December 2003 - Legacy - lists.gtalug.org

Testing - no need to read
by james.knott-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA＠public.gmane.org 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

Wil McGilvery wrote: > Please ignore Will do. ;-) -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

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Testing - no need to read
by wmcgilvery-6d3DWWOeJtE＠public.gmane.org 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

Please ignore Regards, Wil McGilvery Manager Lynch Digital Media Inc 416-744-7949 416-716-3964 (cell) 1-866-314-4678 416-744-0406? FAX www.LynchDigital.com -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

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OT: keyboard layouts
by henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg＠public.gmane.org 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, William Park wrote: > > Placebo effect is powerful, and it's the reason why tests of things like > > new drugs absolutely must be done as "double-blind" tests: neither the > > patients nor the experimenters know which patients are getting the real > > pills and which are getting the dummies, until the experiment is over and > > the sealed envelopes are opened. > > Those who died were given placebo, and those who got better were given > real drug. Or, was it the other way around... :-) Well, at least the large-scale experiments typically also have third-party monitors, who know which group is which and are watching for signs of strong adverse effects (death certainly qualifies :-)). This is why you occasionally hear of a clinical trial being halted early -- it means that the real-drug group was having a suspiciously large number of heart attacks or whatever, and the monitors sounded the alarm. Henry Spencer henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg at public.gmane.org -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

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C considered harmful: was Debian attacker may have used new exploit
by robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy＠public.gmane.org 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Marcus Brubaker wrote: > Absolutely. I've written a number of "real" projects in Java. Further, > I use a number of applications that are written in Java. (E.G. PCGen) Some friends of mine run a company of 20 people writing solutions to real world problems (under contract) using java. They've been doing this for years. I've been really impressed by a lot of the stuff they've done. obLinux: They are really committed to OSS & Linux too. They've been using Linux desktops for development since the mid 90s. For most of its history the company had 1 MS-Windows licence for an accounting box. Even that may have changed by now, who knows :) Rob -- Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org, zzbrock at uqconnect.net Linux counter project ID #16440 (http://counter.li.org) "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" -Baha'u'llah -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

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OT: keyboard layouts
by opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA＠public.gmane.org 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 02:13:29PM -0500, Henry Spencer wrote: > Placebo effect is powerful, and it's the reason why tests of things like > new drugs absolutely must be done as "double-blind" tests: neither the > patients nor the experimenters know which patients are getting the real > pills and which are getting the dummies, until the experiment is over and > the sealed envelopes are opened. Those who died were given placebo, and those who got better were given real drug. Or, was it the other way around... :-) I've read it somewhere that the single most factor is the angle of wrist (ie. up and down angle). It should be straight. The angle of elbow or the side-to-side angle of wrist are less important. -- William Park, Open Geometry Consulting, <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org> Linux solution for data management and processing. -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

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M$ to license FAT
by adb-tlug-AbAJl/g/NLXk1uMJSBkQmQ＠public.gmane.org 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

Tim Writer wrote: > Taavi Burns <taavi-LbuTpDkqzNzXI80/IeQp7B2eb7JE58TQ at public.gmane.org> writes: > > Most (all?) of the standard Flash memory devices these days have onboard > > controllers which can detect failing sectors in the flash memory, and will > > reroute data to spare sectors, much as HDs do these days. > > Are you sure? The JFFS2 folks don't seem to think so and anecdotal evidence > seems to bear me out. Compact Flash has onboard smarts to do wear-levelling, etc, and presents an IDE-compatible interface. JFFS2 is meant for vanilla flash, where you're getting directly at the stuff and have to implement all of that yourself. I can't speak for the other flavours of consumer-grade removable flash, but they'd be somewhere on the spectrum between those two. Leaving off the smarts will of course give you a smaller and cheaper device. -- Anthony de Boer -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

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OT: keyboard layouts
by henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg＠public.gmane.org 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Taavi Burns wrote: > > Beware of placebo effect. *Expecting* that typing on a Dvorak layout will > > feel better has a strong tendency to *make* it feel better. > > There are strong arguments that a Dvorak layout should feel better than > qwerty regardless of speed. The most commonly used keys are in the home > row, the second most commonly on the top row, and least common on the > bottom row. This does indeed reduce the number of times your fingers > have to move away from the neutral position. That's gotta be a win, eh? It seems likely, but (a) sometimes the real world delivers surprises, and (b) even assuming it is a win, that doesn't mean it's a *significant* win. Placebo effect is powerful, and it's the reason why tests of things like new drugs absolutely must be done as "double-blind" tests: neither the patients nor the experimenters know which patients are getting the real pills and which are getting the dummies, until the experiment is over and the sealed envelopes are opened. > I do find it hard to believe that there is NO improvement whatsoever > from using a keyboard layout designed for use with electronic interfaces > with careful attention to useability versus one that was actually designed > to reduce jamming on old mechanical typewriters. Uh, say what? Dvorak, like Qwerty, was designed for manual typewriters. (And to the extent that it had any significant advantage, it may have been reduction of muscle fatigue in that physically-more-demanding case.) The major experiments hyping its superiority were done during WW2, and the first unbiased trials -- which largely ended interest in it -- were done in the 50s. The only currently-extant keyboard layouts which can be said to have been designed for electronic interfaces are the split keyboards. The mere fact that Dvorak does not assign home or near-home positions to RETURN and BACKSPACE demonstrates clearly that it was not designed for electronic keyboards. Henry Spencer henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg at public.gmane.org -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

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OT: keyboard layouts
by taavi-LbuTpDkqzNzXI80/IeQp7B2eb7JE58TQ＠public.gmane.org 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 01:06:46PM -0500, Henry Spencer wrote: > It is *supposed* to, but no systematic test conducted by an unbiased > experimenter has ever found more than a 5-10% improvement. (And you can > get that sort of improvement with a Qwerty layout just by remapping the > Return/Enter key to something you can hit without moving your hand off the > home position.) The most important thing that both of us lack here are references. I encourage people who are interested to go and do some research. :) > Beware of placebo effect. *Expecting* that typing on a Dvorak layout will > feel better has a strong tendency to *make* it feel better. There are strong arguments that a Dvorak layout should feel better than qwerty regardless of speed. The most commonly used keys are in the home row, the second most commonly on the top row, and least common on the bottom row. This does indeed reduce the number of times your fingers have to move away from the neutral position. That's gotta be a win, eh? > Nope, this is a myth. The early typewriters did have problems with > jamming with fast typists, yes, but only if *adjacent keys* were hit in > fast succession. The Qwerty layout was designed to put frequently-used > keys far apart, to reduce jamming at high speed. It turns out that this > actually *speeds up* typists, because it increases the probability that > successive keys will alternate between hands. I'm not convinced that that is the case. Provided that common digraphs in English occur on the same row, I would see it being easier to coordinate the correct order of keystriking. Yes, Dvorak keys were laied out like that. That would be the point. I do find it hard to believe that there is NO improvement whatsoever from using a keyboard layout designed for use with electronic interfaces with careful attention to useability versus one that was actually designed to reduce jamming on old mechanical typewriters. Yes, that is very soft logic. I'm not saying either is "better", just that I find it likely that they are each better at what they were designed to be. -- taa /*eof*/ -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

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OT: keyboard layouts
by jingsu-26n5VD7DAF2Tm46uYYfjYg＠public.gmane.org 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

> the other thing you might want to consider is how many other computers you > use over the course of the day > > i probably alternate between around 10 workstations at home, > work and other people's places... so even if dvorak were that awesome, > knowing it too well would fuck you up when you go to use another > machine... I agree that if you use your dvorak keyboard only 10% of the time, then you'll only at best see a 10% improvement... But like playing a musical instrument, I personally find that I have no problem switching between dvorak and qwerty. -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

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OT: keyboard layouts
by bonnie-grKYUO1WUpSaMJb+Lgu22Q＠public.gmane.org 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Jing Su wrote: > > > Isn't Dvorak supposed to speed up typing? > > I think that the true benefit of Dvorak is added comfort. > As someone else mentioned before, Qwerty sets keys far apart to prevent > adjacent jamming, which seems to also increase typing speed. I find > that the effect of Dvorak is that it "load balances" the often used keys > and reduces the number of "long jumps" your finger has to do (ie index > finger travelling long distances to hit commonly used combos, like 'ny') > -- the other thing you might want to consider is how many other computers you use over the course of the day i probably alternate between around 10 workstations at home, work and other people's places... so even if dvorak were that awesome, knowing it too well would fuck you up when you go to use another machine... mister bonnie -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

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