to switch to Dvorak. If they don't want to, they
don't want to, fine.
>
>
> Most (not all) smokers I've talked to: "Yeah, I don't really want to
> smoke. I made a mistake starting."
That's interesting. I wonder why people don't ever think *before*
they do things that are known to be so unhealthy and expensive (in
Germany at least) ;)
> Most brand-wearers I've talked to: "Huh? I've never thought of it like
> that."
> Most mac-users/advocates I've talked to: "Yeah, I'm so alternative, I
> would never fall for any advertising, peer pressure is for idiots. I'm
> Thinking Different (tm). Oh, and I drink OK Soda."
OMG... I mean I think I certainly *am* different, and all my
friends agree there :D, but that's not better or worse than
anything else, it's what I am. People who want to be alternative
just to be alternative are so pathetic. Most of them listen to
the same alternative mainstream as all the other "alternative"
people, wear the same "alternative" mainstream clothes, etc. It's
just another mainstream. The same in large parts of the Mac and
Linux world (oh we're so much better, Wind0ws sux), maybe in some
programming language communities too (I love bashing C++ and Java,
but I think there are technical facts that they suck ;) ).
> FWIW, I *am* affected by advertising ("corporate propaganda") and it's
> takes effort to resist, and I try my best not to fall for it. I'd be
> happy to see less of it.
Maybe I am influenced. I certainly have (limited) sympathy for
some brands, but I don't think that's bad. In the end I buy what
I like, otherwise I don't :)
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-17, 8:59 pm |
| Ulrich Hobelmann <u.hobelmann@web.de> writes:
> Sure, it exists and indeed explains (non-) popularity of many things.
> I'm just saying that everybody can make decisions on their own (can't
> they?)
Let's just say that it's harder than it looks.
> and with the keymap-switching integrated in at least Windows
> 2000+XP and Mac OS X there's no real problem for anybody to switch to
> Dvorak. If they don't want to, they don't want to, fine.
I'm guessing over 50% of the computer-using populace have never even
*heard* of Dvorak.
>
> That's interesting. I wonder why people don't ever think *before*
> they do things that are known to be so unhealthy and expensive
I can think of a couple of reasons;
* peer pressure
* it "look " or dangerous
* movies and television
* advertizing (including branding and prominent position in stores)
I've been very tempted to try smoking many times. (I've never tried
it; I'd probably get hooked.)
> (in Germany at least) ;)
That's an important distinction - third world countries have more
problems with smoking than, say, Germany. My guess is because
corporations are even more ruthless and aggressive there.
> OMG... I mean I think I certainly *am* different, and all my friends
> agree there :D, but that's not better or worse than anything else,
> it's what I am. People who want to be alternative just to be
> alternative are so pathetic.
This is a commonly held position, especially among people who want to
be alternative; people who grudgingly have to accept that they were
the /second/ among their friends to switch to an alternate keyboard
layout, for example.
> The same in large parts of the Mac and Linux world (oh we're so much
> better, Wind0ws sux),
But you think it does suck, right?
> maybe in some programming language communities too (I love bashing
> C++ and Java, but I think there are technical facts that they suck
> ;) ).
It goes on in all programming language communities I've ever seen.
>
> Maybe I am influenced. I certainly have (limited) sympathy for some
> brands, but I don't think that's bad.
I do think brand name sympathy is a problem. I guess our opinions
differ, there.
Sunnan
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Matthias Buelow 2005-05-17, 8:59 pm |
| Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> That's interesting. I wonder why people don't ever think *before* they
> do things that are known to be so unhealthy and expensive (in Germany at
> least) ;)
Like.. living?
mkb.
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-17, 8:59 pm |
| Sunnan wrote:
>
>
> I can think of a couple of reasons;
> * peer pressure
means that you have poor self esteem or no own identity
> * it "look " or dangerous
= pathetic (if you need it)
dangerous: one more reason to just leave it, if there's nothing
compellingly positive about it
> * movies and television
again, tells that the person is of weak character
> * advertizing (including branding and prominent position in stores)
advertising can only portray the product, either as useful
(technical products maybe), or in this case using a handful
attractive teen-agers that smoke, smile and kiss. Ugh, kissing
and cigarettes.... well nevermind. If *that* makes anyone buy
cigarettes, that's more pathetic than all of the above combined.
> I've been very tempted to try smoking many times. (I've never tried
> it; I'd probably get hooked.)
I've smoked maybe 15 cigarettes in my life, over the years
(starting when I was 18 I think) -- just because in those moments
I felt like it / wanted to. I enjoyed them. But there's no way
I'd start smoking for other reasons. And most of the time I
certainly *don't* want to smoke, just like most 10 year-olds are
disgusted by smoke.
>
>
> That's an important distinction - third world countries have more
> problems with smoking than, say, Germany. My guess is because
> corporations are even more ruthless and aggressive there.
Taxes and thus prices are much lower. Don't blame the people who
sell drugs. Of course, don't blame the users, either, for staying
addicted (like the USA's ineffective drug politics), only for
getting addicted; addiction is a disease, technically, so if
people want to get cured, they need help.
>
>
> This is a commonly held position, especially among people who want to
> be alternative; people who grudgingly have to accept that they were
> the /second/ among their friends to switch to an alternate keyboard
> layout, for example.
I just mentioned it ;) I couldn't care less who else in this
world uses what operating system, what keyboard layout, whatever.
Maybe you didn't understand my post.
I don't give a s**t about being alternative, either. I think of
myself as just normal, because I don't care about fads and
fashions, and in the end that makes me much more individual than
most "alternatives" who continually have to bash Windows-users or
maybe non-dvorakers.
>
>
> But you think it does suck, right?
I hate Windows for technical reasons, because it has wasted many
many hours of my life. But if other people like to use it, that's
their thing. I don't mind. I just don't want to get hurt
(time-wise or whatever) by the system, so I don't use it myself.
Linux and the Mac suck too, by the way. Currently the Mac is just
the least annoying thing for me, so I'm kind of happy with it.
>
>
> It goes on in all programming language communities I've ever seen.
As with Windows, I just don't want to do C++ or Java, but there's
thousands of people out there using it (or using their
newsgroups), and I couldn't care less.
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-17, 8:59 pm |
| Matthias Buelow wrote:
> Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Like.. living?
That one made me smile :)
Sure, life is hard, but if anybody doesn't like it, they are free
to stop living. I'm not one of those religious dudes that cry out
about mortal sins here.
Sure, suicide sucks and isn't good, but then who am I to decide
who has to go on living?
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-18, 4:02 am |
| Ulrich Hobelmann <u.hobelmann@web.de> writes:
>
> means that you have poor self esteem or no own identity
I guess I have a wider definition of "peer pressure" than you do.
>
> again, tells that the person is of weak character
.... and weak characters deserve to die from lung/heart disease? Is
that what necessarily follows from your reasoning?
>
> advertising can only portray the product, either as useful (technical
> products maybe), or in this case using a handful attractive teen-agers
> that smoke, smile and kiss. Ugh, kissing and cigarettes.... well
> nevermind. If *that* makes anyone buy cigarettes, that's more
> pathetic than all of the above combined.
Seems you missed my parenthesised comment. Cigarettes *are* very
visible in our society - this is in itself powerful advertising.
>
> I've smoked maybe 15 cigarettes in my life, over the years (starting
> when I was 18 I think) -- just because in those moments I felt like it
> / wanted to. I enjoyed them. But there's no way I'd start smoking
> for other reasons.
So you've smoked. Does that make you a weak character? There are
always reasons for everything. Don't put all the blame on the victim.
> Taxes and thus prices are much lower. Don't blame the people who sell
> drugs.
Why shouldn't I blame them? "No one's holding a gun to their head."
"It's a free society." Then again, you might argue that the
dog-eat-dog world of today's economy strongly encourages (legal and
otherwise) drug selling, and that that's a problem.
> Of course, don't blame the users, either, for staying addicted
> (like the USA's ineffective drug politics), only for getting addicted;
> addiction is a disease, technically, so if people want to get cured,
> they need help.
Drug addiction, including tobacco addiction, is a disease that several
large corporations (and illegal organizations) benefit from and help
spread.
> Maybe you didn't understand my post.
That's certainly possible.
> I don't give a s**t about being alternative, either. I think of
> myself as just normal, because I don't care about fads and fashions,
> and in the end that makes me much more individual than most
> "alternatives" who continually have to bash Windows-users or maybe
> non-dvorakers.
I've never intended to make this to be about you and your self-image
(as a normal non-"alternative") and I apologize if the discourse have
gone in that direction.
Personally, I'm somewhat susceptible to "alternative" marketing but I
try to fight it as much as I can.
>
> I hate Windows for technical reasons, because it has wasted many many
> hours of my life. But if other people like to use it, that's their
> thing. I don't mind. I just don't want to get hurt (time-wise or
> whatever) by the system, so I don't use it myself.
Consistent with the "save yourself, ignore others" position you're
arguing for.
I could never get the "lone wolf" thing to work.
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-18, 8:58 am |
| Sunnan wrote:
>
>
> ... and weak characters deserve to die from lung/heart disease? Is
> that what necessarily follows from your reasoning?
I said below that addiction is a disease and those people need
help. If they *want* to go on smoking of course, that's their own
decision.
>
>
> So you've smoked. Does that make you a weak character? There are
> always reasons for everything. Don't put all the blame on the victim.
Well, I didn't care enough to get hooked on it. I chose to smoke
those handful of cigarettes. Everybody else can do as they please.
>
>
> Why shouldn't I blame them? "No one's holding a gun to their head."
> "It's a free society." Then again, you might argue that the
> dog-eat-dog world of today's economy strongly encourages (legal and
> otherwise) drug selling, and that that's a problem.
Why don't the USA succeed with their restrictive drug politics?
Why do many less people in the Netherlands smoke pot, compared to
Germany, where's it's more prohibited?
I don't think freedom is a problem for drug use.
>
>
> Drug addiction, including tobacco addiction, is a disease that several
> large corporations (and illegal organizations) benefit from and help
> spread.
Sure. But that's because there is a demand. The prohibition
didn't really work out, either, as do the prohibition of pot in
many countries or drug prohibition in general. Would you touch
heroin if it was legal? I wouldn't.
As it is, illegal "corporations" profit from Coke and heroin
dealing. That's the black market; in a world where drugs are
legal there would be a white market, and a much cheaper police and
less people in prisons. To me that would look better.
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-18, 8:58 am |
| Ulrich Hobelmann <u.hobelmann@web.de> writes:
>
> Why don't the USA succeed with their restrictive drug politics? Why do
> many less people in the Netherlands smoke pot, compared to Germany,
> where's it's more prohibited?
>
> I don't think freedom is a problem for drug use.
<snip>
> Sure. But that's because there is a demand. The prohibition didn't
> really work out, either, as do the prohibition of pot in many
> countries or drug prohibition in general. Would you touch heroin if
> it was legal? I wouldn't.
You misunderstand me; I'm not talking about legalization or
illegalization of particular drugs.
I'm talking about the problems of marketing, advertising and
commercial presence; encouraged in today's corporate machinery. "If we
corporations don't advertise, how will people know what they need?"
I'm sure heroin and mary jane would be even larger problems if they
were advertised to the extent that cigarettes are. There's no country
where the waitor brings you a "Cannabis list" similar to the wine
lists of today. There's no country where every supermarket has heroin
on display, similar to the cigarette packets here.
> As it is, illegal "corporations" profit from Coke and heroin dealing.
Yes, "pushed" on streets, schoolyards and at parties. That's
marketing, too, and the same motivation for it applies - people and
organisations "need to" sell their products to "make a living" because
that's how competition works.
I believe that the world needs more cooperation.
ObScheme: Like the SRFI process, which I like very much. It's
decentralized and voluntary (you can choose which SRFIs to use and
implement), yet based on cooperation and sharing, and SRFIs aren't
pushed on us via marketing, they're just published.
> That's the black market; in a world where drugs are legal there would
> be a white market, and a much cheaper police and less people in
> prisons. To me that would look better.
This is orthogonal to the issue of marketing and consumer's rights.
Putting people in jail because they purchase or use dangerous drugs
looks like a "blaming the victim" thing, and I don't endorse it.
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-18, 4:01 pm |
| Sunnan wrote:
> I'm talking about the problems of marketing, advertising and
> commercial presence; encouraged in today's corporate machinery. "If we
> corporations don't advertise, how will people know what they need?"
Well, we might find out otherwise, but I don't mind advertising as
in "announce the new product to me". Certainly I can't think of
an alternative. Do you want to outlaw all advertising?
> I'm sure heroin and mary jane would be even larger problems if they
> were advertised to the extent that cigarettes are. There's no country
> where the waitor brings you a "Cannabis list" similar to the wine
> lists of today. There's no country where every supermarket has heroin
> on display, similar to the cigarette packets here.
I don't think it would be a real problem, since it's well known
that heroin pretty much ruins your life. Forever. Surely it would
be better to have special distribution only, for adults etc.
Cannabis is probably much less dangerous than alcohol, and much
less addictive than nicotine, so I don't think that's a bad one at
all.
>
>
> Yes, "pushed" on streets, schoolyards and at parties. That's
> marketing, too, and the same motivation for it applies - people and
> organisations "need to" sell their products to "make a living" because
> that's how competition works.
So what do you want to do about it, if that's how it works? My
solution is to live with it.
> I believe that the world needs more cooperation.
True. I agree, but cooperation is a voluntary thing, and people
cooperate all the time. Of course they only do so for good
reasons, and if there's something positive to be gained.
Buy-in-bulk communities come to mind, or maybe WLAN communities.
There should be more of this, and I'm sure with increasing
internetization of our culture cooperation will highly increase,
and also in the light of all those harmful mega-corporations.
Cooperation becomes a viable and important alternative to get what
the big multis don't do for you.
But I don't think that this should mean to outlaw advertising or
stuff like that.
> ObScheme: Like the SRFI process, which I like very much. It's
> decentralized and voluntary (you can choose which SRFIs to use and
> implement), yet based on cooperation and sharing, and SRFIs aren't
> pushed on us via marketing, they're just published.
True, as a testing thing this is good. Most SRFIs (?) also seem
to have portable R5RS implementations, so you can trivially add them.
In the end, though, I'd hope if new standard revisions would
include some of the "reforms" made. Other SRFIs could be made
into official libraries.
Anyway, Scheme needs more standard, especially a standard package
system, maybe even stardard structures etc., to allow more code
sharing. Again, current Scheme isn't good enough for cooperation,
unlike Perl (CPAN) or even Common Lisp.
> This is orthogonal to the issue of marketing and consumer's rights.
But if you restrict rights, people *will* subvert it, if those
restrictions touch their "natural" (universally, morally accepted)
rights.
Rights restrictions like "don't murder", "don't steal" don't need
justification, since everybody accepts them as natural.
> Putting people in jail because they purchase or use dangerous drugs
> looks like a "blaming the victim" thing, and I don't endorse it.
Yeah. Most of all it doesn't solve the problem of drug abuse, and
I don't get the US's concept there. Maybe they don't think? Or
maybe it's to cater to those fundamentalists that think that drugs
are the devil and therefore all those bad people deserve to go to
hell, pardon, jail.
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-19, 4:00 am |
| Ulrich Hobelmann <u.hobelmann@web.de> writes:
> Well, we might find out otherwise, but I don't mind advertising as in
> "announce the new product to me".
There has to be a better way. Besides, not all new products are
beneficial.
> Certainly I can't think of an alternative. Do you want to outlaw all
> advertising?
It's easier to agree on problems than on solutions, so what follows is
my (highly subjective) point of view. I'm open to other suggestions.
I don't like laws. I particularly don't like the laws that protect and
encourage advertising.
I wish that the laws would at all times be on the anti-advertising
people's side, for example when it comes to using technical measures
like adblocking software, television advertising skipping and time
shifting and so on, as well as defacement and removal of advertising
in public places.
I wish that governments, non-profit organisations, corporations and
individuals would voluntary strive to miminize advertising and
displaying other entities advertisments. The goverment should not rent
out our public spaces to the advertisers.
I wish that we would shift to a more cooperative system of resource
distribution that didn't encourage the dog-eat-dog, gotta-be-seen
mentality that actually encourages advertising, scams and unnecessary,
harmful products.
Outlawing it? First let's try to stop encouraging it and stop
rewarding it!
> I don't think it would be a real problem, since it's well known that
> heroin pretty much ruins your life. Forever. Surely it would be
> better to have special distribution only, for adults etc.
Right; so you agree that prominent display and easy accessibility in
every supermarket is a problem; i.e. that "pushing" is a problem?
> So what do you want to do about it, if that's how it works? My
> solution is to live with it.
When I get the energy (I'm pretty sapped at the moment) I'll try some
consumer's rights advocacy, maybe start or join a worker's
cooperative, do some more economic / political writing, try to spread
some positive memes and memeplexes. (I don't think we can get away
from being subject to strong memetics in our society; so let's try
some helpful ones for a change.)
Other suggestions are welcome; let's all try some different protocols
and see what works.
> True. I agree, but cooperation is a voluntary thing, and people
> cooperate all the time. Of course they only do so for good reasons,
> and if there's something positive to be gained. Buy-in-bulk
> communities come to mind, or maybe WLAN communities. There should be
> more of this, and I'm sure with increasing internetization of our
> culture cooperation will highly increase, and also in the light of all
> those harmful mega-corporations. Cooperation becomes a viable and
> important alternative to get what the big multis don't do for you.
Yeah, this is what I'm hoping.
> But I don't think that this should mean to outlaw advertising or stuff
> like that.
I live on an island in a dying, polluted sea - the Baltic sea - and I
think that this world is in much need of change. I've seen trailer
park slums in the US. I've seen the homeless in London; I've seen the
landless in South America, I've seen the prostitute junk addicts of
Stockholm.
I don't think laws are what'll help this world. But we need to start
doing *something*.
>
> True, as a testing thing this is good. Most SRFIs (?) also seem to
> have portable R5RS implementations, so you can trivially add them.
>
> In the end, though, I'd hope if new standard revisions would include
> some of the "reforms" made. Other SRFIs could be made into official
> libraries.
As long as the prerequisites for the SRFIs are made standard, I'm
fine. (For example, a gensymming mechanism should probably be added,
for syntax-case if nothing else.)
>
> But if you restrict rights, people *will* subvert it,
Yes.
> Rights restrictions like "don't murder", "don't steal" don't need
> justification, since everybody accepts them as natural.
That might be true.
>
> Yeah. Most of all it doesn't solve the problem of drug abuse, and I
> don't get the US's concept there. Maybe they don't think? Or maybe
> it's to cater to those fundamentalists that think that drugs are the
> devil and therefore all those bad people deserve to go to hell,
> pardon, jail.
The United States has a very heterogenous population and there are
some very good people living there. It's such a large country and
there are some very powerful people in control with agendas I don't
really understand the reasoning behind - and I think that neither do
they.
The fundamentalist religious right is also somewhat heterogenous and
not all of them believe in harsh prison punishments. Never-the-less, I
don't see any particular need to cater to them. Coupling religion with
power is never a good idea.
Sunnan
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Ulrich Hobelmann 2005-05-19, 4:00 am |
| Sunnan wrote:
> I don't like laws. I particularly don't like the laws that protect and
> encourage advertising.
There are (and don't need to be) any laws. Anything that's not
forbidden is legal. If you don't like opening a mag and seeing an
ad in there, don't buy it. If you don't like TV commercials, get
pay TV or just don't watch it at all. It's about freedom of
choice. Everything else, like restricting ads, would be laws that
to some people, like me, are very questionable.
> I wish that the laws would at all times be on the anti-advertising
> people's side, for example when it comes to using technical measures
> like adblocking software, television advertising skipping and time
> shifting and so on, as well as defacement and removal of advertising
> in public places.
Just quit raving about ads. Just ignore them. You can live
pretty well without ads; I did that for *years* (got a TV two
years ago; don't watch it very much).
But I agree that adblocking should be legal. In my view it is, as
I could tape stuff if I had a VCR and just skip the ads. I can
also tell my web browser to not load images and flash programs (I
do the latter, since flash sucks my CPU power and is just Oh So
Annoying).
About public places: well I suppose every place that carries an ad
is paid for (and rented out) by somebody, so removing those ads is
violation of someone's property. Watch out.
> I wish that governments, non-profit organisations, corporations and
> individuals would voluntary strive to miminize advertising and
> displaying other entities advertisments. The goverment should not rent
> out our public spaces to the advertisers.
Agreed. It's not theirs to rent out in the first place, it's the
peoples'.
> I wish that we would shift to a more cooperative system of resource
> distribution that didn't encourage the dog-eat-dog, gotta-be-seen
> mentality that actually encourages advertising, scams and unnecessary,
> harmful products.
>
> Outlawing it? First let's try to stop encouraging it and stop
> rewarding it!
I don't know who encourages harmful products, unless you're
talking of fast-food, soda, cigarettes, alcohol. But then I
occasionally enjoy three of those ;)
>
>
> Right; so you agree that prominent display and easy accessibility in
> every supermarket is a problem; i.e. that "pushing" is a problem?
Not really. But some other people (like you) might think that and
compromises can be ok too. And some people (kids) might not have
the sophistication yet to fully resist group pressure, so there
are reasons for outlawing drinking/smoking for kids.
>
>
> When I get the energy (I'm pretty sapped at the moment) I'll try some
> consumer's rights advocacy, maybe start or join a worker's
> cooperative, do some more economic / political writing, try to spread
> some positive memes and memeplexes. (I don't think we can get away
> from being subject to strong memetics in our society; so let's try
> some helpful ones for a change.)
I would feel like fighting the tide, but sure, that sounds good.
>
>
> I live on an island in a dying, polluted sea - the Baltic sea - and I
> think that this world is in much need of change. I've seen trailer
> park slums in the US. I've seen the homeless in London; I've seen the
> landless in South America, I've seen the prostitute junk addicts of
> Stockholm.
Yeah, people (companies) shouldn't be allowed to pollute stuff
that isn't theirs, like the environment. I think this is slowly
becoming a topic even in more right-wing and business-friendly
parties (seems to gain some importance with the German liberals).
> I don't think laws are what'll help this world. But we need to start
> doing *something*.
Well, as long as the state is who controls these things, some laws
against excessive pollution are necessary (or pollution taxation
etc.).
> The fundamentalist religious right is also somewhat heterogenous and
> not all of them believe in harsh prison punishments. Never-the-less, I
> don't see any particular need to cater to them. Coupling religion with
> power is never a good idea.
I think punishment is right, actually. I just don't think
everything they say should be illegal :)
Religion should definitely have no place in state, most of all in
such a multicultural, diverse nation as the USA.
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
| |
| Sunnan 2005-05-19, 8:57 am |
| Ulrich Hobelmann <u.hobelmann@web.de> writes:
> Sunnan wrote:
>
> There are (and don't need to be) any laws. Anything that's not
> forbidden is legal. If you don't like opening a mag and seeing an ad
> in there, don't buy it. If you don't like TV commercials, get pay TV
> or just don't watch it at all. It's about freedom of choice.
> Everything else, like restricting ads, would be laws that to some
> people, like me, are very questionable.
It took me years of living before I understood the problems with
advertising. Many people haven't understood it yet.
If this "freedom of choice" thing that you believe is in place is to
work, we need to talk about the problems with some choices. If this
amounts to "raving", so be it.
> But I agree that adblocking should be legal. In my view it is, as I
> could tape stuff if I had a VCR and just skip the ads. I can also
> tell my web browser to not load images and flash programs (I do the
> latter, since flash sucks my CPU power and is just Oh So Annoying).
If this is legal, it should stay legal, IMO.
> About public places: well I suppose every place that carries an ad is
> paid for (and rented out) by somebody, so removing those ads is
> violation of someone's property. Watch out.
If removal of those ads is illegal, that law should be changed, IMO.
I don't focus on laws. I haven't lost my belief in voluntary change.
>
> I don't know who encourages harmful products, unless you're talking of
> fast-food, soda, cigarettes, alcohol.
The list can be made very long, but the judgement of what constitutes
as harmful is subjective. For a few examples I consider gas-guzzling
SUVs, proprietary software, and many varieties of food to be more
harmful than helpful.
(Of course, the line is blurry - having a large car could make sense
if you need to carry a wheelchair around, for example.)
> But then I occasionally enjoy three of those ;)
I don't, but there aren't many good alternatives unless you're willing
to pour down money and effort. McDonald's is still cheaper than health
food.
>
> Not really. But some other people (like you) might think that and
> compromises can be ok too. And some people (kids) might not have the
> sophistication yet to fully resist group pressure, so there are
> reasons for outlawing drinking/smoking for kids.
It could be argued that anyone who smokes does it for a reason. That
reason is seldomly a will to harm themselves, but more often a
combination of other reasons - stress, peer pressure (even among
adults), companionship, a culture of sharing (hanging out with other
smokers).
These outer forces are as almost as strong for adults as they are for
kids.
>
> I would feel like fighting the tide, but sure, that sounds good.
It's one of those things no one can do by themselves. Hopefully I'll
get by with some help from my friends.
>
> Well, as long as the state is who controls these things, some laws
> against excessive pollution are necessary (or pollution taxation
> etc.).
That's possible, and maybe it's the only viable solution.
I'm somewhat idealist, though, and I can't help thinking that such
laws feels like patching up the worst problems caused by flawed
protocols.
>
> I think punishment is right, actually. I just don't think everything
> they say should be illegal :)
I have a hard time making up my mind on the issue of punishment. I
don't believe in revenge. Punishment / crime prevention is a
complicated issue.
> Religion should definitely have no place in state, most of all in such
> a multicultural, diverse nation as the USA.
Agreed.
--
..i mi'e snan .i mi rodo roda fraxu
| |
| Bradd W. Szonye 2005-05-19, 4:02 pm |
| Sunnan wrote:
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:[color=darkred]
> means that you have poor self esteem or no own identity
In my experience, peer pressure works more subtly than that. Overt
pressure isn't all that effective, because as you note it only takes a
bit of confidence to reject something you're not interested in.
Instead, I think it's the atmosphere of acceptance and accessibility
that gets people. As a child, I had no desire to smoke, and I hated my
parents' smoking. It didn't help that the only smokers I associated with
were adults (i.e., a group of people I didn't respect much at that age).
When my peers started smoking, that initially irritated me too, but it's
different when people you actually respect do it. Over time, that
changed the way I perceived smoking, until I was interested in at least
trying it. At that point, easy availability gets you far enough along
for the addiction to kick in. Oops.
The network effect is roughly similar. When it comes to communicating or
operating with other people, using an uncommon tool creates a lot of
little annoyances and barriers. In contrast, while a more common tool
may not be ideally suited for a job, it's much easier to find equipment,
training, and other users to work with. That alters your perception of
which tool is actually better -- the tool that's perfect in one respect
becomes annoying for lack of support and social networking, until the
cost outweighs the benefits. Meanwhile, the imperfect choice is more
attractive because it's more accessible and better accepted.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
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