Skulltypery

Hopefully this will be one of the few times in my life when I could benefit from a left-handed Dvorak keyboard. Primed to take the plunge and find out whether it’s more Esperanto or Betamax.

And if you ever wondered why your typing wasn’t significantly more efficient …

In 1956, a General Services Administration study by Earle Strong, which included an experiment involving ten experienced government typists, concluded that Dvorak training would never be able to amortize its costs. The study was a large obstacle for the wide adoption of Dvorak for many firms and government agencies. [...] Strong’s objectivity with regard to the Dvorak keyboard was questionable at best. [...] there is other evidence that Strong and Dr. Dvorak had a strained business relationship. It is also notable that when researchers had asked Strong for the data to his study, Strong had destroyed the data.

Two Predictions

Called Obama when he announced but really didn’t do so well four years earlier.

1. Feature-length adaptation of one or more R.L. Stine novels. There’s a market.

2. Expansion of “Controversy” section of Wikipedia entry on Mikhail Prokhorov.

Proposal for the Inmates at Rikers

Rikers Island (top) and LaGuardia Airport.

Hijacking:

“An invisible island in the city, Rikers squats in the East River barely 100 feet north of Runway 22 at La Guardia Airport.”

Kuzguncuk

A view from İcadiye Caddesi.

‘Today, the winding side streets of Kuzguncuk appear often in Turkish television shows. The colorfully painted 19th century wooden houses are used as backdrops to evoke a sense of the “old” İstanbul. In many ways, the feeling of old İstanbul still permeates the village. Artisans have workshops in storefronts all through the tiny valley, and much of their artwork adorns local businesses.’

Easily

Without so little vocabulary, group conversations in a beginning language class are disarmingly blunt. The other two like Michael Moore because he stirs up a sort of righteous anger (enfado), but for my part he’s more than a bit shallow (faciles), while allowing that Roger & Me is a great movie (less great when you learn how he financed it). I doubt I’d even have a conversation about Michael Moore in English.

In the first class you’re always asked why you’d like to learn language X. The easy answer — the one I have the vocabulary for — is that I’d like to make friends. (¡Quiero conocer mas Mexicanos!) The one I thankfully can’t express is that I’d like to cultivate some sort of hemispheric consciousness, with all the other people the Darién Gap keeps awake at night.