Interesting Links for 06-01-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Very soon, handwriting will only be for the eccentric and the old

(tags:writing obsolescence )

2. Starmer backs change in law on assisted dying

(tags:euthenasia labour )

3. Researchers Create First Functional Semiconductor Made From Graphene

(tags:Technology computers graphene )

4. What animals like running around in wheels the most? (mice and... slugs??)

(tags:mice exercise research weird )

5. It's a Wonderful Life: Organisational Perspective

(tags:business christmas movies )

6. Water firm drives 240 truckloads of sewage a day through town to pump into the sea

(tags:UK waste ocean OhForFucksSake )

Comments

[bens_dad]

1. Handwriting
When Ben started using a tablet I wondered whether he would to learn to use a mouse (I believe he can) or whether they would be obsolete by the time he needed one.

[andrewducker]

Mice still seem to have significant advantages as far as I can tell. Much less arm movement than a touch screen. Works better one handed than a trackpad.

I might be proven wrong by improvements in trackpads at some point, of course.

[simont]

All my life I've preferred trackballs (Kensington Expert), which are even better than mice for desktop computing environments IMO.

Because the trackball itself doesn't move, you can reach out for it without looking and it's always exactly where you expect it to be, instead of "somewhere on the mouse mat but it might take you two flails to find it".

Because the buttons are mechanically separate from the ball, you can click with precision, because you can take your fingers completely off the ball, check the pointer location, then press the button, without the unavoidable risk of nudging the position in the course of the click action.

Because the ball has some inertia, you can move the pointer a very long way across the screen with a tiny finger-flick. Doubly good if you're also a focus-follows-mouse user, so that you can shift focus between windows with only a trivial flick, and not even have to reach for a button as well.

And because you don't clench your hand around one so tightly, it's less wear on the tendons. Win-win-win-win!

There's only one activity I've found for which trackballs are significantly less good than mice: Minesweeper. Not really sure why, but I've never been able to be fast at it since I gave up using conventional mice.

[andrewducker]

I used a Logitech Trackman for ages and loved it.

Can't remember why I switched back to a mouse, but I should track down a decent modern equivalent and give it a go.

[calimac]

I always use a trackball. I don't like traditional mice, and I find trackpads to be impossible to use.

Are there any laptops with built-in trackballs?

[jducoeur]

There's a real matter of taste to it, but I adore Apple's external Magic Trackpad. The built-in ones are ergonomically iffy (you have to hold your wrist in ways that don't work well for me), but the external pad is big, and placed beside the external keyboard it's great. And I find the gesture language really intuitive -- really, that's the entire reason I switched to all-Mac, after decades of being all-in on Windows.

(Yes, it occasionally needs a second hand, but not often enough to really annoy me.)

As a result, it's been so long since I've used a mouse that I have to consciously remind myself how it works, on the rare occasions that I have to borrow a computer with one.

[greenwoodside]

4. makes me happy.

[andrewducker]

It was an unlikely source of cuteness

[greenwoodside]

It's like the(total myth) about Robert the Bruce and the spider, except slimier.

I'll let the slug's example inspire me when I log in at work on Monday morning.

[calimac]

1) The ability to handwrite is going to continue to be useful. I've even seen an article claiming that cursive is useful, because you need it to read old things that were written in cursive. I'm not sure about that: I never learned to write cursive but I don't think I have much more trouble reading it than most people.

5) Yeah, I knew they were going to fire me when they asked me to document all my procedures.

[andrewducker]

To be fair, it took another 15 years before they got around to getting rid of me. And my job still isn't transferred to India, because it turns out that it's more complex than they thought.

2

[danieldwilliam]

I know Joan and Frank.

Funnilly enough the other guest on the episode of Woman's Hour that Joan was on was our next door neighbour.

It was a small world.

Re: 2

[andrewducker]

It truly is.

(And you know a lot of cool people)

[foms]

Reaction to #4 from beside me: what are the relative populations of the various creatures?