This half keyboard for PDAs is intriguing because it capitalizes on a cognitive trait. Your brain corresponds your left hand fingers to your right hand fingers symmetrically. Your brain can easily map the Qwerty layout “L” from the right ring finger to the left ring finger, so when you put this keyboard into shift mode, you can do a sort of mirror adjustment in your reactions. It does take some training, but compared to learning a completely new layout (or even hand writing), it wins by a mile. (via Memepool)

The SJ Mercury News published a not very revelatory article on how the CueCat has not been catching on. It points out the obvious (well, they were to me anyway) faults of the wired device: “users are obliged to be physically sitting at their computer at the time they do the scanning”. They mention the Cross pen scanner I wrote about a while back, but it’s still a $90 item. They’ve got to create a wireless giveaway to get this concept out of the ICU. I don’t think their idea of hiring the Simpsons characters to promote the CueCat will do much except deplete their marketing coffers even further.

Now that all the relatives and friends have been informed (uh, if I forgot you, you may send me angry email), I decided today was a Good Day on GirlHacker to announce my engagement. I’ve already been tempted in the past couple months to post wedding related items (mostly rants on icky sides of the wedding industry), so I figured I’d better explain myself first. Well, something just as exciting has happened. Lyn and Steve got engaged on Thursday. And since they actually met through their weblogs, I think they should get the spotlight too, if not more of it. Big congratulations to them! And if you see me yammering on about florists and jewelers in the future, now you know why. The chaos for me ends (or begins, depending on your viewpoint!) on August 19, 2001.

High schools cope with senioritis. Bet you didn’t know there was a National Commission on the High School Senior Year. These presumably wise people state that “many students let one-quarter of their high school learning time slip through their fingers.” Horrifying, ain’t it. I remember that lack of meaning all too well. It arrives with the warm weather (and lack of air conditioning in my school). Schools have devised independent study programs, foreign study trips, seminars, and internships to keep seniors involved to the very end. But students are getting earlier acceptances to colleges and those dreaded AP tests are done long before school lets out. Keeping them motivated to study is a chore indeed. I hope they at least stay excited about the coveted Senior Skip Day. (via LTSeek)

Some lucky web cartoonists make it into print syndication. In the current publishing economy, which seems to want to hold onto the “old school” a lot longer than the Internet would warrant, it’s still the six major syndicates that allow cartoonists to subsist by doing what they love. The syndicates are staking out space online, but the money remains in print. Will a shift ever occur? I can’t see it happening until the line between newsprint and screen is blurred, or should I say unblurred and made sufficiently portable. Thomas K. Dye of “Newshounds” notes that having cartoon archives accessible online allows strips to be more plot and character oriented since readers can look back on the storyline. Peter Zale of “Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet”, which moved from the web to print, says he concentrates more on the gag now instead of the plot. As with all entertainment, I hope variety survives, not just the mainstream. Maybe the web can help keep variety alive. (article via MediaNews)

Remember that particular brand of high school angst? In my senior year English class, which involved a lot of discussion, a female classmate said “Do you ever feel like you’re looking out of a mask?” I knew exactly what she meant but was too chicken to speak up. She was greeted with silence, and did not elaborate. Either no one else was brave enough to say anything, or they hadn’t had that same feeling. I have always regretted staying quiet. I can’t remember what we were discussing. Probably something involving Shakespeare or a modern hero (it seemed like all we did was read Shakespeare and work on our never-ending modern hero definitions) (here’s someone who thinks Homer Simpson fills the modern hero role).

We visited the California Academy of Sciences this past weekend. It boasts “Earth, Ocean, Space”, kind of a three-for-one deal, except that you’re not getting exactly the largest collection of each. I hadn’t been there before, probably because the Monterey Bay Aquarium beats Steinhart by a landslide (errr, waterslide?), and I don’t really like looking at animal bones and dead things (though I do love rocks and minerals). It wasn’t bad, especially since my expectations were so low. There is a gallery of Gary Larson’s The Far Side originals, which are surprisingly relevant. The special exhibit, Venoms, is being sponsored by Microsoft and Bank of America (insert your own ironic joke here). I realized that most of the dinosaur facts I learned in elementary school are outdated. The dinosaurs don’t even have the same names anymore. How strange that I’m more up to date on new technologies than ancient Earth history. Dinosaurs hold their tails up off the ground in depictions these days. But I think they still say poor Stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut.

The OJR criticizes the media coverage of Dale Earnhardt’s accident. “Misinformation expands to fill the void created by lack of information.” Incorrect reports of the cause of death spread and gave the Head and Neck Restraining System manufacturer a chance to promote his product, even though it probably would not have helped in Earnhardt’s case. And the author reveals that Earnhardt had an eight-inch long steel sliver removed from the left side of his head in January (UPDATE: actually, if you read the source links, it’s an “eighth-inch-long”, which is a BIG difference). It’s best to let the dead rest in peace, but the spread of misinformation and lack of real information can only provoke unrest in the living who are trying to make life safer based on facts, not hearsay. (UPDATE: Of course you have to know what sources to trust, and this guy had one fact wrong. UPDATE 2: after an email exchange with OJR, they’ve corrected the story and blamed copy-editing, so the author is off the hook) (first update courtesy Metafilter posting by iceberg273)

There’s a wealth of little tidbits in this NY Times article about the closing of Tytell Typewriter Company, a Manhattan institution. Morley Safer uses and owns six Olivetti manuals. Andy Rooney started with WordPerfect a decade ago, but still owns 17 Underwood 5 manual machines “because I don’t want to run out of typewriters before I die.” People who have made the switch to word processing are being left behind also as rapidly evolving software and hardware make their systems as obsolete as printer ribbons. Writers complain about useless grammar and spell-checking, and the Microsoft Office Assistant. A Microsoft product manager says that the Office Assistant will be “off by default” in the next version of Word (XP). And in this article about The New Yorker entering the media era with its new website, Andrew Hearst tells of his job interview with their word processing team. In a room filled with people typing on Macs, he still had to prove his typing speed on an IBM Selectric II. (via LTSeek and MediaNews)

Chutzpah scores an interview with Berke Breathed. As featured on Slashdot, two cartoonists got his phone number and managed to convince him to do an email interview. I can’t say enough good about Bloom County. I feel bad for the kids growing up now without the benefit of Breathed’s pointed view of the odd world around us. At least they have his children’s books to look at. The interview starts on PVP and ends on in2it.