Jayeless

Being impulsive and skilled at procrastination as I am, I decided this morning¹ to switch my keyboard layout over to Dvorak for left-handers. I was persuaded to do this by some vile, callous individual who had left a link to the Dvorak zine. If I recall correctly, they carelessly left this link lying around in a Dvorak advocacy thread on a forum. (I mean, really! How dare they?)

Foolishly I clicked this link and was bombarded with facts about how QWERTY was inefficient and likely to cause RSI, and how learning to type on Dvorak wouldn’t make me “forget” how to type on QWERTY. Hook, line and sinker! Realising that Windows made it obscenely easy for me to switch over to Dvorak², and that it offered left-handed Dvorak (which had to be good for me considering my left-handedness, right?), I switched over right away. And moved all the keys around on my laptop. I have to say I was amazed by the levels of cat fur wedged under my keys. What does my cat do, use them to scratch her back?!

It was then I remembered all the actual typing I wanted to get done today. Oops. Read on…

1. Well, actually, since I woke up at 2pm today I am highly doubtful that it was the morning. However, that little fact is of no relevance to the rest of this story. Please continue reading. [↩]
2. I’ve actually thought about switching in the past, but couldn’t work out how I was supposed to go about doing that with Fedora. My sister accidentally worked it out and switched her keyboard to Chinese, though. Then she couldn’t work out how to get her English keyboard back… [↩]

I am one of those weird people fascinated by the intricacies of language. While others shudder at the thought of learning the roots of words, the history of their language, about cognates, or about how language has been used, I love learning about these things. To me, language seems such an important part of the world. Language is argued over in legal battles, language causes rifts between states, language fosters communication, language defines what we believe.

Furthermore, language is complex, evolving, and as alive as any biological organism. Languages must adapt to new ideas and circumstances, or else speakers won’t bother speaking it, and their language will die. One of the many good things about the English language is its willingness to adapt to change. As people use English in new and creative ways, English changes to accommodate them. We add words to the dictionary like we’re trying to justify the printer’s time! Whenever another language has a word English speakers want to use, it’s promptly swiped; as a speaker of the English language, it’s virtually guaranteed that you’ll find the words to express yourself. This characteristic, and this willingness to change, will ensure our language’s survival for centuries, if not millennia, to come. English will never die; it will evolve into something new, something probably as bizarre and wonderful as the language that preceded it. Read on…

After using premade themes for around a year, today I decided to code my own layout. It features graphics from a couple of sources (properly credited, of course), but the template and stylesheet were written entirely by me. It features the diverse and not at all repetitive colour scheme of black, grey and white (what else?), lots and lots of rounded corners, and a radical overhaul of the home page.

I’d really appreciate it if you could give me some feedback on this new theme. Read on…