Wisdom is the prime thing

Here are two interesting articles detailing various techniques for predicting the weather for the next couple days:

• http://www.wikihow.com/Predict-the-Weather-Without-a-Forecast
• http://www.instructables.com/id/STQ2K42FHC3AAIN/

The first article states:

By being observant, forming hypotheses, and testing your predictions, you can fine-tune your weather predicting abilities beyond what any article could ever instruct.

There’s a great graphic on The Boston Globe’s website called: How to Nap. From the article:

Research on pilots shows that a 26-minute “NASA” nap in flight (while the plane is manned by a copilot) enhanced performance by 34 percent and overall alertness by 54 percent. One Harvard study published this year showed that a 45-minute nap improves learning and memory.

My favorite part of the article was that a study last year showed that just thinking about taking a nap brought down blood pressure!

The Colemak keyboard layout is a new layout designed to make typing faster and more ergonomic. From the webpage:

The QWERTY layout was designed in the 19th century to allow typewriter salesmen to easily type the word “typewriter” and to prevent typebars from sticking. We’ve been stuck with QWERTY ever since. Colemak is a modern alternative to the QWERTY and Dvorak layouts. It is designed for efficient and ergonomic touch typing in English.
Learning Colemak is a one-time investment that will allow you to enjoy faster and pain-free typing for the rest of your life. Colemak is now the 3rd most popular keyboard layout for touch typing in English, after QWERTY and Dvorak.

The layout was built using a computer algorithm, unlike Dvorak.

Does it make sense for Dvorak users?

The Frequently Asked Questions page says:

The Colemak keyboard layout fixes all the issues mentioned above, and wins in virtually every criterion, but the difference will be less noticeable than the difference between QWERTY and Dvorak. The switch won’t be as easy for veteran Dvorak users. If you’re generally happy with Dvorak, you should probably stick with it.

What are the benefits of Colemak over Dvorak? The FAQ page lists a few, but the ones that matter the most to me are:

• ‘L’ and ‘S’ form a frequent same-finger digraph on the right pinky. Same-finger for the pinky is very rare in Colemak. In particular, Unix commands such as ‘ls -l’ are very uncomfortable to type.
• Some punctuation (in particular the curly/square brackets) is less comfortable to type on Dvorak. This affects mainly programmers and advanced Unix users.

So?

As a Dvorak, Linux user, I don’t see a strong enough incentive to switch. I use an alias (dir) for the ls command, and I’ve gotten used to the punctuation in the Dvorak layout. So neither of those reasons are compelling for me.

What about speed?

I played around with this handy typing test, and got a speed of about 100 WPM. The test results give you an idea of how many meters your fingers traveled during that test with different keyboards. For me, the distance was about the same with Colemak and Dvorak. The difference between QWERTY and Dvorak was huge, but there is nothing to be gained from moving from Dvorak to Colemak.

Had Colemak been available a few years ago when I switched to Dvorak, I might have chosen it instead.

If you have “rewards” cards, loyalty cards, and other cards you swipe for discounts in your favorite stores — definitely take a look at this brilliant website: http://www.justoneclubcard.com/.

Take a moment and listen to a recording of the author, Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953), reading his poem.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Links

• Audio recording
• Wikipedia article

I got to see one of these today: a robotic dinosaur. The Pleo homepage describes it as a “robotic baby dinosaur”. It has lots of sensors, and can be trained. I watched as it was trained to walk. It was pretty surprising when it was picked up and it start to nuzzle, coo in delight, and then fall asleep. The homepage has a little video showing what the dinosaur looks like and how it moves.

The Wikipedia article gives more details of its impressive specs. One interesting section from the article:

Recently, a video was releaased where a Pleo was tortured until he supposedly died. Most people doubt that he really ‘died’. However, it has been proven that extreme abuse WILL cause it to “die”, but it can be brought back to life.

There is even a video of this, that I won’t link to, but it makes the following statement:

We don’t recommend doing this. In fact, we killed our Pleo by the end of it. Don’t worry though. Eventually we got him up and running again, and after a few chin scratches and some petting he was his cute cheerful self again, so all seems forgiven. But just in case it isn’t, we now keep him locked in a drawer at night….

PS: Yes, we know we’re going to Pleo hell for this.

I came across an interesting site: http://www.phonetic.com that helps you come up with word combinations to help in memorizing a phone number.

Taken from a speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

According to Wikipedia,

Richard Porson (25 December 1759 – 25 September 1808) was an English classical scholar.

In addition to his renowned work with ancient Greek texts, he is remembered for his prodigious memory. It is said that he could remember the complete text of Homer, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, and works of Shakespeare, Milton, and Gibbon.

A most intriguing article appeared in the New York Times on June 17, 1877 about Porson. From the article:

On another occasion, calling upon a friend, Porson found him reading Thucydides. Being asked casually the meaning of some word he immediately repeated the context. “But how do you know that it was this passage I was reading?” asked his friend. “Because,” replied Porson, “the word only occurs twice in Thucydides; once on the right-hand page in the edition which you are now using, and once on the left. I observed on which side you looked, and accordingly I knew to which passage you referred.”

…

Upon one occasion he undertook to learn by heart the entire contents of the Morning Chronicle in a week; and he used to say he could repeat Roderick Random from beginning to end.

Now, The Adventures of Roderick Random is a 500-page book, with some 190,000 words.

I’ve split the content from this website into two separate locations, based on topic.

• Bible reading and research topics will continue on another site: Wisdom is the prime thing
• Everything else will continue on this site

Please update your bookmarks and feeds!