this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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Whether you, like me, beleive that QAZWSX keyboards make far more sense, especially in a machine learning world, I think we all agree a layout designed to circumvent jamming typewriter keys doesn't make sense in modern society on modern devices.

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[–] ChihuahuaOfDoom@lemmy.world 34 points 5 months ago (3 children)

It makes perfect sense, we've been using it forever, it's the standard, almost every person that's taken a typing class for the last 150ish years (in the English speaking world), has done so on a qwerty keyboard. Why bother changing something that just works?

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 9 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Just because you're used to something, doesn't make it good.

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 25 points 5 months ago (2 children)

What evidence do you have that QWERTY is bad?

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 8 points 5 months ago

Honestly, it's a mere shower thought, so I didn't come prepared with notes and statistics in hand, what I will say is the amount of screen real estate is by far the worst issue.

[–] Midnight1938@reddthat.com 2 points 5 months ago

Use something else, try coming back.

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[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

Sure, and we've tried a lot of alternative layouts over the decades.

None of them stuck around, by and large. Some have ultra-niche followings, sure. But overall, the latin-script world has stuck to (Q|A)WERT(Y|Z). For a reason!

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

True. But the rule of thumb is that in order to replace an existing working solution, a new model needs to be at least ten times better in quantifiable ways. Otherwise it's worth staying with the established solution.

What's ten times better than qwerty?

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Have you ever tried to type on your phone in landscape while still seeing the content? That's 8 times better in itself.

[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"Have you ever tried to do this thing you'll never actually need to do?"

It sounds a hell of a lot more like you're trying to automate text communication

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Wait, you've never had to type on your phone in landscape? Never played a game and had to type a message in chat? Never had to type while watching a video? Never had to do something in terminal and the text wasn't legible in portrait? 🥹

[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)
  1. no, 2) qwerty is fine for that, literally 0 need for AI interpretation, 3) no, not that I can't just switch to a pc keyboard for 4) no
[–] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 4 points 5 months ago

People rode horses for millenia until someone built a car.

[–] xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 5 months ago

Because touch screens are very different from typewriters and having to precisely press tiny keys without making full use of their capabilities is extremely inefficient.