27.1.2011 0:30, pesco
tags: tron movie eastereggs perlin
I just (re)watched the original Tron. Highlights:
- Adam, Tron's user, has the phrase
gort klaatu barada niktu
posted up in large letters on his cubicle wall.
This is not a reference to Army of Darkness
(1992, duh) but to
The Day the Earth Stood Still
.
I should watch that.
- The screen in the control room of bad guy's ship shows pac-man in one scene
(see image above).
- The image of Moses in Southpark episode
Jewbilee
(s03e09) is modeled after
the Master Control Program (see image below).
- Spotted Kenneth Perlin
in the credits.
23.1.2011 17:14, pesco
tags: xkb keyboard layout carpalx qgmlwb
carpalx is a program for the algorithmic
evaluation and optimization of keyboard layouts.
The site is a wealth of information and adds a nice scientific angle
to the endless discussion of alternatives to the QWERTY layout.
First of all
it provides evaluations and comparisons of several popular layouts,
including
Dvorak
and
Colemak.
In addition
it describes a number of layouts generated by the program,
optimized to certain parameters and side conditions.
Within the given effort metric,
they improve significantly over all alternatives.
carpalx' fully optimized layout with Colemak lettermask, QGMLWB
.
I've created an XKB definition file that allows the five featured layouts
to be used with X11.
In fact, it also includes the
worst layout
TNWMLC
which
maximizes the effort metric. Don't use that, though.
To install, copy
carpalx.xkb to your XKB
symbols directory (path my differ slightly)
$ cp carpalx.xkb /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/carpalx
and add the following lines to
/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols.dir:
-dp----- a------- carpalx(qgmlwb)
--p----- a------- carpalx(qgmlwy)
--p----- a------- carpalx(qfmlwy)
--p----- a------- carpalx(qwkrfy)
--p----- a------- carpalx(qwyrfm)
--p----- a------- carpalx(tnwmlc)
Now it should be possible to load the layouts with, e.g.
$ setxkbmap carpalx # defaults to QGMLWB
$ setxkbmap -layout carpalx -variant qwkrfy # to select other variants
Technically, the following files should also be updated:
/usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.lst
/usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.xml
For the time being I couldn't be bothered, but
I think that's necessary if the layouts are to show up in Gnome and KDE control
panels.
PS:
Dear search engines, X11 means X Window System,
means this lets you use carpalx layouts on Linux (desktops).
Or FreeBSD for that matter.
