Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 13:24:05 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710071824.NAA16406@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: absieber@eos.ncsu.edu Sender: Lojban list From: Andrew Sieber Subject: Dvorak (& Lojban) X-To: Lojban list To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 3522 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Oct 7 13:24:20 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU I've been typing w/ Dvorak for about two days now. I've managed to memorize the whole layout, but typing is still ridiculously slow. About the only word that flows naturally now is "the". I am continuously hitting wrong keys because I'm so familiar with qwerty. Chris Bogart wrote: > Its interesting how many Lojbanists > have experimented with Dvorak. It must be the same attitude that draws > us to the layout and the language. There's gotta be a better way of > doing things... I agree entirely. Lee Sau Dan wrote: > Perhaps you're right. I'm also addicted to Qwerty, although I know > switch to Dvorak would speed up my typing. The main problem maybe > that we cannot afford the *extra* time needed to train ourselves for > Dvorak. We've already got a reasonably good alternative. So, we're > unwilling to pay the cost for the switching, which brings benefits > which would be only marginal... As a full-time student, I have to write lots of papers, and I'm going to end up spending a LOT of time typing a couple of them because my Dvorak speed won't be up enough by the time they're due. I can't really afford the time needed either, but I'm doing it anyway. Qwerty is no longer an acceptable alternative for me. The time investment must be made at some point, and the sooner the better. Delaying only serves to add to the difficulty. You also mentioned that you have done qwerty-Dvorak keyboard conversions for X-windows on Linux. Would you email me instructions on how to do this? Thanks. Edward Cherlin wrote: > Switching to Dvorak after 30 years typing QWERTY was an amazing experience. > There was a kind of pain in the brain that I have never experienced > otherwise. I imagine that it also occurs in total immersion language > learning. [snip] > Each day after that, I was able to go a > little faster and a little longer, until some time in the fourth week I > didn't have to go back to QWERTY any more. This IS total immersion learning for me. I decided that when I started typing with Dvorak (which was two days ago), I was not going to use qwerty anymore. I'm not going to switch temporarily back to qwerty to type a couple papers that are due soon. I'll spend many hours typing what should only take half an hour to type if I have to. (I'm typing this message in Dvorak, and it's taken me over an hour so far! In qwerty I could have been finished in less than ten minutes.) I have read, and fear would be immensely true for me, that trying to retain qwerty skills is an immense burden on one's attempts to learn Dvorak. Seth Golub wrote: > Good luck. The first week is very frustrating, but it's worth it. No kidding! (About the first part.) I hope the latter proves true as well. Sorry to anybody who's annoyed that I'm using this mailing list for completely off-topic dialogue. I guess I ought to at least mention Lojban! Actually, I just remembered that there was something I wanted to ask: in English, completely different words are used to refer to physical phenomena and the units used to measure them. For example, the unit of measurement of electrical current is the ampere, and the unit for length or distance is the meter (or yard, etc). There are only a few exceptions, such as the volt, which measures voltage. How is this handled in Lojban? I assume that whatever name is used, the same base quantities are used that are used internationally, such as is the case for metric prefixes, where "kilto" means "kilo". --Andrew absieber@eos.ncsu.edu