BADMOTORFINGER.com

This is pretty damn funny:

Japanese We Are The World - Watch more free videos

I thought I’d toss up a quick post about how the transition to Mac OS is going. Well, I still haven’t managed to have this system piss me off yet, so it’s going well so far. The software is great, and has everything I need to be productive. The hardware is simply spectacular, and is constantly endearing itself to me.

The keyboard layout, otoh, is causing me some considerable pain. It has taken quite some number of years to gain the blindfolded fluency that I have attained with the standard PC keyboard layout. To the extent that this fluency is largely retained regardless of keyboard form-factor. Laptops, natural keyboards, ultra compacts… you name it, I can type like the wind on it.

Here is a pic of the keyboard to reference my difficulties. (Shown in it’s nighttime illumination to show off the fact that this happens automatically when it gets dark… not just when I ask it to… its too cool) In particular, I am referring to the layout of the option (alt)/function/command/control/etc. keys. The true key to mastering keyboard fluency is found in the efficient use of these keys. And Apple has a layout that just doesn’t jive well with the PC layout. The most frustrating part of my Macbook experience is performing the otherwise trivial tasks of cut/paste, and the constantly-used editing shortcuts to highlight text, and to hilight words at a time. These tasks, previously served by a combination of shift, alt, ctrl keys, must now be translated to shift, option (alt), ctrl, command keys, which are not mapped exactly the same. And it gets worse. Many apps (such as this fancy blog editor) require specific “pc-like” commands. So, to the point, Mac OS uses as the copy command (command-c), and this app only recognizes (ctrl-c). This really sucks, and I’m constantly hitting and getting unexpected, and often undesired results. And just when I have the whole command-c thing down, an app comes along on which that does not work, and I have to hunt for the control key (as I just did, italicizing that word! - command-i, nope, ctrl-i. #$@&*#!$@!#*&)

Also, the macbook has four keys on the left, and only one on the right of the spacebar. The other key over there, I am convinced, exists solely to piss off former PC owners. It is, an enter key. Right where you think ctrl should be. Try spreadsheeting with that little landmine digit in your way.

I got this cool wireless keyboard (pictured) which I really enjoy, and works flawlessly… but IT has this same size and layout, only with the enter key replaced with the option (alt) key. Not that it does me any harm as I completely avoid this key now due to the several hundred thousand expletives the macbook version of the key has thus far induced.

And, lastly: the key-name thing. With the four buttons in question come six names and two symbols to reconcile. On seeking help to my keymapping dilemmas, I have read several guides, many of which use one or the other of the keys given names. Option is alt, Command is “apple” or the Apple logo, or the squiggly cloverleaf thingy. Not too tough to sort out, but a wee bit annoying to add to the mix.

I shall persist. I will neither hook up a PC keyboard, nor re-map my keys. I will, instead, see this as another language in which I am challenged to become just as fluent. I will not see this as a reason why Mac’s suck, as it is more different than bad. And I’ll wager at least two of you out there are shaking your head chalking up another reason why PC is superior. Indeed, you should chalk up the notion that it’s the transition itself that sucks. In fact, I’m getting better at it, and the four keys on the left match up nicely to the four fingers on my left hand… it may just require a different “style” of keyboarding.

So I must see this as a foreign art to be learned. This old Kendo master has just had his ass beaten by an Aikido expert. Time to learn Aikido.

“Huyyawwwww”

I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for the LOL Catz, and all that kinda forum-posted funny pic stuff. Got a particular kick out of these:

I actually urinated a little when I saw this…

gawd i am easy to please….

Had this very debate via IM today. There is something to their argument

But I still have the bash prompt.

I’m tired of hearing the USA referred to as a “Christian Nation”. It is almost for this reason alone that I am not looking in the Republican camp for my 2008 Presidential vote. Though my alternatives are grim, I will not assist the Christian majority in it’s attempted re-write of history, and perversion of the principles on which our great nation was founded.

For any who are unsure of the specifics of those principles, take some time to read a [very thick] brief document penned by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in 1786. It’s a big run-on sentance, as legal documents tend to be, but this is one of the most powerful documents on America’s purpose in religion that I have ever seen. Every sentence is exceedingly eloquent. Amazingly, being brought up in the Christian Midwest, this never came up in any of my text books, or US history classes. But then again, I can’t be too harsh. With a career of “C” letter grades, I guess I may have missed it.