h a l f b a k e r ySuperficial Intelligence
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When you're typing, or multitasking, we all
use those few extra seconds to find our
home-row, the asdfjkl; of which are non-
thumb fingers belong too. There's the two
dots on keys F and J, but you still have to
feel for them. There is another way.
For those people who are constantly
working
on their keyboard, a little help
can go a long way and save a lot of
frustration. How can we help them find
their home row faster, even if just a few
fractions of a second faster, without
having their eyes have to move from their
screen? Simply and cheaply? Think
magnets. We all feel the pull of magnets,
even if very small. Attach magnets onto
keys F and J, and have little cloth thimbles
that go onto their appropriate fingers.
They can feel the small pull (or push)
between the magnet and the F and J keys,
effectively finding their home keys without
needing to look down.
For those hard-core keyboard users, you
can have magnets implanted into your
fingertips. I'm sure company insurance
would cover it.
Home keys that feel like home
Home_20keys_20that_20feel_20like_20home
ASDF sweet JKL; [ldischler, Jun 02 2007]
[link]
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hey hb back up and running... |
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The F and J keys are where your 2 index
fingers are properly placed on your
keyboard, ready for typing. |
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On back of envelope, compare the aggregated milliseconds saved by this means with the minutes lost looking for those cloth thimbles. |
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Why not have all the keys in a single row
instead? |
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Think of hte neck strain you could avoid
by not having to look down so often.
Think of the eyestrain saved by not having
to change eyeball focus many times per
minute. Of course, it all depends on how
much time you spend on your keyboard. |
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If you put electro-magnets under all the keys, you could type automatically. As a letter is chosen, its electromagnet would switch on, attracting the nearest (steel-implanted) finger to press down on it; this electromagnet would then be switched off, and another activated beneath the next key in the sequence. The nearest finger to this key would then be irresistibly drawn to it, and so on. Typing would be a simple matter of loosely dangling your fingers over the keyboard, and letting the magnets do all the work. |
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ooh,[zen_tom]--I like it... |
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How do you choose which letters are typed [Tom]? Presumably by tapping them? |
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//How do you choose...? // No need, that's what the magnets are there for. |
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Alternately, you could have someone type it out on another keyboard first, and then have the information fed into your keyboard using a blue tooth or an internet or something. |
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//that's what the magnets are there for.// |
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So you can only type what the magnets tell you to type? What do magnets like to type about? |
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//What do magnets like to type about?// magnetmagnetmagnet magnetmagnetmagnet - that kind of thing - who reads anything these days anyway? |
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//who reads anything these days anyway?// |
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No need to type anything then. |
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magnetmagnetmagnet magnetmagnetmagnetmag netmagnetmagnetmag netmagnetmagnetmag netmagnetmagnetmagn etmagnet |
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What are you trying to tell me?! |
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If you are that concerned with losing track of your homekeys switch to a Dvorak keyboard. Your fingers leave the home row far less than with a Qwerty. |
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Oh, and get a keyboard with a trackpoint in it, so you don't have to switch away to a mouse. |
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Just have an endless field of keys. The computer will analyse you are typing, and readjust its frame of reference so that your yammerings most resemble human thoughts. |
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Although for me it will probably just give up and list an endless line of ??????'s. |
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Why not devise a language which requires
no more than ten letters? |
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089,079,085,032,
077,069,065,078,
032,076,073,075,
069,032,065,083,
067,073,073,063 |
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Is that how you spell 'magnet'? |
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No it's a way of encoding language in 10 'letters' - plus commas, for readability. |
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Magnet (or more accurately, MAGNET) would be 'spelt' |
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We could go a step further and utilise a binary keyboard, and have typists tapping out sequences of Ones and Zeros. The keys should be labelled "One" and "Zero" |
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01001101, 01000001, 01000111, 01001110, 01000101, 01010100 |
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// The keys should be labelled "One" and
"Zero"// but which way round? |
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This would sell a lot of magnets, making the evil Magnet Magnates even richer. |
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As for neck strain, try looking down with just your eyes, not your whole head. |
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Maybe a smoke machine and lasers of different colors firing up out of the keys. That way when you cover the green and red lasers for F and J, you won't have to look down at all. |
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Adds that constant disco effect everyone wants at work. |
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