Pinker on violence

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Yesterday Andrew posted an entry about a TED presentation called A brief history of violence by Steven Pinker. Take a look at his post and watch the video. The video is only 20 minutes long. In short, the presentation offers data that refutes the idea that the human race was more peaceful in the past.

At around the 9:50 mark Pinker mentions that people link the ease by which a specific incident of something can be recalled with the perceived probability that it will occur. For many years I have avoided watching local newscasts for exactly this reason. When half of the newscast talks about car crashes and the other half talks about bad things happening at local schools one can’t help but think that car travel is very dangerous and that there are ‘bad’ people everywhere.

New keyboard (or bye bye RSI)

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I spend a lot of time in front of a keyboard. It is one the negatives that come along with having your work and play intersect. As a result I have had some small RSI problems over the years. It has never gotten to the debilitating stage but it is has definitely caused me to go watch TV when I’d rather be working on the computer (I hate watching TV).

In an attempt to reduce the RSI problems I have tried a quite a few different keyboards. For many years I used my trusty MS Natural Keyboard. This is an original MS full size natural. I bought it as part of the first computer I paid for by myself, sometime around 1995. It still works perfectly. The layout is better than most keyboards but the keys are pretty stiff, this may be age related.

MS Natural Keyboard

I also have an really nice keyboard that came with an IBM iSeries server. It is a traditionally shaped keyboard but the keys are really nice. Unfortunately, using this keyboard didn’t do much good (or bad) for my RSI problems.

IBM Keyboard

I have also tried a small laptop size keyboard. This was probably the worst of the many keyboards I have tried to use. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Laptop-like keyboard

There are many more less memorable keyboards that I have tried which were also of little use in reducing the RSI pain.
Not only have I tried many different keyboards I have tried adding a keyboard tray with an attached mouse tray to get the proper posture and positioning. I think this helped but it did not solve the problem.

During the time I have been experimenting with other keyboards I knew about Kinesis keyboards. There are probably very few computer geeks who haven’t ooogled over a Kinesis contoured keyboard at some point. These keyboards look cool and are designed to be ergonomic. Unfortunately, they also cost a small fortune.

Kinesis keyboard picture 2

Kenesis keyboard picture 1

A few months ago, with the inspiration of my friend Andrew, I finally broke down and bought a Kinesis contoured keyboard. Honestly, this is the best ~$350 I have ever spent. After using this keyboard for a few months most of my day-to-day RSI symptoms are gone. It only took a few days to get reasonably fast at typing on the Kinesis but there are still moments when my fingers instinctively go to the wrong spot (especially after a day at work with a normal keyboard). The fact that the Kinesis lacks a keypad is also a nice plus; this keyboard actually sits centered in the keyboard tray and if you use it on a desk surface it doesn’t force your mouse to be far off to the right. The feel of the keys is also the best of any keyboard I have tried. I am reasonably confident that the combination of this keyboard and the keyboard tray is responsible for the improvement in my RSI symptoms because it only takes a few hours at a normal keyboard before the symptoms to return.

So why am I writing this little story? There is a lesson here. For several years I was too cheap to buy the proper equipment that may have helped my RSI problems and I paid for it a little each day with unnecessary pain. Don’t be like me. If you have RSI problems get yourself a keyboard designed for your hands not ease of manufacture.

I’m probably buying a second one to have at work.

SVG demo

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If you are running Firefox (no idea what other browsers this works with) take a moment to play around with photos.svg. This is a reimplementation of one of the Microsoft Silverlight demos using SVG and Javascript. It may be slightly slow but I think many people will be surprised that this level of interactivity can be accomplished on a web page.

After you are done playing with the above take a look at the SVG video demo. It is basically the same demo as above but has movies playing instead of static pictures. Unless you run a development version of Firefox you’ll just have to watch the videos.

Torvalds interview

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Q&A: Torvalds on Linux, Microsoft, software’s future

CW: Lots of researchers made millions with new computer technologies, but you preferred to keep developing Linux. Don’t you feel you missed the chance of a lifetime by not creating a proprietary Linux?

Torvalds: No, really. First off, I’m actually perfectly well off. I live in a good-sized house, with a nice yard, with deer occasionally showing up and eating the roses (my wife likes the roses more, I like the deer more, so we don’t really mind). I’ve got three kids, and I know I can pay for their education. What more do I need? . . . So instead, I have a very good life, doing something that I think is really interesting, and something that I think actually matters for people, not just me. And that makes me feel good.

The original network neutrality problem

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From History of the Public Switched Telephone Network:

  • 1884
    • AT&T is incorporated as a subsidiary of American Bell
    • Bell Telephone creates the first long distance connection from Boston to New York City
  • 1891
    • Almon Strowger receives patent for his automated electromechanical call switching device
      “No longer will my competitor steal all my business just because his wife is a BELL operator.”
  • 1899
    • AT&T buys out American Bell assets.
    • Cleyson Brown founds Bell System competitor Brown Telephone (eventually becomes Sprint)

Somehow that comment seems relevant given the current net neutrality debate.

A map of the Internet

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From Mapping the Internet:

The researchers’ results depict the Internet as consisting of a dense core of 80 or so critical nodes surrounded by an outer shell of 5,000 sparsely connected, isolated nodes that are very much dependent upon this core. Separating the core from the outer shell are approximately 15,000 peer-connected and self-sufficient nodes.

Take away the core, and an interesting thing happens: about 30 percent of the nodes from the outer shell become completely cut off. But the remaining 70 percent can continue communicating because the middle region has enough peer-connected nodes to bypass the core.

The right to attach

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Hooking up by Tim Wu presents an idea on how to increase the competition around wireless (cellular) devices.

The firms already control what phones or devices reach Americans; 95% of cell phones are sold by the wireless carriers themselves. They strictly control phone design, blocking features that might threaten their revenue, like timers that keep track of how many minutes you’ve used each month.

The right to attach is a simple concept, and it has worked powerfully in other markets. For example, in the wired telephone world Carterfone rules are what made it possible to market answering machines, fax machines and the modems that sparked the Internet revolution.