I'm finally getting my act together on the whole "learning the Dvorak keyboard" thing...

Compared to QWERTY, that thing is easy! Learn the home row, and you can type entire sentences. Sentences that make sense. And because you're typing sentences, you can remember them more easily. I love it. It's faster to learn than QWERTY was, and I was able to look at the keys when I learned QWERTY!

Big caveat, if you know how to touchtype in QWERTY, typing in Dvorak will mess you up if the key you want is on the same row in the two systems. VERY annoying. And because Dvorak words tend to alternate between the left and the right hand, if they don't you're likely to flounder and hit the QWERTY equivilant instead. At least, I am.

Still, it's going well. I switched off to QWERTY to do my real typing. I'm not going to try really typing on Dvorak until I have at least a semi-decent typing speed (that is, 40wpm or above), so it'll probably take longer to learn than it otherwise would.

Time for the Stuy test again!

( Article inside )

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/education/25tests.html?oref=login

I remember my Stuy test... ah, those were the days. God, that school made me miserable, but I still think of it as home in a way. Pathetic, really.

The NY1 article is here, no signup needed.

So, they aren't naming the boat the 9/11 after all...

Instead, they seem to have decided on the "Spirit of America".

Eh. Bit maudlin. I mean anything is better than "The 9/11" (like we don't already have one death boat, we need another?) but... Spirit of America? *rolls her eyes loudly*

How can you ride a boat with a name like that?

*gigglesnorts*

Best reason NOT to vote for Nader

Satch and Bucky will getcha!

Ooh!

I have 1,276 support points! 101 more and I'll be l337!

*watches closely*

OMG!

I was logging into hotmail, when I noticed something scary... A serious MSN article! I mean, not "how to tell if your shoes are shallow" or "how to completely fuck up a relationship" or even "how to tell that you pay way too much attention to these stupid articles", but one about weapons which have gone missing in Iraq. I am scared. This is one of those signs of the apocalypse, isn't it?

Apparently, "The IAEA fears “that these explosives could have fallen into the wrong hands,” said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the agency." Hard to tell whose the right hands are....

Anyway. Go back to your daily business. The other articles at MSN are typically inane. This is, I'm sure, just a momentary blip. Sooner or later they'll realize their mistake. Until then, find out all about whether or not you are annoying at work!

Proof that kittens are better than puppies, new video cards, and babies....

Thank you, moggymania!

Last update before I go eat!

There's a splendid example of linguistic evolution happening right here on the internet, on LJ where I can see it! Well. Not really. But I'm sure it does demonstrate some linguistic principle or another.

It's long since seemed mihi that using acronyms (like lol) seriously tends to be... not done, except by the AOLers. This is certainly debateable, and I'm not going to be the one debating it, so hush. However, a big trend (much like use of l337 by otherwise well-written people) is to use acronyms as a semi-serious joke. For a while, a fairly decent length of time, the best example of this was OMGWTF!

And then somebody had the clever idea to go one step further, show exactly how much this was being mocked. And thus we were given OMGWTFBBQ!

Within a few weeks of my first seeing the latter version, it was all over. The original died down, and the OMGWTFBBQ version took over.

Recently, I've been seeing still more expansions on the theme: OMGWTFBBQROFL!

Now we're getting silly. Really silly. But before that thought could sink in...

OMGWTFBBQROFLCOPTER!

*dies*

Interestingly enough, we've been going over this in my medieval Latin. Apparently, the ancient Romans started expanding their words - words were constantly taking diminutives until the diminuative was the normal form, and the "frequentative" forms of the verbs were taking the place of the original. Everywhere, the longer forms were prefered.

I wonder why this is?

I'm now at 1,283 support points....

Yes, you read that right. I went up almost 50 points in one day. This is embarassing!

Hi Fran.

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I'm done.